Unlocking Business Growth: Organic Social, Content & Paid Strategies

Hello and welcome to the show. It's a wonderful Sunday evening here in Abuja. And let's get straight down to business. The question that we're going to look at today, OK, well, it's not really a question because I didn't get this from a podcast listener or a client and it didn't come from one of my speaking engagements. But I figured I would say something about this whole thing of content is King, the expression, because it's something that people talk about nowadays, especially since a whole bunch of us are trying to use content marketing strategies and trying to use videos,

photos, blogs, tweets, whatever, you know, trying to use it to promote our businesses. So I just wanted to do a little riff on this whole idea of content is king. Now, depending on who you ask, content is king. What does that mean? It means different things, but in my own opinion, I think that when people say content is king, what they mean is that organic social content is the best business driver. Let me repeat, when people say content is king, what they actually mean is organic content, organic social content.

Organic social media content is the best business driver. Now, what do we mean by organic social? Because there's a whole bunch of you who use social media and you don't know what some of these terms mean. Organic social, paid social, what else? There's another kind of social I can't remember anyway because, you know, social media is not really my thing. So sales, business development, that is my thing, especially personal sales.

How do you move the business relationship forward? How do you move the relate, the agenda forward? One conversation at a time, one meeting at a time. That's the sort of stuff that I do. So when I talk about socials, social media, you know, stuff like that, you're better off. Well, you're OK listening to me, but then just take that as a hint of other things that you need to explore. So if you're interested in these sorts of things, after you're done listening to this podcast episode, you can do a search in your podcast catcher and look for other people who podcast about business concerns and who talk about social media and those sorts of things.

So back to content is king and had introduced the the element of organic social. Now, organic social just means that things content that you see on social media, you know, videos, podcasts, blog posts, tweets, articles, whatever kind of content is that people produce. But the organic there, all that means is people just produce it easily. They just produce it naturally. And basically organic social is just some Internet content that people engage with, they engage with freely.

So what we mean there is like, let me see, OK, Stuff that you know your mom would put on social media, that's organic social because she's just putting up because she likes it. And so she's sharing it so that other people will like it. The same thing if your father is active on social media is the same thing. If you are active on social media and you see a bunch of stuff and you share it, you know that's organic social.

Organic social also includes stuff that I'm doing right now, like the podcast, because I'm talking about business content. Yes, I admit I have an agenda behind it, but I'm just producing it easily, putting it out there. It's all part of organic social, so if people engage with it, if they relate with it and if they share it, if they like it, if they whatever, all that is organic social. Now that is different from paid social.

Paid social is basically when you put something out there and you put some money behind it because you want the thing to move forward, you want it to reach a wider audience. So I'm currently engaging with a client right now, providing consulting services for them, and their whole strategy of growing their business is actually around paid social. So they create content, they put it out on social media, and then they pay so that that content can come in front of the eyeballs of people like you and me who might be their potential customers.

So that's the difference between organic social and paid social. So people produce content all the time. If you pay for it to boost it, then that is paid social. If you don't pay for it and you just leave it out there and your mom sees it and likes it, your friends like it, your colleagues work like it, your coworkers like it, everybody likes it, they share it. All that is organic social. So it's just Internet content that people are, excuse me, that people are engaging with freely.

Now, why is this idea of organic social really, really important? This is something that you guys ought to know, especially those of you who have money and who start off your businesses by advertising. Because the average Nigerian is going to be much more, well, let's say hesitant or circumspect or whatever. They're going to start off their business and they're not going to want to throw money behind Instagram advertising, Facebook advertising, Google advertising.

Well, there's Twitter advertising, although I don't know any, anyone, any business owner in Niger who, who advertises on Twitter or excess. It's, it's now called. But I wouldn't be surprised if there are people who have tried out Twitter advertising, but Instagram advertising, especially since I started off my business journey as a wedding photographer. Yeah, I know lots of people who are doing Instagram advertising, Facebook advertising.

I've seen a bunch of business owners advertising on Facebook. So why is this important, especially if you're going to advertise later on? The reason why organic social is important is this. When you put up stuff freely and Mumsy likes it, Popsy likes it, Cooney likes it, your wife likes it, your friends like it, you're saving like it, they share it. It gives you a signal that this is the kind of thing that people are really into.

So organic social gives you ideas about the kind of things that you can make to promote your business, which is the reason why when dancing videos start trending on Tiktok or whatever, you know, people start doing dancing videos to promote their business. Oh, sorry about that. I'm making the recording at home, just chilling and the call to prayer is out in the background just in case you hear the noise spilling over into the into the microphone.

Yeah, I live in that part of Abuja where, I mean, I pull legislative quarters actually. But for some reason call to prayer and stuff like that, it's. Well, anyway, let me not get into that, into that topic. So yeah, the sound that you're hearing at the background, that's just call to prayer. So yeah, I was saying organic social is important because it shows you what is popping off, what people are really into, and then it gives you ideas about what you can do to promote your business.

So we should be paying attention to organic social, organic social, what is trending, what's flowing out there with people. And then also on your own timeline, you know, what is it that is really popping off? So for instance, me putting out these podcast episodes and trying to put things on LinkedIn, looking at what is popping off on LinkedIn, what people are really engaging with on LinkedIn, things that I produce can give me ideas about future things to produce to promote my business.

So that's why organic social is really, really important. Now when we lock down that stage, phase one, figuring out what people like or of the things that you produce, what people like, it now shows you where you should throw your money when you decide to start advertising, when you start trying to do paid social. So that is what I recommend to people. But like I said, online advertising, social media, blah, blah, blah.

This is not my thing. So take my advice the grain of salt. I'm much more concerned about sales, especially personal selling. And the reason why I take this stance is because if you find something that is popping off or content of yours that people are already relating to anyway and you're trying to use that to get conversations to grow your business. I really think if organic social, some particular things have caught a vibe with your audience, then if you pay money and promote that, then the kind of people that will now start send you DM to say how far are you available on so, so so and so date, how much does it cost them, blah, blah, blah.

My assumption is that we are going to be able to get profitable business out of that. So this is me just looking at things from my own tiny perspective when it comes to personal selling. So use organic social to show what it is that people like, especially the kind of content that you produce. See what people are into and then when you have figured that out, then you now start throwing money behind it and advertising.

And then the quality of people that are going to come in through that advertising campaign is going to be high. And then the quality of conversations. So forgive me, so thought it still there. So then the quality of business conversations that you're going to be able to have is also going to be high. So how do you produce, how do you execute all this? Rather, what you do is just produce the content that is comes natural to you or comes easy to you and then see what people engage with.

That is my own, my own recommendation because I think this whole thing of chasing trends or excuse me, this whole thing of chasing trends, I understand that people want to be viral and you know, blah, blah, blah. But The thing is sometimes these trends I stretch and have very little to do with your business. For instance, this time when there was this dancing trend, I think was called the pancake pancake, morning pancake,

something, something. And lots of Nigerian celebrities were doing it. And so this guy, this guy who's a, a host on, I think it's Nigerian Top Idol. Is it IKEA or IKEA or ID or, or something? This guy graduated from UNILAG. So, you know, he did his own version. And yeah, you know, for me, I thought it was cringe because you're ATV host and producer and blah, blah blah. So this the morning pancake dance, you know, doing all these dancing trends, like really, you think that's what is going to promote your business?

And not surprisingly, when this girl that did Halita, I can't remember her name, this EBO actress. And so Halita did hers and she called millions and millions and millions and millions of views and who else, I think talking Mark and what did and also got millions. Who else, You know, as all these babes are doing this and just blowing up all over the place. And then he did his own and then crickets. And I'm thinking, what do you expect?

You know, fine girls are doing it and whole thing is blowing up and you think you should go and do your own as well. But anyway, we can't fault the guy for trying because this is how we figure out what works in business and what doesn't. You just try stuff. Well, basically what I'm just trying to say is this hopping on trends thing. It's not always, it's not always ideal for your context depending on what it is that you do.

So that's why I tell people that just produce what comes naturally to you, what comes easy to you. So and that is how folks like me ended up on this path in the 1st place. Actually, I consider myself to be a better writer. The problem is, trying to put out good quality writing takes time. If I want to put out a nice solid blog post to probably expand on, all these ideas that I talk about will probably take me two to three hours every day producing content.

And I don't have that kind of time because I'm trying to have a business here. I'm also looking for clients every day, and I'm trying to service the clients that I already have. So I can't realistically say that I'm going to sit down from 9:00 to 12:00 only for producing content. It's a stretch. So it's easier for me to just pick up the phone and then just speak into the phone, record this podcast real quick and then it's done.

So that way I can talk for 30 minutes and I'm done. I don't do any editing because sometimes Nigerian Internet can be crap. Uploading 30 minutes of audio might take me another 7 minutes or another 10 minutes. But you, you see what I mean? I can create long form content in 40 minutes tops every day instead of spending three hours, two to three hours every day. It's huge time savings. So that's the reason why I'm on this podcasting journey right now.

And the results, you know, be a testimony over 880 episodes so far because I'm producing stuff that is natural and is easy. And so, you know, I can do it. And of course people are engaging with it. So yeah, if it if it's, if it's working, then it's working. But yes, I know that if I had been blogging, the growth or the engagement would have been a whole lot more. So back when I still had a blog, it's still up and I haven't put it down, but back when I still had, I still maintained the blog.

Yes, I must admit that I was getting more and more engagement for that, but it was taking up a lot of my time. Where was I? OK, so how to execute this organic social? Just produce what comes naturally to you, produce what comes easy to you. If it's natural and it's easy, you can do it every day of the week. Or at the very least you can do it 2-3 times a week like I do over here. Then that is step one. Then #2 we're thinking of social signals.

Pay attention. Start seeing what pops off. You might notice that you record some videos and 0. Nobody's paying attention. And then you record certain kinds of videos and you're getting positive signals, or you write about certain kinds of things and then zero and you write about other things. And then you see that you're getting some attention. Use the social signals to show what it is that you should do more of. And that's how I think you should execute these these sorts of things.

So when I started off on the podcast, I started off saying what I thought people needed to hear. And the first, the very first podcast episode, I think was an introduction to personal selling or something like that. I can't remember, but that's how I started off saying exactly what I thought people needed to hear. And yes, that particular podcast episode has done pretty well. But I've noticed that what really pops off is when I'm answering specific questions.

And that is the reason why I spend a lot of time answering questions because it pops off. It does really well. Apart from that, I have noticed that if I spend all my time answering questions, I can podcast from now until the day the Lord calls me home because people will always have questions and I will never run out of ideas. So I can stop on a day like this and talk about content is king. That's something I want to talk about.

And then tomorrow I go back to answering questions. So yeah. So see, use social signals to see what's working and then do more of that. Now, some words or some opinions rather about what kind of content to produce. It is contextual. I've already hinted on that because I noticed that lots of people want to trend. You want to blow, you want to be popular, you want to whatever. And so because of that, people are paying attention to Internet memes and trying to do things like that.

Like this guy Aiki who was doing dancing and all that. I mean, he's a radio TV show presenter, you know, he's not a comedian and stuff like that. So I really don't think he should be doing things like that. Promote his business and, and I've only seen him do that once. And then let me stop beefing after all, because guy has more money than I do. So I was like, OK, So what kind of contents to produce? Now I think it's contextual.

It depends. Who are you? What are you trying to do? What's the industry? What is the audience that you're looking out for? Those are the main things that should determine. So for Mr. Macaron or Macaroni or whatever his name is, you know the one who you know, What did he call it? Is it big? No, not biggie. Biggie. I'm busy. Cutie. Cutie or sexy? Sexy. I can't remember the one that makes videos about Instagram buddies and things like that.

So Mr. Macaron can make those kind of that kind of content with sexual innuendo and stuff like that because he's a comedian and he's an actor. If I were to do stuff like that as a business consultant, yeah, I might get lots of views and shares and things like that, but it is not going to help me primarily build my business consulting business. Hope you guys are getting the the difference. The thing that I'm trying to,

I'm trying to stress here. So for Mr. Macaroni or Mr. Macron, he can do what he does and it's good. If I do that, it's bad. It'll thank me. Let me give you an example. I'm very, very good at that. Jokes. I just knock off that jokes as in effortlessly. My wife says I'm dry all the time. She says I'm dry and I have some pretty interesting comebacks for every time she says I'm dry. But The thing is, I don't have to think.

I just produced that jokes. And yeah, sometimes I share those dad jokes on WhatsApp. And I've noticed that when I shared that jokes, I get a lot of engagement. People writing people like, oh, you're so funny. You're this is this, this one was dry, that one was dry. Then they send me stuff and then people share and all that. It gets a lot of engagement. But The thing is, I'm not a comedian. I'm not trying to build a career as a comedian 'cause I had to give myself brain that, yeah,

this is that jokes. People are feeling it, but it's not giving me the kind of attention that I'm looking for. I'm looking for people who have business problems, who want to solve those business problems, and who think that personal selling or business development skills can help them solve those problems. So me putting out that jokes is not helping me. But then I can't resist. Once in a while I still throw up that jokes because right now I

have a collection of about 100. Yeah, about 100 and something that jokes that I haven't put up on WhatsApp. Maybe I might share, maybe I might not. But you get what it is that I'm trying to say. If you're Mr. Macaron, you're entertainer, you're a comedian, you're an actor. Certain kind of things work. The same thing with Bro Shaggy, brother Shaggy. So Bro Shaggy put all those kids that he does, you know, have all those, you know, fake Yoruba girls in them.

Plenty of sexually innuendo, plenty of adventure. Slap the violence. Stuff like that works for them for they're trying to do. If I do that, it's not going to work for me. If you're an engineer and you're doing stuff like that, I don't see how it's going to work for you. If you're a lawyer and you're doing stuff like that, I don't see how it's going to work for you. If you're waiting. Photographer, I don't know, maybe there's a way that you can make it work for you.

I have no idea, but we have to keep it contextual. Who are you? What business are you in? What's the industry? Who are your customers? What's your personality? What things are you comfortable doing? Because I'm not comfortable trying to make a fool of myself on camera. No, Mr. Macaron does that effortlessly. And because of that, you know, we're seeing the results. He's on Instagram movies, he's being invited on podcasts,

comedy tours, his wedding MC, all kinds of things. So that's working out. So it's contextual, but the buckets that I tell people to look at when it comes to producing content, when you're trying to produce organic content, organic social content to promote your business is to think in these terms. Think #1 education #2 entertainment #3 category is the harder one. There's something I heard when I was a boy, infotainment, and I

still hear some people talking about it. So infotainment, you know, 2 words, information and entertainment, You're trying to do both together. That third category is very hard, so let's skip infotainment for now and focus on either education and information or entertainment. So think about those things in two clear buckets. You're either going to come up with entertaining content to promote your business if you can make that work, or you're going to put up educational content to promote your business if you can make that work.

So let me use a case study. Was it actually a conversation that I had? While I was talking to a panel of another panel and association of business women in Abuja at the beginning of the year. So there's a bunch of them there who are make up artists and who are talking about these sorts of things. Should I be dancing on? Should I be dancing on Tiktok and dancing on Instagram and stuff like that? And I told them the way that I'll talk to my sisters, like look, all of you are fine babes.

So the truth is, if you go and twerk on Instagram, yes, you'll get attention. But is that kind? Is that the kind of attention that you need to help you promote your business? Because you are a makeup artist. So, you know, makeup artist, you are a skin care professional and your primary target audience is women between the ages of so, so and so who have children because you also sells makeup. So you know, makeup skin care for kids.

Now, when you show up on Instagram, Instagram Reels or Tiktok and you're twerking, is it the woman that has kids that will see that video and like it and share it? Was it boys like me who have nothing else to do that morning and we're just, you know, looking at bum bum on the Internet and you think about it, you're trying to attract moms who have kids. I don't think twerking on Instagram or twerking on Tiktok is going to give you the kind of attention you're looking for.

So your video will trend because boys like me will see and will swipe and I will send to my friends, you know, well, I definitely won't share with my wife because then she will think I'm anyway, let me just leave it like that. So it's not going to give you the kind of attention that you need. So I had that conversation with them and I told them that, look, I really think educational content for people like you is what you'll be paying attention to.

And so we freestyled and we came up with a couple of things, a couple of questions. Remember, you can't go wrong with questions that people will have about the kind of videos that I can put up. So you're pregnant. What kind of makeup should you be using? What should your skin care be? What are the different kinds of of skin? I think there's dry skin, there's oily skin, there's something skin and I can't remember. How do you know what kind of skin you have?

How is pregnancy going to affected? How does delivery affect this sort of thing when baby is born? What kind of skin care routine should you be using? What kind of Shea butter is good for children? What kind of Shea butter is bad for children? Should you be using local oils on children or what kind of vaccine should be using in all those sorts of things? Educational, educational, educational information, information, information.

Now, you put up that kind of video as someone who is a skin care specialist for women between the ages of X&Y who have children, boys like me will not look at that kind of video. We'll see that video and we will skip. You will not get plenty of engagement. But The thing is, the little engagement that you do get would be the relevant kind because it will be women who are currently pregnant and who think, Kai, see, my nose is big and oily.

How can I get my nose to become small and how can I remove the oil or do you think? Hi I've become pregnant before I was yellow. Pregnancy has made me black. How can I regain my yellowness or the other way around? I used to be black Pregnancy has made me yellow. I don't want people to think I'm bleaching. How can I regain my blackness or Oh my brand new baby is here but for some reason babies getting rashes all over the place.

What can I do to help my baby boy? What can I do to help my baby girl? Or before pregnancy, I was oily skin, now after pregnancy I am now dry skin and I'm itching and chafing everywhere. What kind of skin care routine should I be doing? I think that is the kind of content that people in that context should be producing. So because fine babes dancing and grinding on Instagram and Tiktok is what is raining at the time, that was always raining.

I don't know what's raining anymore anyway, so don't listen to me. So because that was always raining, that was what was trending. Doesn't mean that is what you should do. So thinking those two clear buckets, education, entertainment, look at who you are, who your audience is, what you're trying to achieve and then do it accordingly. So when you produce all those videos based on what seems to pop off, you know, if the people seem to engage more with the the baby ones, you know, skin care for babies dealing with nappy rash, babies with oily skin,

babies with dry skin, you know that do more of that. But anyway, I'm sure you guys get the point close to 30 minutes. So let me not be labeled the point. So that's it. When we say content is king, content just means audio, video, written word. Content just means whatever you put out on the Internet. When we say content is king, it just means that you can use organic social to figure out what people like about your business or to figure out what is raining, what is trending.

When you figure out either one, what people like about your business or like about you or you, or when you figure out what is trending, you can now throw money behind paid social to now, push to now promote to now what's it called, Boost whatever it is so that people can start reaching out to you and you start having conversations and then you get business about it. What kind of content should you be producing? Think in terms of education,

think in terms of entertainment. There are some people who do both. That's infotainment. I know nothing about infotainment. Infotainment I'm, I'm not a performer, so you'd have to talk to someone else. But between education and entertainment, in my own humble opinion, though, those of us who are business owners, I really think we're better off with education. So ignore what the trends are. It's not going to help you. There was a time when, I can't remember how long ago went,

planking was always raining on the Internet. You know, planking is when you lie down straight on, on the sign. And then little Wayne did planking. Who else? This guy that sang Is it too late Now to say sorry? Was that guy's name? I can't remember anyway, but you guys name White Boy who did some modelling for Calvin Klein and people are laughing at him because, you know. Anyway, for those of you that know the gist, you know the gist.

So anyway, they were just planking up and down. Chris Brown was planking. Everybody was planking. And then Nigerian celebrities too are now planking and business owners are planking. If you're a business consultant, why are you planking? How would I help you do your business? If you're a Carpenter, oh OK. If you're a Carpenter, OK, there's a joke there. If you're a Carpenter, you're planking. OK, maybe you can be trying to do some humour.

But if you're a house cleaner, what are you planking for? Like I really don't get it. Anyway, let me stop betraying my bias on the matter. And I'm sure you guys have gotten the gist, but bottom line is, content is king. So throw your hat into the ring, start producing some content, especially if you're not ready to spend money advertising Now, this is one of the easy ways to get into the game. Still keep talking to people,

but as you're talking to people in real life, meeting people in the office, meeting people in church, attending trade fairs, doing all kinds of things, also be putting our content on the Internet so that people can find you like you, share you, and engage with you. So connect with me on WhatsApp. The phone number is 08064662140. The country code is +234 and connect with me on LinkedIn. My name is Tavi Shima Ayede. I'm the host of the show and they can confirm the spelling of my name.

My e-mail address is there from whatever link that you're listening to this episode right now. So if you're listening using the Spotify link, then just hit the if you hit the the main tab or you hit the details, you you see it all there. So yeah, that's it. Thanks for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys at the next episode and as we head into Monday morning tomorrow, I hope that you guys are going to have a blessed week at the office, at the business or whatever it is that you guys are up to.

So thank you very much for your time and attention. I'll catch you guys soon.