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Firing The Man
THANK YOU TO OUR 25,000+ LISTENERS! We are so thankful to be one of the TOP E-Commerce Podcasts delivering high-quality authentic content to you! Serial Entrepreneur’s David Schomer and Ken Wilson share tips, advice, and insider knowledge about all things Amazon FBA, Walmart WFS, and E-Commerce. Discover how you can create multiple income streams by selling physical products online so that you can have the time and freedom to do what you love - whether that is spending more time with family or traveling the world. Ken and David have successfully created several six and seven figure online business ventures. During the journey, they have had major wins, losses, and lessons learned. This podcast will teach you about selling physical products online through platforms such as Fulfillment by Amazon, building a team, outsourcing, listing optimization, pay per click (PPC) advertising, driving traffic to your listings, and productivity tips / life hacks that will provide a path to be successful in building your online business. It’s a mix of interviews, special co-hosts and solo shows from Ken and David you’re not going to want to miss. Hit subscribe, and get ready to change your life.
Firing The Man
Unlocking Social Media Success: Kathleen Celmins on Building Authority and the Journey to Glow Social
Kathleen Celmins, the dynamic force behind Glow Social, joins us again to share her insights gained from bridging the gap between high-ticket coaching and app development. Discover how her journey led to the creation of Glow Social, a tool designed to support solopreneurs and small businesses in maintaining a consistent social media presence. Learn why Kathleen believes that building authority through shared industry trends and personal insights is more impactful than mere company updates, and how Glow Social empowers businesses to stay engaging even on challenging days.
Uncover strategies for maximizing social media engagement, especially for niche markets like pet-related businesses. Kathleen offers practical advice on diversifying content topics and maintaining a regular posting schedule to enhance brand loyalty. Listen as we explore the pitfalls of sporadic posting and how energy management plays a crucial role in choosing the right platforms. Discover the hidden potential of Google My Business for boosting local visibility and how aligning social media efforts with personal strengths can make a significant difference.
As Kathleen takes us through the development of Glow Social, she shares the hurdles and triumphs of transitioning from digital marketing to app creation. Get a look at the app's innovative features, designed to alleviate the daily stress of content management by offering automated posting and daily content ideas. We discuss the potential impact Glow Social could have on social media managers, allowing them to serve more clients effectively. Plus, glean insights into the entrepreneurial spirit that drives e-commerce success and the disciplined actions that separate thriving businesses from those that remain stagnant.
How to connect with Kathleen?
Website: https://glowsocial.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathleencelmins/
Welcome everyone to the Firing the man podcast, a show for anyone who wants to be their own boss. If you sit in a cubicle every day and know you are capable of more, then join us. This show will help you build a business and grow your passive income streams in just a few short hours per day. And now your hosts serial entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson. Entrepreneurs David Shomer and Ken Wilson.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the Firing the man podcast. Today, we have a fantastic guest, kathleen Selmans, a powerhouse in the digital marketing and online entrepreneurship space. If you didn't catch it, kathleen was on episode 165 of the Firing the man podcast, where she dropped some knowledge bombs on how everyone has $100,000 sitting in their Google Drive waiting to be monetized. This was one of our most popular episodes, and so when Kathleen mentioned her new venture, it only seemed right to invite her back to the show. Kathleen is known for her expertise in helping businesses grow through innovative strategies, and she's here to talk today about her exciting new venture, glow Social. Glow Social is transforming the way businesses approach social media, making it simpler, smarter and more effective for companies of all sizes. We'll dive into Kathleen's inspiration behind this venture, her journey into the digital space and what makes Glow Social a must-watch for entrepreneurs looking to elevate their social media game. Get ready for an insightful conversation on building community authenticity and engagement in today's digital landscape. Welcome to the show, kathleen.
Speaker 3:Thanks so much for having me landscape.
Speaker 2:Welcome to the show, Kathleen. Thanks so much for having me. Absolutely so. For our listeners that did not catch episode 165, can you fill us in on your background?
Speaker 3:and your path in the entrepreneurial world. Sure, yeah, I've been doing digital marketing, content marketing and the like since kind of it came around. I was part of a HubSpot partnership one of their early partners before they went public so back in the day, content marketing was just like whoever could post the most gets top spot in Google. We've come a long way since then and content is completely different, google is completely different, and so there's a lot of different things that we can do in digital marketing. So what I've done is a ton of different things, and I went from, most recently, doing high ticket coaching and consulting to building an app because I want to help this segment of the population that I just would never get to help when I'm working with people one-on-one or in small groups.
Speaker 2:Very nice, very nice. Now you had mentioned the gap in social media, so let's talk about that a little bit. What inspired you to create Glow Social and what are you aiming to fill in this venture?
Speaker 3:Well.
Speaker 3:So if you think about who works the hardest online, you don't have to go too far to think about the social media marketers or the virtual assistants or anybody helping with social media.
Speaker 3:It's for solopreneurs and for smaller businesses, it's the absolute first thing people outsource when they have enough cash to do so. We hate it. We know it's a necessary evil. We know that building topical authority is going to be good for us, but it doesn't happen right away and, as someone who's running something small, it goes on your list right, but it goes down to the bottom of your list and this is intended to fill that gap. So it's not going to be. It uses AI, but it's not going to completely replace the organic social where you just feel like saying something, you stand up on your soapbox. Those are always going to do the best, but it'll help you stay consistent and build authority for the days where you're not feeling your best, when you're just in sweatpants on the couch doing your best or you're mailing out your Black Friday special and you can't even get in front of the computer, let alone think about content.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I was smiling when you were talking about it falling to the bottom of the list. I've started a number of brands and in the first 30 days I'm all fired up. I have my new Instagram and Facebook accounts and I'm posting daily, and then, after that 30 days, maybe it cuts back to a couple times a week and it eventually does fall off, and so that's something that I've definitely experienced myself. And so, as we're talking about social media and content, how do businesses stand out and connect more meetingfully with their audience?
Speaker 3:You know it's best to think about social media I mean, unless you're a big brand but it's best to think about it in terms of you're a person who's online service or something like. It's better to say like here are some things that I want to talk about online, here's some things where I want to build my authority, because if you don't do that, then you end up saying here's some company updates, here's some more company updates and here's my offer. And you only do that and you just sound a little bit like a broken record, like you're not a human. You're, you're just selling or talking about your new hire in accounting and nobody cares about any of that stuff. And in order to connect with your audience, you need to be the go-to person on a certain platform talking about trends in your industry.
Speaker 2:Okay. Okay, that's something that I know. I've run into a roadblock where I know, and especially where you have a social media in place but you're still in charge of the content, where I know content's important, it's kind of the ammunition that I would give to a social media manager to do something with. But I kind of hit a block where I don't know what to record, I don't know what to take a picture of. And so any suggestions to the entrepreneurs who get stuck on what type of content to create.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So this is what I feel like this really helps with. So what Glow Social does is it takes a writing sample and then asks you to say in your words what you want to build your authority, in what industries, what specific areas, what do you want to report on? And then it'll build you a custom news feed. So for you it would be let's talk about the trends in e-commerce. Let's talk about what's working.
Speaker 3:Let's talk about platforms. Let's talk let's every time one of the platforms that you recommend like pull some news down or publishes something you want to report on that, so that in your network's mind you're not just a guy who has a podcast, You're the go-to guy for e-commerce tips and news and updates and feedback on that. I think that when you get to like a LinkedIn window or an Instagram page where you've hit the plus and you're like, oh, now what that's? When you can just sink hours into something that won't make a huge difference. So, thinking about like where you want, like, if you think about some of the like thought leaders in, like just anybody who gets a lot of traction on LinkedIn, they're talking about some specific industry or some specific part of some specific industry and the people that are following them are only in that industry, and so that also helps the right kind of people find you when they're ready for the content. That's about your offers or about your company in particular.
Speaker 2:Very nice. I really like that answer. One thing that you've mentioned a couple times is to establish yourself as an authority, and I'd like to dive into that a little bit more. So say, we have a listener that's selling dog bowls and you know there's only so much content that you can produce about dog bowls, and so for a product like that, what would you want to establish your authority in?
Speaker 3:No, the pet industry. So if your stuff is really niche, you dial it back a couple of clicks, zoom out. You know, like, with the camera, zoom out a tiny bit, because the people that are buying dog bowls are dog lovers, or at least dog owners are dog lovers, or at least dog owners. So the like, if you follow some of the like bigger dog accounts, see what they're doing, do something similar. It's not off, it's not super common. It can be really hard when you're super close to it, but it's not, it doesn't take too much to think about. Ok, well, what are the adjacencies? Maybe I'll talk about dog training, maybe I'll talk about the like, the dog food industry, because that that goes in. But you know, like you're thinking about what else a pet owner might care about, and then you do.
Speaker 3:You can do like silly stuff. You know, if you're not, if you, if you want to talk about like why dogs are better than cats, or you know, whatever you're, you're gonna find the right people who, I think, when you think about social media content, you want to think about like who's going to respond, who's going to like your meme? You know what kind of memes can you create and then like backfill your content with stuff like that. Don't take it too seriously. You're right, nobody needs to be up to speed on bowls, necessarily, but they are. They are going to want to like if you're doing something funny, they'll follow you and then when they need a bowl, they'll buy from you, not Amazon, for example.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I really like that, and I think that's a trap that a lot of people fall into is there's maybe only three topics to discuss about dog bulls. I'm going to do those three and then I'm exhausted, and the message that you said was take a step back, and when you do that, that opens it up to literally thousands of possibilities and may help the entrepreneur get unstuck. And so next question what are some common mistakes that businesses make with their social media and how can they avoid these pitfalls?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I think that a mistake is. The thing that we all get to is where we either spend too much time on one post that doesn't do what we think it ought to, or we abandon it altogether and we're like all right, well, I haven't posted in three weeks, so I guess I won't post anymore. You know, social media has half-life, social posts have half-lives. The biggest thing that I see people struggling with is consistency and figuring out what to say. So one of the best ways to get on board with that is to come up with a schedule so that, even when you're not thinking about it, you know Monday, wednesday, friday, something's going out and it might not be the absolute best piece of content. That took you six hours plus video editing and B roll and whatever, but you're, but at least you're being consistent.
Speaker 2:Okay, that's one thing that I I know I struggle with, and and a lot of entrepreneurs that I've talked to struggle with, is the frequency, and so have you. What is the sweet spot Is more better. What would you say for you know, an up and coming brand? How often should they be posting on social media?
Speaker 3:As much as they can without burning out. So what I see more often is what you discussed earlier, which is when you get very excited and you're going to post three times a day, you know nine, 12 and three, and that lasts about five days. Before you know your website breaks. You have to spend an entire day thinking about it. You're like, well, I can't market something that's broken right now breaks, and you have to spend an entire day thinking about it and you're like one, I can't market something that's broken right now. So I can't, you know. And then you like I feel like it needs to be at least once a day if you can. But if you can't get to once a day, then do at least three times a week and then just let your future self. You know, this quarter I'm going to post Monday, wednesday, friday or Tuesday, thursday, saturday or whatever, and then next quarter we'll see about adding another day.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, I like that, I like that. Another question is where to post, and I had a discussion with my social media manager earlier this week. Do we post on Instagram, facebook, youtube, shorts, tiktok? He brought up a new one that I'd never even heard about but I'm sure you know could be something in the future. So where, in terms of like return on time invested, are there any platforms that stand out from others?
Speaker 3:It depends on your audience. It really really does. You can't go wrong with the big four, which is LinkedIn, twitter, facebook and Instagram. If you're only going to do four, do those. If you're going to add a fifth, make it Google my Business, because the more you post on that, the more you'll go up in local search results. So, and I feel like digital marketers and e-commerce owners and online shop people ignore Google Local, but they shouldn't, because it's Google and it's a free way to get on the first page of Google. So adding enough, like updating that more often, does well for you in terms of visibility in Google searches.
Speaker 3:So the other, the other thing to think about is and I'm I'm such a big proponent of, like energy management, again, unless you've got the budget to have a dedicated person for this, you really need to ask yourself which one do you hate the least. I have given people advice in the past before like you just got to post on LinkedIn and they're like I hate LinkedIn. I haven't updated my LinkedIn profile in six years since I worked for a corporate thing. I'd have to totally revamp it. I'm not doing it. Well then, don't you know? Like just because there's a lot of good buyers on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3:So if you don't hate LinkedIn, I would look at it. But if you do, you have to think about where you want to be the most consistent, where you can put your time and energy into. For me, I can't care about Instagram. I know that some of my people are absolutely on Instagram, but I can't do more than the bare minimum over there for me. So it does feel a little silly to say, oh, think about how it makes you feel, because like what are we? It's not too touchy feely here. This is business, right, but if you hate it, you won't do it, and the reason we all have our own businesses is to stay away from doing things that we hate, or at least try to mitigate that as much as possible.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. I like that energy management and that's something like burnout is huge, and so I think thinking about energy management is huge. I really like that energy management and that's something like burnout is huge, and so I think thinking about energy management is huge. I really like that. Let's talk about the actual launching of Glow Social. So what were? What was this process like? Building your own app.
Speaker 3:Oh my gosh, I backed into it. And if I had any idea how much work it was going to be, oh my gosh, I backed into it. And if I had any idea how much work it was going to be, I might not have done it. But I built a content machine that like, like I said, it takes, like it takes a writing sample so it knows how to write like you. And then it takes like, okay, you want to? You want to talk about Phoenix restaurants and healthy eating? Great, those are going to be really fun news topics. We'll write those and then we'll we'll post those in on your social media.
Speaker 3:And when I showed it to the first person, they loved it and it was all in Airtable. And I learned that you can't just give somebody access to Airtable without paying for their license. And so I did quick math after I um, very nicely and very quickly asked Airtable for a refund that if I were going to do something that was forward facing, like individual client facing, I go broke before I make a single dollar. What Airtable was charging me was more than I wanted to charge my users. So it didn't make mathematical sense. And then I found this no code builder that claim, it's called softer and it claims to be the front end, that air table lacks. And so I was like, well, okay, then let's, let's go. And um, I'm a marketer, I have a lot of marketing experience, I'm not an app developer, so this was the hardest thing, the hardest I worked in probably 10 years.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, but now that you're on the other side of development, are you glad that you did it?
Speaker 3:I am. I mean, you'll probably recognize the bootstrapped person wouldn't throw money at something anyway. Right, like if I broke it down hourly, because I did end up hiring somebody to do a piece of it toward the end. But if I broke it down hourly, if I were to pay that person to build from the beginning, it would have cost me like $30,000 to $50,000. And I don't, I didn't. I mean I bought a premium domain. I didn't have an extra amount to throw into development and so getting it to a point where I could understand everything and then hiring help when I got really stuck. I do think that that's, I mean, for better or worse, that's how I do it again.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, absolutely. Do it again, absolutely, absolutely. So to our listeners that are would be considering using Glow Social, what, what could they expect? What can you kind of give a? If Glow Social is the house, can you give a tour of the house?
Speaker 3:Yes, so every day, every morning, you get four ideas for content. You can run them. You can decide to run with them or not, and then the ones that you run with you. So you can you can do up to four. If they're all good, run them all, don't think about your schedule. But then, once you hit the run button, then the AI gets to work and takes the article and writes about the topic of the article. You can link to the article as well, and then once you look at that, once you approve it, then you can link to social media. That was the piece that I heard out. I couldn't figure out that piece, but once you've approved it, then you can schedule it. So then you can schedule it and then see it on the calendar and then once you connect to your social media profiles once then you set your schedule and then you can look at it and rearrange things and basically have the topical authority building content piece on autopilot.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, very nice. And so it's going to generate the word copy. What about photos, videos? Is that something that will Glow Social help with that, or is that the responsibility of the entrepreneur?
Speaker 3:We've got images now. We don't have video yet, but we do have a place where we give you a script if you wanted to turn any of the, any of your ideas into a short video, um, or one that you put your video avatar into and you can create. That way it's in. Those are like down the line production things for for um video content, but right now it is you get one image.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, Now tell me this, as I hear you saying this, and I'm on social media every day, I'm posting every day. It's an everyday task and it's something that kind of weighs me down as I have other things going on. Is this something that somebody could, you know, spend a couple hours at the beginning of the month and then schedule out that month?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, that's huge. That's huge because it you know, my experience has been, you spend five or 10 minutes coming up with a post and you post it, but you know it takes some time to kind of get into the frame of mind for social media and I think doing that in batches would be really, really helpful and it's also the scheduling, uh, a component of it. So, uh, no, that's that's awesome. Uh, as you look ahead, what are your big picture goals for glow social?
Speaker 3:I want to get this into as many hands of people as possible, the people that really what I. I built it for the social media manager and I've got a couple of clients that are social media managers and it's it's. They're so funny, it's such an American perspective, because they're not like oh, this is great. What I want, what I'm going to do now, is like, with the time that I saved, I'm going to go take a nap. They're like I could take on twice as many clients without having to add more staff. Um, which I find um, understandable and um, but it does it really. It saves a ton of time for social media managers.
Speaker 3:But what I, what I keep finding is that it's entrepreneurs that end up signing up because they're the ones who do not, not, um, they don't outsource their social media. They don't want to, they don't think it, they don't think outsourcing is sounds like them and they don't. And, frankly, like, hiring someone to do it is outside of their budget. So they're they. I'm surprised because I built it for the person who has a bunch to manage so they don't ever have to deal with ugly content calendars ever again. What I'm finding is that the vast majority of people who are buying it are the ones who are in charge of their own social media.
Speaker 2:That's really interesting. That's really interesting and it sounds like it really cuts both ways. If you're the entrepreneur struggling to get your posts out there and be on a regular schedule, it's going to help that, and if you do have an outsourced social media manager, it kind of puts a multiplier in front of what they're able to accomplish, and so very, very nice. So let's talk about. The inner accountant in me has to ask this. Let's talk about the economics of this. What is it as subscription? What does that look like? And prior to recording the episode, you mentioned a special offer. So let's get into all that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so it's $99 a month for individual brands. You can save, I think, 20% by paying for a year in advance. We also have a discount for listeners of this podcast, which is another 20%, so you could stack those, but then it scales accordingly. So it's not $99 per brand, it's for if you are a social media manager and you have up to five brands. It's $179 a month with discounts for annual payment, and then for up to three brands or, excuse me, up to 10 brands, it's $306 a month, and then, beyond that, talk to me a month, and then, beyond that, talk to me, we'll figure it out. But it should be. What I want is it to be a tool in people's arsenal. It won't replace everything. It will really supplement what people are doing, though.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, and as I think about that from an entrepreneur's perspective, if you're able to put a multiplier in front of the content that you're producing, there's a positive ROI there. If you're a social media manager, you have the option of taking more naps or taking on more clients, and both of them seem to be positive ROI. So that's really interesting In promo code FTM. We'll post that in the show notes. So anything else on Glow Social that you want to talk about before we get into the fire round.
Speaker 3:No, no, I think we've covered it.
Speaker 2:All right, sounds good, fire rounds. Four questions that we ask every guest.
Speaker 3:So let's get into it. What is your favorite book? Oh my gosh, you know I even got advanced advanced notice of this. Um, you know, I want to say 4 000 weeks. It's by oliver berkman, it's about time. It's called. The subtitle is time management for mortals and the whole premise is we have about 4 000 weeks give or take. The average lifespan is 4 000 weeks. Um, it's a neat way to think about how to make the most of the finite time that we all have okay, very nice.
Speaker 2:I'm going to add that to my reading list. What are your hobbies?
Speaker 3:I, I am really. I live in the Phoenix metro area, so now that it's winter, I very much like hiking. I like getting outside as much as humanly possible, because there's a long stretch of time where I really can't, and so I really I love hiking, I love spending time with my kids, I love hanging out with my husband. I am formerly a very active yogi but have switched into weightlifting because I wasn't getting any stronger. So, yeah, I like being around the people that make me happy.
Speaker 2:Very nice, very nice. What is one thing that you do not miss about working for the man?
Speaker 3:Commuting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I second that. I second that Absolutely. And last question what do you think sets apart successful e-commerce entrepreneurs from those that give up, fail or never get started?
Speaker 3:We were talking about this actually at the gym this morning. The differences between success and failure is the difference between motivation and discipline. If you can get your butt in your chair when you don't feel like it, you are going to succeed. If you need a boss, like I do, use your calendar. Make your calendar your boss. Make your three-item to-do list your boss. Get things done, and then every little thing you do that builds your business now will pay off probably not instantly, but down the line.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Well, very nice. Well, Kathleen, I want to thank you for being a guest on the Firing Demand Podcast. If people are interested in signing up for Glow Social, how can they do that?
Speaker 3:in signing up for Glow Social. How can they do that? Head over to GlowSocialcom. And then, yeah, make sure you use the coupon code FTM to save an additional 20% on any package.
Speaker 2:All right, sounds great. Thank you so much.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
