“He said, ‘If you got the financial chops to do corporate finance, investment banking, you’ll thrive in marketing. Because it’s not just the creative things, you are the person that’s running the business. You need to have that analytical rigor and that creative muscle,'” Woodard recalled the advice on the “Black Money Green Tech” podcast hosted by Will Lucas.
The branding specialist also recognized he had become a trusted resource for many who were looking for advice, which he later recognized as consulting. By placing a calculated bet on his skills, he forged his path as a brand strategist under his own company, Mahdi Woodard, Inc. In that same breath, he is embracing the responsibility to uplift marginalized communities that are frequently an afterthought in the innovation space.
“This allows me to selfishly do what I’m good at and feel good about,” he said. “But in the other way, I fully understand where we’re going as a people. Talking about us Black folks. We’ve always been last in education. Hardest to be able to get to capital. Displaced by technology the fastest. So if I can share this stuff that I done went and got from these fancy universities, and if I can share this stuff that I learned at these fancy corporations, and even if I’m humble enough to share my entrepreneurial failures, I’ll be able to help somebody overcome some of the things that I went through. All I got to do is just be willing to share it. It just so happens that one of the byproducts is you can also make a living from it too.”
While on the podcast, Woodard offered an array of insights that centered how entrepreneurs can best conquer social media, particularly Instagram. We have compiled his suggestions below.
Consider The Masses
Woodard stresses the importance of catering to a wider audience when growing ones business. For example, because the algorithm can be ever-changing, it is important to be mindful of tools such as hashtags and keywords, which will be helpful to boost your post beyond your current followers. Failure to do so could lead to a standstill in growth.
“At this point, a lot of us, if we don’t play the second part of the game, if we’re only counting on our core audience to distribute us, we end up in sort of a loop of the same people seeing the same things, sharing it to the same people, and they’ve already made a decision on whether they’re going to follow us or not… So the question becomes: how do we play the algorithmic game so that we can disproportionately grow? At this current stage, and we’re in late 2024, what Instagram has said is we’re maximizing, we’re prioritizing reach over everything. What I hear that to mean is some of our more niche-based content or some of our more brand-based content, it’s dead on a arrival. If you don’t play to the mass audience, you’re going to have a hard time getting people to stop long enough to follow you,” he advised.
Knowing When To Niche Down
For an individual starting social media from the ground up, Woodard suggests to narrow down on a niche. On the other hand, a business that has matured may benefit from refining a more broader strategy.
In the event that an individual has various niches, the marketing expert recommends creating various pages.
“If you have multiple interests, you’re probably still going to need multiple pages and you just decide, ‘Am I going to treat my main page like the river that pours into the others?’ Over the next year to year and a half, you’ll see me doing that. Mahdi Woodard the person is entirely too dynamic to be placed into one box, but I got some feeder pages that I’ve built,” he mentioned. “So if you want to get really surgical on content, what light, what mic, what editing technique, there’ll be a page and that’s all it teaches. If you like, ‘What is this hobby, this bird journey talking about?’ And you want to go talk about bay-breasted warblers, I got you over there and my main page will sort of be more of a switchboard and more of a just sort of who this person holistically. But that’s also going to come at the expense of some of that growth that if you were to just stay laser focused.”
Be Demure About Trends
While keeping up with the Jones’ is typically a frowned upon mentality, when considering social media, it may not always have a negative connotation. Recently, the “Demure” trend, popularized by TikToker Jools Lebron, allowed various online users to add their spin, providing a fun and refreshed way of promoting a business, product, or service.
The key is to catch the trends while they are in their earlier stages.
“If you can catch a trend or start a trend at the right time, what does that mean? I’ve seen that typically if you can see a song or audio that’s growing but it’s under 10,000 plays, but it appears to be growing, I try to catch that wave and ride it to 20, 30, 100,000 [plays],” Woodard noted.
He added, “If you have the ability to start something. So you’re probably tired of this, but we are a couple of weeks away from ‘very demure, very mindful.’ If you can be the person at the forefront of something like that, then every time a person goes to search for the origin or the history of this, they got a disproportionate amount of chance of landing back in front of you. So it gets a little lengthy, but for most of us, we’re making too tight of content. We’re talking to a certain group of people. We’re to talking to them in a more familiar term, when we need to be talking more to the masses and in a more general language.”
Creating A Schedule
Remaining organized and creating a schedule for content will allow you to be ahead of the curve. There are several management platforms that offer this feature for posts on feeds and stories, including Hootsuite, Buffer, and Later.
Woodward notes a consistent post schedule can be beneficial to small business owners as it allows them to remain top of mind and increases their chances of securing a sale.
“Even though it’s not all about sales, post every day that you want to make some money. You comfortable with your money coming in every once in a while, post every once in a while. But if you like ‘It’d be good to make some money in the morning, and then again around lunch, and then again before I lay down,” he explained. “Then I orient my content schedule around that, because all things ultimately we hope they lead to sales. Whether I’m gaining awareness or nurturing or getting to a hardcore CTA or a conversion, we’re sort of all moving in that direction. So that would be my recommendation there.”
Consider Products For People Beyond Geographic Bounds
You won’t be able to control exactly where your content will reach or who will stumble upon your content. Therefore, it is also suggested to be more intentional with your content and offer products and services that can still be of value to those who may not be in reach.
“You need to also have a product or service that isn’t tied to geographic boundaries. So a lot of brick and mortal struggles because you can’t control where this content spills out once it lands and does well,” Woodward said. “So even if you have a restaurant, you better have a recipe book, you better have some seasonings, something that you can port and sell, because the content knows no geographic bounds.”
To hear more of Woodard’s insights, view the Black Money Green Tech Podcast below.
