Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Podcast

Written by: Dr. James Barnes
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  • Summary

  • Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing® Podcast where we share practical marketing tools, tips, and frameworks to help you attract more customers to grow your business. If marketing your business has felt overwhelming, this podcast is just for you. The Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Program® is a Mississippi State University Extension Program directed by Dr. James Barnes, an Associate Professor and Storybrand Certified Guide in the Department of Agricultural Economics at Mississippi State University.
    Copyright 2021 Mississippi State University Extension. All rights reserved.
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Economics Leadership Marketing
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Episodes
  • Do This One Thing to Grow Your Business, Nonprofit, or Personal Brand with Social Media

    Do This One Thing to Grow Your Business, Nonprofit, or Personal Brand with Social Media
    May 12 2022
    In this final episode of Season 1, Dr. Barnes shares one thing that every business, nonprofit, or a personal brand must do to grow with social media. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." Season 2 of the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Podcast will explore the 7 Things Your Social Media Plan Should Include and will be available in July 2022. Transcription: James Barnes: (00:07) Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host, James Barnes, and thank you for listening today. Let's get started. James Barnes: (00:22) Today, I want to share a story with you, a true story that happened to me when I was doing a workshop, a social media marketing workshop. And this last episode, I wanted to really be a word of encouragement to you about giving your social media a makeover to really grow your business. It's possible. Tons and tons of companies do it each and every day, and they grow their businesses with social media. But you got to do this one thing, and I'm going to tell you what that one thing is in just a few minutes, but I want you to know a story, something that happened to me that really gave me the reason to write the book and put together the content around five social media mistakes your business should avoid. James Barnes: (01:04) So I was giving this workshop, and the workshop started in the evening time, like five o'clock. So there was a meal that was provided and it was a group of business owners in a community. The next day, we were going to spend a couple more hours working on things in the morning for the social media marketing workshop, and much of what we've covered in season one, we went through during the workshop. James Barnes: (01:25) But at the very beginning of the workshop, we were going around the room and I was asking participants, business owners, "What are you expecting to get from this workshop?" They were there to give their social media a makeover. And I'll never forget this one guy, and I'm just going to call him Jim. When it got to him and it was his turn to speak about it. He said, "I don't have time to do social media. I'm too busy." Now, everybody prior to Jim had said, "Well, I'm looking to learn how to give my social media makeover. I want to get more engagement. I want to get more sales, more leads, build relationships." Lots of things, all positive outcomes, things of that nature you want to do. James Barnes: (02:03) But when it got to the Jim, it got really personal. And he just said, "I don't have time to do this. I don't have time to do this. I'm too busy." And it really changed the tone of the entire meeting that evening. You have to imagine, everyone's sitting around this U-shape table, beginning to eat. There are some still in the line getting food. I'm in the middle, talking with them. And he says this, and there's a couple of ways you could handle that. So I just asked Jim, I said, "Why don't you have time? Tell me more about it." And then I said, "Before you answer that," I said, "does anybody else feel like this?" James Barnes: (02:42) Every business owner in the room raised their hand. They said, "Yes, I struggle with this. I don't have time to do this." And for me, it was a moment of, okay, this is an opportunity I can help. This is a moment when they need the help of some kind. And so I was hoping that in the time we had left that day, and then the next morning, we could start to give them some help in the workshop. But Jim said that he didn't have time to resonate with everybody. And so we started talking about the reasons. Why don't we have time? And oftentimes, it's just we're so busy, we've connected with so much with our mobile devices to social networks, to so much that we're just really, really busy and running a business is a lot of work. James Barnes: (03:33) So, as we talked about those reasons and we started talking about, okay, which ones can we control? There's some of the stuff that we can control. There's some of it we can't control. But we can control a lot of our time and how we use it each and every day. So you've got one of two options. This is what we talked about there in the workshop that day. You can outsource someone to handle your social media management to get you started. If it's overwhelming, don't let it be. You can outsource to someone to start creating content, to get you up on the platform where your target market audience is at, where they're engaging that group of people. And just remember, this is not about just posting something. This is about how do you build community? How do you build a tribe engagement? How do you do that? James Barnes: (04:16) Think first about that. And one of the things that helped Jim that day, and I think all those business owners is that Jim hadn't yet identified the real problem that his business was solving for ...
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    12 mins
  • The Social Media Blueprint for Success

    The Social Media Blueprint for Success
    May 5 2022
    Dr. Barnes explains a series of questions you can use to create a social media blueprint for success. If you're stuck and not sure how to give your social media a makeover, these questions will help. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." In the book, Dr. Barnes documents the growth of a technology company as it implemented a social media blueprint for success. Although the company has a social media following of fewer than 50,000 on Facebook and Instagram, it routinely reaches between 10 and 20 million people each month by following the social media blueprint for success. Transcription: James Barnes: (00:07) Welcome to the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host James Barnes and thank you for listening today. Let's get started. James Barnes: (00:22) Well in this season, we've been talking about the five social media mistakes your business should avoid. And we've been talking about how you turn those mistakes into principles you can use, to start giving your social media a makeover. That's really going to get your brand noticed and start to grow you online. And today what I want to talk about, it's called the social media makeover blueprint. In the book, I go through quite a bit of detail and show you the exact social media posts that you can create using the blueprint and all kinds of details and I show you the case study example for [inaudible 00:00:55], the company we documented in the book. But today I want to take a step toward that by just talking about the right questions. You should be asking to give your social media a makeover. James Barnes: (01:07) Okay? So we're just going to cover the questions in this episode and then wrap up season one. In the next episode, we're going to be talking about the one thing that you've got to do to give your social media a makeover. I'm going to give you the questions today, but there is one thing that you've got to do, and I'm going to tell you what that is in the final episode coming up to wrap up season one. But today let's talk about the questions. So the first question or set of questions really talks about problems and loss. We've talked about this at length. So I'm going to go through these questions piece by piece. Okay. Problem and loss. What is the customer problem you can solve with your products and services? What is the customer problem that you solve? Can you name at least two values your products and services deliver to your customers? James Barnes: (01:51) And these are values that if they don't purchase them, they're going to lose out on, maybe your product or service saves time and saves money, fewer headaches, something. So you want to think about that, what are those and what can you write answers to that question? And then finally, can you use videos or images to show customers experiencing their problems and losses? In other words, can you document the problem? At the end of the day, that's what it is for hog out of the company, in the book that we talk about and show. If you look at their social media, they're going to show you the damage to property and land and crops, and lots of types of damage that are caused on property and land that [inaudible 00:02:34] hogs caused, that's the villain for them if you will. James Barnes: (02:38) And so they documented this on social media extremely well, they show it and then they show the solution and they get into what that looks like for their technology there, their camera business. But again back to, can you use videos or images to show customers experiencing their problems and losses, whatever they may be, think about how you can do that and capture that. Next here are some questions about empathy. Can you explain or show empathy toward your customers? Can you use language that explains here's, how you can connect with them? I understand, we understand the problem you have, how frustrating it is, whatever it may be, you need to use empathy. So how can you do that? How can you show that you understand the problem and the losses your customers have experienced? James Barnes: (03:23) Maybe you have a personal story. Maybe you can share that with someone, your customers so that someone out there will connect with you and they'll go, you know what, they really do understand the problem I have. I want to do business with them. And a lot of times we buy stuff that really does connect with us that way. Another thing you can just ask yourself about this is, can you write empathetic statements to use on your social media and your other marketing. Once you really get good at writing words of empathy, not only will it be on your social media, it'll probably end up in your one-liner, maybe even your part of your value proposition, it could end up on your website, any of your marketing collateral can be a piece of that. So about ...
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    7 mins
  • Five Principles You Can Follow to Build a Thriving Community on Social Media

    Five Principles You Can Follow to Build a Thriving Community on Social Media
    Apr 28 2022
    Dr. Barnes explains how to use five social media marketing principles to create a social media plan that attracts customer attention to get your personal brand, business, or nonprofit noticed. This episode is based on Dr. Barnes' book "5 Social Media Mistakes Your Business Should Avoid." In the book, Dr. Barnes walks you through the steps you can take to give your social media a makeover that works. A free video course Social Media Makeover Made Simple can be found on the Bricks-To-Clicks Marketing Facebook page. View the pinned post for details. Transcription: James Barnes: (00:07) Welcome to the Bricks-to-Clicks Marketing Podcast. If you're a small business owner and you struggle with marketing your business, this podcast is just for you. I'm your host James Barnes and thank you for listening today. Let's get started. James Barnes: (00:22) So in season one, we've been talking about five social media mistakes your business should avoid. And we've covered all five of the mistakes. In the last episode, we talked about mistake number five, not using social media. Today I want to talk about how you take all these five mistakes and you turn them around. Let's make avoiding mistakes into principles to follow. There are five principles to give your social media a makeover. James Barnes: (00:50) If you start doing this, if you start writing words, using imagery video to show these things, you're going to start to get more attention online for your brand and your business and that's going to be a good thing for you. So today I want to go through all five of these principles. These are the things that you can do now to really start to give your social media a makeover. James Barnes: (01:08) Now, remember, this is about the words that you write, the imagery that you use. These are the ideas that you want to implement. Okay? So principle number one, you want to explain your customer's problem and how it costs them time, money, frustration, or other losses. I don't know what it is that your customer has as a problem, but whatever it is, it's costing your customer also something. They're giving up something. You can even go so far as to tell them if they do nothing, it's going to continue to be a problem. Some problems are even worse if you don't address them as soon as you have them. James Barnes: (01:42) And you can use images or video to add to any or all of these points, but that's really principle number one. When we talked about this early on you had to connect problem and loss. That's what you want to do is you start to write and create content to go up on your social media. It's one of the ways you can get attention. James Barnes: (02:00) So let's shift forward now to principle number two. We want to explain that we understand our customer's problem, whatever it is, and the losses they experience. And that may be painful for some people, the advertisement example I gave you throughout those five episodes was all about a billboard that I had seen where if you had a gambling problem, this rehab facility offered a solution for that. And so what did they do? In big, bold letters in the middle of the billboard, they said, "We can help," in bold letters. James Barnes: (02:32) So empathy is an important part of that. Your customer needs to understand that you get it, you have been there, maybe you even have the proverbial t-shirt to prove it, right? So you've been down that path. You understand it. So you want to use empathetic language and then call them to do something about it. If you remember in the advertisement, the billboard, that rehab facility provided a phone number. That was the action step they wanted their customer to take. Once they understood the problem and loss and then empathy, boom, then they jumped and said, "Here's our name the rehab place. Here's the phone number, call." That's the kind of stuff you want to do. Principle number two, use empathy, start using empathy. James Barnes: (03:15) Principle number three, really talked about the mistake in number three, not using your secret weapon. Whatever you're selling your product or service should not be a secret weapon. I mean, people should know what it is. And if you use problem, loss, and empathy first in the content you create, then you can pivot to using content to show here's what we sell, here's how it's going to help you have a better life. And you can use images or videos either one or both to show that your product or service really does solve your customer's problem and ends their frustration, pain, and losses. It really is effective at doing that. James Barnes: (03:51) So if you say the problem is something is difficult or complicated, you want to make sure when you use words to describe your product or service, that it becomes easy and simple and effective. You want to relieve that tension or that drama that you created with the problem statement. So you want to use that. So that's principle number three, start using video and ...
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    9 mins

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