What happens when you put the human back into social media?
In Episode 02 of MKTG Unmuted, we sit down with Hannah Mickelson (@hannahrmickelson) for a fun and honest conversation about social media, creativity, trends, and what really connects with people.
We talk about staying timely without losing your voice, creating content that feels human, choosing the right platforms for your brand, and why genuine relationships still matter in a world that’s becoming increasingly digital.
TAKEAWAYS
- Social media trends require staying on top of current content and being timely in participation.
- The human aspect and personal connections are crucial in marketing, and businesses should choose social media platforms that align with their brand voice and audience.
CHAPTERS
28:32 The Role of Personal Relationships in Marketing
00:00 Staying on Top of Social Trends
01:14 Content Creation and Timeliness
03:02 The Role of AI in Marketing
03:35 The Importance of Human Creativity
06:23 Choosing the Right Social Media Platforms
10:10 Building Personal Connections in Marketing
17:13 The Impact of AI on Marketing
24:01 The Human Aspect in Marketing
Episode Transcript:
Brennah Davis (00:08)
hi Hannah! I’m so excited to have you
Hannah Mickelson (00:10)
All right.
Brennah Davis (00:11)
on the Marketing Match. Marketing Matchmaker, I’m sorry, Marketing Unmuted. I work with you in the Marketing Matchmakers and I’ve paired you with many companies. And I’m super excited to have you on here because you’re kind of my go-to for all the social trends, social media, people looking for social. I love to connect them to you, especially locally, because you just know what’s going on. And
I wanted to have this combo to talk about all the trends and what you’re seeing and what’s happening in your world.
Hannah Mickelson (00:43)
Yeah. Well, first of all, so excited to be here and thank you so much for all of the fun clients that you send my way to. That’s what I love. you know exactly what I like to work on.
Brennah Davis (00:51)
how do you keep up with the trends, right? Because I’m seeing things are constantly changing.
I noticed that even with the clients that I send your way, you are on top of it. Like I see something pop up on my Instagram for a different company, and the next thing I see, you’re doing it for the clients that I’ve sent you. And I’m just so impressed. And I just want to know how do you keep up with it? What does that look like for you?
Hannah Mickelson (01:14)
So I do kind of two different methods. I do a little bit of actual research.
Scraping different platforms, like seeing what people are talking about via blogs. Like a lot of scheduling platforms put out blogs about what’s trending. a lot of other social media managers make posts about what’s trending. So researching it that way, but if I’m being completely honest, like staying on top of trends as far as trends, right? Like what content is trending is just an ungodly amount of screen time. I just consume completely unhealthy amounts.
of content on a daily basis. And if something makes me laugh and I haven’t seen it multiple times, that’s when I’m like, okay, we have to do this right now. Because there’s nothing worse than posting a trend that was like trending six months ago or something like that. So
Brennah Davis (01:59)
Yeah, yeah.
Hannah Mickelson (02:00)
Noticing
it and then as soon as you notice it, like I when I’m coaching my clients or coaching other people who I’m not working with, I always say, like, if you see something twice, right? Like, okay, I heard that audio twice, or I saw someone do something twice, like you want to be the third time. You don’t want to be the 15th time. Like, for example, the hallelujah trend with the Justin Bieber Hallelujah song.
Unless you’re gonna be absolutely outrageous with it and just do something crazy, no one’s gonna watch it by the twentieth scroll. You know what I mean? So you have to be super timely and you have to be you kind of
have
to like raise the bar every time you see the trend. So if you are gonna participate in the trend on the later end of it, it has to be outrageous. I think a really good example you actually commented on this one is people are doing like the blind taste test is really big right now where
Brennah Davis (02:50)
Hmm.
Hannah Mickelson (02:50)
they’re like blindfolding their friends and just chucking cups of water at them or water, liquor, juice, you have to guess what it is, right?
Brennah Davis (02:59)
sauce all
Hannah Mickelson (03:00)
Sauce, yeah, all of it. Just
I’ve seen someone throw an egg at their partner’s face. I was like, damn, brutal. But I was like, okay, how can I make this work for my moving company? Right. Like they don’t have like a taste test wouldn’t make any sense for them. So I was like, why don’t I just throw objects at you? And then you have to guess what it is. And it was first of all, so much fun to film. second of all, the audience responded really well to it too. So
It’s just getting more and more outrageous, which makes sense because people’s attention spans are just dwindling. So it’s all about the shock value these days when appropriate.
Brennah Davis (03:35)
Right. Yeah, I loved that video. when I saw it, I was like, Yes, this is awesome.
Hannah Mickelson (03:40)
Yes.
Brennah Davis (03:41)
And then I did comment, I was like, where’s the packing bubbles? I just want to see if they can rain on them.
Hannah Mickelson (03:44)
Yeah, no, nothing soft, but
Brennah Davis (03:46)
okay, that’s awesome. So what as far as social media, what has like been your biggest lesson learned? Or if someone was to be starting out, what advice would you give them to like go into this world, right? I mean, I think some people think it’s so easy.
Hannah Mickelson (04:04)
Mm-hmm.
Brennah Davis (04:05)
And I just kind of want to give them, you know, a little bit more perspective. Like what have you learned? What’s it like?
being social manager,
director of social media.
Hannah Mickelson (04:15)
I would say for people who like that’s kind of a twofold question, right? So if someone wants to manage their own account, my biggest piece of advice is always like, how can you intersect quality and consistency. right? So some
Brennah Davis (04:28)
Mm.
Hannah Mickelson (04:28)
people are like, you need to post three times a day. I think that’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard. You do not need to bang out like three shitty posts that no one’s gonna watch. That’s just gonna tank your views, it’s gonna tank your whole account. right?
and then the opposite of that, you don’t want to post once every six months because you only which is I’m really guilty of that on my personal account, but You need to find like where you can produce content that actually performs that people wanna see that’s high enough quality. right? it doesn’t need to be like a full film every time you post. so intersecting quality and quantity is kind of that perfect posting frequency for people.
again, I personally post like once a month. It doesn’t need to be insane. It just needs to be timely, relevant, exciting, whatever. You know what mean?
Brennah Davis (05:13)
And would you give
that same advice for businesses or would is that just personal brand?
Hannah Mickelson (05:18)
Absolutely,
personal brand and businesses. Cause again, like if you only have the budget for like what I hate to see too is now it’s especially with businesses, unless you’re gonna let me throw a box at your face, like my true move client, you’re gonna have to spend money on ads, right? If you’re doing a more serious industry or you don’t feel comfortable talking about politics or doing the rage bait or doing silly stuff, if you wanna keep your brand very serious.
Unfortunately, that you’re gonna have to spend on ads because the virality only comes from the ridiculousness or people fighting in the comments or whatever. Right. So it can be done, but to get the results you’re looking for, you’re gonna need to put aside an ad budget, right? So same thing with companies.
You’re gonna need to find how frequently you can create content, how much you’re gonna spend on ads, and then kind of all of that is gonna factor into how often you post. And there’s no need to be posting five times a week, you know what I mean? Like post one time a week and spend that budget of content creation on ads. Does that make sense?
Brennah Davis (06:23)
Yeah, perfect. Yeah, and then what would be your biggest lesson learned?
Hannah Mickelson (06:27)
man, my biggest lesson learned, I think, would just be that, right? Like at first I would just I would say this is more for people who are wanting to manage accounts, is that I come from the restaurant industry, right? So the customer’s always right. Customer’s always right, customer’s always right.
I carried that into social media for my first few years. And so anytime they would be like, I want to post about this or make a video out of this or whatever, I would be like, Okay, like if that’s what you want, or I want to post five times a week. Okay, like you’re telling me what to do. And then somewhere along the line, a flip switched where I was like, no, that’s not gonna work. I I don’t know if it came from like learning how to stand up for myself or like whatever it was, but somewhere along the line.
That’s what flipped, where I’m like, that’s not gonna work. I know you want to post about that, but we’re not doing that. It’s not gonna work. Or let me set your expectation that yes, we can post that, but it’s probably not gonna go very well. So that was definitely my biggest lesson learned is that you kind of have to put your foot down, you kind of really have to coach your clients, because this is what I do all day. You saw one video that you thought would work. Does that make sense?
Brennah Davis (07:31)
Yeah, for sure. I mean, I feel like that’s almost in every industry, in every sector
Hannah Mickelson (07:36)
Yeah.
Brennah Davis (07:37)
of marketing, that there’s a lot of education and having to train, coach, lead your clients.
It’s part of what I have to do with the marketing matchmakers.
And I think with the marketing matchmakers, there’s a lot of education before I even get to you, right? Like I need to make sure that they understand that social media is it, I’m not just trying to connect them with, you know, someone’s niece that just likes
social
media. It’s an expert that spends time learning.
Hannah Mickelson (08:03)
the amount of times I’ve seen like that same, okay, well, you know, our friend has a hundred and fifty thousand TikTok followers and we’re just gonna let her do it. And I’m like, okay. Yeah, like there is a huge, huge, huge difference between a personal brand and running a company account. Like a huge and then again, if you look at my own socials, I’m much better at running a social or like a company account than my own
because at the end of the day, the last thing I want to do is post for myself. I’m like, I’ve posted 600 times today. I’m done. But there’s a very big difference. Like your niece that went viral in her swimsuit is not gonna know how to manage your peptide company’s social media account. You know what mean?
Brennah Davis (08:43)
Yeah.
Hannah Mickelson (08:43)
But good luck. If that’s what you want to do, go for it.
Brennah Davis (08:46)
like great lessons learned for a lot of businesses right I think that that’s
with everything right in in going to the website side of things they have you know somebody in their family a cousin somebody that just
graduated do something and it’s really awesome for some of the startups like I think that that’s a good way to go but there’s a lot of lessons to be learned in that and one of them is like you get what you pay for right
Hannah Mickelson (09:09)
Yeah. Well,
and the other thing of that too is we’ve talked about this and it does happen a lot where people say kind of, Well, can’t I do this myself? Like people think social media is really easy. And yes, you can go and post by yourself. Some people are also very creative and really able to pick up on the trends and
You can do it. So there are some people that I have kind of two types of clients, right? There’s the clients that are like, I don’t even know how to make a post on my Instagram. I don’t know how to open my inbox. Tell me everything. And then on
Brennah Davis (09:37)
Mm-hmm.
Hannah Mickelson (09:38)
the opposite end of that, I have the clients who are really savvy. They just don’t have the time to do it, right? Like, where is your time best spent? Is it out bringing in new clients for yourself, networking, actually running your business? Or is it best spent for you to do your own engagement and your own posting?
Brennah Davis (09:54)
Yeah.
Hannah Mickelson (09:55)
To decide where you lie on that spectrum and how much time you actually want to dedicate to your own social media.
Brennah Davis (10:00)
Yeah. So let’s roll back. How did you get here? Like you mentioned being in restaurants before, but what brought you to be in charge of social media and running all of these awesome accounts?
Hannah Mickelson (10:10)
Yeah.
So this is so funny to me. I remember downloading like Instagram at my high school lunch table during lunch and being like, this is so fun. And then it was obviously MySpace. I guess we could go way, way back. learning how to code through MySpace. Like I just always had so much fun with it.
and
then there was what was it? It was like Google Plus. Like Google tried to have its own social media for a while. So I just like always was downloading the new one and just kind of playing with it. I went to school for marketing, but social media management was not like a job at the time. you couldn’t take a class on it at the time. It was very much just I don’t a personal brand thing, or maybe some companies were using it, but it really wasn’t.
Brennah Davis (10:53)
Yeah.
Hannah Mickelson (10:53)
what
it is today, right? So I went to school just for general marketing. when I graduated
Yeah, I was like, okay, looking at the jobs, right? So I bartended through college and I was also running the accounts for the restaurants that I worked at just because again, I thought it was fun. I didn’t look at it as a job. I was just like, I’m good at this, like, I’ll do it. so graduated. I gave myself one year because I was like, I am gonna make significantly more money bartending than I would going and getting like a nine to five in marketing. Like it just didn’t make sense to me. I’m not the type of person.
Either who can sit at a desk for that long. So I was like, okay, I’m gonna give myself one year of bartending, see what happens after that. one year of my fun is up, and I was like, okay, let me get my real estate license. Like, as most bartenders do. finish bartending, get my real estate license, do that for about two years, but the real estate team that I joined.
They were like, well, we’re kind of looking for someone who’s already sold a house, but you said that you’re good at social media. Why don’t you run our account? And then that’ll be kind of your end to the team, and you can kind of learn as we go together. And I was like, love that. That sounds like a great plan. so I was doing their account bartending and trying to get my feet in real estate, and then COVID hit. So I was like, okay, no bartending. Obviously, that was gone.
I’m still doing this social media if for like 200 bucks or 300 bucks a month, right? Like it was nothing. and I was looking at this as like, I have been hating this real estate thing for so long now, and this feels like the perfect opportunity to completely change my life, right?
Brennah Davis (12:24)
Yeah.
Hannah Mickelson (12:25)
no one’s making money right now, so it doesn’t really matter. Like the world has stopped, and this is kind of what I had.
gathered in my downtime was that I don’t want to do real estate. Let me just lean into this social media thing. It’s kind of all I have. It’s all I want to do, all I care to do. And from there, like I just kept picking up client after client after client. Like I’ve never marketed myself. I’ve never done anything. It’s just people like, I saw this account. Can you help me too? And it’s just been that for what, like 10 years now? Which is just so crazy that it it came to mean really. Yeah. Yeah.
Brennah Davis (12:55)
I love that. That’s awesome. I mean,
you’ve done amazing work for anyone that I’ve sent your way, and they’ve all stayed. Like not there’s hasn’t been a single client that I’ve sent to you and they have had any bad feedback. You’ve done amazing work.
Hannah Mickelson (13:10)
you
gave me two really fun clients that or a couple, a couple, I think, but there’s like I was saying earlier, there’s a difference between like I just got an email for a pet rescue. Okay. The pet rescue marketing, easiest thing in the world.
No, I’m they all do a great job, right? But people want to see puppies, people want to rescue puppies. I’ve
had things that are like nobody I don’t want to say that, but like nobody cares, right? There’s some things that are just so boring or some products that people just don’t really need, or the people that do need it aren’t on social media. So there’s definitely a spectrum of
Ease. Like some things go viral naturally. Other things, it’s a lot harder to make some things interesting. but I like to think that that’s what I’m good at too, is making boring things interesting.
Brennah Davis (13:55)
I mean, you’ve done a really great job. Of course the brands I’ve sent you are really fun and they’re fun to work. They’re just like really good. You
Hannah Mickelson (14:01)
They kinda promote themselves, but yeah.
Brennah Davis (14:03)
totally can and they’re the owners of those companies are just such fun people. So they’re very open minded to have those more trendy videos, you know?
So and
I know that you’ve been up on top of that. So that’s like it yeah, there’s certain clients that I wouldn’t send your way only because they’re more corporate. They’re not gonna be open. It’s gonna be kind of pulling teeth to try to get them to
Hannah Mickelson (14:27)
to get content from them too. Like it’s that’s the other thing is the clients that I do have right now are so good about being like, Okay, we need to schedule a shoot. We need to get some new content and they give me a couple of options of some dates to show up.
and that is the other thing I really like about having local clients, is a huge portion of my work that kind of sets me apart too, is I do all photography and videography myself. so when they’re local, it obviously makes it a lot easier to get that done. But and the same thing, like how that kind of happened was I would just get, I would ask clients for more content and they would just send me like
You know, like as if they like dipped their iPhone in glue and then tried to take a photo or like it just the dirty and it was just awful. Everything that I would receive is awful. So it’s like, let me just come and do it myself. so from there, I actually got really, really good at photography and videography just from, okay, I just gonna do it myself.
Brennah Davis (15:20)
Well, and it’s probably been helpful too, because then you as you do it for certain clients, you’re able to see like what angles then you get to know the company more
I’m sure, with like
employees and you’re able to use those personalities.
Hannah Mickelson (15:33)
Mm.
Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Seeing who’s the sillier one, who’s the more reserved one. There’s always like anytime I go to film with a client, there’s always someone who’s like, do not put me on camera. And then there’s the person that’s like, Hey, what are we what are we doing today? Do you need help? Like So it’s a lot of fun. Yeah. Meeting the team, meeting the staff, like seeing how the product is made, if it’s a product or whatever it is. it is fun to just kind of be there and feel like I’m a part of the team too. So
Brennah Davis (16:01)
Yeah. That’s awesome. So as far as like learning all the video and photography, has it just been because of all this experience or did you learn some of that in school?
Hannah Mickelson (16:11)
I think I took maybe in like middle school I took like a newscasting class actually they did teach me about framing, right? Like keeping the thirds rule and stuff like that. But for the most part, it’s just been experience. I did a lot of modeling in college and I think that that’s where my understanding of lighting came from.
Brennah Davis (16:28)
Okay.
Hannah Mickelson (16:29)
so yeah, which is interesting.
So that taught me a lot more than or like I picked up a lot more than I thought I was picking up at the time. so by the time I picked up my own camera, you know, I had a pretty good understanding of like where we’re putting the subject, you know, what is gonna work, what isn’t gonna work. And then from there it’s just learning how your camera works.
Yeah.
Brennah Davis (16:47)
Love that. That’s so awesome.
So, where are your plans for your growth? Like, how are you planning on growing? And you know, especially with like all this AI that’s happening, you know, I’m sure that’s affected you in some regard. I know it’s affected all the other industries in some
way, but how’s it affected you and like where do you see some of this going or you going?
Hannah Mickelson (17:13)
It is really interesting. So I have a how old is he? An 18-year-old brother and an 18-year-old cousin who were over. And I was doing some work while they were hanging out and they’re like, are you using AI? And like they are so that generation is so anti-AI. It is hilarious. But I like, if I didn’t have AI, I could have like four clients and now I have 13 or something like that. Right. So
There’s a time and a place to use it, absolutely, and then there’s a time and a place to not use it. And the way that I coach my clients or anyone really on this, AI isn’t there yet for the photos. And what it reads when you’re scrolling, unless you’re like at the way older generations that can’t differentiate, for the most part, I would say people who are 40 and under.
Can tell that you’re using AI for your photos, you’re using AI for your videos. And what it reads as is you don’t have enough people who actually care about your product or your business to come in and film the content themselves, right? The best performing ads right now are user-generated content, meaning a customer came in, spent their own money, and had enough great things to say about it that they made a post about it.
So what it feels like when a company is using AI is either you’re too cheap to bring in like a marketing company and film real content with real people, or you just don’t have enough people that actually want to use your product or your company or your service. So you have to use AI with fake people. so I say like a Whatever you do, do not use AI photography or the graphics. Oh my god, I hate them.
I hate
AI graphics like event flyers. and this could be just because I do my own graphics, right? It could be very biased, but we were talking on our team, like, if you send me an AI flyer for something, I’m not going. Like, I just I won’t do it. I hate them. I hate them. They all look the exact same. But so My advice is using AI for research, for systems, for
analyzing like all my analytics, I run through AI and I say, like, okay, what can you teach me about this? What should I be doing next month? Where can I improve? That’s how you should be using AI. improving your systems, analyzing data, generating ideas, because a lot of the ideas it generates are trash. So you can take the good ones. but as far as
Photos,
videos, graphics, all that stuff. I it’s just not quite there yet. I know it’s going to get there. It will come for my job. I have a couple months left, I’m sure, but as of
Brennah Davis (19:44)
Maybe not. Like if you’re hearing
if you’re hearing from these eighteen year olds that they’re like, don’t I don’t want to touch it, you know, they there’s something to be said about the human aspect
Hannah Mickelson (19:54)
Yeah. Well have you seen like the comment
that they leave that’s like, your AI slot bores me or whatever. It’s they’re they’re very anti I’m I’m just kind of taking the approach of like, we’ll wait and see. I think the biggest, most important thing is to be adaptable, right? So I’m still learning how to use it, still working with it.
Just to know, right? If I’m like, okay, let me try it, and then it spits out trash. Like I’m like, okay, great, it’s not quite there yet. I’m safe this month. but we’ll see. You know, it is progressing insanely quickly. I just do really feel like I’m curious to see if that human element just is what’s important to people.
I think traditional art and traditional media are gonna make a huge comeback. Polaroid cameras, for example, have been the biggest hit because you can’t face tune it.
like it’s not super high definition. Like people love their Polaroid photos.
Brennah Davis (20:45)
That’s so funny.
I literally have an entire stack of Polaroids on my desk.
Hannah Mickelson (20:51)
Yeah.
They’re just so fun too. But I do think I don’t know. I’m not sure. I obviously if I had a crystal ball, I think I would be way wealthier than I am now for one, but for two, I’m keeping an open mind. I’m very curious and I think it could could go either way because you’re also seeing all this pushback with the data centers and nobody wanting them built in their neighborhood as makes sense, you know what I mean? So
Brennah Davis (21:13)
Yeah.
Hannah Mickelson (21:15)
We’ll see. We’ll see. Either way, like I said, I’m not closed-minded to using AI. I use it myself all the time. I just highly, highly encourage companies in particular to steer away from it. For example, this is actually so funny. Who was it? I want to say.
I can’t remember the name. So one company posted like an AI photo, clearly AI, right? And again, the comments were just filled with like AI slop, AI slop. So what they did was go into Microsoft Paint and create like the shittiest little Microsoft Paint version of their AI photo. And everyone loved it. You know what I mean? So it’s just going back to that, like going back to the, or it’s so easy to create.
an AI looking something now that people want, something that is clearly handmade.
Brennah Davis (22:01)
Yeah.
Hannah Mickelson (22:01)
because that takes the time and it takes the effort and it is so easy to just spit out AI stuff all day. So
Brennah Davis (22:09)
Especially like emails.
Like I see the AI emails, like the chat GPT generated email response to me and I’m like, Okay, it’s really I appreciate how much you really wanted to talk to me.
Hannah Mickelson (22:20)
Yeah. Or what
I’m starting to hear too, I can hear again, because I use AI pretty frequently. If I hear you speaking, I can tell in scripts now that you used AI to write your script. And if I hear you talking on a video and I can tell that AI wrote I’m scrolling. Talk it from the soul, you know what I mean? Like you don’t need a robot to tell you what to say. I mean sometimes, but
Brennah Davis (22:43)
Well, it’s so funny, I was telling somebody back in the day when I owned an agency and I was doing videos and I would do a lot of corporate type videos. I would go into the office and I’d you know, film all the different employees and they all would be like, Well, are you gonna send me the questions? And I was like, No. And they were like, Why?
And was like, we’re gonna record it three times. That’s what I tell them. I was like, we’ll record this three times. And the first time is the first time you hear all the questions. You can stumble, you can mess up, we can do all of that. And then the second time you’ll kind of already have a better understanding and you can make your answers more proper, whatever
you feel, right? And third time, it’s like the perfect. You can make it perfect by then.
Out of every recording, ninety-five percent of the time, the best one is the first one.
Hannah Mickelson (23:31)
Yep. Or maybe the second, but typically the first. And
yeah, my first usually the first time coming with clients, they’ll do that too. They’re like, okay, what’s the script? Like, can you send me the script? I’m like, no, I don’t use scripts. I don’t use teleprompters. I don’t use scripts. None of that. I want it off the cuff because it reads. Like people pick up on the fact that you’re just reading off a script and nobody wants to hear that.
They
want to hear from you or companies that only post product photos. They want to know who works there. People want to see faces. People want to get to know people.
Brennah Davis (24:01)
Yeah, they fall in love with the human aspect of that. And
in all of those recordings, like I got the most raw emotion, which was so you can
you can’t fake that. You know, the the second recording
they weren’t crying. They’re like, Well, here at this company, it just meant so much. But the first time they started crying and they’re like, This company changed my life, and you’re like shot made.
Hannah Mickelson (24:21)
Yeah.
yeah. And I was gonna say if you can fake it, you’re making a lot of lot of money as an actress. You’re not you know what I mean? The people who can fake it are paid very well to do that. So
Brennah Davis (24:34)
Yeah.
Yeah, a hundred percent. So I just I think that the human aspect is super important this day and age.
Hannah Mickelson (24:40)
I agree.
Brennah Davis (24:41)
Growing up, like even the generation growing up, they love that.
Hannah Mickelson (24:46)
Even I’ve been big into watching old movies lately. And it’s so funny that they still like stand the test of time. Obviously, I’m sure they made a bunch of slop movies back in the day too, but it’s just a breath of fresh air to see like
Or just actors and actresses without a bunch of work done and their face still moves and stuff like that. So it is interesting. I think, I personally think we’re gonna go back in the opposite direction as far as again, like the sillier stuff, the human aspect, the hand-drawn, the all of that good stuff, like the real art behind things rather than because if anyone can do it, nobody wants it, if that makes sense.
Brennah Davis (25:24)
Yeah. And then we’re all just doing it and it all looks the same.
Hannah Mickelson (25:27)
Yeah. And and yep, heavy on it all looks the same too, so
Brennah Davis (25:31)
Yeah, and sounds the same, right? Especially with all these prompts. Like you said, you can already tell.
Hannah Mickelson (25:36)
Yep.
Yeah.
AI is very, very useful. It’s very, very smart, but it just does not have that human creativity, which I’m learning as I age that the creativity has been my biggest blessing for me personally is that I’m a very creative. And so are you. we have a lot of common interests, which I think is funny. A lot of
lifting, painting, reading, all of it. So but yeah.
Brennah Davis (25:57)
Yeah. Yeah.
And I mean and also we’re entrepreneurs, right? Like that’s part of our creativity in a way that, you know, I started with agencies and slowly now just do the matchmaking because I realized how many people don’t trust reviews anymore, right? You can post fake reviews, you can have everyone in your family write reviews for you and build all this stuff, but like is it real? They wanna know, they want the referral, they want again that human aspect of like making those connections where it’s like, hey.
Do you know someone that’s good at this?
Hannah Mickelson (26:28)
Mm-hmm. I was having such an interesting conversation with my my partner, my boyfriend, just about how easy it is for me to be good at my job just because I give a singular shit.
Like, no, like there’s way too many companies out there that they’ll just take your money for the check and then they don’t care how your content performs. They’re not gonna show up to the like shoot. First of all, they’re not gonna shoot it themselves. Second of all, they’re not even gonna show up to the shoot. Like it’s so easy for me to get all this good feedback because I just genuinely care. Like I don’t know, it’s such a hard concept for me to understand that so many marketing companies just don’t care.
but I also yeah, I think that that’s also why we work so well together is that we both genuinely care about our clients and want to see them succeed. And it’s a sadly an industry that we run into that a lot.
Brennah Davis (27:13)
Yeah, I mean it’s part of the reason I started the Marketing Matchmakers is because of the horror stories, the horror stories of companies spending hundreds of thousands of dollars working with agencies for years. Part of that is that they don’t know how to manage the marketing company or manage or be able to ask those right questions, right? But the other part of it is that they just had an agency that wants to take their money and do the bare minimum and doesn’t care. And so it’s why
Love what I do because even with one of the clients that I connected with you, they had such bad taste in their mouth for agencies. They’re so hesitant. And I was like, no, Hannah cares. Like Hannah cares and she will be there. And
they were so worried that they’d just be another number. They’re so worried it was, you know, and that’s a big concern when it comes to spending so much money on something that.
is so face forward, right? It’s
Hannah Mickelson (28:06)
Yeah.
Brennah Davis (28:06)
a sometimes the first time people experience a brand and they want to work with someone that cares.
Hannah Mickelson (28:11)
Yeah, absolutely.
Brennah Davis (28:12)
So yeah, I’m appreciative of being able to have you in my say rolodex of agencies.
Hannah Mickelson (28:20)
Yeah, it’s nice to have someone else who actually cares about their clients too. So I love working.
Brennah Davis (28:25)
Yeah, I appreciate
that. And any words of advice for businesses that are on the fence for
doing
social media because I know one of the biggest things that I’ve heard is they don’t really know they’re like, do I do Instagram? Do I go LinkedIn? Do I go Facebook?
Hannah Mickelson (28:39)
Well it’s
Brennah Davis (28:40)
Do I go TikTok? Do I and of course they hear they go to like one spiel, one place, and they believe that this is the only thing that they should be doing for their business. and so is there, I don’t know, a formula that you recommend being on the social side that could help businesses.
Hannah Mickelson (28:56)
Yeah, it’s definitely dependent on your demographic, right? So, let’s use two examples, financial advisor and real estate accountant. You’re not gonna do really well on TikTok because that’s where people go to giggle and laugh and see some sob stories or whatever, right? Like you’re wasting your money on TikTok. Sure, you might have videos about that you’ve created, but put that on LinkedIn.
Again, going on the opposite side, we have my moving client. Great for Instagram, great for maybe TikTok, maybe YouTube, if you’re gonna do that silly stuff, if you’re gonna help me produce a lot of content, because TikTok is more so about volume than Instagram, but it definitely lies in what your brand voice is. If you’re gonna be very serious, stick to LinkedIn. Personally, I love using threads right now. It’s one of my favorite. I just find threads so funny.
but if people post anything like motivational, work-related, whatever, they get dog walked in the comments of like, take that to LinkedIn. No one wants to see that here. So you definitely need to understand the audie- or like the demographic of where you’re posting. so yeah, it it I would just say understand your audience and post accordingly and find the app for you. But again, that’s your who you’re matched with or who you’re
marketing person is, they should be able to guide you into that right answer as well.
Brennah Davis (30:12)
Yeah, yeah, for sure. I just didn’t know if there’s any words of encouragement because sometimes it’s better coming from the expert than
Hannah Mickelson (30:20)
Yeah.
Yeah, no, I would just say, like, you know, if you want to be serious, stick to the LinkedIn and the Facebook. If you want to be really silly goofy, go to the Instagram, LinkedIn threads kind of route. and then all of the new ones, that’s another good piece of advice I have too. I have clients ask me about like, here’s lemonade or here’s blue sky, or should we get in on these? I have seen so many
like new social platforms come and go within my years that it’s I always say like give it three to four years to see how it’s gonna do. the benefit of joining early will be far outweighed by the fat like saving the time of not even worrying about it if the app ends up not being used. Vine even remember
Brennah Davis (31:01)
my gosh.
Hannah Mickelson (31:01)
loved Vine. So
Brennah Davis (31:03)
Miss Vine honestly.
Hannah Mickelson (31:05)
that’s yeah. me too yeah.
But that’s what I would say. My advice on that is usually like, wait it out. Like if you want to throw extra money and resources at it and you have that to spare, then sure, like for funsies. But the odds of it not working out in the long term and the app not sticking around is way higher than the return that you’re gonna get from being on there early.
Brennah Davis (31:25)
Yeah, that’s good advice. Great advice.
any last minute I guess like things that you’ve learned over the years, anything else that you just, I don’t know, I feel like in your industry you learn so much every day.
Hannah Mickelson (31:38)
Yeah, I would just say like the last as we’re wrapping up, what I would really want to say is just thank you to you, Brennah. You have been so amazing. And like I said, it’s so great to have someone else who genuinely cares about their clients. You’re always checking in to see how the clients are doing. You know, you’re not just like, okay, great, you guys are matched. Have fun. you’re like, hey, like
How’s it going with so-and-so? Okay, have you met with so-and-so lately? Like, I love that you’re constantly checking in because that means that I’m not just a paycheck to you and vice versa. You know what I mean? so that piece has been amazing working with you. I also love you’ve mentioned this multiple times. You kind of only give me the fun ones or you understand me and you understand my strengths, and therefore the clients that you propose to me.
Are always a good fit. there’s never anything that I’m like, why would you even tell me about that? Like, you only give me the clients that you know that would be a good fit for me. And I appreciate that so much. You’re just saving everyone’s time, both the client, your client, my client, whatever, you’re saving everyone’s time. You really are just so good at your job, and it’s so great working with you.
Brennah Davis (32:42)
So kind. I appreciate it. I love working with you too. I love I love just even our side conversations and about art and things like that. It’s just I
Hannah Mickelson (32:48)
Yeah. Yeah.
Brennah Davis (32:51)
love having agencies that I work with that I have a personal relationship with too. Just because it makes it easier to make the match. It makes it better for me to know what you love and make
Hannah Mickelson (33:01)
Mm-hmm.
Brennah Davis (33:01)
that match easier, So that’s so kind of you. Thank you.
Hannah Mickelson (33:05)
Well,
you’re great at your job and I understand why, so yeah.
Brennah Davis (33:08)
I appreciate that. Well, I appreciate you being here on Marketing Unmuted and talking about social media and give us the insights. And I love working with you. So I’ll see you more soon.
Hannah Mickelson (33:20)
Yes.
Brennah Davis (33:21)
All right. Well you have a great day and thank you so much.
Hannah Mickelson (33:24)
You too, bye-bye.