Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Bill, hi there, and welcome to the biz communication Show. I’m your host, Bill Lambton, the biz communication guy, bringing you tips and strategies that will boost your business. And those tips and strategies come from my energetic conversation with a Biz communication show guest today, I’m delighted to welcome to the biz communication show as our guest and expert, Paige Raskin, from the Atlanta, Georgia area. You know, social media is about so much more than food. Pictures, selfies are getting noticed in the job market. Social media platforms like LinkedIn, Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have become valuable tools for business and for personal branding, they can be used to elevate your brand and your business. However, if you don’t have a strategy, these platforms could be doing more harm than good. As a Communication Consultant, Paige Raskin specializes in social media strategy, helping entrepreneurs, solopreneurs and organizations of all sizes, understand how to navigate social media and business communication in a digital world, her approach is all about understanding how to speak to your target audience while having a little fun in the process, and believe me, she does that. Paige raskins, message to anybody trying to navigate these platforms would be to stop, stop talking at your audience and start talking to your audience. So it’s a delight and a pleasure to welcome Paige Raskin, hello, Paige, Hi, Bill. How are you? I’m just so delighted to have a conversation with you about social media with your tips and strategies you’ll share that so many of us need. And let’s go back to the beginning. I noticed that you had a prior career and athletics and hospitality, yeah? Well, there could be some transition and some reason, some steps that took you to become the widely recognized social media expert that we know. Tell us how you how you got into this arena,
Paige Raskin
yeah, how I landed here. So honestly, I worked for years in the private country club industry, running events, socials, aquatics, fitness, but in my personal life, I was always on social media. I’m gonna age myself a little bit here. I’m obviously the generation that grew up with MySpace, Facebook, you know, you name it. We were on it the generation before the internet. But then also that grew up with the Internet. So I was always on the platforms doing things. And I honestly just through all the years of my career in hospitality and athletics, people would always come to me always, right? We need to do a business post on social media. Can you help? Paige, please? We need to post an event that we’re doing at the facility, but we have to do it on Facebook. Please help. So I kind of just naturally was the go to person for those things. And then about almost nine years now, when I became a mom, I had to kind of embrace, you know, career change. What am I going to do? Am I going to go back to work? Am I going to do my own thing? And I had a very, very dear friend who said, what if you just did social media like in communication, you love it. You’re good at it. Why don’t you just do that? So on a whim, I created a Facebook group for moms in the metro Atlanta area. It ended up exploding at 5000 real life members in the Atlanta area. It became like a hub for people to find things to do. Businesses were reaching out to me to bring my followers there. So, you know, that was kind of the, probably the capitalist, that made me realize, Okay, I think I could do this. And then also, as a jiu jitsu athlete, I got my start in influencer marketing. So I. Is doing some influencer marketing again, for businesses here and there, and, you know, just somewhere along the line, I said, I’m I’m going to do this. I love it. It’s fun. Why can’t I have a job that is fun, that I enjoy So, long story short, I have always been doing social media, and I just finally embraced it as a career. And then about two years ago, decided to go back to school and complete my degree in communication from Georgia State. So I’m almost done with that, but that is kind of the story of how I ended up here.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Fascinating. And my gosh, you’re a you’re a very busy professional with motherhood and finishing a degree and serving all your clients. And so you do indeed have the high energy and that comes across on social media. And for those who deal with you now as a social media strategist, communication professional, one of the things that you run up against is we’re in still a sort of a do it yourself era, and there’s so many people who say, Well, Gosh, why would why would I need to spend money on a social media expert? I mean, look, I can do these things myself, and I’m sure you’ve had to face that objection a lot of times, whether it’s spoken or not. You you have to overcome that. So let’s say I ask you that question myself. Paige, I’m I’m doing okay on social media. I’m learning some things about it every day. So what would be the benefit of having a full time professional takeover for me? Yeah.
Paige Raskin
So my first response is always, I am going to say this with the utmost love and respect and kindness to the person I’m talking to. Do you know how to do a post, meaning you know how to type it in and hit post? Or do you actually understand how people interact on social media? Do you understand the psychology behind non verbal communication, the imagery, right? So I run into that all the time. And here’s the main thing I remind people of yes, do you know how to use social media? Absolutely. Lots of people can use Instagram, lots of people can use Facebook, lots of people can use LinkedIn. But where I come in is helping them understand the strategy behind it from a business standpoint, right? So someone might say, hey, this post was really great, and I liked it, and it was my top post. That’s where I come in as a strategist. And I say, was it your top post, or were ton of those people that interacted with that content, content, excuse me, either already clients, was it your mom and your aunt? You know? Like, let’s get down to the meat of who do we want to speak to? How do we want them to perceive us on social media? And are you actually doing that for business, or do you just know how to take a picture and hit post again, said with the utmost love and respect.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Well, you, you also mentioned the word and and all of your your online descriptions of what you do, you mentioned the word branding. Tell us a little bit about that.
Paige Raskin
Yeah. So in terms of branding, it’s really about what you want your audience, your viewers, your potential clients, to feel. What do they feel when you post this picture? What do they feel with the words that you wrote? Right? So from a strategy standpoint, and again, to your question about the DI wires. Are you choosing those words because they sound good to you, or are you choosing words that are going to speak to your target audience? So from a branding perspective, again, what do they feel about you and your brand? Do they feel like you are a high level, you know, industry person? Are you a thought leader? Do they feel like you’re someone that they can just connect with? Do they feel like you’re someone that, you know, to your point, we spoke earlier about a lot of people have kind of a facade, especially on LinkedIn, you know, they’re very professional and prim and proper and like, does that make people want to connect with you? So from a branding standpoint, that’s where I really like to get into the meat of things, with people getting to know them, getting to know their brand, and then helping them translate that on social media in a fun, authentic yet professional way.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Yes, fun is your your middle name. I like the fact that you. Talk about the emotional side, because Aristotle talked about three methods of persuasion, logic, reason and character. And also, in that he talked about emotion, it’s, it’s, we really don’t want people, I’m thinking, we really don’t want people just to look at our stuff online and say, That’s okay if that’s good. We really want emotional involvement. And I assume that’s one thing that you truly work with clients on is creating an emotional connection? Yes,
Paige Raskin
exactly. So one of the things I like to tell people to kind of explain that exact point, the emotional connection, what is going to help you connect with them? What is going to be the catalyst for connection? So, how are we showing up in a way that makes people feel emotionally connected to you? So that’s where, again, to the DIY point, if you take a picture because you think it looks good, what does it make someone feel obviously, you having the background that you do, you would probably understand that a little bit more. But to the everyday solopreneur entrepreneur that’s just trying to run their business. There are a lot of times just taking pictures and posting it without any sort of thought behind. Is this going to create a feeling for the viewer? My favorite analogy is, why did you like the book? Why did you like the movie? Why did you like the song? Because it created a feeling for you. It gave you a memory. It gave you a sense of something. It made maybe it gave you goosebumps, like it made you have an emotion that helped you remember it, which means you’re going to remember, oh my gosh, that was my favorite movie, and you’re very quick to recall that, right? So it’s the same thing for business and branding. I want your content to create an emotion for someone so that later when they need you for whatever professional services you provide, your content created so much of an emotion for them, whether it’s happy, sad, fun, inspirational, whatever it is based on your brand, that you are at the top of the mind, right? Like you are who they think of immediately because of that really great emotional connection they had with you through social media.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
There’s one word we haven’t mentioned yet, but I would assume it’s central to what you help clients with, and that’s the word story, yeah,
Paige Raskin
yeah, it’s really about storytelling, and especially going into 2025, right? Social media has had such a vast change from 20, we’ll say 10. You know, how many ever years people have been using social media. It is ever changing, evolving. It is about storytelling. So the thing that people, I don’t want to say, they make the mistake, but kind of where they miss the boat, is especially for business, which is my wheelhouse, right? Helping someone understand how to use these social media platforms for business would be having those connections, the authenticity coming through the emotional connection, like, how are we connecting with them in a way that makes them want to have a conversation with us in the DMS? Right? So that story telling, we’re telling them a story. We are allowing them to be on the journey with us. They feel like they’re getting to know us. I was just on a coaching call the other day with a client, and we were talking about the evolution of her content, right? So a lot of times, clients are, oh, this has to be perfect. And dadada, so social media is a story. People want to feel like they’re seeing the evolution of you, your brand. How are you growing? How are you changing? How are you showing up? So storytelling is a huge part of that, right? Like it’s all think of your content as your story. It’s your book, right? It’s your virtual book. I should say it’s almost like your eBook to your business for your viewers.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
One of the things that I’ve been saying for years is that as children, our ears perked up when we heard once upon a time our parents are a sitter, are a cousin or a sibling, would signal with once upon a time they were going to tell us a story. And Paige, we’ve never really outgrown that. No,
Paige Raskin
we haven’t. And I love that you said that. So the Once Upon a Time signifies that you’re about to hear a story. So it’s the same thing in your content. I’m going to give away one of my favorite tips here. So. When you are writing on social media and you’re trying to tell a story, you don’t say, I’m about to tell you a story. You just start the story so with content. And I’m sure you’ve seen this with your followers or other people on LinkedIn, they’ll say, Hey, I’ve been thinking, dada, dada. And then they try to go into their story, nine times out of 10, we are getting people when they are in the middle of doing other things, they’re distracted, they have a lot of stuff going on. You have to get to the point. I had a professor recently that said you have to tell them what you’re going to tell them, and then you have to tell them what you’re going to tell them, right? So the way I bring that to what I do with clients is you need to be punchy with your first statement, right? So, for example, if I’m going to share this content later, instead of saying, Hey everyone, I did this great interview podcast, let me tell you about Dr Bill. No, what I would probably do is say, oh oh my gosh. I could hardly look at the camera correctly because I kept wanting to look all over the place. Check out this interview and learn more, right? So I’m going to give them a reason to keep reading. I’m going to be authentic. I’m going to immediately start with my story. I’m not going to do some big build up, right? Because that’s what a lot of people do on LinkedIn. I’m sure you’ve noticed they’ll do this build up. This, build up of something, and then they get to their point, and then they have a call to action at the bottom right. So instead, if you’re telling a story like, tell them what you’re going to tell them. Hey guys, I did this great interview. Oh my gosh. I had so much fun talking about things that we talked about. Also Funny story, I had a really hard time looking at the camera, even though Dr Bill Lambton told me to look at the camera, right? So I’m I’m kind of sandwiching it all together. I’m telling them what I’m going to tell them. I’m giving them a reason to show up. I’m also being real, because it’s social media. This is not your website. This is not your E blast. This is your, Hey, look. This is me, but also I’m a professional, and also I enjoy what I do. So check out this content, right? We are giving them an opportunity to choose to engage with us, rather than assuming they’re always going to engage.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Well, you’re you’re underscoring what I’ve seen instructions about consistently over the last year or so. And that is, yeah, get her done.
Paige Raskin
As a Georgia girl, I love these, yes, get her done.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Just get right to it. You know, we, we don’t need all, all the lead up page, I could not possibly host a social media expert without talking about some of the major mistakes that I’ve made, that all of us have made, that you would caution. Caution us again. So we’ll be right back in just a few seconds to talk about that. Get your expertise on that. Do you
Speaker 1
wish you felt confident about giving speeches? Do you want to deal with difficult people constructively? And what about becoming more persuasive in sales? Then keep listening now to Dr Bill Lambton. He spent 20 years in management, so he knows the communication skills you need for success. I urge you to call the biz communication guy today for a no cost, but very valuable, 30 minute discussion about your communication challenges. Call now 678-316-4300, again, that’s 678-316-4300, row,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
we’re here on the biz communication show with Paige Raskin, who is giving us terrific insights into how to succeed in social media. And for a couple of minutes, we’re going to talk about how not to succeed what page? And you run across them all the time, and you possibly would if you looked at some of my posts, what are some of the major mistakes that you help clients cure or avoid?
Paige Raskin
Yeah, so I think the biggest one would be imagery. That’s probably the biggest thing is, what? What are the graphics? What are the pictures? What do they say about you and your brand, right? What’s in the background? What’s in the words, let’s say you’re doing video content. Are you sharing five videos every couple of days? But they look like you’re wearing the exact same outfit, even though you’ve clipped it right, like it’s a different piece of content. You’ve clipped it, you’ve changed it, people are going to look at your content first with their eyes before they ever choose to click on it. So I think that the biggest mistake would be that people are not giving consideration to the non verbal communication portion that you. Plays a huge part in social media. So what are you what are you wearing? What are you saying? Now, to that point when I say what are you wearing and what are you saying, that is not to say that I need people to show up full makeup suit all the time, right? Like there’s an oven flow to it. So I feel like, what happens? The biggest mistake to kind of sum that up would be people either A, they put way too much pressure on themselves, or B, they don’t give it any consideration at all. They just take a picture. They’re, you know, who knows what’s in the background. They’re something in their teeth, right? Like they’re not giving any consideration. Or they’re so I like to say over produced that it feels a little out of touch, right? So social media is a very like happy medium down the middle. You want it to still be professional, but still be personal, and still have people feel like they can connect with you. So I would say that the biggest thing is definitely the imagery and then the words fill your words, right? Like, what? Why did you choose those words? Why did you choose so many words? Right? Less is more on social media, and I know that might sound counter productive from what other people might say, and when I say less is more, I mean, not every post needs to be a long one. Okay? You don’t need an article every single day. I like to call it a media mix. You need to have a mix of media that can connect with different people. Some people have the time for an article, some people have the time for a quick post. Some people like reading very long post, right? So you have to have a mix of everything. And I think that’s the biggest thing that I see, would be people just sharing content in a way that makes them kind of comfortable or happy, or maybe that is related to content they enjoy, without giving any forethought to what do the other people like? What did they want to hear, how do they like to interact? Because we’re all different. Everyone’s different. Everyone has a different amount of time that they’re spending on social media, a different mental bandwidth for what they’re consuming. So those are probably the big ones that I see.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
What I would add to that is the instant sale I I’ve I’ve said several times on social media that I get more pitches in a week than a major league baseball catcher does in a season. And I often think of it this way, page. If I’m walking down the street of one of Atlanta’s busiest intersections and somebody comes up to me that I don’t know and tries to sell me something, what’s the likelihood that I’m going to respond to them? I don’t know them. I don’t know anything about their background, their organization. So why should that change online? Why should I buy from a total stranger and to me and just just from my observation and the way I handle it? I use a mixed metaphor. I don’t necessarily tell them this, but I say, if you pitch me, you strike out.
Paige Raskin
Yeah, you know, I love that. You say that, because that is also the biggest mistake that people that I almost want to put that first bill I almost want to say, don’t it’s not cold calling. Okay, so stop with the cold DMS. Stop with not paying attention. What gets me to your point of people just walking up on the street and trying to put you on something social media has all the information you need to make the appropriate pitch. So what blows my mind would be when I even get the pitches of people in my DMs that pay no attention to what I do as a professional, and they send me a message that’s like, Hey, I noticed you didn’t have a lot of followers. I’m a social media, you know, expert, maybe, and I’ll help you get more followers
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
at which point, yeah, amazing. Amazing. Yeah. I do actually love
Paige Raskin
those because then I get to explain to them like, Well, I would rather have 500 people that know, like and trust me versus going viral with people that are never actually going to do work with me. But yeah, to your point, the cold DMS get me every time everyone is putting their information out there, why are you not paying attention to who they are before you send all these DMS like build a connection, first,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
we have time for one more question. It’s a very key question, considering what we’re talking about. We’ll be talking about now is fairly recent on the scene, and that is artificial intelligence that I’d like your take on. What are the pluses and minuses? What? What do you advise your clients? Uh, about the use of artificial intelligence, I use it myself. I use it and I guess I would say moderation. I have found advantages to it, but it’s like most technologies, it can be used favorably or it can be abused miserably. What do you advise clients about using artificial intelligence and their social media posting and activities? Yeah,
Paige Raskin
so this is a good one, and I’m I’m going to think and choose my words carefully, because I know lots of people have different opinions on AI. So for me and for the clients that I advise, I will never say never. I should never say never, but I don’t generally say never. Use AI. You have to use AI thoughtfully. You have to fact check, right? So the way I look at it is, if you plug in something and you want AI to give you feedback, does AI know who you want to talk to? Does AI know who you are your personality, right? So people use AI in so many different ways for social media. So the big one that gets me is when people use AI to write their content and then they just copy and paste it. So what that tells me is you assume that your people aren’t going to know it’s AI. Now, if it’s good, if you make an effort to tweak it, add some personalization, understand the ebbs and flow of it, then yes, fine. But what I don’t like to see people do is to say, Oh, I used AI to do two months worth of content and it’s already scheduled and done. Here’s what that tells me, if you used AI to create two months worth of content and you have already scheduled it, and it’s done in less than two hours, it probably is not good. I’m just being honest, it’s it’s probably not going to create the emotion and the feeling that you think it will so even with the clients that I work with that do like to use AI, a lot of what I do is their strategist, and as a consultant is I can kind of help them understand, okay, some of this is usable, some of it is not usable, and here’s how we’re going to get better, but also helping them understand you don’t need AI for a ton of it, if you just show up as yourself, you’re you. AI is not,
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
to me, one of one of your, I think one of your trademarks, from having been acquainted with your work for quite a while, one of your trademarks is helping someone be original and authentic, and the degree to which you rely on artificial intelligence could reduce that. If you stop producing original content and to be candid, you’re just a copycat. You you lose that yeah, charisma that that is you correct,
Paige Raskin
yeah. And, you know, one thing that I think is really important to mention is people don’t connect with content. People connect with feelings. They connect with people. They connect with conversations. You know, I did a post a while back about what is the catalyst for connection? Was it because they felt like they learned something about you? AI is not going to teach your audience anything about you, because it’s not you. There are easier ways to create your content.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Thank you. Paige Raskin, as I anticipated, this has been a highly informative and as I anticipated, fun conversation. Yes, you’ve given us some terrific guidelines, and I know that there are those who would like to find out how to get more information from you. So if you want to share your contact information or whatever, please do. Yeah,
Paige Raskin
so you can always contact me on LinkedIn, just shoot me a DM direct message. Don’t send me a sales pitch, just send me a hello message. And you can also find me on Instagram at social media strategies that work
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
and finding her will be a real benefit for those who do it. Thank you so much, Paige, and now that you’ve given your contact information, I will gladly give mine, my YouTube channel. Bill Lampton, PhD, since 2007 I have been posting instructional videos on YouTube, and they match everybody’s favorite word, they’re free, and the last few years hosting the biz communication show, as evidenced and my conversation today with Paige Raskin, I have also offered insights of other people. People, not just my own. And when you’re on my YouTube channel, I invite you to subscribe there my website, since I’m the biz communication guy, quite logically, my website is biz communication guy.com. To subscribe to my podcast, and this is a part what we’re doing now as part of a video podcast, audio podcast. So to subscribe, you can do that on my YouTube channel, and then certainly I do want to hear from you. Talk about, at no obligation, talk about your communication challenges and problems, and how I can assist you with those. And now Paige, one of the things I like to do with a highly qualified guest, and certainly you fit that, is to ask we’ve had this dialog, and we both like to call it a conversation instead of an interview. We’ve had this conversation. How would you sort of pull it together in a half a minute or a minute as a a nugget people can take with them? Uh,
Paige Raskin
yeah, show up as yourself on social media. Stop stressing. Ai, is not bad if you understand how to use it. And you really need a strategy like you need a strategy for business, social media communication like you cannot just push out content without any thought of how it’s going to affect your audience and connecting with people. Just you gotta connect with people. Conversations. Build connections, not just the content.
Bill Lampton Ph.D.
Thank you so much. Thanks to those of you who joined us on the biz communication show. Be with us next week for another fascinating guest so that we can have conversations that you listen to, that you participate in, and therefore boost your communication skills and strategies. I’m Bill Lambton, the biz communication guy. You
Paige Raskin
That was good. I
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
