Michelle Thames can help you untangle and decode social media. Michelle built a company herself, and now works with her husband to help other companies use social media organically to elevate your influence and impact. Michelle has some fantastic ideas of how to leverage social media that can bring you not only more likes and followers, but more clients in revenue. Listen to this engaging conversation and then reach out to see how Michelle can help you decode social media. Learn more about Michelle at her website and on IG: @MichelleLThames.
Experts Speak
Social Media Decoded with Michelle Thames
(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Expert Speak Podcast with Michael Dolan. Each episode features a leading expert who shares helpful insights, practical tips, and memorable stories that will inspire you, educate you, and help you enjoy more success, freedom, and purpose in your life. For the next few minutes, enjoy listening to Expert Speak with Michael Dolan. - And welcome to another episode of Expert Speak I'm Michael Dolan. Today I am talking with Michelle Thames. And Michelle, thank you for being my guest and taking some time to be here today. - Yes, thank you for having me. I'm excited to be here. - It's gonna be a great conversation. So Michelle and with her husband run a social media company. She's the host of the social media decoded podcast, which you need to take a listen to. And together they work with business owners, coaches, creators of all kinds to help you build your online presence and help you grow your business that way. So it's gonna be a great conversation. We're gonna dive into that. And as we do, Michelle, tell me, how in the world did you get doing what you're doing today? - Well, that's a really good question. I have a really unique story. So my background has nothing to do with marketing. I went to school and got my bachelor's and my master's degree in healthcare administration. And I started working in hospitals. I aspire to be a hospital administrator one day to run hospitals and do the business side of that. But there were other plans. Guy really had other plans for me. And unfortunately, unfortunately for me, I was fired from my job in 2016. I'm working at a really prominent hospital in Chicago. But at the time I had a side hustle and my side hustle was blocking. So I had started a blog all about natural hair. So back in 2008, 2009, there was this natural hair journey for African American women. We were going through this journey of taking care of our hair. And so there were many women online sharing their experiences. And I wanted to be a part of that. So I created a YouTube channel. I created a blog. And I just started to talk about my natural hair, how I'm taking care of my hair. And I had no idea that this could turn into making money online. And so people reached out to me. Companies wanted to sponsor my ad for me to write a blog post about their products. I think the first one that reached out was Pantene. And I said, oh my goodness, wow, this is really something. And so I went along, got fired from my job. And I said, you know what, I can really lean into this. And so then that's when I tapped into my resources, did some networking. I got the opportunity to write freelance for naturallycurly.com, which is an online platform to help women with their curly hair. So that was a really great opportunity, invisibility. And so by me putting myself out there, having a YouTube channel, all these things, networking going to events. Then I went to an event and I met a woman. She was doing a natural hair company. She was working on a natural product. She had this out in the market. And she was looking for someone to help her with her social media. And she said, you know what, I'm really looking for somebody. I know that you do amazing things. And I would love for you to come to work from our company. And so I got the opportunity just because of social media to work for this amazing company was a startup beauty brand. They are now acquired by Procter and Gamble. And I helped them in the beginning stages of building their whole entire social media and digital marketing. So that was a great opportunity. And I said, you know what, wow, I can really help more people. And so it was really a calling on my life to say, I can do this for someone else. So me and my husband made the decision to go all in and to help more entrepreneurs, business owners, to really leverage organic social media to get that visibility, to get opportunities, to gain clients, to make more money. And so that's kind of the long short story of how I got to where I am today. And it's been an exciting, exciting journey. - I love it. And thanks for sharing the fact that you got fired. Getting fired from a job was probably one of the best things that ever happened to me 40 years ago, right? It just kicked me out of one industry and into another. And so many people shy away from this. Like, good God, I think everybody's been fired once or twice. It's no big deal. I love that. I love your story. So, and you said there at the very end, organic social media, because you were doing a lot of blogging, a lot of YouTube and things. Is that part of the strategy that you use with business owners then? - Absolutely. So, you know, there's organic and paid social media. Paid social media can be your utilizing Facebook ads, you're doing print advertisements, things that you're putting money behind to push your content forward to be seen by more people. But in my case, I have the ability and the skill to be able to help businesses push organic social media. I know there's algorithms and all these things, but with the right strategy, you can reach more people organically. I like to think of you having a marketing mix. Marketing is, you know, there's many different tools, many different resources, many different places that you can be. But omnipresence can really help you in effect of being a lot of places, but not having to do like one video for this, one video for this, right? I'm omnipresence. So, if you're on Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, YouTube, you can use some of the same material, but be able to, I want to say, strategize in different ways on how you put that onto those platforms to be able to attract those people, right? So, your customers are at different places. So, if you are at those different places, like LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, you have a better chance of reaching them. So, I believe in omnipresence. I do like ads, but I feel that you can have a strategy that gets your content out there organically, that reaches more people. Of course, it takes more time. Let's say that, right? It takes more time. But if you're in for the long run, I think it's good, like something, like a podcast. I have a podcast, you have a podcast. We both know that this is a long-term game that helps us become experts. That's why I'm on the show, right? The experts speak, so, yes. - That's right. And when you're here, people look at the podcast and say, "Well, how many people listen to your show?" And that's important at one level, but what's really important is the promotion that happens after the show. And what are you doing with this? Because I presume you're gonna get it and you're gonna put it on your YouTube channel, on your Facebook, your TikTok, right? We're gonna put it on LinkedIn and email and more and more people are going to hear about your expertise. So having the podcast is a great credibility platform. It's also a great marketing platform, but it's all that organic aspect because, well, you're not paying to be on here, right? It's organic. And now what happens after this, that long tail. And when you think about that aspect of marketing, you get a few of your channels set up and then you just feed them continually with content and it just kind of grows organically, right? I mean, huh, there you go. So talk about how, talk about some of the struggles that you see business owners facing when it comes to this whole social media aspect. - Yes, I think a lot of business owners focus on the vanity metrics. Okay, we want a 10,000 followers. That's great, but are those 10,000 followers going to be 10,000 customers? No. So we want to focus on conversions, really strategies that can lead to conversions. For example, I had a client that went viral and some one video, it reached 2.3 million people. But the good thing about this client is that they had a really great infrastructure and a great business. So going viral was a win for them because now we got to influx of new clients and customers. They can see us. We're on every platform, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok. They can go to our YouTube, right? They can go to our website and see that we're a legit reputable company. And now this video, which was super organic, didn't put any money behind it or anything till after the fact, right? You can do that after the fact and then put more fire to the fuel. But it was able to help us reach hundreds of thousands of people, 60,000 plus website impressions. And we were able to sell out of the product that we were selling. And this is not a $2,000 or anything like that. These are trips. This was actually a travel company. So these are high luxury, high-end trips. So just thinking about something like that about virality and really thinking about not focusing on the vanity metrics but focusing on what can you do or what can the strategy be to convert those people? Because yes, they were new, but because the company's credible is good enough that trust, that like, that no, right? And now they can make that decision. So I would say, don't focus on the vanity metrics. Don't focus on, oh my gosh, is anybody liking this? Just show up and be consistent because it takes people seven times or more. So they say, right, to really buy into what you're saying, to really say, okay, Michelle knows what she's talking about. I see she's posting on Instagram. I see she's constantly on LinkedIn. She's constantly saying the same message. Like I really feel and believe her, right? Because the story is being told. So really don't focus on those vanity metrics. We get caught up in that. And then it makes us feel, you know, icky and comparison and then we get caught up in that trap. So that's what I would say, like the main thing, one of the main things that I do see. - That's great. And that plays into one of the marketing strategies or philosophies I have that I teach is consistency over time. We all should be playing the long game, as you said. Let's look at, I mean, so when you work with companies, do you implement these things? Or are you a strategy, a coach where you're helping them and then their team's running it? How does it work when somebody's engaged with you? - Absolutely, so we do both. So like I said, me and my husband, we have an agency, we work with six, seven, eight figure companies who have teams and we can come in to help you on your team, be a part of your team, fractional marketing, direct to fractional CMO to really help you that way. But also, when it comes to coaches and consultants, right, sometimes we can't hire a team and we have to do these things ourselves. So really being able to teach you and help you do that. And if you need somebody to help implement as well. So I think that there's many, marketing is like not a one-fit size all shoe because it can look different for somebody. It could look different for the next person. Some of them have a fitness business and they could be a solopreneur and they could be handling things that have like one to two employees and contractors or a full-fledged travel company who has like 60 employees. So it's really based on what that client needs, like what is the marketing mix that makes the right sense for them. So what my expertise and my, I like to say, zone of genius is I'm able to look at your marketing and say, okay, these are some holes that you're missing. And this is how we can fix that. Whether it's me working with you to implement the strategy or me telling you, hey, consulting with you, this is what you need to do and you can implement that. That's exactly how that works. - Excellent. And when you think social media, I'm thinking timeframe to results 'cause business owners, I mean, they want results yesterday. And I continually tell them that they need to be in the longing because less than 3% of the people are in the market today for anything, right? And so how do you, when you talk with business owners and work with them and we talk organic social media things, what kind of a timeline should they, should they be expecting to be consistent? Is it a one month, three month, a year? I mean, what's your thought process around all that? - Yeah, I think it too. It depends on your goals too, right? I think new business owners, right? We have to say, okay, it's gonna be a long-term game. We're just maybe new to the content game, really figuring out how all of this works. So you do know we have to put in more time in the beginning. Or somebody who may have had a company like my client who was in business for 16 years, but needed to elevate even further, but just have more manpower and more ideas and more people on the team to be able to help reach that. So you really have to think about where you are in your business. But like you said, it's a long-term game. So we have to think, yes, this may take a year for me to get to where I wanna be, right? It may take a year for me to develop my program, my coaching program, it may take a year for me to develop this e-commerce business that I have and really get it out there. So really think of the long-term when it comes to social media. I like to tell people it's a tool, right? It's not the end all be all, it's just a tool to help you get to that place that you want to be a little bit faster. My whole story is based off of me putting myself out there on social media. If I never would have made that video, I never would be on this podcast with you. I've never would have traveled the world, worked with so many clients, done some amazing things, met celebrities, all these things, speaking on different stages with hundreds of thousands of people all because I decided, hey, I can use social media as a tool to get my story and whatever it is that you're doing. So whether you have a product like this coaching consulting, it's the same marketing basis, right? You wanna be able to use it as a tool so that then the opportunities that come from that, you can leverage though. So that's how I've used social media. It's been a godsend for me, honestly. I don't know what I do without it. I don't look at it as something that, oh, it's just so bad. I look at it as a tool. Every day I get up, I can reach more people just by turning my cell phone on. - That's right. Nah, it's very cool. A couple of last questions, when we're talking business owners who are out there thinking about this, struggling, all of that. And two of the questions I guess that I hear a lot around this is, what do I say and how often do I have to post? Get general guidelines or are there any? - There aren't any and that is the number one thing too, how often should I post? And I hate to say this, but it really does depend, okay? So this is how I like to look at everything that I do with social media, campaigns, right? Say you have a campaign where you are a car. Let's talk about maybe an automotive company, right? You want to focus whatever it is you're putting out on social media. Are you having a sale? Are you having an event? Like, what are the things that you wanna leave people to do to get to your goal, right? So how many times you're going to post really depends on how much you really wanna get out there. Posting too much can be a bad thing, right? Because not everybody's going to always see your content, but you wanna post consistently enough so that they do. I say a good starting point, maybe two to three times a week on a place like Instagram. But it's different for every platform. On LinkedIn, you could be, you're an expert, right? You could post Monday, Wednesday, Friday, but you might wanna do a LinkedIn live. So it's really different for each platform. TikTok, you might want, if you're a fitness expert, you might wanna post videos daily or two times a day so that you can reach those people. So really think about going back to those goals and bringing us back to less not stressed out about how many times, but we do wanna be consistent enough so that somebody sees our content. - Yeah, that's great. And so how does somebody engage with you and your company, is it a discovery call and then a three month agreement or a year contract? I mean, generally what happens when a business owner comes to you and you know you could help them and they're ready, what does that kind of just look like? Or audience kind of has a feel for what the next steps might be? - Yes. So there's many, there's, I'm so multifaceted and I know people are like, oh my goodness, right? There's a lot of people who are like me who are multi passionate people. But yes, I want to start everything off with a discovery call because I really want to know what are your goals, what are your dreams, what really keeps you up at night when it comes to your marketing and how I can really help you. I have many different ways that I do that. I really do love to help women, entrepreneurs. So one recent thing that I started doing is retreats and so we go away to beautiful places like Miami where we just came back from, or you know Puerto Rico or Costa Rica where I'm going this year to really help you dive deep in your business. So maybe you need just like a weekend and you're like, this is what I need, great. Or maybe you might need ongoing support and somebody's help you manage your social media and I just do happen to have a social media and digital marketing agency where we can help you to do that. Or maybe you're like, Michelle, I just really need help. I don't really know what to do. I want you to look at my marketing and tell me what to fix and we can do that too. So again, yes, everything starts with that call because I really want to be able to say, okay, this is your business. This is how I can help you. And these are the ways that I can help you. - Okay. And so how would somebody schedule that once? I mean, we could go on for a couple of hours easily talking about all of this and all the questions. I think sometimes it's better just to say, you don't want, if you're a business owner and you're out there and you've thought about this or you've tried it and it didn't work how social media doesn't work for my business. Why don't you take some time and reach out and have a conversation, do that discovery call and see how Michelle and her team can really help you. And I'm sure you can tell she's really high-pressure so she's gonna make sure you can't get off that Zoom call and tell you bye. So why don't you find some time to reach out and bring a solution to your business that can really help you. And it's at one level, it's a time versus money because what she's talking about is not a big investment in money, it's more time, but sometimes that's the biggest challenge of a business owner is I don't have time 'cause I got too many hats. Well, she can help you with that as well. So how Michelle, where would they find you and learn more about you to maybe schedule that discovery call and find out, wow, is this the next best step for me? - Absolutely. So you can definitely find me on Instagram at MichelleLThangs and I also do have a website. I hope the website by the time you are watching this 'cause we're working behind the scenes like tires. So you all know how these websites are, right? To get it, to get your new website up and going, but MichelleThangs.com is my website so you can go there to find out more about me. But I like to hang out on Instagram so I'm almost there all the time. But I'm also on Facebook, you can find me on Facebook, you can type in MichelleThangs as well. I have a public profile, so everything that I post, you'll be able to see. And if you want more social media information, definitely check out the podcast, Social Media Decoded. It's definitely a great place as well. - Awesome, that is great. Thank you. I'll have some of those in the show notes because business owners are busy in there listening to this on the drive or whatever. But you can just go to the show notes, find those links, reach out to Michelle, have that conversation and learn about this organic social media and how you can leverage it like she has been able to do for herself and for other companies to really expand your message, elevate your influence and engage with more people so that more people will understand who you are, you'll be there consistently over time so that when they're ready, you're there. And they'll be able to engage with you, you'll gain more clients and life gets really cool. So Michelle, thank you for being my guest today. Thanks for what you're doing to help business owners and for spending some time with me here. - No, thank you for having me, this has been awesome. (upbeat music) - Thanks for listening to Expert Speak with Michael DeLong. If what you've heard today was helpful to you, reach out to our expert guest and see how they can serve you to bring you more success, freedom and purpose in your life. (upbeat music)