How to Stand Out on Social Media in the Digital Business Age

How to Stand Out on Social
Media in the Digital Business
Age
Mark Fidelman Interview

Mark Fidelman
As brands and companies turn to social media to engage prospects
while differentiating themselves, many marketers pick up Socialized!
Some call Mark Fidelman’s guide the “playbook” for social business.
As an executive and consultant with experience from startups to Fortune
500s, he’s now a Forbes columnist and managing partner at Evolve!. This
interview is covering how to refine your social media approach to build
a larger and more active audience.

“
No matter what you’re doing...you
can measure almost anything with
either a hashtag, unique code,
coupon or URL.
-Mark Fidelman

Challenge Larger Brands for
Online Space
1

Check out Keyhole; social media analytics tool for hashtag, keyword and account tracking
Keyhole: In the first chapter of your book, Socialized!, you say that large
corporations may not have competitive advantages in the highly-social
and -digitized business age we’re in. In fact, you say large businesses may
be at a disadvantage. Can you explain why?
Mark Fidelman: There are so many reasons, but the primary one is that
these social networks don’t necessarily allow you to have more reach and
access due to your organization’s size.
And it’s not limited to social networks today, as I wrote the book three
years ago.
Now, you can include e-commerce platforms like Amazon … Corporations,
even today, are limited in what they can do because of all the bureaucracy
they go through to get anything approved, including social media posts.

Keyhole: How does your team approach social campaigns, keeping in
mind that almost anyone can outperform anyone on social media?
Mark Fidelman: It comes down to creative, differentiated content that
resonates with your target audience.
The step after that is making sure it’s distributed smartly. You want to
have paid advertisement and promotion on all the channels where your
target audience exists.
Let’s say you create a 10-minute video on YouTube.
You should be breaking that down into minute-long segments and putting
them on Instagram. Or, if you can do six seconds, put it on Vine. Or, if you
can break down key points with images, put it on Twitter. On Facebook
you should be uploading the same video you uploaded onto YouTube and
then promoting it.
Then, there’s measuring it and making sure the content is resonating. If it
is, double-down on it. Start throwing some more paid advertising or
retargeting behind it.

Guide Your Tactics with Data
Analysis and Reporting
2

Keyhole: As you just touched on, how does your team use analytics and
analytics tools to plan content creation and distribution strategies?
Mark Fidelman: We don’t do anything unless we can measure it. No matter
what you’re doing … you can measure almost anything with either a
hashtag, unique code, coupon or URL.
And then we have Google Analytics on both the landing page and the
thank-you page if we’re trying to sell something, because we can track
activity between those pages to see how many sales we’ve made without
even logging onto our accounting system.

Keyhole: For SEO and social media optimization, which tools do you use
and recommend?
Mark Fidelman: For SEO, pretty much anything that Moz does. The tools
are great and we stick with them.
For social media management, we like Hootsuite. We use an Instagram-
specific tool for that platform. For YouTube, we use TubeBuddy. For
Amazon, we use Jungle Scout.
Keyhole: Before so many tools became widely available, how did you track
the success of a campaign?
Mark Fidelman: We kind of just pieced it together by looking at social
shares, if they had them on articles. Or hashtags, in that we’d say “This
campaign was better than our last because it got more hashtag mentions.”

Communicate Analytics Trends,
Both Good and Bad
3

Keyhole: Tracking success is one thing. Explaining the results is another.
For those consulting, freelancing and in agencies, what advice do you have
when it comes to sharing and explaining results to clients?
Mark Fidelman: Here’s how I set this up to people who don’t understand
the importance of reporting and analytics: “If there was a way to track
how many calories the body brought in and burned off, I think most of us
would be thin.”
Because we could see, every day, what we ate. Calories in, calories out. I
don’t see a system like that happening for years …
If you’re a freelancer, you need to provide (social and content) metrics
because they’re available to let you say: “What you’re doing here is
working but what you’re doing here is not working.”
If you’re showing a client that what you’re doing isn’t working, but say
“Here’s what we’re doing to resolve it,” that’s a positive thing.
That’s going to keep you on that account for a long time.

Mark Fidelman: If you’re not providing those metrics, then you’re relying
on the client’s whimsical or capricious nature to decide whether they keep
you or not. There’s really no data to back up whether you’re succeeding or
not.
You’re rolling the dice every month as to whether that company’s going to
keep you or not.
On the flip side, if you’re the brand and not measuring what’s happening —
especially in the marketing and sales space — I don’t know how long
you’re going to be around. You can’t keep throwing money at things that
aren’t working. And if you don’t know they’re not working, that’s even
worse.
You have to do some kind of weekly or monthly measuring of all the
activities you’re doing, or you’re putting yourself in jeopardy

Repurpose and Create Interactive
Content
4

Keyhole: As you can appreciate as a columnist and a content marketer,
many writers face the challenge of creating posts, videos and graphics at
a high rate. How do you recommend continuously crafting engaging
content?
Mark Fidelman: That’s the million-dollar question.
I don’t think there’s a single right answer for this, but I’ll tell you what we
do. When we produce a blog post, we then produce a video and short
versions of that content. We then link it all back to the mothership content.
That’s how we keep it fresh in terms of different ways of looking at the
same content.
When coming up with new ideas, we just borrow inspiration from other
companies outside of our industry and tweak it to make it our own. So if
Taco Bell does something, I might take what Taco Bell did, tweak it and
apply it to another industry.
There’s an old adage: Good marketers borrow and great marketers steal.
That’s something we’re always thinking about.

Keyhole: Where do you see the future of content and content marketing in
five years’ time?
Mark Fidelman: Honestly, I think we’re going to have to become
moviemakers if we want to stay in the game.
It’s all about content that’s interconnected, interactive and has great
storytelling. I just think we’ll have to get very creative because we’ve got
new AI and VR coming out, along with all these other new ways of
consuming content.
And if they’re affecting your target markets, you’ll have to learn how to
storytell within those environments.

Keyhole: Going back to social media, you’ve built an impressive social
presence and established yourself as a thought-leader online. What advice
would you give to someone looking to become an influencer in their given
field?
Mark Fidelman: First of all, you’ve got to be passionate about it because
there are going to be times when you feel down and want to quit.
But if you’re passionate about it, you’re going to push past those times.
Second, be consistent.
I’ve been putting out videos on YouTube for the last six months, at least
once a week. Now we’re at three times a week.
It started off slowly, with a few hundred views. We were thinking “Is this
even worth it?” Half a year later, we’re averaging 5,000 views a video.
Push through and recognize that once you’ve built momentum, it’ll start
snowballing on its own.

Mark Fidelman: Third, aim for quality.
It’s got to be information, content, visuals and audio that target the pain-
points — or some kind of emotional point — of your target audience.
You’ve got to learn what those points are through trial and error, by
surveying them or by asking them.
We’re still trying to figure that out because those points seems to be
changing all the time.
I recently did a Snapchat video where I said “Marketers, this is not the
time to use Snapchat.”
Got a lot of flack for it, but also got a lot of support for it. That kind of
thrust me into this new situation where a lot of people were reaching out
that wouldn’t have reached out before, because they’re like “Yes, we have
these same experiences with Snapchat — you’re right. What do you
recommend we do?”
And that started discussion for additional business for us.

Keyhole: Any opinions or bits of advice you’d like to leave readers with?
Mark Fidelman: Whether you’re just starting out on social media or been
involved for years and struggling, my advice is master one thing you’re
passionate about.
Just one thing — even if it’s posting your favourite flowers on Instagram.
There’s always going to be a big following there. Use that following to
move into adjacent areas or other social networks, but be known for one
thing initially.
Branch out from there.

Thanks!
ANY QUESTIONS?
You can contact
keyhole.co/blog
@keyhole
keyhole.co

CREDITS
Special thanks to Mark Fidelman for the
interview!
@markfidelman

Marcus Guido
Content Marketing Specialist
Marcus creates Keyhole’s
content and oversees media
relations, successfully pitching
social media data to
authoritative publications.
Husnia Adel
Marketing Co-ordinator
Husnia helps create
Keyhole’s marketing
strategies to secure traffic
and boost online authority.
Jesse Quist
Head of Marketing
Jesse manages the
marketing team and draws
up strategies to increase
reach and exposure.
@JustAGuido @KingQuist
Marcus Guido LinkedIn Husnia Adel LinkedIn Jesse Quist LinkedIn

How to Stand Out on Social Media in the Digital Business Age

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