Wise Marketing Secrets Interview Series with Kit Cuenta
Kit Cuenta Considers her self as a social unicorn!
She’s a social media marketer, content writer and an entrepreneur who runs her online shoe store.
When not in Social, you can find her playing mmorpg and real-time strategy games, like League of Legends, Dota and Diablo2 (from About).
I encourage you to connect with Kit through Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter and Google Plus.
How active are you on social media and how many people are you connected with?
Social media does not sleep and so do unicorns! I’m biologically wired to like human behavior + science & art, which explains why I’m very active in Social Media (and why I’m also in this awesome industry!)
How many people am I connected with? A hell of a lot.
I’m a little good and interested in so many things, so I tend to gallop from one community/group to another! I’m like a social unicorn, y’know?
What are your favorite social media blogs?
I love Marketing Profs, Search Engine Journal, Buffer Social, Jon Loomer, Social Media Examiner, SEMRush, Kairay Media and Rebekah Radice.
Well, actually, if you happen to visit Inbound.org and Growthhackers regularly, you’ll see a ton of underrated social media blogs with superb non-fluffy content.
What kinds of skills/qualities do you think you need to possess to be a community manager?
For me, every successful social media manager should
- Have an eye for catchy, timely, and relevant material
- Have stellar understanding of social media channel’s diversity!
- Have a refined sense of humor
- Love eating data for breakfast
- Practice empathy! (A MUST!)
- BONUS: Understand why she/he needs to be a social unicorn in the first place!
What is a limitation you have experienced on a social media platform? How did you overcome this?
Great question. Among Social Media platform issues, Facebook’s famous organic reach plummet has been a key discussion for marketers.
What’s worse is that they even tweaked their algorithm to reduce overly promoted page posts in News Feed.
I’ve witnessed how numbers changed in our analytics, most pages were rewarded, but a handful were hit.
So, we had to reevaluate, rethink and retool our strategy. This served as a good reminder for the team to really focus on quality and efficiency.
Aside from reevaluating and auditing our content, we also stepped up our targeting game and utilized other Facebook features to boost engagement.
We use Facebook’s organic post targeting option to serve relevant content to the RIGHT audience.
And these two tools are quite new – We also utilize Facebook See First and ‘Get Notifications’ features to make sure our fans do not miss any our Facebook post.
Which social media platforms are you best at using and why?
I’ve had huge success with Facebook, Reddit, Google+, Pinterest, Linkedin, and Twitter, but honestly, I really can’t tell which platform I’m best at.
As I’ve pointed out earlier, an effective social media manager should have stellar understanding of every social media channel’s diversity!
So I would have to say, I love all of them (including their strengths and weaknesses) and I’m glad they love me back. But if your question’s which platform I love best ― My answer would be very systematic.
The key to selecting which platforms to use will be directly associated and linked to my client’s goals, buyer persona and industry.
How could you leverage YouTube in order to promote your brand and increase engagement?
I would start with optimizing my Youtube profile for Search Engine to developing creative content for the viewers, strategies would likely involve video blogging, guest video blogging (collab videos), running contests and giveaways.
Of course, in promoting my brand, I’ve to reach out to my existing social connections and followers to encourage sharing. On top of that, I’d also run Youtube engagement ads for my videos, since Youtube drives the most engaged traffic amongst social networks!
How do you measure social return on investment (ROI)?
Depends on your goal. For most businesses, we calculate the return based on leads and sales.
But the standard and straightforward formula is:
ROI = (return – investment) / investment
For every industry, we pick the right conversion goals and metrics for each.
It could be one of the following: signups, downloads, time spent, social interaction, contact form and of course online purchase.
Next, we’ll track and analyze conversion using GA. After which, we’ll assign an average monetary value to each conversion type.
Add up the sum of investment (writing, designing, posting, social media tools etc) analyze and take action. Rome wasn’t build in a day, and so does learning Social ROI computation.
Which social media experts and/or influencers do you follow?
- Brent Csutoras – @BrentCsutoras – Reddit Marketing guru!
- Peg Fitzpatrick –@PegFitzPatrick – Social Visual Marketing pro!
- Rebekah Radice – @RebekahRadice – Pinterest marketing expert!
- Mike Allton – @Mike_allton – Google+ Marketing pro!
- Pauline Cabrera – @Twelveskip – Social Content ‘gangsta’!
- Mari Smith – @MariSmith – Facebook marketing thought leader!
- Larry Kim – @LarryKim – Social PPC wizard!
- Kim Garst – @KimGarst – Social Selling pro!
- Ann Smarty – @AnnSmarty – Social Community expert!
Are there any up-and-coming social media platforms we should watch out for?
I don’t have a platform or anything specific in mind, but the emerging trends of social video streaming (snapchat, vine, instavid, meerkat, periscope) seem to be inevitable these days.
This is certainly not just a hype because people have already started flocking to these platforms!
Which social media brand strategy has inspired you lately and why?
I love how brands use retromarketing (nostaglia marketing) in their Social Media marketing campaigns.
The use of Throwback Thursday and 90’s references targeted to the Millenial demographic has become prevalent to capitalize on customer’s nostalgia. Cut it short, Nostalgia just WORKS.
This strategy only shows how important it is to empathize with your audience and touch on people’s emotions for them to take actions!