[00:00:00] Dave Polykoff: welcome to another episode of personal brand blueprint podcast. I'm Dave Poliakoff, CEO and co founder of Zen post. com. You're a branding content partner, helping you become the best known and go to expert in your industry. If your struggle. You're struggling with finding the right messaging that resonates with your audience and creating content consistently around that messaging and check out Zen post.
[00:00:22] Dave Polykoff: com to learn more about our monthly done for you branding and content services. We will craft your message and then promote that message that attracts, convinces, and converts your ideal client for you. On today's episode, we have Kenya Scott, a digital marketing and social media strategist at Marketing Sparkle Kenya.
[00:00:41] Dave Polykoff: Kenya's clients are struggling with marketing overwhelm. So she provides marketing strategies that help them simplify their marketing efforts while amplifying their brand. Today we're chatting with Kenya about ways to amplify our brand message to help us grow and monetize our personal brands. So Kenya, welcome to the show.
[00:00:56] Kemya Scott: thank you for having me [00:01:00] I
[00:01:01] Dave Polykoff: we've talked before about. Um, the importance of first understanding your brand message and then ways to then distribute that. And I think the latter is kind of the most important part because understanding your messaging is one thing, but then getting people to actually hear it is another thing.
[00:01:18] Dave Polykoff: So let's first start with the concept of who are you and kind of what do you do? Who do you help?
[00:01:26] Kemya Scott: Help speakers authors coaches and consultants Amplify their message and amplify their brand through different marketing channels. So I am a marketer by trade. You don't get that very often, but I actually went to school for marketing. So I have done every I've done pretty much everything as it relates to marketing.
[00:01:50] Kemya Scott: From back in the days to graphic design with hanging up posters on light poles. To designing business cards, logos, flyers, [00:02:00] etc. To putting together proposals and presentations, crafting marketing strategies, helping people with their signature talks, before I knew that's what it was called. So helping people with their pitches and presentations.
[00:02:10] Kemya Scott: All the way through today's landscape, uh, with digital marketing. Using so many of the social media channels. But I still dabble in offline marketing as well because depending on the brand and who their desired audience is. Everybody's audience is not online looking for their products and services. So I run the gamut.
[00:02:31] Kemya Scott: I do a little bit of everything at this point
[00:02:35] Dave Polykoff: Love it. And who would you say is kind of like your ideal client? I know a lot of people could use this service, but like, who's like the ideal person that would get the most benefit from your service?
[00:02:45] Kemya Scott: Typically, it's a business coach or a business consultant who has a Certain type of content. I typically work with thought leaders, although I have literally worked with some of everyone but typically [00:03:00] thought leaders Who are on the speaking circuit? They may have a couple of books and they're really using marketing to generate more brand awareness and gain more Opportunities, you know, I know a lot of people use social media looking for direct sales.
[00:03:17] Kemya Scott: They're looking at it as more transactional Which is not necessarily the Purpose Of marketing per se But I really look to work with those clients who are looking again to generate brand awareness And then they know how to take it those next steps because a lot of opportunities Come when people see you so I use digital marketing as a credibility Platform and those are really the people if that's what you're looking for.
[00:03:46] Kemya Scott: Those are the people some of my favorites That's who I like to work with
[00:03:52] Dave Polykoff: So what's like the, what's like the core problem would you say is that people come to you to kind of solve what, like where, where are they in their like [00:04:00] career, their marketing journey, what are they struggling with? That is like the big solve that you that you're providing them.
[00:04:08] Kemya Scott: It's actually twofold. I think it's equal parts of They don't have a marketing strategy. They've been just kind of winging it as I say, which you know It's that's what happens when you don't have a marketer. You kind of wing it You're going to Google University and YouTube University trying to figure out what to do how to market your business So I think that's that's one set of people They really don't have a marketing strategy and they're kind of tired and posted in random Facebook groups asking them How to market my business.
[00:04:36] Kemya Scott: So they know it's time to up level and hire a professional. The other set are those people I talked about that really need brand awareness. They're tired of being the best kept secret. They need more, they just need more people to know who they are. Both sides are typically service based. That's typically who I work with.
[00:04:56] Kemya Scott: But that's really it. So marketing strategy and brand [00:05:00] awareness.
[00:05:01] Dave Polykoff: I think you kind of alluded to this a little bit earlier, but like, how did you get into this? This, this industry, or what was kind of like the catalyst that sparked you into being able to provide this service for clients.
[00:05:14] Kemya Scott: Well, I liked marketing and branding before I knew what it was. Um, so I always liked logos and graphic design. Color theory and why certain things were a certain color. I loved Fashion and entertainment and so when it was time to pick a major in school, I'm definitely a business student Like there's no question about that.
[00:05:40] Kemya Scott: I've always been that way, but when it came time to pick a major I literally looked at all of the majors and Kind of put together. This is the one that I like and so I started my corporate career in merchandising and In stores, you know, so it really just progressed from there. I got [00:06:00] deeper and deeper into it and I worked for architects engineers interior designers and their business development, but I also put together the proposals and presentations for them to bid on contracts.
[00:06:12] Kemya Scott: So I'm that. That notorious PowerPoint person has been using PowerPoint since forever and people like, oh, death of PowerPoint. I'm like, never, never death of PowerPoint. I'm that person. But that's literally what I did. And so I did things on the side as well. I designed, you know, my own business cards as a student.
[00:06:32] Kemya Scott: I taught people how to graphic design and it just progressed from there. And then, um, When you know marketing and people recognize, you know, marketing, what do they do? They ask you to market their stuff. And so people would just randomly ask me, Hey, wait a minute, you sound pretty good at that. And so I would just have side hustles as we call them today, helping people market their events.
[00:06:56] Kemya Scott: A lot of times I was working on events and then it just progressed from there. [00:07:00] Even in my corporate career, when I didn't have a technically a marketing job once in a while, A person realized that my strength is in marketing. They said, wait a minute. Well, you can come over and do some of this and some of that and some of this.
[00:07:13] Kemya Scott: And that's really how it just progressed. And then when the digital landscape came about, I came to it. Uh, apprehensive as probably most were. I say kicking and screaming, but I'll use a professional term, apprehensive. But once I got into content creation, blogging, landed on a social media platforms, I've been here ever since.
[00:07:38] Kemya Scott: And I've worked on, you know, tons of different events, um, side hustle projects, one time projects, and then working long term with clients. So it really is a continuation. You know, I look at using Canva today. As a 30 year journey of designing on what was Aldis page maker before InDesign. It's literally the same thing.
[00:07:59] Kemya Scott: It's [00:08:00] just a different tool, different platform.
[00:08:03] Dave Polykoff: And so you mentioned a few things there about how you kind of grew your business. What's kind of like one marketing strategy that you think is like a key marketing strategy that helps you grow your personal brand?
[00:08:14] Kemya Scott: Speaking, doing what I'm doing now. Because it's one thing to, I'm a writer who doesn't call herself a writer. You know, it's one thing to put words into words. To paper or screen. It's another thing for someone to hear your voice to feel your energy My energy does come across when I write I have had people say that but to hear me speaking to engage with me of course speaking is the fastest way to build know like and trust because people can Listen to you for 15 20 minutes and feel like they know you so I would say After all of these years speaking Which I've, I've always done without even calling myself a speaker.
[00:08:55] Kemya Scott: You know, when you do things, you don't call yourself that you just do them. That that's me. So [00:09:00] I really had to think about things that I've done because I've always done them. But speaking my literally entire life, I could call myself a speaker since I was about five literally five, literally. Okay.
[00:09:17] Dave Polykoff: um, we, we want to talk about kind of amplifying your message today in this kind of like the 2024 going into 2025, what are some of the top channels that you would advise clients that they need to be on if they really want to be amplifying their message?
[00:09:34] Kemya Scott: One, they need to be book, booking podcast interviews. I tell everyone that it is the easiest way to speak. I mean, it just really is. From there, I would say a YouTube channel is paramount. Notice I said YouTube, I didn't say video. I said YouTube. Again, related to that speaking. Um, but between podcasts and [00:10:00] videos, then your next platform can be related to the products and services that you offer, where your audience is, what that demographic looks like, looks like, but those two platforms, I would tell anybody with any business anywhere, podcasts, appearances, and or speaking from the stage, But really podcast appearances as it relates to digital marketing and YouTube because YouTube is a search engine and what a lot of people don't realize, which I know you realized it, is that when you speak, you, if you're recorded, you can repurpose things so much easier.
[00:10:35] Kemya Scott: And so I, I am an efficient. Marketer and business owner You know, i'm a blogger because i've been a writer, you know, I I love to blog I love to write but it takes longer to repurpose a blog post than it takes to repurpose a video because of just the the medium itself and again As I mentioned, it gives people a chance to hear your voice, to know you, [00:11:00] your personality, if you're not being all tight and stiff, you know, they can hear and see your personality and that really ingratiates you.
[00:11:08] Kemya Scott: And so, I have people in my head that are my mentors and coaches that they don't know I exist. But when you binge, I think we all do, when you binge watch people, when you binge listen to people, it's different than binge reading people. Reading their stuff. So definitely podcast interviews and YouTube
[00:11:28] Dave Polykoff: And when we're creating this video content, what are some of the, I guess, topics or strategies that we want to be thinking about in terms of like, what content should we actually be creating and talking about?
[00:11:41] Kemya Scott: The one thing to remember is not about you as the business owner I have to remind myself of these things so I share them with you But you know content such as your frequently asked questions. Everybody can start with the basics What are your frequently asked questions make individual [00:12:00] videos? For each of those frequently asked questions, I tell people write down five to ten FAQs that you get over and over again.
[00:12:08] Kemya Scott: You know, and if you're new to business, what are you seeing other people ask other people? What are people asking in forums and groups, those kind of things, but frequently asked questions. And again, make those individual videos the next set. So that's probably about 10 videos. The next set of videos could be about your, um, service, but really what it's like to work with you.
[00:12:32] Kemya Scott: So, I could say I'm a social media manager and drone on and on and on about what that means, but it's more helpful for someone looking for me and looking to hire me to say what a day in the life of a social media manager is, or What it's like to work with me. What specifically I do, not like the Google, what everybody does, but what specifically do I do?
[00:12:57] Kemya Scott: Hey, does your social media manager, you [00:13:00] know, interview you on video and then repurpose those videos? You know, those types of things. So really giving people a day in the life as well, which is always fun. You won't believe what I spent three hours on today, you know, and talk about what you were researching or what rabbit hole you went down with this new platform.
[00:13:19] Kemya Scott: Or the admin. I spent 20 minutes renaming files in my downloads folder. Like that kind of stuff. It really resonates with people because one, again, it shows the personality. Two, it shows you're not perfect. It shows that you are doing the other things that, that, that, that client is doing. You really it makes you relatable and that's a word that's kicked around a lot But what relatable means particularly for me Is showing you that I am going through the same challenges the same struggles the same ahas the same breakthroughs those types of things So that's easily another between five to ten videos that you can shoot off the top of your head and then You know, [00:14:00] the third set is really about What you actually offer You And how it helps people to benefit so many people for example as a social media manager I can say okay Well, i'll post on your facebook page three times a week and and i'll post on x every day.
[00:14:17] Kemya Scott: Nobody wants to hear that That there's not a benefit what's the benefit of that I could say The benefit of me posting on your facebook page three times a week is that you'll stay visible in front of your ideal client Your ideal audience those types of things So a set of videos about the benefits of what you do So between those three buckets you could easily have a month's worth of videos How often
[00:14:47] Dave Polykoff: some different things like podcasting versus maybe just a social, like a LinkedIn account or something. So what are, what's kind of like the frequency that you advise in terms of, let's say like social media, how often should we be [00:15:00] posting in different forms of content?
[00:15:07] Kemya Scott: As much as you can won't hurt. And I say that because nobody can post all day every day. So, as much as you can. Usually, if you think you're posting enough, probably double it. No matter what it is. But really, it depends on the platform. You have to remember that out of sight is out of mind. And so, if you post once a week on a social media platform, No social media platform is going to work for you.
[00:15:36] Kemya Scott: If you're only posting once a week, you know, I'm talking LinkedIn, Facebook X Alignable, you know Pinterest Yeah, the basics, right? So you want to post I like posting three times a week The reason I say three times a week is because it's every other day. It just makes it easy It just makes it easy. You're you always [00:16:00] look consistent You'll always look like you're open for business.
[00:16:03] Kemya Scott: Have you ever come across those, those businesses and they haven't posted in so long or they don't have anything. And you're like, do they still exist? Like I've actually done that. And I've, I've, and it could be someone that I work with in the past and I'll literally send them a DM. Hey, are you still doing such and such?
[00:16:19] Kemya Scott: We, I'm not the only one that does that. So I like a frequency of three times a week just because it's every other day. And that that's easy to comprehend. It doesn't have to be complicated. You don't have to post every day, all day. You did not get in business to post on social media all day, no matter what you do.
[00:16:39] Kemya Scott: But every other day is like a basic frequency that I think everybody can adhere to. Mm
[00:16:47] Dave Polykoff: creating content, scheduling content, just like your content toolkit, what are some of the tools that you're using or you advise clients to use to help them kind of manage their content creation and. [00:17:00] Promotion and publishing.
[00:17:02] Kemya Scott: Yeah, so, I always, I just tell people what I use. So, I, I told you, I'm the PowerPoint fanatic. So, I create a ton of stuff in PowerPoint. Graphics, I, that, because I've been using it so long. Most people are like, what? But, I use PowerPoint, I use Canva. Um, and for graphic design, things like that. I like different apps for photo editing.
[00:17:27] Kemya Scott: Snapseed is one of my favorite editors for photo editing on the phone. I like using Opus Clips for cutting clips. I like using BigView in video for video editing, as I call it. I'm not a video editor, but video editing, creating clips. I use social pilot for social media scheduling. It's one of the lesser known ones.
[00:17:53] Kemya Scott: It's my absolute favorite. I've been a Been a customer for so long. I can't tell you how long I've been [00:18:00] a customer I also use a promo Republic as a backup for scheduling and then I use the native schedulers in LinkedIn Facebook or Meta so I use the native scheduler for Facebook Um, and LinkedIn, I use the native schedulers as well as a scheduler.
[00:18:21] Kemya Scott: It totally just depends on who I'm scheduling for. Like if it's, if it's a client, I use the native scheduler. If it's me, I'm uploading and bulk uploading so much. A lot of times I just use social pilot, but those are my, those are my go tos. The basics, I, you don't have to overcomplicate things. I know there are tons of tools and each one is a little bit different, but if you are the.
[00:18:47] Kemya Scott: Um, coffee maker, um, the grocery store runner, the childcare provider, the business owner who's sending invoices, who's getting the work done, who's writing a book, who [00:19:00] is the team or you're managing a few VAs. You literally don't have time to spread yourself across a bajillion and one tools. That's literally inefficient.
[00:19:09] Kemya Scott: So at a core as a toolkit. That's what I use for the bulk of what I do. And then I actually use Dropbox and box.com, I think it's box.com. Now to sync. I have both of those synced on my phone. So from an efficiency standpoint, I create, create a bunch of things. I have those synced on my phone, so if I'm posted data natively from my phone, everything's already there.
[00:19:33] Kemya Scott: And that is probably 90% of my toolkit that I've used for years, and it works.
[00:19:41] Dave Polykoff: Love it. We all need, we all need that go to toolkit. We just know how everything works. Yeah, we've got everything bookmarked. Um, so we're talking about messaging
[00:19:50] Kemya Scott: Mm hmm.
[00:19:51] Dave Polykoff: but what's like, The step before this that we need to make sure we have prepared like before someone comes to Before someone starts to try [00:20:00] to promote a message or work with you to help them promote their message What should they have in place first?
[00:20:07] Kemya Scott: They should know who they're trying to talk to. And they need to have an offer. It sounds very obvious. But it's not So at least have an idea of who you're trying to talk to now I'm, not saying an idea the way a marketer would with pages of demographics and psychographics And and we've done all this research.
[00:20:29] Kemya Scott: We know where they like to vacation and we know what they like to read I'm, not saying the way a marketer does but if I ask you tell me about your ideal audience your ideal client You have to have a definitive answer and it needs to be more than two sentences Because how are we to craft messaging if I don't know who we're talking to?
[00:20:50] Kemya Scott: That's a big deal. We kind of need to know who we're talking to because otherwise we are making Generalized messaging and as the [00:21:00] marketing cliche is if you're talking to everyone, who are you talking to Dave? No one
[00:21:06] Dave Polykoff: No one
[00:21:06] Kemya Scott: No one Right. So those are the two things Help me out. Let me know who we're talking to or who you want to talk to.
[00:21:14] Kemya Scott: Even if you're not sure if that's your ideal audience, show me that you've done some research that you thought about it. And then what is your offer? Now, a lot of people come to me to help create their offers, which is fine. But as it relates to messaging, we have to get that part figured out. Those two things figured out before we can even think about where you're going, how you're getting there and what you're talking about.
[00:21:38] Kemya Scott: So those are the two things I would say. Okay,
[00:21:45] Dave Polykoff: to work with someone like you to help establish their messaging and then amplify that messaging, what would a process look like from soup to nuts? They contact you. What's kind of that initial consultation all the way through?
[00:21:59] Dave Polykoff: Like [00:22:00] what's an average day or month look like with you and a client?
[00:22:03] Kemya Scott: so people contact me and I tell them when you contact me, I'm going to peel all the layers back. So I'm going to, even in a contact form, you fill one out, I check you out. I'm literally going to say, okay, tell me what you're working on. Do you have some napkin notes? Do you have some random scribbles? Send it to me.
[00:22:28] Kemya Scott: The reason I say that is because I used to use like different questionnaires and things to ask people a lot about their business and they would try to be so formal that they wouldn't tell me anything. They would be very formal and proper and I'm like, okay, this is cute, but I don't know what this means.
[00:22:43] Kemya Scott: This is not going to work. I know you got some scribbles on, you got some random word documents that make no sense. I don't know. That's what I want to see. Tell me, get it out of your head. That's the part that I need to see before I even talk to you so I can get like a frame of reference. Where are we going with this?
[00:22:57] Kemya Scott: Because a lot of times I can't get a frame of reference from [00:23:00] people's social media because again, they're being very tight and trying to be formal and proper. But as a marketer, I got to dig deeper. Um, so I really look at what people are working with now, what they've done in the past. What they want to do.
[00:23:16] Kemya Scott: I ask people a lot about in your perfect world, tell me what your business is, what your business looks like, who you're working with, because people oftentimes put limiters on themselves. And so I asked that question to take the limiters off and I require an answer to that question. Because if you put limiters on that limits where I'm going with you, that limits my thought process with you.
[00:23:44] Kemya Scott: If you tell me in your perfect world, this is who you want to work with. My next question is, and why are we not doing that yet? Or can we just go to that? Can we do the perfect world and skip this middle? Because the middle is a lot of detail and minutiae that is not necessarily. The [00:24:00] trail that we have to follow a lot of people make misconceptions looking at other people's journeys So that's really where I start is what what's your ideal from there?
[00:24:11] Kemya Scott: We are those two things I talked about figuring out Okay, who do you want to work with? You know, what have you done to try to reach them in the past? I always look at where you've been to help us figure out where you're going. I look at what are your offers and then I dig into what your messaging has already been.
[00:24:29] Kemya Scott: Have you run any ads? Have you posted on social media? What resonates? Does something go viral? Does something get a lot of engagements? Is everything falling flat? And then from there if we're crafting messaging It really is a series of probing from me Asking specific questions, you know, and it may take a couple of rounds of me asking specific questions, putting things together, figuring out the language that you use.
[00:24:57] Kemya Scott: To reach your audience. And then I [00:25:00] look at what language the audience uses to reach you. Because oftentimes those are two different sets of words. There's two different completely sets of language. And then I have to figure out how to merge those things so that the client is comfortable with the messaging.
[00:25:15] Kemya Scott: It can easily roll off their tongue with practice. And they're not, they're not scared to use it. It has to feel right for them. It has to fit their personality, those types of things. So we do. Probing into the person's personality. Some people are very formal. They're very rigid. They know it. I know it.
[00:25:32] Kemya Scott: It's okay Some people are very loose. They're fun. They use humor. They use controversy Those things matter because as I'm crafting messaging whether it's messaging for social media Whether it's messaging for their website, whether it's messaging for their their sizzle reel for for their highlights for their videos I have to know the person that I'm working with You know, and that person can evolve over time, but that's really messaging [00:26:00] is about probing into what the service provider, who the service provider is and how they can help the client, but it's also looking at crafting language that lands with the ideal audience because you have to speak in your audience's language.
[00:26:14] Kemya Scott: And that means above all else, no jargon. We eliminate all jargon. Anyone that's using messaging with jargon, unless you are targeting. Jargon related colleagues and professionals like a marketer targeting a marketer Jargon does not land and so that's one of the biggest things I have to get clients to stop doing is using jargon and language That nobody but them knows and one more thing as it relates to messaging I have to work with clients to get rid of the cute.
[00:26:44] Kemya Scott: Nobody understands cute fluffy flowery language I need to know who you are what you do And often times when you ask, I know you've probably experienced this Deb, you ask people what they do and they say something and you're like, Huh. Okay, so [00:27:00] what does that mean? That happens all the time. And so that is part of messaging, removing jargon.
[00:27:07] Kemya Scott: And a lot of times jargon is permeates through everything, through their sales pages, even through Um, if they have like electronic brochures, if they're sending pitches out, jargon is everywhere because messaging is everywhere. Messaging is content and your messaging is literally everywhere. It includes your email signature, your website, your social media, your, your pitches, your presentations, how you work with clients, what's in your offer.
[00:27:37] Kemya Scott: All of that is technically messaging. So depending on what we need to work on. That's kind of the process of working on it with me
[00:27:46] Dave Polykoff: Love it. And if someone wanted to get started working with you, what's the best way for people to get a hold of you and learn more about your services?
[00:27:55] Kemya Scott: They could literally go to marketing sparkler. com forward slash contact there's a [00:28:00] contact form I mean you could send me a dm And i'm going to send you to a contact form The reason i'm going to send you to a contact form is because as I said, I am efficient i'm about productivity and efficiency and I can't capture your Or a DM conversation in a format that I need to do my own due diligence because what you don't want to happen You don't want to get on a phone with me and we waste 20 minutes or things that I could have learned on my own I do not like wasting people's time.
[00:28:34] Kemya Scott: I mean, so that's why I have forms for things It's not a long form But I need to know who you are and what you're about and check you out see You know, depending on what you said you want oftentimes people say what they're looking for from me We get in a conversation and it turns into something different because you need a few steps before the thing that you think you want For me, which is why I have a contact form so I can find out all your social media handles I can check out [00:29:00] your website I can look you up and really get to know you and I Want to feel like I know you before I talk to you If that makes sense this way we're not wasting time because I like getting to the meat like I like getting to Where we're trying to go what you're looking for and how I can help you if I can help you and if I can't help You I tell you I can't help you and I think this is the next step you should take But it really is that simple marketing sparkly.
[00:29:25] Kemya Scott: com forward slash contact
[00:29:28] Dave Polykoff: It is make it simple,
[00:29:30] Kemya Scott: Yes
[00:29:31] Dave Polykoff: That's all today for personal brand blueprint podcast. A big thank you to Kenya for being on today's episode and walking us through how to amplify our message online. So learn more about how you can become your industry's best known go to expert. For your personal brand, uh, please subscribe to the personal brand podcast.
[00:29:49] Dave Polykoff: Follow me, Dave Polykop on LinkedIn, as well as Kenya and check out ZenPost. com for details on how we can work together personally. Thanks to all three plus Kenya's links will be in the show notes [00:30:00] below. Thanks. And see you on the next episode of the personal brand blueprint.
[00:30:04] Kemya Scott: Thank you
