Have you been using social media for a while and wondering if it is making any real progress? Or maybe you’re still wondering how to jump in to using it for growing your business.
Our guest today is Karlyn Ankrom, and she shares with us some insights on how to get real results with social media.
TODAY’S WIN-WIN:
Don’t focus on the followers that are not there, focus on the people that are there.
LINKS FROM THE EPISODE:
- You can visit our guest’s website at:
- Get a copy of our guest’s book: CLICK HERE
- Attend our Franchise Sales Training Workshop:
- https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/franchisesalestraining/
- If you are ready to franchise your business or take it to the next level: CLICK HERE.
- Connect with our guest on social:
- instagram.com/ohsnapsocialkarlyn
- facebook.com/ohsnapsocial
- linkedin.com/in/karlynankrom
- youtube.com/@ohsnapsocial
ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Karlyn Ankrom is the Founder and lead strategist of Oh Snap! Social, as well as the creator of the Fan Firestarter Framework, a new approach to social media marketing tailored to businesses “tempted to fake their death and flee to Tahiti at the mere thought of content creation.” She developed her user-friendly strategy after a decade of working with various brick-and-mortar businesses that were social-media-allergic – not because they didn’t want to make content, but because they were intimidated by it. Karlyn’s system addresses this fear, helping newbies get on the fast track to “unsticking their social media” in just one hour per week.
ABOUT BIG SKY FRANCHISE TEAM:
This episode is powered by Big Sky Franchise Team. If you are ready to talk about franchising your business you can schedule your free, no-obligation, franchise consultation online at: https://bigskyfranchiseteam.com/ or by calling Big Sky Franchise Team at: 855-824-4759.
If you are interested in being a guest on our podcast, please complete this request form or email podcast@bigskyfranchise.com and a team member will be in touch.
TRANSCRIPTION:
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:01):
Welcome to the Multiply Your Success Podcast, where each week we help growth-minded entrepreneurs and franchise leaders take the next step in their expansion journey. I’m your host, Tom DuFore, CEO of Big Sky Franchise Team. And as we open today, I’m wondering if you have been using social media for a while, and maybe you’re wondering, “Are we making any real progress here?” Or maybe you’re still trying to figure out how to jump in to start using it to actually grow your business. Well, our guest today is Karlyn Ankrom, and she shares with us some simple and practical insights on how to get real results with social media. And I’m really enthused about this interview because they really are simple and practical. A lot of times with social media, in my opinion, it can be overcomplicated quickly.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (00:50):
Now, Karlyn is the founder and lead strategist of Oh Snap! Social, as well as the creator of the Fan Firestarter Framework, a new approach to social media marketing tailored to businesses tempted to fake their death and flee to Tahiti at the mere thought of content creation. She developed her user-friendly strategy after a decade of working with various brick and mortar businesses that were social media allergic. Not because they didn’t want to make the content, but because they were intimidated by it. Karlyn’s system addresses this fear, helping newbies get on the fast track to unsticking their social media in just one hour per week. Her bio really says it all. She tries to make this simple and easy to work with, so let’s go ahead and jump right into my interview.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (01:34):
My name is Karlyn Ankrom, and I’m the founder and lead strategist at Oh Snap! Social.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (01:40):
All right. Well, today’s topic is geared around your expertise, which is about social and social media, and social media marketing. And so just by jumping in, a lot of our audience, they are owners of businesses, leaders of franchise organizations. Give us just something quick, three tangible things to get us started that a business owner or leader might do today to help move the needle forward on their social media efforts.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (02:07):
I think the biggest thing that as business owners we have to keep in mind is to not overthink the content that we’re putting out there. I think for a lot of us who are subject matter experts, we tend to overanalyze and overthink what we’re putting out there. Try to keep it as simple as possible because if you overwhelm your audience, they will just tune you out because we have to remember people are in social media to typically be entertained and escape the everyday hustle and bustle of their life. So keep it easy, keep it simple. And the other thing I’ll say is can we just make a declaration of have just an ounce of more fun on social media? I think we’ve all just taken it so freaking seriously that it becomes a chore, and that vibe, if you will, can be emoted out into your content, and your audience can pick up on all of that. So we just need to have a little bit more fun on social media. Take it back to the olden days, if you will.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (03:08):
That makes sense. Certainly as the posting things have become more maybe professionalized with people making entire careers, you run a business that provides these types of services to help people out with that. And speaking and thinking of that, one thing that I’ve heard our clients say and that I’ve even thought in running my own business is, “Why even post on social? Why use it?” Because I don’t know how to necessarily measure it. And other leaders I’ve run into say, “Well, is it effective? What’s the point? Are we just literally throwing money away?” So how do you go about measuring this kind of thing?
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (03:46):
If I had a nickel for every time I heard that objection and resistance from a business owner, I would be so rich. But the biggest thing is if you don’t have intention behind your social media strategy, if you don’t have a strategy at all, then it’s going to feel like you’re flushing money down the toilet. You have to be intentional. You also have to see the value in being very present and visible because your competitors likely are being visible on social media in some capacity. And so if we even take it back to when everyone would put an ad in the yellow pages, we weren’t guaranteed anyone would turn to our page or look us up. So it’s the same on social media. If you’re not there, quite frankly, it’s like you don’t exist. And people look and window-shop, is what I call, on social media to see, “Are they real? Is the job that they do actually legit, do I like them?”
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (04:41):
Especially if maybe they’ve been burned by other companies or brands that are similar to yours and your similar industry. They’re going to do their due diligence and they’re going to take a look at everything including your social media to see if you’re actually real and if you put money where your mouth is so to speak, and that’s a big part of social media. But if you don’t have a strategy of what success looks like for you, then it’s going to feel like a waste of time, a waste of energy and a waste of money, guaranteed.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (05:11):
I love that question. We ask every guest at some point what success means to you. So from a social media standpoint with clients you’ve worked with or maybe best practices, what have you found to be maybe a few common success metrics or goals that organizations might use, and thinking of it from, maybe we look at it from a B2B framework and a B2C framework? Because those are two generally pretty different programs.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (05:41):
So I’ll speak around the B2B first and more like service providers who don’t necessarily have a tangible product to sell somebody. And it really comes down to, I think the biggest goals. And if they don’t have a goal, this is typically what I recommend is we want to use social media as a traffic driver, meaning we want to take whatever content that we’re having around the water cooler that is social media and driving traffic to your website, driving traffic to your blog, driving traffic to your contact form, driving traffic somewhere that you, quote, unquote, “own,” driving people to your lead magnet with that free download where they have to give your coveted email address for that quiz or the checklist, or the cheat sheet or whatever because you’re starting to build on that trust. And for me, the biggest value of a conversion besides exchanging of money in a B2B service provider landscape is getting email addresses because we own email addresses, we don’t own followers.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (06:44):
And I’m sure I sound like a broken record because I think a lot of social media professionals say the same thing is, “For me, followers don’t matter unless I have just as many email addresses in my CRM. Cool, that’s what I care about?” Because if tomorrow Zuck was like, “You know what? This whole Facebook, Meta, Instagram thing has been so fun, I’m just going to sail off into my yacht and shut it all down.” One the mass hysteric that I don’t want to be around for, I hope I never have to feel that one because my business would be in trouble. And two, I just feel like a lot of people have their livelihood, and we’re getting a little bit of that sense with TikTok being hanging in the balance between getting banned and not, we don’t know. So it’s feeling a little stressful for a lot of people.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (07:32):
And so really thinking about how we can create those relationships and connections through data that we actually own, so that’s the biggest goal is to connect all the digital dots together and drive traffic away from social. And the other part is video. Video content can really help us feel seen, feel heard, feel connected, and start to build those relationships. I think we forget on social media that it’s social for a reason, and that we’re supposed to have conversations. It’s not supposed to be this solely like PR tool, push, push, push, push, and we have to tell people about our product or about our service. And I think on social media from a product-based business, it can be a lot easier to really make dollars and cents out of that true ROI because it’s a faster transaction than a service-based provider.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (08:27):
Very interesting. And one of the things you mentioned there was the word relationship, and thinking about building a relationship through social media, sometimes to me and others I speak with, it seems a bit of an oxymoron almost, even though it’s supposed to be social, social means relationship building, but it seems almost like a foreign idea, so I’d love for you to talk about that.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (08:49):
I know it’s so interesting, and I think this goes back to basics, can we have more fun? Can we just focus on not the followers that aren’t there, but the people that are there? And I think the easiest win for a lot of business owners that are listening to this right now is if you have people commenting on your content in any shape or form, good, bad or otherwise, with the exception of bots, because bots still can clutter up our comment section, respond to the people, respond to the humans who are taking time out of their day to leave a relevant comment. It baffles my mind how many people don’t do that still, and they’re all worried about, “Oh, I don’t have 10,000 followers yet.” “Okay, but you’re not even taking care of the 2000 that you have,” my brain does not compute.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (09:41):
And thinking of these responses and even with the posts and responses, and bots, and some of these things almost seeming to be manufactured, even just the initial posts. You said early on about having fun with this. So what are some things you recommend maybe some of your clients to do or you’ve seen people in the space do to add a little more personality into this? And I say this with a disclaimer saying, it doesn’t necessarily have to be some kind of gregarious personality or over the top personality. Sometimes I think people think that, attention grabbing just for the sake of gathering attention or gaining attention, so I’d love for you to just talk about that a little bit.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (10:21):
I love this topic because I also have a love-hate relationship with the word authenticity. I think last what, 2023, the Oxford Dictionary Word of the Year was authentic, and I was like, “Ugh.” Because we hear about it as marketers all the time, “Be authentic, be your authentic self.” But I will say there is some truth to this because again, our customers’ audiences on social media these days are super smart. They know when you’re full of crap. They can see it, they feel it. It doesn’t feel like it’s in alignment. And to that, I say be yourself. If you are someone who is an excited chihuahua like myself, who is a hand talker. So if you’re watching this on YouTube, the hand talking is a thing, that’s who I am. I’m vibrant, I’m bright, I have a lot of charisma. That’s who I know I am.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (11:13):
But that also took some time and self-awareness for me to get to that point. Now, if you’re someone who’s like, “Well, I’m not that crazy parent.” Okay, find a way on a video and through copy to leverage the words that you use all the time. And what I think for me, and I try to really match the voice of my clients all the time, and that’s my superpower. That’s from years of being in the journalism world and being able to write in the voice and tone of whatever publication I was writing for, you have to know what you say and what you don’t say. And you have to find, if you’re going to outsource it to other people, whether it’s a person or ChatGPT, AI, you still have to be willing to put your thumbprint on it to make it sound as unique to you as possible.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (12:04):
And that is what I will say until the cows come home, be authentic, be yourself. Don’t try to be everyone else because, what is the quote? They’re already taken. Be you because everyone else is taken, because the fastest way to fail is try to be someone else in your market. I’ve seen it. It doesn’t work, and it only brings you three steps back from a progress standpoint.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (12:27):
Franchising adds another dynamic to this whole social media thing where franchisors will have rules or compliance, or what’s allowed or not allowed, and sometimes corporate manages the social media. And so there are all of these unique settings and situations brought forward. I should say the other extreme one where the corporate manages it and the other where corporate, it’s a free for all, and the franchisees have the ability to go and do as they see fit. So what are some best practices or things that you found from a franchise standpoint that might be able to support franchisees with their social media?
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (13:08):
Corporate or home office, however we want to define them, they mean well in their content development. However, depending on the franchise and the organization, the type of service or product they’re selling, it can vary, as you just mentioned, the quality of it, et cetera. But where I come in and where I help owners is by doubling down on what is hyper local to them. What is literally happening in their backyard? What community events, how are they integrated into the fabric of their community? What does their work actually look like? So for example, if they are a plumber, it doesn’t make sense if they’re in Florida to be talking about freezing pipes because that doesn’t happen there.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (13:54):
So to have a post from corporate be on your social media talking about freezing pipes feels tone-deaf, and so even if your corporate office is doing the social media, I beg of you, look at what they’re putting out there before it goes out there. Because I’m sure, a lot of them use scheduling tools and things like that, and delete the content that does not fit your audience because that’s not helping your reputation in your local organization or local community rather, it’s tarnishing it. So we have to, and that’s where I come in is I’m helping really hyper localize, create the content that feels like it has some personality, that it doesn’t totally fall flat. And I always know when I’m doing a good job when the corporate office takes my post and uses it on all of the other franchisees.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (14:43):
From the franchisor standpoint, their obligation is to provide a solution that fits as many franchisees as possible to help them along. Or sometimes it’s maybe even a regional depending on the size of the organization, but the advantage and power of franchising to your point, is that local owner that knows what’s going on in their community, corporate does not know that home office marketer working some other city around the country. They just don’t know all the little idiosyncrasies and localized things happening, so I love that you focus on that.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (15:22):
I think that example’s really, really well-made there about the frozen pipes in Florida, probably not as critical as maybe a franchisee that happens to be in Baltimore or Chicago or some northern city, right? I’d love for you to talk a little bit about how you help build this out. And you have this program called the Fan Firestarter Framework, and I love the name of it. I think it’s so cool. So I’d love for you to talk a little bit about that. For someone who’s saying, “Well, gee, Karlyn, this is really cool. I’m interested in learning a little bit more, but how might I get this started for my business?”
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (15:59):
Yeah. And because I’m in a DC area, I also love a good acronym as well. So the Fan Firestarter Framework is made up of three steps. It’s our signature framework that we literally march all of our clients through. First piece is a pulse check audit. This is where we pop the hood on your existing content to see, “Okay, what’s going on here? What’s working, what’s not?” And we make recommendations for moving forward. And from those recommendations, we build out a strategy. Now, a strategy is an important guidebook, rule book that we can either share with you and your team, and you guys can go off and create the content, or we utilize it as a resource for us if we’re doing doing for you. And really that is where we think about, “How do we respond to comments? What’s our voice and tone like on social media? Is it reflective of what’s on the website? Why or why not? What are our goals?”
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (16:52):
I’ve heard SMART goals. “What are our SMART goals? What are we measuring, and by when are we measuring it?” And a lot of times for business owners, that’s really hard because they know that social media is a necessary evil and they’re like, “I don’t know, it’s not consistent,” or, “I don’t see the ROI,” or, “I don’t know what success looks like.” We get to the nitty-gritty of that, which is why that first piece, that audit is so important because we can understand if they’re growing in a trajectory that fits their goal because I’ve had to have those reality checks with clients. They’re like, “I want to get to 3000 emails on my email list.” I said, “That is amazing, but right now, based on the audit, you’re only growing by 50 per month, so we need to create content that is compelling enough to drive that traffic to your website, but it’s not going to be overnight, and we need to do it from a strategic angle.”
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (17:44):
And they’re like, “Oh,” and then they’re also like, “Oh,” a little deflated, so it’s all about managing expectations on those first two steps. And then the last step is A, for the PSA is advancement, and there’s different tiers of engagement there. We have some that are DIY where you basically borrow my brain cells for two hours and we brainstorm the next quarter’s worth of content that is relevant for your business, your brand, who you are as a business owner, all aligning with your goals, of course. And then there’s the done with you where we create content and a VIP session, which is very much a speed round, lightning round of content development. The last is what you would typically find in any agency model, which is doing doing for you, so done for you approach.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (18:31):
I always say done for you, but it’s honestly a partnership. And I like working with business owners who understand that, who want to be part of the content in some capacity because it’s corporate office, for example, is already doing the generalized content. Then we really need to focus on how to make real content of your staff, of your team, of your projects, of your products, whatever it is. And that takes alignment, that takes great communication and systems that we’ve luckily propped up over the past six years of us being in business, so it wasn’t always there, but I’m glad it is now.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:09):
How can someone reach out or go to your website if they want to learn more about what you’re doing?
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (19:13):
Yeah, you can just go to ohsnapsocial.com. There’s a big old green button at the top that says, “Book a call,” and then we can chat a little bit more about what you’re looking for.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:23):
Wonderful. Well, this is a great time in the show where we make a transition and we ask every guest the same four questions before they go.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (19:23):
Okay.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (19:30):
And the first question is, have you had a miss or two on your journey and something you learned from it?
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (19:35):
Oh man, have I? I mean, social media is ever evolving. And I think that’s frustrating and also fun about social media in general. I would say a big miss is I recommended something for a client that was trending, and it felt super not in alignment with her, but I asked her to do it anyway just to see, and it fell flat. And I was like, “I rest my case. Trending is not for us, is not for you in this particular moment because your audience doesn’t relate to that,” so that was a big flopperoni for me. I learned from that in a way because that proved to me that even if it’s trending, it might not always be trending for everyone and every business.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (20:16):
Great point. Well, let’s talk about a make or two on your journey.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (20:21):
This past year, I’ve been really intentional about getting my own personal brand out there a little bit more. I think the biggest make or win that I’ve had is I led an American Marketing Association for our bootcamp just a couple months ago, and there was 163 people registered. I was like, “[inaudible 00:20:44],” and it was all virtual and it was so much fun, and that’s when I realized that I love training, I love teaching, I love empowering other people to take the reins of their social media and just tread towards success. That is my ultimate goal. I’m like, “Please put me out business. Do it for yourself, then I don’t have to do it for you.”
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (21:06):
Let’s talk about a multiplier or two that you’ve used to maybe grow yourself personally, professionally, or businesses you’ve run.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (21:13):
Yeah. I think the biggest jumping off point for me to transition from working, because I was building Oh Snap! Social on the side for two years before I went all in, one that afforded me to have a significant nest egg of self-funding that I had made on the side for two years, and the biggest book that changed how I was going to run my business and how I was going to pay myself from this business, having not known a lot of business owners in my life was Profit First. That is my favorite book. I recommend that to everyone who is starting a new business or if they just need a refresher, or finding things aren’t working. I think that is a great way to think about business, especially if you’re self-employed because you’ve got to pay yourself first, and that’s what we forget to do a lot, so that is the biggest multiplier for me in the beginning.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:05):
I love that book.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (22:07):
Yes.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:07):
Mike Michalowicz’s work is fantastic.
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (22:10):
Phenomenal.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (22:11):
Yeah. I echo that sentiment. Early on in launching a business, after those principles were applied, it fundamentally changed the cashflow and financial situation of the business, so I echo that. Well, the final question we ask every guest is, what does success mean to you?
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (22:29):
This is such a loaded question, but I also ask my clients this all the time too. So, oh man, what does success mean to me? It means living in a place of peace and profit, and in alignment with my values of who I am as a person. And I don’t think I’ve had that realization until recently when I had the aha in 2022, I had my daughter and I was like, “Oh, I started a business so that I could have the time freedom to do what I needed to do for her and spend time with her, and spend time with my family.” It really forced me to refocus my why, because I will be totally honest, I was just chasing what success looked like for everybody else, and what was being fed to me totally transparent on my social media feed. And I was like, “No, no, no, no, no, no, no. This is not what success looks like to me.” So it’s really about the peace, the profits, and just having overarching passion around what it is that I do and just aligning everything accordingly.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (23:33):
Wonderful. Well, as we bring this to a close, Karlyn, is there anything you were hoping to share or maybe get across that you haven’t had a chance to yet?
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (23:41):
Yeah. I think people are scared of utilizing ChatGPT. And AI right now, I mean, if you’ve been living under a rock, you haven’t heard of it, but AI is everywhere. And I think as business owners, we tend to be scared of new, we get nervous in the new. I don’t know why that is, but I think a lot of us feel uncomfortable. I initially felt uncomfortable around ChatGPT, but now I utilize it all the time for inspiration, to speed up a process and to repurpose content all the time. And of course, this is never a recommendation like, “Copy paste, put it in your caption, like done.”
Karlyn Ankrom, Oh Snap! Social (24:20):
No, because you can tell when it’s generated by ChatGPT, but start to utilize some of these new technologies to make your work easier, to make managing a team easier. I mean, shoot, I’ve plugged in like, “Here’s what I want to say to a client who has an overdue invoice. Make it sound nicer. Give them the draft,” but then they make it sound like more kind authority involved. So don’t turn a blind eye to new technology. Instead, lean into it, learn about it and embrace it because if you don’t, you’re going to be, honestly, left behind if you’re not already, because AI is the fastest moving technology we’ve seen in a hot minute.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (25:03):
Karlyn, thank you so much for a great interview, and let’s go ahead and jump into today’s three key takeaways. So takeaway number one is when she provided three things to think about for your social media. The first thing she said is don’t overthink it. The second thing is, remember people are on social in most cases to try to escape the day-to-day grind. And number three is just make it more fun. Remember, it’s supposed to be fun. Takeaway number two is make sure when you’re using social media that it’s designed to drive traffic somewhere back to your website, your blog, a book, a lead magnet, to do something. And maybe it’s to get email addresses, what have you, but remember it’s driving somewhere. Takeaway number three is when she talked about franchisors and franchisee social media marketing. And remember, as franchisees, if corporate is doing your marketing for social media, make sure you’re taking a look at it to make sure that it’s relevant to your territory, your location, your customers, and for corporate does some of the content need to be customized based on the location of each franchise in the system?
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (26:16):
And now it’s time for today’s win-win. So today’s win-win is a line that Karlyn said that really stuck out to me, and she said, “Don’t focus on the followers that are not there. Focus on the people that are there.” Meaning that you need to really speak directly to the people that are currently following you, not the people that might or you want to have follow you. And look, this is something I struggle with when I think of posting content and things for you, dear listener. And when I think of publishing and creating things, sometimes I find myself being tempted to think about who might be listening instead of thinking about you, that’s actually listening right now and trying to provide relevant information and content that I think will best serve you. And so in doing so, she said, when you do that, you want to respond to the followers that are there, be authentic, find the right words to say and not to say, make sure it’s your own words.
Dr. Tom DuFore, Big Sky Franchise Team (27:21):
And she said, the fastest way to fail in social media is to be someone else in your market, so essentially copycatting someone else, and I thought those were all great relevant points. And the win-win is when you focus on your followers and the people that are following you that are there. They’re going to engage, they’re going to be better satisfied with the content, which likely will encourage them to share, which will likely then lead to more followers or responsiveness from what’s going on, and the followers get better content. That’s the episode today, folks. Please make sure you subscribe to the podcast and give us a review. And remember, if you or anyone you know might be ready to franchise their business or take their franchise company to the next level, please connect with us at bigskyfranchiseteam.com. Thanks for tuning in, and we look forward to having you back next week.
The post Improving Your Social Media in a Snap—Karlyn Ankrom, Founder, Oh Snap! Social appeared first on Big Sky Franchise Team.