075 - Kate Bradley Chernis: When You Have No Off Button (VIDEO)
Why do we often put up a front in our business lives to disguise our real selves? In this episode, Emily and Kate Bradley Chernis, Co-Founder and CEO of Lately, are breaking down that front for a refreshing take on being yourself in the business world. Plus, tips on navigating the psychological impacts of pandemic PTSD.
Whether you’re pitching VCs, talking to your team, or trying to appeal to your audience and customers, it’s okay to let people behind the curtain. So why do we often put up a front in our business lives in order to appear professional?
And how do you send a hug over Zoom?
Garyvee has used Lately AI to automatically post engaging video clips on social media.
Kate Bradley Chernis is Co-Founder and CEO of Lately, a startup backed tech powerhouses including angel investor Jason Calacanis with the LAUNCH Accelerator and Lately user Gary Vaynerchuk’s VaynerMedia. Kate and Emily Binder broke down the front for a refreshing take on being yourself in the business world.
With her XM radio DJ, fiction writing, and marketing agency background, Kate knows good words. She shares tips for the most effective language for your sales and marketing copy and social posts.
More topics include startup advice from two women entrepreneurs and navigating the psychological impacts of pandemic PTSD.
What is Lately AI?
Lately is an AI-powered social media marketing platform that helps marketers scale their publishing and reach. Lately’s artificial intelligence uses your historical social media data to learn what works with your audience and what to post next.
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About Lately and Kately
Marketers can use Lately AI to instantly transform podcasts, videos, and any online news articles or blogs into dozens of social posts that are automatically pre-vetted to resonate with your target audience.
Jason Calacanis interviews Kate Bradley Chernis about her company Lately on This Week in Startups.
As a former marketing agency owner, Kate initially created the idea for Lately out of spreadsheets for then-client, Walmart, and got them a 130% ROI, year-over-year for three years.
Prior to founding Lately, Kate served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer, and voice talent with 25 years of national broadcast communications, brand-building, sales, and marketing expertise.
TOPICS AND TIMESTAMPS:
02:30: Meet Kate Bradley Chernis and step behind the curtain with Emily
05:05: The kindness of strangers and the "translation of a hug"
08:12: Things that are keeping us sane during quarantine and the stress of the pandemic, and the value of self-care
11:30: How the pandemic is impacting body language, facial expressions, and our ability to connect with customers, friends, and family in a virtual space
Lately is an AI-powered social media marketing platform that helps marketers scale their publishing and reach. It can also transcribe podcasts and cut videos into short clips for social.
12:53: Diving into Kate's background and her experience with XM radio
18:55: There's a lot of VC money floating around there is possibly a hunger to do more and invest more to seek entertainment, excitement, and positive influence. Furthermore, companies naturally present themselves as strong or weak investments based on how they perform under pandemic conditions.
Kate Bradley Chernis and This Week in Startups Host and Lately Investor, Jason Calacanis with fellow LAUNCH classmates Taylor Monks and Max Coleman
"If you're surviving now as a company, you're suddenly very attractive. Because this is the hardest time to survive, so it's clear cut. You don't really have to explain the value of your company if you're making it in a pandemic: it's already there." - Kate Bradley Chernis
Most long-form content like blogs, videos and podcasts takes hours to create, then collect dust. Get exponentially more eyeballs on your hard-earned work by unlocking the value with Lately’s AI.
22:00: All about Lately.
It takes the average human 12 minutes to write a social post. In 1.8 seconds, Lately's AI will give you dozens. Multiply that times the hourly salary of any content creator on your team, and you have mind blowing time and money savings.
26:25: Showing personality can be difficult when it comes to your brand and social media.
Related episode: Robert Sofia: What Your Brand Should Say on Social Media
28:00: People spend more time on Facebook's platforms, including Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp than any behavior outside of family, work, or sleep. That makes for a lot of data for marketers to comb through.
"That's the goal, it’s to learn what people care about, right? Because if you don't know what they care about, then it's pointless. And as I learned over the years, what typical marketing tools look at are numbers, and people can't read the numbers or translate them, and this is a constant problem." - Kate Bradley Chernis
33:30: We had to ask, what does Kate, a fiction major, think about the Oxford Comma?
34:00: Opening the door to your audience and social media trends: what goes viral and what types of posts do Facebook or LinkedIn algorithms favor?
40:00:
What books does Kate recommend?
Prior to founding Lately, Kate Bradley Chernis served 20 million listeners as Music Director and on-air host at Sirius/XM on “The Loft”. She’s also an award-winning radio producer, engineer, and voice talent.
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074 - Robert Sofia: What Your Brand Should Say on Social Media
In this episode, Emily and Robert Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken, talk about how to have a unique voice on social media and what that really means.
What does it really mean to be authentic on social media? For financial advisors and for any company brand, this is a common piece of advice but it’s not always clear how to walk the walk.
Robert Sofia is the Founder and CEO of Snappy Kraken and has over 20 years of digital marketing experience. Among marketing automation programs for financial advisors, Snappy Kraken is ranked #1 in customer satisfaction and is also the fastest growing according to the 2020 T3/Morningstar Advisor Technology Survey.
Robert and Emily Binder discussed what it takes to make your brand stand out on social media.
WATCH THE VIDEO
Emily asked Robert what it sounds like when an advisor has a unique voice on social media and how this can carry over to other marketing like email.
Robert also revealed some surprising advice on email marketing based on his firm's analysis of over one million emails. The episode wraps up with some key tips that financial advisors and all businesses need to know about the kind of brand personality that makes marketing successful. Get some valuable advice about marketing your business on social media and share this episode with a colleague or friend who could benefit.
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“He’s not intimidating. He’s fun, so is our culture. We’re snappy, we make things happen quickly.” - Robert Sofia on the character and brand design of Snappy Kraken.
Topics and timestamps:
01:24: Meet Robert Sofia, CEO of Snappy Kraken. How did Robert get started in marketing, and what was the inspiration for Snappy Kraken? Robert entered the financial industry in 2004 and noticed a marketing vacuum. He was inspired to shake things up and provide marketing guidance for financial advisors.
02:59: There is a lot of "copy and paste" marketing advice in the financial industry since the early 2000s. Why is that a problem? It creates a flat playing field where no individual can possibly stand out.
04:32: Competing factors for the psychology behind marketing decisions in the financial landscape: lack of creativity, social pressure from social media, and trusted brands serving as a “safeway”.
06:30:
What does it mean to be authentic on social media?
We are often afraid to be our true selves because it’s vulnerable, but this is the most effective way to present your brand on social media because you’ll attract the right people. Click here to skip to this part of the video.
07:56: Should you customize your brand's voices, tones, or content based on the platform you're using How can you analyze when you're mastering one channel over another?
"It depends so much on context, and what works in one context or maybe even one period of time, may be different in another context or another period of time. It could even be on a different channel; it will completely flop, where it thrived on one." - Robert Sofia
09:49: Snappy Kraken's most recent study analyzed over 5 million data points to test the different design and strategic components of email marketing. They were able to translate that data to other platforms and optimize their social channels and landing pages and improve their strategic decision making.
"When there's true uniqueness and creativity combined with solid data, that's when marketing magic happens." - Robert Sofia
10:55: The secrets to optimizing your email marketing templates: buttons or no buttons, CTAs, and more.
12:05: Robert answers the question once and for all: Is email still an effective marketing channel? Yes.
"When we look at every single marketing channel, and we analyze the performance and response rates, invariably, the highest ROI is coming from building and nurturing an email list over time, and the actual highest response rates and click rates are coming through email." - Robert Sofia
14:29: Spam gives email marketing a bad name, but if you focus on the value and advice you're providing your audience, you will be able to keep and grow that audience. Make sure there is a valuable service, solution, or advice in every email you send.
Snappy Kraken uses the data it collected in their own data analysis to continuously improve their landing pages, social media, and more.
16:00: What does it mean to create a unique brand, and how can you make yourself stand out? Let's face it; it's hard to cut through the noise. Managing your marketing tactics can leave little time to dedicate to your strategy.
23:00: So, why the name "Snappy Kraken"? How did Robert find the symbol for his brand? What are some examples of other companies that haven't taken their branding so literally in the financial world? Lighthouse, anchor, and tree logos no more!
"We built the brand; we built a character that was different, but still had a story." - Robert Sofia
Books and Apps Robert Recommends:
Book: Principles by Ray Dalio
Podcast: The BeanCast (hear Emily’s latest appearance on Bob Knorpp’s top marketing and advertising podcast in Beancast episode 593: The Quibi Dilemma and hear more BeanCasts with Emily Binder here)
Robert Sofia, Founder and CEO of Snappy Kraken, has over 20 years of digital marketing experience and listens to book summaries on Blinkist in his free time.
Connect with Robert Sofia:
Twitter: @robertsofia
Connect with Snappy Kraken:
Twitter: @SnappyKraken
Follow @beetlemoment on Instagram
019 - Marketing Yourself (Interview with Kristen Knepper)
Kristen Knepper from Work Like a Girl interviewed me about how to market yourself. We covered some of the challenges we face as women, especially young women, when trying to market ourselves to advance our careers or build our personal brands.
You can watch the full interview here.
COMING SOON: Tune in next week for my upcoming interview with Kiki L’Italien about Voice Marketing with Amazon Alexa.
Topics:
What's the resistance to marketing oneself for most people?
Why do women in particular resist "marketing" themselves at work?
I notice women being modest on their resumes/cover letters (e.g., "worked on team that created" rather than "created"). What advice would you give a woman who thinks she's not truthful or bragging when speaking boldly?
Can personal aspects enhance the professional brand? Should they?
Self sacrifice and giving to others is a feminine ideal, but many women compete with one another at work. Why is this?
Kristen Knepper Consulting: https://kristenknepper.com/
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