Start 2023 off right by listening to our conversation with Codi Dantu-Johnson, where we talk about social media best practices, how to win on organic, tips for breaking into the industry, pet peeves, and more!

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Welcome to Thought Feeder. I’m Jon-Stephen Stansel, and with me as always is the bespectacled Joel Goodman. And this week we’re super excited to have Codi Johnson with us. Codi is the owner of Mini Media Marketing and works with small businesses, entrepreneurs and CEOs on their social media strategy and growth.

Super excited for you to be here, Codi. We followed each other and have interacted on Twitter. It’s the first time we’ve actually gotten to talk face to face, so I’m really glad to have you here. And for those listening who are not familiar with your work, which they should be, would you please give a brief introduction, tell us about yourself.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Sure. Thanks for having me. I’m excited to chat with you both. Yeah, so like Jon-Stephen said, I’m Codi, Codi Johnson, Codishaa on Twitter if you follow me. I work in the social media space, been in the space for seven years, helping to manage small business accounts, healthcare, higher ed, personal brands, and it really runs the gamut on who I help. So, but social media is my thing and I really enjoy every aspect of it.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Excellent. And if you don’t follow Codi on Twitter, do it right now. She’s great. She has really good insights. I really enjoy, enjoy reading your tweets and seeing your insights on social media marketing and, that said, there’s so much going on in the world of social media right now, like it’s hard to keep up. By the time, if you’re listening to this, it’s probably already outdated. Things have changed. We are recording this on Monday the 19th.

Joel Goodman: Twitter might have a new CEO by the time we’re done recording this episode.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: That’s bizarre! LOL.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: We can only hope, but as Elon said, be be careful what you wish for. We’ll, we’ll see what we end up getting. So that said, with so much going on, what’s the first thing social media managers should do or think about in 2023, knowing that this will probably change within the next few days?

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Well for me it’s always foundation, right? I, I’m like, think about why you wanna be on social media. What is your purpose? What is your goal? And take it from there. I think that’s the best advice I have, is to develop a really strong content strategy, you know, marketing strategy, repurposing strategy, and and less thought on, oh my gosh, Twitter might not be here tomorrow.

Like, what do I do? And panic. I know it’s so easy to panic, but my thing is if it doesn’t work out, we just move to the next thing. But we have our foundation set and we’re not so reliant on specific social media platforms. I think that’s just the best advice I could give.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: I think that’s excellent advice. Even if Twitter wasn’t in the free fall that it is right now, I think any, anytime you put all your eggs in one social media basket, you’re just kind of asking for trouble. You don’t wanna spread yourself too thin, but you also want to have backups to your backups, just about any time.

So goals, I, I totally agree with you. I think that’s the first thing you should go with. So, you know, and that kind of segues way into the next question, cause I think this will be a similar answer. Talking about working with new clients, how do you establish those goals with your client? And then how do you approach measuring them?

Codi Dantu-Johnson: So a lot of the times I look at the business strategy that they have this person or the business, like what is your goal, the purpose of wanting to be on social media. And oftentimes it’s just awareness. So, you know, I work in the organic social media space and awareness is heavy. Brand engagement is heavy.

Share of voice we, you know, we want. Brand sentiment, good sentiment. And those are usually the goals and that, that we’re trying to work towards. So when we’re developing a strategy, I’m looking at, you know, audience demographics, who are these people? Who are we trying to reach? Where are they? If they’re a specific age group and we realize that TikTok is not the place to be, then we’ll shift our work somewhere else.

Right. And I know TikTok is so popular. I’m not on there , but, I’ve had the platform. I can, you know, I know how it works, but I know it’s, it’s popular, but it doesn’t mean it’s the best place to be. Right. If those aren’t always gonna be, You know, like if you, for example, I’ll have a client whose main audience is in like the forties, fifties, and they want people to buy right away.

I’m like, I don’t know if TikTok was the place you wanna be necessarily, you know, maybe we need to be on Twitter or Facebook type of thing. So it’s really, I try to be really intentional and, and not just follow the crowd necessarily. So it’s very, it’s very strategic minded. It’s very, what’s your purpose, what’s your goal?

And, what are we working towards?

Jon-Stephen Stansel: And one thing I wanna touch on, and I’ve seen you tweet about a lot in working in organic social media, and I really enjoy your thoughts on this because there’s so many naysayers that are like, organic is dead. We’re past the organic age, and I wholeheartedly disagree with that. And. I know you do too.

So would you like to kind of speak on, on why organic social media is still important?

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Oh yeah. I mean, I wrote a long blog piece on organic social, and it’s important because that’s where we develop the relationships, right? That’s, that’s the first, those are the type of, type of content that people are gonna look at, and you can run ads all day. But if I go to your profile and you don’t have anything that’s relevant to me in the organic sense, I might not wanna be interested in your product or your service.

So it’s really just about, conversation, building community, and organically connecting with people, just kind of like you would if you were in the real world, right? You don’t just run ads of yourself on real world. You’re actually organically meeting people. Like you’re at a, you’re at a coffee shop and you organically meet people, and then that’s how relationships develop.

So it’s like less thinking of the digital, the digital sphere and, and kind of thinking also real world, like how do you interact with people in the real world?

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Yeah, and I think that’s a smart approach. Like you need both of them.

You need that, that paid, that paid advertisement. Just like you said, like if somebody goes to your account and there’s nothing there or there’s just very little, or it’s all salesy and promoted posts, it’s just, of course if you’re organic’s not gonna work, right? But if you have that and people see that and start to follow and kind of become part of that community, then it becomes really valuable. And I think, I think a lot of, a lot of the naysayers neglect that, that that aspect.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: It is important, and I think when I say organic social is the king or queen, I don’t mean to say that it’s paid is, we shouldn’t ever do it. Like you’re saying, Jon-Stephen, I think it’s, it’s using both appropriately. Like I had a client recently and they just wanted to run ads and I said, Okay, we’re running ads, but where are we leading these people to?

And we need content strategy, organic strategy as well to support that.

Joel Goodman: So Codi, when you, you, we talked a little bit about the, the various kinda like mix of platforms that, especially your clients want, and then your approach to figuring out where, it makes the most sense. And kind of those questions. So like kind of on the, on the back end in your process, how do you go about monitoring the new platforms that are coming up and kind of like assessing, I mean, we’re in like a huge like, kind of watershed right now with like, I don’t know what have been like a dozen new platforms that popped up, or at least have, have, have come to some kind of like public notoriety in just the last couple of weeks.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Don’t tweet about ’em though, we’ll get banned!

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Oh, that’s right. No links!

Joel Goodman: You can’t tweet about ’em. You, definitely no obfuscation. You can’t even spell out at Joel Goodman on Instagram or you get banned. You know? Really welcoming terms of service right there. Yeah. But when you do see these new platforms coming up, you know, before you start recommending them to people, you know, how do you go about, in your own personal practice, figuring out the inherent values of those, and then, how you kind of match those up with the, the various clients and different folks that you work with?

Do you just figure out if it’s gonna be something that’s relevant for them, or maybe that’s like, well, relevant, you know, to the, to your profession in general?

Codi Dantu-Johnson: So I, I typically like to look at what they’re already doing and. The platforms that they’re already on. And so if it’s they, they’ve spent a lot of time and money into these platforms and they’re not getting anything necessarily, maybe it’s, we need to cut back on what we’re already on. But I’m very hesitant to jump right onto the next thing because like Clubhouse for example, you know, so popular, everyone was doing it and it’s like nowhere to be found really.

Joel Goodman: over three, three months,

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Yeah, so I like to wait it out. I would say like three to six months maybe to just see where it goes, who’s there, what type of audience is there, and then do people even want to be, , sold to yet already? I, I think it’s, so brands just wanna jump onto these things so fast to put their name out there.

And I, and people don’t necessarily want you there, so I’m before. Jump onto the next thing with a client. I, I really like to think, okay, is this gonna benefit us? Do we have the time even to create content for this other platform now and think about a strategy for this platform? But for myself, I am also hesitant to join.

, I think there’s a one that I did make a profile on, but I haven’t even used it. I went back to Tumblr, haven’t really used it, , so, I mean, I, I’m definitely aware. I keep, I keep an eye out, but I’m, I don’t like to jump right in.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Yeah, and I, I think that’s wise. Like I, it kinda goes back to what what you’re saying is like, do. users on those platforms, are they ready for the brands to join in yet? And most of the time it’s no. And also those platforms generally aren’t ready for the brands themselves yet. Like I think Be Real is a perfect example.

Like how can a brand be on Be real? There are a few outliers that do some interesting things there, but it’s like that’s not a platform that’s really geared towards brands yet. There aren’t any tools for managing those. There’s. analytics that you get back yet. So it’s not really the, yes. Be familiar with it and start exploring ideas, but like, my, my, my, my philosophy on that is like, don’t rush to be the first on a new platform.

Try rush to be the first that does it well, right.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Yes. Right. I agree. Definitely.

Joel Goodman: So Js has been, , has, has been shifting, , over the last few months, a lot of his time to one of our old favorites, which is LinkedIn and ,

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Killing it over there. Killing it.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: how? I would’ve never thought, I never would’ve thought I would’ve been doing stuff on LinkedIn like a year ago, but

Joel Goodman: but, so, yeah, exactly. Right. And I, the same thing, like I, I, you know, I think probably like both of you, I’ve had a LinkedIn account for a very, very, very, very long time and, , yeah. And so I like. How, how important do you think LinkedIn’s gonna become? Because there has been a lot more traction that we’ve been seeing, I think, on that platform over even, you know, even, even pre , pre-disaster watch with Twitter.

You know, we, we’ve seen this, we’ve seen LinkedIn, , attract more people and, and have, , we’ve seen shifting tones, all that kind of stuff. How did, how important do you think LinkedIn will be, , to, to some of the work that, that you do going into 2023? How can you know, how can brands like be successful there and participate in, in ways that are more than just like listing what jobs are open, which is basically what they used their last 15 years.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: , yeah, I, I think LinkedIn is, Is becoming like this superstar platform for, , personal brands and b2b obviously. And I think the best way to use it is to showcase like what your brand is doing. , you know, and just aside from hiring, but also what are you doing for your customers. Maybe there’s a cool customer story you can.

, maybe it’s you were in the news about something or maybe your industry news, just there’s so many things you can share. And also leveraging the employees, , and encouraging your employees to post about your company, the news, the upcoming things, upcoming features maybe you have as well as, , CEOs and executives getting them involved on posting on their channels, cuz that also helps to leverage the brand on the platform.

So I know for a few of my clients, I’ve worked with the CEOs. , like ghost write, one of them I host ghost writing con content for him and just getting more eyeballs on him, which in turn gets more eyeballs on your company. So I, I think it’s definitely an avenue that should be explored more, and I’m positive we’re gonna see that more in 2023 as we see.

The organic reach there is really great. I know Jon Stephens posts are just always popping , and so I, I, I also have been really enjoying being there and connecting with people. , there’s a lot you can do and experiment with

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Yeah, and I think that’s a a good point too of, of encouraging your employees to get up on there and start talking about things because I, I think one reason, like years ago, I, I, I barely even touched LinkedIn cause I didn’t want my boss. I think I, I thought, okay, LinkedIn is where you go when you’re looking for a new job.

And I didn’t want my boss to think, I was like amping up my resume and profile so I could find another job. But that’s not what LinkedIn, I mean, yes, you know, recruiters will come, there’s so many recruiters on LinkedIn, but it’s not exclusively that. , you know, , there’s so much like connecting to others and I, I, I think there’s still a, a segment that that thinks it, it’s, it’s like that yet, but it’s like, it’s changed.

It’s developed as a platform. , and I think encouraging your employees, like no, go out there and start posting about your work, , provided you don’t break NDAs or anything like,

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Right.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: like, you know, but that guidance is important. Like where is the line, you know, what, what can is acceptable and what’s not, , is important to do as, as well.

But it’s, the platform has really grown and, and changed in toned a lot since a few years ago.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Yeah, I think a lot of people are, are seeing some of the value there. , outside of looking for jobs, I know a lot of people I follow on Twitter are starting to populate more of their work there and getting more eyeballs on their content. And, you know, I, I take some time out of my day to. Connect with other marketers, directors, social media managers, and try to get in them dms and get to know people.

So yeah, there’s a lot to leverage.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: And we are a higher ed podcast, so I definitely want to address this. You used to be the social lead for admissions, the admissions department at uc, San Diego. So let’s, let’s, let’s talk about, about this in, in higher ed social media. Cause it, it will, even though it. , I’m not in, in that area anymore. And, and you are.

It still holds a place in my heart, and I think it, it’s vitally important. So can we talk about how critical influential social media can be in swaying the decisions of prospective students?

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Oh yeah, I mean, , wow. Has a lot to say there. So I was there for about a year and a half at, within admissions at uc, San Diego, and we, so I kind of did like an overhaul in the content. I, I think, The biggest thing is to answer questions, right? Students have so many questions about the application, about the school, about the campus, about the history, about the classes, and we were on the quarter system.

So that’s confusing for a lot of students who come from semesters semester system. So my goal when I got there was I want to educate and inform as much as possible. I wanna answer as many questions as we can about the campus, as many questions about financial aid. All of this. And so through that, you know, we, we worked a lot with student workers.

, I often would go out on campus and snag some content, , creating stuff from the website. It’s just like, there’s, and another thing too is just university websites are a lot to handle. And as a student, if you’re a prospective student and you’re trying to gain some just general understanding about the school, it’s almost feels, it’s very daunting.

, social media is the place where we can just break that daunting content into more digestible content. Right. So, yeah. When it comes to prospective students and, and higher ed and social, the biggest thing is to answer the questions that they have. in your social post, find a way to do that.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Exactly, and I, I think that’s a great way to work. Well, it also lets us know what questions students are having because they’ll ask, like they go to the website, it’s a mess, or they can’t. Figure out the, the jargon behind it to find just a very basic answer. They go to social media and they ask, and seeing what those frequently asked questions are like, give us an indication, okay, well, we need to have more posts about this.

Because if one person is asking us this questions reaching out to us via dm, there’s probably a dozen more who didn’t ask or just asked their friends and probably got bad information.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Yeah. And a lot of times I had students in the DMS really ask, asking all these questions. I’m like, and I had a tally a, a Google Doc of. Themes. Right. And a, a lot of them, what a lot of students had questions about were, , our, our college system and there’s like seven colleges there now. Eight. And so they have to choose that on the application.

And it, it was confusing like how to pick which one you wanted to be in and does it matter? Will my classes be different? Will we’ll look at my major, you know, so I’m like, we need to address this. Like, and it’s all, and it’s always been an issue, , with that campus and. We really wanted to address that in social media.

And so we did seven posts about each of the colleges, what they are, the history, and it was really well received and it got a lot of shares. It got a lot of comments, and we even positive comments of like, wow, this was really helpful for me. Like, thank you for sharing. So it’s really, like you said, just addressing frequently asked questions and looking through the comments that people have.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: And. To say, I love the fact that you had a Google sheet about

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Oh, yeah.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: that I, I, I think a lot of people neglect that sort of thing. Like, oh yeah, let, let’s figure out what questions are getting asked often and where, where those are, and how can we better base, you know, serve our, our, our students, serve our audience based upon what we’re we’re seeing there.

I think that’s just such, I did the same thing, . I was just like, okay, I’ve got, look, look at this, look at this information. You know, look at, look at how many times somebody. dmd us just to ask when the first day of classes was like, we need, yeah, they don’t know. We need to get that out there more. So having that, that is just so, so useful as, as a social media manager, especially when going to a higher ups and going, okay, our C we don’t need more content about groundbreaking ceremony for a new building.

They need to know what day the first day of classes is. Right.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Yeah, it’s really simple stuff, you know, I think, yeah, we get caught up in, in the, the pretty photos and obviously campus photos always do great, but it’s like we also need to address the concerns that, that this is just another, a marketing avenue, and we, and that’s what we do with social.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: On a different note of higher ed, we, we’ve got so many fresh grads right now who are, are looking to get started in social media as social media managers. I think there’s a lot of good advice out there. I think there’s a lot of bad advice out there, . So what advice would you give to a a, a fresh out of college student looking to start their career in social media marketing?

Codi Dantu-Johnson: I would say be on social media. , you need, you need to pick a platform that. Would like to own, share your voice, be a part of conversation, and, and start to, to kind of follow thought leaders quote, , in this, in this industry. So it could be LinkedIn, which is a great place to start. , and then I would actually suggest Twitter too.

There’s a lot of great information from a lot of people and a lot of insights that are shared. So I would start there. , and then connecting with these people, like it’s one thing to follow, but reach into their dm. Say, Hey, you know, I saw your blog post about so-and-so. I’m really interested in learning more.

Can, can we chat? Can we maybe do a virtual coffee? Something like that. And most people would say yes to that, especially a new college grad. I actually, , just. , , connected with a young college grad a a few weeks ago, and she’s just starting in the social media industry, and I was kind of helping you mentor her.

And I, I, I love that. So there’s a lot of people out there that are willing to do that. So, , yeah, get on social media, start posting your thoughts, start sharing articles, start tagging people, and then virtual coffees. Get to know people. And then also, I, I would also say have a website somehow, some way create your own personal website.

If you were an intern somewhere, make sure all your work, if you’re able to, Is on your website, post your resume, on your website po. Maybe start writing about social media, your thoughts. Just because you’re new in the industry doesn’t mean your thoughts don’t matter. , cuz we’re always looking for fresh insights.

I know for myself, I’m always who’s new, who’s different, who has something new to share. And there just because. People who’ve ha, who’ve been in the industry for 10 years are talking about social media. Doesn’t mean your voice doesn’t matter. So I, I would say start writing, start sharing. Send your articles to people to share.

, those are probably my top three.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: I, I think that last one is really important is remembering like you have value, whether you’re a still a student. It’s your first, you know, job as a social media manager. You have valuable insights to share. And I think more experienced social media managers want to see those because after a while they’re, you know, ideas get stagnant or we just get used to things and, and it is good to, to kind of mix it up and stay on our toes, toes a little bit.

And I, I would also add just, just one other thing, like. Be yourself too. Like talk about, you know, talk about social media marketing, but also talk about who you are as a person, because that can help. There’s one reason, like, I’m in the job. I am, I have now, like, because I posted about comic books and nerdy stuff, it’s like, oh, this person knows social media marketing and they’re a dork, so maybe we can bring ’em on board for this.

They, they’d speak that language well. So don’t be afraid. Share what you care about too, as, as well. So tho those things are really, really, I.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Yeah, really good advice. , there was a few times I, , well, so I landed my first social media job because I, I connected with somebody who used to come into a local grocery store that I was a cashier at, and we just kind of hit it off and I told him I was interested in marketing and his daughter worked at an agency, and that’s how I got into the, the field.

So it’s really just like, Sharing with people, like you’re saying, sharing with people what you’re interested in. You know what you like, what you do. You never know where it’ll lead. You

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Also, that sort of thing has been expanded. The social media, right. Those little serendipitous moments that used to just happen, i r l are now happening online. So you put yourself out there, you just never know what’s gonna happen. It’s

Codi Dantu-Johnson: know. Yep.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Oh, okay. Let’s, let’s, while we’re talking about all of the things going on in the world right now, y you are a soccer player, mega fan who engaged with World Cup content on.

, what have been some of your favorite examples of social media? , enhancing a pop culture moment? Or, or, or just we can talk World Cup. Joel knows far more soccer stuff than I do, but, , I did enjoy watching the World Cup yesterday.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: So I played soccer for 20 plus years, and to be quite honest, I don’t watch a lot of it. Like I, I wanna start watching more of the Premier League, but I have to tune into the World Cup. It’s a must. And so I was just really impressed with how. Like ESPN and BR football and all these different, , Twitter accounts were managing social during the World Cup and engaging with fans and just sending out hilarious memes and pictures and the graphics were on point.

I just, the way they covered it was so just really well executed in my point. , very, , like you said, really into the pop culture. and then it is for soccer fans that follow some of the memes were kind of funny, you know, poking fun at players and the relationship between players. So, , I think it was really just engaging and hilarious.

And even if you don’t follow soccer, it was still, still funny and you could kind of get it, like there was one where there was a SpongeBob meme of, you know, like him getting out of his chair, like, okay, I’m done. Like I’m over this. And it was just really funny cuz I think, I can’t remember which jersey he was wearing, but it’s just things like that.

, you know, pop culture meets sports and then social media culture meets all of that. And so, yeah, it was just, it was just fun to be a part.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: We, we sort of neglect the, the seriousness of being aware of what’s happening in pop culture or, or, or, or the larger culture. We think it’s all fun on games, but it can mean so many things to a social media manager, not just like, Hey, we need to find memes to hop down on this, or jump on this trend. But also like, oh, I, I’m not a sports fan, , like the, the, I’m not a sports person.

, I, I, I did enjoy watching the World Cup. You know, I, I didn’t know who was playing until yesterday, right? and I, I think it’s important that social media marketers who aren’t you at least know what’s going on. Cause even if you aren’t going to post a meme or on that, you need to know, oh, if I post something right now is going to get drowned out because there’s this huge thing called the World Cup happening right now.

, so being aware, even if you’re not going to meme about it, , or, or, or try, try to, to. Build content around it is vitally I.

Joel Goodman: And events like the World Cup, even just more than pop culture events, they’re, they are global news events that happen. They, they, they are. Where in every country, , you know, all the time. And you know, I, I, I personally, I, I was, I was torn about the World Cup this year, mostly because of just the corruption in fifa, the atrocities happening in Qatar, the, the, the atrocities that happened just in the buildup and creation of the stadiums for this tournament.

And so I came into a, a lot of it with. A lot of trepidation and a lot of just hesitance about even being very excited. I’m also, , you know, probably a, a fair number. Our, our listeners will, will not like me, , as much after this. , but I’m, I’m not a US men’s national team supporter. I

Codi Dantu-Johnson: I’m not either.

Joel Goodman: Oh, perfect.

I

Codi Dantu-Johnson: I’m not either. Yep. , I’m not either,

Joel Goodman: I, I don’t, I, I, there’s a bit, there’s a part of me that just thinks the, the US hasn’t done enough for the sport to even deserve to be playing in the, I mean, like, the US kind of hates the sport. Like, I mean, if you look at how it. Doesn’t support it at all. I don’t know. So like, there’s, there’s kind of like two sides to that, that fandom around these bigger events where you can have the really great stuff that the, that the media’s putting out.

But then there’s always this kind of undercurrent of you just don’t know what the reaction from other real people are gonna be on, on social media. And like, I don’t know that I’m going anywhere with this. Like, I, like, I, I wish there was a way for that, that kind of like conversation to be smoothed out a little bit.

And for it, it. We’ve all been on social media a very long time.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: I think you bring up a good point though about the Americans not caring about soccer as much and and remembering that especially working for a global brand and universities have international students, you know, we are. Well, most of us are technically global blue hands, like we have to think outside of the United States and our marketing.

Sometimes, you know, or you know, that maybe some of those social media holidays or or regular holidays, you know, are celebrated on Mother’s Day. Perfect example. It’s celebrated on different dates in different parts of the world. So you know, Wayne. your audience, and if your audience is, if you have a large following outside of, of the United States, I think it’s important to remember, you know, these other things that maybe Americans don’t care about, but we’re one country in a very large world.

fun question here, and I, I, I could probably spend an entire episode on, on just this question alone, biggest pet peeves in social media marketing.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Oh my, , that is a good question. I would have to say snarkyness. I, I do not like it. I think a lot of brands. I think it’s fun and cute and Yeah. You know, you’ll go viral. Congratulations. But I, I think it taints your brand more than it helps it. And I’m just not a fan of snarky tone. , perfect example is the Tampax tweet.

I’m sure we’ve all seen that, right? And it just was, they’re trying to be funny and trendy and it was just really weird and it, and it actually ended up getting a lot of backlash. So I’m not a fan of the snarky tone. You’re not Wendy. Like, hang it up. , , I just, I’m also not a fan of, , or a pet peeve, I guess not a fan, but, , just helping out a trend because it, it’s there, it like, if it doesn’t, it, it doesn’t need to be part of your brand.

It doesn’t have to be, you don’t have to jump on every trend that you see just because other people are doing it. I think the biggest one with that was the, Rihanna announcement. Everybody was doing it like, okay, like it was, some of it was creative, some of it, but I was like, okay, we’ve already seen this now by like 30, 30 brands in the span of like five minutes.

I’m like, I think we could give this a rest or do something else. You know? I, I actually ended up going through Instagram and I found like 50 to 60 accounts with the same Rihanna hand holding their product in the air. I’m like, . I, I don’t, I don’t get it. , are you going to the World Cup? Are you advertising for the World Cup?

Like I’m not the World Cup. I’m sorry. , the, the Super Bowl and I don’t know. I just don’t, I’m not into the trendy thing. I’m not into the snarkiness thing. , and then also pet peeve, another one is brands who don’t respond to comments. I, I don’t get it. Like, and I get not wanting to respond to the negative ones.

Maybe taking those aside to the direct messages, but the positive ones, there’s, there’s so. that I’ve seen about particular brands, and no one responds. No one even likes it. There’s no retweet, there’s no engagement. It’s like social is for social. Be social on social. I like, I get it. You, you, you know you have a big brand and you may not have time to get to it, but you need to find time.

Hire a contract community manager or something to just go through and. And, and do things like that. I, I think that really makes a difference. And I like to think of it as if you don’t have a storefront, right? Or if you do have a storefront and I go into your storefront and I’m not acknowledged, , I’m not greeted.

I say it like, your product, nothing. Nothing from you. Why would I wanna come back? You know? So I think those are my top three. . I have a lot more, but I’ll just stick with three.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: agree with all of them. I think the age of the snarky brand is coming to an end. I think it’s, I, I, I do too. I, , I’m not sure everybody, you know, wants to be, you know, Clap to back at from, from a brand all the time. , I think it’s been done. People have seen it. It’s kind of lost the shock value o of it.

, and hopefully, you know, some brands do it well and if that’s your voice and it works for that brand, , great. Keep at it. But like when every brand, like the first thing they do, you know, I, I talk to so many students we talked to, you know, we’re talking about advice for marketers. I’m like, who does well on social media?

They’re like, Wendy’s, I wanna be like Wendy’s. And I’m like, yes, they do a great job, but Wendy’s is already Wendy’s. Who are you going to be? Like, what else can you do? , so yeah, I’m, I’m so over that. , and then on, on, on the comments, definitely it’s, it’s just there’s so much, I, I, we were talking about this, , and, and then one of her recent.

Presentation Dr. Lo Gross was talking about. You know, there, that’s where the magic is, like in the comments, in the replies. There’s so much value there. , and I think brands need to, to put more trust in their social media managers. I think a lot of the, the bigger brands that don’t reply, it’s because like, oh, we don’t, we have 50 layers of approval and we don’t want to, you know, risk, , somebody saying something.

Off the rails or, you know, even one thing, you know, was, I hate to say, is become a part of my response checklist is like, before I reply to anybody, I need to check and make sure they’re not a Nazi . Like that is kind of scary. Like, I don’t wanna like a tweet and then it show up in somebody else’s feed and like, oops, they’re a Nazi.

You know? , so taking the moment to like do the due diligence. , make sure we’re applying to people and, and liking posts from people that are not evil. , , is, is a good one to do, but you’re, you’re, you’re, you, you should trust your social media manager to know that and to do that due diligence. And I think that’s something that larger brands need to kind of let go of and, and say, okay, we’ve hired this professional who knows the ins and outs of this.

Let’s, let’s trust them to do their jobs.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Yes, agree with all.

Jon-Stephen Stansel: Thank you so much for being with us, Codi. , where can people find you? Cuz they definitely need to find you on Twitter and, and anywhere else you are. , you will not get banned or suspended for sharing your social links and profiles on this podcast. , so where can people find you?

Codi Dantu-Johnson: You can find me on Twitter at Codishaa, I’m also on LinkedIn. Just look up Codi Dantu-Johnson. I am also on Instagram. My business Instagram is mini media Marketing, and Marketing is spelled MKTG. Oh, and I have a YouTube channel now, you could follow me at Codishaa, same thing.

@Codishaa on YouTube!

Joel Goodman: Thank you for listening to The Thought Feeder Podcast and a very special thanks to Codi for being with us today. Thank you so much again, Codi.

Codi Dantu-Johnson: Thank you.

Joel Goodman: You can find Codi on Twitter at Codishaa, and we will have that linked and listed in the show notes that you can find thoughtfeederpod.com. You can also find us on Twitter at ThoughtFeedPod on LinkedIn, on our website, on Facebook.

No, we’re not on Facebook, on Instagram, on where? Where else are we at? I don’t know. Well, you can probably find us. Just do a Google search and we’ll be there. Thought Feeder is produced and edited by Carl Gratiot and hosted by Jon-Stephen Stansel and me, Joel Goodman. If you are a fan of the show and are feeling generous, we would really appreciate a review and a ranking on your preferred podcast listening platform, but I know not all of them let you do that.

So definitely go to Apple Music because it helps people find our show and we want more people to listen to it. Thank you so much for listening, and we’ll be back in a couple of weeks.