In this fieldwork, I had an exciting interaction with Justice Okai - Allotey, @owula_kpakpo . This fieldwork is the 7th episode of The Enoch Appiah Show. We discussed the challenges faced by Social Media marketers.
[0:00] Hey guys, welcome to another episode of my fieldwork, I'm your host, Enoch Appiah. In this episode of fieldwork, I interacted with Justice O'Kine Alluti, a fellow digital marketer about challenges he faced when he decided to become a digital marketer.
[0:33] By the time this episode ends, you'll learn how as a young digital marketer, Justice was able to maneuver his way around the industry and eventually landing one of the biggest gig in his career.
[0:45] As always, this show is brought to you by Kaimi. Kaimi has given me a discount code to be given to my listeners, which I will be telling you in the course of the show.
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[1:38] Now without wasting much time, let's go to the field and talk to Justice on challenges faced by digital marketers. All right, so Justice, thank you for joining me.
[2:09] This is actually my second homework and with everything work I go about and I have a conversation with my friends, friends in the digital marketing space, and I'm having this conversation with you because of the posts you made last week, which that was actually the main thing that I've heard about this program, you posted about the problems that social media managers go through and I engage with you on that that you have to be on a podcast and you say, yeah, we need to talk about it.
[2:42] So basically this session is for you to outline the problems that you face when you started and how you were able to go about in solving this problem because I believe if you are still encountering these problems, you wouldn't be in the industry.
[3:02] So basically this is what this podcast is about. I'm very, very grateful because usually when I want to get somebody onto my footwork, how to engage with him countless times via email, you know, pass out, but then we, with you, we actually did it just like three steps in comments, just that and I'm really, really grateful for that Justice.
[3:25] Yeah, I'm happy to be on the podcast today and I'm excited about this topic because I think I made a post some time ago that there was this beef going on in the Ghanaian music scene and I was like, Facebook is always late to this beef, but Twitter is where the real action is.
[3:47] And then there was a conversation happening on it on that same post about me thinking like Twitter is for cool people and that Facebook also have like cool factors.
[4:04] And my point was the structure, the Twitter structure helps you to deal with breaking news more quickly and more, more rapidly than Facebook would do.
[4:19] And I was explaining that because of that, every social media has its core duties and some of the things you, as a practitioner, we always learn on some of the things that you can't replicate everything across.
[4:37] Once a while you may do that, but you have to always tailor your things separately from the way you post on Twitter and then you do on Facebook and Instagram and all the other social media pages.
[4:50] There is actually a joke that goes like, whatever is happening on Twitter will take maybe like five years before Facebook folks get it. So I actually agree with you on that, that event, live events take place on Twitter before it gets to Facebook.
[5:10] I have a couple of questions with you, but before that, before that, I want to know what brought you into this digital marketing space. Okay.
[5:20] I've been somebody who has been always IT savvy. I think I did my first Yahoo email in somewhere 2000, even though I had to go to the internet cafe to always use that email.
[5:35] So I was somebody who in the beginning, I got a computer early. So I was very much interested in tech, but I lost interest during the university days, I didn't focus too much on it until I was done.
[5:49] And I was doing my national service. So after my national service, I got an opportunity as impact have a crowd to do an apprentice program and during the apprentice program, we're taught soft skills that we could, we could use in any way that we might.
[6:04] And one of the things that we're taught was social media, how to manage social media pages, how to improve social media. So my test was to first improve my own social media page, gets its running.
[6:20] And then I started growing the interest in working for others. So during the apprentice program was a five week program where we're taught so many things. So I started with myself, I, I rebranded my whole social media, got a professional hair shorts, got a good banner, and then I rebranded everything on my social media.
[6:42] That reminds me, I need to change my, my hair shirt. Yeah. So, um, I, I made sure that my Twitter, a hair short, um, profile picture made was the same as my LinkedIn and also the same as my Twitter and Facebook.
[6:59] So all these changes was in my estimation, I'm learning on the job. So I was actually learning with myself on how to do social media properly.
[7:12] Oh, cool. I believe, you know, with our work with the computers, me, for instance, apart from me doing digital marketing, I also do Facebook casting.
[7:24] All right. So apart from you being digital marketing space, what else do you do? So, um, apart from being a digital marketer, I also call myself a volunteer.
[7:36] So I volunteer for a number of things, one of them key being Wikipedia. I started, I saw your post, I started volunteering for Wikipedia, I think three, three years ago, and it's been one of the best things that have ever happened to me, giving back has also taught me a lot and has also given me an opportunity to meet a lot of awesome people around the world who believe in the same vision of donating knowledge and making it free and accessible to everybody.
[8:11] So I also volunteer for an environmental NGO that is also interested in making sure that anything that we do with our environment, we are living a sustainable life, we're making sure that our environment is well taken care of.
[8:26] And one of also a biggest thing that I also do is I'm a mental health advocate. So I found out that I had an anxiety issue. So through that lens, how I can deal with my issues.
[8:44] And in that process, I got into contact with a lot of people at the National Service, who were championing the mental health issue. And I joined them from that onwards, I became a very key member in the organization and also making sure that we make mental health stigma free in Ghana.
[9:04] True. So all those things you are doing, they are great work, I must say. But then let's paddle back to Wikipedia, because I've seen a lot that you do it.
[9:15] And me, per se, I wanted to be part of Wikipedia, but maybe life got in the way. So I don't know, I still have an account on Wikipedia, but well, I don't know, maybe tomorrow I'll start editing.
[9:30] But yeah, so let's let's talk about the Wikipedia. How can one be part of you guys, how can one volunteer to edit Wikipedia article? So once you have a Wikipedia account, you can edit Wikipedia articles.
[9:46] But we have a community in Ghana, the Wikimedia Ghana user group. That makes sure that Wikimedia Ghana user group, we make sure that we train people who want to edit Wikipedia and learn how to edit it.
[10:03] It could be any interest of your choice. You could like football, you could like politics. You could like editing about women, you could edit about musicians.
[10:13] I, for once, I like to edit a lot about the musicians and their art space in Ghana. So that's one of my key interests. And also editing women articles.
[10:23] So those things are what gets me to edit Wikipedia almost every day. If I find out that, oh, this musician is notable and they don't have an article.
[10:35] You just create some. Yeah, create one for them. So Wikipedia started off as a hobby and it became something that I grew more interested in. So I believe everybody once in a while should also learn.
[10:52] We all read Wikipedia, it's the fifth most visited website in the world. At least once you are reading, you should also give back. Maybe there's a grammar error somewhere.
[11:03] Create an account, edit it, start small. We can all build together and together with the vision of Wikipedia is to get a word where everybody can share in the sum of all knowledge.
[11:16] All right, cool. OK, so I don't even want to talk about money issues because you say you volunteer. So it's practically free. Yes, it's for practically free.
[11:30] I believe volunteering for Wikipedia has given me much more money in my professional life than I've given back to it. Yes, I volunteer. So they don't pay me to edit.
[11:44] I just do it from because I want to make a change in how African stories, or especially, especially Ghanaian stories. I don't know Wikipedia.
[11:55] OK, let's get back to the main reason for this food work. Let's talk about social media, the guitar marketing. OK, how many clients do you have?
[12:06] You can choose to mention them because I know, you know, my phrase, I know how we are secretive about our clients and I want to talk about it later.
[12:16] But how many clients do you have? So I currently work with so currently work as a freelancer. OK, so I have three clients that I work with. And I've also done short campaigns for other clients.
[12:33] So it depends on the gig that I get and how what they want and how best I can do with that for them. So I think I'm very flexible now. I might pivot to something else in the coming months.
[12:48] But for now, I think months. Wow. Now I think I have three clients that I'm working freelance for. How long have you been in it again? So I've been in it professionally since 2016.
[13:06] 2016. Yeah. And we are joining it in so my life for years. Yes, yes, professional. Yes. In in getting your first clients, what was your challenge?
[13:17] Because with this one, I want us to bring about the challenges. Then we talk about the solution, how you were able to get a way around it. OK, and I want us to start from, you know, getting your first client and you move on to maybe you've established a clientele base, then your content, you know, moving on.
[13:38] So first, I want to know how the challenges you face in getting your first client. So the first client I got was I got a contract job with the impact of Office of Innovation.
[13:55] That was directly after the apprentice. Yeah, I was there. I came for the final. So because I went in apprentice program, it was easy for me to get a job.
[14:07] And that job was like a learning for me. So that was my first real test of what I can do with the guitar market. And it was like a fixed range that they give me.
[14:20] It was a year contract. And to the best of my knowledge, I was able to deliver. Yeah, because I think my target was to get people to sign up to the event, get people to talk about the event online.
[14:36] Yeah. And also make sure that people can hear that. OK, there's a health innovation thing happening. And from the way the Health Innovation Office have grown now, I can say I fairly did my job because I've seen I've seen the changes and all these changes can't be attributed to only offline activities.
[15:00] Definitely. Yeah, it was amazing online offline roles. OK, I had to play any challenge you didn't face. So my biggest challenge was because it was the first job for me.
[15:12] I wanted to get it right. So my biggest challenge was where to start with and how to go about how I stretch out my content. But the lucky thing for me was during the apprentice program were taught about how to were taught the social media calendar and everything.
[15:33] So I had a fair idea of where I would want the health innovation. There's social media presence to go. So me spending much more time doing my research, watching tutorials helped me to also be able to understand the direction that I wanted to go with it.
[15:53] So my challenge was more like working how to get the content and how my direction, my position, what what are the people in the online space I can reach out to to get the conversation going about what we were about to do back then.
[16:11] So it was mainly for me to believe in myself that I could do it and also do it. That was my biggest challenge. Just by the way, this, babe, you've changed it, eh?
[16:26] No, so no justice. You know that he goes above with this, babe. I don't know. Can you describe it? OK, so this is a piece of art by a friend now.
[16:38] He used to be somebody I admire from the from the back. He's called Medici. Oh, OK. Does his artist name. He does a lot of good paintings and he uses he turns those paintings into print tags and all that stuff.
[16:52] So half three of his paintings. Yeah. Oh, OK. I change. Yeah. Because the one I've always been seeing, the person is not wearing hats. Yeah. This one.
[17:01] So this is a micro reaction. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can see that. I'll take a photo then make. Yeah, I'll post it in the description so that you you will see the big justice as well right now.
[17:14] You're going to love it. And let's continue. So in getting a business on social media, do you have to be on all platforms? No. OK, so I always tell people that know the business you are running and know your audience and see how to target them.
[17:37] Yeah, because what I was doing with the Health Innovation Office was more of talking to the startups. Yeah, the government's people in the hospitals.
[17:51] But virtually everybody that is tech and to see us. So we had to be on Facebook. Yeah, we had to be on Twitter. We had to be on LinkedIn. So it was very much important to do all those discourse.
[18:07] Those are where you could go and you can get direct access to people. So it was a strategic process for us. And also Instagram was also because we wanted to give a visual and a background to what the work we do.
[18:24] So we used Instagram to push some of our pictures and our behind the scenes videos and stuff like that. So you don't necessarily have to be on all platforms.
[18:34] Know the business you are running and what best, what platform best suits for you. If you are running a hair business, I don't think LinkedIn will be a place to be.
[18:44] Yeah, because LinkedIn has nothing. You can't maneuver away, but it won't be your target audience. Yeah, your target audience should be Instagram primarily because everybody wants the visual appeal of all the hair and all that.
[19:01] And LinkedIn wouldn't give that. So depending on the business model, you are running your audience and how you can go about it. So you don't necessarily have to be on all.
[19:14] Talking of LinkedIn with me, with my clients, I use LinkedIn to tell the executive side of story. OK, so with LinkedIn, I'm not using it necessarily to sell stuff, but just to tell them about the direction the company is going, you know, moving on.
[19:34] Maybe if there is this event, if there is this grant that the company received, I use LinkedIn to tell them. Because with that one, if somebody wants to come and join a company, you will know that, oh, so this is what the company is doing and all that.
[19:53] But with Instagram, you can just, you know, sell stuff and all that. But I don't think I'll use Instagram to tell the company story. Yeah, yeah, I agree.
[20:04] I do perfectly well with you. OK, Facebook, Facebook. We all know Facebook that you definitely have to be on Facebook. But just as rating Twitter and Instagram, which one will you will you choose first?
[20:20] It depends what I'm doing. OK. But Instagram now has overtaken Twitter because Instagram was able to bring a lot of innovation to how people were using it.
[20:35] They brought the IGTV, they brought the stories that people argue, they stole from Snapchat. And because everybody was already on Instagram, it actually helped them because they had a Facebook Facebook was connected to Instagram.
[20:52] And now they have a story. And Snapchat is where they want to Snapchat. So I think Instagram was able to innovate in that sense and get a wider appeal.
[21:04] And people are not into visuals more. Yeah. So I would say Instagram, if you do a lot of visual content, but if not, Facebook, Twitter, I think Twitter will be.
[21:17] I'll pick Twitter any day because I can directly with Twitter, you can reach out to people directly. A good response that you want. Yeah, true. Let's talk about content.
[21:29] Do you face any challenges when it comes to content? Yes, because, OK, my other background in photography. OK. Yeah. Sometimes it's easy for me to go around it.
[21:41] But with other things, it depends on the content you have and how can you share this content to three different websites, maybe Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn or Instagram, or in a different way in a language that fits with respect to social media.
[22:04] So, yeah, it's a challenge sometimes to to go around those things. I think for Twitter now, mainly real time conversations, Twitter chats, you can do a lot of trades.
[22:21] Trades are more like on on on on brand. Yeah. For those in the fashion world, they see on brand. They are on brand now. And you can you can do a lot with Twitter, actually.
[22:36] So I believe I'll be biased towards Twitter because I do that was my first night before I got to Instagram. So how do you go about? For instance, you want to get a content for, you know, to post.
[22:54] How do you go about your your thought process? You know, OK, so any time I'm about to post, if I'm supposed to at an announcement, I make sure that there are two things involved for Facebook and Instagram.
[23:10] Sometimes it's easy to go around. But for Twitter, I have to stick to 280 characters. And in sticking to that 280 characters, I have to make sure that the salient points in what I want to say can be fun.
[23:23] Yes. And then I stick to it. But because of you can do threats now, it's not really a problem if you want to go more. So I think about the 280 characters first in everything I want to do before I think about for Instagram, if I'm supposed to tag somebody, I just make my research on the handles that people are supposed to do.
[23:46] They use what I'm going to do is as a handle on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook. I do all those research before I make sure that I'm about to push through.
[23:56] Yeah, I don't post anything if I am supposed to create what I post from other people to I do all my research to know that, OK, there is the handle this person is using on Facebook.
[24:09] Because, yeah, so that I had the real handle and not that people see a link that you click something that you can't get. Yeah, that thing about that one.
[24:19] I think Twitter has done something to it. I've seen it once. And today is Saturday, right? I saw it on Thursday. I haven't. Well, I haven't analyzed the game.
[24:31] So I was making this post and I brought, you know, I'm trying to tag somebody. But then I just copied that there, which was bad for my part. But then it was less than 20 characters.
[24:43] So I don't need to craft a new content for Twitter. So I just copied it from Instagram, came over to Twitter and just paste that in there, clicked on tweets.
[24:54] So, you know, initially, if the person is not on on Twitter, in the symbol used to be linked linked to an account. Right. But this time around, the art symbol was not even linked.
[25:12] The art wasn't even there. So I don't know if the account is not on Twitter now. I think Twitter removes the ads for it to be linked forever.
[25:23] Oh, OK. So I haven't I haven't. Yeah, I think I think I'll try it. Yeah, you do a big job. It's all about try and learn. So it just passed. But then I was busy then.
[25:37] But then I saw it having gone back to an advocate. Yeah, I think this is interesting. I'll try it. Yeah. Because any time I'm supposed to post a tax on wedding, I make sure that I research to see if the person has an handle.
[25:51] Sometimes they are Twitter handle might be different from the other stuff. So I don't make that mistake of trying to come to like a big personal branding session to tell everybody that the profile picture you are using on Twitter and your username should, you know, cut across the hour.
[26:10] It could be so easy. I think I think we should. People really don't understand it that way. But I think once you understand that the concept, once you have you should have something that's standardised online.
[26:24] It's your online assets. And if somebody says that you should want to or social media where people really don't see that way, others have because sometimes you want to keep your Instagram private.
[26:37] And so which is fine to keep some of the things to your private life and not other things. But I think if you are you want to be online and be somebody who is very notable, you should make sure that you standardise all your social media accounts.
[26:53] Yeah. That was the first lesson. Actually, it's when I was rebranded. So it actually cuts across everything. OK, so this challenge that I'm about to bring to you, we all face it.
[27:06] OK, and that is the the initial talent that we all face in this industry, how to convince a business that this you need, you need a social media presence and do all businesses need social media?
[27:27] Let's start from that. Do all businesses need social media? Yes, I think all businesses need social media. Now how do you convince them? So yesterday I was following a Twitter chat by Jamila.
[27:42] Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. She's somebody I call her. She's one of the best. And I sometimes speak to her about some of my challenges. And she gives me very vulnerable advice.
[27:55] And one of the things that she said is back then there was yellow pages and every business had to be on yellow pages before you could get more.
[28:04] So if now you're in the age of the guitar, you don't have to wait for somebody to tell you that I'm doing a business and I need to be on social.
[28:14] So I think every business should be on social. It depends on which social you choose to be. It depends on how you want to carry your message.
[28:23] So for being on social, I'm perfectly OK. Every business has to be on social. Well, one tip that you can tell this business owner is that back then we were all using yellow pages.
[28:38] Yeah, from I'm speaking from Jamila's Twitter. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, don't mind me. So this time around, how do you convince them? What do you tell the business owner?
[28:52] Before now, before Justice answers that question, I'd like to tell you a little about the importance of this show. Without them, this show wouldn't be possible.
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[30:30] Rankin's find a place you can call a home. Now let's get back to justice. So luckily for me, majority of the people that were good were from referrals.
[30:48] So sometimes I did a volunteer job for somebody and that person referred me to another person. So so those volunteers that I was doing back then were accumulating my skills and was getting me more to other people.
[31:03] So for instance, I used to manage a hospital social media. Yes, with a group of people. And true that I got to work with other people and the volunteering started and they kept referring me to people.
[31:17] So before I even came to you, you've seen a track record of what I've done. So it was easy for me to convince such a person, OK, this is what I've done for this client.
[31:31] I picked them from here to there. And this is the progress that we've made. And for me, one thing that any time I meet a client, I do is once you express interest in wanting to work with me, I do my background research on you.
[31:46] I do a social media audit where I look at if you already have a social media page, what's it looking like? So I take a screenshot of all your pages, the business or the personal or business business.
[32:00] So I take a screenshot of all of them. I put in the Google Docs. And if you are not online, I do a Google search that the name of your brand, the resource that comes.
[32:14] I take a screenshot and I show you that this is what you are losing out. If somebody is using that name, how best can you go around? So I try to make you understand that you are losing very much on social.
[32:29] If you're not there, because you can decide not to be active. But once you have a presence and on your social media, maybe there's a link to your website.
[32:39] And yeah, it's best because if they can meet you on social media, they can definitely see your website and go to your website and get to you.
[32:49] Cool, cool. So the problems we are talking about here is not digital marketer's problems, but then the problems we face with businesses. Yeah, so sometimes I've had very bad experiences too with certain businesses.
[33:08] And I had to turn down a person for like going contrary to some of the things I wanted to do for me. For instance, if you want to work with me, we have to get everything on point, branding, social media avatars.
[33:30] Like we have to rebrand everything and standardize our social media pictures. Quality has to be on point. No stock images or no picking images from other people to do.
[33:42] So one of the kinds were like, oh, this is a travel thing that we are doing. You can pick images from somewhere. And I'm like, no, you need to be some of them.
[33:51] Images are so low in quality that even Instagram won't permit you to propose to promote it. Yeah, so it was it was taking a conscious effort within all the difficulties that we're facing that I want to work with someone who would give me the freedom to experiment and also to make sure that hair brand gets in the condition they do it.
[34:17] So if I'm supposed to work on you, we have to make sure that we have our own rights to all the images we want as much as possible. Sometimes you have to pick images from elsewhere, which is fine.
[34:29] Once you are able to credit them and also so your images should be something that you own. You should have like a standard template for graphics and colors, colors.
[34:43] So everything should be just in the beginning. Once you make sure that you set them up and they understand the process, they are involved in the process, it becomes easy for you to do other things.
[34:58] Yeah. Yeah. So for me, I make sure that we have a content calendar from the beginning. I tell you that this is what I do for you. I do a social media audience.
[35:09] I show you where you are facing your liking, what you can do better. So these are in my initial pitch that I do to you. And this is how you can you can do it.
[35:21] This is what I can do for you. And these are the things that I would need to do those things. So it's in a social media audit document. I'll send you if you say, OK, look at my social media and see if we can do something.
[35:37] So after our first meeting that you've told me what you want to do, then I send you the social media audits and tell you these are the challenges that you are facing and this how you can go around them.
[35:48] So these are things that I learned from working during the apprentice mirror and some of the tutorials that I've constantly been watching. So it helped me to be able to it became professional for me because, oh, OK, this person is not just saying I can't do this.
[36:10] They've sent me a Google document saying, oh, this is the audits. This is how you are looking at it. These are the things that you can do better to make it better.
[36:21] And that's the next step. This is how you can do it. So then it becomes, OK, this guy is legit. And he knows what it's about. So these are some of the things that if you're a digital marketer, I think you should you should learn so that you don't sell yourself short and say things that you really can't achieve.
[36:45] Yeah. And guys, if Justin is saying that you should learn, then you should learn because you should see the number of books on his computer. I haven't seen that number of PDFs before.
[36:59] But, yeah, I'm definitely pick it all back home because, yeah, this industry that we are in, you have to always learn it constantly, constantly learning, make mistakes, you know, move on.
[37:15] OK, so one of the biggest challenge is getting the money from them. No money pay us what you guys agreed on. But then for them to find a need to go buy your budget by giving you the money for you to boost post for you to create arts and all that, because we all know Facebook.
[37:38] Facebook also a business. And you can't no matter the taxes that you put in, you you definitely have to give them some dollars. So how do you go about to for them to give you the money?
[37:52] Ideally, I tell them that I am somebody who believes content is king. And I like to grow organically. Yeah. But sometimes you also need to do certain paid advertisement.
[38:06] Yeah. So majority of the clients that I work with, we try to go organic as much as possible. And once in a while, when something important is happening, we boost.
[38:16] So it's not like something that is recurring. We have a strategy on to how we will boost content and how to grow about it. So sometimes it's easy for the client to understand, OK, this the algorithms change every time.
[38:34] So in our work, you also gain the system. Sometimes you need to chip in some money to make sure that you get into certain conversation. Sometimes you are boosting to create an awareness and let your contents you produce from them get people to talk about you.
[38:51] So I think you can boost all the time and reach the numbers. And if your content is not matching, that's boosting the idea. You still not get the engagement and some of the things you have seen.
[39:04] And I've seen that with certain clients that I work with, they have all the numbers, but their engagement is slow. So yeah, so you need to understand from the beginning the strategy that you are going to work with.
[39:20] If you are doing 60 percent content, make sure that your content that you're producing is on point, your image is on point. If it's a video, make sure that video is properly edited.
[39:31] Now, there are so many tools. So yes, you can use to edit video and stuff like that. So it's good. You can you should you should know the business, like know what you are promoting and then from there you can do other things with it.
[39:46] And talking about the tools, the last episode I talked about seven tools that you can use. It's so easy. Some of the tools you can use them on your phone as you go about.
[39:57] You can actually in the past, you can just be editing videos and all that. So you do go back and listen to that episode to get all these tools.
[40:06] I think that that episode was interesting. I also learned a few video editing software that I wasn't using for money. Yeah. Well, also, yeah, answer why you learn from your peers.
[40:20] Definitely. They always make gives you like a best of perspectives. Definitely. And I think at this point, I just people, those who are listening, definitely this episode will go to the digital marketing space because with my promotion, I target for each episode.
[40:39] I target where I want to post. That's why most of the times you don't see me posting in the digital marketing group because that episode is not meant for them.
[40:48] But this one, I'll post it there because this is the problems that we face. OK, so definitely if you're in the digital marketing space, I want you to join our group, the Digi Clan.
[41:04] Yeah, how? Yeah, you can just comment below that you want to join. I'll give you the link. And in fact, I'll post the link to this to our group in the description below.
[41:16] So just click on it. Then you join. It's a hustle group and it's full of digital marketers who are always learning, who are always teaching. So, yeah, you are invited to join.
[41:27] Yeah. And I also have to add that as a digital marketer, and at least for me as a freelancer, yeah, I have to look professional. I have everything has to be on point.
[41:40] So if I'm sending you an email, I make sure that the email is where we to send it. So the first impressions matter. So how you reached out to a client and your first conversations that you have with them would see maybe would give them the impression they should hire you or not.
[42:01] So for me, I make sure that now for because of the help of, you know, I've been able to get a standard rate card that I use. I used to always have to create different different ones for different people.
[42:17] I still do depending on what you want, but not at least once I send them the rates card, they have an idea of how much the industry is charging, what's also they could do and how they can reach me, how I can also meet them after.
[42:32] And I like the idea that we are not to settle for less than, is it 500 cities or less than 100? Yes. That was a good thing. Yeah. And all our members are just loving it.
[42:45] So, yeah, once we become huge, well, we are huge already. So all the members are not settling for less than 100 USD. That's it. And that is the industry.
[42:57] Because if you go outside, people are charging. But then, yeah, it's just the same thing that we are we are doing here. The same skills. Yeah. Yeah.
[43:07] Justice. So any anything you want to tell me? Anything. This is so freestyle. You got to talk about your business. You can talk about anything you can talk about.
[43:17] The problems that you see among So one big challenge for me is understanding the data behind social media. And all the time I keep looking for the free places to go, because I believe in open source space should be a little free for us to use.
[43:39] But it turns out that it doesn't work that way. So you have to use tools that would explain the data properly. You also have to, for the first place, know the metrics that you are interested in.
[43:55] Not the likes, the reach, those things that are vanity metrics. But sets very good targets for yourself. I keep saying data is key. And he will have the data room.
[44:06] So if you can interpret your data properly to your client, and they show them, this is your ROI on some of the things that I'm getting. And if they can at least know that, OK, this person posted this because of that.
[44:22] I got somebody signed up to my website and somebody made a purchase. Somebody inquired about what we do. Those are metrics that you should be interested in.
[44:34] That's it. That's the guitar. The likes, the reach. It's called vanity metrics, not for a reason. So it's also surprising that these business owners, that's one thing, actually.
[44:48] Exactly. So we have to change our perception. I constantly tell our clients that we reach them, all those things are good. But those are not the things you should be focusing on.
[45:04] If I was able to make a post and somebody sent a message in the inbox and inquired about it, because she saw the post, that's a good lead for you to follow up.
[45:16] And that is actually a good job done. You post that nobody likes the page and then nothing, or everybody likes and still, they don't make a purchase or they don't invite.
[45:29] Then you've not done anything. I believe data is very much important and learning how to interpret that data for a client should be one of the biggest things as a digital marketer.
[45:42] Also, I believe as digital marketers, we should use ourselves to make people know the power that we hold. So our pages should look professional, like how we want our clients to look like.
[45:57] For me, I always say that anything that I see online, I can say to you in your face. So I'm not shy, I can't shy away from the things that I see.
[46:13] So if I'm working for a brand, I believe they also should uphold certain values that they should work with. So your personal social media should be like a promotional piece for you.
[46:31] So if you are listening, you're a business owner and you think your way of thinking is way back, you are not woke, you don't come to justice.
[46:42] If you are not woke, you don't come to him because we are in 2019. I believe money is not everything. So sometimes I'm very picky of the kind of people that I work with.
[46:55] So you also do an audit of these businesses? Does anybody do public pools? Yes, so I have a choice to go along with it. One thing that I've also learned from working in cold working spaces and meeting people is you get to learn from a lot of people.
[47:14] So I also learned from a few of my friends about creating a checklist for a client. So a client first inquires about what you do, send them an email with the phone on what they want and some of the things that they do.
[47:29] And then when they respond to it, you know, okay, this is somebody that is doing all these things and this is how they want you to help them.
[47:38] So before you do, you have your initial meeting, you have an idea of what the person is doing and if they are right for you, you go with it. If they are not, you throw them down, I'm sorry, I can't work with you.
[47:50] And one thing that I'm also learning is how to say no to a lot of people. Yes, yes. Yes, recently I guess how to say no to someone because it was too much.
[48:00] So we should, even though we need money, but we need our sanity as well, so we should learn about all those things and know how, when to say no and when to say yes to certain things.
[48:13] So as the digital marketer, I think your portfolio is yourself, first and foremost before the works that you've done. So if somebody is looking to hire you, if they really consciously look you up online and see what you do and how you behave and all that.
[48:36] Okay, so we've run for 45, it's not that I'm just timing, but then this is one of my longest interview and I'm really, really grateful for that.
[48:47] You've really spilled a lot of gems in this episode and I really, really like it. Yes, even though I think there's still more to learn, I'm always hoping to keep people putting them to right, people to if they need certain help and sometimes I also reached out to people that have been helpful to me and they always show up, know what you want, how to act them, don't go saying hi and those things, you should know what you want, then you wait for me to say hi back, let's just go high then it's late.
[49:29] So when I will pin it up, I know what you want, then I can also respond. So I always read a lot from certain spread because they always give you practical ideas of what's happening on the field and they have the same ideas of that, that I also have and how I want to do my thing, so like every time Jamila makes a post about social media and how to improve it, I'm always going to be learning something on there and one of the things I learned from her is if you are making an act, make sure that you know what you are acting and make that action, the person can help you, the word, if they can't, they refer you to somebody that can help you.
[50:15] I'm planning to get Jamila on this spot. I think she should be best on the postcards and talking about social media marketing and how best companies can maximize the use of it.
[50:30] Yes, just give me your contact and I know you're not going to give me your contact, we find you on the internet. So on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, I'm everywhere.
[50:44] So for Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you can follow me or search me at Ola underscore Papu, Ola, O-W-U-L-A underscore K-P-A-K-P-O, when you search Ola underscore Papu, on every Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, you see me, on LinkedIn, I'm justice, O-K-I-L-O-T, you can also find me on about.me forward slash Ola underscore Papu.
[51:11] So I've seen the trend, Ola, Papu, Ola underscore Papu on our platform, alright, Justice, thank you. Most of you don't know, but I love doing fieldwork.
[51:34] Not only because that's the time I meet people in my industry, but meet awesome people like Justice face to face and pick their brains on issues relating to digital marketing.
[51:44] Challenges in this industry are always bound to happen since we, as in digital marketers, don't have control over the various platforms we work on.
[51:53] To solve our challenges, we learn from numerous webinars, masterclasses organized by industry, experts in court, trial and error techniques, and last but definitely not the least, from our peers.
[52:07] During this interview, I learned a lot from Justice. For instance, I learned that it's usually difficult to get businesses onto social media, but with the right message, business owners will understand you and eventually come on board.
[52:22] I'm sure you, the listener, was able to jot some viewpoints down. Justice, like any digital marketer I know, is always online. Feel free to shoot him a question or two about problems you are facing in digital marketing.
[52:37] If you missed out, his handle is oula underscore papu on Twitter. I'd like to thank Justice for joining me. This show is written and produced by me.
[53:12] If you found value in this show, remember to favorite it on angle. It really helps me. Also, if your podcast player allows subscription, make sure to subscribe and share the show on your favorite social media platform.
[53:26] This really helps me a lot. This has been another episode of my Ford work. Good night and have a pleasant tomorrow.