Winning with Social Commerce and Vertical Video: Tips for Local Brands

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Speaker D: You're listening to the Digital Marketing Dive Podcast with your hosts, Seth Goldstein and Brian Griffiths. Hey, uh, everyone, welcome to another edition of the Digital Marketing Dive podcast. I am your host. Well, one of your two hosts, actually. Let's go with that. Um, Seth with podcast Mastery Angels to me. And my other co host, my esteemed, intelligent, big headed co host Griffiths of B Strong Marketing is on the other side of the call. How's it going today, Brian? How you doing, buddy?

Speaker E: It's good. I'm the more handsome host.

Speaker D: Well, I see how it is, buddy. Uh, well, you're also older than me and have, like, no gray hair. I don't understand that.

Speaker E: Actually, surprisingly, I'm starting to. I'm noticing how much it's starting to creep up from my beard into this.

Speaker D: Oh, crying Athen River. If anyone's looking at our video clips that we put out, I'm all gray

Speaker E: and I'm like, it's either you're gray or you're bald and I'm balding, so.

Speaker D: Yeah, but you have more. You got more hair. We'll go with that. So today let's talk about social video and social commerce, because it is a hot topic nowadays. And then the hot topic is kind of goes back to our childhood hot topic. Learning them all. Let's go reserve on that for a little bit there.

Speaker E: You're talking about my young adulthood, not my childhood.

Speaker D: Oh, see, he is older than me. Yeah, uh, that's when we got an adulthood hot topic. Yeah, I would say the late 90s, early 2000s.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker D: Nowadays is using topics, using video as a way to really get people out to your stores locally and how local businesses can really use video. Vertical video, which is now, I think vertical videos Kind of been accepted as alright, it's here, we're stuck with it, we're gonna use it. Because I know back when smartphones first came out, vertical video was like, oh my God, what is all this crap now it's just like people hold the phones vertically and it just is what it is.

Speaker E: Definitely. So let's talk about um, why this matters now. Mhm. Um, so the market for, for social commerce is blowing up grow. Uh, it's about 9% of e commerce sales in 2024. Um, and then adding to it short form video content is escalating. Um, it's something like 78% of consumers prefer it. Um, and here's, here's what's crazy is like once I had a client that I was trying to figure out how to scale their social marketing or their social media. They were posting on, on Facebook and Instagram and LinkedIn and they were getting next to nothing. Um I went over to um, to what was it? What's this, what's this platform that these kids use nowadays?

Speaker D: TikTok.

Speaker E: This tick tock thing.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker E: Found a local brand who was doing something similar to what they were doing. They were getting like hundreds of views, thousands of views on their videos.

Speaker D: Video is dominant.

Speaker E: That same, that same company when they were, when I looked at their Facebook they might have like eight comments or three comments and like a dozen.

Speaker D: What were they doing wrong?

Speaker E: Well I'm talking about the difference between like their Facebook content was getting next to nothing, you know, or they're, they're or, or getting a medium amount of next to nothing amount of next to nothing reason why medium amount? Because everyone's getting next to nothing. Yeah, absolutely.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker E: You know, like they weren't getting nothing, but they were getting like an average next to nothing. And same thing with their Instagram. But when you, when you look over at their Tick Tock, it was blowing the hell up.

Speaker D: You go people, you go where your people are.

Speaker E: Yeah. And then you realize like, you know, is for everything that uh, you know, like Tick Tock's, you know, causing the decline of western civilization on one side, the other side of it or contributing to it, the other side of it is there's a place where brands are, can actually get real traction and they

Speaker D: have shops, you can do commerce, you can do social commenters on TikTok and people buying TikTok. And that's the same thing with Instagram. M. Honestly, Instagram ads have gotten me plenty of times where I've bought stuff much to my way of chagrin and much to my dismay, when it comes, it's total crap. But what a surprise. But you know, if done right, vertical video and social commerce is the way to go. And I feel like a lot of small businesses are now realizing that, that this is like, let's see, let's say you have a bakery and it's. Yeah, it's a local bakery. It's, you know, you're not shipping nationwide, but you can get, you can get a local audience for your videos. Like show how the, the bagels are made, show how the croissants are made. Show don't tell. I mean, you know, how was that English class back in high school? Show, don't tell. Show don't tell.

Speaker E: Yeah, exactly. Well, you're a little bit more expert in this than me. So why should marketers and small business owners who may rely on like more traditional E Com and long form content, why should they care?

Speaker D: Because people's attention spans are less than a goldfish, number one. And then that's hit or miss because I mean some people claim that that's not exactly, exactly accurate, but it's close to a goldfish's attention span. And honestly people are, they're trying to decide, let's say they're trying to decide where to go to dinner tonight. They're gonna go and they're gonna look around their, their sphere of influence which is usually Instagram or TikTok or whatnot and, and in their travels, if someone has a good video up saying, hey, here's our restaurant, it's a 5 second, 10 second video, even a minute long video, it's easy to consume. Showing off this, the space, showing the meals, making your mouth water. That's going to get farther than someone who's just doing a long form video of a cooking demo. Like, you know, I mean, I mean there's a place, time, place for long form video. But even long form video, like you know what we're doing here, we cut up into the clips so that people can get the nitty gritty really quick.

Speaker E: Yeah. What do you think about like the other platforms that kind of pull up like pick up some other stuff like um, stories and reels on the meta products.

Speaker D: I think stories and reels. I think especially with no one knowing where TikTok is going still. Um, stories and reels and basic video, square videos or rectangular videos. Now I think they are on Instagram, I think that they're almost as valuable as TikTok now. It just depends on how you use it.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker D: And I know we should probably Have Holly come on here. Our buddy Holly does social media for a living. Come talk about the vertical videos and what she's doing for local landscapers up in Toronto and the, uh, northern United States. But ultimately, when you think about it, people want to know who they're dealing with. People want to know that, uh, this person is invested in their company. Same reason why you want to have a good website even today. You want to have a website because it shows credibility. And if you're out there and you're sharing your knowledge, people are going to get to know you and think they at least think they know you or get a sense of who you are and say, hey, I like that guy, I want to work with him.

Speaker E: Yeah. Now let's talk about, uh, LinkedIn because, yeah, you're starting to see this more and more. I mean you use it all the time. But some of the most popular, uh, voices that I see on LinkedIn are also using short term or short term. Short form, thank you very much.

Speaker D: Short term memory.

Speaker E: Short term memory that Brian has because as he's getting older, short form video content on for like, you know, B2B professionals communicating on LinkedIn. What do you think of that?

Speaker D: I was shocked when I saw that it was actually something. I was shocked because like, there's a guy, Edoyama, who has a great school community, S K O O L community. Um, he talks about how if you're real on real, no pun intended. Oh God. If you're real on LinkedIn and you do videos on LinkedIn and you share your content on LinkedIn and show, you know, and not tell with video, people are going to want to interact with your video. People are going to want to engage with your video, especially a lot of people. More people are on the phone and I'm holding on my phone right now for those who are listening and people are on their phone and LinkedIn has a great video feed of relevant content, a vertical video, relevant content that is on mobile only now I think they're missing, I think they're missing it by not having it on desktop as much. Yeah, but LinkedIn misses the boat on a lot of things when they think mobile first. But a lot of people do look at their phone and they'll check in on LinkedIn, you know, when they're waiting for the meeting to start or whatever and there's a video and they'll click on the video and they'll go through a few videos and stuff like that. And some of these videos are great because people take the time to talk about business issues like workplace. I know there's ones about like, you know, quiet. There's a big feed of uh, videos about quiet quitting. There's a big feed about, you know, how to use video, very meta. How to use video for B2B marketing. Like go when you go to, like when you go to a trade show, take video, stitch it together, talk about this trade show, Talk about what you learned from the trade show, put it on LinkedIn.

Speaker E: That's fantastic. Um, how can people put this into their funnel? Like where do you see this going? Like how, how do, how do people actually monetize this?

Speaker D: I think it's top of funnel. Mostly it's more awareness. I think it's more awareness and top of mind. And the more content you put out there, more people are going to then move down your funnel and you know, reach out to you, comment like and then on some platform, subscribe to your content. Um, because they enjoy your content and they think you know a thing or two. You might not know anything, you might be full of people poop, but if you, if you do it right, they'll think, you know, you're what you're talking about.

Speaker E: Sure. And it goes back to that one cliche that we've all heard a billion times in business. But it's the no like and trust factor.

Speaker D: Absolutely. Uh, and it's is a cliche, but it, it's the truth.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker D: Want to deal with people, they want that they who they like.

Speaker E: And what I've always found, um, is that story does more and go further and generates more interest than information based media. Um, I, I've, I've learned this and I haven't completely operated off of it because the problem is I think my life is boring. So I'm like, what am I going to talk about?

Speaker D: Let's stop on that for a second. Everyone thinks their life is boring.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker D: But you also have a very cute corgi that you could do stuff with.

Speaker E: That is true.

Speaker D: If you think about that. You have big Sikorgi who is your co worker, for lack of a better, you know term, how to uh, build something around Bigs and relate to business. I think that's what you guys sit down and do is think about like what assets do you have? And Biggs does have a big asset. He has a big ass, that dog.

Speaker E: Well, I mean he's a corgi.

Speaker D: Tiny legs, big ass. Exactly.

Speaker E: My dog's definitely an ass. Love him to death. But he's my, he's not so much my co worker. He's my taskmaster.

Speaker D: But I, I, I, he's your boss. I mean, but you can, but that's the thing is you can talk about, yeah, uh, how your life revolves around your dog and because you don't have kids yet and so why he is your kid. And he's like, he's like, dad, I want food now. And you're like, well, I'm working on something. You can like sit there. I like how this is turning to a coaching session, but still, this is good content. Um, you can sit there, be at your computer and Big waddles in, goes arf. And you can have a little, little thing come up saying I want food and a walk now. Dad. Talk about how like you have to have mental health breaks or something like that.

Speaker E: You know what's funny is that there's actually a lot of uh, uh, semi famous corgis that are on YouTube and Instagram, like, like, like the Hammy and Olivia channel, uh, things like that.

Speaker D: Why is Big's not Big?

Speaker E: Well, my girlfriend, you know, she, we're going off on a tangent but you know, she go for it. She, she, you know, she has a big page but it's mostly photos and she only posts on it occasionally. Um, she's very good with it, but she, you know, better pet photographer than I ever I've ever been.

Speaker D: But I don't know who looks like a sausage.

Speaker E: I was gonna say I don't know if anybody who's doing it on business, social media, but you said I think

Speaker D: about how to make it relevant and that's the thing.

Speaker E: I might be on a corner of the market and uh, you know, business corgis or something, but business corgis.

Speaker D: Business corgis.com.

Speaker E: there we go.

Speaker D: Have them dress up in a suit and have a, you know, do a whole scene with him. You have fun with this stuff.

Speaker E: What are some pitfalls that businesses or uh, marketers might run into?

Speaker D: They could stay stuck in the weeds. They don't think, they don't just post and try things. They're afraid of failure, the freight of things falling flat. And like I did talk about this with my clients. In podcasting, you just get started. I mean, you have to have an idea of where you want to go with things. But literally get that first episode out. Get that first, you know, first three episodes out. Then see with her what, what resonates and go for what it resonates.

Speaker E: Mhm. Yeah, I can, there's a little bit of analysis paralysis that you can get. It is, yeah. Plus there's what you and I spoke about, uh, ahead of this uh, call, which is like I tried just using video to communicate with my clients and I had to repeat it like what I was saying like six times.

Speaker D: But we're our own worst.

Speaker E: And then dumped it because I thought I sounded like a people were own worst critics.

Speaker D: And it's one thing that Ed Oyama in his school community in the show notes, Ed is like, literally take five minutes and don't do more than five takes and then post it and then like, you know, I'll go in now. It's all about the reps. Like, uh, it's all about doing it over and over and over again. Eventually you get used to doing it. Yeah. Sometimes it's a one shoter and it's just like, I got it. Great, let's go. A lot of times it takes five minutes but don't spend hours on it.

Speaker E: Sure. What do you think? Um, well actually let me, let me bring up this topic. Um, Jen.

Speaker D: Oh God. Oh, Jen. Yeah, Alpha's worse. 67. 67. Oh God.

Speaker E: I don't even know what that is, but I see a lot of kids walking around with broccoli heads and oh

Speaker D: my God, those are llama heads.

Speaker E: Yeah, llama heads. Broccoli heads. Um, let's talk about how they're using short ah, form video if you could, if you. Because I don't think they're doing the same things that millennials, uh, and Xers and boomers are doing.

Speaker D: As far as boomers aren't doing anything, let's say. Well, I mean boomers in their retirement communities now I'm talking about boomers are aged out.

Speaker E: I mean people who still buy things online that are in their 60s.

Speaker D: We're going to take a quick break,

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Speaker C: What are you waiting for? Hop on.

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Speaker D: is to work together. I like this kid.

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Speaker D: They're engaging with the content, but they're not producing the content as much.

Speaker E: Dude, I'm talking about customers. That's what I'm talking about.

Speaker D: Yeah, exactly.

Speaker E: I mean, because so what I'm talking about is customers, you know, customer behavior. And, um, Jen, like, the younger generations aren't doing what the hell we're doing.

Speaker D: No. Uh, and then every generation does things differently, and they are a lot. They are kind of old souls when you think about it. They buy with no liquid trust factor more than ever. They're more socially conscious. They are more. They want to be less online. M. They want recommendations from their friends and people they trust and influencers that they trust. Key word is there is trust. And I feel like Gen Z is way different from the Xennials and the millennials. And the Xennials, you know, because you gotta realize, you know, I will not call myself an elder millennial. I'll call myself an exennial.

Speaker E: Uh, I'm borderline geriatric millennial.

Speaker D: Geriatric millennial. Oh, God. Whoever came up with that should be slapped. Anyhow, it makes. I digress. Using a walker as a millennial, that'd be sad. But the idea with Z Generation is reaching into the Z Generation is that they are a lot more on platforms and engaging with the content with people they know. And I feel like that is where you need to kind of being a brand, you need to figure out how to get in front of front of them. Would not be pushy. Not be like, buy my, buy my. There goes the tag. Buy my, buy my. You have to tell a story. They have to be able to relate to you. They have to like you. And you also have to have a social conscience. Conscience. There's. That's, uh, a. That's a word literally. They're not like the. The Gen Z. Roy. How f. They are in this world with the way climate change is happening, how they're getting all of our. That we put out there, and they're realizing that they need to take a stand, and they're going to take a stand with their wallets.

Speaker E: Yeah. A long time ago, I had somebody ask me about the younger generation and how I could. How they could relate. How they could relate to them. The funny thing is that conversation was around 2017 or 2018. They're talking about younger millennials at the time. What I had recommended to the person is a lot of what you're saying, um, Eight years ago. And it hasn't changed. It's probably become even more so.

Speaker D: That was eight years ago. Jeez.

Speaker E: Yeah. You know, like we're talking like 2017. I gave a talk at a networking group on marketing and somebody asked me a question of like, you know, I, my business is accent and how do I, how do I get into communication with these people? And I said, well, you know, you have to be on their level and talk to them like you know them. And

Speaker D: because you know them, you need to do your consumer research.

Speaker E: Exactly.

Speaker D: Figure out what, that, what resonates with them. You can just throw what works for your generation and hope that the younger generation generation is gonna, it's gonna, you know, I mean, good luck for anyone who's trying to get reach alphas right now because they only speak our language. My 12 year old comes home and said, I'm like, what?

Speaker E: Oh God, so many Gen X jokes that I could make, but I'm so not gonna do it because, um, yeah, so what I, what I think is, is that, you know, you have to connect with them, um, on their, with them, on their level and you know, and that social consciousness is part of it.

Speaker D: And then don't be fake about it. Don't be fake. Be genuine.

Speaker E: Yeah. And you can't kind of pull that, that old school, like show up at a chamber, uh, mixer with a stack of business cards and be like, who needs my service? Who needs my service? Let me run around, see who needs my service. That's like it. You know that one that never worked. Everyone always hated it. If you did it, please stop.

Speaker D: Oh, God.

Speaker E: Um, but the other side of it is that you can't do that in your videos. Like, like your, your, your Twitter video, uh, or your, your Twitter videos, your TikTok videos, your, your reels and your stories and your short form content that's on LinkedIn. Don't run around like it's freaking commercial.

Speaker D: No, it really goes back to being genuine, being real and being real in your reels. That's, that's not, that's funny. But I mean, ultimately, let's wrap this up. But, um, ultimately, I guess what we have to highlight here is that video is really taking hold online. I mean, I remember, I mean, right before we wrap up, quick tangent. I remember when I got my first 486lab desktop and Weezer's Buddy Holly came on and how that was like such a, like, realization. Like, I'm watching video on my computer now. It's like, videos, everything. If you're not uh, doing video. You're missing the boat on a lot of things. Even if it's like a 10 second video or these meme videos. I put a meme video out yesterday about like, it's Mr. Bean dropping his croissant gif and he is. And it says like the moment you realize you hit publish instead of schedule on your podcast below, it says, we've all done it. Don't feel bad. You know,

Speaker E: it's funny.

Speaker D: I mean, you can't go wrong with Mr. Bean. No, that's definitely a millennial Gen X meme. But people, people use Mr. Bean because he's funny. They don't really realize how great Mr. Bean was. But you know, ultimately do video is really what this whole all, uh, 21 minutes of this show is. Do video, be genuine. Know like, and trust is still a factor. And don't be salesy, be real.

Speaker E: I think that goes through a lot of everything that we've talked about this whole season is don't be salesy, be real. Build a no luck and trust factor.

Speaker D: Absolutely. So, Brian, this has been fun.

Speaker E: Yeah.

Speaker D: Everyone go check out brian@bstrongmarketing.com and this is for Brian Griffith everywhere. He's got an S in there. I can never say Brian Griffith without doing the. It's hard to say. Anyhow, uh, find me over@Social SethGoldstein me. That's where you can find, ah, all my links and stuff like that. Podcast Mastery Coach. If you want to get in on the podcast mastery community, it's free to join. It's a podcast mastery.community. or you can find it on school as well. And by all means, check out my buddy Ed Oyama's video, um, School. It's well worth it. Again, it's a free to join community. He knows his whole sake. I already got the exclusive tag. He knows his when it comes to video, short video. And really, if you put the reps in, it's worthwhile. And guess what? We'll see everyone next month.

Speaker E: All right, see ya.

Speaker D: That was a great show. If you're enjoying digital marketing dive, please review us in the podcast directory of your choice. Again, thanks for listening and we'll see you next time. Hello. Look what TJ Maxx dragged in.

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