#40 Operationalizing With Sprout Social

Operationalizing Your Social Media

Mariah is one of our biggest data nerds here at Chatterkick and in this episode, she interviews Willie Mullen from Sprout about how important it is to have a robust yet nimble platform for managing social media campaigns. She’ll ask some tough questions and share her thoughts on how Sprout enables her to create high impact\social strategies for her clients. They'll discuss the top 3 metrics every marketer needs to stay focused on for success and how LinkedIn's online presence is very effective at driving offline engagement.

Biggest Takeaways From This Episode

Here are our biggest takeaways from this episode:

Social Media gives brands access to the world’s largest focus group with so.much.potential for customer feedback. If your social media agency isn’t also listening, then you’re missing out on getting the full story from your customers – and you might also be missing out on campaign ideas!

Sprout provides recommendations and standard metrics for measuring the impact of campaigns – but the strategist drives the output based on customer needs. Pro Tip: - make sure you're looking at the "why data" alongside the "what data."
Social media keeps your brand top of mind with your customers - so consistency and authenticity are essential for driving engagement.

Want your question to be answered on the generation social media podcast? Tell us what it is here!

Transcript

This text below is a straight up audio transcript of the episode. In our humble opinion, we think the audio podcast sounds much better in its original form. We have not edited the transcription below so there are indeed some grammar errors (some quite funny, in-fact).

Intro (00:02):

You don't have to be a millennial to be socially savvy. We believe anyone can join generation social media and your journey starts. Now, this is the Generation Social Media podcast by Chatterkick.

Mariah Black-Overholt (00:18):

Hey, there, welcome back to another episode of Generation Social Media. I'm Mariah. I'm gonna be your host for the day. And today we're actually chatting with Willie Mullen. Who's the agency team lead at sprout. So sprout social, and we're gonna be talking about all things analytics. Uh, Willie has been with sprout for almost five years now and is responsible for all the new business and existing customer expansion in north America across the agency's segment. Um, and that covers about 4,000 agency partners. He also plays a big role in Sprout's broader agency strategy, uh, around the globe. So he works with custom, the customer success, product marketing and agency partner, program teams, uh, to really drive that value and positive outcomes for his customers. Um, Willie, we're so excited to have you so welcome to generation social media and chatter kick.

Willie Mullen (01:06):

Yeah. Thank you so much, Mariah. It's great to be here. Um, and I was listening to an episode from a couple weeks ago, and I know that you all are celebrating your 10th anniversary this year. So congratulations on that. Thank you. And, uh, also I was looking up some fun notes that this is actually will be, uh, the 10th year of chatter kick and sprout partnering coming up very soon as well. So we've been with chatter kick, uh, since your inception pretty close to ours as well.

Mariah Black-Overholt (01:31):

That's kind of what I was gonna say as well. It sounds like, uh, we kind of grew up together. Uh, so 10 years is a, is a long time, especially in the social world. So I think that's an amazing milestone and obviously we're happy to have you guys and, um, really excited to continue going forward. And really today wanted to talk about really the analytics and diving deep into, um, really what helps us plan implement and report on all that social data. So, uh, wanna get started.

Willie Mullen (01:56):

Yeah, I'm excited. Let's do it

Mariah Black-Overholt (01:58):

Sounds great. So we really have some, some awesome questions we wanna ask you today. So what available social data do you feel is really underutilized?

Willie Mullen (02:08):

Uh, that's a great starting question. So for the audience that might not know sprout social is a social media management and intelligence tool to manage conversations and surface actionable insights that can make really big impact on your business. So talk about social data, uh, is something that myself, my team and most of the people who work with me do every single day when we, um, think about what data is underutilized. I think the best answer that I could give you here is that many brands are focused on their own performance. And so the most underutilized data for my view is the data that isn't directly tied to your own efforts, right? The data that's happening outside of your brand, so that you might be thinking about industry trends or competitive, uh, insights, sentiment, market research, even product strategy, really you name it. And I think that that's where social listening plays a big part and comes in.

Willie Mullen (03:05):

Uh, we always like to say internally that social is the world's largest unbiased focus group and leveraging social listening is essentially the best way to tap into that type of conversation. It gives marketers really unbiased view of what's happening and it's incredibly fast. So it allows you to, uh, you know, turn insights into action, uh, in, in very quick amount of time. Um, so I would say that probably social listening data would be the top, but I'll give you one other for, for a bonus. Um, which is, I think there's just a really big and interesting shift that's happening and tying social data back to other engagements that you might be having with your customers like their purchase history or their online review history, or, um, maybe like their customer care interactions with your team. And this is proving to be really challenging because as you know, like social media doesn't have any sort of, uh, consistent identifier, you know, you have one handle on one account and one login on a different, so it's really difficult for brands to tie people together across platforms. And this is something we're spending a lot of time solving and, and introducing some really interesting innovation to help our customers to get that full customer story, uh, alongside their social story.

Mariah Black-Overholt (04:21):

And I think that's so important, especially we, we, you know, we have a lot of B2B clients that we work with at chatter kick and it is a lot, it's a lot harder to measure, you know, um, B2B success as opposed to just a purchase. And so I think that's a, that's a great point that having that entire ecosystem really helps us see a good overview of what our clients are looking for.

Willie Mullen (04:42):

Yeah.

Mariah Black-Overholt (04:43):

All right. Can you share with us an aha moment that you've experienced or saw some partners experience when you were talking about social data?

Willie Mullen (04:51):

Well, you mentioned that it's about for five years, so I've had a lot of personal aha moments of social data. Um, but this is a fun thing for us to talk about internally. We have really no shortage of them and like helping our customers discover something they didn't know about their brand is something that we take a lot of pride in and we get a lot of excitement around. So it's kind of hard to pick, but there's, uh, I'll give you maybe two examples if I can. So the first one that, uh, is a story we've told a lot is we worked with a, uh, global agency who had a client who was in the, um, entertainment content space. So they're doing podcasts, audio books, music. You might be listening to this podcast on their app right now, for example. And, um, they wanted to develop a content strategy for leg day at the gym, right?

Willie Mullen (05:36):

The day where people go and you work out their lower half, as much as possible, the day we all dread at the gym, let's be honest. And they didn't know what it was. So they tapped their agency who worked with us and they used our social listening tool to uncover that Wednesday was kind of the day where most people were talking about Laden. So if you're going to the gym or you're listening to this at the gym and it's Wednesday, and you're doing leg day, you are in that demographic right now. But the added fund of this was they discovered that on the call with their agency and with our team, we were kind of working through the data together and we found this out. Um, and another one that, that I recently heard of from one of my colleagues that I loved was a brand who specializes in dry shampoo and they couldn't figure out why their sentiment online was negative. But what they found out was that it was actually negative because people were associating their product with like really tough mornings. Like they missed their alarm, or maybe they, you know, their kids woke them up. And they were actually saying like, dry shampoo saved me today. And so they were able to sort of tap into this, create some new content strategy, maybe even unlock a use case that they hadn't necessarily thought of before, uh, specifically through social data and kind of going back to the previous question, underutilized social data.

Mariah Black-Overholt (06:49):

That is fascinating. It sounds like we really all just need to be getting out on the social listening, um, for all of our clients.

Willie Mullen (06:56):

Yeah, definitely. <laugh> yes. We would agree with

Mariah Black-Overholt (06:58):

You. Yeah, no, it's, it's wild, you know, you can take something that sounds negative, but actually is a positive, um, as long as, you know, dig into the data and, and are able to look at the context around it, how about some tools, uh, we're talking about tools that are available to us, they change rapidly. Uh, how do you recommend that marketers navigate those changes? Uh, and how can sprout really kind of help support those changes?

Willie Mullen (07:22):

This is a, this is a tough question, right? Um, because like, I think it starts with acceptance. If you're, if we're being honest, you have to come to terms with the fact that the platforms that you're working with every day, the strategies that work on those platforms are gonna change a lot. And the first thing that comes to mind when, when people ask us this question or ask me this question is I always wanna think about how have you sort of operationalized social media within your business? Are you able to be nimble or adjust on the fly? Do you have the right process or protocols in place for if a crisis were emerges, uh, or to emerge that you could handle it really quickly? Um, and so you need to make sure that you've built a internal system that allows you to be flexible and be okay with being flexible.

Willie Mullen (08:09):

Once you've done that once you've accepted, uh, that, you know, what you woke up, maybe this morning, hope thinking you were gonna do changed because something happened at the Oscars last night or whatever, and you've gotta, you know, readjust. Um, you have to make sure that you're following the right thought leaders. You gotta make sure that you're reading the right content and that you're working with the right technology. I mean, software like sprout exists, not only to keep up with innovation, but to drive innovation for our partners. And a key factor in our success is really understanding what our customers need and focusing on how do we make you more effective? So some of the specific ways I think that we are uniquely positioned to help, uh, shameless plug our insights blog is some of the best, if not the best content, uh, out there for practitioner level and executives level to understand social media.

Willie Mullen (09:03):

We, um, we also invest very heavily in our customer success and support teams, whether it's like self-guided, uh, or one to one or 24, 5 support. So as things are changing, we, we view ourselves an extension of, of your team. Uh, and then this year I'm excited to share that we're, you know, making some new ways of connection for our customers to network with their peers, explore learnings that they have across social and across using platforms like sprouts to make sure you get the most, and that you have the most, you know, up to speed or up to date strategies.

Mariah Black-Overholt (09:34):

That sounds, uh, I'm I'm now I'm really curious about what that's gonna mean. I don't wanna, you know, give anything away, but does that sound like maybe some groups or some like a chat option?

Willie Mullen (09:43):

Yeah. Yeah. Well, uh, yeah, it's gonna be a way for our community to connect, uh, and it should be live very, very soon. If not already, by the time this recording goes up.

Mariah Black-Overholt (09:51):

That's excellent. I cannot wait. Um, how about, let's talk about Sprout's methodology, uh, in creating really a reliable user friendly centralized reporting dashboard. That's what I, I use it every single day and it's incredibly, uh, helpful for me to have something that's I know is never gonna change. Um, and I know I'm gonna be able to get the data that I need. Um, how do we, you know, when we are looking at that, how can we really make sure that all of our metrics and, uh, attribution all kind of line up, or what are we looking at?

Willie Mullen (10:25):

Well, I mean, you hit the nail on the head, Mariah. We, one of our standards in our company is, uh, we start with the customer. So hearing you say that first means a lot, and we're glad to know that we're making your life a little bit easier on this front. No, it's easier. Um, but, but we really consider it our role to, you know, like defend or protect our customers, maybe shield them is the right word, uh, against the constant chaos that's out there. Uh, especially when it comes to data at metrics. And so we spend a lot of time advocating to the social networks on the behalf of our 31,000 customers. Um, for changes that we know would really improve their experiences and our guiding principles from my perspective are simplicity and reliability. Um, one of the things I think is really interesting. I, I actually pose this question in one of our, uh, leaders in our product org.

Willie Mullen (11:19):

And they said to me that, you know, we're willing to have a point of view in our software about what is generally a best practice for reporting across the different networks, such as like standardizing definitions. And it's because we wanna keep our customer experience simple and sensible for the majority of people who are honestly coming to us for clarity and simplicity. Um, but we don't force that point of view on our customers. We give customers the tools that they need to adjust to their own methodologies and personalize it, but, but really what it comes down to is, is that standard of your experience with our platform is the starting point, uh, of everything for us.

Mariah Black-Overholt (12:00):

You, you touched on about having those defined metrics and really having a great glossary. And that's another thing that we really, really love about sprout is that, you know, you can hover over the metric and you're always gonna know exactly where that data came from and kind of how it's defined. Um, can you kind of share how those top level metrics are, are defined? So, you know, you're talking about impressions, you're talking about reach engagement. Those are probably the big three. Um, how do you guys, how do you guys measure those?

Willie Mullen (12:27):

Well, you hit a great point, which a, around the in-app call outs for every metric. Um, so I would always tell our customers, that's the first place to start, but, you know, every network has some nuance and differences in how they aggregate into each metric. And our goal with our reporting is to provide, uh, clarity, provide transparency, and again, simplicity, uh, to reduce the lift on our customers so that you can spend more time figuring out what you need to do instead of trying to interpret what happened. And like, I'll give you an example would be engagement. You mentioned it, right? So engagement is like the net. What, the number of times that a users engage with your post during the reporting window that you're looking at and each net network, uh, includes different types of engagements. Mm-hmm <affirmative> so Twitter it's like likes retweets replies, post clicks.

Willie Mullen (13:18):

Facebook is reactions, comments shares, post clicks. And so we normalize these metrics across channels, and we provide the documentation back to our customers, uh, on what the network includes and what they don't, which really helps with your cross channel efforts. And that that's our priority in from this sense. And then, um, you know, as I mentioned before, we've more recently developed products that allow our customers to apply their own definitions to those metrics, to match their own methodology. So it's a, it's a balancing act of, you know, what can we do for the many and how do we define those metrics and give you the information, understand how we're interpreting them, uh, but then giving customers with potentially more sophisticated needs or more advanced needs, the ability to, to make their own modifications.

Mariah Black-Overholt (14:06):

How about any plans to develop a real time dashboard? Or do we still have to have that day or two kind of delay based on API?

Willie Mullen (14:15):

Yeah. Well, in sprout, it's safe to assume that each of our reports update at least once a day. Okay. Which is really tricky because the networks, as you know, have their own cadence of API refreshes. So, um, this is again, one of those places where we push to ensure consistency and we want to eliminate any confusion about how frequently our reports will update. So we're very upfront with our customers about what those cycles look like. Um, and it's just, I, I think the other thing when I read this question and I talked to a few people internally was, it's so important for agencies and for brands to ask themselves, which KPIs warrant, real time reactions in real time monitoring and which ones don't, because going back to that, like operationalizing social media, if your team knows, okay, if this metric goes this direction, that's when we have to stop and pivot, you're gonna have a more effective strategy and you might be less prone to overreact to some sort of, you know, micro level fluctuation. That might just be a moment in time. Mm-hmm <affirmative>. Um, so I think to kind of sum it up, like we do the best that we can with the information that we have and the data that we have, and that we're, we're very good at it. Um, but, but I think it's also partially on you to go, okay, what do we wanna make sure we're checking multiple times a day versus, you know, once a week or once a day or once a month, maybe

Mariah Black-Overholt (15:43):

I think that speaks to an even bigger, an even bigger point is just a, does it really matter to have those tiny little micro pieces of data where it may be an outlier or maybe an anomaly, um, as opposed to, you know, really educating your clients and making sure that they understand that it's really kind of a time over time, um, analysis. And, uh, so that, that's a great, that's awesome. Um,

Willie Mullen (16:06):

Yeah, one thing you said there, Maria, sorry to interrupt, but around no,

Mariah Black-Overholt (16:09):

Go for it,

Willie Mullen (16:09):

Setting that expectation and that, uh, boundary is maybe the right word with your clients too, as an agency, right. Because you have to explain to them, especially when you're onboarding them, Hey, this is how we're gonna approach the data that we have. This is when we're gonna take a look at these things. So we don't need you necessarily coming to us and staying, you know, probably in softer terms than this, but like, we don't need to come to us and saying, Hey, why is this over here? Like, we're looking at this KPI across the next quarter, not the next few hours.

Mariah Black-Overholt (16:40):

Exactly. Um, and you're right. Just setting those boundaries is so important because one, it sets that expectation and it, you know, you know, sets you up for success from the client communication point of view. But also from your point of view, you're not constantly having to, you know, keep ahead, keep looking at these metrics hourly and, and, you know, worrying that, you know, one tiny piece of data might, might be enough for the client to come back and say, there's something off, but that's huge.

Willie Mullen (17:06):

Right. And you have enough fire drills as it is in your

Mariah Black-Overholt (17:10):

World.

Willie Mullen (17:10):

You need, it's more, right.

Mariah Black-Overholt (17:12):

So I know, I mean, just get into ads manager and, you know, you're always worrying about what's got rejected today or what audience change has been made. And it's nice to have the know that there's one thing that isn't gonna change and that's the, the reporting and in sprout. So we appreciate that. Yeah. Uh, how do you communicate value when the com this is kind of goes back to B2B businesses, but when that conversion point is offline, how are you, how should we be communicating that value?

Willie Mullen (17:41):

I'll tell you what, out of all, the questions that, uh, we talked through, this was the one I was hoping to put back on you the most, because this is such a tricky question, question to navigate. Uh, it's hard when we get asked this question, um, all the time and it, it, it's a, it's a difficult part, but it's not impossible. There's certainly ways that you can accomplish this. I think if you're in a B2B environment, I mean, first things first, you gotta again, define what are the goals of social? Is it, is it brand awareness or are we, are we actively gonna leverage social, the drive conversion, if it's, uh, brand awareness? I think, you know, you, you have to expect heavy, offline conversions. You have to prioritize just the overall, you know, share a voice for your brand. For example, as a KPI, relative to maybe your two or three biggest competitors, that's another plug for social list listening.

Willie Mullen (18:30):

Uh, that's the type of insights you can gain there. Um, but if you're looking for some more tactical things, I think we've seen groups that have really leaned heavily into UTM mm-hmm <affirmative>, uh, I think that it's it's, well, it's not perfect, but you can, you can track traffic and how it flows back into a web property, like a landing page or some sort of gated content. Um, I think another way you can look at this is the value of having both paid and organic strategy. Like you, you know, that your paid strategy, uh, you should be able to drive more conversions. And, and if that is an offline conversion, and then I think one of the things I would say is, can you map your business performance to data that you might get in terms of post engagement or social listening that tells you, you know, if you're seeing big spikes in your brand being mentioned, is that correlated with social?

Willie Mullen (19:20):

It might not be caused by social, but it could be correlated with references on social. Um, and one other thing that I think is really important for B2B to be B2B, to consider, um, is employee advocacy. Mm. Um, one of the best ways to get in front of B2B prospects is social selling. And so thinking about how are we activating our sales and our customer success, or our customer teams to talk about our brand, uh, and to highlight the things that we're doing with our other customers is another way that you can drive conversions without necessarily having to lean exclusively on, uh, content that's posted from the brand handles themselves. Um, and this is something we do at sprout a lot. And if you follow anybody on sprout on LinkedIn, you'll see, we're always posting company news. Our company makes it really easy for us through our, our advocacy platform, bamboo to, uh, share exciting updates. And, uh, and those are the things that help with, you know, driving conversions. And I think another benefit I've seen as a, as a people manager is it's a really great way to stay on top of recruiting, which I'm sure everybody, especially a lot of agencies are, are talking about right now.

Mariah Black-Overholt (20:32):

Yeah. You, you hit it right on the head there. Uh, it actually pertains to LinkedIn almost specifically a lot of that employee advocacy that we recommend our clients do is, is almost exclusively on LinkedIn, because it is such a people focused platform that it, it feels like a lot of times, even if you have a really strong company page, it doesn't seem to cut through the algorithm. But when you do have your employees really do a nice job of, of sharing that company content and making sure that those updates are shared from personal accounts, or even if it is just sharing the company company posts, it seems to do so much better. So I think that's a, a huge takeaway for people today.

Willie Mullen (21:09):

Yeah. Well, it's, it's critical. And like you go, you know, where your customers in today's world are in their buying journey, by the time they talk to you, right. They're not, they're not at the top of the funnel anymore. And so they're gonna do their homework and they're gonna do their research. And so, you know, something I talk a lot about is like, with my team and my, my leaders, especially it's like, we need to go out and make sure we have a social presence so that when we're talking to people individually, they say, you know, we're, we're, uh, you know, what do they say? Like, you're eating your own food or whatever the saying is, right? Like we're, we we're believers. And we, we are seeing the value of doing this for our organization, uh, and for our, for company. And so we need to make sure that, that we're leading from the front on that one.

Mariah Black-Overholt (21:50):

All right. Talking about leading from the front it's 20, 22, it's actually almost quarter two and 20, 20, 22. So things are changing. Uh, social's obviously changing, like we talked about what are the top three metrics we should all be watching this year and what's coming next.

Willie Mullen (22:05):

This is a tough, another one. These are some tough questions. Uh <laugh> um, I don't know if I have three specifically. Um, but, but what I can tell you is that as the industry continues to move away from the vanity metrics like follower growth or impressions, the brands and the agencies that have a really good handle on their audience, the segments of their audience and the types of content that their audience is most interested in are the brands that are consistently winning. Um, so I think the data that I would prioritize is maybe the why data and not so much the, what data, you know, why did this work, why did that work? Why is this competitor gaining on us versus others? The types of things that force you to ask those questions of yourself is, is super valuable. Um, one of the best pro tips that we have on this front, though in general, is to make sure that whatever you're doing, you have some sort of a system to tag your content, because you can really quickly gain a much clearer picture of what's resonating with your audience or, or what audience your content's resonating with.

Willie Mullen (23:09):

Mm-hmm <affirmative>, um, through really thorough, robust tagging structures. And yeah, I mean, it, as content becomes more sophisticated and frankly, more expensive to create, you have to be really efficient with the types of content that you're creating and sharing

Mariah Black-Overholt (23:24):

That's exactly. I think that's that's right there. All right. Is there anything else you, we wanna, we wanna talk about, I know I have some rapid fire questions for you, but I wanted to make sure you had a chance to share anything else out into the world that, uh, felt might be important here today.

Willie Mullen (23:39):

No, I, I would love to hear your take on the conversion offline at some point, if we can later. Oh,

Mariah Black-Overholt (23:44):

Absolutely. I think we probably have very similar thoughts. Um, kind of talking about specifically LinkedIn that's where we, you know, have kind of started treating it more as a virtual trade show of sorts. Um, it's less about like the, the likes and it's less about the comments, comments, and it's more about the, the shares and the clicks off and the, you know, the awareness that, that we're really seeing success in, um, that we're really able to then drive folks to the website and, you know, create those custom audiences and then drive back to actually create those conversion points. Um, whether it's a lead, whether it's a phone call, whether it's a follow up of some sort, that's really where we're seeing, um, a lot of success.

Willie Mullen (24:25):

That's awesome. I mean, yeah, I've, I've been in sales for, you know, like 15 years at this point and I've realized it's just a culmination of small events. So the more times that you show up in a prospects, LinkedIn feed with a really relevant article or really relevant perspective, mm-hmm, <affirmative> the more likely they are to reply to that next email or when, you know, the, the current tool they have, that's fulfilling what your tool does, lets 'em down that you're the, you know, top of mind. Exactly. And I would say to my team, you know, you, my, our goal is to have every agency in the world think sprout first mm-hmm <affirmative>. That is the, that is what our job is. And if we are there for them, if we provide great experiences and we, uh, share good content and, and prioritize our place in the market, we'll, uh, we'll come out on top more often than not.

Mariah Black-Overholt (25:15):

I agree. And I think the other thing that's so important for brands, especially B2B, where maybe you're not looking for, you know, multiple sales a day or maybe one big sale is really all you need to kind of hit, you know, that target, um, is to also look at your sales length. Like if you have somebody looking at content once a month or maybe even twice a month and they just see your name, like you said, like if your name pops up and they just remember you, they may not be at that point where they're ready to make a conversion or to really, you know, reach out. But as long as that name keeps popping up and it's top of mind for 'em, then eventually you're gonna come back and you're gonna have that customer on the hook.

Willie Mullen (25:50):

Um, I love that. Yeah. I love that. Well, I, I can't tell you how many times I've opened an email or received an email. That's like a reply to something we sent three years ago. Mm-hmm <affirmative> and they're like, Hey, can we talk about this right now? And you're like, well, you know, absolutely for getting back to me <laugh>, you know, but like, yeah, I mean, that's what it is. And, um, buyers are demand based at this point and they, so you have to make sure you're as, uh, as visible as possible for when they need you, they're gonna pick up the phone these days. They're gonna call you. It's a little different than when I started, where I felt like all I was doing was picking up the phone and calling everybody, they're gonna call you. So you gotta make sure you're you're there. And that the interactions they had with you and with your brand leading up to that point are deeply valuable.

Mariah Black-Overholt (26:33):

That is so important. I, you know, if anybody's listening today, like I think that's your, I think that might be your number one takeaway for talking about B2B, so.

Willie Mullen (26:41):

Awesome. Great. Love it. I love that. That, thank

Mariah Black-Overholt (26:43):

You. No problem. All right. I think we have just a few more minutes. So I had just a few questions I wanted to ask and said, these don't have to be very well thought out or anything. I just wanna know your take on 'em. So what was the first social platform that you joined

Willie Mullen (26:56):

The Facebook?

Mariah Black-Overholt (26:57):

Was it Facebook? Um,

Willie Mullen (26:59):

The Facebook. Yeah. Well, so I was, I was prime Facebook demographic. I was in college, right? When Facebook, the Facebook came out, you had to have a.edu to like get accepted. I remember exactly where I was when I first created my account when I logged in for the first time. Um, and, uh, yeah, I mean, imagine now I don't think I would've at that moment ever have predicted that, I guess what was that? Probably 20 years later, uh, I'd be sitting on a podcast talking about social media, but here we are

Mariah Black-Overholt (27:34):

<laugh> I don't know if we could have predicted that Facebook would've been around that long. It felt like back those days, like it was a, you know, social platforms had about a two, three year life cycle and then there was onto something else. But for some reason, Facebook has that staying power.

Willie Mullen (27:48):

That was, that was the, I mean, that was the start of social.

Mariah Black-Overholt (27:50):

How was it <laugh> how about what's your favorite platform?

Willie Mullen (27:56):

Uh, I mean, I, I have two, uh, for, I SP the one I open the most, um, is Twitter. Without question Twitter is my go to for everything news. I mean, I was on it all morning. Uh, we're taping this the day after the Oscars. There was some interesting developments at the Oscars. Um, so, you know, it's like refresh, refresh, get different perspectives. I also, I think it's a great place for content. Uh I'm you know, for things I I'm enjoying my personal life like sports or, or whatnot. Um, but it's also just hilarious. Like, people are so funny on Twitter. They're obviously mean to, at times I try to avoid that part of Twitter, but I just, that's the one I open the most. I spend the most time on TikTok though. Mm. Uh, not afraid to admit that the content there is amazing. Um, and so those are, those are definitely the two that are the most opened on my iPhone. If you wanna know the truth,

Mariah Black-Overholt (28:43):

I think that's probably a lot of people's answers these days too.

Willie Mullen (28:46):

<laugh>

Mariah Black-Overholt (28:48):

We'll have to all admit our TikTok addictions.

Willie Mullen (28:52):

I'm it's great. There's great content. There's there's really, I mean, there's so much fun content. There's really interesting content. So I have I'm off the like shame, shameful part of TikTok, but I'm just like, it's great. I love it. It's you should, everybody should be on it. That's what I think, you know,

Mariah Black-Overholt (29:05):

It's wild, how niche your, your industry or your favorite topic could be and yet, so how much content there is on it specifically, and it's just the wild west kind of algorithm. And I love it.

Willie Mullen (29:17):

Um, totally. And, and like, if you're, and if you're at hobbies, like I cook and I have made all of the viral recipes that have gone on and like, most of'em are pretty amazing and I've shared them with other people. And then when I'm like, just trust me, I got this untick back. <laugh>, they're always like, are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, don't worry. You're gonna love it. So

Mariah Black-Overholt (29:34):

A million people can't be wrong.

Willie Mullen (29:37):

Yeah, exactly. <laugh>

Mariah Black-Overholt (29:39):

What platform do you think is underrated by people these days?

Willie Mullen (29:43):

I, I think it's Twitter. Uh, I think Twitter has a, uh, a reputation for certain components that are very true. And then for other PO components that aren't, I think the part that Twitter, uh, is underrated in my opinion, is there is a lot more business conversation and lead generation opportunities. And I think most people realize, um, if you're savvy with the searches that you look up or that you, you know, you see a thread start and you go into the comments, it's amazing how many opportunities we've even found in our, in my direct business, you know, one of our agency partners post something, Hey, we've been working with sprout, we're happy you go down the list and you'll see people in there. And then you take a screenshot of their, their message, email 'em and go, Hey, I saw this. Would you like to chat? Uh, that has happened multiple times in the last couple years for us. Um, so I think that there's a lot more business opportunity there, uh, than, than most people probably realize.

Mariah Black-Overholt (30:35):

Yeah. Uh, no that we kind of equate Twitter and LinkedIn with a similar audience and, um, it's very good for, for what we're doing. So we use Twitter a lot as well. Um, how about what podcasts are you into at the moment

Willie Mullen (30:51):

Besides yours?

Mariah Black-Overholt (30:52):

Yeah, besides ours <laugh>

Willie Mullen (30:53):

Okay. Uh, definitely catch it up on yours and I've enjoyed it, uh, very much. Um, I, I have podcasts that I listen to. Um, well, first I have two young kids, so when I'm in the car, I'm usually listening to Incanto or sing two right now. So the podcasting is a little tough. Um, I listen to the bill Simmons podcast, uh, on the ringer and I'm on Spotify. And I listen to a lot of the ringers content. I think I I'm, I'm big into sports, pop culture, tech kind of combines all of those. Um, if I'm, you know, in the mood to really kind of get into software and SAS, I'll listen to Saster how I built this or the all in podcast. Uh, and then, and for the agency space, in addition to, to yours, uh, I listen to the build a better agency podcast by drew McClellan quite a bit to stay as close as I can to what folks like you are actually facing every single day.

Mariah Black-Overholt (31:47):

Yeah. That's also, what about you? Oh, so I was actually gonna ask this question. So, uh, I also am a fan of some of the ringer podcasts specifically. It's maybe this is a little little niche, but I used to love binge mode. Um, when you're talking about the pop culture, um, kind of I'm incredibly bummed that it hasn't, you know, had any new episodes in, in a year and probably will never again, but, uh, did you, yeah. Did you listen to binge mode?

Willie Mullen (32:09):

I did. Cuz they did game of Thrones, right?

Mariah Black-Overholt (32:10):

They did,

Willie Mullen (32:11):

I think. Yeah. And so I listened for that cuz like I get so confused at the end of game of Thrones cause I was like trying to watch, but you know, the one I really love on the ringer is it's the rewatch balls where they just, they basically just replay a movie and, but they do all kinds of things like casting, what ifs or like alternate endings that they could have gone with. And there's some really good ones. Like the rock was a really good one and I I've just enjoyed that. That's like mine, if I have, you know, a couple hours in the car alone, I'm gonna go that direction.

Mariah Black-Overholt (32:38):

Probably. I know. I think think, I, I think I binged binge mode actually when like when they would come out, uh, I think I was able to do game of Thrones, like in a full binge cuz I didn't get into it until it was done. Um, but then they did Harry Potter and it was like every single week had a new episode out and it was the first thing I listened to. But

Willie Mullen (32:54):

Um, yeah, that's good. Yeah.

Mariah Black-Overholt (32:56):

Other than that, uh, I think I'm more of a news podcast person. So, uh, anything NPR I've probably got on my list.

Willie Mullen (33:03):

Yeah. That's like the daily I think is the, the really popular one. Right. My wife listens to that and I I'll tell you on the ringer I was on it this morning after I woke up, I saw the alerts about the Oscars and I was like just jumped right into their Oscars. This is a good plug for the ringer I heard of it. You should definitely check it out. They got great contact.

Mariah Black-Overholt (33:19):

So it's a great book. Great, great network. Yeah. Uh, how about let's let's turn away from audio for a minute. What are you streaming?

Willie Mullen (33:27):

Yeah. Speaking of binging, right? Yeah. <laugh> um, I mean my wife and I went through the, the first half of the final season of Ozarks as Ozark as quickly as we could have. Um, we're just getting into, uh, euphoria. Okay. I know a lot of people love that show. So we're just kind of dipping our tone in the water. Personally, if we're not watching something together, if you haven't seen F1 like the drive to whatever it is, like it's like the formula one behind the scenes that show is really addicting and it's really fun to watch. Um, and then there's another show on Netflix. It's called mind hunter Uhhuh <affirmative> and it's about, uh, it's kinda like the story of the FBI group that, um, like was formed to address serial killers and like the concept of uncovering serial killers, but why it's so fun is they actually map the show against real time, like real events that happen. So like the, you know, the serial killers that like haunted the world in the sixties and seventies, you kind of get like how they might have gone about solving this. Uh, and the acting's really good. So that that's one that I would put on anybody's list if you're into like the crime drama, you know, kind of mode.

Mariah Black-Overholt (34:34):

Oh goodness. I, uh, people ask me all the time if I'm in a true crime, I'm like, so yes, but I can't do like the violent crime. I prefer like, you know, the, um, like the, oh shoot, like the, I can't even think of right now, like the Elizabeth Holmes of the world, the uh, oh yeah, yeah,

Willie Mullen (34:51):

Yeah,

Mariah Black-Overholt (34:51):

Yeah, yeah. <laugh>

Willie Mullen (34:52):

I know what you talked about, right? Yeah. Like the blue collar crime, blue

Mariah Black-Overholt (34:56):

Collar, white collar crime, white

Willie Mullen (34:57):

Collar. White collar crime. Yeah.

Mariah Black-Overholt (34:59):

Yeah. I don't want the violence, but yeah. <laugh> yeah.

Willie Mullen (35:03):

There's a little bit of that, this, but it's more just like how that, how they convince the FBI that like, like inventing the word serial killer. Yeah. It didn't exist. And like having to explain it's very like about the psychology and the, that. And I, I just found it pretty interesting. Um, and those are really the big one. I'm sure there's more, but like I mentioned again, I have two young kids. So when you say streaming, like Mickey mouse mm-hmm is a big streaming in my house. <laugh> uh, any movie on Disney plus at any given time is probably streaming in my house. Those, those are ones.

Mariah Black-Overholt (35:32):

I feel that we watch a lot of Disney plus in my house and we don't have any kids. So it's, uh, it just, it's amazing goes

Willie Mullen (35:37):

Across the border. Nothing to be ashamed of across

Mariah Black-Overholt (35:38):

The, not at all. <laugh> yeah. All right. Well that's really all we had today. It has been amazing having you on, uh, I think we had some really cool conversations and I always like to talk about analytics. So this has been great for me.

Willie Mullen (35:51):

Awesome. Well, thank you so much for having me more importantly, uh, thanks for the kind words about sprout and the amazing partnership. And we look forward to another 10 years working together,

Mariah Black-Overholt (36:02):

Us too. So, uh, we'll, we'll talk to you later. And this has been generation social media.

inspiration, BusinessChatterkickAugust 8, 2022internal team, DEI, Podcast