Behind the Post

How do you unplug when being plugged in is your job?

How do you continue to show up and be creative while balancing several tasks and the pressure of working in social media?

The number of professionals experiencing burnout is on the rise. Throw social media into the mix and if you’re not mindful, burnout is almost a guarantee.

According to a study by Deloitte, 77% of professionals have experienced burnout at their current job.

If you are feeling stressed, exhausted, or depleted from the “always on” work pressure – you are not alone! In this episode, Olivia Messina, Social Media and Community Manager at Oktopost is opening up about her experience with social media burnout and sharing her top 6 tips to prevent it. Keep these tips in your tool kit to keep burnout away and creativity top of mind!

When it comes to social, Christina Le, Social Media Manager at OpenPhone is the jack of all trades. She joins host Olivia Messina Behind the Post to share her insights on social strategy, personal branding, TikTok, and everything in between!

She shares her approach to social as a seasoned veteran in the industry (and hint: it all comes back to your audience), conveying your company’s values, and tapping into the conversations that are happening.

To close out the episode, Christina shares her greatest advice for building a personal brand– start writing and don’t overthink it! As humans, we are natural storytellers: be vulnerable, talk about the ups and the downs, and take the time to talk about the things that matter to you. She reminds us that it doesn't need to be overly polished – just be you! LinkedIn is the best place to where your resume on your sleeve and if done right, you’ll never need to apply to another job again!

Have you ever seen a brand crushing it on social and wonder, “how does their social media manager do it?”

This week on Behind the Post, host Olivia Messina asks Caitlin Doyle, Social Media Manager at Demandbase all the right questions.

If you’ve spent anytime scrolling a Demandbase feed, you’ve seen their fun, fresh, and engaging social presence. In this episode, Caitlin describes how often she’s posting, what she’s doing on the post level to pull her audience in, and which content types yield the highest engagement.

One thing is for sure – this episode proves that carousel posts aren't only for Instagram! LinkedIn's carousels might be your one-way ticket to higher engagement!

To wrap up the show, Caitlin and Olivia talk about how keeping a pulse on everything happening internally and managing requests from different departments is one of the most challenging parts of the role – and why flexibility is key!

Most B2B organizations have nailed the lead generation and conversion pieces of the sales cycle. Majority of products and services revolve around your customers but once the sale is closed, how do you keep the customer as the focus of the business?

What's the value of your employees amplifying your brand's message and building their own presence?

What are the challenges that come with taking over a brand's social and running an employee advocacy program?

These questions and more answered this week on Behind the Post with Helen Hauck, Global Social Media Engagement Manager at IFS. She joins the show to share her insights, challenges, and lessons learned from her 1st-year full-time in social.

Helen and host, Olivia Messina talk about the importance of humanizing B2B brands and the different tactics she's used on the IFS corporate channels. As an employee advocacy leader, she reveals the challenges she faced when gaining adoption within her organization. With an incredible personal brand on LinkedIn, Helen wraps up the show with her best tips for authentically building a personal brand.

Managing a global brand's social media is no easy feat. How do you appeal to multiple audiences and stay respectful of cultural differences? How and when should you localize content?

This week on Behind the Post, host Olivia Messina brings a social powerhouse on the show! Melissa Francois, Content, Comms & Social Lead at PlayPlay, gets candid about what she's learned from managing social at some of the largest global brands.

Melissa reveals how to approach every social strategy from a global standpoint, how to manage different time zones, and the importance of using geographical data to speak to customers/ followers where they are.

She wraps up the show, reminding us that everything you do on social needs to tie back to value – down to each holiday. Tune in for an episode full of tips and strategies to optimize your global brand's social strategy!

Humans love a good story – and when it comes to B2B marketing, the same truth applies. Content plays an integral role in the B2B buyer journey simply because content adds value!

Next up on Behind the Post is Whitney Blankenship, Senior Content Marketing Manager at Oktopost, Whitney joins host Olivia Messina to unpack the process in creating and delivering highly valuable and authentic content.

Whitney shares that content is easier to distribute if you start with the end in mind. Getting your content in front of customers is more meaningful when you focus on pain points and add real value to their life and role!

She even walks us through her creative process which includes lo-fi hip hop beats, a cup of mint tea, and a Google doc! Stay until the end of the show to hear her best tips for breaking through the dreaded writer's block.

When you first join a company, you always want to make a profound impact. But as a brand new social media marketer, how do you get buy-in across leadership to implement your big ideas?

As the first dedicated social media marketer at EY Canada, Dylan Doyle shares how he shifted the social function outside of brand and to a go-to-market channel.

In this episode, Dylan explains how taking his initial social media audit from an external perspective and applying it to the internal context of EY was critical to his success. By leading his team with a data-oriented approach with a constant line of communication and real time reporting with his executives, he was able to get buy-in from leadership and 10X their social strategy.

He shares some of the lessons learned from B2C and how he’s applying them to EY. His team is breaking out of the confined perception of management consulting by focusing on business-to-human marketing—not sticking to what's always been done and looking for new ways to innovate. Most of the success they have seen has been from keeping a streamlined simple approach that’s human and authentic.

Dylan shares that getting closer to their brand partners has been an integral part of the success. He caps off the show sharing some of the growth his team has seen since 2020 and what’s ahead for EY in 2023!

Recruiting is looking more and more like marketing today. So how can you harness the power of social to build your employer brand and attract the best talent?

It’s essential that your employer brand be rooted in a positive work culture, and you have the means of communicating those values and experiences to candidates. In this episode, Olivia Messina is breaking down how social media managers can build their employer brand in a meaningful and authentic way.

She believes the key to employer branding is highlighting the people behind your business and sharing their experiences from your employee's point of view. She also shares how employee advocacy can strengthen your brand’s reputation as an employer, and caps off the show by giving real examples of campaigns and initiatives she’s started here at Oktopost to fuel your inspiration!

How do you manage a large-scale employee advocacy program?

You’ve built your program, you’ve onboarded the right people, and you’ve scaled your employee advocacy program—but now what?

How do you keep your program engaging and interesting for the whole team?

It’s one thing when you have a smaller team in your program—it’s quite another when your program extends to thousands of employees.

Meet Andrea Fernandez, award-winning Global Social Media Manager at SUSE, where she manages an employee advocacy program that’s 2000 employees strong. In this episode, Andrea chats through her process with host, Olivia Messina, and explains how she:

She also highlights what she does to get the rest of the company, even those who aren’t part of the employee advocacy program, interested through company updates, and incorporating it into the process of onboarding new employees.