Denise Alison, an in-demand social media content strategist, and speaker shares her insights on how to leverage your online presence in times of uncertainty. She talks about how to use this time to focus on building a strong online community, establish virtual connections, and to restructure your content and messaging.
Denise Alison is a social media content strategist and speaker who has been featured at events such as Live Stream Summit, Social Media Day Halifax, AWE-SUM, the Video Marketing Summit for Entrepreneurs, Social Media Online Summit, and more. She is on a mission to make social media a more human place and has seen firsthand the importance of relationship building in marketing and business. Denise advocates for using social media as a place to connect, instead of a place to broadcast promotional messages.
In our conversation, we discuss how to reinvent and restructure your online content in times of uncertainty, the importance of repositioning your messaging, and how you can continue to connect with and grow your audience in an ethical way. Denise shares her insights and observations as well as examples of how she is showing up in her business and for her people during the pandemic.
To find more about Denise and her work check her out online https://denisealison.com/
Connect with her on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/socialdenise/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/socialdenise/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/denisealison/
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/socialdenise/
- [Narrator] Welcome to Leading Through Crisis, a conversation series exploring the idea of leadership in challenging times.
- Hi, welcome to Leading Through Crisis. I'm your host, Celine Williams and I'm here today with Denise Alison. Denise is a social media strategist who helps businesses build stronger relationships with their online communities through engaging content. She focuses on the importance of authentic connections and real conversation. She lives and works in rural Nova Scotia. Thank you for joining us today.
- Thanks for having me Celine.
- It's a pleasure. So I've known you a little bit but I haven't seen you in a while so why don't you sort of tell us what you're up to in the world and what's going on in your life right now?
- Yeah, so like you said, I'm a social media strategist for businesses who want to create content online and be built communities that are engaging it and it's not just like, screaming their message into a megaphone, but taking the opportunity to engage with their audience. In terms of content, well, we're just taking things that could be either boring, like lightly boring, technical, or hard to understand and make them more fun engaging and, simple for the user to understand. So I spend most of my time doing that and also coaching people through creating effective social media marketing strategies. So, that's what I spend most of my time doing right now, of course, where are in the middle of the Corona pandemic. So I've just been staying home. I ordered myself a spin bike from Amazon. I'm typically a runner, but I've been having some injury problems, so I can't really get out and run, so I got a spin bike to give myself some kind of activity that's beyond walking or stretching. So that's what I'm gonna be spending the next few days doing.
- Amazing, I love that. I'm gonna ask this question because I think as a social media strategist and content creator, you have a unique lens on this. What are you seeing as trends right now that are coming up with social media with content that, from your perspective are either really effective or overdone or overused or ineffective?
- For a lot of the people that I've worked with and the business owners that I know, the way that they grow their business is really through basically being or getting in front of a room or getting in a room full of the right people and that's how they grow their business. They grow through networking, they grow it through speaking and, really things that involve a bunch of things that we're not allowed to do right now. So they're probably feeling really stuck, and I've definitely heard some feedback from people like this is the end of my business, I can't get out, I can't network, how am I going to attract customers and these kinds of things, and for me, because as we mentioned, I do live in rural Nova Scotia. This has always been an issue for me getting to those of, the rooms that are full of the right people is not something that I can really easily my location. I do travel from time to time to go to conferences, and speaking events, but it's obviously not something I can be doing random more urban center would be doing. So, I've grown my business primarily through building relationships and really trying to approach that the same way you build relationships in person or face to face because as technology evolves and society evolves, we're spending less time face to face like people aren't going out for, happy hour drinks after work, or people aren't necessarily golfing for business deals. These relationships are happening online. Peeling back the layers, pulling back the curtain, and letting people connect on a more human level and for them to care about you, they need to feel like they relate to you in some way. And that's gonna mean that you have certain things in common. So maybe you have a dog, or maybe you like running or spin biking or some of the things that I mentioned already during this interview, but it's helping people to relate to you on a human level, and then they're gonna be naturally curious about what you do businesswise, but not focusing so much on business first, but focusing on connections first, so that's what works. That's how business always worked. It's just that the place that those conversations and interactions are taking place, is now moved to the online sphere, mostly social media because it's more interactive, and so that's what it's happening. I've seen a lot of we're talking about this before you hit record. I've seen a lot of virtual summits pop up, which virtual summits can be fantastic, but it's kind of become a trendy thing, and it's become so saturated that I know, I don't wanna sign up for your summit because I'm not gonna watch it because I signed up for 20 others, and maybe watch some of it. But of course, we're, we all have limited time to do that kind of thing and consume other people's content. And so if you're planning on doing a summit, really think about whether it's worth, the time you're gonna put into it, the money you're going to put into setting it up. And I mean that it takes I've had I've ran to. So this is why I know, it takes so much time, so much energy, time away from doing other things in your business that might make money. Maybe you're not making money right now, so you're like, well, might as well. But there's so many out there, so really consider if it's the right choice for you, knowing that just creating a virtual summit it's not an automatic attention grabber, list builder or visibility booster.
- It's really interesting cause we were talking about this before and I've had people ask in doing these interviews that I'm gonna be doing, are you going to turn into a virtual summit? And I basically, and I've said no, that my I just wannna release conversations that are valuable for people in as they come in. Obviously, processing for a few days, but not in a virtual summit. For that reason is that I don't think most people who sign up for them actually watch them when they're set up that way. And I think right now, people have time, and they're like, the responses. How do I create content, and everyone is pushing or thinking of virtual summits as the content. The number of people that have popped up and then like, I wannna do this summit, I wanna do this. It's my Facebook, my LinkedIn, it's absurd. So for people who want to be creating content right now, and who want to leverage this opportunity, what are some suggestions you might have? Or things that they could think about? Because, like in the idea of Leading Through Crisis, how can they lead themselves online whatever it is, in this time?
- Think about what's happening in the world right now and how it relates to what you do. If you have some kind of guidance or expertise that you can offer people, that's amazing. So just think about how you can do that, and how it relates and create some content. So in my written content, maybe you're a great writer, maybe video, maybe you're great on video, or you just hate writing or maybe you hate video and you wanna write, but think about how you can do that if you're not already actively creating content? I mean, now's a good time to start, because everyone is out home kind of looking at social media. But for someone like me, where I offer social media marketing, like well, how can that help people during this pandemic or this crisis? And for me, there are two things. First of all, is that people kind of get nervous about marketing themselves, especially women, we get nervous about marketing ourselves when other people are suffering. So, people might be thinking, oh, it's tacky to market myself right now or, oh, I'm so panic right now that I can't even think about marketing or all these other thoughts that kind of come through their mind. Also, as I mentioned earlier, people are stuck at home and they can't do the things they might normally need to do to grow their business. So for me, I'm creating more content about how you can use social media during this time to continue to grow your business even though you're stuck at home. Of course, nothing's ever as good as face to face human interaction, like I'm not saying that social media can completely replace that. But if you haven't already been using social media to make your face and your expertise, and generally you as a brand or as a business known, it's time to rethink about how you can do that. So, that's what I've been doing. Honestly, the first week, I was a mess and I didn't create any content because I just I didn't know what to do with this. I've never been in a situation like this before. I think most of us haven't. And I didn't want to seem tone-deaf in with the way that I would normally create content because it had nothing to do with anything really. And so I had to take that first week to process things and I'm like, how can I best use my knowledge and my expertise to help people out right now? And that's guiding them through kind of the means of social media in marketing while they are kind of stuck at home while this pandemic is happening. While the conversation isn't necessarily on social media marketing, but it's still a huge part because unlike other global situations, or like further pandemics or crises that have happened in the past, we're not actually isolated, we're physically distanced and we are physically isolated from other people. But we have more access to information and to people than ever before. So, we have the ability to do that. So helping people realize that they could can still do that. So as part of my, leadership actions right now to give an example. The second thing I've been doing is sharing tips for people on really how to get about their day. I have in the past, I've gone through a lot of mental health and anxiety issues, which basically your mind gets consumed with worrying thoughts, and you can't think about anything else or get anything done. And lo and behold, this has prepared me for this situation where generally a lot of people they're feeling consumed by these thoughts. They don't know what to do, but it's outside of their control. The same thing happens when you have anxiety, you ruin worrying about things that you have zero control over. So I've kind of learned to control those thoughts and so I've been kind of offering solutions for people. It's like one easy tip per day, so don't like don't spend all day telling yourself not to think this because it's gonna blow up and like all you're gonna be able to think about is don't think about this. But you also can't spend all day, thinking about the problems. So giving yourself like 15 minutes to worry about this, starting your day off positively, like things that are going to help people be in a better frame of mind to actually do the things they need to do during that day. I'm also a fairly positive person. So I do wanna bring some positivity into their world and just help them feel as normal as they can. For some people, that's much harder. For me, I always work from home. So my day to day isn't really that different. Not saying that I haven't had my fair share of setbacks because the economy is suffering right now. Therefore, we're all suffering, but by helping them bring some normalcy back into their lives.
- So when you think about I love that there's a lot in what you said, and I wanna talk about you mentioned being like the idea of you didn't wanna feel tone-deaf that first week. I wanna talk about that for a second because I think a lot of people are... They have something that they want to say or they want to be positive. So like, you know, if you... My Instagram is like literally me reinstagramming, regramming, whatever you call it, like tanks, good news, which are all these, like really positive stories coming up. That's my leader. And it's in the context of this, but that is definitely how I tend to believe. Or, you know, and what I put out into the world. And I recognize there's a lot of people who are very hesitant, because they don't wanna seem tone-deaf, they either don't wanna be like, everything's gonna be perfect and this will end too or whatever the case may be. So how have you found the balance now for yourself? And how do you have any tips or ideas of how people can find that balance for themselves?
- Yeah, so again, it's looking at the situation right now and how what you do relates to that. So in all of my content, it's knowing that this is happening. I'm not saying oh, just be positive and your day will be fine. It's, this shit has hit the fan and now we need to address it. So if you're not quite sure how you can do that, we'll just think about maybe you need to leave in a couple of sentences about, okay, this, I'm saying this because of this situation. Most likely, like, I tend to plan my content in advance, like, do I always know. But the idea is that I would have already known what content I was going to be putting out right now, weeks ago, that probably needs to be scrapped for most people. For some, again, it's gonna be different situations with different businesses. Some businesses have been told they need to close. If you're a salon, if you're a gym, if you're an eat in a restaurant, like, yeah, you're going through something a little bit more challenging, or a lot more challenging, I should say. Then people who have been told to stay at home like that's kind of what's happening right now, but it's knowing that people are being laid off, people are losing contracts, losing jobs, getting sick, struggling. And think about how do I fit into this? If you're gonna go out there and be like, I don't even know what a great situation would be right now. If you're serving an industry that's basically on pause right now, like a restaurant or salon, like maybe you sell to salons, well, you can't just keep going out there and doing the things you were doing because your reality has changed. So think about other ways that you might be able to serve people and proceed with that. It's gonna be a lot of trial and error right now for a lot of people. But it's just knowing who your audiences is, is probably gonna go a long way here in knowing, okay, what are they struggling with? And how you can really change your messaging to fit the current dynamic of what's happening.
- I think what you just said is super important that idea of changing your messaging there. One of the things that I have found most tone-deaf when I've seen when or that have struck me as tone-deaf when I've seen it is like ads that were happening two months ago when I see them now that are it's the exact same ad nothing has changed, that seems super tone-deaf. People selling with the same messaging even on their first Facebook pages or LinkedIn or promoting with the same messaging that they would have done, because that's what they planned, that feels really tone-deaf. And I and like this is my two cents, not a social media person, you please push back if this does not sound in line, but for me, what would seem to make the most sense is actually pausing anything that you have going on in that way that is marketing or messaging, or promotionally related to reevaluate and reposition that messaging because it's not that you don't wanna, I mean, people have to make money. There's nothing wrong with selling or serving right now. There's nothing to do about that. If you can help people do it, but doing it in a mindful way where it's not just, oh, well, this was planned two months ago. So I'm just gonna keep doing it with the same language in the same positioning as before.
- Yeah, definitely, and I saw an ad for a marathon in, I'm not 100% sure where it was, it's like, every running event right now has been canceled. Why am I seeing this right now? It seems strange. So really reevaluating, that like you said, the wording, the messaging, what you're saying and who you're targeting. If you're targeting people who are all unemployed right now, yeah, like you probably need to reevaluate this.
- There could be an opportunity to build a community with those people right now to serve them in a way that doesn't cost them any or a lot of money. That might not be the thing that builds your business right now, but if that if runners are you're, I'm picking on runners just because you said runners but if runners are your community and they're struggling for employment, but you can help them with work from home tips that they can offer for free, then create a community around that, like there are opportunities here. But I but the taking that step back to be like they might not be the monetization might not happen right now.
- Yes, for I mean for a lot of people right now it's gonna not be a growth period in terms of fine finances is going to be an audience growth and relationship growth period. So it's gonna be you're putting in the work now and that's going to pay off in some at some point in the future. So focusing on those relationships first, which you should be doing anyway and seeing how you can serve people and then grow it with that. So I'm sure you've seen all these services like subscription services pop up where they're offering a longer free trial. Like some of it annoys me that you still need to put in your credit card. But if you get like they're just all really smart so you get addicted to the service. So, I signed up for the 90 day free trial of peloton. I don't have the bike, that was thousands of dollars, but you can sign up for like the spin classes online. And it's 90 day free trial and like 1299 per month. If I love that service and like, I cannot have this in my life now, well, then they've gained that customer in three months from now. Same thing is happening with I think Scribe is offering free services, I don't recall it, but all of these subscription services are offering a longer free trial or free trial with like unlimited access to all the cool stuff that they do that you wouldn't normally and so they're not making money off of that. But once your free trial is over, and you get used to having this amazing thing, you might become a customer, so that's another way that you could think about it as well.
- I would add to that, that I've had more, I've seen more ads for free trials. So even like, as an example, apparently Chris Hemsworth has a workout app.
- Okay .
- I did not know this. I, it was like...
- Is it him working out?
- It was like a targeted ad that showed up they were doing a six week free trial. I think it's normally seven days that you can and I was like, this is really, I didn't even know this exists. So I'm not even sure who was like, oh, maybe I'll go do that. I had no idea. But because it's the six week free trial, I'm like, whoa, this is new in my world. So there is opportunity to get in front of new faces and new eyes and build an audience and people who, at the end of the day, they're gonna feel like you cared about them enough to give them something when they were struggling, which means long run they're gonna be much more loyal to you and interested in what you're doing.
- Yeah, I mean, the people who are right now burying their head in the sand and doing whatever they're doing during this time and they're not showing up is a bit of not to sound to wooy. But as a comforting presence right now and leading people through this crisis to use the title of the series, once things pick back up they're not going to have the same, power of impact as those who have. So just like the bundling down and getting work done. I mean, there's something to be said that that does need to happen. But thinking about how you can lead others at this point, as well and help them through their own things, like depending on your area of expertise.
- Yeah, I totally agree. So I wanna mean, ask this sort of like broad question at the end, which is... So first of all, always, is there anything that we didn't talk about that you wanted to talk about? Or you wanted to mention, before we wrap this up?
- I'm not really I mean, there's always more that we could talk about but it's just taking the time every day to engage with your communities online. So whatever social media platform feels like home to you, for me, I love LinkedIn. If it's Instagram, Facebook or Twitter, TikTok, whatever. Take the time to check in. Maybe leave a positive message on other people's posts and think about how you can create content that's helping some of the challenges you might be seeing popping up either there or through conversations you're having with other people. Think about how you can help other people connect with them and engage with them and not just push your marketing or sales messages.
- I think that's a great place to end and at some point we'll have another conversation about TikTok cause I have a whole different set. So, Denise has a seven day social media, social distancing challenge starting next week. I'll have the link to that under here, but I'm gonna say it really quickly. It's denisealison@denisealison.com.7-day-challenge. So the link will be under here and I encourage everyone to sign up Alison amazing at what she does. So, thank you for taking the time to chat with me. I really appreciate it.
- You are welcome.
- I hope you have an amazing day.
- You too, stay flu free.
- You too, thank you.
- [Narrator] Thanks for listening to us talk around leadership in challenging times. If you would like to learn more about us or any of our guests, you can find us online at www.leadingthroughcrisis.ca. If you like the show, please subscribe and leave us a review wherever you get your podcasts from.