2009 – Unleashing the Power of Human-Centric Content in Social Media Marketing with Dash of Social’s Ashley Mason

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1:05With us right now, it's Ashley Mason. Ashley, you are the founder of Dash of Social. You're found on the web at dashofsocial.com. Ashley, it's great to have you. Thank you so much for having me, Josh. Well, explain what it is that you do. I'm guessing it has something to do with social media, but I've cheated because I've looked at your website. You are correct. So my company is Dash of Social, which is a content marketing agency that I started back in 2016. And we primarily specialize in and focus on social media management, blog content, email marketing, and overall marketing strategy. The majority of our clients tend to be tech startups and also smaller companies throughout the country, with many of our clients being right here in Massachusetts where we're based.

1:52Yeah, well, I am grateful to have you. And I'm hoping for, you know, since you watch and you know the trends in social, you know, a lot of folks who listen to this probably have, you know, hundreds of things that they're responsible for. One of them is social media, so they're not watching it quite like you are. I would love, Ashley, if you could give us a little bit of a state of the union of where we are in social media and where we're headed. Yes. So I would say where we are right now is that we're focusing a lot on what I call human-centric content. So for any business owner, I feel like when they're looking through their analytics, they'll likely notice that any type of content that shows the founder or shows employees is always the content that will always perform the best compared to those generic stock images or any of those quote graphics or anything like that you might create on something like Canva.

2:49It can feel very awkward and uncomfortable to get in front of the camera if it's not something that you're used to. But time and time again, we're seeing regardless of the industry that being able to show the people behind the business is really what helps to perform the best and also help to build that know, like and trust factor. Of course, going along with that, video is something that has been super popular throughout the past few years and is only going to continue to grow throughout the next couple of years. And along with that, of course, there's been a lot of talk about AI and bringing that into marketing.

3:20And I feel like that, as we move forward in the next year or so, is only going to get bigger about how thinking about how companies can use AI to their advantage to automate and improve their overall marketing strategies. Yeah. And I hope that some of us are learning quite quickly regarding the use of AI as a great tool for idea generation and first drafts and so forth. I think early on, I'm not seeing this as much, but I think early, and maybe it's because AI has gotten, has improved a little bit, but I was seeing a lot of just bad social media content that was clearly written by AI. And it was just like, you know, let us delve into a cornucopia of solutions.

4:09I'm like, oh, get out of here. Nobody talks like that, right? Exactly. And this is really where I want to lead this question to, is that I think it is incredibly naive to underestimate the intelligence of your audience. And I agree with you that authenticity absolutely wins. And you're not fooling anybody if you think that you can just cheap out or, again, just do boring generic stuff that just does not connect at an emotional human level. Absolutely. And you hit the nail on the head when you mentioned that AI is a great method to use for idea generation. That's one of the things that I will always advocate using AI for is that we all get stuck in those creative ruts.

4:56And when we sit at our desk and we just can't think of an idea, being able to use AI to help you think of all of these topics that can help you to think about social media posts or blog posts that will really resonate with and provide value to your audience. And AI is also really helpful for being able to break down and explain different data and analytics you might be seeing. I mean, I literally copy and paste what I see in my Google Analytics, put it into AI and say, can you please comprehend this for me and be able to point out any trends and explain what I can do based on these numbers. So it's all about being able to work smarter, not harder.

5:31yeah i you know to your point too when we visit someone's website um that's what i do i always click on the about i want to look at the leadership team and our team particularly if this is someone that i'm going to legitimately like if i'm really going to engage with them i you know i want to know the who right you know because if it's just some faceless um generic looking company with you know, and I'm not able to find the people involved, all of a sudden, like, those are red flags for me. And I think that that's kind of what you were talking about in regards to personal content on social media.

6:09It's anyone can go to Canva and just, you know, go through their repository of here's our July 4th message. You know, you could do that, or you could actually post a picture of you and your dog holding an American flag or whatever, right? and then just try to share something from the heart or personal. And I promise you, those are going to have two very different impacts on the audience. Absolutely. And even though it might not directly be related to your business, people are going to see that content and remember it and then associate you with that content. And they might see that photo of you with your dog and American flag and instantly think about your company and what it does.

6:49I mean, one thing I do often is I'm an avid reader and I'm always posting to my Instagram stories, the book that I'm reading. And so people are constantly associating me with reading and then associating that with Dash of Social. So it's just a really great way to find those common interests and build the bridge with being able to connect with your ideal clients or customers. What happens if you have a founder that says, Ashley, no way. I am so shy. I don't want to be. Or what if they come from a place of nobility where they're saying, I don't want to be the deal. Like, how can you maybe work with them if you get that objection?

7:29There's a few different things. So one I would say is likely starting with them on a smaller scale. I would never recommend diving in full force and going from zero to 100 because it can feel really overwhelming and a little bit, I guess, unknown at that point. So I always recommend starting small, so baby steps. So maybe doing like one photo or video per month And then working our way up from there, once the founder feels more comfortable, I always say that data is really helpful. So as we start to incorporate more of this content with the founder and show them the data of them, their content of them being able to perform the best, I think that also sells them a little bit.

8:05And then also not putting so much content or so much focus of the content on the founder themselves. So instead of them feeling all this pressure for them to only be the one showing up all the time, if they have other C-suite people or other people on the leadership team that can be shared and highlighted as well, I think that helps to take the pressure off of them, knowing that there's other people who can also be incorporated. Yep, yep, and pets. Yeah, exactly. Or, you know, just other like things of, you know, it's really interesting. We send a weekly email. And yeah, it's generally always very valuable.

8:42But I am really, really cautious about selling to that email list. For me, I feel like the most valuable thing I can do is just continue to build a relationship with someone that I'm already connected with there. And, you know, again, that's part of appreciating the intelligence of our audience is, you know, we don't have to hit them over the head with offers. And sometimes it's just, you know, continuing to show up like a friend would show up in their life. And that's kind of what we do. So again, it's a lot of pictures of me and my mini Australian shepherd Levi. And again, it's a little blurb and then I get to the business, but I always try to use the opportunity to connect at a personal level.

9:34So we've belabored this point. Ashley, you've just really hit on something that I'm just such a big fan of. And I think it's important for all of us to look at what we're communicating objectively and say, you know, are we connecting personally or are we just selling? And I think a lot of this has to do with differentiating ourselves from the red ocean of noise out there. There's so much noise out there. And so if we can connect and kind of go and act more like a personal friend or a trusted friend would be showing up in their lives, I think that's kind of the goal here. I 100 % agree. Ashley, would you mind, because I know, again, social is a big part of what you do.

10:18Would you mind maybe sharing a little bit more broadly about when you're working with your clients, like what that looks like? And maybe it's, again, a lot more strategy and overall execution. But could you kind of give us a step back just because we've been zeroing in on social for so much? Of course. So with social media management, that's primarily the big one that we focus on with social because we often find that most of our clients, A, don't have the time to manage their own social media, or they don't have the resources if they don't have the bandwidth on their staff. And C, many people, which I can understand, despise social media.

10:55So they'd rather not be using their time to focus on those platforms. So we come in and manage their profiles for them. So that's everything from developing that social media strategy to give an audit of what they've done up to date, do a competitor analysis, identify their content pillars, think about how we'll engage and grow their audience and things like that. And ultimately implementing and executing that strategy through monthly content calendar development. So we'll work with our clients each month, working 30 days out. So as of tomorrow, when it's August 1st, during the time of this recording, we'll start thinking ahead for September.

11:29And we'll meet with our clients and ask them to give us an overview of everything that's happening in the upcoming month. So we have this really timely and relevant information that we can include in their social posts. From there, we'll use that information and also conduct additional research on our end to develop other ideas that will then flush out into a full content calendar. So that includes writing the post for our clients, pulling together the visuals, requesting a list of assets we might need from them, like other photos or videos, and being able to build out this robust content calendar that they will then receive, review, and approve.

12:02From there, we go through and schedule and publish everything and focus on community management to be able to support those potential clients or customers that might be reaching out through the profiles and also being able to understand what their monthly analytics are to be able to know what's performing well and why. We can use that information to really drive the next month's worth of content. So our whole goal is to take this off of our client's plate and ensure that they then have time back in their day to focus on those revenue-generating activities and be able to focus on the things that they really enjoy the most.

12:36Um, so in, in marketing, I'm thinking about, uh, overall, like, let's say that someone's goal, uh, is, is really just to drive sales. Uh, and, and let's say that they're doing account-based, um, sales and marketing. Um, what do you see working really well in that space? I would say that you get the best results when you focus on a multifaceted marketing strategy. So a lot of people will think that social media is the golden ticket for increasing those sales, but you're truly limiting yourself when you're only focusing on social media and isolating yourself in that sense and not looking at PR, paid ads, SEO, blogging, email marketing.

13:18You really need to build out that robust marketing strategy to support your overall goals and mission. Along with that, I say that it's really important to one, at least have a website to begin with, and two, have a website that's set up and optimized correctly to accept your ideal client or customer. Especially with social media, it works really hard to drive website traffic or drive people to the spot of your corner of the internet where they can learn more about who you are, what you do, and how you can help them. But if your website isn't set up properly to convert those people, then you're wasting all that traffic and you're not going to get those sales.

13:52So it's really important to have that second leg of that marketing strategy to focus on and ensuring that your website is going to convert those people because that's really what its job is to do. Yeah, excellent. Your website, Ashley, is dashofsocial.com. To our friend that's been listening to our conversation and they're like, yeah, social media is confusing for us. how do you typically help with someone maybe it's like whoa I'm not ready to hire you today but I'd love to you know start to maybe get to know Ashley a little bit more and kind of figure out if there's a match here what would you recommend their next steps be absolutely so I'm always happy to set up a conversation with anyone just to learn more about their business and what they're looking for whether they need that help immediately or whether they're thinking ahead for a year down the line I'm always happy to chat and share my advice We also frequently publish blog posts on our site that explains several different topics of marketing that are trending right now and being able to share those further.

14:52And of course, I always recommend connecting with us on social media because we're consistently sharing marketing advice there as well. All right. Again, your website is dashofsocial.com. And Ashley Mason, of which you were the founder, social media consultant. Ashley, it's been a great conversation. Thank you so much for sharing your wisdom. Thank you so much for having me, Josh.

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