One of the best ways for our clients to build a relationship with their customers is through social media, but it’s a challenge! Not only do you have to understand and target the right audience, but you have to stand out — and not just from your competitors, but from everything in your audience’s feeds. Name: Megan MertesTitle: Director, Social StudioLocation: Indianapolis, IN What is your role? What are your responsibilities in your role at TrendyMinds? Megan: My main role is to help grow the Social Studio. I own social media strategy but work with so many other Studio and Industry leads. I’ve worked with many of our clients for years — across everything from healthcare to tech and manufacturing — to help them plan and execute social media strategies. Put simply, I help our clients to achieve their business goals through social media. What is your Studio? What services and capabilities does Social Studio offer? Megan: Social Studio helps clients to humanize brands by telling their story in an interactive way that meets their goals and reaches the right audience. One of the best ways for our clients to build a relationship with their customers is through social media, but it’s a challenge! Not only do you have to understand and target the right audience, but you have to stand out — and not just from your competitors, but from everything in your audience’s feeds. We make sure your social media planning aligns with your advertising, PR, and overall business objectives, and use it to create an editorial calendar of engaging, scroll-stopping content. From there, we work with other studios — Content Studio, Design Studio, and Production Studio to name a few — to bring those creative ideas to life and optimize them across different social media platforms. One challenge we see clients face is being able to allocate enough time and resources to their social media. Just scheduling and monitoring your handles is time-consuming enough. We use tools to schedule, boost, and monitor posts automatically. This makes managing multiple social media platforms more efficient. It also makes community management easier and more effective, since we can gain audience insights and analyze trends over time. These insights can lead to brand improvements, prevent crisis situations, and even reveal new product or sales opportunities — all while building better relationships with social audiences. Rooted in our LOGIQ process, Social Studio offers four areas of expertise – strategy, content creation, implementation, and analysis. What types of challenges does Social Studio help to solve for clients? Megan: One critical thing we do through social listening is identifying crises before they turn into major problems. Hopefully, this isn’t a common occurrence for your brand! But one you want to be ready for just in case. We helped Cummins establish its very first community team. In 6 months, we decreased their average response time by 30% — beating the average for all brands by nearly 2 hours. On a day-to-day basis, we help clients keep up with the constant demand for content. People have short attention spans — especially when it comes to social content. To be successful, brands have to post consistent, engaging, on-trend content. Even for a dedicated social team, this can be a challenge. Video, for example, can be a highly effective way to share content on social, but most teams don’t have the resources to produce consistent, high-quality video. But we do! And in a cost-effective way. We also help the teams we work with prove the value of social media through data and reporting. This helps them spend their money where they can cultivate stronger relationships with current and potential customers — and make the most of their marketing dollars. What types of projects do you enjoy most or find fulfilling or intriguing? Megan: I actually started as a biology major in college, so working with healthcare and pharma clients is a chance to span multiple passions of mine. I’ve been fortunate enough to work on healthcare campaigns that aim to improve health literacy and help people to advocate for themselves. Healthcare is a basic human need, and it’s been so fulfilling to help improve lives through educational resources. I also love being creative and thinking outside the box, creating something new. Social media is the perfect place to test my ideas. Working with Cummins, for example, we get to create and share totally fun and unique content that gets their messaging across in ways that resonate with social audiences. I love any chance to try something new! We don’t make the rules, we just write the facts. pic.twitter.com/DhWFJ2edHb— Cummins Inc. (@Cummins) July 24, 2023 What new developments or current trends do you find most exciting about your area of expertise? Megan: I could give you 1,000 different answers to this question. Social is the Wild West of digital marketing. It moves faster than any other discipline of marketing. This year alone Twitter became X, TikTok was banned in over 30 different states from government-issued work devices, and Threads entered the chat with more than 100 million users joining within its first two weeks. So it’s very difficult to say what developments I find most exciting! But if I have to pick one, I would say that I’m most excited that organizations are finally starting to see the importance of social video. The global social video market will grow by more than $486 billion from 2021 to 2028 (Frost & Sullivan, 2022.) This growth is driven by several factors, including the increasing adoption of new social media platforms such as TikTok and Instagram Reels, which are focused on short-form video content. The COVID-19 pandemic also accelerated the demand for video content on social media, leading to algorithm changes and new content formats such as vertical video. Social video is the way of the future. If you don’t believe me, check out these 6 stats on the importance of video in social media! Do you have advice for anyone starting out in social media? Megan: Don’t be afraid to try new things! I started in digital advertising where I learned about all of the platforms that I could — paid search, paid social, CTV/OTT, and more. I enjoyed my time in advertising, but when the opportunity arose to lead organic social media strategy, I rose to the challenge. What are your hobbies outside of work? Or what is something people are surprised to learn about you? Megan: Not quite a hobby… but I LOVE Taylor Swift!! Being a Swiftie is easily 80% of my personality. I’d like to consider myself her biggest fan. I know every song, I have every album on vinyl, and I have seen her twice in concert, both times FRONT ROW! I also have turned my TikTok account into a Taylor Swift fan account. My most recent TikTok received more than 70K views! As for my other hobbies I like traveling, roller skating, cooking, and reading! I’ve traveled to 13 countries, my favorite being Italy. I found my love for roller skating and cooking during the pandemic. I had recently joined TikTok and saw a bunch of Millennials getting into roller skating so I said “That’s cool! I want to do that.” I own an adorable pair of pink and blue Impala roller skates that I skate to Stevie Nicks in (makes me feel so retro).  I found my love for cooking when I signed up for HelloFresh. I love how many unique dishes they have. It’s really pushed me out of my comfort zone. Some of the most interesting dishes I’ve made have included duck a l'Orange, harissa chicken and tabbouleh, and Israeli couscous (MY FAVE). And then finally reading is something I’m still getting into, but my favorite books are The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo, Daisy Jones & the Six, and Where the Crawdads Sing.