Marketing and Social Media Events – Live Episode 7

Marketing Study Lab - Actionable Marketing Knowledge

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Guest: Lenka Koppova Topic: Marketing and Social Media Events

Discussion Points • What does it take in 2020 to coordinate an event? • What is different from previous years? • What is the best thing about organisation them? • And what's the hardest thing about online events? • What are your social media tips for 2021?

Enjoy the Episode - Happy Marketing!

Website Thingy: www.marketingstudylab.co.uk The Professional Bit: https://www.linkedin.com/in/petersumpton/ Facebook Community: https://www.facebook.com/groups/marketingstudylab/ Tweet Tweet: https://twitter.com/cousinp81

Transcript (this transcript isn’t 100% accurate but provides a decent representation of the conversation – soz for any confusion)

Peter Sumpton And we're live. We're back live and I've got a guest this week or two weeks it just me. So it's great that I have got a guest again this week and what a privilege to have lenker cup of are with me today on marketing study lab live, first of all, Lenka thank you so much Samuel, do this. And joining me, of course, happy to be here. Thank you for having me. Excellent. So as the ticker at the bottom says, we're going to be talking about marketing, and social media, but social media events as well. And we'll come on to that in a little bit after you have just explained to the audience a little bit more about yourself about the wonderful world of Lincoln.

Lenka Koppova Okay, so Hello, everyone. I'm Lanka, and I'm a social media consultant. And aside from running my own business, doing social media strategies, and content and trainings, I'm also the founder of Cambridge social media, which is an organisation it's a community for small business owners and freelancers where we all help each other. And we support our community with anything social media marketing related. And from there, we started with monthly meetups, which obviously, this year, is not as easy to run in person meetups. So we've turned our monthly meetups into weekly Facebook, live training sessions and zoom workshops. And I'm also the organiser of embrittled. Media Day, which again, this year going virtual. So it's a conference in November, and I'm super happy that Peter is running a session for us as well.

Peter Sumpton Yes, so am I thank you so much for the opportunity to do that, really looking forward to that as well. And you'll see that over social in the coming weeks, but really super excited for that and to be part of it and to get to know a bit of your community as well, which will be really, really cool. Okay, so like I said, At the start, all we're going to do today is have a bit of a chat around social media events. So first and foremost, if people got any questions, post them in the comments, and we'll get around to them, or just say hello, or a shout out or whatever you want to do. That's fine with me. But so first Lanka, 2020 has been a bit different over the years, from from, you know, for the past 2030 years, it's been slightly different to what we used to. How have you had to Well, first of all, how did you make the decision to go ahead with your events? And secondly, what changed? You know, first, let's do one question at a time. How did you make that decision to do this?

Lenka Koppova It was very interesting this year, because I run to in person events in the past two years. And it's kind of started as my side project with it just blows my idea after running a couple of meetups to be like, How hard could it be to run all day conference for about 200 people? How did you imagine? years in a row people loved it. But it was very stressful. So I was at the end of last year finished this event in November and it was kind of pondering what to do next. And I found a part partners, I found, you know, one of my business colleagues, Alex Hughes from shift T's who we've known each other for a while, and we had a couple of conversations about what I want, where he's heading, where I'm heading to be like, well actually sounds like a perfect partnerships. So then we nail down the plan, we were had a very ambitious plan for the third annual Cambridge Social Media Day, we plan to change venues go bigger and better. And we made an announcement first week of March that we're doing it, it will be bigger and better. And a week later, like what just happened? So we were back to the drawing board to be like, so what do we do? Do we postpone the oven and make do nothing? Or do we hope that it will be okay in November? Because you know, in March, it looks like it might be discovered. And everything will be okay in November? Or do we go to Safeway, we still want to do something for the audience. We still want to keep the momentum of year or the events doing we still want to celebrate. So let's do it online. And let's figure out a way to bring the best conference the best event the best virtual experience for people or communities

online.

Peter Sumpton Mm hmm. Excellent. So yeah, a bit of a no brainer, but still something that you really have to consider because I'm guessing the way you would lead up to that and will not necessarily lead up to it but structure it is usually different. So what are the differences that you're seeing? Because you're right in the middle of this now the differences you're seeing from trying to organise something that's that's face to face that's offline to something that is less classes virtual, I don't really like that phrase. Well, that's classes virtual.

Lenka Koppova It's interesting because the feedback that we've got from the past events and the things that really matter to me during organising these events was the people vibe, the friendliness didn't come up, you're really the energy of other people, which is the hardest thing to do online. So when we thought about is, obviously I wanted to have great speakers, I wanted to have great content I wanted to make sure they were providing is relevant. It's timely, it's helpful. It's designed for our audience. But the biggest challenge was thinking about how we do we translate our values of really to community feel and positive friendly vibe online. And I consulted with a couple of facilitators, people who are like workshop hosts, and who had to turn their whole business virtual this year, to break down event to make sure did we pay attention to people's energy that we don't just overwhelm them with videos, and just staring at a screen, some time a wall or some exercises away. And it also we have a tool that supports what we do to support this feeling of online interactions. And it allows us us as much as we can to represent the real life feeling and look and atmosphere of in person event. And I think we found a solution, I think we find a pretty cool tool. And we plan the layout of the event, vertical layout to replanning virtual out for our virtual conference room and conference building. And we've planned a lineup and agenda of those two days with the mind of people's energy. And they're not only for them to learn some factual things, but to have as many opportunities as possible to interact, network meet, and build partnership, build connections, find people like them, because I always remember people coming year after year, to me from those conferences to be like this person that I've met, I sit next to, you know, we started working together, we started accountability group to get to where we started this, and I want this to translate on my event as much as we can.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, I mean, it's, it's a big ask in some ways, but from a positive point of view, people have had at least half a year to get used to communicating more on on tools such as stream yard, or zoom, or teams, or you named 610 20 100 of them. At this moment in time, you know, we always got chairs and those back in during life would be slightly different right now I expect. And so with with the actual event, then I'm just interested to know, I mean, I do know, but it'd be good for people that are watching or listening to know that. So it's, it's a social media event. So the folks on social media fantastic. But that isn't just the topics that you're going to be covering. So why, first of all, if you could explain just a couple of the topics that are, you know, exciting for you, as the creator of the event. But secondly, why you covering topics that might not be specifically geared towards social media.

Lenka Koppova So even though it is a Cambridge Social Media Day, and the main theme is social media marketing, I always tell my community, I always tell my clients that social media can't stay alone, not only marketing tactics can stand alone, you can't do just video marketing. You can't do just email marketing, you can't do just the SEO. It's all not only all digital tools, but all marketing tools and tactics and techniques, they need to be complemented to each other, they need to be put into a planning strategy. So that's where we do focus on social media, a lot of our content will be platform specific or social media content specific. But we then have other topics that are relevant this year is kind of overall theme is focused on customer experience, and delivering great customer feeling, customer journey, customer experience being online, which is what we most of us can do, but also thinking about how can you improve the current or foreign experience and the future of flight experience. And then we have couple sessions are looking at marketing automation and looking at building lists. Because no matter how much I left social media, I still know that built using social media purely it's building a house on a rented land algorithm can change, someone can hack your account, this can go wrong and out of nowhere where you're with nothing. So we do put a lot of emphasis on having your own website, having your own CRM, having your own mailing list and using social media to drive these other kind of communities that you have a bigger feel of ownership and if something happens, you have something that is actually own and you can then still connect with your community and customers and prospects.

Peter Sumpton I'm so I'm so glad you said that. So I've got the way I explained that is. And this comes down to the old Olden upin, and the merge if you like. And, you know, everybody likes a bit of merge as long as you're not paying for it. And so I always explain it, in terms of that isn't really going to move somebody to purchase very much. But it's just 1% of what you should be doing. And if you have 99, or the 1%, that's a huge shift. So a pen alone with your logo on isn't going to shift people that much, but it's more brand awareness. And in the grand scheme of things, if you're doing other elements, including merchandise, that's a bigger proposition than just the one channel or the one piece of merchandise, which is exactly what your say, saying in terms of just having social media alone is precarious, because that changes. So you know, you have to really think of your strategy, which is, which is really cool. So this year is about customer experience, then. So let's just shift it towards social for this moment in time. And what kind of thing should we be looking at on social to generate a better customer experience them.

Lenka Koppova So first things first, it's about being aware where on social media you're active, where you have accounts, if they have been used, if they not been used, then why you have them and just do a little bit of an audit to actually be aware where your customers might come across you. And if they come across you There is everything working if they learned and your Facebook page and send you a message will use it and he will be able to respond if not put processes in place to either close on account or make sure that it's very clear to people that you know, this is not your active platform to go and delete direct messages here and there email recall you never will be my first advice is just making sure that you look at all the potential windows and doors where people can kind of run away and mess on. So it's just about for me with social media, it is about not selling all the time. Even though Yes, we use social media marketing to promote the customer experience is all about them. It's about providing them with value, building relationships, connecting with them, helping them serving them, finding the pain that your customers and prospects have, and how you can use social media and content and social media to help them and providing value without actually being just buy from me selling or no one has signed up to LinkedIn or Facebook or especially places like Instagram, to be bombarded by ads and be sold to we're coming to social media to connect to get updates and get news to be entertained, to be hired. We're not coming there to see advertising. So it will see advertising, then it needs to serve us it needs to help us with whatever it is that we need to need to be interesting. It needs to be engaging. And it needs to be helpful.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, absolutely. And it was interesting for me when you see maybe something that is on the surface dry and a bit dull and boring. And people think that, well, there's nothing we can say that is of interest, you know, we do whatever it might be. And I'm not I'm not picking on any industry here. But for example, we do insurance. So what the hell can we say? It's just it's boring, everybody has to have it. But you know, they don't really want it, we're just asking for their money. So they, whatever it might be, but even even that you look at, you know, compare the near car and go compare and all that kind of stuff. And it's most that's got nothing to do with insurance. So similar thing on social for small, medium, or large companies that it's not just about what you do, it's, it's about that brand and that culture and and pushing something to people that they will resonate with your audience like, like you were saying they're absolutely superb. Do you think that when people start to use different social platforms, there's that worry that they chase that new shiny thing? And are you a fan of just focusing on one platform at a time? Or would you say have a healthy mix? Or what's your what's your take on that?

Lenka Koppova Yeah, I'm definitely suggesting people to be aware of trying to be everywhere and spreading themselves too thinly, especially audience in the community and working with where it's people who tend to do their own marketing. They don't have a big marketing team. They don't have too much time to do very really limited resources. So my suggestion always is pick one or two. Priority platforms, platforms where you know, did your target customers are, but also the platforms that you would enjoy. You know, using, there's no point of picking a platform that someone suggested because of demographic research, it's being said that it's more like most likely to have your target customers there. But you are just dreading and hating the user interface the way it works. We're on board ahead, you love being on Instagram, and you love doing stories and you love talking to people. And even though maybe Instagram is not the number one platform that you would expect your customers to be, still can work perfectly. And you still have these days, all the platforms have pretty balanced, you know, demographics, you know, all sorts of people on all sorts of bathrooms, I don't think it's like, very demanding to say like, only Instagram will work for your own Twitter will refer. But I would say pick one platform or two that you enjoy, and that you really can see yourself spending time on creating content for and in engaging with people on

Peter Sumpton is probably something that you can resonate with. And that's that's FOMO. What would you say to somebody that that is, and again, is probably reiterating what you said, but what would you say to somebody that is say, focus on Instagram, and they're getting engagement there, and I was worried I'm missing out on Facebook, or I'm worried I'm missing out on LinkedIn, you know, what would you What do you advise them, like test the water or stay stay true to what you know,

Lenka Koppova I would always say if you want to experiment, you can dedicate like 10% of your time to experiment and keep an eye on other platforms. I'm not saying that you should not be on all channels, you can have profiles and keep them kind of maintain on all the channels and really on deep dive on one platform. But I would say yeah, try to really appreciate the platform that you're using. Because especially like now, but it's been a trend in social media, social media networks are changing so fast. Even I can't keep up with all the new tools, new updates, new features, new days on all the channels. And this is my business, I can't imagine how you know, anyone who has a business whose focus is fotografie, flowers, consultants, anything else and doing marketing and social media marketing is just 10 20% of their time and how they can stay on top of all the new Instagram stories, reels, guides, HGTV live all the stickers, all the algorithm changes all the things and really be able to use and leverage the platform properly. Like today, I discovered in LinkedIn has a newsletter feature. Never heard of it before. All this is pretty cool. But again, LinkedIn is not my number one platform. That's why I don't know these things. But if I was, I would hope that I know about it. And I've considered it for my strategy.

Peter Sumpton Doing I mean, LinkedIn is probably my main platform, and that I love it. But it can be as frustrating as hell because like exactly what you said they release things. And they only release it to a certain amount of people. And then that gets around the world. And it's like, why the hell Haven't we got this and it's only select month people and all that kind of stuff, which is hugely frustrating. But I don't get that feel from all the platforms that they really do that. You know, I feel that they're much more we've tested it and pretty much everyone can have it or am I missing something there? Is that the case on all of them?

Lenka Koppova There's still box I think other

platforms do it less today, once they decide to launch something they tested in couple countries and India launches globally. But like for example, I have five client Instagram accounts. On three of them. I have a new app layout on the rest of them. I have rails on my personal like create a business account I don't have rails feels the same with Facebook. Like I didn't have a new Facebook layout. It's never been switched to me I don't have the option to switch I'm like you don't like me Why? Why me? Why my personal account why my business like a why all my clients do have it and I can use it for them, but I cannot use it for myself. So I think LinkedIn is a worst. Twitter is also really bad in announcing new features. There tend to hide lots of the features to be like we've released something, but only if you know then you will know what otherwise you will not know like media studio is one of the best hidden features of Twitter and pretty much no one knows that it exists. It's like the best way for you to sharing videos and any kind of media on Twitter.

Peter Sumpton Okay, I've never heard of that.

Lenka Koppova Exactly.

There's still not enough video content on which is one of the reasons Muito is still under utilised and there's a lot more opportunities for people to do more video content. But because Twitter has certain restrictions, and then you can't have this and that out of nowhere, people don't use it. But if you notice, there is a media studio where you can upload Oreo media, your videos, you can actually add a description and a clickable call to action to videos, you can shoot over there within Twitter, out of nowhere Mind blown, you get so much more with this platform. But as he said, No one knows this.

Peter Sumpton That's, that's crazy. I've just I've just noticed I'm fairly new to stream yard. But if I click that, it's a bit better. We've got we've got more room. And I must admit, I'm obviously not at home. I'm in an office. And I've just realised it almost looks like I've just put this big, bright light all the way behind me. It's just a white wall over it just looks a bit startling. So I need to learn from that. Really. Sorry. Anyway, just a couple of shoutouts. Really so Phil's joined us. He just says hello. And then this thing. It's streaming, I got salty, but I think you need to GDPR stuff with stream yard. And that was it was that that was Tony. That sound that Hello. So hello. Hello. Anyone that's watching just out of interest. What's your what platform Do you enjoy using them the most.

Lenka Koppova I enjoy Instagram the most I enjoy stories. I enjoy Rios, I really enjoyed it. It's very personal. It's very in the moment. It's really kind of real and authentic. And it's still you can still do great business there. But it feels very friendly. I do like LinkedIn. And they're like this year, LinkedIn has been fantastic in the amount of really quality engagement and support. It's been happening on LinkedIn. But I prefer like I do my own social media kind of interruptions mainly on mobile. And I just find Instagram is the most mobile friendly, and the most fun.

Peter Sumpton Okay, but let's see, I don't use Instagram at all. I just don't I don't know, I think it's just that one too many for me. And just I've never really got around to utilising it in any way shape or form. But there you go. It's just your preferences. And there

Lenka Koppova it is. And you know, I love it. Because part of it part of my lifestyle and my business brand. It is all about travel. And it is all about a lifestyle. And I love travelling, I love eating out. I love taking photos of these things. And you know, just the perfect and second place. And that's how I built my brand. People know that not only I do social media, but people know me for me, they know me for my hiking, or my dog. They know me for my you know, latte art and all the food I go to. And it's a thing that people will remember, as well as the date I do social media, so it's more likely for them to remember me really build the connection with me. And if they ever need me, they know they can find me.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, and because I'm not on Instagram, I just got a glimpse of that. So So I've seen some of your photos. And yeah, you go to some amazing places, and it's really cool. Maybe not that many.

Lenka Koppova I managed. I managed a little bit this year, and I managed to move where I am right now. Back home and the countryside in my family. So I managed to

Peter Sumpton I'm just getting some feedback. It's like that's, I think that's my end. That's weird.

Lenka Koppova Like, I hear people talking to someone else.

Peter Sumpton I don't know, there's no one in this office. That's a bit freaky. Anyway, it seems

Lenka Koppova like there's no one in this house right now. So it's got to be coming from me.

Peter Sumpton That's a bit scary. Yeah, there's literally nobody in this office. Anyway, okay. Let's move on. Let's just blame that on Instagram. And then this, this is a really, really big question for me. Okay. So and I hear this a lot and I've got my own answer to this, but you deal with a lot, lot more smaller businesses than I do. People must one of the questions you must get asked a lot is I just don't have the time to do it. So what I say to people that that say I haven't got the time.

Lenka Koppova Um, I would say to people who don't have the time, you know, consider what it can do for you consider what benefits why would you use it, it's not using social media for the sake of using social media. If you want to use social media just to be on social media, then it's not ill advice. But social media should be a reason for using it or should be a reason to repurpose, you should be using strategically. So it's always an excuse, I don't have time to go to gym, I don't have time to eat healthy, I don't have properties. Like if I know the goal, if I know why am I doing it not just because everyone telling me and I see on Instagram, you should be going to gym. But if I want to feel better, I want to be healthier, if I want to be more capable, then I will exercise I will eat. And the same goes for social media. If you want social media marketing to work for you, if you see it as a helpful beneficial tool that can help your business to grow can help you to get the lifestyle that you want, that can give you this time and space and freedom and revenue that you want. And you will make it a priority to put a plan in place, pick a metaphor, and invest the time into it. And I would say to social media, especially at the beginning feels like a big time commitment and a big investment. And it definitely is something that you will have to do forever and ever. But at the same time, if you build it in this time, then over time eight will be much easier to keep it ticking over if you keep it activated, to keep deletes coming through there. So it will become your second nature, you will figure out the processes. And actually, if you put an investment in then it will really help you. It has the potential to help you to have the business and the life that you want. Hmm,

Peter Sumpton yeah, I agree. And I might take work, particularly when I'm teaching. And people all have busy lives. And you know that they're working, they're studying, they want some sort of social life. And so I've got no time. And the first thing I say to them, is because sometimes you need that commitment. Particularly if you're going to add something extra to your life, either Something has to move and shift, or you need to find that time somewhere. So I always say, Okay, so what did you do last weekend? And usually the answer is either Netflix or chilled out or did something. And I'm just like, Well, there you go. Just take just and I'm not advocating working over weekends, everyone's got a different preference. Or it's almost like, okay, we'll take half an hour out of your evening or half an hour out of a Saturday and Sunday. You've clawed back. What that's that's like three to four hours a week, just for half an hour each evening, or in the morning, get an extra half hour. And it doesn't have to be that all because like you said, socials, huge, it's daunting, how do I cover everything, just start small, just just don't cover everything, just start small, there's always ways to find time.

Lenka Koppova Yeah, I would say if it really is such a big thing, and you don't have really don't have the opportunity to put the time aside to really build a strong plan and strategy. And you really want to do something, the best thing you can do on social media, it's be present. So even if it's that you don't have the time to really create content and put all the effort in to do videos, do training, do blog posts, do this because yes, it can be time consuming. Even if all you can do is spend five minutes with your coffee in the morning or after your lunch break. Instead of watching Tic Tock and YouTube videos, spend the time go to whichever platform and look what other people have posted. Find the people who are your ideal customers, follow them, connect with them comment on their stuff here, just dm them and start building the relationship seed as you're building friendships like the same way to check in on your family. And you would check it in your friends. build this habit of checking in on your social media community. And even this just very passively without pushing content out there. But kind of proactively reaching out to people connecting with them. Even if you just comment on their stuff. We share their content, you know, give them a thumbs up and give them a lift up. That's an amazing time investment that will pay off for your business.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, I completely agree. It's, I always try to explain it to people as you need to see these platforms. If you're a business owner or you're in business or you want to use it from that respect. You need to see them very differently to what you have been seeing them because they're not like you said it's not you're not going on there to aid say socialised. You're not going on there to use it for what it was built for. You're going on there to engage in a very, very different way. And you need to it's a complete different mind shift for some people. And as soon as you see that mind shift As soon as you see that difference, the platform's become very different places. Like I've met some amazing people, you know, I mean, you purely through LinkedIn, and probably through through somebody else, LinkedIn. And it's just it's that craziness. And and if I was on there just for watching videos or consuming the content, I've simply, I wouldn't be speaking to you right now. And that's that's that will be a sad world.

Lenka Koppova Exactly. It's really unlock so much opportunities business wise, like, obviously most of my business comes from social comes from being on social media, but it is less about the content that I put out there even though yes, I do put books and I have ebooks and no, I do video training. But it then comes to me just showing up to when people post something when I see the day do something that they cried, and I'm just like commenting and sharing and liking. They remember that they remember how that made them feel that someone gave and comes up with someone supported them. And if they then need your help, they're more likely to come to you. So is really helpful if you just build relationships and help others genuinely.

Peter Sumpton And like you said, Just you don't even have to push yourself just just get involved, just common. And that that is that is just taken, tap away. And that's what that's all it is just start with that. And it might not be for you. That's the thing, and but you just learn as you go along. But I think that was the thing for me with Instagram, I probably didn't use it to the best of my ability, but it just didn't work for me in the way that I I work.

Lenka Koppova And that's absolutely fine. Again, you just do you and you'd be where you want to be. But I think that every platform these days gives you all the accessibility options. So I know that some people are not the ones who which type. And other people are not the ones who do video, and other people are not the ones who would like to talk. So you have two options. You can type, you can record audio, you can record videos, you can communicate with people in the way that feels the most natural to you.

Peter Sumpton And I suppose one thing to note there, and I'm just talking from a LinkedIn basis, it's, it's doing those different things that make you stand out, you might feel a little uncomfortable, and I'm not advocating, I personally feel if you're in that little uncomfortable zone. That's when you start to grow and develop. But for some people, they're just not there. And that's absolutely fine. But it's things like messaging. And I don't do it enough. But like yesterday, I was I was messaging somebody. And they instead of trying to type out a long winded message back, they did an audio and it stands out like a sore thumb. And if you did a video when everyone else is doing audio, it just stands out like a sore thumb. And that's on a personal level. You know, so there's so many opportunities. And just one quick question. I'm just conscious of time. But I thought I'd put this up because James is pretty much what we've been talking about just there. So talk to people is a great strategy to grow your business. And social allows us to talk to people at scale. And he loves the chat, which is absolutely super, but it's only great because rank is on with me today, which is fantastic in itself. So just on that point that James says, talking to people at scale, I suppose you can do both, can't you? You know, I've just been talking about peak speaking to people on on VM. And that's a one to one basis. But I noticed you just posted something. It was weird. Because before we got on this chart, I was looking at LinkedIn and lose a video view and then you popped up on the screen and I'm like, okay, like doubling, amazing day. But yeah, it's like you're speaking to speak people at scale on video. And that's a huge benefit.

Lenka Koppova Well, I think that's where the benefit and the beauty of social media lies because social media allows you to reach out to anyone and everyone it is an open democratic platform where there is no gatekeeper, you can send a message out there and millions of people can see it the same time. It allows every single individual to be able to interact with you. There is no one you know, it's not like you, you can't interact with TV, you can shout at it. But it's probably the only thing you will do. Like something if you like something you can interact with it. And if you keep majority of your conversations on the public domain where someone tweets you someone messages us on the comments in a conversation going to a certain point publicly, Yes, exactly. It is public, everyone else can see it. No, you are investing in a conversation one on one potentially under comments on LinkedIn under someone's post that you you know, you reply to a reply but I can have a conversation. it for you. It might be I'm having a conversation with one person, but there might be hundreds of other people who will read the conversation. And who will align who might comment or might not comment will might follow you because of the who might like to because of that. And then yes, it's just then taking it to the next level of no picking from the scale the people who will resonate with you, and then taking those relationships to the next level by going to the DMS or one personalised chat.

Peter Sumpton And that's why it's so important to be important to be yourself, isn't it? You know, because you want to resonate with people that you want to work with eventually. And if you're you, and people see you for you, and they are still willing, well, in my case, they're still willing to chat to me, then that that means that they can put up with me in my ramblings on on marketing, important strategy and everything else's, I'm really conscious of things I want to cover and then on to social media. And then this year, first thing is, people get hung up on on the likes, the comments and all that kind of stuff. How do you stop people from worrying if they're putting out content, and there's not that much engagement on the face of it from what they've seen stat wise.

Lenka Koppova So there are statistics and numbers that are meaningful, and there are stats that are meaningless, like watching the numbers of followers doesn't really matter, like on Twitter, and Instagram, on other platforms, if you use the right hashtags, if your content is interesting and valuable, then it will be spread widely, and it can go way beyond your number of followers. So it's important to understand the meaningful metrics, the metrics that really show you the indication of the quality and the interest in your content in your business in your offering, which could be, you know, comments could be shares, it could be DMS, obviously, it is web traffic, it is email science, it is video views, repeat views. But I would say, especially at the early stages, it takes a long while it is very interesting to see that social media works kind of exponential in a way that there is a long lead up to them quite quick growth and take off too, sometimes, you know, 12, to 18 months of day to day activity of surgery, podcasters can see the new example of podcast after podcast that the first nine months just nothing happened. And then out of nowhere, it goes like this, it goes fast. But without putting the work in, in the first stage, it wouldn't, you wouldn't get there it is there is something about your resilience and consistency and persevere. And understanding that even though social media will give you results immediately, you can measure anything and everything from three second views to you know, likes here and there. It's important to know that the meaningful metrics and the meaningful results, take time and be patient.

Peter Sumpton And yeah, it's a marathon, not a sprint, at the end of the day. So just moving back to your event. Just I suppose two quick questions. Really, before we wrap up? what's what's the worst thing about organising an event online?

Lenka Koppova I think the worst thing is kind of not knowing if the technology will work. Because in person, you know, yes, there are some tech aspects that you need to pay attention to, like a microphone and stuff like that. But also then you you actually have real people in real life in you in in the room with you to help you this way, where, you know, we are all in our rooms, we're all in different parts of the world if something goes wrong before our team before myself that for one of the attendees, how will I be able to help them and fix it? I was always the fixed and running around, told him for blanks doing this and isn't knowing that everything is under control. And who is the person? Where do I go? And right now I feel like very early on, if something goes wrong, yes, I know the person but I can't do anything. And if some something's not working on someone's laptop, how will I help them to fix it? Because I don't know.

Peter Sumpton Yeah, I mean that that that would be a main worry, because that's the whole event, isn't it? So So On the flip side, what's the best thing about organising this event or any event that you've done?

Lenka Koppova I think organising online events really allows you not to be bounded by location because we've always been involved in the Cambridge event. We had people from UK coming, but there was always commuting as always to drive and park. And this way we can welcome audiences from all around the world. And we had people coming to our workshops and Facebook events, people from not only Europe, we managed to get people from all around the world coming to Cambridge Social Media Group, to connect with others, and work with others and learn windows, which is the most wonderful feeling. Because I love connecting people, I love being connected to different people from different places, learn about how social media works there, what it can learn from them. So I think this is the best thing that we can take everyone globally.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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