Deidre Bounds— President, Ignite Social Media
Deidre talks to TheNextGag about being the OG of social media agencies, the evolution of the space and her social media dreams.
Deidre Bounds is the President of Ignite Social Media in the USA.
Ignite Social Media, the first social media agency in the United States founded in 2007 by CEO Jim Tobin and SVP of Strategy, Lisa Braziel.
This women-owned business directly impacts clients by putting the client’s business objectives first. They keenly focus on changes in the industry and have added services like paid media buying, social-first content creation and strategic social consulting. The leadership team, consisting of President Deidre Bounds, Senior VP’s Lisa Braziel and Misi McClelland, VP of Community Management Ashlie Lanning, and VP of Finance Debbie DeSantis.
THENEXTGAG: IGNITE MEDIA IS A SOCIAL MEDIA COMPANY, IS THAT CORRECT ?
DEIDRE BOUNDS: That is correct. We consider ourselves the original social media agency. We started about ten years ago. And as far as we know, we were the first social-only agency in the US.
TNG: BACK IN THE DAYS, SOCIAL MEDIA WAS SEEN AS A FAD. THEN IT BECAME HUGE. AND NOWADAYS IT IS NOT AS BIG AS IT USED TO BE. DO YOU SEE IT EVOLVING ?
DB: Yes, absolutely. Definitely evolving. You asked if it was a trend. I think about that. Because, I know ten years ago, when we started, it was one of the questions we had to ask ourselves. In terms of how much we were going to invest in starting this business and what we thought the longevity was. And I don’t think it as a trend. Time has proven that.
TNG: AT SOME POINT BRANDS DECIDED TO INVEST A LOT INTO SOCIAL MEDIA. IT SEEMS THAT NOWADAYS THEY ARE ADJUSTING THEIR STRATEGIES. DO YOU FEEL THE SAME ?
DB: Yes. I would agree with that. Brands and marketers are now seeing that there really is some depth and some need to build a solid social strategy. It is part of their overall marketing strategy. So, it is not one or the other. But they are seeing it as a definite benefit and part of their overall marketing strategy.
TNG: CLIENTS HAD TO BE EDUCATED BEFORE DOING SOME DIGITAL MEDIA. YOU WOULD BE TALKING TO MARKETERS WHO WERE NOT FAMILIAR WITH THE DIGITAL SPACE. BUT THEN THE CLIENTS STAFFED THEMSELVES AND WERE ASKING FOR SERIOUS RESULTS. HOW DO YOU MEASURE SOCIAL MEDIA FOR THEM ?
DB: What you said is very true. It used to be something that brands had to go outside of their organization to get. So, they would hire agencies to work for them, because it was so new that they didn’t really have that expertise in-house. And I think agencies like ours, and other agencies who have built their businesses on knowing what social is and knowing how it affects brands and how it can work to their benefit, produced all of this talent, that is now out there for brands to say “Hey, it might be better for us to have some of that expertise in-house.” And we support that.
But, at the same time, it is very difficult for one person or a small department, which right now is typically what these social media arms are within businesses, to keep up with the ever-changing trends. Not just the types of platforms, but all of the changes that are happening within the platforms. That leaves a space for companies like mine. Because we are so involved in the day-to-day and what is transpiring. It is our job to know what’s coming. It is our job to how to manage that. It is our job to either recommend or test those things for new clients.
So, even though many of our clients have folks in-house handling their social. There is still a place for us. There is still a place for our business. And they still rely on us to bring strategies and insights that they don’t always have access to.
TNG: SOCIAL MEDIA USED TO BE A GREAT PLACE FOR CREATIVES TO WORK ON AS IT WAS EASIER TO PRODUCE THAN A LONG-FORM COMMERCIAL AND YOU COULD BE FUNNY (LIKE ON SKITTLES FACEBOOK PAGE). WOULD YOU SAY IT IS STILL A GREAT PLACE FOR CREATIVITY ?
DB: I would. And I would say it is quicker to produce than a long-form piece of content or a TV spot, for that matter. I won’t say it is easier, because I still think that you have to put the same level of thought into your short-form content. You still have to put the same type of energy behind what you are producing. Who’s the audience ? What’s the voice ? What’s the brand ? So that level of thinking has to go in. I have a traditional marketer background and I know what it is like to produce a 30 second commercial, when you shoot for half a day and you have to condense all of that shooting into 30 seconds. So I think about that as it applies to social and really trying to define the shorter form content and make an impact very very quickly, very succinctly. But make it something that people want to see or want to hear about or want to read. That takes, to me, an even more refined skillset.
TNG: WHERE DO YOU FIND YOUR INSPIRATION FOR THAT ? DO YOU LOOK AT PUBLISHERS, LIKE BUZZFEED, OR INFLUENCERS ?
DB: Just traditional marketing. We use a number of different tools or strategies to reach the audience. It is not just about producing a post on a brand channel and hoping that somebody will come and engage with it. For us, it is also about creating. It may be a series or post, it may be a contest, it may be a sweepstake, it may be a video, that really captures the essence of what the brand is trying to get across. It could also mean boosting or paying for that post to be boosted so that it has some higher rankings, so that it gets the eyes that we want it to get. It could also mean working with influencers who are connected to the audiences for the brand that we are trying to reach.
Social media has certainly evolved from just a person watching a channel, putting up a post and hoping that they get the “Oreo” effect. It is really about being strategic about where you spend your time and where you spend your money. And being creative about how you engage that audience and how you keep them engaged. Because, oftentimes, a post will have a limited engagement, meaning it might be really big today or really big tomorrow, but then what happens to that audience ?
Our job is also to get that stickiness and try to get the audience to stay connected with us to engage with our brands and to come back and see what else we’ve got going.
Social media is not for the faint of heart
TNG: BRANDS USUALLY ALLOCATE THEIR BUDGETS IN ADVANCE FOR THE YEAR. BUT SOCIAL MEDIA MOVES SO FAST. FOR EXAMPLE, LAST YEAR WE HAD THE RUSH TO FACEBOOK LIVE VIDEOS, TO BRANDED EMOJIS ON TWITTER OR EMOJI KEYBOARDS ON IMESSAGE. HOW DO YOU MAKE YOUR CLIENTS MOVE FAST ON A TREND BEFORE IT DIES ?
DB: When you are looking at your client, you’ve got to first start with the brand and how adventurous is that brand. Sometimes, we have clients who are a little bit more adventurous than others, they are a bit more comfortable being first in a space to test it. We do a lot of things we call Test & Learn. And clients are OK if it doesn’t work. And they are elated if it works.
There are some things that we test. And they might be the first to do that or the first in their industry or the first within their competition to do that. Well, we have others who are more comfortable being second. And in some cases, even being third. To see what happens and to learn lessons from other brands so they can avoid mistakes.
Social media is not for the faint of heart. Because, you can’t always predict what the reaction is going to be. You can’t always predict that people are going to come to your page and watch. But, our job is to monitor the audience, look for those trends, look for the opportunities for a client to do something spectacular. Even if they are not always the first ones in that space to do it.
And under all of that, it is really making sure that we got a solid, consistent, plan and strategy. So when we do these one-off things that we are trying, we have as little negative impact as possible on the fans and the followers and the brand in totality on social. We can try, but it shouldn’t impact overall what we are doing. Because our overall strategy is very solid and pretty consistent.
TNG: DO YOU HANDLE THE MEDIA BUYING FOR ALL YOUR CLIENTS ?
DB: No, not for all of them. For several of them, we do. And we also have clients that we do ad spending for solely. So, we may not provide any other services to them except ad placements.
TNG: DOESN’T IT MAKES IT MORE CHALLENGING FOR YOU TO PLAN THE SOCIAL MEDIA STRATEGY BUT NOT TO EXECUTE THE MEDIA BUYING PART OF IT ?
DB: No. I would say it is not. A lot of times, particularly for our larger clients, they have media buying agencies. So, we work alongside those agencies and sometimes we weigh in on their plans for the year, we give insights to them about which posts are working and which aren’t. And that gives them some insights on which posts they need to boost or not boost. It is really about how we set up the nature and the structure of that relationship from the beginning.
We work a lot with some of our clients who do have other agencies that they work with. So, we are part of the overall mix, but we may not necessarily do every single piece of social. Particularly the media buying piece of it. Because a lot of them have longstanding contracts with media buying agencies.
But for our other clients that we do media only for, for example, in those cases, we might weigh in on the creatives and what creatives we think would work in this space and on the channel. And those are the posts that we would boost.
TNG: I SAW ON YOUR INSTAGRAM ACCOUNT THAT YOU DO PRODUCE THE CREATIVES IN-HOUSE IN YOUR OWN STUDIO.
DB: We do have studios in both of our offices. We have an office in North Carolina and we have one in Michigan. And we have content developers who are dedicated to creating beautiful pieces of content. But they work very closely with their community managers to make sure that the messaging of that content is correct. From time to time, we may work with photographers or we may work with a client’s in-house content producer. But I think it is important to have a studio, or access to a studio. We don’t do all of our shooting in-house. Sometimes, we are out in the wild. Depending on the client and depending on the type of imagery we are trying to get, we may be in a coffee shop, we may be at a park, we may be in a restaurant. We have a client that is a restaurant. All of it is not always done in-house, but we certainly need the room and the space for that, for the pieces that we need to create in-house.
TNG: WHERE DO YOU HIRE YOUR PEOPLE ? WHERE DO YOU FIND PEOPLE WHO WANT TO WORK ON SOCIAL MEDIA ?
DB: We find people all over. It really depends on the type of positions we are looking for and the level of experience. Many of our folks started as interns with us. And they learn and grow in our business. And oftentimes, they evolve for a particular team or a particular department. Or they are just a really good fit and we hire them full time.
In other instances, we will place ads in some local/social sites, as well as Linkedin. We’ve got a great person who does all of our recruiting. And she has been recruiting in this particular industry for some time, so she has got some good contacts and insights on where to go.
We are very open to where people come from. We’ve had folks who’ve worked previously in a computer store and they brought great perspective and great insights. So not everybody has to be cookie-cutter. They just have to be willing to learn. And they have to be extremely interested and involved in social.
TNG: WHAT DO YOU HOPE FOR IN 2017 IN THE SOCIAL MEDIA SPACE ? WHAT WOULD YOU LIKE PLATFORMS TO BRING YOU ?
DB: It is a really good question. One of the things I would love to see — and I think everybody would — would be for Facebook to get their metrics together. Because, it is tricky. You go down a path and you think you’ve got up-to-date data and sometimes it doesn’t always work out that way. You find that out a bit later. That’s one of the things that, not just me, but many marketers, would like to see.
And the other thing is being able to edit your posts on Twitter, as you can on Facebook. It is a big deal that we would love to see come about this year.
TNG: SO YOU DIDN’ SAY ANYTHING ABOUT GOOGLE+ ?
DB: (laughs) No I didn’t.
Deidre Bounds
President
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