Marketing etiquette, social media pet peeves, genius ideas; we’re covering it all! The internet is a big world, and with every brilliant idea, there are some that just fall flat. We’ve got our picks from current social media trends and we want your help deciding if you LOVE IT or are OVER IT.
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Read The Full Discussion Below
Sarah: Here we are!
Glyna: Yep.
Sarah: We have a really fun show today. We’re going to have a lot of laughs because we’re here to talk about social media trends that we see across the internet and either we just love it and can’t get enough of it, or we’re just like this needs to go away forever. We had a lot of fun going through these and we want to share this with you all and see if you agree with us on what we’re calling, “love it or over it”. So let’s get going, shall we?
Glyna: Yes! We’re here at Marketing Mix in case you didn’t know. Every week, Sarah and I like to highlight different marketing trends and the mix comes in because we like to mix it up. We may have some Q&As. We may cover some trends, may compare some things, or we might just have a little fun like we’re going to today talking about just things we see on the internet and kind of share our feelings about it. So let’s look at our broadcast real quick.
Sarah: You got it. All right. Don’t forget. Every week we go live on Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter, and you can catch the replay on Instagram and LinkedIn. We’d love for you to start subscribing to our podcast Marketing and a Mic. We’re so proud of it. It’s just something great to listen to in the car or working from home. Make sure you do that. And of course, subscribe to our YouTube channel. Another one that we’re proud of, but all of this is really just resources for everyone to use. Tip all that. That’s what we’re about. Free, free, free, free, free!
Glyna: I already see Roxie. She’s the first one here this morning. Roxie Kelley. Good morning, Roxie! It looks like we do have some other early birds, but we can’t see you unless you comment. So throw us a comment so that we can say hi to you.
Sarah: This is really funny because we talked about this. We had such a long list. We had to cut it down, which is quite hilarious, but you know, we all… Internet’s a big, big world and we all come across stuff that either we just think, “This is awesome. What a great trend.” Or we’re just like, “We’re done seeing this.” So we want to get through it. And we really want to hear if you agree or don’t agree with us. So let’s jump right in, on our number one pick, shall we?
Glyna: Yes. So let me get this right. We’re either going to love it? Or we are over it?
Sarah: Yes.
Glyna: Okay. So we want to know what you think also see Allen and Harry joining in this morning. So let us know what you think about this. So, all right. The first one… Again, we had fun coming up with this list. Love it, or over it. The woman yelling at the cat meme?
Sarah: Yeah. Have you ever seen this one?
Glyna: I’m over it.
Sarah: Way over it.
Glyna: We’re so over it.
Sarah: Way over it. Oh my gosh. Not funny anymore.
Glyna: Kelsi said she’s over it. Harry’s over it. I say that but it makes me giggle every time I see that stupid cat. I think the cats funnier than the lady. Roxie’s over it. Yeah you know, everybody fell in love with that. The origination of it was so weird. I think the lady came from like the Housewives of something. One of those shows and… Harry, “Was it ever funny?” And then the cat was like some guy’s cat that he thought was hilarious, that he put in that position. Then along comes somebody who just put them together and that’s how it all started. Isn’t that crazy?
Sarah: Oh, and the memes that have come from this, I’m just like, “Holy cow.” But I was like, “This isn’t that funny to me” and then all of a sudden it just went nuts. When something goes viral or breaks the internet, everyone is sharing or talking about it. But to me, it gets too far. You know, I kind of almost feel that way about the Bernie Sanders meme too.
Glyna: We had Bernie on our list and we knocked that one-off.
Glyna: What, you say with memes, there’s really a four-part cycle to them, right?
Sarah: Yeah. Yeah. There are like four phases. This is like, what I can say is that this meme is created and it starts from some sort of like pop culture moment. Then phase two is it like breaks the internet and everybody is sharing it and talking about it and they’re putting their own spin on it. And then there are two more phases.
Glyna: Yeah. So you’re right. It transcends the internet. People start making their t-shirts and their own versions. Now the versions are very… Some of them were pretty funny. I got to admit that, but people make their own, but then it gets kind of overused and boring and it’s kind of like, “Okay, you guys are stretching this out a little far.” And then it just kind of needs to go away. I say we’re both over it, but here I am kind of giggling at it, thinking about it again. But I’m still sticking with it. Over it!
Sarah: Because it’s so stupid. Sometimes those things are so stupid or like… You can’t forget it.
Sarah: Okay. Let’s move on to one another one. And this…We got a little marketing spin on stuff, but shoppable posts…
Glyna: Yeah. Can you explain what that is first?
Sarah: Shoppable posts, we’ve all seen them, but it’s pretty much where you can shop on social media. You see these little online boutiques and there’ll be that little circle that’s on the shirt or whatever the product is. You can click on it and go ahead and purchase it straight from that post or it can take you to a link to go to the website. It makes it so seamless and easy. That’s pretty much why we all love Amazon was because of the convenience. So shoppable posts, what do we think? Do we love it?
Glyna: I love, love, love it.
Sarah: Who doesn’t love “easy” and just clicking?
Glyna: I love it because you’re right…Well, I’m an Amazon crazy person. That’s just all there is to it and the easier you can make something to purchase, then the more you’re going to sell of it. It’s just obvious. Especially the more people that are on the internet, which is more and more and more people every day. Yeah. I love it and the cool thing about these shopping carts, Sarah, is that you can populate Facebook, your website, Amazon, different places all at the same time. So, all your products it used to be, you could just put them on a website. Now they’re available all over the place. Even then it’s easy to tag posts and linked to the seller’s website and it’s just, I’m so excited about it. It looks like Kelsi’s excited about it. She said, “Love it. But get bummed when I see a product I love and it doesn’t have a link to buy.” That’s right! Because you get so used to it.
Sarah: Yeah, we get spoiled about it, right? We’re like, “I see this outfit or see this product and I want it. I need to click on it and get it.”
Glyna: Roxie said she hasn’t used one yet. Roxie try it. I mean, unless you want an addiction. No, I’m kidding. Try it. And yeah, Kelsi said, “It’s spoiling me.” Harry said he hasn’t used it. But based on the boxes that are on his porch every day, his wife probably loves it. Same here. Same Harry.
Sarah: That’s a good indication. “Somebody’s been shopping!” Oh, that’s so funny. There are always those spouses too, that have to try to beat the Amazon truck or whatever it is truck, to try to shuffle it in the house before the spouse comes home.
Glyna: I wouldn’t know what you’re talking about.
Sarah: “I’m seeing a lot of new stuff in here.” “No.” Oh gosh. Okay. We’re going to get to number three.
Glyna: All right. Love it or over. Purpose-Driven Campaigns. We’ll explain what this is as we get into the love it or over it. Well, I will say that I love it.
Sarah: I’m over it. I know and maybe because I’m the tin man and have no emotion.
Glyna: If you want to make Sarah cry, you’re not going to be able to. She’s just over it, period.
Glyna: All right. So Purpose-Driven Campaigns. Basically what happened in 2020 is when COVID hit and all the businesses were struggling and thinking, “What the heck are we going to do?” People wanted to get real. We all were stuck at home on the internet, but everybody still wanted that real connection. So, brands trying to come up with ideas to include people, even though it was on the internet, they would include real people. Maybe how they were using the brand, highlighting them, talking about the brand. Just people had to get on the internet and try to be purposeful. And again, real in 2020. So that’s basically what we’re talking about. You had to invest in the community, invest in people, and just talk about the passions of your product. Kind of move from, “We sell this, this, this, this, this” to how can we relay it to normal people and their emotions?
Sarah: Yeah. That was what it was all about was that we’re going to put our focus on the people and the emotions and what’s going on in their lives and kind of find a way to get into that conversation. But to me, unless it’s done well, it’s fake, to me. I am not everybody to fully realize it. My husband tells me, “Where’s your emotional compass sometimes?” I guess that’s the skeptic in me is I always look at it as if you’re playing on someone’s emotions. I don’t know. I don’t need to hear everybody’s personal story in order to decide if I want to do something. So, that’s kind of my take on it is I’m more about like, tell me about the product, like bypass everybody. But that being said, a lot of people really, that’s how they decided they want to do something. They need to feel a connection to it or a personal like, “Oh, you hear me? You know me.” And I love that. So, obviously, that’s a preference thing. It’s working very well for companies.
Glyna: I’ll say I follow… We always talk about keto stuff a lot. But I follow a lot of people that are experts in that realm and there’s a couple that Dr. Barry and his wife Neesha, they pull it off perfectly because they are real. They’re showing you. It just depends on what she feels like. She may fix her hair. She may not, she may have makeup on, she may have her, whatever. I mean, she doesn’t care. So she is being real and their connection really helps personalize things. So, they pull it off to the hilt. That’s one of the great examples, but I’m like you. Some of it can come off a little fake if you don’t do it right. So I get it.
Sarah: Yeah. You got to be authentic with it. So, all right next up, Instagram stories. So what do we think, Glyna? Love it or over it? Let’s put it up at the same time. Love it. Okay. I need to hear why you’re over it.
Glyna: I think maybe this isn’t fair on me because I’m over it on a personal level. Then people trying to use it for their business, but they’re not doing it right. So, I’m looking at the mechanics, which is kind of weird. Most people don’t get on Instagram from the mechanics of it or the business part of it. But I don’t want to hear the story of your life and I also don’t want to hear it as it goes on and on and on and on. Story after story, after story. The stories are what, 15 seconds? If you can’t make your point in 15 seconds, you shouldn’t be on stories.
Sarah: Yeah. I hear you. I hear you. So does anybody that’s watching, do you use Instagram stories? Do you love it? Do you not love it? Are you over it? Think it’s useless? Love it? We want to know.
Sarah: I mean, I get you on that. The rants, it just continues and continues and continue. Here’s the thing. You’ve got to know how to use Instagram stories and that’s the key. It’s really becoming one of the top engagement tools. Rob says, “All stories.”
Glyna: Rob is coming from another vantage point of hearing us complain about trying to post to stories…all us social media people.
Sarah: Oh my gosh. But see, here’s my opinion about it with Instagram stories. When I really got it in there and realize all of its capabilities, it’s kind of genius because there’s so much interaction you can do with it. And it’s becoming one of the most popular things on Instagram. You could do like polls, you can do all these like, this or that. What do you think? All of it is just getting people to engage and that’s obviously what it’s all about. It’s like any social media platform. You stay on their page and you’re hanging out there. They love it. So I don’t know. I mean, I just love it, but I’m with you when I see it when people are overusing it or they’re using it in the wrong way.
Glyna: Well, I mean, do you care if somebody is going to cut their bangs?
Sarah: Let me do a poll, should I cut my bags, yes or no?
Glyna: But again, that’s kind of funny and we could be talking about two different things, personal and business. So they’re kind of two different things. We have Gayle joining us today and Gayle’s like, “Don’t use them.” Yeah. I’m kind of with you Gayle and they don’t stay there. That’s the thing and I get it, I probably sound really old, but I want to scroll through all of the posts and be able to see them and go back and find one if I need to. And then the stories are gone. What’s the shelf life, 24 hours?
Sarah: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Glyna: 24 hours. Kelsi’s like, “Does it get higher priority though than regular posts?”
Sarah: It does.
Glyna: Well, there you go.
Sarah: It sure does, and I’ll tell you if you do it well, you have to do it frequently. But I think that’s what entices people about it is because it’s so short-lived, so every day you’re like, “What are they doing?” It is kind of storytelling in a way, but it’s got to be done well for businesses, like making announcements or “check this out”. Because it’s so interactive. That’s what everybody wants. They want something they can interact with. So that’s kind of what-
Glyna: True. I get that part of it and I guess if I’m thinking business purposes and they’re using it correctly, then I could switch my vote. I don’t know if I’d say “love”.
Sarah: You’re at the “like” phase, maybe. You’re still dating Instagram stories. You don’t know how you feel. Oh gosh. Okay. Number five. Accepting a stranger’s friend request. Put this through your mind. You’re accepting a stranger’s friend requests, and then they immediately start selling to you. How did we feel? No, I wish I could hold two “over it” signs.
Glyna: I can just leave it up here.
Sarah: Oh my gosh.
Glyna: Let me tell you. People are… Especially LinkedIn. Oh my gosh. I get them every single day. Every day. First of all, the first clue is don’t friend me, and then just try to sell, sell, sell, sell, sell. So, sometimes I look and say, “Okay, well they know other people that I know. So maybe I can trust it a little bit.” But as soon as you get on there, then they send you a message trying to sell to you. As soon as you see that message come through you’re like, “Oh man, now I have to go back and disconnect from them.” I guess you could say. I mean, they may even have the greatest product ever, but I can’t even look at it because it’s just annoying to me. Oh, this is funny. This is getting some people going here, Allen, “I started blocking.” Harry, “Who in their right mind would accept a stranger’s friend request?”
Glyna: I guess I’m not in my right mind… If they look interesting.
Sarah: Well, you know what they say, like mutual friends. So they’ll say somebody wants to connect and you have 10 mutual friends. You think, “Well, that’s safe.” Right?
Glyna: Yeah, no. Gayle says she agrees. Allen, “Insta-block.”
Sarah: Funny. Well, here’s the thing, I get it. You’re passionate about your product. You’re passionate about whatever you’re selling. You feel like you’ve got something really good, but sending a friend request, just so you could sell something is just not okay. It’s not okay on every level. I just think, if you’re enthusiastic about it, you want to make a sale. Like whatever. But just like don’t bypass etiquette. Don’t bypass just the right thing to do. And also, this drives me crazy big time when you tag like 800 people. You know how all of a sudden you see you were tagged in something and you’re like, “Why was I tagged in this random post?” And you go on and see it and it’s about something someone is selling. They just sit there and tag everybody they know and when you add somebody to a group without asking them. It’s like still, “so and so just added you to this group about some random thing”. I’m like, “What are you doing? You don’t have my permission.” Has that happened to you, or anybody out there?
Glyna: It’s happened to me and I’ll have to almost admit that I have probably maybe done that before.
Sarah: I almost spit my coffee.
Glyna: You weren’t expecting that. But I learned my lesson. I learned my lesson.
Sarah: Yeah. I’m like, “Glyna quit adding me to all these groups.”
Glyna: Well, I’d think somebody would be interested in it.
Sarah: Live and learn. Yeah, that drives me crazy. I just think, “Don’t do it.” It’s just gross, gross, gross.
Glyna: Gayle’s even saying they’re doing it to her on her personal Facebook page too. Most of it’s my personal LinkedIn where they’re getting me.
Sarah: Yeah. It’s just tacky. I just feel… Let’s court a little bit. Don’t just start selling to me, but I don’t even know you. Okay. We’ve put that one to bed. Number six. Using personal pages as business pages. And I’m not knocking on anybody if you’re watching, but this is really to help you and want to know how do we feel. If you use your personal page as your business page, how do we feel? Over it.
Glyna: This is for us to help you. All right, the reasons…It’s not because you’re really doing anything wrong and I’ll tell you what, depending on what industry you’re in, sometimes personal pages have their place over business pages. If you’re trying to make that personal connection. So, we can’t totally say that we’re over it, but we’re talking about if you’re running a business then you want to consider having a business page if you’re wanting to do these things. So with a business page, it’s really cool that you can have multi-user management. Basically, you can have different roles, different permissions, which we’ve always talked about, own your own stuff, make that you are the owner of all your pages, and then just add people in. If they have to help you as an editor or something that doesn’t have quite the amount of access that you do. So, it allows for that multi-user management. Paid ads. If you’re wanting to run any kind of paid pay-per-click or paid ads on social media, you have to do it from a business page. Your business page is going to allow you to target different people, increase the reach and just promote your business overall to the people. And again, how many times have we talked about this, your demographics, people that buy your stuff. I can’t do that on a personal page. Then insights. You go do all this work and then you’re going to be able to look at all the insights. And what insights are is, it tells you how well your ads are doing. Who’s looking at it? What the demographic is. So that way you can look at the ones that are doing well and do more of that.
Sarah: So true. I mean, really what it comes down to is you’re losing out on so many features that can help your business. You can’t tag other businesses as well on personal pages. There’s a lot of people that you miss and then on top of that, it’s just like professionalism and credibility. If you want to be taken seriously, you want to present yourself as a business and you’d need to have a business page because it’s kind of builds that trust with people like they’re legitimate. And also just kind of like a privacy and control factor. You can’t control what your friends and family are posting on your personal page. So they start throwing out stuff or saying, “Your aunt called and whatever it is.” And you don’t want them looking through all your personal photos and all that kind of stuff. You just never know. Everybody, when they get on a page, they’re scoping out. So you just plain and simple to me, you’re losing out on a lot of features and you just want to look like a legit business.
Glyna: That’s a good point there. It helps you look like a legit business.
Glyna: Good morning, Steve. He’s joining in, Steve, we’re playing “Love It or Over It”. Tell us when we talk about these topics, are you guys over it or are you loving it? So anyway, but again on your business pages, make sure you have stuff on them.
Sarah: Fill it out correctly. That’s a big one.
Glyna: Don’t just get one to get one.
Sarah: Yeah. That’s exactly right. Do it right. All right. We want to hear what you guys think on this one. Love it or over it? Excessive hashtags. Oh gosh. Glyna, where do we stand on this?
Glyna: Over It.
Sarah: Oh my gosh. All right. Let me show you what we mean. Just read. #thisisahashtagyoucantevenread. #Do #you #get #The #point? So this is how I look at it, Glyna. There are two types of hashtag abusers out there. They are abusers! Here they are. There is the hashtag stringer. The hashtag stringer right here. #thisisahashtagyoucantevenread. They string a bunch of words together and you can’t even read it and it’s literally pointless in the hashtag world. Then the other one is what I call the hashtag stuffer and that is the person that is hashtagging #every #single #word. I can’t handle it. So, I don’t want to rant on it without giving a tip. This is my thing is you need to think about your hashtags as organizing them, organize them by niche and I think of it as a glossary or a table of contents. It helps people find stuff. If you’re a food blogger, for instance, you might upload a picture of a meal. Then start using things like #SuperFoods, #CleanEating, #HealthyFoods, #KetoLife, or whatever, because this is what happens, is people go on Instagram, a lot of these social media platforms and they search by that. So they’ll search by like “clean eating” and then your food blogger posts will pop right up. So, Glyna, how you feel about SEO is how I feel about hashtags.
Glyna: There’s such passion coming from you. You said you didn’t have any.
Sarah: You’re right.
Glyna: You have hashtag passion.
Sarah: Hashtag passion. So don’t be a hashtag stringer, and don’t be a hashtag stuffer.
Glyna: I feel a video coming on.
Sarah: You’re right. You’ve just got my light bulbs going off in my head.
Glyna: Well, Harry said, “What a hashtag?”
Sarah: He says, “#over #it.”
Glyna: Yeah. Good one, Kelsi, “Hashtags must be relevant. Hashtag stuffing is a NO” Exactly. So that’s what the people say. But you can use them in the correct way, make them short and sweet. Let’s not string them out like this crazy one that you came up with it. That’s hilarious. Limit the amount that you use. You need to be relevant. It’s exactly what Kelsi was saying. It has to be relevant to your business. There’s not really a rule of thumb on Instagram. We say that but it seems to change every day. Just make it niche and relevant and also kind of a new thing is that you can do location-based hashtags. Put your location in there. So again, searching, everything’s turning into a search engine almost. So, there are good ways to use them.
Sarah: Yeah. That’s the takeaway is you need to realize that hashtags are becoming a way to search for a lot of users out there. So that’s why you want to really be strategic with them and don’t use the same group of hashtags every single time or these types of hashtags, because actually, the social media platforms look at it as spamming, and that they’ll start disregarding your posts because it doesn’t look authentic. All right, we’re going to round it out with our number eight and we want to see what you think about this. Live streaming.
Glyna: Well, I think it’s pretty obvious.
Sarah: Love, love, love.
Glyna: I think it’s pretty obvious. Since that’s what we’re doing today.
Sarah: Oh my goodness. So do you guys like to live stream or live videos? What do you think? Are we fans of all of this business? I mean, we were thrown into this live stream world from the pandemic, but we’ve settled nicely into it, but does anybody else use it out there? What do you all think?
Glyna: Let me tell you, Harry Slagle. He says he loves it and he tried it way before we were even doing it. This was a true story. I was selling the jewelry on the side, just because I liked to have a little something.
Sarah: A little side hustle?
Glyna: Yeah. And he’s like, “You need to do a Live! Show me your jewelry!” So he tried to convince me way before we even did. So he was ahead of his time. See Harry you’re so innovative.
Sarah: So, let me tell you why I personally love Lives. You can watch it from any location and you could participate from any location. It just broadens your audience and the people that you can reach. So it’s kind of cool and to me it’s become like kind of a new form of traditional TV. There’s like the late-night shows and stuff that they’re using this format, the Golden Globes just did this where the Golden Globes had people waiting Live just like this to accept their award or talk or whatever. So, it’s just really nice to be able to make things happen no matter where you are. I’m a big fan and another thing and this is just us using our marketing heads is that you can repurpose it in so many ways, which is great. So as soon as the video ends, you can reuse it. You can shorten clips, you can put it out everywhere, and here’s a little fun fact for you. Social media algorithms are actually trying to encourage live videos. So right now they’re encouraging live content to help with the visibility because obviously, they do better as a platform if you stay on that platform. So, it’s actually getting priority.
Glyna: Yep.
Sarah: “What’s a Golden Globe?”, Steve. I didn’t watch it, but I heard about it.
Glyna: Harry goes, “So you were the ONE watching The Golden Globes.”
Sarah: I didn’t watch it, but…
Glyna: We heard. We saw clips.
Sarah: Yeah, it tanked by the way. He’s right about that. It tanked, it got like the worst ratings ever. I’ll just leave that there.
Glyna: Well I’m with Kelsi on this one and you and I, we were going to put this one on here and then we said, we’ll wait for another time. But I think it’s worth mentioning. She says, “I don’t want to see someone sitting in their living room, just breathing and staring into the camera, waiting for people to watch them.” I hate that too. It’s like, “Okay, going to wait for some people to come on, let me see. All right, we’re going to wait 20 more minutes to see who’s going to come on…”
Sarah: “We’re just going to sit here, and we’ll wait for the numbers to come up. Wait for a couple more people to come in.” Or if they go Live and they don’t realize they’re Live and they’re sitting there like silly breathing or they’re like, “Oh, are we Live?” Looking for a button.
Glyna: That’s our favorite that you don’t even know you’re Live and Harry and I can tell a pretty funny story about that, but we won’t. All right, let me make my points on this. You can do so much for your business. Engage with your audience in real-time. Like we are today. We’re having a lot of fun with it and there’s easy stuff to use. StreamYard. That’s what we use. It’s easy. Now, if you want all the beautiful graphics, you need to see Sarah. You can do it without all these beautiful graphics and it is very easy, but it kind of helps. So there are easy platforms. We’ll be glad to show you how to use them if you want to. As Sarah mentioned a little bit before, social media is giving some preference to live-streaming. So if you want to rank higher you want to use live streaming. So it helps all over the place. Plus it’s fun. I’d rather do a Live, than recorded video.
Sarah: I hear you. So, I feel like we should do this again sometime. I also want people to bring in their own ideas. Oh, hey LaVon! She said, “I hate that I missed the first part of this.” I’m sure LaVon’s got some things out there that she’s seen that she either loves or is over.
Glyna: Oh, I’m sure. Love it or over it, LaVon. You did miss it, but you can come back and watch it.
Sarah: Roxie, that’s so true. She said, “All business is show business, when the camera’s on, be on!” Be ready! Yep.
Glyna: We have had our experience. We did it once and we weren’t going to embarrass ourselves again. So we switched to StreamYard fast. Something that’s easier to tell that you’re on.
Sarah: Yeah. We were sitting there like, “Are we on? It says we’re on. Are we on?” Kelsi’s texting us, “You’re Live.”
Glyna: Well, I think you and I have even texted each other before saying, “Do you think they know that they’re Live?” There have been some certain circumstances I’m like, “They’re just sitting there. I don’t know if they know.” All right, well this was fun. It was so much fun and again, if there’s anything we can do for you guys, please let us know. We love working with businesspeople and coming up with ideas. So give us a shout. We’d love to help you. And as always, we appreciate you watching and we’ll be back here next Friday at 8:00 AM and till then, have an awesome week.
Sarah: Yes. Thanks for watching. Bye!