Le Dame d'Escoffier Table Talk on Social Media Best Practices Hosted by Andrea Lindsley

00:00Welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio, the tastiest hour of talk in Music City. Now here's your host, Brandon Styll. Hello Music City and welcome to Nashville Restaurant Radio. My name is Brandon Styll and I am not your host today. Today is a special episode. We are going to be featuring the Table Talks series from Ladam Descafier and today is going to be a fun one. Andrea Linsley is your moderator and we'll be talking with Jen Sheets, who's the co-owner at the Frothy Monkey. She also does their social media. Tabitha Toon, who is the social media, she's a social media consultant with Ala Mode and Crystal DeLuna-Bogan, who's the co-founder, chef, and social media manager at The Grilled Cheesery.

01:03The topic today is social media. So they're going to talk for about an hour about social media, best practices, they answer some questions, they take some polls. This has been an absolute honor for us to share these series. We are just so excited that they trust us with this and we're excited to have an episode come out. We've been super slammed. We talked about the Music City Roundup just taking a little bit of self-time, taking a little bit of time to relax. I've been working in the yard, doing some pressure washing of the driveway, little things I can do alone that recharge me, getting back to doing some hiking, been working in the restaurant. I've always been having a lot of things on my plate and so we have been, we didn't have an episode this week. This is our first episode going into the weekend. What amazing weather this has been over the past week and I have been trying to enjoy it the best I possibly could.

02:04My kids are playing baseball, I'm going to baseball games, I don't know how you're doing but this has been a fantastic week for me. This episode is brought to you by nobody but I will tell you that The Giving Kitchen is here in Nashville. They've got all kinds of pop-ups going on. Go give them a follow at The Giving Kitchen. They're based out of Atlanta but they are now here in Nashville. They are doing amazing, amazing things. They gave out some free tacos over at Mays de la Vida the other day. They're doing some stuff at Bearded Iris. They are here to help restaurant people, hospitality workers in crisis. If you need help covering bills while you've been injured at work or you've had a catastrophic event, I think that's the word I'm looking to use, check them out. So I just want to put the word out there. The Giving Kitchen are amazing, amazing people and so are the women over at La Dame des Cafiers.

03:07I'm not going to hold you back any further but I will tell you we've got some amazing, amazing episodes coming up. The holiday season is just around the corner. We're going to change the format of the roundup coming up soon and I'm really excited to share it with you. Me and Jen have just been brainstorming lots of fun ideas. The Nashville scenes, best of Nashville, happens on October the 14th. That's when you're going to find out who all the winners were that believe that Monday we are going to do a live show to do acceptance speeches from all of the biggest categories. So we're excited to have you along for that. I think we're going to have Chris Chamberlain join us for that one but let's jump in right now with La Dame des Cafiers Table Talk Series moderated by Andrea Lindsley. Welcome. On behalf of La Dame Nashville, I'm Andrea Lindsley and I'm going to be your moderator here today. I'm in food, beverage and hospitality public relations and I do that with Finn Partners PR.

04:12That's my day job but on the side, I'm vice president of La Dame Nashville and so I want to officially welcome you all and you're in for a real treat today because we have some fabulous members of La Dame who bring a diverse set of experience in the social media world and we're going to meet them all in just a second. I wanted to first make sure you knew about La Dame Nashville if you're not familiar. We are the local chapter of an international network of women leaders and we're passionate about supporting women in the fields of food, beverage, hospitality and farming. And we do that through a lot of ways. We raise money. We support through scholarships and grants. We also have mentoring sessions and networking and educational events just like this one. So on that note, I want to thank our partners who help us make this possible today. The Women's Fund through the Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee, they allow us to provide these as a free opportunity.

05:13So we thank them for that support and then also Brandon at Nashville Restaurant Radio. He elevates this webinar through his podcast to a larger audience. And so we are grateful to both Brandon and the Women's Fund for their support. So before we jump in, we want to see what your experience is with social media. So we can tailor our advice to where you are, to meet you where you are. So Robin, if you could launch a poll for us, we're going to try this quick anonymous poll. There you go. If you would just vote really quickly. Great. So 71% are fairly experienced. And then are you most interested in your business or personal brand? Mostly for business, but a good 20% for both. And then as far as the industries that you're in, let's see, 43% hospitality, 33% food, a few beverage and a few other.

06:20So that's great. You can close out those results. Now let's get to the good stuff. Thank you for sharing that information. And Tabitha, Crystal and Jen will use that as we talk through these strategies with you. I'm going to let each of them introduce themselves. And I want you all to tell us how social media comes to play a part in your everyday job. So let's start with Jen. Hi, I'm Jen Sheets. I am co-owner and head of marketing and creative for Frothy Monkey. And I run all of the social accounts for the frothy brands. All right. Tabitha, why don't you jump in next? Hi, I'm Tabitha Toon and I have Alamo Media and I'm a social media marketing consultant. Crystal. Hi, I'm Crystal DeLuna-Bogan. I'm the co-founder, chef and social media manager for The Grilled Cheesery. Thank you so much for the three of you taking time out of your busy days to share with us. Let's start out just talking about social media certainly has increased during the pandemic.

07:24There are between 4 and 4.5 billion active users on social media today. So this is certainly not going away as a tool that we can all use, but that we can certainly get better at. So I'd like for each of you to share your approach to social media and what your strategies are for your business or your brand. So Crystal, let's start with you this time. Okay, great. So I would like to say that I have probably the most organic approach of the three of us here. I don't schedule posts. I kind of take like the feel for it. We have a really large platform and I've always kind of taken a really personal approach with it. Like when I'm excited about something, like that's when I am moved to share. Although there are definite strategies to how I do that, but it definitely has to do with me being really excited about my brand and just being involved with my team and seeing what is exciting that day, that week, that month, that season.

08:37And that's kind of my approach to social media. Again, though, I do have a format. I do try to post once or twice a day on Instagram. Reels is something that I'm really getting into. I'm really getting into and I think that video is probably the new thing that's going to take over Instagram, although that is scary. I think it's where I'm going to be spending my time in growing social media. Again, a more organic approach, more videos, more kind of less polished, just information about like what makes our brand what it is. That's pretty much the foundation of how I do our social media. And it certainly works for you, that organic approach. It is different than others. And I think that's an important thing to clarify that it's not a cookie cutter.

09:41It's what works best for your brand or your business. And by the way, if you have a question, please put it in the chat and I will bring it up to these ladies. Tabitha, why don't you go next? So my approach to social media is going to be different from what Jen and Crystal do. So I usually am hired in to either consult and plan for the business or more commonly I am brought on on a regular basis to manage all the content. So to start usually with someone that either has no social media presence or someone who's already established it. By the end of the day, I just want to be able to take that over for them to be their voice. So it's a lot of getting to know the business, the history, the story and working with the goals set in mind. First step is usually coming from a more traditional marketing position where you take a look at the big picture and then using social media as a support system for that.

10:43We figure out the audience, the voice, the message, what you want to say and what you want to tell the customers. So I also try to get to know as many parts of the business as possible because as the voice I'm connecting the customer to the brand, to the business and vice versa. So I need to be able to speak to the customer the way the customer will be spoken to if they came in to the restaurant. So it's a lot of like what Crystal does, just knowing every little part and communicating that. That's that's how I would approach it. Love it. Thank you, Jen. Your approach, my approach, mine is a little bit of a combination of Tabitha and Crystal. I do a lot of planning and program some posts and have an editorial calendar, you know, some more traditional kind of marketing approaches there as far as messaging.

11:46But I do keep it organic as well. It just depends on what we have going on. Like you said, Crystal, I'm not generally in our location. So we have six restaurants at this point, cafes. We've got a wholesale bakery and we've got our coffee roasting operation. So we've got a lot of a lot of things going on. The bakery, I have that separated in its own account because that's more of a B2B business than our cafes are. So it just depends. There's, you know, we've got opportunities where we go in and we we kind of collect a bank of photos or videos or content, whatever it is, and just kind of like roll it out as we need it. And then other things are in the moment, you know, if something fun is happening or, you know, something's happening in the worlds that we need, we want to to talk about. So is your is the frequency of how much you post on social media different for your two accounts, the cafe and then the bakery, which is B2B?

13:00Yeah, and really, it differs to, you know, even the cafes, we don't have a real kind of set amount that we we post. It just depends on what we have going on. But, yeah, the B2B bakery is more, you know, it's it's a little more of a portfolio of our products, whereas the and there's, you know, interaction as well. People get excited about really pretty wedding cakes. So and pastries, but, you know, on the cafe side, you know, it's it's a lot about a feeling or, you know, we're still selling things, but it it doesn't necessarily have to be an actual thing. So it's it's knowing your message, knowing your audience. Exactly. Let's talk about the pandemic and specifically for for Jen and Crystal on this about how have your social media strategies changed during the pandemic?

14:01What did the pandemic force you to do or gave you the opportunity to do? I'll go first. So it's been everything. It's been how we communicated, how we are currently communicating our practices. I mean, things are changing on a day to day basis. You know, a lot of times this has been shutting down restaurants. If there's an employee outbreak or if there's some other, you know, instance of of this might have happened, you know, social media has been the probably the what I've seen, the way that we're communicating, hey, guys were shut down for two days or this this person was exposed to kind of like talk to our community about what's going on. I mean, there's there's nothing I think that it's been such an important vehicle to just show our community like that we care and that we're doing everything we can. And then we're in this together because we're we're right along with you guys.

15:04I mean, we all know this. We're finding out things the same day that everybody else is having to react in the morning asking legal teams, can we say this? Can we not do this? It's been pretty wild. I mean, we just we just updated our mass policy a couple days ago and, you know, we'll get a backlash and then and then, you know, we have to just respond with we care about everybody. We're going to do everything we can to protect our most vulnerable and just like our employees. Like I'll have people that are just concerned that there's no masks walking into our restaurant and these these are our employees putting their their health at at risk. So social media has been the means of how people are choosing, I think, how to where to go eat. I mean, as a mom of a young little baby, I'm I check their social media to see if they're actually doing this. And then when I walk into the restaurant before I actually decide to step in somewhere and are they are they are their employees mass?

16:06Are they requiring? Are they not requiring? I use that as a vehicle to actually choose where I'm eating now. And I think a lot of my younger mom friends and mom friends in general are using this of like, where should we go eat with our children? Yeah, I definitely agree with all of that. Social media turned into a really more of an intimate conversation, very transparent conversation. And during the pandemic and just kind of, you know, we would have to update people multiple times a day at some point. And being that we have so many locations as well, different cities, different policies, just staying consistent and trying to respond to everybody's concerns and emotions. And, you know, everyone everyone's been through a lot in this past year. But it really social media was crucial for us as far as even launching some new programs that we we hadn't done before.

17:10We didn't have online ordering with curbside pickup or even online ordering with pickup. We launched we were able to launch that in three days. And we had to re-educate our customers as to, you know, how to purchase food from us or drinks or if they could come and enjoy it at our restaurants or if they were only coming to get it to go and where to go and what to do. So yeah, it's been really, really important. Now, Jen, how much has how much of those those new strategies will stick around post pandemic? I think that, you know, as far as transparency goes, I feel like we were already being transparent. But, you know, it's that is just an expectation at this point from from everybody. And if you're not, you get called out on it pretty quickly, which is fair.

18:14You know, like that's our guests should should expect, you know, that they know what they're walking into, like Crystal was saying, you know, just knowing what you're walking into before you get there, just so everyone's really comfortable. But, you know, some of the programs that we launched are some will stick around, some won't. I mean, we we launched table service at frothy. And if you've been a long time frothy customer, you're used to going to the counter and waiting in line and and all of that. And that's changed. And so, you know, I'm constantly having to continue to educate our regulars on on what we do now. So and it's still changing. And Crystal, back to what you were you were saying, how do you prepare to respond to any negative social media backlash for anything that you're posting? Well, there's an internal thread of text messages between our management team that we literally will write out the thing we actually want to say, and then we laugh about it.

19:21There's a lot of flaming coupe emojis that happen in that text thread. Yeah, so I think we all feel this way. Like I said, we're all figuring it out together. Like, we're not like getting any heads up, like no health department's like calling us and saying, hey, guys, this is happening now. You know, we're all figuring it out together. Like, we're not like getting any heads up, like no health department's like calling us this is happening now. You know, there's been an outbreak or whatever. We're just responding in the morning. We'll wake up. We all check the same, you know, our same email, and we just respond. We're making signs where we're, you know, we have three restaurants, a food truck. They all they, you know, one of them's in Williamson County. There are certain things we can and cannot do. So we've obviously had the most backlash in Williamson County. And all we can do is answer with our core values.

20:23So we just, you know, we'd rather if you aren't going to come in because you don't want to wear a mask, then we actually just let the other customers respond to them. Because I really don't think at this point, like the brand saying something, you know, like these are our policies. Those things we actually want to say are most of the time said by other customers. And they can like do that in their own, you know, in the own comments. When it starts to get at all above a PG-13 kind of comment, we'll delete the comments. I mean, we just will. It's a grilled cheese brand. Like we're not a political, you know, health, anything like we're selling grilled cheese. It's supposed to be family friendly and fun. If it starts to get at all, like I'll just be there. I'm literally deleting, deleting, deleting. And then we'll get called out for that.

21:23But it's like, who cares? Like this is not like a news channel, Instagram, you know. But you'd be surprised the fights people have in your comments. It gets pretty nasty. And unfortunately, that does boost your views. So some of those posts do have thousands of likes, which is terrible. But it doesn't hurt your analytics. So, you know, you kind of just have to like go. As long as we're not responding to it, I feel like it's kind of whatever, you know. But yeah, anytime you talk about anything people need to do with their bodies, they're going to respond, I think, extremely negative or extremely positive. So, so you're you've cultivated your own community and you're letting them speak for you in a lot of instances. I don't have to say anything. It's it's all of our, you know, and I'll do the same. Like if I, I know that brand probably won't respond a certain way, another restaurant.

22:24So like on my personal Instagram, I'll respond in their favor because I know that they probably can't say what they want to say. But like on a personal level, like you can respond as a person, you know, and I have every right to do that as like my personal Instagram. So I definitely will go on and defend my other restaurant friends, you know, in. I mean, we're all just trying to protect people. Like that's basically what we're doing. So political stuff, I, you know, obviously don't get involved in on social media, but um, the health and safety of other people, I think it's fair game to, to try to protect, you know, I mean, we do that by washing our hands. Like if you want to have an argument about how long you want to wash your hands, like I can't, I'm sorry, like you're gross and I don't want you coming into my restaurant. And we, we will get into that more a little later, but I did want to touch on that while we were talking about that subject, but we have, we do have a question in the chat.

23:34Chelsea asks, do you take photos or videos in-house or do you use professionals specifically for food content? We do both. Yeah, we do both as well, but someone on my team is actually a photographer. So we have a mix of semi-professional photos, professional photos, and also, you know, every, if we do a photo shoot, like, and actually set something up, then I do a little bit of both. So it'll be iPhone photos, edited iPhone photos, and it just depends on the content. Depends on how you want to use it too. Yeah. Cause a lot of the time the professional photos can be used for press requests or magazines. Or the website. Yeah. Or the website, it's higher resolution, but a good mix of both. And Tabitha, would you elaborate that a little bit more of what, like, should visuals be polished or is it better for them to be unpolished so they look more authentic?

24:39You know, there are some days, I think a very polished picture that I or a professional photographer took will do well, and it just doesn't. And sometimes your audience just prefers something that's on the fly, an action shot, like a messy plate of food that tends to get more attention. I mean, I can't say for sure whether or not Instagram or Facebook or Twitter picks up some sort of, like, the data from that picture, whether it's from an iPhone or whatever, and, you know, does or does not show it. But I think both are good. At the end of the day, the picture just needs to be in focus and well lit and looks nice. And you'll find out what your audience prefers. Some accounts do better with really, really nice pictures. And, you know, other restaurants, I think the small businesses and independent businesses tend to do well. And our iPhones are better than some cameras out there now.

25:41Or your Android phone, whichever. The cameras are spectacular. So, you know, a good picture is a good picture. Yeah, I would also say between, like, the different parts of our brands that I deal with, for our bakery, I will use more professional photos. Like, it's really hard to get a great picture of a wedding cake or pastries and have the impact you want it to with an iPhone. I mean, you can somewhat. But the natural light, food, if you're taking a picture of a plate of food, you can't do it in a kitchen or, like, you know, at the pastor window. Or, you know, it's got to under fluorescent lights. It needs some natural light. It needs to have some, I wouldn't even call it polish, but just some attention, you know, to the lighting and the plating, just so it looks appealing. Yeah, especially if you don't have any tools to edit the pictures. You want it to go out immediately.

26:41Yeah. Fluorescent lighting is not phone picture friendly. Good advice there. We have another question. Hi, Caroline. Any advice about posting on newer platforms, reels, TikTok, et cetera, and what channels are most important to focus on? Man. Caroline, bringing it. Okay. So. If you're, in case anyone didn't know, reels is Instagram's answer or solution to TikTok. It's where you can, TikTok's essentially where you can record quick snippets, 15 seconds, 30 seconds, or one minute video where you are putting clips of something together and then sending it out as a whole video. Or you can just keep talking and rambling for a whole minute. I think for what does well on reels and TikTok, especially on TikTok, are people.

27:48And that's why I don't think all brands should be using TikTok. And if you want to be on TikTok, you better be prepared to be the face of your brand and to be the person that represents your brand or have someone be there, almost like a mascot, because that's what gets the algorithm in. It's a lot of back and forth discussions or reaction posts, but it's all driven by faces and humans. So if you're ready to do that and spend the time on it, by all means, go ahead and do it because it's a whole new audience and people are seeing a lot of exposure from it. And their algorithm makes it so the person using TikTok gets addicted and stuck to it. So if you're compelling, someone watches your video, you keep showing up on their feed over and over. But again, be prepared to put in the work. I would say for food, though, what guests faces for sure and charismatic kind of, you know, just like more organic posts.

28:57But I think what's been interesting with food for what food people are doing is showing like a sped up version of something like, like say a wedding cake that starts from like ingredients to like finish, I think is also getting a lot of traction. I know Food Network is posting a lot of those on their reels, which are like getting so, you know, like you have to look to the bigger brands that are spending a lot of money on their social media presence to kind of see what they're doing and kind of like, see how you can kind of do stuff like that. I mean, I think that they're doing a lot of those kind of like cake decorating or doing something where you get an end result. Like people like to see resolution, they like to see something finished, you know, by the end of that little clip. So with food steps, so I think it would be really cool. You know, you start like with pasta ingredients and then like end with the pasta dish, you know, like that to me is something worth. I want to see how it ends, you know, and then you kind of hooked me. That's how I'm going to approach the real TikTok thing.

29:59When we do a menu change, I'm going to do things from like start to finish and then, you know, kind of take it there. Then it's educational and interesting. And you can also see how much work goes into it. And to answer your question, Caroline, on the channels that are most important to focus on, I think since you run your own business, too, and you're doing a lot of management, focus on what you have the time to do. If you're not going to bring someone in to do it for you, you know, focus on what you can do and then prioritize from there. Yeah, stay within your means is kind of the biggest strategy for us. Social media is limitless. You know, you have to put some bumpers on it to where, you know, if you are the person running a business and you're trying to run social, you just can't do everything, in my opinion. And I agree with Tabitha about the mascot concept. You know, it's either, you know, start, finish things people want to learn about or they're curious how something happens.

31:06And you're kind of like giving them a peek into the, you know, behind the curtain a little bit, or like really getting to know people, or it's just fun. Good advice. Can't halfway do it. Invest what you have time in, go full force, but know your limits. We have another question. What are some good editing tools to use for your iPhone or mobile device? Thanks, Jess, for that. The iPhone camera, the Photos app has its own built-in editing software, but if you really want to get down to it, Photoshop has a mobile app and also Lightroom. So if you know how to use those on a computer, the functions are about the same. It's pretty easy to pick up. The other one I like to use is also VSEO or VSCO, as people like to call it, for photo editing.

32:06It adds filters on there that are presets. So that one's, I think you pay to use some of the filters, but you might find one that works really well for your brand. There are also within Instagram, you know, you can get pretty detailed manually editing your photos if you want to go about that way and just keep it in the app. I have two things with that because, you know, being a food business, sometimes you have to say something pretty loud in your square. I use Over. I like Over. Yeah, I personally pay for like the upgrades because I use it so much, but I use it to make signs too. Like I make signs for the restaurant with it. Like we spend so much money on digital kind of, you know, creation that like I just started doing it for like employee signs and just to kind of make it look nicer, you know, and you can format it to either Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, or you can like do a portrait or landscape for a sign.

33:16And the resolution is pretty incredible if you have a good photo. And there's a ton of different fonts and you stack images over each other so you can even make like a sign with it. And also, I would say, try to use like a similar filter throughout your whole grid because it starts looking like a person with multiple personalities. Like you want to kind of have like a tone, like, you know, in the season, I try to like, it should look the same and look at it as a grid when it starts looking like organic photo, you know, professional photo, message. Like I think it's unappealing. And I notice not those accounts that have a lot of Instagram followers and Facebook followers have like a, like, you know where you are, like you know who this person is when you see the photo before you even know who posted it. I would also add, I like over as well, but Canva, I use a lot.

34:17And you can use that either on your phone or on your computer, and you can do a lot more as far as layout goes. So if you do want to translate some of the things you're doing to print, you can do that with Canva. And we will, in our toolkit that we send out afterward, we will include all of these. There was Ashley in the chat, she mentioned all of things that have been mentioned, but she also brought up one, Tezza. Are you all familiar with that one? I have not used Tezza. So someone in the chat brought that one up too, so check that out as well. But Lightroom, Photoshop, Disco, all of those. We have a new question. I'm sure we've all read about or even experienced how social media can impact us as humans. How do you balance keeping your head in the game on social media professionally with your boundaries for your personal life? Good question. That's a really good question.

35:18Who wants to start that one? I can start. I actually have somebody who helps me with the social media. I take the lead, but she helps with listening and with a lot of the customer service things. So I don't constantly have to be in there because we want to be responsive and get people the answers to the questions they have. So she helps me monitor, especially if I know... Excuse me, sorry if my phone just made a noise. Especially if we know that we're going to get a lot of comments or reaction from a post that we do. And then as far as just getting a rest, sometimes I'll just hand it off because I need some space. And also I think it's okay, especially when you are being authentic with your audience. We're not machines. So it's okay if you have a week where you're not posting as much.

36:24Give yourself some grace, I guess. We're all human. Or ask for help or plan things out using a tool like... I use Later a lot. That's another tool where you can schedule out your posts. And I know, Crystal, you said you don't do much of that, but it is helpful if you do know you've either got some repetitive content that you need to get if there's an event happening and you know you're going to have to post about it a few times. You can just go ahead and get it done and it automates. Yeah, so those are a few of the things that I try to do. I like to draft posts and then keep them saved. Things are kind of general, knowing that there's certain menu items I want to highlight. I find that works for me because I just know that it's in the bucket and then when I'm in the mood, but I'll dedicate an hour to just drafting a bunch of posts about food or whatever, but I always am mindful about what's happening in the day.

37:37So sometimes it's not the time to be so cheery and excited about your tater tots. I kind of read the room a lot, but that's just me being my voice and what we do. And I even really have thought about being a little bit more coming from my point of view, speaking a little bit more in the first person because I speak a lot in the we, which for the brand works, but I think now it's so important to kind of come. We are pretty strong on some social justice issues, so I kind of want them to know who it's coming from. It's definitely coming from a woman's point of view. It's definitely coming from somebody whose parents are not from this country. I think that it's important that people empathize with your brand or they don't, and then they choose something else. Because ultimately, those are your customers.

38:43I know people that have a lot of grace with us when we're making transitions and opening new restaurants because they really believe in what we do. And I think that comes from empathizing with me as a person and my struggles when becoming a mom and just trying to balance it all. There are times where my daughter just doesn't want me to be on the phone, and I hear her, so maybe I'm not paying attention to our comments all day long. I think it would be nice for people to hear that's why. It's not for any other reason other than I'm like, my two-year-old's going through a thing and she doesn't want her mom on her phone the whole day. We have to create boundaries or else we're just going to be in a cog in the machine. We're not going to get ahead. There are so many other things we do in our day. This is just one of them. Not to make light of what any of us do, but we're not saving lives.

39:52At the end of the day, we are selling a product and we're working with customers. But have a backup like Jen does and know your boundaries. For someone like me, it may not be my business, but I tend to start to really care on a personal level for the clients that I work with and what they're doing. There were times where I would go to sleep and see Instagram in my dreams and see the grids and things that I'm planning and waking up or anticipating reviews that I have to deal with. It took a lot, but just even letting myself for half a day put the phone away, log out of that account, log out of my personal account, and just kind of force myself to not stare at my phone all the time, especially since my four-year-old recently said, mommy, you're on your phone a lot. It was a big wake-up call. So, you know, and I think we've learned in the pandemic that our health is very important.

40:58And if we're not functioning, we're not going to be able to do our job properly. So try to set those boundaries for yourself. It'll be okay. Yeah. So I'm hearing set boundaries, have a backup, and to Crystal's point, cultivate your community so they understand and they see you as a human, a person. And Crystal, to what you said a minute ago, we have a question. How do I switch from the we to the I point of view smoothly? I want to come to the front more often from a woman perspective. I think if you have been speaking in the we, what I'm going to start doing is kind of like signing it at the bottom, you know, like so maybe speaking in that I, and then at the end, like tagging myself, like in who I am, like kind of introducing myself again into the body of the post, just so people know where it's coming from. You know, like I'm kind of quoting myself.

42:01You know, I'll tag my own Instagram in that post and then say, like, I'm the co-founder, blah, blah, blah, blah, kind of just like reintroducing myself to why, because then you can switch back to the we when you're kind of speaking more generally about company policies or what have you, because obviously that's not just a me thing. That's my team. So I think that's so great to be able to hear people's point of view. Like, I love seeing businesses speak from that point of view that I know them personally. And I'm like, yes, I want everyone to hear what they have to say because it's important and this is why we are a strong community. I want to hear people's personal point of views. I think that's so important right now. As we are distant, we want to still be connected. So you don't want it to be too, I don't know, too corporate.

43:02You know, like a lot of times we're trying to be more like, you know, corporate about how we were saying things. It's like, why? Like, that's not who we are and that's not what we do. So it's about connecting. It's about connecting and you can do that more on a personal standpoint. I can't remember who the celebrity is, but there is a celebrity account and I'll try to remember who it is, who does what Crystal is talking about. And if it's a post directly from that individual, they'll still put their initials at the end of it. And it says it in their bio, you know, posts with this tag are directly from so-and-so. So I'll try to, I think that's okay to do a little bit of both and it works. Good, good advice. Well, that kind of segues to another question in the chat. What are your thoughts on influencer collaborations? They could work with the right influencer.

44:09I like all of all of our facial expressions. Please? I think for- Call yourself an influencer. I probably am going to roll my eyes at you. It is, it is tough because, you know, it's so the one influencer that who I have worked with is Doug the pug and he, he's like the exception, right? I know we all love Doug. He is legit and he, you know, he's the real deal. And it's, I think it's a matter of just being authentic, having an authentic connection to somebody. We do, at Frothy, we do have influencers who organically post about us all the time. And it's every once in a while, you know, you, you do identify somebody who's a regular, even who is an influencer and you, you partner, you can partner with them in an organic way. But, and I'm sure there are some strategies.

45:12Tabitha, I don't know if you've had some influencer strategies for some of your clients. You know, if there's a good reason to do something, I'm all about it. But until I can wrap my brain around how it's authentic and it aligns with my brand, then, then, or if it's Doug the pug, you know. Yeah, the influencer thing is tricky. I haven't had a ton of experience working or like seeking out the influencers to work with, unless it's like a press event or you're just getting a few people in, just, you know, try a new product or something. But, and there are agencies that will connect you with influencers. It's just, you have to be willing to spend money and do your background checks too. You know, is that influencer someone who typically does talk about food? And how much engagement do they get on their posts? Are they able to show you those numbers and are they able to show you where a business has gotten any sort of return from having them work with them?

46:17You know, are they willing to let you talk to those other businesses too? It's just like any job interview, you're hiring someone to do it for you. Now, if you're talking about the kind of influencer collaborations where they DM you and they're like, hi, I'm coming to town and I want to collab with your brand, where they're basically asking for free food for them and their eight friends, I don't think it's that worth it unless they have some clout already. If it's, you know, if it's someone who is just posting pictures of themselves and work out gear half the time and have nothing to do with food, it may not be worth your time. So I agree with that. We have, we do work with influencers with some clients and the number one thing is, has to be authentic. You can't pay someone to talk about a brand if they're not familiar with the brand. You work with someone who already is a fan of that brand. They already shop there or wear that or eat that or, you know, stay there already. You engage with them so it's authentic.

47:19Cassandra in the chat said, I work with influencers a lot and my main advice is to be very clear on the ask and the deliverables and to sign a contract and be sure you ask for their analytics. Get everything in writing. Yes, get everything in writing. Let's go around and do the Rose and the Thorn game. This is something I shared with the panelists that I do with my daughter at dinnertime a lot. We share the best part of our day and the worst part of our day. So let's talk about that. I'd like to ask each of the panelists to share two social media tactics that one being just a home run and one being not so much. So we can learn from that. I'll bet we're learning a lot from the ones that weren't as successful. So who would like to jump in and start? Two examples. I'll go first. So the Rose would be rainbow grilled cheese every year. Yes. Always like a huge.

48:20I'm shocked how popular that gets picked up by like national media and the thorn would be asking people to wear masks. That's the word. I cringe when I have to do it, but I know we have to. So I'll put it out there and just wait for the backlash. Indeed. I love your Rose though. That's a great Rose. Jen, why don't you go next? This is less strategy and more about the topic of the content. I guess Crystal kind of went that way too. So the Rose is just like reading the room, right? So remember the Bernie memes where Bernie was everywhere. I put him in front of 12 South and people like that's our most popular post we've ever done. And I just did it in 20 minutes. It was actually in bed and got my computer out.

49:23It's like, what are you doing? Got my computer out and I'm photoshopping Bernie just laughing out loud. And I feel like you just have to take those moments where something hits you and just share it. Without overthinking it too, I think. Be strategic, but don't overthink it. And then Thorne, I won't tell the whole story, but I did this behind the scenes look at where the moment was a little too real for some people, I think. So we got this beautiful lamb that we were going to serve at a wine dinner. And our chef actually sent me a picture of this lamb. He was so proud of it. It made him so excited. He's never sent me any content on his own without me asking. And so I get this picture and I'm like, man, he's so happy. This is great. It's going to be delicious, whatever. But it's raw protein.

50:24And so I went ahead and posted it. And we basically got canceled by all the vegans and animal activists in Nashville. And I learned that uncooked protein triggers people, so I don't do that anymore. But it was a really beautiful moment. To me, I just saw our chef and how happy he was with this product he had in the wine dinner or just in the moment, and it just backfired. Lesson learned. Tabitha, what about you? You think contests and giveaways would do better, but it's been kind of slim pickings. People just don't want to do anything to get stuff. And I think it depends on your product. I've seen contests work really well for places that have a little more high-priced products, like skincare products or whatever.

51:26But sometimes at a restaurant, they just want decadent pictures of food. So I think when you know what works, when you find that rose for your brand, just when in doubt, stick that picture in there. All right. We have another question in the chat from Bodie. What are some of the questions you ask yourself when creating and developing a social media strategy? What are some KPIs or metrics you tend to prioritize on your posts? Good question. It's tough to think about what we care about and what we see, and then also algorithm. So I don't know. And Tabitha, maybe you have a more strategic approach to this. But it just depends on what it is. I don't know.

52:27Do you all have a better answer than I do? Yeah. Again, it depends on what it is. I think just based on the restaurants and the businesses I've worked with, it's just a matter of growth, right? So how many followers did we lose or gain that day with that post? And I think just for general posts that you're not promoting, a good KPI would be how many likes you get. And figuring out whether it was the time of day that influenced that or whether it was the image. And since Instagram isn't chronological anymore, it's not based on time and people see things later or before other people, time of day doesn't seem to matter as much anymore for when to post. But because social media doesn't have a very tangible return, like with money, you can't really track it with dollars unless you spend the money to do it. The best KPI is going to be how many likes you get, how many comments you get, and how the longevity of that post.

53:34Because sometimes you might see a post that likes three days later, and you just want to see why and see what worked for that post. So I hope that answers your question. Yes. All right. Let's turn to this. If you're going to post something, a topic that might be controversial to some, how do you prepare and what should you expect? I'll go first. I definitely talk to my management team before I post stuff like that, because that will actually evoke conversation within our customers, which is really interesting. Lately, it's been voting. We really support our LGBTQ plus community.

54:38That definitely stirs both ends a little bit. But again, if you really believe in that, and that is something that is true to what you preach and you teach your staff, then they are just empowered by it. I know we had a couple of women in Franklin boycott our store because we choose to hang an inclusive flag in all of our stores. So they have asked us to take it down multiple times, and we won't. And now our staff is really empowered by that flag. It's really become a symbol of what and a sign, like a we welcome sign, which a lot of people have in their window. It's not our specific sign, but we've been asked to take that down multiple times. So people will review us, and they won't even have eaten in the restaurant, but they'll see just our little decorations.

55:44They don't like them, and so they will give us reviews on that. But I don't feel like that's a bad review. If I read that, I'd be like, this person is just giving their two cents on what they believe, and that's clearly what the restaurant stands for, so good for them. You have to really be ready when you decide to put stuff like that in your restaurant and post stuff like that on your Instagram, that you are ready to take the good with the bad. And we often support organizations that are used. That's kind of like where we will invest our money in the youth. And so whether that's LGBTQ, whether that's a Black Lives Matter kind of forum, we definitely feel like it's the youth, and we support the youth. And we've been told by a lot of under-18 kind of teenagers and stuff how much it means to them when they come in and see that, and that alone makes me not care about the bad comments.

56:52Those people just make the most noise. So I feel that the community supports, and we all believe in this. I think we all kind of feel that inclusiveness, and a lot of our staff feel supported. And so that's the kind of environment we choose to have. So you have to be ready to stand up for what you believe in, and sometimes that's losing customers and losing followers, but who cares? Agree, 100%. What about filtering, deleting, turning off comments? What is your stance on that? I generally don't like to delete comments. Where I draw the line, though, is if people are saying something hurtful or that doesn't support, that's against supporting our staff or just human rights or something like that. One of the things that we do is that if we've discovered that certain key words end up being the things that are in controversial posts, there's a comment filter that you can add key words to, and it'll automatically filter out the comments that have those words in them.

58:10So if whatever it is, say rainbow grilled cheese was the thing that was controversial, you put that in there, and then people just aren't able to use that word in their comment. And obviously we don't publish what the words are, so there haven't really been workarounds, but that's been really helpful because I think the most recent post we did, we were part of the mayor's vaccination campaign where you got a free beer or a free cup of coffee, and so we posted about that. And of course, like Crystal said, the people who are against things, they just want to be loud and make trouble a lot, and you just have to recognize that as well. Like people do have enough time in their day somehow to get on social media and just stir the pot, but we saw a common thread of some key words being used, and we just popped that into the filter, and then all of a sudden the comments looked great. So we're not necessarily deleting, but we definitely have identified some topics that were like, no, this is the line, we're not doing this, and that's how we approach it.

59:35Great. We are almost out of time, but don't go away because we've got some prizes that are going to be up for grabs. I'll tell you how you can win those in a minute, but just quickly in the final minute, if all the panelists who we are so appreciative of, if you could just give one piece of advice to someone who's cultivating their community on social media, what is the most important thing that you want them to remember? Crystal, let's start with you. Okay. Really know who you are, know what you stand for, and if you can't take good photos, definitely find someone who can, even if it's on your phone, or if it's your kid, or if it's your kid's friend, definitely invest in having some kind of bank of good photos for when those media outlets need a good, awesome photo. Always have one at the ready for them. Perfect. Tabatha, how about you? Don't be afraid to ask for help. There's already a really big community around you, and if you're ready to get on social media, people on social media are always very willing to help too, so ask. There are no stupid questions. Jen, wrap us up.

01:00:56I would say be authentic and be consistent, and maybe hire Tabatha. Good advice, and speaking of that, you may be able to get her advice. So you're going to get two things from us. You're going to get a toolkit with some tips and resources at your fingertips. That'll come after this, and you're also going to get a survey, and I know everyone hates a survey, but this one's really short, and it'll really help us. We're trying to get more funding to do more free educational events like this, and you can win a prize. Everyone who signs up for the survey is going to be eligible for a random drawing. We have a $50 gift card from Grilled Cheesery, $50 gift card from Frothy Monkey, and Tabatha is donating a half hour of social media consultation, which is worth $75, to anyone who wins. So please fill out the survey because those three prizes are up for grabs.

01:02:00Thank you so much to Tabatha, Crystal, and Jen for your time today, and thank you to the board of LaDom for helping make this happen. And join us for the fifth webinar in this series. It's going to be on farming. It's coming up in October, so you'll want to tune in for that one too. But for now, that's it. On behalf of LaDom, thank you all. Bye. Bye. All right, there you have it, our Table Talk series on social media marketing. Thank you so much, LaDom Descoffier, for allowing us to put your episode out there, and we look forward to the fifth episode about farming. So we hope that you are out there being safe. Please go get vaccinated if you haven't already. Please wear a mask. Let's get back to normal. Love you guys. Bye.