We recently connected with Calliope Tornatore and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Calliope, thanks for joining us today. Do you think folks should manage their own social media or hire a professional? What do you do?

We live in the digital age, so as a business you must have a social media presence, whether your actual business is online or not. The way that the internet has engrained itself into our society and into our lives means that people trust what they find there when they go looking. If there’s nothing for them to find about your business, you don’t look credible, reliable or solid.

If someone is trying to find out who to go to when they want their hair done, what store they should shop at, what service provider they should hire, they are going to look you up online. So having a presence is the bare minimum. Even if there isn’t a lot there, you have to showcase your existence online so people know you exist at all.

That bare minimum doesn’t even guarantee you business though. If your online presence is sketchy or shaky, people are going to choose the more well presented competitor over you. You don’t have to be active every day, or post tons of content, but there is a baseline for the things you need online to adequately represent your business.

For me, I have to have quite an active online presence, just due to the nature of my business. We are a digital branding agency and one of our main offerings is social media makeovers and management.

The way I manage my own social, and the way I encourage my clients to do it is to have the basics covered first. If someone looks you up, can they tell what you do? Who you do it for? The general cost and where you operate? When someone looks you up, is something going to catch their attention quickly? Is there anything memorable enough to hold their attention on you? Are they going to know immediately when they visit your website if they’re in the right spot or not? When they visit your Instagram, do they know what kind of results or deliverables they can expect from you? Will they know how to contact you or book you? If they google you, will they find a testimonial, a picture of you, your location or your product? These are the basics that you want covered.

If you have the basics covered and you want to use online marketing to drive your sales, then you’ll want to pay more attention to your social media. You’ll want to create content and post more regularly.

Personally I batch create content that is very structured for my business. It’s the kind of content that shows expertise, has great visuals attached, it goes in depth. It has an action attached. These things are consistent and scheduled. My team can release them while I’m busy working in the business. They are routine, three times a week and ongoing.

Then I pair that with more organic, intuitive content, stuff that is made in the moment from my own inspiration. It’s your lifestyle content, quick short, behind the scenes sort of things. It’s a nice balance to bring to the more strictly curated content. It gives the viewer a reason to keep coming back and engaging with my brand and pages. It also brings the kind of energy and humanity that really makes the sale happen. The curated content establishes me as a trustworthy business, and then the intuitive, off-the-cuff content makes the ideal person say “Yes, this is the business I want to invest in.”

When I manage a clients’ socials I do a similar thing. A portion is carefully curated for them, it’s really high quality, very strategic. Then I give my client prompts to help them feel for the more intuitive content. I also come in and get the more candid behind the scenes and lifestyle content so they can then drip that out with the curated content. I think this is a really great approach that many more businesses should take. It’s dependent on the industry and what you’re selling, but this tends to work across the board.

Calliope, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I’m Calliope, the owner of Muse Branding Studio. We make hot brands even hotter online.

I’m the CEO, the Brand Strategist, and the Brand Manager. My team and I help women-owned businesses create an online presence that builds their brand awareness, gets them more sales and attracts more opportunities. We offer all of the things you need to properly represent yourself and your business in the online world. From graphic design, to content shoots, social media management to complete online re-branding we love it all.

My passion for this really began as a twelve year old with an intense interest not just in movies, but in the behind the scenes, the creation of the finished product. This lead me to learn everything I could about the production of every movie I saw, and eventually to want to make them myself. I went to an arts high school and spent an exorbitant amount of time with all things film. This led to my first gig as a videographer, filming and editing workout videos for a fitness professional to send to his clients. My client base grew from there, and when the time for college rolled around, the logical thing seemed to be continuing to build on my passion. As I got further in, I realized there was a marketable way to do much more than just content shoots, to really create an all in one service that helps busy CEO’s get the branding they need and allows me to live my passion.

We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?

A lot of people go on social media and they want to market and they want to sell. It’s all they’re focused on, and so their posts have this certain energy behind them that says just that. It doesn’t really get results. It makes them feel like they’re screaming into the void about their product or service and they tend to give up really quickly.

The thing you need to know about social media is that it is social, and it is a long term game. I personally visualize social media as a world, because it is, really. I visualize a digital world, that I am entering. I know the way I interact in that space is going to build my reputation, which is translated as a following or a community.

You also have to change your mind on what a following really is. It doesn’t really matter anymore if you have two-hundred thousand followers or two hundred. What matters is if you genuinely have their attention, if they really want to interact with you.

If social media is a world and you want your presence in this world to be known, you have to be there often and you need to be there in a consistent way each time. So if you only show up in the real world on Sundays and each Sunday you’re repping an entirely different style and way of speaking and mannerisms, that’s going to be really confusing. It’s the same on social media. You have to be consistent in your timing and your energy. You have to show up often and cohesively. Cohesion and consistency builds an audience.

Then you have to think about the specific energy that you’re bringing. If you walk into a room in the real world and just start shouting “I have this for sale! I have this for sale!” people are going to avoid you like the plague. But if you walk in and genuinely engage, and show true interest in the individuals in front of you, and you come with something you really want to say, something intentional, it will work so much better. You can start a dialogue, build a reputation. This method translates well from the real world into the digital space. If you engage and you move around the digital world with an honest interest in conversations and building connections, this will naturally build relationships over time. If you’re worried about selling from the beginning, if your efforts to build these relationships comes with this goal of getting to that point, that energy will be obvious and it is not fun or authentic. You have to go into it with a desire to understand and engage and let the opportunities for selling come later. Your potential clients and customers won’t feel like they’re taking a chance on a product or service from a stranger when you drop that first sales post, and they’ll have a level of trust in your brand’s stability that just isn’t there when you go about it inauthentically, or by just announcing that you’ve got something you want people to buy. You should be worried about showing up as a presence for people that align with your values before anything else.

Where do you think you get most of your clients from?

Content marketing and having a strong digital presence has been the number one way I attract clientele. That has been true for my entire career. The second method is referrals, but those hinge on the first part.

I love content marketing because when it’s done well, it speaks to and attracts the exact people that you want to work with or for, the people your product was made for.

Content marketing is something any business can start for free and delegate when that becomes a good investment.

It’s a thing anyone can start today, for nothing, and build that base.

My entire brand and agency are built on the concept of content marketing and what it can do for you when done right. Take for example, you’re reading this article online, and if you’ve gotten this far, you may already feel as though you’re building a relationship with me based on my values and my perspective. You may feel inclined to follow me online because you like what I’m putting on the table. For as long as this article exists online, people are going to be able to learn who I am and what I’m about because of it.

Content marketing with a digital presence is my number one way to get clientele. It can reach anyone, anywhere. It is creative and versatile and the longevity is significant compared with other methods. It costs nothing and it lives forever.

Contact Info:

• Website: [email protected]
• Instagram: @muse.brandingstudio
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calliopescherrer/

Image Credits
Darren Smith and Tom Bertolotti