Joey Keating breaks down why posting more isn't the answer, and what actually builds a real audience online.
GROWTH PILLAR: Marketing & Branding
WHO THIS IS FOR: SMB owners · Solopreneurs · Nonprofit leaders · Community-focused brands tired of posting into the void
WHAT THEY'LL GAIN: A clear framework for social media strategy, practical analytics literacy, and a free tool to audit your entire digital presence in one shot
Most small businesses aren't losing on social media because they're not posting enough. They're losing because they're posting without a strategy, chasing the wrong numbers, and building an audience that was never going to buy.
Joey Keating is the founder of 74 Social Media & Marketing — and she comes at this differently than most. As a former RD chemist, she reads analytics like a scientist. She spots patterns others miss. And she has spent 15 years helping chambers of commerce, nonprofits, and small businesses turn online noise into real relationships and measurable growth.
In this episode, Joey and Bernie break down what human-first social media actually looks like in practice.
Key topics covered:
Joey also shares her Digital Snapshot — a free multi-point audit that shows you how your business shows up across social media, basic SEO, your website, and Google Reviews. It's a full picture of where you're visible and where you're invisible.
Connect with Joey Keating:
— PARTNERS ON THIS EPISODE —
Canada Growth Network — A business community with a full CRM and automation suite built in. Real connections, real tools, $47 CAD/month.
VidIQ — The tool Bernie uses to research YouTube titles, tags, and trends for every K4B episode.
WebIndexer — A smart chatbot that turns your website into a 24/7 client-facing assistant. See it live on knack4business.com.
Next Steps
Bernie (00:22)
question to the audience: Why does your social media feel busy? But
not actually grow your business. That's the real problem our guest solves. In this episode, she'll break down how to move from random posting to real strategy, how to own your digital assets, read your data properly, and build authentic community and turn online noise into measurable growth. If you're a startup, non-forprofit, charity, or small business, this podcast is going to be for you. So who is our guest? Well she is Joey Keating.
From 74 Social Media and Marketing. Founder of said agency, she's a strategist, a community connector who blends heart and data in equal measure. With both 15 years of experience leading social media strategy for chambers of commerce, business networks, non-for profits, small businesses. She helps organizations turn online noise into real relationships and measurable growth.
What sets Joey apart is her unique background as a former RD chemist. She reads analytics like a scientist, spots patterns others miss, and builds strategies rooted in evidence, not guesswork. Her approach is grounded in authenticity because she believes social media should feel human, not robotic. Through 74 Social, she empowers clients to show up with clarity, connect with purpose, and build communities that last.
She's also a proud chenophile, someone who thrives in snow and cold weather, proving she's comfortable bringing warmth and energy even in the chilliest seasons of business. Joey, absolute pleasure having you here. Welcome. Do you have a favorite quote of saying you want to tell everybody about?
Joey (01:54)
Thank you for having me and thank you for such a warm intro. And I do. So Albert Einstein is one of my favorite scientists across the board. and I did have a small stint of teaching high school physics where we really learned more about him. But my favorite quote is not very sciencey from Albert Einstein. It's there are only two ways to live your life. One is though nothing is a miracle, and the other is that everything is a miracle. So not very sciencey, but very rooted and a good way to view the world.
Bernie (02:22)
Yeah, it's always there's always wonder to behold. Exactly. And w what's your business tagline?
Joey (02:27)
my business tagline is human first social media. I came up with social media as it evolves and have watched it change over time. So that human component is the piece that a lot of businesses miss and you can't replace with any with any other tool. You need a human. So human first because that's how I've always been with social media as I've built brands and gained my experience over the years.
Bernie (02:52)
So the Wild West, it conjures cowboys and sidearms and horses and cattle and all things that are go lickety split. Why is social media such a wild west? So it's kind of mayhem and what's changed to make it that you know, it there's there's a strategy behind that scene that helps you.
Joey (03:10)
One of the things, because I have done this for so long, it used to be definitely more Wild West. So before Meta became Meta, or I should say Facebook became Meta and then got Instagram, businesses years ago weren't using social media the way they do now. when you would go onto Facebook, if you saw something about a business that usually came directly from somebody's personal profile.
And when they were finally introducing pages for businesses, you could just open up a page. You didn't even have to have a Facebook personal account to have a Facebook page. You could sort of just do what you wanted. And it wasn't until things started to evolve and businesses started to become really interested in how to utilize social media to reach those audiences for their marketing purposes that
the different platforms started to structure what that looked like for businesses, what verifications you needed, how you were going to attach yourself to an account or present and what community standards went along with it. And also put them in a position to then start to monetize by saying, hey, we can get you more people like the people you want, but we're going to run ads and you're going to pay us to do that. So it went from being something Something people were doing when they realized there was
a huge base of their demographic available. And as soon as businesses started to do that and everybody started to realize you could do this as a business, it started to get structured and more restricted with certain things and more like customer forward with other things. So the push on it, the ads or the insertions into your feed became more prevalent as
the social media platforms could monetize from businesses and really leverage it like T V did and radio did in the past.
Bernie (04:51)
You said something interesting. There was two words, community standards. And then you you mentioned like TV ads. And I think for you it's in in your country it's FCC that controls that. What does it mean with community standards? just if someone is rolling in, because you know, over here I have the elixir of life. It will make you pretty and lots of hair if you're hairless and you know, whatever, right?
weight loss and any any other magical potion. What what does community standards mean for a business?
Joey (05:22)
So for a business, just like as a person, when you sign up for a social media account, they do give you that long list of things you're supposed to abide by rules. Community standards businesses are held to just like regular people, but it is there's I'm sure they're very specific things, but the general rule would be, you know, no hate speak, nothing that would be defamation or be slander, nothing.
nothing in those manners where you're abiding by the rules of the the platform to not do something harmful in a way to somebody else or present something harmful. And that for most businesses is not problematic. But if you get into a nonprofit that might be a suicide prevention foundation, they're gonna touch on really specific topics that can be sensitive to people or
If you talk about you know domestic violence, those are more sensitive topics. And while your intent is very I'm trying to think of the right word. Your intention is good, but how maybe it presented may be a little bit uncomfortable or a lot uncomfortable for people, or they may be offended by it. So the community standards are what are gonna attempt to keep things in checks and balances. Businesses are held to those differently.
And are much quicker to get, in a way, a notification and a slap on the wrist. Humans, like the audience will be held to them also, but the volume of influx and comments that people can get that might be a little bit offensive really comes down to how somebody's gonna moderate those comments more so than the humans themselves. And if no
Nobody that is commenting as a follower or somebody participating in the conversation is reporting somebody that is writing in and saying hateful things or things that are inappropriate. They will just stay there unless they're moderated out or reported in. So but as a business, you're held a little bit to a higher standard to ensure that you meet those community standards and that you monitor your actual community and your comments to make sure.
that you're not giving your audience something that could be offensive.
Bernie (07:26)
So if you're in in a social media space, like even in the podcasting space, if we talk about certain subjects, then is it ad adult versus you know general population? Even talking about the alcoholic beverages, for example, if we were to have that conversation, I have to I have to do I have to mark off the podcast because it's touching on that. And and I get it, and I get why.
Do you ever look at someone saying, Hi, you have content here? The content that you're posting on another platform really isn't it's you, it's yours, but it's not, because at the end of the day, if something happens at the platform, whatever whatever the reason is, rightly or wrongly so, it it's it can be gone. Do you encourage people to bring people from one platform back to a place where they host information, like a blog or a podcast or a website?
Joey (08:19)
I do encourage that, but social media is one of those spaces that you have to like slide in and out of in a way. so you need all of that available on social media, but you also need a spot to send people for the bigger information, the expansion of what that was, because social media is fast and it moves faster every day and it's fleeting. So you want
to be able to send people off platform to gain more information or to learn more. But in turn you also want to keep them on the platform so they can consume more from you and, you know, make sure you're seen and make sure they the algorithm says, Hey, you watch this video and this video, we're gonna send you a third one and a fourth one and a fifth one.
Bernie (09:01)
Very nice. So during our talking about your bio, chemistry chemistry and social media, you know, having chemistry is one thing, but you know, being a chemist, that's a that's a different kettle of fish. what what made you swing over to the marketing strategy space?
Joey (09:17)
Well, I was an RD chemist in the cosmetic field. So I worked for two international hair care companies over the course of my early career. And when you're in the RD space and creating either standard products or innovative products, you work really closely with marketing. And marketing is the place that it's like flashy and they go on business trips, right? It's very enticing that way. And the R D part is creative in its own way, but you have to come up with all the
scientific basis to substantiate all the claims. Well, you have vitamin E in there. What does vitamin E do? Is it in there enough to say, hey, vitamin E is going to help moisturize your face? Is it enough to help rebuild your cuticle on your hair? So you work really close with marketing. So I think for me, marketing was kind of like a sparkly, shiny place that I never I had no desire to go to business school to become a marketer for
Company. that wasn't my plan ever. It's not business school was never in my plan. but when I had worked in the labs, you're exposed to a lot of things. So when I got to that stage of life where I was looking to get married and raise a family, I stepped out of the lab. I actually taught for a short period of time. And from there, I started to use all the different skills I had learned along with creating products in the lab to help.
leverage and push out. I was actually doing freelance writing in the mom space because at that point I was a mom and I had small kids and freelance writing sort of helped my brain remain intact and not turn to oatmeal in a way. So what I started to realize is that this thing called social media that I really wasn't so interested in was a really good place to share with people outside of my normal little bubble that
I wrote an article in the circuses in town and you can get tickets here and that type of stuff. And it from there, the opportunity arose to work with the kids' app developer to do specifically what I was doing with my articles for their apps and get different moms to review their apps, get schools to review their apps, and then push all of that out on social media. So my training was really very organic and very on the ground.
When social media was just a thing people were starting to realize you could use for businesses.
Bernie (11:33)
You talk about strategy and y put that next to the audience.
What are the elements? What are kind of the when I think strategy, I think like a chess move. Like if I do this, this happens as a net result. Or if I, you know, thinking as a parent, perhaps, the strategy is this is your five-minute warning before bedtime, says a parent to child. And to to save that, is are you doing that type of strategy, or is it much more involved as in launch this information, get some feedback loop, and then
grow it from there and then launch this video, then do the speaking tour, you know, and just you know, is it is it stacked? Is it getting complicated as that or is it
Joey (12:14)
It gets complicated. It's also very client dependent. And it will depend upon how their base audience performs and what they do when the information goes out and is received on the other side. So while there's strategy, there's also a lot of pivots along the way. So if I was talking about a book launch, I already know for a book launch we're going to promote it, pre-promote it, make sure that people know the author is showing up for book signing.
At that point, you start to slide out, okay, we're gonna promote it this way. Did that post get any traction? If not, we're gonna take similar information and put it in a different format. So is it an image? Is it a carousel? Is it a reel? And start to really gauge where the audience is receiving that the best. Do they like stories? I have one account that everybody lives for the stories. I'm not sure why. They don't really view the actual post, but when that post goes to a story, it is viewed more times like.
By such a large population than any of the static posts that sit on the grid in Instagram. That happens to be just one account. So I know for them it's important to make sure stories are top all the time. Always have they always have something. so it depend it depends on the account, it depends on the audience receives it. And there's a lot of pivots along the way. The nice thing is, is when you start to work on an account and you get about three to six months in.
You kind of know the character of that account. So you already are going in with a good feel of what's going to work as something comes up. And then it's just refining it. When I look at things, I do spend a lot of time. I happen to like the numbers and graphs. So in the analytics, because I want to know exactly what was working. What made this video work better than this video? What made this reel show up and this other re real just flop? Like what is going on? And you can do a lot of that with the analytics. And
I know people struggle because I think it's really hard for especially business owners or people who grew up in digital space to separate the I need to get something out. I was here and let me throw out a picture up against the I need to be structured and strategized. This needs to be wrapped into your marketing. This needs to be part of your advertising. This is pieces of your branding. So it really
Is no longer I'm just gonna take out my phone and snap a picture because I'm at a conference. You can do that, but you need all the other pieces too, because if that's the only thing you're doing, nobody's really paying attention, usually except for like friends and family members, and they'll clap you along, but they're not gonna buy your service and they're not gonna buy your product. so there is a lot of strategizing that goes on, but it it's very fluid because what goes on with your audience today is not what's gonna go on with your audience in a month from now. And as
things change across the platforms, it makes it that much more challenging to keep up. And I usually say to people who are like, well, how do you keep up? I get that often. Like, how do you keep up with these changes? I've never known social media not to evolve. So for over 15 years, I've been moving along with the evolution. So Facebook might change something, but for me it's only one or two changes. For somebody else it might be they feel like they've just had six changes.
Instagram might change something, but I've come along the way with it. So they're minor changes for me, not major changes. And I'm not trying to catch up. I just try to adjust and then my accounts need to adjust.
Bernie (15:25)
Couple of things that pop into the head as you're describing this from the analytics. first off, if you're starting from scratch, I I've never made a widget and I'm now making widgets. And I'm the happiest widget maker around. I'm I'm pretty glib, I'm pretty, you know, pretty open, product looks good, has you know has raison diatre, you know, has has has has presence.
How do I how do we get an audience? Like do I have to find an influencer or do I or do I go to the newspaper and say, listen, I need to buy, you know, ad space of this to run on a Saturday morning, front and center, you know, with me going ta da, widget. How do you how do you how do you start getting that groundswell? And I know it's not instant on, because if it was instant on, everybody would do it, and yeah, you might not want that either.
But how do you build that up? How do you build up that momentum?
Joey (16:13)
When so two of my favorite things are new accounts and stagnant accounts, reviving an old one or starting a brand new one, or my two of my favorite favorite type accounts. starting a new one's always nice because you have a clean slate to work with. You make sure your profile's optimized. For anybody who's currently in business or has been in business a little while, you're gonna lean into your current, your current audience, your current clients. So you're gonna start to make sure your icons show up on invoices, on mail.
on your website, your email blast, you let them know, hey, we're also now on Instagram, TikTok, wherever you might be. So that will slowly and naturally start to get followers that are actually within your demographic because you're leaning in on people who are already aware of your service or have used your service or bought your product. From there, the algorithm does a lot for you because it starts to suggest people who should be following your accounts. And at that point,
You can decide if you're going to follow them so they know all of a sudden you exist. But in turn, it's going to also suggest you to people similar to who's following you. So if I'm a homeowner, Bernie, and you're a homeowner and I follow a roofing company and we're kind of in similar areas. And we you know, I started following a roofing company and started liking some of their stuff because I found it very interesting. And they're removing the snow and making sure I don't have ice dams and
you happen to see that or it's suggested to you, you might might follow it. It's slow. The organic side of social media is real slow. but you build your audience just like you would build a mailing list or a book of business. That's how you're going to go about it. And it's not fast and it's not flashy and it's not instant. But the goal with those builds is to get your base audience correct. Because if you don't get that correct, then all you do is have people who are
Half-heartedly following you, not very interested, do not interact. And that kind of affects all your numbers and your algorithm. So you want to make sure you start off with a strong base. And I have had over time clients come in where no matter how amazing the content going out is, we can't gain traction. And then you start to look back on their audience, their followers that they've had for seven years, because you know they've had this account for seven years, and you start to realize.
they're not even the correct people to have as followers because they're not going to consume the content or purchase the service or the product. So it's challenging, but if you know your demographic and your audience, you just work in that digital space to build that piece of it. And you put all your socials in the rest of your digital and your marketing and your like everywhere. So you know, you just say it as often you can maybe you become one of those people that instead of a business card, you could be like, here, just follow me on Instagram.
You know, people do that all the time. I have one woman I asked for a business card. She's like, I don't even carry them. Can't you just find me on Instagram? I was like, Okay.
Bernie (19:01)
Come back, there's five of you there. When you're gonna go back, you're also talking about the metrics. So what matters? What what doesn't matter? What matters is it is it number hits per day? Like in LinkedIn, for example, you you can see number of impressions, but impressions aren't necessarily click-throughs, right? They're where they've opened it up and going, let me digest this. Every every word is gospel, so to speak, and let me click on this.
Right, which would show and then comment, right? Is is that is that where you get more churn when a lot of people are guess salivating, for lack of better words. if you're if you're offering, let's say, a juicy, juicy piece of food, is is it is it that level of interest or are you just monitoring, let's say it it's it's been exposed out there, it's it's kind of been viewed, not in depth, but it's
Leaving something behind. Is it, you know, making a like the seven is it seven times or something like that? You have to see something before it, you know, kind of latches.
Joey (19:59)
it's account dependent, it's goal dependent. So that's the other piece. So if you're looking for growth, you're gonna look at a different performance indicators than if you're looking to engage your audience. So it's really gonna depend upon the goal that the business has. So for things like growth, I remind people that while the numbers are important, the number of followers become less important.
And the number of followers become less important because if you have a small number of followers, but you're getting a large number of views from non-followers, that number is going to naturally grow up. People automatically go, Yeah, but you know, I only have 150 followers. I have such a small following. But what is your account actually doing? Do you have a good number of views from non-followers? And
What are you putting out there that will then convert those non-followers that are seeing your content into followers? So that's where you're going to get follower growth. But if you have a strong follower base, or maybe you have a really large number of followers, what are you doing on that platform that's engaging them to then push your content further out past them and into non-followers at a much higher pace? So it really depends on what the goal is at that time. And I usually tell people it's easier to
Try and figure these things out and move them along if you do them quarterly. What is your goal for this quarter? What are we going to focus on for the next three months? And then you break each month into this is what we did and did it work and didn't meet what we're heading towards. Okay, it didn't. Let's pivot. It did. So we're going to continue and add. but each quarter, then you can take it and start to make an adjustment. And depending upon the business, if you have a brick and mortar business that's very seasonal.
You're gonna be more concerned with certain seasons than other seasons. If you run, if you're a restaurant, you're gonna be more concerned maybe with holiday seasons than you are with non-holiday seasons. So you have to pivot through those to make sure because if you put out as a restaurant in the middle of the summer, the same thing you're putting out for the middle of December heading into like the holidays and New Year's, you're not nobody's gonna really be like, I'm I'm booking my New Year's dinner with you.
They wouldn't even know you had a New Year's dinner because you're reminding them every day you have specials and you make the best chicken parm. So you have to make those pivots and depending upon the goal of each business at that point will direct how we look at the analytics and what we do with them to determine if we're growing or expanding or making sure their audience is engaged or making sure that what they have going on is reaching that goal.
Bernie (22:26)
And not in the US. So it's not it has nothing to do with you.
Joey (22:29)
Same in the US, I'm sure.
Bernie (22:31)
But this this person is going, I hired this guy, and I've I've spent like ten thousand dollars of activity with the person, and but I'm not seeing any more business. how do you know or how do you attribute, let's say whether you're LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, or any other avenue, how how do you attribute back away? I've done this and I'm not seeing a consequence because usually it's either it's either typically sales.
Or there's some sort of other transactions happening. You know, if you're if you're providing a a non for profit, you know, there's there's more more buy-in or more people, or people show up to an event, perhaps. And maybe the maybe the sale is the secondary piece of the leg of the journey. But how do you attribute the the posts or the content back to the desired results?
Joey (23:16)
That can be challenging and ROI for social media is really tricky to substantiate and for people to understand. The easiest way to actually do it, the easiest way I've tried to explain, and it takes you off the social media platforms and brings you into your Google Analytics because they will tell you in your Google Analytics your referral sources and let you know directly if it came from Twitter, X, Twitter, Facebook, where at whatever channel that is.
And whether it was mobile or desktop that somebody clicked over to your website. You can also look at things like how many people viewed your profiles in some of the base analytics in the platforms. but also I just say to people very simply, if you want to know if people know about you and how they came to you and if social media had anything to do with it, straight ask, how did you find us?
And people might say, Well, I Googled you, but when I was on Instagram, my sister liked your post because she really loves your cakes. And that came up in the corner of my thing saying my sister's activity was liking your post because she really liked the way your cakes look. And now she's buying one for her kid. So I came to you because I was on Instagram. My sister followed you and she liked you. So sometimes you have to backtrack with people and say,
Just the simple ask might get you the answer. Otherwise, you can go down the let's look at the analytics. Let's go over to your Google Analytics and see if we can find the cr the way people are coming over to your platform. And is it does it have anything to do with social media? Does it have anything to do with somebody picking up a phone and calling you or sending you a message? And I mean, some of those are easy, right? If they message you directly through Instagram, you know they they actually converted to another the next step.
They went from consuming to action oriented. But if they see you on Instagram or Facebook and then eventually Google you and eventually get to your website, you that's not always a straight line. So if you just ask, a lot of people say, we found you online. you know, what did you Google us? no, we saw you on Instagram or we saw you on Facebook or you know, my sister, like I people do that a lot where they're like, my sibling was at your restaurant and took a picture. That's how I knew you were here.
And you're like, okay, well, that's not exactly how we want our social media to work. But if your sister remembered to tag, doesn't put the location in, and we know that happened, and now you showed up, we just gained a customer because we exist on social media. And that means your sister was smart enough to make sure like she put us top of mind for her people, for her lemonades. So it's it's not a straight line and it's not very direct all the time. It's not
Yeah, sales the sales department have sometimes trouble because it muddies the waters in a way. It's not very direct. I made a phone call. They said yes, we sent out an invoice, we mailed the product. It doesn't work that way. And it's very much a lot of brand awareness. What I do for my clients is a tremendous amount of brand awareness. I don't have clients that sell products that they mail out or like products that you're in hands kind of product. It's mostly service driven.
So a lot of what I do is make sure they're visible and that people know the services they offer and where their expertise is. So when somebody needs that, they know who to come f come to and or ask the question to.
Bernie (26:27)
You find the role of the influencer or or the regular media like news. I here here in Ottawa, you'll you'll you watch the local news and they go, and and they do a piece of the local business or or function, whatever whatever the case might be, and going, You can do this and this is the event, it's fun, the person's smiling, everybody's around having a having a grin, or the influencer, you know, that has a million followers.
you know p pick a famous name and you kind of spin from there. Are are those ways also to leverage as part of the marketing strategy? and I I know not all solutions are a right fit for all products or services. But is that also another part of the strategy that you're leveraging other typical standard means?
Joey (27:12)
Yes. Yes. So if you approach the social media piece as part of your entire marketing and you wrap that in as a piece of it, not putting in its own silo, like, it's just a social media thing. If you wrap that in, it incorporates and works really nicely with all your other marketing. So whether you're going to radio, whether you're going to TV, whether you choose to hire an influencer or micro influencer, whether you run print ads, whether you do direct mail.
They all can wrap in together. So there's like cross-promotion, cross-channel promotion, omnichannel marketing. it becomes a piece of the marketing plan, not its own thing. Not it's like, hey, we're just letting social media run rogue over there. And the rest of us are all right, right? The rest of us are saying, hey, for the holidays, it's 20% off, but the social media team, they're just doing their own thing. They're like, I don't know, wearing elf hats and ugly sweaters while the rest of us are pushing the sale.
You it you really need to work with it as now a piece of marketing, not its own sort of free-for-all and not its own extra piece. It needs it should be incorporated into those marketing budgets. It should be incorporated into all the pieces you would normally look at for marketing, including print, radio, TV, though all those types of pieces, press releases, all those different pieces.
Bernie (28:30)
So when a business startup business or a business launches a product or decides to get into the marketing game, in other words, you know, if they set up a brick and mortar location and it's all been word of mouth and it it's been successful. where do they make a mistake then when they want to go, okay, let's let's notch it up a bit more? Where do they where do you typically find the the they miss the mark?
Joey (28:51)
I think it when you set up a business, people get very much overwhelmed. And social media is a scary, scary place for a lot of people. So, and they're afraid that so there's two things. They're they're either afraid they're gonna really mess it up and tarnish their reputation online, or they go the other way, which is they're completely unaware.
That they may mess up and tarnish their reputation online. So they just go for it in such a big way, and you're like, nobody put the reins on this and said this is completely off-brand and it has nothing to do with your business goals. I think people do not always remember to align their business goals with the other pieces that influence their business, whether it be social media or it just be in-person networking, they don't always remember to align those goals.
And I think that's where people find the most challenges is because what your goal is for your business, but what you're putting out there, whether it's digital, in person, in print, whatever it might be, they don't align. And people are saying, hey, but you said one thing and now I'm seeing another thing. So I think people mess up there mostly. but with definitely with social media, I feel like people are either afraid of it or they just don't know how to utilize it. They
they their perception is is that they should be influencers in their own space. So they should have all these flashy things and like a small team of people running around with cameras and lights and the reality is is there's not a lot of businesses that can do that. There's just not a lot of small businesses that can do that. You're not gonna have a full team of 10 with a photographer, a mic guy, you know a videographer, people with you know stabilizers
It's not the Kardashians, it's not gonna happen. So work with what you have. stick to what is true to your business. What would you do in person? What would you say in person? What would how would you present that in person is a really good way to then decide how you're gonna present on online and digitally. So if you have somebody in your store that is, if you have a brick and mortar and somebody in your store, your restaurant is like the go-to person for every question.
Hey, do you know what the specials are today? Hey, do you know what kind of wine we carry? Hey, do we carry this kind of screwdriver, screw, whatever, paint? those people are gold. Cause if you can get them to talk or talk on camera, it's beautiful. If they don't want to be on camera, if you can just get them to talk, you can have a list of FAQs by the end of the week that then you can put on social no problem that are completely relevant to your business.
completely relevant to your audience, you know people are actually asking these questions and that there's somebody else out there besides the lone person that asked that needs to know that answer. So people, I feel like businesses forget to connect the dots and then really stick to what they're best at, which is tell the world about what you do and who you are and what you're offering. It doesn't have to be with this really flashy
real and it doesn't have to have trending music. Just stick to who you are. I recently was doing a workshop and one of the women there was a home organizer and we were talking about trends. Like how do you navigate trends as a business? I'm because of the businesses that I work with, we're not really the types of businesses that will lean into trends. It has no reason or rhyme or it really doesn't need to be in our space.
But she was like, you know, there's all these little things and all these little, you know, the caricatures, the this. And I said to her, okay. I said, but does it make sense? Are you reaching your end goal? Is it getting you where you need? I said, because and this is one that makes me laugh so hard. There a while back was a trend where you would see a female and she'd be like a stiletto heel on like a table and she'd have her lace cross and lean down and she'd hold a glass of wine to show she could like
balance all these like balance that way and it was like everywhere I looked you would see it and her and I talked about that I said well unless you're selling shoes or wine why would I have you do that you're a home organizer you're not selling shoes and you're not selling wine as a home organizer where does that fit into any and she's like yeah I know but I'm like but it doesn't so that's the whole point right reach your business goal. What is your business goal? Those things are fun.
And they give a little personality, but they don't make you personable. They don't show the personal side of you, which is the human side of you is important to show too, but they definitely don't get you any closer to your goal. So is it gonna reach your goal? And probably no. If you're selling shoes and wine, maybe, but anybody else, it's just fun.
Bernie (33:21)
You see with Super Bowl ads, there's always something and sometimes they they cross the line too. But you you get no in order ideal, but you get recognized. Right. Do you ever do you recommend that someone come up with something quirky? Not not not s not extreme, but quirky, that you know, if everybody's a roofer, right? you know, not every nail needs a hammer.
But if all you're offering is the hammering service, then you know you you you you blend in. Do you look for that that differentiator in either them themselves, the product? you know, maybe they do something that everybody else does. I was watching a program on TV and they were talking about beer, beer production. And this I believe it was Schlitz beer. Okay. Okay.
I and you know, I sure I I gotta I have to be careful how I say that name, otherwise it'll come out sideways. That said though, they they went and found somebody and said, Listen, we're losing our sales. Help us. And so he went into their he analyzed everything they were doing, their process, and he says, Well, what's happening here? Well, we clean the piping three, four times a day, sterilize it. And this room here, it's it's and this is like eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundreds, and so
Good on them, you know, because sometimes food cleanliness wasn't the top top ten. but you know, you know, the the whole chemistry of making that beverage involves being, you know, tight on on spec. And then they they did a special thing on in the room to keep it clean, right? So that the production would stay pure and have a result. And the the company says, Listen, everybody we all do that. Yeah, but not everybody's telling you that.
Right. You do that. So that what end result was you're all the same, you're losing market market brand. highlight that. So do you look for that hidden feature that it maybe everybody does it, but you know, not everybody talks about it or nobody talks about it, in fact. And it's it's a an advantage.
Joey (35:17)
Yes. So because I am that was a quick answer. Yes. Yes. Yes. One, I naturally do it. I tend to lean in to what is very connecting and very people driven. So as soon as somebody starts talking to me, their whole and there's no easy way to kind of frame this in words, but their whole vibe, right? What is their whole vibe?
Because their account is going to carry a personality. And if that personality is reflective of somebody who naturally in space is the face of the business, then it works really well. And if the personality of the account is much more structured and kind of beige, so to speak, that can work really well depending upon the space. So I have a client who, no matter what he does,
And he's a lovely human. I have to call him and say, you sent me this, and we have the transcript, and the audio isn't fantastic. Could you read voice? Can you just voice record these three extra sentences? Cause I want to pull that piece. But there was like a noise in the background, somebody coughed. It just couldn't be edited out because it happens in real time. And when I first asked him, he said to me,
well, I opened up this account and it'll AI clone my voice. I said, fine, let's give it a whirl. And I AI let him do his thing so it could AI clone his voice. And he gives me A voice and B voice. And I put his transcript in and let it reiterate his sentences. And then I texted him and I said, No, I cannot use this because your candor, your cadence, and your voice and the
Reflection that you get when you speak is not coming out no matter what I do here. So I need you to take these two sentences, voice record them on your phone, and resend them to me because I will not put out this flat tone. His voice is distinct, his presence is distinct. It is what in my own house, which is a funny kind of thing, if I am editing something, I have children who will say to me, was that so-and-so talking? Were you working on his account? Because they know his voice.
Because it's that distinct. You don't even have to look at it. And voices, expressions, verbiage. So if Bernie, you were a client, and because you're from Canada, I would have conversation after conversation with you to start to pull out for me as an American the wording that is really specific to you that I don't naturally use. So that would become important and be reflected in anything then we put out for you because
how you speak is equally as important how as how I present that you speak that way. So it's really personality is a huge thing and people don't realize your audience has personality, but so does your own account. It has like its own thing going on that people don't anticipate. Even as a business. I mean you're personal it's one thing, but even as a business you have a personality out there. And it's not your brand. It's not the same as your branding. It's sort of like this undercurrent that comes with it.
Bernie (38:10)
That makes perfectly good sense. So how do you handle a company that's scaling up? Like, you know, if solopreneur or a two or three person squad to and now we're a company of 20, now we're a company of a thousand. And you know, the in my corporate world, you were told, you don't talk to the media, we do. And which is fine. That way there's no no conflict or no surprises or someone doesn't bait and drop you.
But that voice is now a kind of the corporate voice. And even then that that unless of course you're always the spokesperson, which is not always true because you y you know, a subject matter expert, you'd have a physician, whatever.
How do you make that identity then unique? and I'm I'm free now the only thing that's coming right in my head is this car insurance and this lizard showing up, right? And go, and then, you know, it's quaint, cute, and it's you know, it's not gonna age per se. maybe the the lines might age, but you know, how do you how do you how do you evolve from it's you to it's the business?
Joey (39:08)
I think if you're fortunate and you grow with a company or you have a company grow while you're with them, those small transitions become very easy because it's the you start with the person and their personality. And that doesn't always shift so much as they scale, but it gets, you know, it goes from the I to the we, the my business to the company. So I think there are minor changes.
I don't recall anybody scaling so quickly that there weren't transitionary things that we couldn't keep up with. I do know that from a large company perspective, you usually end up with one point person and they've already got the lean in from some other larger marketing department. So a lot of that tone of messaging comes directly from the the bigger marketing departments, including the personality pieces, because you do then lose that, but
If they've got a mascot or they've got a logo that's a little bit fun, I mean you can lean into those pieces a little bit. But once you start to scale and grow, the personality of all of that does start to evolve to usually be a little bit more professional, a lot more structured, kind of less fun. You lose the little bit of fun that sometimes comes with it that small businesses will let you do.
you need to work hard to do that and definitely do it. So I always you know think about like back in the old days as they say, back in the old days, you know, you knew the post Yesterday.
Bernie (40:37)
Was that yesterday?
Joey (40:39)
It was well before social media. But you knew right, you went to the bank, you right. When I was little, if you went to the bank, you always got a lollipop.
But to get that, you had to behave a certain way because you were at the bank and the bank was very serious business. You did not mess around at the bank, you got in trouble at the bank. You, you know, there's no fooling around or joking. You stayed behind the velvet robes. Like the bank was business. But if you went to maybe the grocery store or like the local pharmacy, there was a little more leeway, but you weren't also leaving with candy, right? So you had to behave a certain way in a certain place.
The bank was business and very important business. The grocery store was like just a piece of life. And I think that's for businesses, like their personalities. No matter what they do, there is gonna be a piece of that that comes out. And they may not call it personality, but if you're in the legal field or you're in the finance field, that's that's turtlenecks and you know, business suits and very conservative all day, all day long, even if you're
A complete you know, stand-up comedian on your off time. You're gonna show up and still run a couple of jokes, but you're stuck in what that space, what that business sort of requires from you. And I think when you have a business that's small and then it scales, if you can keep those pieces of personality, the pieces that made you grow to begin with, it's golden. And if you do it well, it's even better because people remember.
way back when when you first started. And my father in law is a general contractor. So, you know, he'd go to people's houses. And you over the years, as he saw the same people, you would hear them say something and then you'd hear my father in law say it. And then like a year later it'd be reversed because they just started to converse in a way that like this is what he said.
And I think that happens with businesses where they know if you come knocking on the door, you're gonna come smile, say your name. Maybe you start off with a joke, maybe you leave with a joke, maybe you say, God bless you, be well, whatever it might be, they know that comes with you. and I think when you scale, you shouldn't lose that. So if you're somebody says, you know, may God be with you or be well or stay healthy, every time you sign off, that should still stick with it even when you've got 50 people working with you.
I think because those are the pieces that help distinguish you and make people connect with you. And it's not just thanks, you know, thanks and a signal.
Bernie (43:05)
Not for profits and charities, how do they differ from a regular business? Or do they?
Joey (43:10)
they do and they don't. So non-for f non-for-profits and charities, they still have an end goal. They still come with goals, they still come with they don't have sales numbers, but they have things they need to meet. So donations, fundraisers. So from a business running a business type perspective, they're not that very far from a regular business. It's just
how you're looking at what their goals are or what their numbers are, they might be called difference. So, you know, the fundraiser has to meet this number to make sure that we pay the vendor and then we also make money to put towards whatever event or whatever cause we're pushing money forward to or whoever we're going to help. So when you work in those spaces, the messaging will be definitely different. The community is usually stronger because everybody is
they are unified for a specific reason. But from a business standpoint, you can look at it just like a regular business. What are their goals? What are their, what do they need to meet and what numbers do they want to be able to help move them forward?
Bernie (44:15)
So at the end of the day, are we building audiences or renting attention?
Joey (44:20)
I think it depends on what you do with it. And it's a challenge. I think some places just rent attention and I think other places build an audience and usually you can tell the difference by their n by their vanity metrics, like what's going on and who's doing what. So if you have 20 followers.
But you have nine likes and you have three comments and that happens consistently over time. You're not renting anybody's attention. Those people are invested in whatever you're saying or doing or sharing because they're there for you and they are supporting you and your business or whatever it is you happen to be doing. I think you rent attention when you start to only look for numbers. You do things like follow for follow. I'll follow you if you follow me back. And when you stop following me, I'm gonna stop following you.
You allow all the what I call the nonsense accounts and the bot accounts to live in your followers because they elevate your numbers versus actually being an audience that matters. So not clearing out that is problematic over time because it doesn't give you a good reflection of what's going on. But I think those accounts that live in that space that I have a huge number of followers, and then you go and start to look at their actual.
individual posts and they have 2,000 followers, two likes and zero comments consistently, they've done nothing but occasionally caught somebody's eye and they're an account to follow, but nobody's paying much mind. Much like when something goes viral, that's only going to go viral for a short amount of time because it it happened in that moment or in those moments. And after that, you may get a lot of followers from it, but if nobody's invested in it and you don't have anything interesting, they're
They're empty followers. They're of no value. They're I sometimes try to explain to people, it's like when you go to a sportsing a sporting event, right? And you have people invested in the team in the game, and then you look around, and then you have the audience that's continuously on their phone. Those seeds would have right, if you could have sold those seeds to some really die hard fans.
What's going on during that game is much more impactful than if you sold all those seats to people who were busy looking at other things on their phone and not interested. They're only there because they're there because we had four seats. We're there because we went as couples. We're there because you know, somebody gives tickets for the holiday. And I told my husband he couldn't go without me because, you know, that was our gift. Where really maybe if your husband and his best friend went, they would have enjoyed the game.
and invest in it where he's enjoying the game and you're wondering what the kids are doing, checking your Instagram. So I think it's the same type of thing. You get people invested and you get people casually viewing. And the goal would be ultimately is to get those people that are invested committed to what you're doing. Because even if you only have seven of them, that's going to do more for you than if you have 70 who do nothing or who pay no mind.
Bernie (47:14)
as a wrap up, you have a special offer. What's that all about?
Joey (47:18)
so I do have a special offer. Thank you, Bernie. it's called a digital snapshot. And what it is, is it analyzes a business's account and lets them know where how they're presenting digitally, how they show up digitally. And it expands past our social media. It will do some very basic SEO analysis. It will talk about social media. It will let you know about how your website is doing.
where you're lacking if you have Google reviews or if you fell off on them. So it's a really nice full picture of what's going on with you well your business online and where you could improve or where you're really killing it. So it's a nice it's only a couple pages long. I go through them with people, you know, to say to them, hey, you're doing a really good job here. Who do you have working on that? Do you have anybody working on it? And
you could do better here and what is that gonna look like for you? Is it something you can add into next year's goals? Do you want to do it yourself? You know, like things like Google Reviews, people come in, there's two camps. They love them, they hate them. And those are the types of things when you talk to business owners, but you need them. So what are you gonna do to get them? And are you gonna just do an email blast? Are you gonna just put up a QR code? Are you gonna ask people and you know cherry pick your very best customers?
but the the digital the digital snapshot gives you sort of like a well-rounded view of like what is actually going on online from start to finish for your business. And are people seeing you? And if they are, where and if they're not, where did you where are you invisible? So I think it's a really eye-opening type of thing for business owners. And it's you know, it's just data. So it's like nobody can be insulted by data. That's how I look at it. You shouldn't be insulted.
If we go over a snapshot report and I'm telling you you're not doing great in local SEO, that's not an insult. That's just data telling me you're not showing up the way you potentially could. And then there's a conversation because all the things I do in social media touch other pieces. They touch other pieces of marketing. They're they're never standalone. I mean, your Google Business profile lets you now list your social media handle, your social media profiles right on it. So you know they're all being integrated.
So it's where are you showing up? How are you doing while you're there? Where are you failing? And what can you do about it? And then you start to expand the conversation. And then if it's very social media driven, we can go into where you're struggling in social media or what channels you're struggling on, or maybe you want to open up a new one. But the digital snapshot report is really great. And I think for any business owner, it's well worth having just for information. And if you do it once.
Save my email, save, save my contact information. It's fine. you can just come back in a year and say, hey, I had one last year with you. I'm wondering how I'm doing this year. So I think it's really important for people to know how they're performing overall online, not just in a single space.
Bernie (50:07)
Joey, yeah, I wanna say thank you. so how do we reach you and and where where like where do your clients live? Are they live just in your community, continental US, North America, global?
Joey (50:21)
I have clients all across the continental US only because I have not just really found a client yet in Canada or in Europe. And I say that, but I also am very aware that some of the rules in in Europe and some of the rules that are in Canada for what I do may be a little bit different. Again, if you abide by community standards.
I can't imagine that anything I wouldn't say in America I would then free for all in Canada because I'm pretty sure I would get the same response and it might not be pretty at all.
Bernie (50:52)
I'm not as I'm worried. I don't think you'll have a problem.
Joey (50:55)
No, I maybe you guys are less sensitive. Maybe that's the word I want to use. Maybe, maybe Canadians are a little less sensitive sometimes. but in general, because of the nature of my business and their Zoom and there's email, I can virtually work with a client anywhere the client is or anywhere the client chooses to be. So they don't even have to be in the same space if they have a a service-based business somewhere or a coaching business.
the easiest way to get in touch with me would be my website, which is 74 social.media. So we're a dot media, not a dot com. So 74 social dot media. you can also just email me again, very easy Joey, Joe E Y at 74social dot media. I am on LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, TikTok, all the all the social places you'd expect to see my business.
Or you can actually call or text at nine one four three six five seven four one one and that has the you know the number one in front of it because from calling from Canada you have to put the US exchange on.
Bernie (52:00)
Joey Keating, thank you so much. The Knack 4 Business listeners, thank you for listening. And you know, we've gone from chemistry to marketing. And so Joey has the eye for detail, and that's where you're gonna kind of build and prosper from her looking at the marketing and looking at this at the strategy of deploying your content. because at the end of the day, regardless of whether you're a chamber of commerce, non-for-profit, small business.
You're you're looking for that clarity, getting found in a in a crowded world. And that's kind of the key. To reach us, it's infocreativeinsight.com. Our website is knack4rbusiness.com. So the the word knack, the number four, and then business dot com. And we have a web indexer chat bot that's attached to it. And you can research out other podcasts that are that are stored behind the scenes. Thank you very much.