PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Laney Goff: Welcome back to the Untamed Social Podcast, the podcast where we get real about what actually works in social media. Today, we're probably gonna hit a little bit of a nerve because if there's one thing that's crushing your results on social media, it's probably your inconsistency. It's not the algorithm changes, it's not shadow bans, and it's not trends.
It's the fact that you are posting like a hot mess, if I'm being honest. You post when you feel like it, when you remember, or when panic hits at 4:00 PM on a Tuesday. So with all that in mind, that's why I brought in the one person who in my mind is built for this. She is the queen of consistency. Um, Rachel Strella is the founder of Strella Social Media, a 15-year-old agency that's recognized for intentional strategy, creative ideas, and most importantly, in my opinion, genuine connection. Uh, she's got a background in communications, journalism, and marketing. She's really great at blending storytelling with project management to help brands find their voice and share it with clarity and consistency.
She believes that real connection is the foundation of lasting success and is passionate about helping businesses show up authentically and build meaningful relationships. Rachel, you're the one for today's episode.
Rachel Strella: Wow. Thank so much. This is awesome to be on this side of the table.
Laney Goff: I know. I'm like, I, I told Rachel before we started, it's kind of weird to have her like on as a guest because it's, it's her podcast, you know? But really and truly, you know, I, when I was thinking about who's the perfect person for this, there's a lot of things that go into consistency. It's not just about showing up every single day.
It's about everything that goes in behind it. How do you actually create a content plan and all of that, and that is something that you excel at, beyond words and what anybody on our team would absolutely give testament to, is that working with you, I think not only are, are you really great at it, but you've shown the rest of the team how to be really great at it.
So I'm excited to talk to you about this.
Rachel Strella: Thank you. Awesome.
Laney Goff: So with all that being said, you've successfully been building Strella Social Media for 15 years. When you think back on it, what role do you feel like consistency has played? For you with the longevity of your business, but also for your clients.
Rachel Strella: Hmm. Okay. So I've been blogging for 15 years and blogging like every week, for 15 years. And over time, I mean, there's so many things that that's done for me. Um, my search engine rankings, my page rankings, like organically you couldn't break through that kind of thing now, having done that every week, um, but also like on social media, I hear people saying all the time like:
Oh, I see you constantly on social media and I'm like, really? They never engaged with me. But it's proof that, you know, showing up counts even though they aren't engaging. So there, that consistency is crucial. Um, but like people, they need to know what to expect and you know, when you're not showing up, they know something's like off they notice. Um, and the best clients we work with, they understand that and they, they actually see the results. I mean, we, we were just talking about this, you know, with the client that we were working with and you were consulting with, you know, they were posting like five times a week and they went from like 5 to 27 and all the results started to happen.
Being consistent, showing up regularly. Um, it's just the magic happens when you show up consistently and regularly, and we've seen it again and again. And it's not even as much as like how often you show up as like just showing up on a consistent basis.
Laney Goff: Yeah, like you said, giving them something to expect. And it's funny that you, you brought up that like, people do notice if, if, if you're consistent for a little while and then you go away, people notice. I experience this all the time. You know, I've got two different TikTok pages and typically I focus on one at a time.
I'll take six months and focus on one, and then I'm, I'm gone and then I go to the other one, um, which isn't, isn't what I should be doing. But the truth of the matter is I get comments all the time, like, where are you? We haven't seen you. Are you okay? So and maybe this is a question for me personally too, with my own personal TikTok accounts.
Why do you think it is such a struggle for brands to stay consistent on social media?
Rachel Strella: Hmm. Well, from the business perspective, I mean, I'm just looking at it from this, from this perspective for a second. Running a business is a constant juggling act, you know? And so the reality is like, hm, well, things are gonna get pushed, and usually marketing always gets pushed. It's a non- urgent thing.
Um, and in a personal life, same thing. Like you've got kids, you bet, you've got work. So, you know, the stuff that's just not urgent is gonna get pushed, you know, and that's just the reality of it. Um, running a business, what we do as social media professionals, when our customers need something, when somebody calls off, when there's just a day to day of business, things get pushed.
Um, it's unfortunate, but it's a reality. Um, but it, you don't, consistency is so crucial to success. So it's—
Laney Goff: It really is. I mean, and I on, on my, I go away from TikTok and I come back to that account and having a hundred thousand followers, you would think, okay, I could jump right back into it. But the truth of the matter is my audience has forgotten about me. I'm no longer top of mind. And now the algorithm is like, what do we do with you?
We're— now gotta start from the beginning. And so it's a real, it's a real struggle. And I find myself in this position, and I'm sure a lot of other brands, I know a lot of other brands are like this because we've worked with them. They, they are now in a place of reactive posting. So when that happens, how do you, how do you help brands shift from that reactive posting to being more proactive with planning?
Rachel Strella: This is a million dollar question, so, alright. First they kind of have to wanna do it themselves and that is like a mind mindset shift entirely. There has to be some sort of motivation. I look at it like, um, exercising, you know, you can buy gym equipment or you can get a gym membership, but if you are not motivated to work out, like you're not going to do it.
You know? So you have to start with that. And I feel like with our clients, we're kind of cheerleaders in a way. We kinda have to educate them, get them motivated, get them going. So that's kind of like step one is, is having them understand the importance of this consistency and having to be proactive first.
Then the creation of processes. My favorite thing of all, because we really wanna help simplify all of this for 'em, and they can get so overwhelmed. By what to post, when to post that like they stall, they're just not doing anything. And once they realize that there's really just, it just all comes down to systems and processes that changes the game entirely.
And once we help organize that for them, it removes that overwhelm and things start to become simpler. They have a plan of action. You know, and after that it's just about small wins. So like they see a week or two of content come to fruition, they gain a little bit of confidence, you know, and that momentum sort of builds on itself.
And again, it's like working out, you know, you've lost two pounds or whatever that goal is. Once you've hit that point, you know you're ready to achieve a little more and you can keep building on that success.
Laney Goff: The weight loss is a great example. I mean like, I can't really relate to the gym, but I mean, you are so right, like when it comes to that, like if you get that small win, you're like, oh, I gotta keep going. And I like what you said too about, 'cause I've never really thought about it like that, but, um, I like what you said about when we first get started with the client and, and we're there to motivate because the truth of the matter is, is that when we do have these kickoff meetings, it does feel a little bit like a pep rally.
Um, you know, and it's like these are, this is what we can make happen if you get on board with us. And that is the truth that, you know, obviously there's the addition of, okay, we're forking out money. You know, a part of our budget towards this, there's motivation in that. But, and, and more than that, if it's a company that you feel like you can really rely on who is really, truly gonna get you the results that you need, that helps to bring that motivation too, um.
So I love that. And of course you talked about processes, you're, you're right, definitely your favorite. But it is the crux of, of, in my opinion, what has made Strella so successful. Not only that, the people as well that that work at Strella, but there's a lot to be said for having a plan in place. And that could be, like you said, the processes, task management, all of that.
For somebody or a brand who is really at a loss, which I know they're out there because we have worked with them, where they have no plan in place for creating and posting content. What is your go-to system for planning content? Can you kind of walk us through what that process looks like from ideation to publication?
Rachel Strella: Okay. Yeah. So this is like what we do. This is what we do for our clients, for us. So that's to me is like my favorite question. So I mean, at first comes like the, the content planning process. That's the brainstorming, the raw outline. And you can do that like a month at a time, a week at a time. But that's the fun part where you have like the bank of ideas of what the content should be.
And that really goes back to the strategy, the goals, you know, whatever that is. But you're just planning like, what could I be posting on this time, this day, whatever. Um, then, then you break that process down into the pieces. So, then comes the assets. So whatever the photos are, the videos are, you've gotta create the creation process.
And that's probably the thing that is the most challenging for people, really. I gotta take a photo, I gotta get on video, you know, and that's where the cheerleading part comes in again. But, um, once you get past that part and you've done it a little bit, you get over yourself, you know, fear of being on camera or whatever that is.
Um, and then you have the copy of course. So gotta write something that goes with it, the message, hashtag, whatever that is. And then you have, you should have proofreading or editing. Um, not everybody does that, but I highly recommend it. And then you have your posting and scheduling, and then it's rinse and repeat.
But that's pretty much the planning process. Within that process, you should also have tools. You should also have, you know, a strategy that's built around that you should also have, um, you know, a team of people that maybe help you with that, but there's so many different things and layers that we'll probably unpack a little more of in this podcast.
Laney Goff: Yeah. Well, and I like how you, you mentioned every piece of what it looks like and what I think that is important to note because a lot of times it could feel overwhelming, like hearing you list out every piece of that, like it's like, I don't want to do that. But what people need to realize is that like for Strella.
We don't do all of that in one day. We literally break it down into pieces. So the first day we we're doing the editorial planning and brainstorming. The very next day we're creating the assets. Then the next day we're doing the captions so that it feels less overwhelming. And I think that makes a really big difference, um, especially for teams who are doing it on their own. If you're doing it all in one day, especially if you're doing five to seven posts a week, oh, no, no, no.
Rachel Strella: Great point. Yes. This all comes down to processes again like you, once you have a system in place, this is so much easier and less overwhelming. Yes.
Laney Goff: And you also mentioned, you know, like having specific tools that are, are important to help you get there too. What tools or templates do you feel like have made the biggest impact in your ability to stay organized.
Rachel Strella: Okay. Oh, okay. I'm gonna say, there are some basic tools that everybody probably already has access to that are free, like Google Docs, you know, or Google Sheets. And that was something that we actually used for a long time, um, with our clients. You know, it's easy to share, so you want tools too that are going to be easy to share with your team or whoever else you're working with.
Um, as a project management person, I absolutely love Trello. But I would also say Trello's probably best for smaller teams, like if you're talking maybe 10 people or less. 'Cause once you get above that, it starts to get a little more expensive and complicated. We recently moved over to Notion, um, we moved from our editorial planning over to that, and I love Notion because you could put your assets in there, it's really easily shareable.
So definitely Notion is up there, um, as a tool. Um, I'll also say like, when you're talking about tools, one thing you wanna keep in mind is that, um. You want a tool that has a way to communicate within, within it, like with, with Trello or Notion, you could tag other people and have a conversation, and that's really important with the, the, the processes that you're doing.
Because if you, when you, when you're working on these pieces, you don't wanna have people in there that don't know where things are in that process 'cause that's gonna be sort of a bottleneck. So with the tools, you wanna have a communication kind of built in process. And most of these tools do, even with Google Docs.
You can easily, you know, tag somebody in there and make a comment. But I say those are some of my, my favorite tools.
Laney Goff: Yeah. Well, and I like that you mentioned both of the options of, if you're looking at creating a content calendar, like she said, you know, we did use Google Docs and Google Sheets for a long time and it worked. I mean, it wasn't a, a bad thing. Um, but for us, I think that if you're doing it internally yourself, then that is absolutely an option for us to have clients to view something.
It made more sense for us to go to Notion. Pay, pay the premium for it and actually have something that our clients can go and look at. They can comment themselves. You're exactly right. I think that those are our most essential tools and it just makes things so much easier. Um, and I, I also like to mention that, you know, when Rachel mentions Trello, we use that for task management.
So that is our internal company, uh, tool that we use and platform so that we understand daily what our tasks are. Um, and we keep track of it that way.
Whereas Notion is really built for the client, their editorial calendars and, and, communicating with them that way. Um, so I agree completely. Um. So then, okay, so if you're thinking about planning, I think there's often this misconception, um, especially when we get clients who maybe don't have a very strong understanding of social media, where they think, okay, if you have a content calendar, then that's your strategy.
Rachel Strella: Yeah.
Laney Goff: And it happens a lot. Can you kind of talk about the difference between content like planning and strategy? Like how do those work together in your mind? What's the difference?
Rachel Strella: Yeah. Well, you said it right there. You can have the best planning system in the world, but that's not necessarily a strategy. A strategy is your game plan for how you'll accomplish a specific goal or, um, whatever that task is. So in our case for our clients, you know, it's about their social media goals.
So, um, when you have a strategy, the planning is just really how you're gonna execute it. It's kind of like having a vision and executing on that vision or idea. So the strategy is really crucial. Um, that's the big picture. The, the planning piece is just really have the nuts and bolts of how you're gonna achieve all that.
Laney Goff: Exactly. Yes. And then the strategy. You have to have the strategy.
Rachel Strella: Gotta have that.
Laney Goff: And you have to have the planning. Yeah. Like they're both necessary.
Rachel Strella: You can't have one without the other.
Laney Goff: Exactly. Exactly. But a lot of people do. A lot of people will have the strategy without the planning aspect or they'll—
Rachel Strella: And they wonder why they're not working.
Laney Goff: Exactly. So you're right.
I think you, you absolutely have to couple the two together and have that understanding of the purpose of each, um. You know, I think about brands that, uh, a lot of brands that we work with, they already may have a marketing team, right? So how could a brand with a small team, or even especially a small team, if they have, you know, a smaller bandwidth to implement project management, how, how can they implement project management principles into their content planning?
Like, what would you tell them to help them? To be able to do that with a smaller team that doesn't have all the bandwidth to be able to focus solely on social media.
Rachel Strella: Well they're not gonna like this, but create processes for everything possible. I know that processes are pain, but they eliminate so much work down the line. And, and this isn't just me saying this, I mean business books, the traction we follow EOS system, the Entrepreneur's Operating System, this is one of the major components of operating a business.
Um, processes are so key, and once they're done, they're done. Except for maybe small tweaks as things change. Um, but once they're done, finding the right tools then to manage those processes efficiently among the team. Um, so those tools that we just talked about, like Google Docs or Trello or Notion, um, that's the second part.
And then, and this is probably the most overlooked one, ensure that everyone knows their role in that planning process, you know, so that everything is done in a lineup with no bottlenecks. So, um, I know that sounds kind of boring. But that's really the truth of the matter. Those processes are key. We, as you know, we probably have at least a hundred different processes that manage our business.
Laney Goff: Yes, and you, and you're right. It's not fun. I mean especially, in social media, it's not fun when you have you know, platforms like Meta who are constantly updating and it, it does require you to stay on top of them, but at the end of the day, you know, if we have one person who's out, so say you do have a small team of five and you've got one person who's in charge of scheduling and they're out, and the rest of the people are like, I don't know how to schedule with Meta, you've got a process in place that they can follow, and it's a full guide step by step of how to do it and that you lose that, that need to have everybody learn everything.
Rachel Strella: Yes.
Laney Goff: And it just makes things so much clearer, so much easier in my opinion. So I'm glad that you mentioned that with the processes. 'Cause you're right, we have a lot. We have a lot. We do. Um, so one thing that I feel like, you know, we come across a lot and a lot of questions, questions surrounding it is, you know, right now with social media trending topics, trends in general are really important.
And when you are planning content in advance. In my opinion, it does make it a little bit harder to stay on top of trends and post at the right time to actually effectively hit the trend. Um, you know. And so how do you think you can balance that consistency with flexibility when unexpected things pop up or when trends hit?
Rachel Strella: Yeah.
Well, one simple way to do this is just to build popup or opportunity posts into the calendar. Um, that way you can assure you, you know, have that. And then, but the thing that makes that work too is have a bank of evergreen content ready to go so that if that popup falls through, you can just replace it.
Um, or, you know, as much as like nobody wants to like reinvent the wheel, you could just continue having all of the content done. And if a popup arises, an opportunity arises, just go with it. You might have an extra post, but you wanna make sure that you capture, you know that whatever that trend is or that thing.
Um, but the other thing to keep in mind too is that like you wanna have that time in your schedule to deliver on that pop-up opportunity. You know, so we're not just making sure you have the opportunity spot in your calendar, but that you have also blocked off time somewhere in your day for those things that might happen. 'Cause they are gonna happen. So wherever that's...
Laney Goff: Every time.
Rachel Strella: 20 minutes that you say, okay, I've just gotta make sure I have some time available 'cause something might come up.
Laney Goff: Yeah. And, and that's a big thing too. And it's, it's funny because yesterday we had a creative meeting, um, and Ella on our team, she's a big fan of The Bachelor, and yesterday morning they announced who the new Bachelorette would be, and I had seen it. And so I thought to myself, oh, I'm gonna ask Ella.
She's gonna freak out when she hears who it is. So I, I recorded it and I got her being like, wait, they know who it is, who is it? And like her full exchange with it. And I thought, oh my gosh, this is a trending topic right now. It's blowing up on social media that Taylor Taylor Frankie Paul's gonna be the new bachelorette.
So now you know, I had a TikTok plan for tomorrow, and I'm like, you know what? It's gonna have to be replaced, it's gonna have to be moved down the line, and now we're gonna be posting about the Bachelorette, and it is what it is, you know?
Rachel Strella: Yeah, if you already have something planned and, and it's not something that necessarily has to be timely, you can always just push that down line. Uh, great. And I love what you guys did, you know, with the Taylor Swift proposal, like whenever you can jump on stuff like that, that's just so huge.
You can always find ways to weave that into your brand somehow. I've seen people do it in every industry lately. It's great.
Laney Goff: Yeah, every industry they what— whatever pop culture moment is happening they find some way to relate it to their brand. Um, and I like that you mentioned like leaving a spot open because sometimes that is what we do with our own content at Strella is we will leave a day open for a timely post, um, which could be like a social media platform update or it could be something trending that is happening in pop culture that we wanna highlight.
Um, so I like that you mention that 'cause it's definitely an option too, and it makes things a little bit easier.
Rachel Strella: Yeah absolutely.
Laney Goff: It definitely does. So, okay, last question. If someone is listening today and they're currently inconsistent on social media, what's one thing you would tell them that they can do today to start fixing that?
Rachel Strella: Hmm. Probably start small. Pick one channel that you know you can stick to and that you can commit to, and just stay consistent with that one for, I don't know, maybe say 30 days. Um, don't worry about being perfect, just show up consistently, even if it's once a week and, and build on that foundation from there.
The rest will kind of fall into place after that, but just commit to that one channel and that consistency for a period of time.
Laney Goff: Definitely if you, if you took away one thing from today, let it be what she just said. Consistency is not about perfection. It's about preparation. She gave you the blueprint because planning, like we said earlier, isn't optional. If you want real results, so whether you're one, one person show, or you're leading a full marketing team, the foundation starts here with consistency.
You have to stop winging it and you have to start working it. Right. Rachel, thank you so much. I feel like you gave such great advice and there's a lot that people can really take away from what you've done over the past 15 years.
Rachel Strella: Oh, this was so fun. Thank you.
Laney Goff: All right, well if you like today's episode, make sure you give us a like and a follow. Um, and we will see you next time. Bye.
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