Beth Thomas [00:00:00]:
When you're a content creator, I feel like, I don't know if you just have this extra sense of, like, just wanting to do it. Even better, because it's your face on it, so everyone knows it's you. So you really want to, like, get into those details. Whereas when you work in social, you're in a wider brand team and also you don't have that much time to be doing this. But I think looking at each video every day, you could be spending five minutes just logging into the app and looking at yesterday's video or looking at the last 30 days or 60 days, because the way search works as well, these are pieces of content that maybe you posted five months ago, but for some reason this has now gained 20,000 views in the last two days.
Paul Archer [00:00:50]:
Have you ever wondered why some brands grow expo exponentially, building legions of passionate fans that live and die by their logos and some, well, don't. I do all the time, and that's probably because I'm a massive brand nerd. But I believe there's a secret sauce at the core of every remarkable brand. A formula that sparks the growth of passionate communities of superfans, building a business and a reputation that will last for years to come. My name is Paul Archer and I'm a specialist in brand advocacy and word of mouth, having consulted for hundreds of brands on a topic.
Verity Hurd [00:01:24]:
Hey, it's Verity here, your co host of the Building Brand Advocacy podcast.
Paul Archer [00:01:28]:
In this podcast, we tap into the greatest marketing minds in the world. They share the exact tactics and strategies used to build the world's greatest brands, dropping actionable insights every brand builder can apply.
Verity Hurd [00:01:40]:
We've got some incredible guests coming up, sharing insights and tips that can truly shift the marketing landscape. If you want to be the first to hear, make sure you hit that follow button. The more people following the show, the bigger and better we can make it. So if you're loving what you hear, don't forget to follow and spread the word. Thanks again for listening. It really means a lot. I hope you enjoy this next episode.
Paul Archer [00:02:03]:
It's time to learn and build brand advocacy.
Verity Hurd [00:02:07]:
Hello and welcome to Building Brand Advocacy. Today I welcome the wonderful Beth Thomas onto the show, who is currently director of Social media Operations at Frankly. She's ex TikTok and ex Deliveroo. She's recently been named a top 25 marketer to watch and her LinkedIn audience of thousands prove that her. Well, basically, you know what you're talking about. Beth, welcome to the show.
Beth Thomas [00:02:31]:
Thank you. Thanks for having me. I'm excited.
Verity Hurd [00:02:33]:
Yeah. I am so excited to dig into this conversation and I actually want to start with social search because we've seen numerous posts, let's say LinkedIn, of everybody talking about 2025 predictions and you actually wrote a post recently saying why is no one talking about social search as a top prediction? So I wanted to dig into that because it's actually why we kind of first started talking about you coming on the pod. And it's actually a really important, I don't know whether it's a trend prediction, but I think a really important topic for this year. So first of all, why do you think so many social media marketers are not talking about search as a prediction this year?
Beth Thomas [00:03:09]:
I think there's a few reasons. I think people, number one, just are sleeping on search and the first reason think is probably because most people, when they are pulling data and doing the analytics for their monthly report or however they report they're using like a third party tool and it just doesn't pull in the data that talks about that. So unless you are someone who's on LinkedIn and is always trying to be on the forefront of what's going on, going to events, listening to podcasts and let's be honest, that's probably like the top few percent of people who constantly want to be there is that you're not seeing it.
And, and I think there's been a huge job that social teams have done and we've all done as people working in social, as a bit of a community to try and do more knowledge sharing. But for the majority of people, I think they probably don't really know many other people who work in social to have these conversations. The other thing I think is they're probably not on the app and using it potentially because I started talking about search on TikTok almost three years ago and I only saw that because that was a behaviour I was using on the platform. So, and so maybe people aren't using the platforms in certain ways, maybe it is just certain age groups that are doing it. So lots of people aren't, but the data shows that, you know, I think it's 40% of Gen Zs are using TikTok to search.
So and I know there's lots of people working in social who are Gen Z. So is it that these people don't feel comfortable to bring that to their managers? Or maybe they're a one person team and trying to speak to the marketing director is a scary thing and they don't know, they don't really get it yet. To do it. So I think those are probably the main reasons.
Verity Hurd [00:04:54]:
Yeah, I mean it's definitely, I mean I think the traditional way of search like Google obviously all those other platforms and social media search now, I think their lines are definitely blurring. And you're right, it's definitely, I think it's Gen Z and Millennials in of. How do you think brands can tactically pivot their strategies then to embrace these platforms? Because obviously TikTok is a huge one when it comes to social search. But there are others. What are some of the overlooked opportunities here as well?
Beth Thomas [00:05:23]:
I think that whether you are a brand or creator or whoever's listening who wants to do search or not, just the basic rules that apply to search are going to help your content get seen by more people. So let's think you make a piece of content, whatever you are making that about, if you're not adding text natively, if you're adding a caption that's like, maybe your tone of voice is like quite funny and you want to just put a bit of a funny one liner in there, you've probably read that hashtags, who knows if you should use hashtags.
You decided not to. You just put this witty one liner, you send this post out into the world on social and how are those social platforms supposed to know what that content is? So again whether it's search or not, you need to be telling them how to categorise your content and that is I found using native text in apps when I've trial does help do this but also captions we, I mean who knows about hashtags and how helpful they are or not. But that is something that we do if we're sorry. So I also am a content creator and that's sort of where we do laws of trial and error. It's me and my friend. So we do all the tests over there and if we still want to do this short quirky little fun caption, but we still think there's probably not enough to tell TikTok what they this is, then we do use hashtags in that way as well.
So I think as well as that tagging location settings, if you are someone who's making content about top chip shops in London, like tagging London, putting that as we talk about adding a hook on screen and that would be your text hook that you would add natively, adding hashtags in there, those are ways to do that. And as well as ranking for search, that will also help the platforms know what your content is and who to show it to, because we know they don't show it to your followers anymore.
Verity Hurd [00:07:11]:
Captions is such a. I mean, in terms of overlooked opportunities, that's huge, right? Because I bet so many people just don't even think.
Beth Thomas [00:07:18]:
Yeah.
Verity Hurd [00:07:19]:
Even think about captions.
Beth Thomas [00:07:20]:
Yeah. And when you talk about cap, do you mean like text on screen captions? Are you talking about captions at the bottom? Both. Yeah, yeah. No, definitely both. But I find especially the caption at the bottom. I don't know how are we differentiating those, the caption at the bottom. So many businesses and creators don't use that to tell the platform what it's about. And I think that that's why people think we're shadowbanned when we're not shadowbanned.
We're not. You're just not making content that the algorithm knows who to show it to. So it's showing it to these random people who have no interest in your makeup tutorial or how to make the perfect spaghetti Bolognese.
Verity Hurd [00:07:58]:
Yeah, brilliant. I want that recipe, I think as well. Like, obviously, I mean, I suppose a question I want to ask is, do you think that social search is going to become just as important as sort of like SEO and the traditional SEO and digital paid ads?
Beth Thomas [00:08:14]:
I think so. We're already, we have been seeing, I think at least for a year, that TikToks and YouTube videos, YouTube shorts as well, are being pulled through in the search engine in SERPs, search engine result pages. So we know that this is really important in that Google is saying, we know this is how people are searching for content. So why, why brands and people wouldn't take note of. If a powerhouse like Google is saying this is how people are searching, why would we be like, I don't think that's right for us. I don't, I don't understand that. And I think so much on social is testing and learning from that and just start, start testing.
Verity Hurd [00:08:55]:
And in that LinkedIn post, and obviously you mentioned it at the start here, like you mentioned the importance of looking at the search data for social content. What's the most practical way for brands to analyse and act on that data?
Beth Thomas [00:09:08]:
So if we're talking about search in particular, then I think currently it's only TikTok. I think that shows you that I know Instagram doesn't. I double checked last night and I actually haven't checked if YouTube does. But on TikTok in your. So number one, it will show you, when you go into your analytics, the overview of say it's the last 30 days, what percentage of viewers have shown, have seen your video through search and then you can break it down into each individual video as well. It also just shows you the exact search terms that people have used to find. Or maybe it's not even like a search term as you would think of it of like asking a question, but those certain phrases that have ranked for your piece of content.
So spending time getting off those third party platforms and being in the back end where that data is, because it's not even just search.
There's so much like we talk so much about completion rate and watch through times across loads of platforms and the, the third parties just don't, most of them don't have any of that data. And we're still reporting like we were reporting when I started working in social in like 2017. We haven't moved on but the platforms and the way people view and find content has changed so substantially that our reporting needs to change too.
Verity Hurd [00:10:28]:
Yeah, that's such a great point. And I think this, you know, this is why social search is so important now because technical enhancements, like consumer behaviour, even like influencer content, UGC content, all of that plays into sort of this ecosystem of social search. And you're right, I just don't think, I mean I even think about the way I report sometimes and I'm like, oh my gosh. Yeah, like how much time do you think we need to be as social media marketers spending on this kind of data?
Beth Thomas [00:10:54]:
I think this is probably the part of the business that I guess this is a bit of a stereotype but I think the majority of people who work in social are quite creatively minded. Obviously there's lots of people with an analytical mind who fall in because social has, the role has changed so much when I started to. What it is now, yeah, it's about 12 different roles all in, all in one. And it's hard to be a specialist in them all.
But I think that what I see is the majority of social managers do a monthly report at the end of the month because they have to because their boss is like, what's going on? How are we tracking against our goals and looking at like, like that I think just isn't that helpful. When I was working at a brand that's exactly what I did as well. When you're a content creator, I feel like, I don't know if you just have this extra sense of just wanting to do it even better because it's your face on it. So everyone knows it's You.
So you really want to like get into those details. Whereas when you work in social, you're in a wider brand team and also you don't have that much time to be doing this. But I think looking at each video and every day you could be spending five minutes just logging into the app and looking at yesterday's video or looking at the last 30 days or 60 days, because the way search works as well, these are pieces of content that maybe you posted five months ago.
Verity Hurd [00:12:16]:
Yeah.
Beth Thomas [00:12:16]:
But for some reason this has now gained 20,000 views in the last two days. And I mean, I'm like, I don't understand why. Maybe that's because it's a trending moment or something's happened that's related to your piece of content. Maybe it's back to the summer and people are searching for the best places to go on holiday. So there are trends in that. But spending time more than, more than once a month, it shouldn't just be that activity that you have to do. And I also think so many people, me included, I would just pull data. I wasn't even really thinking about what it was.
I was just putting numbers in a report and being like, oh, that video did well, that's good. Yeah. And that was as far as it went. Not finding learnings and looking at. Right, this is what we've done in this month. What are we starting, stopping, continuing, what are we doubling down on? What's our trials for the next month? I think so many brands and people aren't thinking like that, but if you want to be the best and create brilliant content, you do need to worry about the small things.
Verity Hurd [00:13:18]:
Yeah, absolutely. It's not just a tick box exercise. No, it's such an important point. And actually I suppose there's a couple of things here. First of all, I think obviously algorithms, the changes that happen on the platforms, but also I just don't. The point that you made around how a post can just suddenly pick up in views and, you know, suddenly more and more people are watching it and we're not quite sure where that's come from. But this leads me onto my question around the focus on discoverability and as we knew it before, like you said, like 2017 when you started in social. I started a social media agency in 20 something many years ago and I think, God, that was so different to how I would be operating it now and what the team would be doing now.
I'm rambling now with this question, but my point is discoverability as we knew it probably back then and how it is now through social. How is it evolving? What sort of this new discoverability? What's the new thing?
Beth Thomas [00:14:18]:
I think it's a conversation that is continuing and I'm trying to challenge other people and I want people to challenge me as well in my thinking and the way me and Michael think, Frankly. And, you know, we're not saying this is the right way to do it, we're just saying this is a way to do it. And is discoverability the most important thing? It depends. If you are a new brand and no one knows who you are, of course you need to be discovered. But if you are a heist, if you're Marks and Spencer's, for example, their issue isn't discoverability. I'd imagine 95, 9%, I don't know of people living in the UK know marks and Spencer's. They might think it's a fancy food shop or they might think that's where my auntie or my gran goes and buys her clothes, like. But people, people know what it is.
So maybe they're. And what I'd imagine and what I'm seeing from their content is their issue isn't discoverability. Their issue is reaching a new audience and that is changing a brand perception from being the shop that maybe your mother shopped at to now being a place that they want younger audiences to start going in and buying, buying there. And I think what we saw with their collaboration with Mark and Mark Wright and Spencer Matthews from reality TV is their way of. I'd imagine their social strategy is built around not just reaching new people, reaching new people and changing perceptions of who the brand are. And if they do want to then target younger people, social is a great way of doing that. They must spend bazillions on TV ads. But we know I'm not watching TV anymore.
I don't see an advert unless I'm at home with my mom. And I'm thinking, oh God, this seems. Why can't we, you know, go through fast forward through this? So discoverability isn't always what you should do.
Verity Hurd [00:16:10]:
Yeah, no, it's a good point. And actually Maxim, Spencer's is a great example of that because they've also used employees of, you know, of Marks and Spencer's to help them with that kind of content as well. And the one that stands out the most to me is this guy who does this like funny, like skit through Marks and Spencer's and he's like, when I was in my 20s walking through a mans and it was like, oh my God, what's that? What's that? Walking through it in my like late 30s and it's like, oh, isn't that nice? And that is totally me right now.
Beth Thomas [00:16:38]:
Yeah, no, that's. Yeah, I love that. So have I. So similar vibe. Definitely. Yeah.
Verity Hurd [00:16:45]:
I want to touch on Social First Brands because this was a topic that we started to have on the podcast going into, well towards the end of 2024. I recently read an article where it shared three principles of social first brands and it was listening with intent, making meaningful connections and engaging with customers where they are. And I think these are three principles that we, that we kind of like swear by when, when it comes to building brand advocacy, I'm really keen to know, like what would be your non negotiables, like what would you add to that list for Social First Brand?
Beth Thomas [00:17:18]:
I think that taking a bit of a step back and not thinking so much around the different ways you can activate, but looking at what you're actually trying to do as a social team for the business. Because when I speak to friends and other people who work in the industry, a majority of us are struggling to answer that question. And we are here, we know how to make brilliant content, we know how to engage an audience potentially to build a community and we're doing all those things.
But if you get asked what is social doing for the business, I feel like the majority of us can't answer that question.
And I think this is so the answer to that question, I think is not around a specific approach but around having a strategy that actually looks at problems that the business face and how you can use social to help with part of that. And like the Marks and Spencers, that's that they're probably spending so much money on paid media, on tv, but they're really struggling to break through into a millennial or Gen Z market. So the social team are perfectly placed there to change that perception and to then go into these other things that they're doing.
But I think from what we're seeing when we go into businesses, but also just I've got… So all my mates work in social, so many of them, because I've worked in it so long and because I'm someone who wants to, I just want to know how to like do the best stuff. I'm always trying to meet new people and hear what they are doing and so many of us still have this conversation around, like in a safe space, we'll be like. But actually like if, if it came down to it, like, I don't know how to answer that question.
And I think now that I've joined Michael and understand what he's been doing and what he did at Ryanair, I'm like, oh, if I had this, I would be able to go into those meetings and have those awkward conversations when someone. Something goes wrong on social and then the blame comes to you and it's like, well, why was this something that we did anyway? And if you had an answer to be like, well, this ladders back to what we're trying to do on social, which you signed off six months ago, then you just feel more confident in it. So I think having a social strategy that helps to answer a business problem. Problem is where I think social is heading and where we're seeing brands go.
Verity Hurd [00:19:42]:
And do you think, like, part of that problem is that brands are just trying to do what other brands are doing? They see a brand do something, they're like, that's successful. That was great. Let's jump on it, because I think that's a big part of it. We seem to be following this social media rulebook and I've talked about this before. We need to rip it up. And I mean, you guys have talked about it as well. We need to start again. We need a reset on social media.
But also, I think trends, for me, are they even going to be trends this year? Because, you know, again, I think it was you guys that talked about it. A trend doesn't. It's not a trend anymore when so many people are, like, destroying it in.
Beth Thomas [00:20:17]:
A way, I think that brings back the. What was that thing that it used to be like, silence brand. I feel like when I started in social, there were these memes and it kind of went away when brands started joining in conversations and actually adding value and being funny. Um, but I feel like that is coming back again because something happens organically on social. A creator usually is behind something that goes viral. And then every single brand now is following the same rulebook as you said, and like, right, we need to jump on these trends. Okay, great. Maybe you deliver a million views, but all you're seeing on your feed is people doing this.
And if you ask people, what brands did you see doing that or who did that? Well, the majority of people don't remember the brand. They remember the trend. They tell you, they could tell you about the. Oh, very demure, very mindful. Every single brand did something. Not every single exaggeration. Loads of brands did something there. But I now, even as someone who works in social, who obsesses over this sort of stuff, I couldn't tell you anyone who did anything.
So again going back to like why are we doing what we're doing? Is this delivering something even for the, for the brand? And I think quite often no. And it just moves so quickly that by the time and if you, depending on what team you work in, majority of people are jumping through so many hoops and don't have autonomy over social because I think the strategy piece is missing that it takes so long for you to get to it. It's already dead.
Verity Hurd [00:21:48]:
Yeah, no, it's so true. Really interesting point. And also the sign off of like trends as well. Like especially in the bigger there's like you said, there's so many processes to go through. It's just pointless by the end of it really. I mean we're even a small team and sometimes I might takes us like days and days to kind of get on top of something. So yeah, I think we need to rewrite what trending is for 2025.
Beth Thomas [00:22:12]:
There.
Verity Hurd [00:22:15]:
Another hot topic that is extending from 2024 and actually I started to have this conversation on the podcast at the end of 2023 and it was like the rise of like private communities. And I think, you know, we've got platforms like Discord and Telegram, like kind of really up and coming to help these brands in these private spaces. I suppose the first part of it is how can brands focus more on their owned communities and be part of this private space?
Beth Thomas [00:22:44]:
I think I know what I assume you're going to also ask like should they be as well? And I think that that sort of comes first in it of so many brands are. It's the hot word, isn't it? Of last year and I'm sure it'll continue this year is like we're all building a community. We've all seen what refy did with how they turned their community, treated their community like they would treat influencers. And I think again is community right for brands? Sometimes yes, but also sometimes no.
Thinking of what we've talked about today with such small teams of people also trying to do 12 different things, not getting anywhere with any of them, having the sign off processes, being a small team and doing all these new roles that social wasn't all that time ago. So I think that building a community probably isn't right for lots of brands and you don't need, you don't need to do that. I don't think you need to look at the time and resources that you have and realistically focus on something that you can do and you can do well. And for some brands, brilliant.
Building a community. And we've got, there's loads of case studies of people doing that really well. But I think that community is something that we've talked about and when we did our event a few months ago, it's something that, that comes up and I think it's sort of like fallen into like this social being. Whoever works in social media is in charge of the community. But when you think about community, it's actually like normally a very in person thing. So I'm so confused how that has ended up happening.
Verity Hurd [00:24:25]:
Because it's like this online community versus what an actual community is, right?
Beth Thomas [00:24:30]:
Yeah, I feel like there's a lot of blurred lines of what that also means. And I think we were at an event together and people were talking about building community and I said, I think it's more than just replying to comments, but how else can you do that? And people don't know how to answer that. So to me that means we're all a bit confused about what community means. Because if people from these big brands running social channels can't answer the question, then what hope have we got in these, you know, if we're in these small brands, one person team, no one to speak to and not these years of experience behind it as well.
Verity Hurd [00:25:06]:
It's a really good point actually because yeah, you took it back to like, first of all, should they be in these private spaces? And I think, yeah, I mean the question of like, what does community mean? My degree was in dance and my friend did a dance piece and it was called what does community mean? I know, it always makes me think of that. Anyway, that was really random. But everyone laughed at her at the time, like, what, what are you talking about? Community?
But no, you're right. I think a lot of brands think they've got thousands and thousands of followers on social media and they sometimes want to class them as a community of people, but actually they're not. Because I think there's so many things that define a community and I think, I don't know, even if you had five people, five people that you talk to out of like thousands of, you know, thousands of people on social, those five people that you have a two way dialogue with actually finding out like how they feel about your brand and all of that, to me I would class them as my community. Even if there was like five of them or less, even one person, I'd be like, yeah, come in.
Beth Thomas [00:26:08]:
I think as well we need to really look at this term community. Managing. And I think that is probably where this issue has stemmed from of now everyone just thinks managing a community is replying to comments. If I was like in a coffee shop or somewhere and the person behind the counter tried to have an extra conversation with me and I replied, or they replied, I wouldn't be like, wow, I'm part of that community. No, like if you're in Pret and the employee at Pret, if you're trying to think of social in like a real world experience, the employee in Pret is like having a conversation with you and you reply and they reply, why do we as brands think like us? Replying is like this huge thing that's like the absolute bare minimum of being social. It's one way conversation. Not using your channels to broadcast, which was, you know, again, like 10 years ago, what brands were doing. And hopefully, I mean so many brands are still doing it.
So even the basics, so many are still not doing. But that doesn't mean that we're building a community because we are replying to someone who's asked us a question.
Verity Hurd [00:27:09]:
I think as well, like the, like you said about the roles, like why is community sort of sitting in social media? And I think this trend or you know, whatever we want to call it around private communities, it's not new, it's not necessarily bold. But I think what we're seeing is, you know, the way things are moving, it's a natural progression, I suppose for the brands that are doing it right, like Refi, for example, you know, and what they're doing with their like, you know, I think they were called broadcast channels, but you can't really call them that now because there's so there's interaction there now and brands can actually take that to the next level. But yeah, I just think, I think.
Beth Thomas [00:27:49]:
That tactically if you are someone who needs to build a community, I don't think you need to start being like, oh God, I need to be on Discord. I've never used Discord. I don't know anything about Discord. But I read online this is where you build a community. You probably have a brand or if you're a creator, an Instagram channel. So just starting a broadcast channel is a good place to start if that is something that you want to do. But again, not just broadcast stuff on there. What extra value are you giving people who not only follow you have then decided to go that step further to find, to join your broadcast channel to be in your DMs.
Where we know Instagram is saying this is where the majority of actual people are spending time. So if you get someone to join yours, that is some. You can't just be flogging stuff on there.
Verity Hurd [00:28:36]:
No, no.
Beth Thomas [00:28:36]:
You need to be really giving them something that they're not getting anywhere.
Verity Hurd [00:28:40]:
Yeah.
Beth Thomas [00:28:40]:
Anywhere else.
Verity Hurd [00:28:41]:
I think, you know, when it comes to this whole community conversation, like we're now realising that to actually build a community takes a lot of human connection. I find as well you may disagree. And I suppose my next question is like, for brands that do want to do it, I know, you know, there's an argument that you probably. For some brands, they may, they shouldn't, but for those that do and they want to scale these authentic communities and the level of human connection it takes, how do they scale that when it takes so much connection?
Beth Thomas [00:29:12]:
I think that is probably a question that I don't have. I don't have the perfect answer to. And I think that this all comes with. You need to be resourced to be able to do this. And this isn't something that should solely sit on social because so many of the community, so many of the community building events that we are seeing brands doing is taking what's started on social and then bringing it to the real world. It's the run clubs people are doing, the paddle days they're doing, there's grief clubs, there's all of these things that actually bring people together in real life. But if you're someone working in social, how are you also doing that? That is such a huge new role. That's like a, an events role that most brands, small brands don't even have because they're not doing events.
So I think that there are ways that you can start doing that on social. I talk a lot about going live on, on social. I worked in the live team at TikTok, but also where found the majority of my success in my early career was going live on Facebook as a brand. As you said, if you do not have a founder with a personal brand, whether that's, you know, an influencer who started a brand or the Stephen Bartlett of, of the world, if you are not a brand that stands for something, what is your cause?
Verity Hurd [00:30:32]:
What.
Beth Thomas [00:30:32]:
Why are you bringing people together? I guess like so sorry, this is so random, but like soap is quite a good example. In like I. I use the cheap Carex, as I think it's called, because it's just always on offer. So I always buy that and most of my friends have that. They might put in a fancy bottle in their house. But I know what they're doing. They all have that. But I'm not in a Carex can be.
I don't feel affiliated. I'm a customer, but I'm not part of a community because they don't. I don't know if they stand for anything. I've never seen anything about that. Where is Dove? We all know that Dove, what Dove's story is. And you can see why people would actually be like, yeah, that's something that I feel a part of. And they're still. They're both.
They're both a soap. Like, they're both doing the same thing, but one's a brand and one is selling soap products. So I think if you don't have people, employees to be on camera, the personal brand, a brand story, a brand that stands for something, then what are you building the community around? That would be my question. Yeah.
Verity Hurd [00:31:32]:
Yeah. So true. I think, again, a lot of brands want to skip certain things, but we've talked about this a lot and, you know, we've had brands on, like Scamp and Dude who have such a. Such a true kind of, like, meaning behind the brand, where it came from, and that really stands out in their kind of, like, community and their. I mean, I even called them like a cult because it goes beyond that kind of, like, community piece that, you know, we're talking about. But, yeah, you're right. I think brands, they want to skip certain fundamental things. They want to run before they can walk, I suppose.
Beth Thomas [00:32:08]:
And I think brands put so much pressure on social to build that community. But if at a brand level, these. We're not standing for things. It's not the. I don't think it's the team of people in social to try and come up with what we're standing for as a brand that's on a much higher level to be doing that. And then you use social to share that messaging, of course. But I. I've seen quite often also being in roles where it's like being in roles where it's, you know, Pride Month, and it's like, what are we talking about on social? And I'm like, what are we as a business doing? Not what am I.
How am I coming up with an activation? It's. I need to know what the business is doing. And then of course, I can share that on relevant channels. But. But that actually has happened to me in working at brand. So this must happen to other people in other brands, too.
Verity Hurd [00:32:58]:
No, that's so true. And I think actually, like, you know, even Covid was. I think Kind of a big, big thing for a lot of brands to kind of start discovering that about themselves. Like actually we don't. And then obviously like Black Lives Matter, it felt like there was one kind of like crisis after another. And I think, yeah, that kind of like probably was a bit of a turning point for some brands. I want to skip to like the creator economy because we don't have a huge amount of time, but it's a huge, huge business and we're looking at like 500, $528 billion by 2030, which is huge. I'm going to ask you quite a broad question now.
What do you think brands should be kind of prioritising now to succeed in kind of like the creator economy going forward in terms of working with, working with creators? Like what? In terms of like my. It could be anything. Like, just in terms of like what are their might, what should their mind set be with working with creators or. Yeah, like how, how would they, how should they be approaching working with the creator economy?
Beth Thomas [00:34:01]:
Now I think again, when we talk, so many brands are missing the most basic, what's the right word? I'm missing like basic principles of doing good work on social and influencer. And I think that we, I'm always surprised when I go into a business and we talk about influencer and they are creating 12 page decks of what they want to do. They are scripting content for influencers. And this is something that I'm been trying to talk about and have been seeing brilliant changes from brands that have, have stopped doing that. The best briefs are brief. That goes across so many things, especially when working with creators. You don't want, you're working with them because they know how to talk to their audience, they know how to create content that is engaging and, and all the rest of it. So take giving the creator almost full autonomy, is that the right word? Autonomy to do what, what they know is going to deliver results.
And all you need to have is X amount of deliverables brand message, any, you know, obvious do's and don'ts, but giving them that way to be able to create content that's going to work for you as a brand.
Verity Hurd [00:35:13]:
And it's actually something that so many brands really struggle with because there's still a massive conversation around them. Like just there's this fear of giving the creator that control. And I think the bigger the brand, it can either be worse or it can actually be easier, which we've, you know, with conversations that we've had.
I mean Abercrombie is Like such a great example of how they, how they completely rebranded and turned their brand around by giving their creators the control when it came to what they were doing. And it's such a great kind of like case study in that aspect because they just relinquished it. They just kind of was like, you need to tell our brand story. And they did, they went out and they told their brand story and now look at, look at how they've managed to turn it around.
Beth Thomas [00:35:56]:
I guess that's what Marc Jacobs do on TikTok as well. I don't, from when I look at their content, I don't think any of it is done by an internal social team. It's all influencers creating content and it's all kind of wild and out there. But that's obviously what they're trying to do with, with their brand and have the influencers tell those stories for them as well. And I think that we're seeing spend increasing with influencers and it moving away from other marketing channels potentially to be moved into social.
So I think having creators be part of those discussions when you're coming up with concepts is super important. And that comes as well when you have long term partnerships with people. Not only is it better for the brand because it'll be cheaper if you commit to X number of videos, they're normally going to give you a discount, but that also means that they actually understand more about the brand, they understand what success is for you as well.
So it works both ways. Sure.
Verity Hurd [00:36:56]:
And I suppose from a creator point of view as well, like I know we work with a lot of brands but like the way that creators are going to work as well, like a lot of them are even going to move into sort of like the affiliate world, which I think is a really interesting place. You know, like looking back on like the last few years, like I know a lot of influencers, creators, should we say that would you know, be like, oh, I'm not doing affiliates. Whereas now it's like this is a big part of what I'm doing.
Beth Thomas [00:37:22]:
And do you think that's because of the rise of TikTok shop? That's like had a huge part to play in that.
Verity Hurd [00:37:28]:
I think so, yeah, I think so. But again, just, you know, I think just the way that the platforms have moved on, the way that brands are working with creators and the fact that we trust like these smaller creators as well, like these, you know, these smaller audiences and feeling like, you know, everyday recommendations of what they're actually using, I don't know, I think there's a bit of a consumer shift there in terms of how we view it as well, but interesting. Okay, we've got a few minutes left with the work that you're doing at Frankly at the moment. What are you currently telling brands to focus on?
Beth Thomas [00:38:03]:
I feel like a broken record. But the strategy and that's something that most brands think they have also. They think they have brand strategy as well, but also it's, it's still not really doing anything and having a focus to solve something for the business. So we look at social strategy the same way as brand strategy and that's looking at insights of what that's looking at insights from the brand, from the wider category so your competitors looking at your customers and also what's happening in social landscape and then finding all of these insights and then having like this thread that runs through them that we're like, okay, we're onto something here.
There is all these things are like laddering up to usually something that we're like, okay, great. Then we look at problems that the business are having or not even maybe problems that they're having but things that they're not doing on other channels and ways that we can talk to a new audience or change a perception or build a community or whatever the brand wants is like important for us to use social for. And then from there finding a one line strategy of like we will be X on social by doing these two things. So it's super simple for everyone to understand.
And then we even go as far now we didn't used to when we started doing this with some of our first clients but everything sort of evolved and now we just have like this one liner of like if the CEO or your parents ask you, like this is how you explain it.
And I think that to me makes it so much more clear. And then it's so easy for the social teams to push back on all of the other teams who think they know what social should be doing and want to give you advice and want to tell you my next door neighbor's cousin actually went viral on TikTok and they think we should do this or oh, this person's an influencer and we should definitely work with them because they've got 10 million followers and then you have this. Well, it doesn't ladder back to what we are prioritising. So I think it helps. Not only it helps the business, it will help an actual business goal. It will help you have those awkward conversations to the questions that you currently don't know how to answer and don't worry. Like, we're all feeling that too.
Like, everyone's been there and most of us still are there. So please, like, don't panic if you're listening to this again, I don't know what a social strategy is. I don't have one. I'm just posting good videos that are getting loads of views. That's what I was doing as well. Don't panic. But, like, this is the time to. And I think this is such a pivotal moment because brands, we are seeing brands investing in social and teams and influencer teams and people are deciding how this is all going to work and fit together.
And in the next few years, the questions are going to be, but what social actually? What is social doing? People understand this is a big thing, we need to do it. Let's resource the team. You've built your case of why you need to do it. You've delivered brilliant results on social. Are those vanity metrics, are they not? Big, huge debate. There are going to be questions in the next few years, definitely, of how is this actually fitting into the wider business. And I think because it's so new, we've all just, we're working it out as we go. But if you're someone who is like, wants to work this out, then, like, I just want to chat.
Verity Hurd [00:41:20]:
I know, I was going to say, I think that's really important, especially for people in this industry. I think we do need to just keep talking. And that's why I love this because, you know, we dig into all sorts of different topics and obviously the emphasis is around brand advocacy, but there's so many elements to that.
And I think that's why I love it because we're just getting under the skin of, like, what people are actually trying to do, what they're learning or, you know, what's worked, what's not. And I think that's such a great answer. Honestly, I think that's brilliant answer. Just that strategy piece and making sure everything aligns back to that one goal. And I think you're right.
Everyone has an opinion on what marketing's doing. I don't go into commercial, I don't go into ops and, you know, tell them what I think they should be doing, but yet everyone thinks they. What I should be doing. Last question. What do you think brands get wrong when it comes to brand advocacy?
Beth Thomas [00:42:14]:
Oh, I would say probably trying to make this short is, I think we touched on it a little bit earlier of brands just copying other brands and thinking this has worked for them. I'm just going to copy and paste this approach. And that doesn't work for so many different reasons. Maybe it will work for some brands to just copy it, but the same with everything on social. Just taking what another brand does. Duolingo and being like, we need a mascot. Do we need a mascot? Like, I feel like it's the same conversation. Are you saying you need a mascot?
Verity Hurd [00:42:50]:
No, no, no, no, no, no. But it just really made me laugh because I can imagine so many people just going, we need.
Beth Thomas [00:42:57]:
Yeah. Also, when brands, there's no character at all in any part of the brand. But they're like, on social, we need a mask. No, there's other things that we can do. Please. So not just doing this brand or this creator is doing well, of course, looking at why it's done well. And then how can we replicate that for our business and what we're trying to do too?
Verity Hurd [00:43:20]:
Excellent. Thank you so much, Beth. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, where will they find you?
Beth Thomas [00:43:25]:
Oh, LinkedIn. Beth Thomas.
Verity Hurd [00:43:28]:
Awesome. Thank you so much.
Beth Thomas [00:43:30]:
Yeah, find me on LinkedIn. Yeah.
Verity Hurd [00:43:33]:
Thank you.
Beth Thomas [00:43:34]:
Thank you.
Paul Archer [00:43:37]:
That was another episode of Building Brand Advocacy, the world's top brand building podcast. To find out more about Building Brand Advocacy and how this podcast is part of a bigger plan for our Brand building cookbook, Then make sure to search for Building Brand Advocacy in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, or anywhere else that podcasts are fine. And make sure that you click subscribe so you don't miss any future episodes. Thanks to Duel for sponsoring. To find out more, go to www.duel.tech. that's D U E L . T E C H. And on behalf of the team here at Building Brand Advocacy, thanks for listening.
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