At Our Desk
Question of the Month: How do you manage your social media presence?
Mastering Social Media: Insights from Dev Amadeo of The Yellow Butterfly
This month, we're exploring effective social media management. We reached out to our client Dev Amadeo from The Yellow Butterfly, who has built an impressive 126,000 followers on Instagram. Dev shared her invaluable insights on managing social media effectively. Here's what she had to say:
The Challenge of Outsourcing
Dev emphasizes the difficulty of finding agencies or individuals who can truly capture your unique voice and knowledge. She's observed many entrepreneurs reclaiming their content production from social media agencies due to engagement issues. The takeaway? Your authentic voice matters.
Smart Outsourcing
Instead of outsourcing all your content creation, hire someone to develop templates, write your bio, and craft key marketing lines. This lets you maintain your voice in daily posts while benefiting from professional design and strategic copy.
Content Creation Tips
Dev shares some practical tips for content creation:
Consistency is Key: Post regularly, ideally every day or every other day. Consistency in style, voice, and posting frequency is crucial for growth.
Plan Ahead: Dedicate one day a week to preparing your content. This will ensure that you always have something ready to post.
Valuable Content: Focus on creating posts that provide real value to your audience. This could be industry insights, how-to guides, or behind-the-scenes glimpses of your work.
Reuse and Expand: Don’t hesitate to reuse successful content or create follow-ups to popular posts. For example, if a post about Google optimization performs well, create a “Part 2” to delve deeper into the topic.
Hands-On Approach
Taking a hands-on approach to social media can save you time and ensure your content remains true to your brand. Supervising and correcting third-party work can often be more time-consuming than creating content yourself. If you do hire help, choose someone who understands your vision and communicates effectively.
Final Thoughts
Dev's approach emphasizes maximizing your efforts and resources while maintaining authenticity. By creating your own content, you ensure that your audience gets to know and trust you - crucial steps before they consider hiring your services.
Remember, social media success is all about consistency in style, voice, and posting frequency. With these insights from Dev, you're well-equipped to refine your social media strategy and grow your online presence authentically.
Our Take: Balancing AI and Human Touch in Social Media
We'd like to add our thoughts on incorporating AI tools to improve your productivity so that you would not have to outsource so much.
Here’s how AI tools like ChatGPT or Claude can help you manage social media:
Content Ideation: Use AI to brainstorm post ideas. Explain your tone of voice, who are your clients, and what you would like to focus on in your social media and ask it to provide creative content ideas.
Caption Writing: Get AI assistance in drafting captions. Give it your templates, explain the types of posts you’ll be creating, and then ask it to keep the writing close to your drafts. Improve the results with consequent prompting and keep the chat open for future tasks.
Content Calendar Planning: Use AI to help structure your content calendar. Prompt example: "Create a weekly content plan for a [your business type] covering key themes and post types."
Analytics Interpretation: Get AI help in understanding your metrics. Prompt example: "Analyze these engagement rates and suggest three areas for improvement: [insert your data]."
However, as AI becomes more prevalent, genuine human connections become increasingly valuable. Here are key ways to maintain the human touch:
Embrace Imperfection: Don't be afraid to show the unpolished side of your business. Share behind-the-scenes content or "work in progress" posts to showcase authenticity.
Personalized Responses: Take time to respond to comments and messages individually, addressing specific points raised by your followers.
Live Video Content: Use live streams or Instagram/Facebook Lives to interact with your audience in real-time, answering questions and sharing insights.
User-Generated Content: Encourage and share content created by your followers, fostering a sense of community.
Audio Content: Explore podcasts or platforms like Twitter Spaces to add a literal human voice to your brand.
Share Personal Stories: Occasionally share personal anecdotes or experiences related to your business journey. This helps followers connect with the human behind the brand.
Collaborative Content: Partner with other brands or influencers for takeovers or joint live sessions, introducing a fresh human perspective to your content.
By balancing AI-assisted efficiency with genuine human connection, you can create a social media presence that is both strategic and authentically engaging.
We want to hear from you! Share your questions about inspiration, advice, and more. What do you want to know about
June 2024
Work & Updates
Upcoming Consultation day: June 18
Join us for our upcoming Consultation Day on June 18. You are welcome to drop by and have a chat with me. Be sure to schedule your spot →
New work went live: Flourishing Minds Fund
We are thrilled to spotlight our collaboration with Will Troy to launch his Flourishing Minds Fund. We helped Will effectively communicate his unique approach to philanthropy. He applies a venture capitalist approach to large-scale fundraising to philanthropy, specifically mental health. The design challenge was to achieve the look and feel exerting effectiveness of VC firms while also showcasing the authenticity and meaningfulness of his grantees. We’ve created the identity including a logotype, color palette, and typography, and crafted unique illustrations.
Platform news
Proposals, estimates, and contracts are now available on all 7.1 sites.
Create customized, professional documents for forming agreements and securing employment. Learn more →
The paywall functionality gets an upgrade. Over the last year, Squarespace has revamped its functionality for selling access to gated content, be it courses, a video library, or now a blog. Learn more →
Insights & Opinions
How to use AI to do practical stuff: A new guide
Need help with AI? This is an excellent read for those who want to understand AI better but have little time to keep up. Learn more →
One bit of advice from our friends from Cinnober, a Copenhagen bookstore: create a monthly newsletter with personally selected helpful content for clients. They set aside a whole day each month to choose books relevant to the season. That newsletter is beloved. You can read the full Cinnober story here →
March 2018
March was a month of contemplation and research. New magazines like 032c, i-D and Monocle caught our attention and inspired in a deep way. Great interviews of Jack Ma and Kanye West showed how particularly differently they think.
A trip to Stockholm brought new magazines to our desk
032c
We got our hands to the 33rd issue of 032c magazine, that writes about culture, fashion and art in a specifically deep way. Their words and interviews seriously inspire.
The work about Frank Ocean is available to read online:
Also here are the highlights:
i-D
The spring issue of i-D MAGAZINE #351 was published and presents an amusing list of artists. Korean musician Yaeji, who we love deerly. Amusing contemporary ceramist Urara Thuchiya and her bewildering pornographic bowls. A piece with Cardi B, young lady that is rocking rap scene in a big way. Much of the issue is available online for free:
https://i-d.vice.com/en_uk/topic/the-radical-issue
This is possibly the nicest work from #351 issue: the list of British artists you should know about.
Monocle
March Monocle issue was dedicated to South Korea. Also this month editors has made a great job bringing in great retailers. There's a material from Osaka on good retail, good selection in Briefing section, and Korean scene review. The special that impressed us the most was "Fantasy Landlord" - it selects the best fashion retail brands, large and small, that would be great to have on the same street.
Speaking of Monocle. Podcasts.
You should listen to this if you are into entrepreneurs' stories about their path, thoughts, trends and speculations. Matt Alagiah as a host talks to each one of them in a special manner selecting his tone and questions very well. Here's what we loved in March:
Case Study
A now-living case of social marketing in fitness field - Syatt Fitness. The coach Jordan Syatt demonstrates quite authentic and effective communication on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook. He also has a wonderful email strategy as well as a blog on website. In order to understand his methods, it's better to subscribe to him everywhere as well as examine his website and get to his email newsletter. It's the most wonderful communication strategy we've seen in recent years.
Discovery of the month - Clique
French interviewer asks smart questions to Kanye West, Ai Weiwei and many many other important personas. There are mainly French people on his Chanel, but some internationals too. Take a look at the production quality too - it is professional but also elegant and relaxed. A lot is to learn from it.
Interviews
This month we were seriously inspired by interviews:
- Jack Ma (Alibaba) is a great motivator as usual
- Kanye West talks about brands, social media and celebrity
- Charlize Theron comes to Hot Ones show: a good entry to the format if you haven't watched it before
- Jeff Bezos updates on his vision and management wisdom
- Karl Lagerfeld talks to Monocle's chief editor Tyler Brule about brands, business and social media. He seems more progressive and agile then we could think.
On video production
Casey Neistat's production house Beme was bought by CNN and started making very very good videos explaining world happenings. The aesthetics is blog-like, but the preparation that lies behind is professional and deep. Some quality content is the result. So enjoy.
On the future of driving
Waymo, a Google's branch on self-driving technology that separated into a standalone company, presented their work of the latest years. It's a collaboration with Jaguar. And a self-driving service available soon.
A lesson on storytelling from Marvel
Spoilers alert!
Technology update
"This might be the future of computing" – WIRED
Music (links to Apple Music)
February 2018
In February we were traveling to Denmark and Sweden to meet more authentic brands like Appletrees, Kaibosh and Blomsterskuret. Meanwhile the new project for the interior design client was finished and some more is yet to come.
While traveling to Copenhagen we met Martin Reinicke and talked about his florist shop Blomsterskuret that was nominated to being probably the most beautiful flower shop in the world by Gardenista.
We also were lucky to catch Kaibosh's founder Helge Flo from Norway. His eyewear brand is making waves in concept stores around the world and online.
When in Stockholm we spoke to Victor Sandberg from Appletrees. He told a story of how he went to Paris fair with only one $500 white shirt and an iPhone, and grew his garments brand to selling internationally.
Here are the spots we visited in February and think interesting
Copenhagen:
Blomsterskuret
Flower shop on Vesterbro
Democratic Coffee
Great coffee and croissants
Cinnober Bookstore
Design books and stationery
Norse Projects
Conceptual garments shop
Vipp Concept Store
Iconic trash bins
Kaibosh
Conceptual eye-wear shop
Balderdash
Cocktail bar in historical center
The Apartment
Furniture&Lights store made like a flat
Paper-Collective
Photo and art prints
Stockholm:
Appletrees
Men garments
Papercut AB
Magazines and bookstore
Nitty Gritty
Concept menswear and womenwear stores
Christoffers Blommor
Flower shop
Carl Hansen & Son Flagship Store
A new concept space of iconic brand
Dusty Deco
Vintage furniture shop
Eytys
Sneakers and contemporary fashion brand
TRIWA Store
Affordable and well-designed watches
Acne Studios
The flagship store still has old ACNE PAPER editions
Pictures from the trip to Denmark and Sweden this month
A very nice website and video-story of Vipp
A well-made brand story video
Authentic discovery from England
Feldspar is a homeware brand by Jeremy and Cath Brown. They create ‘objects for life’, homewares with an emphasis on timeless design and quality materials – good things made properly and to last. Everything is designed in their studio and made by skilled craftspeople around the UK.
Website: feldspar.studio
Monocle podcast dedicated to Feldspar: monocle.com/radio/shows/the-entrepreneurs/eureka-86/
One nice piece from the Business of Fashion about loyalty programs. Quote:
The loyalty lie
Most loyalty programmes don’t generate loyalty. In fact, a 2012 benchmark study from Edgell Knowledge Network, which surveyed the loyalty programmes of 60 retailers, found that customers of retailers that offer a loyalty programme were not recognisably more loyal than customers of those that don’t. What’s worse, according to the same study, is that 81 percent of loyalty programme members don’t even understand what their rewards entitlements consist of or how they’re redeemed. And this shouldn’t come as a surprise considering the average household belongs to eighteen loyalty schemes!
Todd McFarlane tells his story of how he got from an illustrator in large corporation to his own comic series (that is the longest independent series ever) and then to hes toys company, games, animations and movies. A 12 year old boy that has managed to never grow up. Astonishing!
Music (links to Apple Music)
Our new work this month
A website for interior design studio called Dreamdesign. The product underlines the portfolio in a very simple and elegant way. Check it out below:
January 2018
This month we were inspired my Ache Studios story published by Magazine B, while reading Isaac Azimov and Erich Fromm, watching a lecture of Virgil Abloh, listening to Black Merlin and much more. Here's a glimpse of what was on our table in January.
A fresh issue of Magazine B about Swedish Acne Studios.
Founded in 1996 by Jonny Johansson and three partners, with only 10,000 euros, Acne was first launched as a small advertising and design agency in Stockholm. Acne, an abbreviation for “Ambition to Create Novel Expression,” is characterized as a creative collective that freely does whatever it wants, just as the name shows. One day, the company produced just 100 pairs of jeans to emerge as Stockholm’s representative denim brand. In 2006, Acne separated its fashion endeavors to create an independent brand called Acne Studios, and since then has consolidated its position as a major contemporary fashion house that crosses between the realms of fashion, culture and art.
032c is a contemporary culture and fashion magazine that publishes thoughtful and deep materials.
This month we loved these articles:
“Duchamp Is My Lawyer” Virgil Abloh
JASON DILL Takes us to Hell and Back to FUCKING AWESOME
HELMUT LANG: The Searching Stays With You
Hypebeast vs. Highsnobiety: A Journey Towards the Heart of Content
Also these publications from other media:
David Droga talkes to FastCompany
The Economist put an essay of a great new book
Unbelievable worldview-changing saga
To be is better than to have
A super easy summary on Buddhism and success
Post-modernism and sampling in fashion. Greatly inspiring glance into Virgil's notebook.
Wisecrack Edition on The Philosophy of Darth Vader, where they explore the philosophical origins of one of the most tragic arcs in cinema history.
Electric cars have tremendous potential, but Lou explains why they're not yet a perfect - or accessible - alternative to gas-powered cars.
This month Las Vegas hosted a large tech conference - CES. Here's the most interesting pitch.
Music (links to Apple Music)
Art
BOYCHUKISM. Project of the “Great style”
Mykhailo Boychuk is a Ukrainian painter, known as a monumentalist, who in 1910 surprised the demanding Paris at the “Salon des Indépendants”. He used tempera instead of oil, returned to historical heritage, chose collective creativity instead of individual one and brevity of art form instead of realistic reproduction. The French called these innovations “Renovation Byzantine”, among scholars it is known as the school of Ukrainian monumentalism or boychukism. This was the last attempt to implement the great style in Ukraine. The rebel by nature, Mykhailo Boychuk set himself a clearly defined goal – to reform the Ukrainian art. The new Ukrainian style was to become truly national and had to deeply enter the everyday life of people.
