Ep48 - Karen Liz Albert Talks About Using Social Media For Your Business

In this episode Karen shares:

How losing her Mother caused her to re-examine her life and make changes.

How volunteering for a friend helped her to find her niche in Social Media.

That she now considers herself unemployable.

How a musical theatre event provided the perfect name for her business.

The mistake most people make by trying to target everyone for their business and how that it backfires.

That in addition to real estate professionals, another target market of her business is authors.

Her connection to the Hatfield and McCoy feud.

How each platform's goal of keeping people on it for as long as they possibly can, can lead to a 'creepy' internet experience where you are being targeted in very specific items across multiple sites.

The exercise that she instructs clients to do to find their ideal avatar.

How she discovered that she wasn't really serving her clients in the best possible manner when she tried to provide services that she did not specialize in to them and how that applies to us as well.

That it is OK to 'fire' a customer if you determine that it is not a good fit.

How once you become clear on who your ideal client is and how it ripples out and expands your businesses visibility.

Why she advocates for organic reach and not paid advertising so much.

Why having a separate business account is beneficial to your business even though you may be getting more engagement on your personal account.

That businesses can feed the information that they want know about their business to the various platform's algorithms.

The unique opportunity that she is offering other marketing firms to white-label her flagship product and customize it for their various markets.

[00:00:00] Greg Mills: Our guest today is a social media consultant speaker, author. And as the founder of behind your curtain, she has 20 plus years experience in marketing consulting and professional training, and has successfully used her social media expertise to launch targeted social media marketing campaigns for business owners and entrepreneurs. When she isn't working in our business. She's the lead female singer in a local Denver band. Performing top hits from several areas, including classic rock, funk, RNB, and more.

[00:00:30] Greg Mills: She's also a volunteer or a local church and helps provide services for the homeless without further ado. Karen Liz Albert.

[00:00:39] Karen Liz Albert: thank you so much, Greg. It's great to be here with you. I love that introduction. Thanks so much for that.

[00:00:45] Greg Mills: Well, thank you, Karen. Now, could you take a few moments and fill in the gaps from that.

[00:00:49] Greg Mills: intro and bring us up to speed with what's going on in your world today.

[00:00:54] Karen Liz Albert: A lot of what you mentioned is still very relevant in my world today. I'm very grateful to have the opportunity to be a support system for small business owners and real estate professionals, and just trying to help kind of navigate the crazy unpredictable ever-changing world of social media.

[00:01:17] Karen Liz Albert: I feel that I'm very blessed in the sense that I get to, In my profession, work life that I get to, consult and also motivate and educate and be creative. And I love the fact that I kind of translate that also over into the, Non-professional when I get to sing in the band at local places here in Denver, I get to motivate and inspire and be creative.

[00:01:45] Karen Liz Albert: So in different, aspects of it, it's still kind of all ties in nicely together in that.

[00:01:52] Greg Mills: Now there's some standard questions that.

[00:01:54] Greg Mills: we always ask. You're all entrepreneurs over 40 and one of them's. Did you come from an entrepreneurial background at all? Did anyone in your families have their own business?

[00:02:03] Karen Liz Albert: No. As a matter of fact, not at all. Both my parents were professionals. My mother actually ended up, Working her way in the, legal field, she ended up getting appointed to the federal court by, Clinton, before he left office. And my dad was an executive in Wells Fargo bank. And so I, went to school, went to college and.

[00:02:29] Karen Liz Albert: When did the nine to five grind for many years. And, didn't even know that I had the entrepreneurial bug or a spirit, but it's funny when you're in it for so long, you can look back at different times when you were in sort of the corporate world. I recognize that there were definitely elements to my personality that lend itself very well today as being an entrepreneur like.

[00:02:56] Karen Liz Albert: Tending to sort of just plow forward and make decisions and not necessarily feel like I always had to consult the management, you know, so that's very much the entrepreneurial spirit, I think in me. I found myself in 2010, in, a very unusual, um, unfortunate position. I lost my mind. Who was the federal court judge to cancer really suddenly and like three months.

[00:03:25] Karen Liz Albert: And it just completely, I don't know if you've ever experienced anything that like literally shifts everything the way you look at life. And, and, um, I think. Really didn't want to continue to do what I was doing. I sort of felt like I needed to do some soul searching and kind of find some purpose in that pain, you know?

[00:03:47] Karen Liz Albert: So I gracefully left the corporate world and decided I was just gonna take some time to figure out what I wanted to do. And I really had no clue what I wanted to do. Okay. Wasn't even looking at social media as that component, I did have sales and marketing, and I had worked somewhat with Facebook in the mid two thousands, but it really wasn't even something that I was considering until.

[00:04:13] Karen Liz Albert: Kinda started helping out friends and kind of volunteering for people. Cause they knew. And I had a neighbor across the street who has a nonprofit organization and she came up to me and said, you know, you're not doing anything and you know, that Facebook thing and I need help. And so she didn't really give me the opportunity to say no.

[00:04:34] Karen Liz Albert: And I thought, okay, It's fine. That will be fun. So about 90 days later, fast forward, the real estate agents that came had donated this space for the event, came up to me and said, so how much can we charge to pay you to help us with our social media? And. I'm going to get right back to you on that.

[00:04:55] Karen Liz Albert: And that's literally how it all started. That's opportunity knocking, right. And, you know, fast forward to today, I feel so grateful and blessed that I'm able to help. I've helped thousands and thousands of, small business owners and authors and real estate agents learn how to like effectively and strategically use social media.

[00:05:16] Karen Liz Albert: I've had many successes and many failures over the years that I, but you know, you're a little, you got a little that crazy bug, right. When you're an entrepreneur, people think you're crazy. Like, why don't you just go get a full-time job? Just like no way I could not be employed by anybody else ever again,

[00:05:36] Greg Mills: You're

[00:05:36] Karen Liz Albert: that would not work out well.

[00:05:38] Karen Liz Albert: Exactly. I am officially unemployable. Yep. Wouldn't have it any other way.

[00:05:44] Greg Mills: Now what is the reasoning behind the name behind your current?

[00:05:49] Karen Liz Albert: Yeah. So in that time where I was soul searching and figuring out what I was doing and volunteering my time, my daughter was actually in musical theater. And so I was helping them out. Um, you know, uh, some photography and videography experience. And so I was doing that, helping them promote the shows and I was putting little videos and stuff together.

[00:06:13] Karen Liz Albert: And so after one of the shows, uh, parents had come up to the director and was talking to her and I was standing next to the director and she put her arm around me and said, this is the woman that's actually been, behind our. And I went, oh my gosh, that's a great name. So I went over to Google, right?

[00:06:30] Karen Liz Albert: I went to GoDaddy and I was like behind the curtain, no, that's not available behind my curtain. No, that's not available. But behind your curtain.com was available. And I was kind of annoyed cause I had really wanted. Behind the curtain or Mike Curtin, but it's so much better because that's actually what I am.

[00:06:49] Karen Liz Albert: When clients hire me, I am behind your curtain. I make it look like you, but it's actually me behind your curtain. So a lot of people kind of get the wizard of Oz sort of influence in there, which there is a little bit there's no Dorothy or, um, I wish I had the red shoes sometimes, but it's just me behind your curtain doing some social media stuff or.

[00:07:12] Greg Mills: I can understand real estate agent professionals, being part of your target market, from that story. What about authors , how did that come to pass?

[00:07:23] Karen Liz Albert: A lot of it really is. When you look at social media marketing, I always bring in my background of sales and marketing, and it's really no different from if we took away the fact that we're talking about Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn, and, and really just looked at it from marketing 1 0 1 perspective.

[00:07:46] Karen Liz Albert: Pre-social media pre-internet days. There was never a marketing campaign that was put together that didn't have a real clear understanding on who the audience was. Right? Every campaign was written, knowing the, who it is that they're wanting to attract. You're never going to see a sugary cereal box cover of a mom doing yoga, right.

[00:08:06] Karen Liz Albert: That's not their target market. So. It's no different. When you look at using social media, most professionals think that social media is a platform that allows them to just pump a bunch of information about them and cross their fingers, kind of hope someone sees it. Yeah, but that's actually a very, what I call mistaking activity for progress.

[00:08:28] Karen Liz Albert: And so when I would have conversations with authors, Say they're trying to get them, as an author exposure, they're trying to get their book exposure. And I would always say, so who is your ideal reader? Who is your consumer? And you can tie to tell they would get this look on their face. Most of the time, which is the same answer I get from real estate agents, by the way, they say, well, you know, everybody, anybody who would be interested in whatever I'm writing about.

[00:08:58] Karen Liz Albert: And unfortunately, while maybe big. Perspective that might work for you. It doesn't work when it comes to social media, you really have to be clear who is it that you're wanting to attract? And so over time, I just started working together with authors to help them to really start to think about. You know, not everybody's going to have an interest in what it is that you're writing.

[00:09:22] Karen Liz Albert: So let's get really clear on the who, and then let's craft a strategy to help you start to show up in front of that particular demographic. So you can start to be seen versus the, let me just put it out there and cross fingers, right. And hope someone.

[00:09:37] Greg Mills: What are some of the strategies that you use, especially with all three?

[00:09:42] Karen Liz Albert: Well, especially with authors, it is absolutely step one, helping them understand that demographic. So if you are writing a fictional story that is going to possibly attract people that are of the millennial or the younger age, Right. So everything gets crafted around that. Meaning the key words, the hashtags, your call to actions, your graphics, everything needs to be structured in a way that is going to help you start to show up in front of that particular community.

[00:10:15] Karen Liz Albert: So. Catering to the baby boomers with whatever it is you're writing about, or maybe you're a vegan and you've put together a recipe book for that. I mean, that's a little bit easier to identify who your niche market is, I worked with an author who is that? I think he's the great, great grandson of, , the Hatfield and McCoy.

[00:10:36] Karen Liz Albert: We all know about that. Right? So he's in the McCoy's side of the family and he wrote off, like a trilogy basically about that kind of how that all came about and all of that. And he was frustrated because he wasn't really seeing anything in, in social media. But what he hadn't really thought about was who is it?

[00:10:56] Karen Liz Albert: That's going to have an interest in that and really looking at that demographic and then right. Using his keywords and his hashtags and his conduct. That was going to get in front of that particular demographic, because there's very specific people that are going to be really interested and go, oh, that sounds so cool.

[00:11:12] Karen Liz Albert: I'd love to learn more about that. Hatfield and McCoy, you know, maybe kind of like your country, Western, John Wayne, kind of those kind of peeps. Right? So that's who you're going to want to really focus on attracting instead of just putting it out there and again, crossing fingers and saying someone is hoping someone.

[00:11:34] Greg Mills: Now how far down the rabbit hole with we'll stay with authors again. Do you go? Cause I could see an author, especially a first time author putting out a book and doing very minimal advertising, not having a mailing list. Do you help them to set up a mailing list or is that something further down the road for.

[00:11:53] Karen Liz Albert: Yeah. So I don't really help them set up a mailing list, but what I will help them with is doing what's called a prelaunch. So a lot of times publishers will work with the author to help them, you know, build the baby. But then they get to this point because. A lot of publishing companies will tell you that they'll help market the book, but they don't do anything with social media and they don't want to.

[00:12:19] Karen Liz Albert: So it's been a great collaborative relationship with me between, um, publishing companies, because about 90 days before book launch, they'll have their authors come to me. And then we'll set up a whole pre book launch campaign, which will consist of , landing pages, that'll help them build a list that they could do sign up, pre-launch for a special pre-launch price or whatever, be the first to know when it comes available, that kind of thing.

[00:12:47] Karen Liz Albert: But then from the email marketing side, that's not kind of my jam. I do have some experts that I can refer them to. That'll build out an email drip campaign and such, but I can help them pre-launch exposure to help them build a.

[00:13:01] Greg Mills: Now, what are some of the common problems that both authors and small businesses have with social media?

[00:13:11] Karen Liz Albert: I know I sound like a broken record, but I'll tell you the most common problem is them trying to get their product or service in front of everybody. And it just doesn't work. And I'll explain a little bit more behind that. Why it doesn't work from more of a strategic. Algorithm perspective because every social media platform has an algorithm, right.

[00:13:33] Karen Liz Albert: And every, platform's algorithm has one primary goal. And that goal is to make sure that it keeps the user community. Because if they start to become a happy, then they might leave. Right? So the way that it ensures that it keeps the communities happy is that it monitors the behavior and activity of every single profile user.

[00:13:53] Karen Liz Albert: So it's profiling that user. So you and I, Greg are basically dictating all day long. What we see show up on our newsfeed because we tend to post about and engage with content. That's very much in alignment with our lifestyle and our interests. Right? So all of this is being monitored. Can be seem very big brother.

[00:14:11] Karen Liz Albert: Yeah, a little creepy, but Zuckerberg is spending millions of dollars on this predictive behavior analytics so that it can proactively create a very positive experience for the users. And so what happens is, and this even spills outside of Facebook, right? You go to Google and search for a pair of shoes.

[00:14:30] Karen Liz Albert: Yes, what's on your newsfeed, right? When you get back. So what happens is once the algorithm gets a sense of what a user has an interesting, it goes and scans the millions of business pages, looking for pages that produce content that might be right in alignment with what that user has an interest in make sense.

[00:14:46] Karen Liz Albert: If you're using your social media pages to be all about you and in everything to everybody, the algorithm doesn't have a profile called in everybody. So that's why. I may sound like a broken record, but you've got to get clear on the who, because the algorithm wants to know, who you are, what you do, how you do.

[00:15:05] Karen Liz Albert: Who you do it for. And also where are you doing if geography is relevant to your model as well? Most of the time people are all about, well, this is who I am, and this is what I do and how I do it, but they really miss the, who they do it for and the where, and those are really the two critical questions that you have to be clear on.

[00:15:23] Karen Liz Albert: And that's when your social media strategy is literally based off of. Attracting that who, and, and then it just becomes a lot easier because if you think about it, let's just say hypothetically, that there is an author that is writing a book that is all about, how to effectively train your spastic puppy.

[00:15:45] Karen Liz Albert: Right. So you can think, well, yeah, that probably is going to go in front of pet lovers, right? Yes, absolutely. But the benefit of knowing. Pet lovers is now you can also think about, well, what are the other businesses that also catered to pet lovers? So vets, dog, walkers groomers, right? So you can start. And create a connection and reach out and connect your business brand through social media, to their social media businesses, and start to become more visible and generate collaborative exposure that way.

[00:16:21] Karen Liz Albert: So it's not just you trying to gain exposure. You're able to leverage all of these other businesses as well, but it's really difficult to find out who those other businesses are. If you're trying to get out there to everybody, right. So that's a long answer to that question, but hopefully that, that kind of helped clarify the challenges,

[00:16:43] Greg Mills: Yeah, that helps clarify, but then it brings up the obvious question. How do you find out who your ideal customer is or avatar is, or who is out there that is, following you online and you don't even know it.

[00:16:57] Karen Liz Albert: right? Yeah, it is a good question. A lot of times what I tell business owners or real estate agents is an exercise that I do with my clients is we'll spend time actually looking at their existing customers and really writing down the names of what I call, like your top 10.

[00:17:18] Karen Liz Albert: Like the champions, right? They refer business to you that repeat clients, they're your cheerleaders. And then when you write down the names of those top 10 customers, then you want to see where you find consistencies and consistencies will fall into the traditional demographics.

[00:17:36] Karen Liz Albert: Marital status, income, race, gender location. So when you kind of start to see that bubble up, then you want to also look at what we call psychographics. So that's where they spend their time and their money, their hobbies kind of lifestyle stuff. Right. I do this a lot with my clients that are real estate agents, because most of the time they're like, I just want anybody that has a pulse, that's going to want to buy or sell real estate.

[00:18:01] Karen Liz Albert: And again, I get that from a business perspective, but it doesn't work for social media. So we'll kind of invest time in and do that. Um, I did that recently with a, uh, a realtor based on a Dallas. She had no clue who Hoover who was. And so we did this exercise and she bubbled up to the top in surprise that she had actually been working with quite a few divorced women.

[00:18:25] Karen Liz Albert: Well, she was a divorced woman. So the other thing that always comes kind of comes to become an aha moment is like attracts. Every time and it's, and when it's organic like that, it just works. You know? So don't try and be round peg in a square hole, be comfortable with who you want to work with and who you are naturally attracting.

[00:18:46] Karen Liz Albert: And so we really crafted a strategy to help her become more visible to the divorced women in her community. And then also connect her with the professionals that also cater to that. So you've got divorce attorneys, right? You've got, um, family therapy. Uh, possibly financial planners estate planners, whatever's happening with the money in that situation.

[00:19:09] Karen Liz Albert: Right. Um, so kind of taking a step back and looking at who you have been working with over the years tends to be a fantastic resource for you to identify a demographic that you could continue to craft a strategy and really want to attract.

[00:19:28] Greg Mills: Now what are two or three tips about, marketing for social media, especially for small businesses that people would find surprising.

[00:19:37] Karen Liz Albert: I think a lot of times when I talk about the whole. Feeding the algorithm, right. With the information that they need, is that a lot of times the small business owners really find that very surprising because they never really even knew that they had an opportunity to give the algorithm information.

[00:19:58] Karen Liz Albert: As a small business owner advice that I can give with social media. And really, even as just a small business owner, as an entrepreneur advice that I could give is, When it comes to using social media is step one, try and figure out, get clarity on who it is you want to attract and make sure that you're really incorporating that in your content strategy and your community engagement strategy.

[00:20:19] Karen Liz Albert: Outside of social media, as an entrepreneur advice that I give to other small business owners and entrepreneurs is to, really get clear on, Who you want to work with? Because I did the exact same thing about six years ago, prior to six years ago, when I started my company, I was literally trying to be in everything to everybody and oh, what do you need?

[00:20:43] Karen Liz Albert: Okay. I can do that. Oh, you need a website. Okay. I'll figure out how to, oh, you need a logo. Okay. I'll figure out how to do that. And you know, you're not really serving anybody when you're trying to do that. And when I really realized that it was okay for me, To say, you know, that's not my area of expertise, but I've got somebody I can refer you to and really pass it off.

[00:21:06] Karen Liz Albert: So I could stay in my lane so that I could really hone in on my skills and my expertise so that when someone does come to me, For social media, marketing, coaching, and, um, and, uh, assistance. They know that that's my niche. Like I'm the expert in that. I'm not trying to be spreading myself too thin, so it's really okay to say no and find those other partners that, you know, have the better skills and the ability to kind of pass it off.

[00:21:40] Karen Liz Albert: And I would say the other thing too is, It's also okay. To, fire a customer and say, this isn't gonna work. Thank you. But no. It's like any relationship, you have to set boundaries and you have to be really clear on what those boundaries are, uh, because you could really be investing way too much energy in trying to make someone happy that really.

[00:22:06] Karen Liz Albert: Doesn't want to be happy or they're not going to be happy for whatever it is that you do. And you're spending so much energy on that, that you might be missing out on this next customer that's in line waiting that will be so in love with you and be so grateful, and as you start to.

[00:22:22] Karen Liz Albert: I could do it more and more over the years you start, I've gotten to a point where I can pick up pretty quickly, someone that I just say. , I don't think we're the best fit here, so let's let me, let's just, allow this to, um, part ways. If I got to give them back their money to me, okay, that's fine.

[00:22:42] Karen Liz Albert: It's not worth it basically. Right? Because there are so many out there that do value what it is that you have to bring and we'll pay you for what it is. Because the thing I've learned is it's never really about money. It's always about value. And if they don't value you and see your value. I don't care how much money you want to pay me.

[00:23:04] Karen Liz Albert: It's not worth it. You know, I want to be valued and people will invest in that, but there's other ways to get compensated. Right. Other than just through the dollars, it's all about having that relationship and the appreciation as well. So,

[00:23:18] Greg Mills: Relationship appreciation, respect, respect for your time, especially

[00:23:23] Greg Mills: Nobody wants that midnight phone call.

[00:23:26] Karen Liz Albert: Absolutely. Yeah, it's true. and knowing that it's okay. It doesn't mean that you're right and they're wrong or vice versa. It just, isn't always going to be a fit and just being okay with that. And I discovered that I really like working with real estate agents. And that was a big, big reason for me, about six years ago to say, you know, I'm not really going to continue to be everything to everybody.

[00:23:49] Karen Liz Albert: I really enjoy working for real estate agents. They really need what it is that I have to offer. And that's who I'm going to work on attracting, kind of a concern that I get from a lot of business owners that say, Karen, I understand that you're telling me to go after this particular who's.

[00:24:03] Karen Liz Albert: I don't want to miss out right. On all the others maybe. And it's actually the complete opposite that happens because if you're trying to be out there, everybody, everything to everybody you're not being seen at all, because the algorithms go on. I have no idea who you want me to put this information in front of, so I'm not going to put it in front of anybody.

[00:24:20] Karen Liz Albert: So when you get clear on the who, it really shines the spotlight on you. And then it'll start to spill out over into the other demographics, but you got to pick one and you got to work strategically to get the attention of them so that you are actually going to start to be seen and get that ripple effect of exposure.

[00:24:39] Greg Mills: It's 2022 when we're doing this. And I'm going to ask you what online platforms do you see as being the best for small business right now?

[00:24:48] Karen Liz Albert: Yeah, it's a good question. I get that a lot. So I'm never going to be the one that says you have to be on every social media platform. I'm the one that says you want to be on the one that is going to help you get in front of the community. That you've agreed that you want to get invisible to. Right. So, um, Right now the three platforms that I really primarily only focus on probably 95% of my time is Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn.

[00:25:19] Karen Liz Albert: Those are still platforms that you absolutely can become very visible to the community in those platforms. You can still, uh, you know, gain the attention of the community and feed the algorithm and do things to help increase your visibility through search engine optimization. Twitter is a fantastic, application.

[00:25:41] Karen Liz Albert: Platform to get information, but to be seen on it is virtually impossible, unless you're like this massive influencer or celebrity or somebody in politics, right. It's, it's really virtually impossible to be seen on there. And so for those of you out there that are listening and you feel like you gotta be tweeting every single day, I would just go back and look at your analytics.

[00:26:04] Karen Liz Albert: And if you're not getting seen. Just stop. Just stop the tweeting, give yourself a break and breathe and spend that time that you're. And go over to like Facebook or Instagram or LinkedIn. The other platform is YouTube that a lot of people say, I'm building a channel and I'm doing tons of video and I'm really excited about that strategy.

[00:26:28] Karen Liz Albert: And yeah, YouTube is a fantastic platform to look to as more of a repository for all of the video and the content that you are building. Um, it absolutely helps increase. professionalism and your brand online. But again, it's really hard to show up in front of people and the demographic in search engine results in YouTube.

[00:26:52] Karen Liz Albert: It's really hard. And so unless you're pumping out a whole lot of video content, I mean like a lot. Or you've been on YouTube for like 15 years. It's difficult to get on that first page of YouTube search results. So I'm not saying don't be on YouTube, but just know realistically, you know, it's probably not going to generate a whole bunch of new business and leads for you.

[00:27:20] Karen Liz Albert: And I say all of this with the caveat of. If you have a very specific marketing strategy, a campaign like a lead gen campaign, and you've chosen to utilize YouTube as the platform to drive traffic to that's an entirely separate like marketing campaign approach. What I talk about is organic. I'm not on the paid side, but because there's, there's a lot of success you can see on the page side.

[00:27:52] Karen Liz Albert: Some of them, you got to really have deep pockets and pay to play in some of those platforms. Um, and on the paid side in YouTube, you can be seen again, I'm just talking about organic, right? If people are thinking about, I get to go in and do some posts, what's the best platform for me to go in and do some posts.

[00:28:10] Karen Liz Albert: So I know that I'm seeing some return on your efforts.

[00:28:13] Greg Mills: I was going to ask you about that in regards to Facebook, because I've heard that advertising on Facebook used to be a lot more effective. And now it's not. Has that been your experience

[00:28:26] Karen Liz Albert: Well, it's still very effective. Unfortunately, it used to be a lot easier to get in front of the demographic. But when you, when you kind of know how to navigate the paid side of Facebook ad campaign, it's still can be very, very effective. It's just, they've made it a little bit harder and complicated, but that's just because if you look at like Zuckerberg has been under the thumb of all of this scrutiny, right?

[00:28:53] Karen Liz Albert: So that the whole. Around the, insinuations that Facebook has just let anybody do anything and not really have any sort of strict controls. So there's a lot more stricter controls that they've had to put into place. But if you understand how to navigate those controls, you can still absolutely be seen for sure.

[00:29:15] Greg Mills: I imagine that if you really know your audience and you know, they're demographics that you could really dial it in with Facebook

[00:29:22] Karen Liz Albert: Exactly. Absolutely. Because if you're just putting an ad out there and you're like, well, I'm going to reach anybody in the entire United States. That's not really the best use of your dollars, right? Yeah. You gotta get.

[00:29:36] Greg Mills: Now what used to work well in, in marketing for social media that does just doesn't work anymore.

[00:29:43] Karen Liz Albert: I would say that it used to be that you could, as a business, utilize your business page in a way that didn't require quite as much of a strategy you used to be able to post and the algorithm would actually show your content to a much less. Percentage of the population. And then what happened is that the algorithm shifted to be more, uh, Critical about the type of content that business pages were posting and whether that content was adding value to the community.

[00:30:20] Karen Liz Albert: And it was all basically saying, if you're just posting junk, it's not going to be. Well, we don't consider our content junk. Right? The algorithm is like, you've just put another post on there. That's just all about you. And that's really what it comes down to. The algorithm is very protective over the personal user or Facebook community.

[00:30:42] Karen Liz Albert: And it's just not going to toss stuff out on a user's newsfeed. If it feels like it's just not going to add any value. So as a business owner, it definitely has become. Much more complicated. However, if you know now how to strategically use your business page and how to feed the algorithm so that it does see value in what you do.

[00:31:03] Karen Liz Albert: That's really where the game changer is. And a lot of business owners will say, yeah, I don't see any benefit in using my business page because I don't get any engagement. And so I just do everything on my personal, and I get that for sure. If you're seeing crickets on your business side, but you're getting, you know, 50 likes and comments on your personal, that makes sense.

[00:31:22] Karen Liz Albert: You would lean more towards your personal, but the thing that I just warn business owners about that is that, you know, Facebook does. Frown on businesses using their personal page as business. So it's a very delicate dance and you've got to make sure that you are not just always using it for business.

[00:31:40] Karen Liz Albert: Cause I've had a lot of, uh, businesses that have reached out to me and said, Karen I'm in, I've been shot out I'm in Facebook jail. Cause they were really heavily, uh, using their, their personal side. Um, and the other thing too is. Your community. If you are a business owner, your community wants to support you as a business, but they can't write reviews on your personal page.

[00:32:02] Karen Liz Albert: They can't really refer right business to, let me send you to Sandy's personal page because she's an amazing financial planner. I don't want to find a financial planner by seeing, you know, Sandy, that. On the back porch and she's having a glass of wine, that's not the key information that's going to help me decide if I want Sandy as my financial planner, I want to be able to go look at her from a business brand perspective.

[00:32:28] Karen Liz Albert: That's why it's important that you want to build a really good, impressive business brand on these social media platforms. And then just understand how you can start to be seen, by the community.

[00:32:42] Greg Mills: Do you advocate that people try to drive traffic to the sites that they control to their own personal real estate. Just in case, that they did get put in Facebook jail at some point.

[00:32:57] Karen Liz Albert: so are you saying if they got cut out of Facebook, that they have a website or something?

[00:33:04] Greg Mills: Exactly. And I'm not just picking on Facebook. This could happen with any platform,

[00:33:08] Karen Liz Albert: Oh, yeah, absolutely. Unfortunately you can send people to a website, but websites are sort of like an island, right. You don't really know who's on that island. You can't get there. social media is more on the mainland.

[00:33:20] Karen Liz Albert: When you're off the mainland, it's hard to connect with people. You don't have the names and the emails and the phone numbers and the addresses and that kind of stuff. It's important to just really work on not getting in Facebook jail or any social media jail.

[00:33:35] Karen Liz Albert: It's just a matter of understanding the guidelines and being respectful of how much you're going to do on your personal and how much you're going to do on your.

[00:33:43] Greg Mills: Is there any guideline that would surprise people. And is there a remedy for once your I guess we'll pick on Facebook, that for getting out of the jail or detention, all.

[00:33:56] Karen Liz Albert: Gosh, I wish my heartbreaks for some clients that I have that have just been like completely shut out. The frustrating thing with Facebook is there's no human. You can talk. Right. They send you emails that are incredibly ambiguous. They don't really, they say, okay, well provide us this with this information.

[00:34:14] Karen Liz Albert: And then you comply and then you literally just have to sit and wait. And you never know. I have a client of mine, who's a lender. And she just got completely shut out . She had to jump through hoops to give them all this information. And to this day she's never been let back in. Gone in and just had to start all over again.

[00:34:37] Karen Liz Albert: It's so frustrating when that happens. And a lot of times I will get contacted from my clients that say, I can't advertise on Facebook anymore. All of a sudden, and it doesn't make any sense, you know, and the fact that they are, really kind of just keeping people hostage in that situation, in that instance, it's very frustrating.

[00:35:00] Karen Liz Albert: I wish I had a magic button. Right. Just push this and then over. You'll get back in. Yeah.

[00:35:05] Greg Mills: I've heard the same thing, said about Amazon as well,

[00:35:09] Karen Liz Albert: Oh really? Uh,

[00:35:10] Greg Mills: Authors or people, that have a sales account with them have been banned and, they're welcome to buy on Amazon, but you know, they

[00:35:19] Karen Liz Albert: right. I'm sure. Yeah. They will always be welcome to buy, right? Yeah. It's yeah. It's very frustrating. So hopefully that one doesn't happen to anybody out there listening.

[00:35:30] Greg Mills: So going back to the Facebook example and I harp on a platform that I'm not even on, my wife and I made a decision early on that we weren't going to be on Facebook, but how much is the advertising how much would your ad budget be for a small business typically to be effective?

[00:35:50] Karen Liz Albert: It really kind of does depend on the type of business that you have. And I know that that sounds ambiguous, but, um, there are certain businesses that can do really, really well without having to have a huge ad spend like real estate agents. If they know how to organically really maximize the use of showing up in front of their kids.

[00:36:11] Karen Liz Albert: Right. But then there are some businesses where, um, that sort of organic approach isn't really helping you get seen by a very specific demographic. Um, and so what I generally recommend is to just create about three or four different ads. Start with a very small budget, but also start very hyper-local. So do not try and go.

[00:36:35] Karen Liz Albert: After everybody in the United States find geo pockets that you feel would be really good. And if you're, if you are a service-based business in a geographical area, then just start out in that, you know, small 20, 25 mile radius, and just start with like two bucks a day and just see what kind of return that you're getting.

[00:36:57] Karen Liz Albert: And then you can play around with the radius. You can play around with the copy, so you don't have to have, ridiculous amounts of money like you possibly do. If you wanted to advertise on Google, you can still be seen for a reasonable amount of money, on Facebook.

[00:37:14] Greg Mills: Now let's switch gears just a little bit. What are you working on now? That's new and exciting.

[00:37:20] Karen Liz Albert: So new and exciting for me. Thank you. Is I'm actually working on taking my proprietary program, that I've actually copyrighted the name of it, and I've got a copyright seal. And I am working on, restate. Option approach for other digital marketing agencies that would be interested in taking my program and learning how to sell that to their customers.

[00:37:46] Karen Liz Albert: So my program, while I have what's called a 30 day social media facelift, nobody else can use that name, but they can slap another name. And I basically have built the entire machine right from the the sales calls, sales emails, scripts, everything all the way up to once they get into the program.

[00:38:07] Karen Liz Albert: It's a well-oiled machine so that I can just say, okay, agency pay me X amount of dollars a month to have access to this online program that will walk you through how to do it. And then I don't have to be quite so much on the fulfillment side. Right? So that's kind of the new, exciting thing that I'm looking forward to.

[00:38:26] Karen Liz Albert: Helping other agencies have a new product that they can start to offer to their clients. Because again, while I do it for real estate agents, they can do it for it. They could say, I want to do it for dentists, or I want to do it for plumbers. I want to do it for roofers. It applies to any type of business.

[00:38:46] Karen Liz Albert: It's just, you want to brand it, right? So that it does actually have that specific attraction. I am doing this for plumbers, or I'm doing this for dentists.

[00:38:56] Greg Mills: So the there's no behind your curtain branding on it.

[00:38:59] Karen Liz Albert: Not at all, it's completely white labeled so they can take it and stamp their own logo on it. They just can't call it 30 days. Social media facelift.

[00:39:08] Greg Mills: Okay. So if anybody out there is listening, this sounds like it'd be a pretty good opportunity, to add to your social media toolkit.

[00:39:16] Karen Liz Albert: Yeah, it is. And there's a lot of social media agencies out there that they will. Offer just the ongoing monthly, you know, let me take it over for you. Um, which I don't do. Um, and so this is kind of a nice plugin piece that you can do with your client before they start the ongoing monthly. So it's helping them craft a strategy, get a really good looking impressive brand own there, how they're showing.

[00:39:46] Karen Liz Albert: Get in front of a specific demographic. It very clear on the who and the, where, which then will make them even more successful doing the ongoing monthly, because they'll then know exactly who they should be attracting for this client. That's paying them to do social media for them on a monthly basis.

[00:40:04] Karen Liz Albert: A lot of, um, monthly social media marketing services, sort of just do a. You know, kind of, uh, well, let's just make sure we've got something out there, right. Just to have something out there, but it's really not about quantity. It's really about quality. And so if they can start to understand more about the algorithm and how to get the attention in the algorithm and all of that is everything that I teach as a part of the program.

[00:40:31] Karen Liz Albert: So the agencies would learn a lot and then they'd be able to flip it and start teaching and, and offering that to, to their customers as well.

[00:40:40] Greg Mills: Okay. How would somebody approach you or how would they find out more about it?

[00:40:46] Karen Liz Albert: Yeah. And anybody can go to my website, which is behind your curtain.com and right on the top folds of the website, there is a schedule, a consultation call. And so they'll be able to identify if they're wanting to hire me as a, you know, as a strategist for them, or if they're interested in learning more about how they can acquire the, the facelift program for their own needs.

[00:41:09] Greg Mills: Now what's been the most difficult part of running behind, behind your curtain.

[00:41:15] Karen Liz Albert: Gosh, it changes all the time. Right? It's very inconsistent. I mean, there's, there's the ebbs and flows of the income, right? So there's always that there's that continuation of the, uh, of the L the lead gen component of it. Um, it's finding really good. Um, uh, staff and, um, being able to constantly know that you are exceeding expectations and creating new ways to add value and, um, you know, I love it and I wouldn't change a thing, but there are definitely days where I go home.

[00:42:01] Karen Liz Albert: I'm like, oh my gosh, I think I were a hundred different ads today, you know? There's just challenges to keep up with it all, but they're great challenges because when you hit a ceiling, Right. That just means that you got to reevaluate what you've got going on so that you can shift and adjust and scale because it's all about scalability.

[00:42:23] Karen Liz Albert: If you can't grow, then that means that you need to probably look at efficiency, tools, and resources. And sometimes we don't like to look at those, but you have to constantly to say, could I tweak this and be doing this a little bit better? And could this, allow me to do back some of my time and invest that into another area where I know that that's going to help my company scale.

[00:42:47] Karen Liz Albert: So it's this constant ripping it open and, evaluating how you're doing.

[00:42:53] Greg Mills: Okay, now let's get ready to wrap this up. I'm going to ask you one question that we alluded to in your bio, but I really hadn't explored. Why is giving back to the community so important for you?

[00:43:08] Karen Liz Albert: Well, I'm a Christian. And so I do believe that we are blessed to be a blessing to others. I mean, we're all human beings, right? We're all just trying to get through the day, the best that we can. And I feel incredibly fortunate that my. Doesn't consist of being homeless or trying to figure out where I'm going to get my next meal or health problems or all of the things that I'm so blessed that I don't have that problem.

[00:43:35] Karen Liz Albert: So I feel that for those that might be dealing with those problems, if I could just make their day just a little less, you know, hard, then I feel like I I've done it. I've done the good deed.

[00:43:48] Karen Liz Albert: Know, cause we've all been there. Right? We've all had those times. It's all been hard. I don't want to make it sound like, I'm just like Pollyanna here and everything's always coming up roses.

[00:43:59] Karen Liz Albert: There's been very, very hard, difficult times.

[00:44:01] Greg Mills: All right. What's the Number one piece of advice. that you can give for our lists?

[00:44:09] Karen Liz Albert: Number one piece of advice. I think I would probably say that if you truly are passionate about what you are doing okay. To just allow that to be your driver. Cause there's going to be a lot of things that are going to try and attack you and push you off course. There's a lot of shiny objects.

[00:44:31] Karen Liz Albert: There's a lot of things that people might want to introduce into your life that make it sound like, oh yeah, that's the next best thing. But there is such great reward when you can stay focused and stay on track. And Joe. Don't allow those other shiny objects to really push you off track. Because.

[00:44:52] Karen Liz Albert: It may not happen overnight. It may not happen tomorrow or next year, but I guarantee you that if, you know, in your core that this is what you're supposed to be doing, just keep on doing it because someone out there and maybe even more than one is not only going to need what it is that you have to offer, but they're also going to be watching.

[00:45:16] Karen Liz Albert: And you need to, know that you are leading by. And I have a lot of friends that are entrepreneurs and they are like the bouncing ball. They're on this thing one week. And then the next month, they're calling me to talk to me about something else that they're doing. I have complete love for what it is that they are wanting to do because they're very passionate, but they're also very distracted.

[00:45:42] Karen Liz Albert: So if I can just give you one point of advice, find out what your true love and your calling and your passion is. Stay on course.

[00:45:51] Greg Mills: Okay. Now what's the best way for people to check you out and get in touch with you.

[00:45:56] Karen Liz Albert: Thank you. It's behind your curtain. Pretty much everywhere. Behind your curtain on Instagram, Facebook I'm Karen, Liz, Albert on LinkedIn. My website is behind. I'm also Karen, Liz Albert on my personal Facebook page as well. So anybody follow me, connect with me. I'm always putting out, new tips and tricks and videos and stuff on my YouTube channel.

[00:46:20] Karen Liz Albert: Anybody that wants to schedule a free call with me too. Happy to chat with you. If you need some guidance and just some clarity on next steps for your, , marketing social media for you.

[00:46:31] Greg Mills: Okay, well, that's a wrap. Thank you.

[00:46:33] Greg Mills: Karen, for being a guest on entrepreneurs over 40

[00:46:36] Karen Liz Albert: Thanks so much, Greg. My pleasure. Okay.

[00:46:39] Greg Mills: mine as well.