In today’s segment of the Atlanta Small Business Show, Jim Fitzpatrick speaks to Skot Waldron, creative direct at Multiple, Inc., branding coach, marketing consultant, and speaker at the Gwinett Small Business Summit hosted by the Gwinnett Chamber of Commerce, to discuss building and improving your businesses content strategies in order to promote your brand.
VIDEO TRANSCRIPT:
Jim Fitzpatrick: We have the pleasure of being joined today by Skot Waldron. So first tell me about the Skot, S-K-O-T. How did you, that’s kind of a cool way to spell Skot.
Skot Waldron: Oh that, yeah Skot with a K, a lot of people know me that way. Sixth grade, I was in the same class as Scott Woodruff and Scott Wilson, so-
Jim Fitzpatrick: Too many Scotts.
Skot Waldron: I couldn’t even put Scott W. on my paper I had to put Scott Waldron on every paper, so in sixth grade I said I’m going to rebrand myself, I would say Skot and I never had to put my last name on any paper ever again.
Jim Fitzpatrick: So fast forward 20, 30 years and you’re a brand genius.
Skot Waldron: I didn’t even have to go to college anymore, just wasted all that money, I should have just that in middle school.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Like that book, Everything you Learned, You Learned in Kindergarten or something or first grade.
Skot Waldron: Exactly, that’s what it was.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well talk to us a little bit about your brand. Brand Coach Marketing Consultant and of course speaker, which you’re going to be speaking today at today’s event. For the people that weren’t able to make it out to today’s event, talk to us about what you’re going to be speaking on.
Skot Waldron: So today I’m focusing more on building content strategies. A lot of the things that I do in my coaching and consulting is I work on strategy and it all boils up to your brand. I’m a brand guy, I come from the branding world. The past 18 years I’ve been doing branding for big corporate clients and then now I’m focusing on small business development and helping them build their brand. I noticed a lot of small businesses are really eager to get a website up and logo and they think they got it, right?
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right, and they’re in business.
Skot Waldron: And they got it, maybe a Facebook page too, right? What I’m trying to help them do is understand that you’ve got to build a strategy and not only with your brand but with your content. Your content, good content builds good relationships. Good relationships build trust, loyalty, makes you more money. So let’s build good relationships, let’s build your brand at the same time and so really I’m talking about social media content strategy today. That’s one thing I focus and coach my clients on so that’s what we’re going to be doing.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Which the social, the entire social landscape has really allowed small businesses to operate now on more of a global scale. Certainly in a local and national scale, right? That’s really given the opportunity to small businesses to begin their own brand. Talk to us about that.
Skot Waldron: Your online presence, there’s a real need for authenticity today, right? We get on, and social media and be kind of that good thing or that bad thing. We can look at social media and compare ourselves to everybody else and think we’re just a big failure or we can look at social media as a learning opportunity and think of a way to be authentic in how we express ourselves and build our own brands online. It gives us … you’re right, it gives us an outlet for people to find us and to see what we’re all about. So small businesses today, they can use social media. Now one of the problems I see with a lot of small businesses today is they think they have to be on every social media platform.
Skot Waldron: They have to be on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Well that’s what kind of media tells us all, right? Oh if you’re in small business you better be everywhere.
Skot Waldron: So what happens if you’re everywhere? You’re kind of nowhere, right, because you only have so much time in the day. A small business owner is limited. Time, resources, money, so being everywhere you’re kind of diluting your efforts. What I really encourage people to do, pick one or two and stick it out.
Jim Fitzpatrick: A lot of small business owners that are listening to us right now that have kind of held off from social media and marketing themselves or their brand or their company in the social world because they think that you’ve got to do that. That you’ve got to be everywhere. You’ve got to tweet 14 times a day. You’ve got to post on Facebook seven times a day. You’ve got to have really good content. Is that the case or can it be done to start out a lot lighter?
Skot Waldron: Strategy, what works for you is not going to work for somebody else. There are a lot of people out there that are personal brands or there are companies that have teams of people posting for them multiple times. Work on your strategy. That’s where I really work on developing with my clients is an idea around, let’s see what’s feasible for you. Let’s be strategic about it. Let’s develop a plan. Let’s develop a calendar that way you know things are planned out ahead of time.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Skot Waldron thank you so much for joining us on ASBN and taking the time, I know you’re a busy guy so thank you very much.
Skot Waldron: Really appreciate it.
