133: Social Media Marketing Power, Customer Service and Rebranding with Kyra Reed

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert Plank Show, episode 133, social media, marketing, power, customer service and rebranding with Kyra Reed, Hey everyone, and welcome back to the Robert Plank show. This is the podcast we talk about making money we have today. Kyra Reed, she's the co founder of MTO agency, an author and business coach and is a nationally recognized industry veteran and a community focused brand innovator, sounds like lots of good stuff, so strap yourselves in and here, welcome to the show. Tell us about yourself and what makes you different and special. I've

Kyra Reed 0:35 been in the industry 12 years now, and I was very fortunate to have my first client in my agency in LA the Roxy theater in the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles and West Hollywood, legendary club family owned, and I was able to, at the very beginning of social media, go in and really help them save not only The business, but the entire Sunset Strip. It was featured in The New York Times, Tech Crunch Entrepreneur Magazine, and on and on, lots of national publications. Became one of the biggest case studies around music and social media to date, and that gave me a tremendous amount of insight. I had a lot of freedom to really play and explore and check out this new emerging technology, and really kind of see you know what works what doesn't, because I've been there since the very beginning, and that led me and my business partner to develop a process that we call the social system, where we help companies actually, in our five point system, accomplish everything that they need in their social strategy, no one has anything like it. It is, whether you're a solopreneur or a fortune 500 company, it scales, it's usable, it's simple, and it encompasses everything that you need. So that's, that's what makes me different.

Robert Plank 1:55 Well, cool. So what are the five points of that system? Or is that a secret?

Kyra Reed 1:59 No, that's what I'm we're happy to talk about, is something that we actually feel we developed because we wanted to create some standards in this industry, because everybody seems to be an expert or a guru, but the industry itself can't decide on what are the specific processes that we should all agree with. So what we came up with is very, very simple, five steps, and they boil down to this number one. First thing you have to know is, who are you? So we've got to look at your branding and your messaging. That has to come first second. Who are you talking to? How do you look at your customers and really understand them from a social perspective, which means, how are they feeling when they come through that door? What is their emotional state and what is your promise to them and the needs that they have? Okay, this is a very different way of looking at your customers. Next is, what are you saying? That's your content strategy. We can't put your content strategy together until we know who you are and what you're saying. Thing is, most people want to come in and they want to get right into that content strategy, or right into growth strategy, and it's impossible to do that effectively and authentically, which you must do when you're working in social media, unless we know who are you and who are you talking to. So who are you, who you're talking to, what are you saying? How are you selling? Selling on social media is absolutely possible, and you can do it very successfully, but again, you've got to know who are you, who you're talking to, and what are you saying before you can get into the cell. And then the last piece of it is actually growth and maintenance. That's where your policies come in. Which platform should you be on? What how are you going to grow your community? All of those things people want to start with, but they're not important. They're not something you can really focus on until you know who are you, who are you talking to? What are you saying? How are you selling?

Robert Plank 3:42 And I like how that's all broken down. So it all like you said, like it's, it has everything you need, but it's simple, and you can just easily look at it and see and see, you know, if someone's, I guess, starting from starting over with the social media, or looking at what's working and what's not working. So, you know, you mentioned a couple minutes ago that the way that you got your start was by, by fixing and helping out the Roxy theaters marketing efforts. So was this? I mean, was this? I mean, how long ago was this? And was this like marketing in general, or we're helping with, like, their social

Kyra Reed 4:12 things. It was social specific. I started working with them 10 years ago in November, and at that time, the Sunset Strip was really pretty much the has been, I worked in the music industry, and my friends would say to me, don't think I'm gonna go to the Roxy just because you're working with them. That place sucks. And so, you know, gone from this club in the 60s and 70s and 80s. It was just that the be all, end all. They were launching all these great bands to nobody wanted to go, and they were really close to closing their doors. It was when Tower Records shut down and the owner had this epiphany, oh my gosh, I'm next if I don't get my act together. But we don't have any money to do a rebranding and remarketing. So I met him right at that time, and I said, look, let's, let's shake it up. Let's really, let's take down your website and put up a blog. And now that sounds like. No big deal, but we were the very first ever to do that. Now, every music venue has a blog as their website. We were the first. We got ridiculed for it. Actually, I got the owner on Twitter. I got him on Facebook. This was we were one of, I think we were like number 1900 on Twitter, and we completely revolutionized the way that it was the whole club process was done because we invited. We went from having what we call the velvet rope mentality, where we kept everybody out, to we took those ropes down. We invited the whole world into the club. We made friends with everybody. We gave away tickets. We started, we started the tweet crawl, the very first ever tweet crawl, we brought the entire community of the Sunset Strip together the first time in you know, 40, 5060, years that that entire street was working together, as opposed to just these siloed businesses. So what we did is we took all of these principles in social media, authenticity, transparency, community, and we looked at, how can we integrate these into what we're doing every day? And as a result, not only the Roxy, but Nick Adler, the owner of the Roxy, became a real social media pioneer. For several years. He was on the speaking circuit. Everybody wanted to know, what had the Roxy done, what had the Sunset Strip Done to save itself? And we did it with no budget. We did it all with social media, using community, using the ability to communicate with customers and really be on top of customer service and give people what they wanted communicate with them. Use our great photos, use the access we had with artists, and it changed everything.

Robert Plank 6:35 So if I mean you say all this happened 10 years ago, and it sounds like you guys were the pioneers for a lot of this stuff. So if, if none of this existed. I mean, how did you How many, how did you come across these ideas? What just was it a matter of trying out these experiments, or was it like seeing what the need was like? How did you come up with all this?

Kyra Reed 6:54 Well, it was a course of five years. So we started 10 years ago, and we worked really hard at it for about five years, and then it kind of went on autopilot. So the way that I came to these conclusions, I was living in Portland, I was managing bands, and I was hired by a band manager who said, I need you to figure out this blogging thing. It was a brand new word, brand new idea. And they just broke in a band called clap your hands say, yeah, it was the first band to ever kind of break on a blog. And I started digging around and doing research, and I saw this really interesting thing, that blogs, music, blogs, were promoting their competition. They were reposting their competitions work, and everybody was happy to do it. And I then I was fortunate enough to come across a documentary called Revolution OS and revolution OS talked about open source, and how the idea of open source ideology, where we have this open sharing of information that it will it's going to change everything. It's going to change how people relate to each other. It's going to change how business is done. It's going to put consumers in the driver's seat, and I saw this happening. Gosh, that was two years even before I met up with the Roxy. This is 12 years ago. And then shortly after that, I picked up a book called The Long Tail by Chris Anderson, and it all came together for me, exactly what was going to be happening, and then it was going to be fueled by people's desires to connect, and the fact that technology was going to make that happen, and how that was going to change business. So I applied those ideas, was very kind of abstract, vague ideas, to a company that I was fortunate. Unlike my business partner, who was working at Live Nation and Ticketmaster at the time, she had to prove every single thing that she did based on $1 which was really great, because she was one of the first to actually be able to prove that social could make money. But I had the freedom to play. I had the freedom to really experiment with community. And what does that mean? And what is it, how authentic and how transparent can you be? What do you need to kind of keep to yourself? What do you need to share? What's being risky? What is really going to you know, there are a lot of really interesting stories that I have from that time. And one of my favorites is when we had a concert at the Roxy, and the act was late, and so people had to wait outside longer, and they had problems with sound check. And it really wasn't the Roxy's fault, but at the time, the LA has to love to pick on the rock. Everybody loved to pick on the Roxy. It was like low hanging fruit. You know, it was an easy target. So of course, they came back and they wrote a horrible review and just kind of ripped the Roxy to shreds. And based on this idea of authenticity, Nick went ahead, and he left this long comment explaining everything that happened. And at the end of it, he said, you know, we're here, and we are really trying. We know we have messed up with our public and we are really trying, and I want to hear from you guys, because we're going to do everything we can to make this a better experience for you. And he put his phone number in the comment and said, call me and let me know if you have problems with the Roxy, we're going to fix it right away. That was the last negative review we ever had.

Robert Plank 9:59 So. Yeah, and that's cool. And I love little stories like that. Because, I mean, it's one thing for you to say, you know, here the here are the mechanics, like, here are the steps and stuff like that. But I always like the little stories where, just like, you do something like, you know, random and crazy to they're not just like, to not just get attention, make more money as well.

Kyra Reed 10:16 And I'll tell you another really quick story to kind of demonstrate, because I think a lot of people do not understand the power of social. A lot of people just think, well, you know, it's I have to do this to promote my company. It's because it's where everybody is, and it's just what I have to do. But the power of social when you use it, right? So that's how we started with the Roxy. It was everybody's favorite whipping horse, right? Seven years later, the voice the TV show, The Voice Adam Levine, starts reviewing a woman who did a Michelle Branch song, and he says, you know, Michelle Branch, I played with her at the Roxy, and the Roxy sucks. They didn't give me a dressing room. And he looked right at the camera and said something really nasty about the Roxy. They air on the East Coast ahead of the west coast. So Nick the owner of the Roxy, his phone started blowing up about all these tweets about the Roxy. He got on, saw a real quick YouTube video about what was said, and was shocked. So he immediately sent out, got in touch with a Yahoo music editor, had them redo the marquee at the Roxy and tweeted Adam Levine, come on, really. And that was it, once it hit the West Coast feed his response and to the Yahoo music editor, went out and said, Look, you are our house band for a long time. You know that it's not our fault, but you know the leads, the lead band chooses which gets the dressing room, not us. We love you, man. And it was with a photo of a the marquee on the Roxy that said, Adam Levine, your dressing room is ready. That was it. The TMZ Hollywood Reporter Vanity Fair. Everybody picked that story up, and our community came to our rescue so seriously that it changed the face of the Roxy, because our community loves and supports that venue so much now, because of all the work that we did that we don't have to do much and it nobody could attack the Roxy. So we went from being the favorite whipping boy in LA to the golden child of the music scene there.

Robert Plank 12:24 That's pretty cool. And the best part of that is that you guys were able to react within, you know, an hour or two, you were able to react very quickly.

Kyra Reed 12:31 Mm, hmm. And so this is why you've got to get out there and build your audience. Because when you do, your audience is going to protect you. They're going to come and rally around you, and they're gonna spread the word for you. And then when you can leverage and see what you can do, and you can keep an eye on, you know, who's tweeting about you, who's talking about you, and you can respond with levity, oh, you cannot buy that kind of press and marketing. You just can't.

Robert Plank 12:56 And I like that. And I noticed that some brands are really good about doing that, like, I mean, like, a few of the airlines and stuff like, talk about, I noticed that. I mean, all day long, they have, for sure, like a team of some kind, just responding every couple of minutes to whoever's, you know, tweeting them with whatever kind of problem. They're super responsive in that way. Yes,

Kyra Reed 13:14 and I'll tell you, Southwest Airlines, I just had a horrible experience with them. But, man, they were on it. I've tweeted about it, they got to me immediately and made me feel like, all right, you know, some things didn't work, but they care. They care about their customers. They don't want people walking away feeling crappy about, you know, interacting with this brand. And I have brands that won't do that, and it makes me want to leave them. So

Robert Plank 13:42 is this like what you do, or is this primarily what you do? You you go to these brands who maybe could be marketing better on social, and you kind of just rip them into shape. I guess

Kyra Reed 13:54 I wish that more brands would let me do it, to be honest with you. You know, social is still something that is relegated to the back burner. It's an add on it. People don't understand the real value and power that it has, and they're scared of it because it's requires making a transition from old school marketing, which was one way communication. I decide based on whatever focus group or arbitrary thing, I want to say what my public is going to hear from me, and I don't want to answer questions, and I don't want to reveal too much, and I don't want to get involved. And that's really, truly the viewpoint of a lot of businesses. I don't need social media. We're doing just fine without it. But the reality is, you could be doing 1000 times better, because every brand gets checked out on Facebook, and every brand is getting reviewed by hundreds of people a day, whether they know it or not, and how you interact with the public. Says so much to consumers these days, but you know people, they want to kind of pin it under PR, they want to pin it under marketing, but they don't really. Understand that social is its own beast. It's its own dynamic, and it has the power to completely change a company. It has the power to flex sales and PR marketing, customer service, product development, everything, even HR. So there's a lot of untapped resource. And you know, the result is a lot of people entering the market that don't know what they're doing. So a lot of people say it doesn't work. Social doesn't work, it doesn't work. It's waste of time, it's a waste of money. It's too noisy. Well, it's noisy with a lot of people that don't understand how to use it. So there's still a lot of untapped potential there for a lot of brands, and I do, I wish that more brands would hand over the keys to me and let me just turn them over and

Robert Plank 15:46 just you start doing your thing and playing around, right? Mm, hmm,

Unknown Speaker 15:50 yeah.

Robert Plank 15:50 So kind of along those lines. I mean, what are your thoughts? Because, like, I don't know, like, the the thing I'm still trying to come to terms with, I guess, with all this, like, social media marketing stuff, is like, how do you, how do, I mean, how do you reconcile like, the the promotional part of it, the tweeting, the links, versus like everyone wants to, you know, be silly and go viral and be like the Old Spice guy. So, I mean, what? What are your thoughts in that whole area? So,

Kyra Reed 16:14 you know, that kind of, that's advertising. That's where you kind of craft a very specific persona for a product release. Or, you know, Oreo does that really well. Doritos does it really well. And these brands, they can get away with it because they're enormous brands, and their target market is millennials. But there's also a lot of inauthenticity that goes along with it. And smaller brands, they actually really need to, you know, go back to that five point system. Who are you? Who are you, authentically? You've got to show up as who you really are, and the way you do that is by talking about your values. And so if you go in, you know, just trying to push sales, you're going to lose people. But if you go in and you say, Look, you know, let's take an example of a really easy one, a company that makes baby gear, that's an eco company, right? So this company is going to talk about the fact that, look, we value sustainable products. We value Fair Trade products. Let's feature some of our vendors where we get the products from. Let's take some product shops from our manufacturing facility. Let's really talk about, you know, why these products are really important to have around your baby and in your home. And you know, if you really look at what your values are as a brand, you have so much to talk about that your customers want to hear. But brands kind of go off on this other track where they don't realize that that is the most important thing we want to know about the companies that we're buying from, and if they tell us what is important to them, and we find resonance with that, you've just made a loyal customer. You've just created trust, and trust is so hard to get with consumers these days, but if you're open about why you do what you do and what's important to you, you're going to draw the right customer and they're immediately going to have trust for you, because that's how we are as humans. You know, if you and I meet and we say, Oh, we have the same religion, or we have the same location or the same profession, and we find these things very important to these principles of how we live and make our decisions in in kind. It just, it's inevitable you have trust between each other now. So who are you? Then you got to understand, really your customers. If you know what your customers need from you on an emotional level, and I don't mean emotional support, but I mean if somebody comes to you and they're frustrated or they're angry or they're fearful about something, and they're looking to your product to satisfy or change that for them. And you can say, hey, we understand that. That's what you're here for, and this is what we promised to you. We're going to give you. That's amazing content. It also builds trust. It also gives people the reason why they need to choose you. So rather than just going for the sale, you've got to give people reasons why. That's what they want to know. They don't care what you did ate for dinner. They don't care about your employees birthdays. They care about why you're in business and what you're going to do for them. So talk about that

Robert Plank 19:12 interesting. So the values and the reasons why, and that even makes me think of, I think, like a day or two ago, I was just randomly, I was just like, sitting around my house, and I was randomly thinking, well, what would happen if, like, say, like, my car was parked in a parking lot and maybe, like, someone opened the door on it and just dinged it, like, just for whatever, you know, like, whatever random reason I was just kind of having this weird, random thought, and I ended up, like, doing some kind of search on my phone, and what showed up in The results with some kind of blog post by some kind of like, like car, I guess, like, the the ones that like, there are people who repair cars, like the little scratches and dings. And it was just this little like, random story about, like, someone parked the car went to some restaurant. Car was dinged up. They waited for the person who had clear. Really, like, parked next to them and waited for them to come out, and then, but, and it was like, Who knows if this story was true, but they just told, like, this blog post about this, this family car got dinged. They thought it would be, like, not a big, you know, thing to worry about. They almost drove off, but then they did the insurance stuff, and then it turned into, well, then they, they went to this little repair guy who, like, just lives, you know, is in this area, and they were, like, the insurance covered it, and it just kind of like, told this story. And so that just kind of sticks out to me as you're explaining that just from a couple days ago, where I just randomly, just had a weird thought, right? And on on this blog post from this, you know, local business owner who just kind of told this random story, and just kind of like gave this helpful content that, okay, now I've got it filed away. And, I mean, all you didn't all need to do to find that person again is kind of do that same sort of search, which somebody might actually be making that search if they're trying to solve that problem. I guess

Kyra Reed 20:53 that's right. And, and now, if that happens to you, you've gotten that in your mind, you know exactly where you're going to go, yeah. I

Robert Plank 21:00 mean, that's a pretty, pretty good first impression for you to me to make with this random local business that I never even would have heard of otherwise.

Kyra Reed 21:07 Mm, hmm. And this is the great thing about social these things happen all the time. You never know where business is going to come from. And Nick used to call these breadcrumbs, so you spread them out throughout the internet, little marks that you leave behind, positive reviews, little stories, blog posts, being on different social networks, engaging with people, leaving comments in people's posts, all of these things you never know. Who's gonna see it. Do you know that 900 million people a day log into Facebook that's three, almost three times the size of the United States, crazy.

Robert Plank 21:44 So, so it sounds like a matter of just all these little things that that on their own wouldn't mean much, but added up means mean a lot. Yes. Yes, exactly. Well, cool. And I like that most of the things that we're talking about here all lead back to the five things, the WHO ARE YOU? Who are you talking to? What are you saying? How are you selling, and then the growth and maintenance and so kind of along those lines, could you tell us, Kira, about your agency and your websites and your books and all that cool stuff about you? Sure.

Kyra Reed 22:14 So the agency is called Made to Order, and the website is MTO agency.com you can find me at Kira read. You can find us on Instagram, at social media for entrepreneurs, and we have just released two new programs. One is for people who are struggling with self promotion. There's a lot of fear around self promotion, especially for women, to kind of step out and talk about themselves. And I've been working with a lot of female business owners, and what I realized is they need two things. They need a very simple plan that they can get their feet wet and start to see results. And they need something to replace the fear. This program does both. It's called self promotion mastery, and then we also have a program called power to thrive, mastermind. And this is a 12 week course where we take you through those five steps so that by the end, you have a solid brand. You know who your customers are, you know how to communicate with them, you have a content strategy, you have a sales strategy, and you have your growth strategy, and you know how to make execute on all of them, and you'll be seeing results very quickly like you never expected. Social will change your entire business,

Robert Plank 23:30 awesome. And I've already kind of, kind of heard from you lots of little tidbits about, I mean, you saved a whole dang. You saved the whole street, basically, right? Because of social media,

Kyra Reed 23:41 yep, and a very famous street, and it's, I've actually, we've done it twice. We did it with Sunset Strip and Main Street in Santa Monica. Cool.

Robert Plank 23:49 So it works over and over again. It wasn't just a fluke. Nope, the social media stuff is here to say there's something to that. Yes, it is, yep. Well, cool. Well, thanks for stopping by and sharing all your great insights. Kira, you.