Rebekah: Well sure, I am a social media strategist, a consultant/trainer, and a digital marketing specialist. Basically what that means is I come in and I take a look at the overall online strategy of businesses and look at the health and the growth, to figure out where we can really optimize and rework their strategy, their current overall plan and then really put a plan in place to accelerate their efforts.

Ashley: Okay, so that’s actually – interesting you should summarize yourself like that because that’s exactly what I wanted to talk to you about today and you do talk about a lot of different things online and on a lot of hang outs and podcasts that I’ve listened to, but I thought one area which you really excel in and actually summarize really well in a lot of your posts and chats is how to do a basic strategy. I think it’s something that people don’t necessarily do or pay enough attention to and it’s something that if people haven’t done already, or they’re just starting out they could benefit from, and yeah, so let’s start into that. How would you begin? What would be the first things you would do in getting a strategy prepared for people with a business?

Rebekah: Well, and I think you said it; it is unfortunately one of those areas that’s often overlooked. You know, a big part of what I do is coming in and taking a look at traditional marketing. So, what have they been doing? What have they already established offline? And then how can we take that and translate that to the online world? And I think with that where a lot of businesses struggle is really understanding how to take all of that content that they’ve got and plug it into an online strategy and one that is fully integrated so one that really leverages everything, every tool that’s online out there. So whether it’s Google+, whether it’s Facebook, maybe it’s Instagram, really understanding your audience would be the #1 for me where to start because there are so many different places you can be, so many different places you can start, so my first suggestion always is, understand. Get inside the head of your potential clients, understand why they’re using social media, what are they doing online? Who are they looking to connect with? My guess is: it’s probably both on a personal as well as a professional level. And so from a business standpoint, really know what their goals are, what they’re looking to achieve, and why they would ever connect with your business. Because if you could be just truly laser beam focused, if you could really understand what motivates them, then it becomes much easier to create that targeted content, that content that they’re out there looking and craving every single day and that eliminates yet another hurdle which is that content creation. So, you know, #1 like I said is really understand your audience.

Ashley: So how would you go about – just some quick tips on that, obviously, it’s probably weeks of your time to fully understand such a topic, but how would you go about honing your channels, for example, like you said, you could choose any number of the big, what is it, five or six channels, and I’m just thinking of Africa here, and the big five; the lion, the elephant, but we have Facebook, Instagram, yeah, LinkedIn… and I know from my experience, of course, you’ve got B-to-B is great on LinkedIn and then personal consumer products is great on Facebook, and visual content is great on Instagram, and there’s a lot of different choices out there. But if you’re a business, what’s a couple of things you could ask yourself that would help you make a decision on a couple of channels to choose, and a couple of content varieties to use to approach this first step of creating a strategy?

Rebekah: Well, again, it’s like you said, understanding your company, so are you B to B, are you B to C? And then really starting to take a look at where are your potential consumers spending their time. Obviously, Facebook is still the biggest boy on the block as far as social networks are concerned, and the majority of consumers are definitely spending their time there. So it’s going to be a lot of trial and error, I think, is really starting to post some content, start that conversation, see what kind of interaction you’re getting, and then starting to do your reconnaissance work, getting out there, and looking at your competitors. Taking a look at what conversations are they having? What kind of content is really driving interaction, driving engagement, on, say, their Facebook page, or maybe it’s over on Twitter? I always recommend start in one place, so start where you’re comfortable. Where are you spending your time right now, and where do you really feel like you’re finding people to interact and engage with? Start there; work that strategy like I said as far as posting content, trying out different types of content. Obviously we’re all different. We receive our information differently, some people choose to read, some people really appreciate video, some people love podcasts. So repurposing your content and just sharing that in unique ways is also going to be important as you start to define where those people are spending their time, and then playing around with how you share that content to really get a feel for not only what kind of content do they want, but how do they want to receive that content? That’s – it’s always a challenge not only to understand where to spend your time but also what kind of content should you be spending your time on? Because you may find that, and maybe in your case, Ashley, this is definitely has become the case since you’ve got this pod