Episode 506 Being a Social Media Manager With Zachery Mimbs
Show Summary
This podcast features Rob Cairns interviewing Zachery Mimbs, a social media manager, about his career and insights into the field. Mimbs discusses his career path, the challenges of navigating ever-changing social media algorithms, and the importance of authenticity and engagement over follower counts. He also recommends specific tools like Publer and shares his strategies for creating effective content, including prioritizing video and short-form content. Finally, the podcast emphasizes the need for consistent engagement and responding to comments.
Show Transcript
Hey everybody, Rob Cairns here and in today’s podcast I have my good friend Zachary with me and we’re going to talk about all about being a social media manager. Hey Zach, how are you today my friend?
I’m doing Amazing. Thank you so much for having me today, Rob.
I’m glad I’m glad we could set this up.
Yeah, it’s taken us a little bit of finagling. Let me see. Vacation, sickness, a few other things, right? Life.
It’s been one of those months, I think. Um, I should tell you
I should tell you the Toronto area is I’m just looking out the window. It’s cloudy and rainy today. So, welcome to fall in Toronto. So, there you go. Yeah, it’s it’s very very sunny here, but I I like the rainy weather. It’s nice when I’m working.
I’m sure. So, before we jump into being a social media manager, you get involved in doing it. It’s always interesting to hear why people ended up doing stuff. So, how’d you how’d you end up there?
So, it started about 10 years ago when I was in college. I’ve always been passionate about building relation relationships with people and content creat So I I was in a student life club called CAB and they do all the events on campus like springling
and and all that stuff.
And so the lady in charge of it, her name was Cheryl. So she thought I was doing a great job and she pulled me aside one day and she wanted me to take over and she wanted me to start getting paid paid for what I was doing. So I took over and that naturally came with the social media handles. So for me, I started posting on the Facebook and the Twitter and I really loved those two aspects of it.
Yep.
So when I finished college, I went into freelance,
which is I feel like that’s what everybody tells you not to do.
And then I did social media for a candy company for six years called NY’s Candy and Spice in Northville, Georgia. And then my relationship ended with her in 2022 and then I met the great Stephanie Hudson and I worked with her marketing agency called Sweet Tea in 2022 and I kind of a you know how they always say like if you do good work more work will come to you.
Yep. No question.
That’s how that’s how I started working with Andrew and Bertha AI. And then eventually Veto noticed my work with Bertha AI because he’s a co-founder and Stephanie pulled me on a Zoom call one day and said, “Hey, um, Veto wants to talk to you about possibly doing social media for Adam.”
And so that that was extremely thrilling for me. So my first task with Adoram was helping with their summit in um in 2023.
So that’s kind of how I got into the business. I absolutely love doing it. They always say like do what you’re passionate about. I’m extremely passionate about social media. I’ve met so many people including you. Andrew, Stephanie, Veto, and a lot of great people in the focus group as well.
Yeah. And and I should add disclaimer, those those three, not why I had you on, but those three are all good friends of mine. Andrew’s been on the show, three or four times. Steph as well, Veto as well, and I know them all pretty well. I’ve been involved, as you know, in the summit a couple times. So, it’s um that is a a great event, and I’m sure Veto and Andrew and Stephanie are gearing up for another one. I would expect any time now now like
we’re we’re doing it again in in 2025. So, I’m very excited about that. I think um Stephanie, Andrew, and Vito are all three going to host again as well.
Yep. Yep. They’ve all hosted it the last couple years. They kind of they kind of rotated around. So, um so let’s jump in. Uh as somebody running social media, it’s changed a lot. And I think the hardest one right now is Facebook or Facebook Instagram slash whatever. for me owns. I think the thing that drives people like you and people like me absolutely insane is the everchanging rules. How do you navigate that?
Gosh. So, I I subscribe to different social media um newsletters and I try myself to keep people updated. Like I I’m sure you post on Twitter and LinkedIn. It’s it’s constantly changing. It can be frustrating. The algorithm can change. on a dime.
And and a lot of the times the different companies, Facebook, Meta, Twitter, they don’t announce these beforehand. You just kind of have to figure it out. I always tell people, social media is not an overnight thing. It’s constant trial and error, seeing what works and getting the algorithm in your favor. So, one thing I’m big on is there are no shortcuts with social media. You’ve got to do things the right way. You’ve got to play by the rules because that’s what the algorithm likes
and if you don’t the algorithm is going to suppress your content. So for me, how do I keep up with it? I just actively try to seek information and I’m constantly on social media both personally for my job and just just browsing. So it it’s kind of a joke like like I’ll be on Tik Tok looking at content on my free time, but that’s technically still work. though. It’s just funny like like in in my line of work, you never truly leave your job at the end of the day.
Yeah, I would I would agree with you. Um that’s an interesting one. Uh because you know they’ve come a riot the US government more than once depending on who’s in power and who’s running the show. I don’t know if you know but Tik Tok was forced to close their Canadian office by the Canadian government. The service hasn’t been banned but any of their office staff. They basically kicked them out and said, “You’re closing it. That’s the end of that.” Um, Tik Tok, correct me if I’m wrong, they’re owned by Bite Dance, correct? If I recall, which is
which is 50% owned by the Chinese government, which is kind of the problem there.
Um, do you have any take on that?
It’s um, it’s about to be banned in the US, too. So, as a social media manager, I’ve also got to navigate that. Um, so I have I have Adoram on Tik Tok and I’ve got my own Tik Tok as well. There’s a new app that’s powered by Tik Tok that everything’s going to move to called Lemon Eight.
I haven’t I haven’t actually looked too much into what that is, but all your Tik Tok stuff is going to move over to that app. So, it’s not really It’s crazy because they’re banning it, but it’s not really going away. It’s just changing form. Yeah. So, it’s it’s it’s kind of scary to me um work-wise to see an app banned. I understand why they’re doing it.
Um but but yeah, that that’s kind of my take on it. It’s it’s it’s quite scary,
but is it because so I know it’s owned by the Chinese. Um are I’m assuming the other social media companies are owned in the US. I haven’t looked too much. into that.
Most of them are face Facebook, Instagram, Meta is certainly US-based. Google’s US-based. Um, so that covers like YouTube and stuff like that.
I think what’s been a problem in the past is Facebook or I should probably say meta because that includes a whole bunch of stuff also includes all kind of data on us. But
um, you know, we’ve got regulatory problem in social right now. There’s the mess with bite dance and Tik Tok. There’s the the stuff going on with Google. There’s a big frame in the EU right now to break Google up. Who knows what’s going to come out of that one. Um, you got the issues with Meta having control of Instagram and Facebook and WhatsApp. What do you think about all this regulatory stuff?
Um, it it’s certainly scary and I I think that’s the that’s the nature of social media is things are constantly changing. And kind of like how we were talking about a second ago is you just gota have a way to keep up with it. Um I definitely think there needs to be oversight somewhat because I I think I had mentioned this before it cut out but um for example Facebook has quite a bit of our data but and so does Tik Tok but I think the difference is Tik Tok is in the hands of a foreign power.
Yeah.
Um so so to me it’s just quite scary. You know what I mean? I I agree with you. Um and then we got new platforms coming out. Um you’ve got uh Boots Sky, which you and I were talking about before we went restore now. Boo Sky has been around for a year and a bit. Actually, founded by Jack Dorsey, the same person who founded Twitter. Um you’ve got Masterdon, which is kind of the open Fedverse, which is one I’ve kind of stayed away from until recently. So I am on Boo Sky.
Um and you got some of that.
What do you think about platforms like that?
I I love to play around with new um platforms. We had talked a little a little bit as well about Lemon Eight, so I’m excited to kind of dive in to see what that’s about. I’m going to dive into Blue Sky tonight as well. So, part of being a social media manager is really immersing yourself into these into these different platforms.
Now, when you’re managing social and you’re managing a couple accounts, it gets kind of busy. Um, do you use a tool or do you just prefer to use native?
Yeah, I I use Publer. So, there’s a misconception with social media that if you use like a third party tool, it affects reach. Um, I’ve done a lot of research and testing into this and I’ve talked to other social media managers about this as well, but it’s actually not true. So, so you can use a third party tool like plannable publer hootswuite and all your content is going to perform just fine as long as it adds value.
But yeah, so I use a third party tool. Um it’s happened before years ago where I’ve accidentally posted content to the wrong account. That can happen. So it’s very important to stay organized on that front. Um I love Publer. It’s it’s very it’s very affordable, very easy to use. It’s actually one of the easiest to use.
Um
yeah,
plat forms out of all the ones I’ve tried.
Yeah. And and Publer actually has a really good uh free plan if somebody just wants to get started and check out how it works. Like it’s Bootsweet used to have a good one and it’s kind of shied away from that in the last number of years. So I think it’s one of my favorite ones. The other tool that’s out there is Buffer, which some people like, some people hate. I particularly don’t care for it, but others like it. So
I think have to choose one and stick with it. Um, and we talk about using a tool. The other thing we talk about is quantifying social media. So, analytics matter. Which analytics do you like when you’re quantifying social media?
To me, the most important thing is engagement because that tells you the most about how your content is performing. I actually had I actually saw a post in a social media group yesterday about how this girl has a lot of pressure from upper management to get x amount of followers on social media. And and this is kind of a hot take, but followers don’t really matter.
Um, and
I’m going to give you a scenario. Would you rather have a hundred active followers or a thousand that aren’t really doing anything for you in your business?
Yeah,
I’d rather have the hundred. So,
I I would too.
Sometimes there are situations like Tik Tok where you need a thousand to open up more fe like the link in bio. In that instance, it kind of does matter, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter. I think people fall into that trap quite a bit.
The most important thing to me is engagement 100%. But there’s different goals with social media.
Um, obviously website traffic is a big one if you’re if you’re trying to track that, but not everyone has that goal because there are different goals with social media. But for me, the number one is engagement. because that’s the biggest teller of how your content is resonating with your audience.
Yeah, I would I would agree with you because if they’re not engaging with you, you might as well have uh 50 million followers in in a pond of water. Like honestly, that’s um I think if they’re not going to engage like at the end of the day, who cares? And uh I think that matters. I think
another
it’s okay. Go ahead.
I was gonna say a lot of Another trap that a lot of companies fall into or people not as familiar with social media fall into is they think they’ve got to go on social media and sell sell. And that’s not really how it works because people don’t really want to get on their phone after work and be sold to. So you’ve got to go on there and be educative. You’ve got to provide value. Um so the way I put it and other social media managers as well is you’ve got follow the the 8020 rule. So, you want to be 20% salesy and 80% everything else.
Yep. But I think I think that goes to any online marketing to be honest with you, including newsletters and other things. I think it’s, you know, you want to be 80% everybody else and 20% salesy. And I and I think there’s so many competitive products out there in the digital space that people choose who they buy from based on who they like, not always the features in the product. It’s really interesting when you look at that.
Oh, that also leads me is to a fantastic point on authenticity on social media.
Yep.
I think you’ve seen quite a bit of my post on that. Like it really bothers me for example when I see too much AI on social media. Like I I was scrolling through Tik Tok last and instead of seeing a real person talking I was seeing like an AI person and and it’s really offputting. Um, I think AI just generated alt text and captions is fine as long as you’re going back through it.
But to me, people don’t want to follow brands on social media. They want to follow people. So, you want to be you want to be authentic. And I I think people often overthink the way that social media works. So, they think everything has to be super polished. Um, and and that’s not really how it works either. I I always tell people you are creating content, just pick up the camera and go. People People want to see how your company operates. People love behind the scenes content, for example. That’s some of the best performing content I’ve ever seen. Um, they just think it’s really interesting, for example. So, to to me, I’m I’m a big big pivot on being authentic on social media.
Yeah, I would agree with you. Um, and the other thing is if you’re looking to polish it and you’re looking for perfection, you’re never going to get there anyway. So, you know, it was funny. I was talking to a web client last uh let’s say today’s Thursdays at this record on Tuesday night and she said, “I’m a really good writer and I’m worried about my content.” I said, “Well, here’s the deal. If you don’t hurry up and publish, you’ll never get it done because you’ll keep critiquing yourself.” So, I think that’s a bad idea. I think you got to kind of look at um you know, let’s just get it out there and then we could polish it later. Sometimes and just trying to make it 100%.
It kind of shows that
Exactly. And it shows that you’re human, too. You know what I mean?
Yeah. What’s um most popular content these days? Uh video, uh pictures, audio, or just text?
Video 100%. But it kind of depends on the platform. So like it’s funny for so Twitter for example is really pushing video content right now and Tik Tok is pushing pictures more so right now which you wouldn’t think because they’re a video platform but they’re launching a new notes app soon which isn’t available in the US yet so they need more content for that so they’re pushing photo content and carousels right now so it really just depends on the on the platform that you’re using but overall I would say that video content is king so for example I started making video content or Adam in February, which wasn’t in my area of expertise, but I’ve gotten much better at it since February
and I love doing it. So, you know, to me, video video is king. And I often tell people, like I said earlier, don’t overthink it. Just pick up a camera and go. Yep.
And I’ll be talking uh live or taped and short or long. These are short form content. That is the best performing content on social media right now.
We’re we’re trying to get into more so some long form with Adam as well because we’re trying to diversify quite a bit.
Yeah. But I think
I think one cool thing you can do with long Go ahead. Oh, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to cut you off.
That’s okay.
I think I forgot what I was saying.
What I was going to say was I think people want short content. They don’t want to get into half hour video content where they got to stare at a screen. We’re already staring at screens enough. So, I think that’s why short rules, one reason why YouTube shorts is done very well.
To me, I find that a lot of long form content has too much fluff. I think you need to provide people with as much value in one minute as you possibly can.
So true.
So that that’s how I approach the content I’m doing for Adam.
Have you ever now if you’re using Publer, you’re to be fair, you’re probably presuling your video, your posts a little bit, I would assume. Maybe I’m wrong, but I would assume Publer’s a bit of a scheduling tool.
Have you ever have you ever had go into a post um that you scheduled and pull it and pull it back and say today’s not a good day with what’s going on or other things or I got to hold this. So, we were talking about um uh video a little bit. I was just saying YouTube shorts um is a bit of a big deal. Um have you had any good luck with YouTube shorts for short stuff? Yeah. So, we started with Tik Tok for Adam in February and naturally that kind of moved in into YouTube shorts and it was kind of driving me crazy because content would perform well on Tik Tok but bad on YouTube and then some content would perform bad on YouTube but great on Tik Tok. So, it you kind of have to navigate the the different algorithms per se.
But I started finding my footing quite a bit. with the YouTube shorts for sure. Um the the algorithm with YouTube seems to be a little bit nicer.
Yeah, I would agree.
I I would suspect because maybe there’s not people there.
Yep. I I I would agree. And interesting enough, people are discounting YouTube. You got to remember YouTube’s like the second biggest search engine on the internet right now. Not Google’s number one and their other product YouTube’s number two, right? So, Gosh, I’ve I remember in 2007 when YouTube was brand new. It’s ch it’s just changed so much over the years.
Yeah, it’s funny because I have a YouTube account that was created before Google owned them. So, you can tell based on what the account is named how legacy it is. So, I I hear you on that one. Um, what is the biggest thing that companies make the mistake of when they’re trying to do social media? that you see.
I think focusing on the wrong things. And I think this ties back into what I was talking about earlier with followers. Like I was saying, followers don’t really matter. You want to be focused on engagement. I think authenticity kind of ties into that as well.
You know, I think if you’re out of touch with social media or you’re new to it, um people fall into the trap that things have to be overly polished. question. Not necessarily. I really like the point that you brought up where if you keep keep like working at something, you’re never going to put it out. I think that was a great great thing to to bring up. I think I I just think they’re focusing on the wrong things, per se.
I I would agree. And sometimes I think where brands get into trouble is we’ve all heard about that big Fortune 500 that puts out a tweet and the tweet doesn’t make sense at the time or there’s something going on in the world and it’s like why didn’t you pull that wheat black kind of thing like that happens like all the time right and uh you know I don’t understand how big brands can be so tonedeaf sometimes oh well we scheduled it a week ago well the tweet back the post back do something it’s not worth your brand reputation at that point
I I always go back back and read through what’s on our content calendar a million times.
Yep.
Cuz cuz like we do because I think people schedule things out to save time obviously, but you’ve still got
on the platforms as it’s posting engaging engaging engaging because you don’t want to post and go
that’s I agree. And the other thing you have to do is you have to respond. So if somebody comments to a post, comments to a video, respond to that. Be so engage back. And I think a lot of brands treat social media the way they treat broadcast TV. Let’s just flood the market and be done with it.
I’ve been told for a past client, this was years and years and years ago, they said they wanted to post like hundreds of times a week, which a isn’t really feasible from a work perspective, but then you’re going to make the algorithm hate you and their reasoning was I want to get as much content out there as we possibly can and that’s just like so bad way to approach social media you know
I agree what would you say optimum say take a platform like Twitterx uh what would be the optimum like four or five posts a day at the most I would think
I I I do like a two roll so I don’t ever do so one is like an engagement type of post and then the other one is like a core post and the core post can either be value based or entertainment. I I think four or five per day is a little too much per se, but there are instances where there’s a lot going on three or four. It’s not bad post multiple times a day. I had to do it yesterday for a webinar that we had going on with Adam because I was live tweeting it. But as long as you’re not not flooding it constantly, you’re fine, but because sometimes it just happens.
Main thing I recommend people do is instead of focusing on posting four or five times a day, post the one or two times and then take that energy into engaging with people.
No, I
um are going to be much more fruitful from that.
Yeah. Yeah, I would agree with you. The engagement’s more important than how many posts and the quality of the posts. You’re better off doing two real good posts. and five too posts a day and uh and then engage with people about their posts or what they’re doing and be part of the community. Right. That’s the social and social media.
Yeah. Any other good tips?
A big thing is I try to make well I try to block out time daily to just engage you know for two hours
on different platforms. I I’ve seen people say hey I engage for five minutes. That that’s not nearly enough to what you need to be doing. You know what I mean?
Yeah.
To me, the number one thing if anyone take anything out of this podcast is engage, engage, engage, engage because that’s key.
I would I would agree with you. Hey, Zach, thanks for talking about social. I’d appreciate it. And uh if somebody wants to talk to you more, how is the best way to get a hold of you? Well, I am on Twitter. I’m actually trying to grow my Twitter a little bit. So, it’s Zachary Mimsby and I’m also on LinkedIn.
So, let me grab Sorry, I should
That’s okay.
My name on LinkedIn is Zachary Mims. I don’t LinkedIn doesn’t have handles the way everybody else does, but those are my two main platforms that I’m on. So, I share tips almost daily. I haven’t as much lately for the past week because I’ve been a little bit busy with Black Friday, which I love doing. But
yeah, thanks so much. You have a wonderful day, my friend. Be well.
Absolutely. Have a great day, Rob.
You too.