Bethany Lamb | Reaching A Larger Audience Through Social Media

The publishing for profit podcast is brought to you by Ghostwriters and Co. Earn more money by publishing better content and learn how do we increase your thought leadership. So you can build your brand head over to ghostwritersandco.com for more information that’s ghostwritersandco.com. and now your host Joel Mark Harris.

Joel: Hello, and welcome to the publishing for profit podcast. This is your host, Joel Mark Harris. Today we are interviewing Bethany lamb. she is the founder and owner of Be.Media group. She does social media marketing, otherwise known as pay-per-click. so any sort of advertisement on social media. She does social media advertising obviously super important for any business owner, if you can master it, you can, pretty much get any type of customer that you want. We dive deep into how to create a marketing campaign on social media. We’ve talked about the different platforms you use and what sort of budget you need. A great conversation here is Bethany lamb.

I think you so much for being on the show today. How are you?

Bethany: I’m doing great. Thanks. Thanks for having me. How are you?

Joel: I’m good. I’m excellent. Yeah, busy. It’s the morning. we both had busy mornings.  I want to start with your entrepreneurial journey and how you founded Be.media Group.

Bethany: Yeah, totally. I think, I mean, probably the real story goes back a while, but, I have most of the quote-unquote jobs that I have been kind of like independent sales and that type of thing. and I have worked in digital marketing for close to 12 years, so I’ve always kind of had the mind to do something like that by myself.

And I, so I founded, it’s now called beam media. I did just change that name a few months ago, but, I founded the original company about three years ago. after I’d been doing different social media, like working social media for awhile, promoting different things. And then I just decided that I wanted to actually work with different clients to help them grow their presence. I guess what I was doing it for myself before, I really started to realize that it’s a lot of work. And so, I figured that there would be some business owners who could use some help with doing so or with, having someone do it for them.

Joel: So why the rebrand?

Bethany: The old company was called Social Be. Marketing and they’re obviously the B was for Bethany. It was a play on words, for social being and then my name. But, I just started to feel like I wanted to freshen it up a little bit. and of course, like being around for a few years, I wanted to talk about more things that I do, which is kind of where the group came in because before I was really focused on only doing Facebook ads and that type of thing and now, we have like different services that we offer too.

Joel: Can you tell us a little bit about those services?

Bethany:  Recently we started doing more content for companies, also, like Instagram growth and a little bit of LinkedIn marketing too. Not so much ads on LinkedIn, but more like direct messaging campaigns to kind of get sales appointments and that type of thing. And, yeah, of course still doing the ads and, on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube.

Joel: I thought it was interesting. So your company is B period. What does the period stand for? Is there any relevance to that or is that just something, some sort of graphical element?

Bethany: Yeah, that’s a good question. it’s kind of, so the Bee media is meant to be, To represent like how we help our clients present themselves. So like helping them, like on my website, I have a whole list of it, but helping them be bold or, dynamic or creative or, visual or impactful or whatever, and like ultimately coming back to helping them be themselves on I guess I just leave the.in there to really separate it from the rest. But, yeah, that’s kind of visual too, I guess.

Joel: Through the research for this podcast, you know, I did, I watched a lot of your videos and they’re all really amazing. And one, but the one that really stuck out for me was the one where you talk about entrepreneurship and how supposedly it’s really hard, but it’s, you know, and the point you make in the video is as no harder than any other path you take, it’s no harder than a nine to five. I’m very curious about where. That came from and what you meant by that video.

Bethany: Yeah, good call. I do. I do remember that video that you’re talking about. to be honest, when I made that it was a little bit of a rant, after some talking to a friend, I, I guess like, I’ve always, I always work a lot.

I, or quote-unquote a lot. I love what I do though. So I don’t know. I do spend a lot of time doing it. And on this particular day, one of my friends had kind of just like question, why, like, why do I do it? Why do I work so long or so many long hours, that type of thing and to me in my mind, it’s just like, Well, you know, like you said, it’s not, if you do something different, you’re not necessarily going to have it easy.

Right? Like we don’t get out, not doing anything just because you’re not starting your own business or working for yourself and that type of thing. So, I’ve honestly, like, I, I think I mentioned before I have had other jobs, even though they were more independent, but it’s hard. For me, it’s kind of hard to feel like you have no control over what you’re doing or like have someone else be telling you what to do or, you know, like kind of limited options like that. So that’s kind of where it came from. It was a little bit of a rant, just kind of going off of all of that and saying that, you know, you’re, it’s gonna, you’re gonna have challenges no matter what you decide to do. So you might as well do it for yourself.

Joel: I think too, that when you’re stuck in. I guess stuck in a nine to five job that you don’t get the exposure you do as an entrepreneur, and then you don’t, you don’t grow. And I think that’s especially important now during COVID times when, you know, if you lose your job or the economy sucks and you’re not able to do what you love. That’s can be a real problem. Whereas entrepreneurs were almost used to that sort of environment. So we’re a lot we can pivot and change and grow a lot easier than, people who don’t have that environment and are not forced to take challenges on. Right. I don’t know if you want to comment on that I can move on.

Bethany: Yeah, no, I agree. I like it’s almost exactly what you said. I agree in some ways as an entrepreneur, you’re stuck in that sort of situation on a, I don’t want to, maybe not daily, but on a pretty regular basis. When you’re forced to kind of shift like that, it’s, you know, maybe just figuring things out a little bit differently, but you’re probably not feeling it as much as somebody who’s been at the same job for how many years, and then has to, has that comfort. And then they have to go out and feel like they’re by themselves or trying to figure out what to do for the first time in however long. So, yeah, I definitely agree with you on that.

Joel: So when you started out. As an entrepreneur, what sort of skills did you feel like you needed to grow and learn in?

Bethany: That’s a good question. With this business, I said, I’d been doing online marketing for close to 12 years in different capacities. So, I kind of had that part down, but I think what I really, needed to work on was, probably sales and like, I had done a lot of sales before actually, but it was more to consumers. So talking to business owners and, you know, like selling a service to help with their business, wasn’t really something that I was that familiar with. So that would have probably been the number one thing.

Joel: Yeah. I think selling yourself as well as very hard, it’s, it’s a lot easier to sell a product that you’re not, you know, you’re not so close to, but saying like, hire me that’s I can be really challenging, right?

Bethany: Yeah, absolutely.

Joel: So, I mean, we like business owners, we all need to market ourselves. We all need to be on social media. What, at what point should a company consider hiring a service like yours?

Bethany: That’s a really good question. so I guess maybe I’ll reframe it slightly to like how, like the types of clients that I look to work with, which is usually when they’re at the point, I guess with professional services, like real estate or if it was like, healthcare practitioner, like chiropractic or natural paths, something along the lines of that. if there’s kind of a team of a few of them working together, maybe like anywhere from two to five working together, That’s kind of when the service would be best suited or else a business like a service business, like restaurants, not a great example right now, but, a restaurant or something like that, where they have like five to 10 employees.

So I’m kind of at that size, it gives them. they sort of have the need and the ability to actually handle a little bit of growth that comes from social. and usually they have enough of a budget where it makes sense to actually pay an outside person to do that as well.

Joel: Yeah. So if they’re not big enough or they just don’t feel like they’re ready to hire a marketing company. What are some tactics that somebody can use in order to grow their marketing and grow the business?

Bethany: Yeah, totally. well, the great thing about social is that people love seeing what you’re up to, what you’re all about.

So, and I mean that doesn’t go without saying it can be a full-time job, especially if you’re on Instagram or something like that, where you’re taking a lot of photos, doing little videos. people love behind the scenes. They like to do, like, if you have. Visual work like any sort of design, or fitness or, again like food, anything like that, where you can do before and after photos, and things like that.

It’s really great for people to see or to showcase your work like that. But to actually like grow though. I mean, Instagram is still probably one of the best places to organically grow. Cause you can easily reach out to people. you can form partnerships, and get people to post on your behalf and things like that, where, where you can grow your audience for relative in a relatively short amount of time for, Not sorry for, and it’s like fairly easy to do so as well.

Joel: I think beans growth is one of the most challenging. Like if, you know, unless you put like a lot of money behind, you know, putting your, your feed in front of somebody else, it’s really hard to grow organically. It used to be a lot easier that where you could, just reach out to people. But I think people a lot more.

Private these days on social media and, and it’s really hard to get in front of, you know, your ideal clients. So what, what are some tactics people can use and maybe, maybe you just have to pay? I don’t know, but it’s like, you know, I guess some key, maybe some easy tactics people can use to get them, you know, to grow their audience.

Bethany: I guess I’ll keep talking about Instagram since they’re there, but one of the things that we do there is sort of like, I mean, I guess you could call it influencer marketing, but kind of partnering up with other accounts who have like a similar. Audience to you. And a lot of the times we’ll do, like for product-based companies, they can promote a product or do some sort of contest where people can actually follow your account and in turn, signing up or like for an entry into the contest.

Things like that are probably the easiest way. And you can often do where you’ll sort of share audiences. So, you can just share posts back and forth to promote to each other’s audiences. And, you know, one thing I do love about Instagram too, is that people are still super friendly. Like I think out of all of the social platforms, people on Instagram are the most, willing to connect and say hi to pretty much anyone. It makes it sort of a little bit easier to go out there and do that too.

Joel: Yeah, I agree. I definitely agree because I feel like, yeah, Facebook you’re very protective of your friends in Facebook, whereas Instagram, I don’t know why. I don’t know why that there’s a difference, but there you’re right. There definitely is a difference. People are much more willing to connect with people. They don’t know so much or they’re following, you know, it’s definitely more of a social platform than Facebook. I know. That’s a weird thing to say about, yeah, so. If somebody wants to grow the platforms and then go to their business. Right. And they’re like, okay, Bethany, I need you. I need your help. What are some steps that you would take with a client?

Bethany: Yeah, totally. well, the first thing we do is always look at, of course, like their overall like goal, what they want to actually achieve out of their social. part of the reason I started doing more content recently is because a lot of people I was talking to just wanted to kind of have a bit more of a presence, which is totally fair and achievable as well. So, usually of course, like we’ll start with that and then sort of build a strategy around it, which a lot of the time encompasses doing a little bit of content and then, Running different ads.

And of course, depending on, you know, if they’re trying to make sales online or get more leads for their team to talk to that type of thing, and we can kind of build a strategy around that and then following up with any leads that we get for them as well. Hmm.

Joel: Our Facebook, Instagram pretty much like the basics, the must for social media. Would you recommend that companies go on LinkedIn or other platforms?

Bethany: Facebook and Instagram are great, cause they’re really personal. I think if you have a service or a product that you’re offering to consumers, then those two platforms are really essential. If you’re going more business to business so LinkedIn is definitely the place to go.

Joel: And how about budget? Is there like a minimum amount of spend, if I have 300, $400 to spend on a campaign? Is that even worth doing or do you need more money?

Bethany: Yeah, again, it depends like what the ultimate goal is if you were just trying to do something like a little bit more awareness or maybe gain some new followers with a few hundred dollars, I think that that’s definitely achievable. if we were to build out like a proper campaign, that’s. like a sales funnel where you’re getting leads or generating sales, I would say no, just because you do need to have a little bit of budget to actually test that out. But usually if you’re doing engagement, it’s so cheap to do an engagement campaign that with a few hundred dollars, you’ll definitely get something for that at least.

Joel: And what, what are some changes you’ve seen through social media and maybe, yeah. What do you, and then maybe I’m just putting you on the spot with this, this question, but, where do you see like, especially, like pay-per-click advertising going in the future?

Is it just going to get more and more expensive or is it going to go to other platforms? Kind of like what, you know, I know it’s hard to see in the future, but what do you see is, sort of where companies should be spending their resources.

Bethany: I mean, so I feel like there’s a couple of questions.

Like I definitely of course like, Pay-per-click will go up, as it just gets more competitive than that. the one thing I do like about social, like Facebook or Instagram ads is that you can kind of manipulate it a little bit because when you have really creative ads and things that people are engaging with, the platform will automatically, Show it to more people, if you’re getting a lot of engagement.

So there are kind of ways to do that. to be honest, like in a way I sort of like that just because, it almost makes you, it makes the people that survive on those platforms. You, you have to be a better marketer, otherwise you just. Won’t be making any money. and it also, it kind of forces you to build out like the backend of your funnel as well.

So I’m sure that you have probably seen people who are offering as an ebook for seven 99 or like these really cheap front-end offers. I think that as the costs go up, you’ll probably start seeing a lot more of that. And then a lot more people building out the backend of those funnels where, you know, they’re selling like.

Coaching or something like that higher-end courses for like a few thousand dollars on the backend and just really trying to pad the front end of their like email list or contact list at the front. Did that answer all of your questions? I feel like there was another one.

Joel: I got asked a couple of questions in, but yeah, you definitely answered my question. So you, you said that before, you’re leaning more towards content marketing and. what is the difference between content marketing and pay-per-click and should one company focus on one over the other? Or what is the strategy behind those two avenues?

Bethany: Hm. yeah, so, with content marketing, I mean, typically I would recommend that more if you already had an audience that you were, That you were pushing it out to unless you’re on Instagram or something like that, where you’re actively like growing that audience as well.

And you’re driving a lot of people back to your profile. So you need to be more up-to-date with the content, with the PPC. I mean, the way that it works on like Facebook and Instagram is it’s. Active marketing. So you’re targeting people based on their interests. Not necessarily based on something that they’re searching for, like on Google.

So, with that, we use a little bit more direct copy. Like we’re always asking for something we’re always, there’s always like a really strong purpose behind an ad like that, that we’re setting out. even if it is. A little bit more awareness, but with your content that you’re just publishing, whether it’s a blog or a social media post, you have a little bit more leniency just because you’re not actually putting dollars behind it.

Joel: And so with the rise of, platforms like TechTalk talk and clubhouses the new one should companies, jump on those platforms, which they wait until they’re a little bit more mature.

Bethany: It depends. I think so like new platforms like that, the good thing about them. and I don’t actually know a ton about Clubhouse so I can’t really speak about that one specifically, but newer platforms like tech talk, for example, they, the way that they get popular is by helping other people get popular rates.

So they’re giving whether it’s like a person or a brand or whatever, the opportunity to just get way more attention, way more engagement, really easily. So I think that for the brands that are able to kind of get on there, Earlier, I think it’s definitely a really big, very valuable for them to be able to do so because they can just get established and kind of be one of the first people or brands on a platform like that.

Joel: I don’t like to go on platforms. It just feels like it’s another thing to do, another thing to post on. and so like how have you, how can one manage? Is there an easy way of managing all these different platforms or, or is it just the, you know, hiring somebody to do it? Is that the easiest way?

Bethany: I mean, for sure that makes it easier on you, but I think the best thing to do, honestly, I mean, if you’re, if you’re making the content, of course, it doesn’t hurt to publish it anywhere that you can, but I would always recommend to really focus on one platform just so that you can actually give that all of your energy to actually grow there. And then of course, like you’ll see people doing it where they’ll send people from Instagram to YouTube or vice versa, and you kind of can kind of leverage them, to grow each other. But I think that spending the majority of your time on one is really the way to go. even if you’re publishing stuff on all the, all the platforms.

Joel: Cool. And so currently you’re doing a contest for Mrs. Jetset. Can you tell me, because that piqued my interest in and really kind of connected over that. so what, you know, what is that contest about and why did you decide to enter.

Bethany: Yeah, totally. well, I actually found it on an Instagram ad. You did have to apply to get accepted to actually be a part of the contest. And, so the reason that I decided to actually join it was because I looked at their actual magazine and they have some really, I guess high-end contributors. So there are people like there was like Richard Branson and Robert Kiyosaki and a couple of other ones whose names escape my mind right now.

But they have people like that who are contributing and talking about stuff like finance and lifestyle, and like innovation and stuff like that. So I thought that it would be very, Interesting to get on the cover of something like that, even if it was more like, I mean, the actual contest is kind of like a popularity contest.

but I think that in my industry and like actually being on something like that, just with the readership that they have can be really valuable for

Joel:  And you, and you are an avid traveler, I believe. Yes.

Bethany: I love traveling.

Joel: When it’s not COVID, what are some of your favourite places to travel?

Bethany: Ooh, anywhere warm. I love probably my favourites were Thailand’s, improve though. So like slightly more exotic places. I feel like I like going places where English isn’t the first language. Cause it makes me feel like I’m actually traveling. I’ve been to like New Zealand, which is beautiful too, but it feels like you’re kind of just back home, but in a different setting.

Joel: And so how do you keep up with a job that is always changing? What are some tools that you use to, to keep up with, everything that’s going on with, with social and pay-per-click. Hmm.

Bethany: I do pay people for their time to do stuff like that. I’ve taken like thousands of online courses.

I mean, maybe not a thousand, but like a hundred, And I’m also I’m in different communities like that on Facebook, where they are, kind of sharing information like that as well. one that I will name drop, cause I think that they’re awesome. And if you’re looking for help with Facebook ads, I definitely would recommend it.

it’s called FETC through the digital distillery, and the founder, Kat Howell. is amazing. And they have, coaches in there and stuff like that. They have people, that work really closely with Facebook on and like kind of get updates on the algorithms and stuff like that as it’s coming out. So I’m pretty connected in there.

And then, there’s other there’s other groups and stuff like that, that I’m into at, sorry that I’m in that I kind of follow like that as well.

Joel: Instead of courses, is there any that you would recommend.

Bethany: yeah, I mean the ones with CA Haldol, I think that if you’re looking to get into Facebook advertising and especially like, e-commerce, they, I don’t know if there’s a better one than that for, from her.

another really good one. I, I think Billy Jean from Billy Jean is marketing. I think he actually retired. I’ve been following that. He keeps talking about that, but if you’re able to still get your hands on some of his courses, he has, very like well-rounded training where they talk about like copywriting and creating videos, like what to actually say in your videos, how to make yourself stand out.

So if you’re looking for something that’s a little bit more well-rounded in terms of that or document him.

Joel: Awesome. Yeah, I’ll put those in the show notes for people who want to check those out. and then, so I’m gonna finish off with one last question. And this is a question I ask all my guests and that is, do you have a favorite book or one that you like to gift a lot?

Bethany: Oh, I don’t know, gifted a book, recently, but that actually just made me think of one that was gifted to me, which I really liked. it was actually by gene Simmons. and it was called me Inc. And it was, it’s a really interesting book because he’s is, obviously a musician, but he’s very smart and like, Business and life stuff as well.

And so, in the book he talks about like, especially as a business person, like running your life as a business, and he has anyways, he has some really interesting, Points in there that he makes that I’ve found very helpful. And

Joel: he’s an excellent marketer as well.

Bethany: Yeah, totally. Yeah. I think he’s a genius.

Joel: If you remember, what are some, some couple of good tips that gene Simmons can pass on?

Bethany: Totally. Yeah, one of the ones, Oh my gosh. I don’t know why this stuck in my head, but he talks about money a lot and saving your money and like being smart with it. Even in terms of like buying a house versus like, versus like renting when you’re looking at it for personal use and that type of thing.

Then one of the things that, Has stuck with me. he said, a penny saved is worth two earned because of like a penny or whatever dollar amount that you have. if you spend that and then have to go back and earn it, you still have to pay your taxes again on it. You still have to spend the time to make it back.

and if, inflation and all of that type of things. So, I thought that was really interesting. and yeah, cause of course it’s easy to spend your money on things. Yeah,

Joel: I know Tony Robbins gives that same advice, so that’s important. Okay. but yeah, that’s not something you would expect in a rock and roll, autobiography, is it right?

Bethany:  Yeah, he’s really smart. I like it.

Joel: Well, Bethany, thank you so much for spending the time with me today. I really appreciate it. I know you’re super busy, for people who want to reach out to you, if they want to hire you, where is the best way to find you?

Bethany: Everything’s on my website. There’s more information and there’s also contact forms on B media group.com.

Joel: All right, well thank you so much. Awesome.

Bethany: Thank you. Thank you for listening to publishing for profits, please like it. Subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.