What's the Startup?!

Mastering Social Media: Leveraging User-Generated Content, Social Listening, and Short Form Video with Brenon Conn

• Kaylan Thompson

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In this episode of What’s the Startup?!, we sit down with social media expert Brenon Conn of Sprocket Logic to explore how small business owners and entrepreneurs can master social media, even on a tight budget. Brenon shares powerful strategies for leveraging user-generated content, social listening, and short form video to boost engagement, grow your audience, and strengthen your brand. Whether you’re just getting started or looking to up your social media game, this episode is packed with actionable tips and real-world examples to help you stand out online. Tune in to learn how to make the most of your content and turn followers into loyal brand ambassadors!

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Kaylan:

Welcome to What's the Startup. Brenon.

Brenon:

Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.

Kaylan:

Introduce us to yourself and what you do.

Brenon:

My name is Brenon. I do anything from graphic design to, video production specifically short form video and social media content in general.

Kaylan:

We're here to chat today all about how to crush it on social media, especially for business owners who have a small budget or they're just looking to get started on social media and not get left behind the times. There are three things that you always advocate for and one of those is social listening. Tell us a little bit about what that is and why it's so important.

Brenon:

Social listening is a term that is broad, but specific. Specifically means going out there digitally and looking in the spaces where your customers and your potential audience already is and where they're consuming media already. What they're commenting, what they're talking about, other brands, competitors, and most importantly though, yourself. So people that are commenting beneath your content and giving you either a one up of like how you can make that happen. The product or service better maybe it's a community member talking to another community member that you have. There's some gold in that. Not only is that important as social listening, but reaching out and engaging into each comment. As we, as I say a lot around here, that comments are actually a form of content not to leave any comment on replied to because that's going to help your ranking better in social media platforms as well as much more engagement at the same time. But the main purpose of social listening, I would say is the takeaway from your actual audience and your consumers where the rubber meets the road, any challenges that they are having, any pain points, anything that you may, maybe a blind spot for you, but it's immediately obvious to the user of your product. You're going to find out a lot of those things. Things in the comments or in replies to your stories? In direct messages. That's social listening.

Kaylan:

So you're looking for your people and then finding out what they like to consume online. Listening to what? How they're engaging. Obviously listening to any comments they leave for you. And taking that as like feedback, I guess it's like customer discovery, but online.

Brenon:

Yeah, exactly. If you happen to receive some comments today, go ahead and reply to them. It's going to make a pretty big difference in your engagement.

Kaylan:

Leaning into engaging with your community, how can business owners turn those interactions into meaningful content that like strengthens their brand and the relationships they have with their customers?

Brenon:

Yeah. There are things you can do within social media that a lot of folks don't immediately know that you can screenshot a comment and reply to it in stories, for example given the permission of the person who asked, that's generally a pretty good best practice. Reach out to the person and then answer their problem there or within the comments. And then if you have permission, if it's shareable, then you can put it up on your stories, reply to it in the stories. It's probably a question that other people have about your service or product. You could do a pull quote from there and animate it, put it in your stories, make it more content that is engaging entertainment entertainment while entertaining. Then. And just a static post, you turn it into a short form video. If you get any replies that are video, reach out to those folks as brand ambassadors, as people who are the bannermen and women and people of your brand who are early adopters who would be ambassadors that bring other people in. And that content is very good, very juicy. You want to use user generated content, UGC it's a three letter acronym for user generated content. And that's content anybody aside from you or your teammates or associates in your company are creating about your product or service that is very hyper shareable and additive to what you're already doing on the timeline. It's really valuable because the cost of content, even though it's going down is still pretty high. And you probably couldn't even plan and make a content calendar for that piece that they've made. It's organic. It's from the heart of a user or a customer or somebody who loves the product or service speaking about it telling other people about it, telling their friends and very intimate, usually like FaceTime style content. So a forward facing camera talking to the phone as if they were talking to a friend. So that is very valuable stuff to bring more folks into the good work that you do.

Kaylan:

So these are people who may be taking a video. And like they might tag you and be talking about, Hey, they came out to an event or they checked out your product and they really like it. Here's what they have to say. We want to Honor that. Is that what you're saying? Yeah.

Brenon:

Yeah. They've taken the time out of their day. They've taken they could be doing fill in the blank, anything else that they have to do that day, but they've taken the time to think of the comment. Think about your product. Think about what they're going to do in the video. That's actually a good amount of effort and energy spend on their part. So we want to value that and honor that especially if it aligns with your content in general. It doesn't have to be specifically in your brand voice or anything, because it is coming from outside. It's somebody who enjoys your product or service, but has a plus one to it. Wants to share it with a friend. So you want to honor all that time and energy with at least a comment if not a re share. Yeah. And especially if they tag you that's a big indicator that person is a brand ambassador for you or in the starting position to be.

Kaylan:

Nice. And that's one thing that we started doing with Sprocket, the Sprocket account, when people come on Wednesday morning for coffee hour, they usually take a photo of their coffee mug or say something about coffee hour, and they usually tag sprocket. And you told me when I first started this job and started doing our socials, you said always repost, but say something in the repost and tag the person again. Yeah. That brings them back to the content.

Brenon:

Yes.

Kaylan:

To reengage, which just builds this engagement momentum.

Brenon:

Yeah. It's a feedback loop of you reaching out to not only your audience, but those people's audience and friends and family and acquaintances, coworkers. So you're able to widen the footprint that you have with that content. So more engagement, more views more outreach to potential customers than before. And that is done by what you guys have, for example, have done so well with coffee. Hour on Wednesdays is, it's also a user generation generated content. Sort of palooza like every, anybody that comes can share their experience with it. You repost that's good for them. They get more outreach from their posts, they get more networking and connections and synergy with other people that they may not know and connect with. In the sprocket sphere, in the network, the, all the different nodes in the network of sprocket itself or whatever your brand or business is. But yeah, once you reshare that and tag them, you get another at bat for appearing on the timeline, appearing within the feed of the people who haven't seen that earlier post, for example, or didn't happen to be on the timeline at that particular time. Let's say they share their user generated content photos later in the day. You have another app at and you have an option to appear in people's notifications. This is a freebie. If you use events for such a thing I think you guys on Wednesday, get a pretty significant boost in engagement and views and everything. And that is paramount definitely if you're trying to grow your account more views, more followers, and really strengthen the legitimacy of your upstart brand. Or if you're going from like medium to large size business or small to medium.

Kaylan:

And going back to the social listening. I think that's a really important aspect too, is that when people post and share something about your brand, you can see your brand from their perspective and see what matters to them. And because for coffee hour, maybe we thought that it would be the networking that was the most valuable and the connections made. But a lot of times when people post about it, they're like, Oh, my week starts on Wednesday because it gives me the momentum and the motivation that we need. And so it's like that refilling of a cup. And so we start to see. See what this event means to our people, then we can communicate and leverage it that way.

Brenon:

Yeah, exactly. And it's reinvigorates the brand every week. It's a week over week reminder for folks who are curious, who are adjacent to it, who are quite plugged in to Sprocket and what it has to offer or fill in the blank brand of what you're currently building as an entrepreneur or a startup. It's a flag every week. of hey, we're over here doing this really cool thing and by the way, here's a glance at it. Here's a peek into the window something that you and I have talked about is like the idea of teleportation was social media. I really love, I believe it was the Periscope CEO way back called their tech a teleportation company. And that sounds sci fi and weird and not quite accurate, but it's a way of thinking about social media, especially if you're a brand that you can teleport somebody's eyeballs to what you're doing in your event without transcribing. For example, Western Kentucky is pretty important to Sprocket outreaching to all of those different counties it's a pretty clever way to teleport all those eyeballs on social media that are already engaging, already either have a friend of a friend who's going to the event or is taking a photo of themselves or a video of themselves and uploading to a story stories get A ton of views. They're very important, actually and they're a way of like immediately transporting your audience, your potential customers to the event and what it feels like, what the people there, what the general vibe is. And that's invaluable. 20 years ago, that would have been hard 50 years ago, that would have been a lot harder. We moved from radio, television, to social media so the, and it's free. So technically, relatively free, you can do this and at a consistent pace. Yeah don't worry about starting, get started, go at a consistent pace and you'll get there. Yeah. It's definitely a commitment, but what how cool is it that you can teleport all those people into what you're doing on a weekly basis or a daily basis?

Kaylan:

And Sprocket started off small, we were doing Coffee Hour and posting about it and no one posted. It just starts, it starts with one and then it slowly builds from there. So I think a lot of people might hear us talking about user generated content and social listening. They might say that's fine and good for anyone who's talking about your brand and anyone who is posting about your brand. But it starts with being consistent in the content creation, showing value. We're gonna talk a little bit about what's going on in your brand, teleporting people to your brand. And then once one person comments,

Brenon:

go

Kaylan:

for it.

Brenon:

Go. You want to start sprinting? I played soccer growing up in high school. Not collegiate, not athletic at all. I'm an art kid and design and video. But I remember the coach screaming dig. You really gotta go when you do find a brand ambassador. Get with them, meet with them, buy them coffee and figure out what I commented and go from there and start stacking start stacking your brand ambassadors invite them back again and again, try to have some things for them to do or some material for them to share out, especially if they're, very outgoing and they're in other networks where your people hang out. You definitely want to empower them and give them ammunition to bring folks in. And you guys have done such a great job at that with Coffee Hour at Sprocket and it's amazing. I love it.

Kaylan:

Awesome. So that kind of leads us into, how we actually do that, how we build this momentum and that's through primarily short form video. Why should every business be posting short form video weekly or regularly and what's the easiest way to make it happen?

Brenon:

Start by starting. Hardest thing. Yeah. Yeah. The, it's. It's not going to be perfect for the goal oriented folks out there short form video is very important, but there's also achievements I think that we'll talk about a little bit later. So goal oriented people, hang on, we're, we'll let you know how you can watch your track progress. But if you just get started with short form video first, that's super important for two reasons. One is because the platforms are pushing for it very heavily for their own revenue. So they're going to rank short form video better. This has to do with it's 2024. So there's a current kind of arm wrestle between TikTok and meta platforms, Facebook and Instagram. So there's a competition for the land. There's a land grab for short form video, which happens to be what people consume the most of. And then. And that makes sense because it's in bite size chunks and it's just where we're going both entertainment and social media for brands. So you appearing in this way, in this format in particular, it goes down to file format the duration of the video but all very easy to do once you figure out or work with a third party agency, a vendor who can help you understand that it's actually something you can do weekly. Without a lot of production upfront production or costs.

Kaylan:

What types of content typically work well for this short form video.'cause a lot of people see trends and they see the dancing and the acting and the skits. Those are fun, but that's not necessarily what we're talking about here.

Brenon:

Yeah. There, there's a lot there with trends, so I'll put a pin in it. Those can be important because of the waves of the internet. Like the deep ocean of the internet has these giant waves that happen and following those can get you, quite of a lot of exposure. But. Start by starting with what's important to your particular user or your customer. A little bit of social listening ahead of time will probably help you there. You could probably identify at least one to three questions about your product that folks have immediately. It's just the nature of building things that until you hand it off to somebody else to use, you don't necessarily know what questions they're going to have with what you just gave them. There's probably low hanging fruit out there of comments that you can pull from, so you can do a triple whammy of using user generated content, social listening, and making it a short form video and stories. This is honestly the way to go, I think, for the first few pieces and then naturally from there, I think you'll have ideas and things will come to you that will be engaging for your audience that you can do what I'd call net new. Come back. Completely new content, completely new formats and things like that. But starting with your tighter community and short form video that would be value add for them is where to go, where to start.

Kaylan:

So going back to your teleportation con concept, what's going on in your brand and your business right now that people need to see? They need to be right here. So maybe that's understanding your mission. So that could be you just talking to the camera, telling about why you do the things you do, walking through daily life. The operations, if you have an event showcasing that event, and then I think trends are fun if you feel like it's super on brand and you have an idea that's exciting and sounds fun to you, then do it.

Brenon:

I do content quite a lot, but it's my job. So I see a lot, I see a lot of trends, a lot of means a lot of things that rise to the surface and then boom and bust and then disappear. Or they have a hall of fame picture. Sure. And in the meme hall of fame for the internet. But I think it will be undeniable when you want, when that comes up. So if you have a trend for your cookie company that there's a cookie monster meme going on, you that's probably the one to lean into. I would imagine. That's at least not a bad idea to consider. So there, whether you're working with a vendor, an agency, an employee, or yourself and you're building this content for your brand yourself. And trends happening. It's very easy to get caught in the undertow of trying to time those and get those. So I really appreciate the question because rather than getting caught up in that undertow and drowning, you want to be paddling and beginning your journey. Above what experts are doing with memes and things that take a lot of production costs rather than footloose. Not talking to your audience that way?

Kaylan:

Yeah, that can be done in 15 seconds.

Brenon:

Very quickly. Yeah. If you have somebody on your team who's a little more apt or who's a little more like excited about this type of content creation or production I would say, ask around. Meet with your team and see if there's anybody who wants to take the helm with something like that. Generally, there's somebody who's already involved, given there's enough people in your team. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe it's not yourself, but it's somebody close at your right hand that can do these things while you're operating the business, running the business running the event itself is its own job let alone running the business, and doing the networking at the events that you need to do. So there's plenty you need to do not to add another thing to your plate, but even if it's just one story about the event. That is value add for folks who didn't go, think about the folks who don't go to your events, but they want to, or they're at least interested, but they're not within proximity to it. So how you widen out that radius of impact from your event, you could 10 X the folks who are aware of it, who are brand aware of it by doing a methods like this, like by uploading short form video to stories of the event of people at the event. Who want to talk about it they're just waiting to talk about it or uploading videos themselves.

Kaylan:

Awesome. So we mentioned those for the goal oriented people, there are some names that they can do today to get started and add some motivation, momentum to their social media journey. Introduce us to what that is.

Brenon:

Yes. It's called at the moment, the most available version of it is Instagram achievements. Unless you're making content, it's probably a little known thing to most folks where they don't know it's even there. It's within your settings in your profile there in Instagram and you can begin those achievements. I believe you need to have a business oriented account, like a brand account set up. So there may be some establishing there to do, but once you get those achievements visible, it's just like anybody familiar with PlayStation achievements, Xbox. But what it is essentially are these little meters that you need to fill up. You can start that achievement by pressing start achievement, and they'll be pretty achievable things. So for example, one would be like post three stories this week. I think it even starts as low as like post two stories this week. And you can check those off, fill that meter up, and then get, you get a fun little badge. It's the same time. So you can keep track of your progress, but what this is really doing is something very powerful. If you keep following along with the achievements that they've dropped in front of you and you do have to manually start them for them to fill up, but what you're doing is you're getting insider notes from meta platforms, Facebook, Instagram, that this, these are the things we're looking for you to do, by the way. So you do these two story, three stories. And you achieve that and then the next consecutive week if it's more then you can start another achievement. So you have these like rolling achievements that you can visually see if you're goal oriented. It's important that you can see how far you are away from your goal and you can achieve it and complete it, cross it off, go to the next one. So if you're minded a little bit more about I just need something, I need somebody to write down what I need to do and I need to mark it off and do it. Instagram achievements are really good place to start.

Kaylan:

This feels incredibly actionable. I think people can hop off this interview right now and then go take action right away. They can start active listening and social listening on social media. They can start engaging with their community. They can start making short form video and start those challenges. Brenon, thank you so much. Can you let people know if they're interested in working with you, how they can find more information about you and what you do?

Brenon:

Yes. And I hope you do those things. If you're interested in outsourcing any of what we just talked about all the social media aspect, the video production, short form video design things like that, you will want to get in contact with sprocket logic at sprocket logic is the username, the handle on Instagram. And TikTok as well and yeah that's where we hang out. Get in contact and let us know about anything any content that you may need.

Kaylan:

Awesome. Thanks, Brenon.

Brenon:

Thank you. Thanks

Kaylan:

for hanging out. Thanks,

Brenon:

Kaelin.