Ep 6: How to Make Social Media Marketing Inclusive with Natalie Sherman
Shownotes
In this episode, Joyann discusses social media marketing with Natalie Sherman and how we can make it inclusive. They cover everything from influencers and clients to the role of AI in content creation.
Natalie is the founder of Naturally Social, a social-first communications agency that works with individuals, organisations and businesses that put purpose before profit. She is also the host of the podcast Beyond the Hashtag.
Useful Links:
Racist Dove Campaign: https://creativeworksmarketing.ca/went-wrong-doves-soap-ad/
Algorithms of Oppression by Safiya Noble: https://safiyaunoble.com/research-writing/
https://www.arimacompany.com/blog/how-to-make-your-social-media-posts-inclusive
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/c/corp-social-responsibility.asp
https://www.techradar.com/news/live/live-blog-twitter-chaos-whats-going-on
https://www.wired.com/story/what-is-the-metaverse/
https://www.theverge.com/22310188/nft-explainer-what-is-blockchain-crypto-art-faq
https://time.com/5947727/whitney-wolfe-herd-bumble/
You can find Natalie Sherman here:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natsherman/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/Nat_lucks
Naturally Social: https://www.naturallysocial.co.uk/
Beyond the Hashtag: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4toXHVX5eDQX4vgSLfqnkZ
You can find Joyann at: https://twitter.com/joyannboyce
Transcript
Joyann Boyce 0:02
Welcome to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast. I am your host, Joanne Boyce. On this podcast, we're going to discuss all things inclusive marketing, from persona creation, campaigns and even some of the mishaps we see in the media. Tune in and let me know your thoughts on how we can make inclusive marketing the industry standard.
Joyann Boyce 0:23
Hi, thank you. Thank you for tuning in. Welcome back to the Marketing Made Inclusive podcast. I am joined today by a longtime, one of the very first social media people I met in real life.
Natalie Sherman 0:40
Bless.
Joyann Boyce 0:42
Natalie, who is the founder and CEO of Naturally Social. So Natalie, tell them a little bit about yourself.
Natalie Sherman 0:50
Hello, Joy. Thank you so much. That's so sweet. And yeah, I always remember the first day that we met. And the week that we spent following that. Yeah, my name is Natalie. My company Naturally Social was built to provide the resources and expertise missing in-house to some of the world's kindness companies. So that's our kind of mission is to tell the stories of the world's kindness companies. And what that means is I don't want to work with people who talk about ROI or profitability, because I don't think that is where social media lends itself. And yes, it can do all those things. But I want to make a difference in society. And I can use my skill set to do that. So yeah, that's what we're here to do.
Joyann Boyce 1:38
Nice. I really liked that kindness, the kindness companies. I hear sometimes, and actually, I did see this on the site and to dive in, I've been going back and forth on the B Corp. aspect. And I feel like in the southwest, a lot of marketing agencies and stuff have been diving into getting B Corp certified. If anyone doesn't know it's a certification that's kind of says you're an ethical business if I was to summarise.
Natalie Sherman 2:05
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 2:06
But I always, what I hear marketing agencies talk about, I'm just like, I don't know. I'm curious, but then I prefer the term kindest companies, just means that you're just trying to do good.
Natalie Sherman 2:18
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 2:19
Not necessarily that, you know, you're out planting trees.
Natalie Sherman 2:21
Absolutely ticking a box. And that's, you know, I mean, when we look for clients and when we talk to potential clients, you know, I'm always asking, well, what's your CSR strategy? And is it legit? Is it or is it just a what we plant trees, well we're eco friendly. We have a cycle-to-work scheme.
Natalie Sherman 2:41
You know, you're going? Um, no, I don't think so. Because I think it needs to dive a lot deeper than that. And it's really started because my backgrounds in public sector and I was one of the first social media managers in the UK, in public sector, particularly in local government. And what I had the opportunity to see was that when you show up in the space of others, you have the opportunity to influence them. And as a brand and organisation, you shouldn't take that lightly, you should be privileged. And as such, like, you need to use those tools and those channels responsibly.
Natalie Sherman 3:25
And I kind of came out of the local authority I was working in and that was my why I sat Naturally Social, I hadn't really communicated it at the time, I just took voluntary redundancy and everyone said I was going to be good at it. And then when I joined the accelerator programme, I really developed a confidence to say, this is what I believe in. And when I was told that that was okay. And oh, by the way, it's kind of thing that's happening right now. It's getting a lot of traction about purpose lead so go for it. And I was like, oh, okay, cool. Because yeah, I think that if you're, if you're making a product, or you're building a service that is putting people and planet at its heart, the profits going to come Anyway. So yeah.
Joyann Boyce 4:14
I agree so much. But I'm curious to know, in terms of the public sector, how did they see their ways of communicating with the public? Because I always say in out work that, and you probably hear it when you talk to clients, especially small businesses, they will tell you everyone is that audience. Everyone, I'm sorry, no, everyone does not like bread. Everybody's not like your thing. But in terms of public service, like the big governments and NHS everyone is their audience. What did that look like in terms of putting together content and just, yeah.
Natalie Sherman 4:48
Yeah, I think everyone is their audience, but nothing, you know, nothing's changed now as it was then: different people hung out in different places. You know, if I think about back then when Facebook, we were just using profiles not pages, pages hadn't been built yet, like profiles were what we were used to go and connect or hang out in groups or something. But at that time, you know, my mum and dad weren't on Facebook or any social media. So Facebook was the place to be if you want to talk to 20-year-olds. 20 to 25-year-olds. And then if you want to talk to 50-year-olds, you go and get print done, print advertising and print columns and news and work with the local press. And as time has developed, that shift is just, it's just growing.
Natalie Sherman 5:38
So, you know, now the 50-year-olds are on Facebook and the 20-year-olds are now my age and we're on things like Insta, you know maybe looking at TikTok and Snapchat, etc. And then the younger audiences that are coming through are the ones that keep defining the channels that we're going to be using in the future or what organisations should be using in the future. So the message yes, yes, our message was the same and the message needed to reach a lot of different people. But those, you have to always remember that those different people are hanging out in different places. So your audience can be everybody in the community. But how and where you say it changes.
Joyann Boyce 6:20
That makes so much sense. Do you still want clients now? Do you help them put together audience segmentation and personas and so forth?
Natalie Sherman 6:27
Yeah, I mean, a lot of the clients that come to us, they understand that anyway, from the from the get-going, we don't work with like, really early-stage businesses. And therefore they're pretty, they're pretty confident with who their audience is. They might tweak it slightly, they'll know, and certainly more often than not, they'll know who their audience is. They are looking for us to tell them where that audience is hanging out. So they know that their biggest spenders are 60 plus or 70 plus or whatever. And they come to us and say, oh, we want to be, we want to launch a TikTok channel and I'll go, no. That's not where we're going. So we do have those conversations.
Joyann Boyce 7:11
Because I'm always curious, because I've been kind of thinking a lot about audience segmentation and reach. Because in our work, we sometimes can go against a trend, like for some clients, say, gaming clients, they'll be like, oh, yeah, audiences on Twitch or TikTok or so forth. But then one of our brands that we work with a lot Black Girl Gamers, the majority of that audience is on Twitter. So the traditional wear is is not necessarily where the underrepresented audience is.
Natalie Sherman 7:45
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 7:46
And it's really interesting to explore that. But it also sometimes inside of me, as well as the marketer, I'm always like, battling of like, is this meaning that it needs to shift? Or is it just this one audience is also there?
Joyann Boyce 7:59
Yeah, I think, I think probably the latter I think you can't, you know, it's not, you can't just summarise and assume everybody is here. I hear a lot of people that say, you know, nobody's on Twitter. Loads of people are on Twitter. Yes, it might be the majority losers. Majority of people might be news, people, journalists, industry peeps and celebrities, but you do get pockets of community who are just on Twitter to talk to themselves, people still use it in that way. So I think we can make some good assumptions to start planning, but you have to keep iterating and testing and trialling and learning from what you're discovering, in order to really hone in on what you're doing.
Joyann Boyce 8:25
And who you're reaching. Yeah.
Natalie Sherman 8:42
And who you're reaching. Yeah, exactly.
Joyann Boyce 8:52
Because it is, it's funny you say that, at the current moment of time Twitter is going through some turbulence.
Natalie Sherman 8:59
Yes, it is.
Joyann Boyce 9:01
I have no idea where it will be once this is released.
Natalie Sherman 9:05
Yeah, who does know.
Joyann Boyce 9:06
Going on 101 tangents. But in terms of inclusive marketing, before I spoke to you about it, what was your thoughts on what it was or what it meant?
Natalie Sherman 9:16
Inclusive marketing has been a term that I've been familiar with for quite some time now. In the general market, you know, I'm a practitioner and have been until I started growing the team I was very much a practitioner of my work. So doing the doing, and I'm always listening to blogs, podcasts, always reading news articles, going to talks etc. And it's part and parcel of this huge movement and shift. So movements and movement would suggest that something's gonna stop but this shift in, you know, society's expectations of how we receive information, how we give information, and how we support each other, and I'm really felt back came, that was hugely amplified, not only during COVID, but back, as you're saying, in kind of 2017, 18, 19, there was a lot of talk growing around people of colour, people of abilities, disabilities, et cetera, female to male ratio and how they're showing up online and in campaigns.
Natalie Sherman 10:26
And then lately, in the last few years, we've really started to listen to our trans peers and other communities of people. And they all have a voice and the more we give them a voice, the more it's important that we recognise that that needs to show up in other places. Yeah, for me, inclusive marketing is about giving every walk of life, the opportunity to shine, I guess, and to understand the impact that we're having. If we just lit up our socials, in particular, as a social first comms agency, with pictures of white people, for example, white, straight, able-bodied people. You know, it's not, it's not conducive to a society that welcomes everybody, which we do, you know.
Natalie Sherman 11:29
So for me, you know I sit with the team here and I really say to them, like, take a step back, and don't be lazy in the selection of the visuals that you're picking to go with client work, because you're in a rush. You have to take a step back and decide the best way of representing this message in a way that's inclusive.
Joyann Boyce 11:53
That is key, especially in relation to social media managers, and content, social content creators are constantly in a rush, like the world is always on fire.
Natalie Sherman 12:03
Yeah, massively so and I'm guilty of it as well over the years. You know, it's, it's and it's funny, because, you know, we can have the writing down the, you know, the content down. So why do we not pay extra attention and care to not just the quality of the visual, of the creative that goes with everything. But the message behind that visual, like, what is that saying, who was in it? And that's something that we're, we're really working hard on at the moment.
Joyann Boyce 12:34
And it's interesting, because a lot of my work, looks at stock photos and social media managers, we rely on stock photos so much. It's gotten to the point where I recognise that, do you ever have that where you see the...
Natalie Sherman 12:46
Yeah. Used that one.
Joyann Boyce 12:48
I've used that one, I know where you got that.
Natalie Sherman 12:52
Oh, that one's popped up again.
Joyann Boyce 12:55
The more work I do into like AI and technology, I'm starting to realise how much social platforms and artificial intelligence is working against us trying to be inclusive.
Natalie Sherman 13:07
Wow, okay.
Joyann Boyce 13:07
Look at stock photo websites. It's changing now, there's a really good book called algorithms of oppression, that basically shows you that Google's algorithm will promote things that they think we want. Yeah, the standard, we all know that. But when you type in, like the word woman into Google, you're more likely to get a skinny white woman, then you are to get a variety and considering the shooting a bunch of pages, staying with stock photo websites.
Natalie Sherman 13:08
Wow.
Joyann Boyce 13:08
I got into this work initially by like speaking to social media managers, and they were like, Yeah, I can't seem to find any stock photos of Black women or Black people. And I'm like, did you type in the word Black? And they're like, no? Like, you have to type that in, because the tools that we're using are working against us doing the thing that we want to do quickly.
Natalie Sherman 13:57
Yeah, that's such a good point. Like, why do we, yeah, like, I've just literally opened up a browser and I've typed in woman, and oh my God.
Joyann Boyce 14:11
You can't unsee it now.
Natalie Sherman 14:12
I can't unsee that. Well, actually, to be fair, there is two lines of imagery in the, above the fold. And there's one black woman 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 white women.
Joyann Boyce 14:30
And you don't because, because we're in a rush and we're using the thing, a lot the times we would only start to think as social media managers, oh I've used that picture before. Let me look for another one.
Natalie Sherman 14:42
Mmm, yeah.
Joyann Boyce 14:43
Everyone in the industry is using the first page like who goes on to the fifth page of stock photo search, you know.
Natalie Sherman 14:50
No, not unless you've got you know, the big bucks being paid for you. Have all the time in the world.
Joyann Boyce 14:58
And you know do all the things. You go onto page one and page two. And then even when you think, so I've mentioned before about alt text. Even though that's something we promote it's still something we're working in. We recently switched social media management tool, because it didn't allow you to put alt text in the scheduler. And I was just like, this is a thing, that wasn't, do you remember alt text back when it wasn't the thing on the platforms?
Natalie Sherman 15:23
No, I can't believe it. This sort of stuff gets me angry. And then it starts, like you said that, going down that rabbit hole of questions, why? How did we get here? That's not okay.
Joyann Boyce 15:33
And it's little things because it is that thing of we're just trying to do our jobs and get content out there. But the tools are working against us and they're already working against us in general. We were talking earlier about how much Facebook and Instagram changes.
Natalie Sherman 15:49
Yeah. All the time.
Joyann Boyce 15:51
All the time and you, you're just trying to keep up with that in the first place. I was curious to know, as a team, do you ever work with influencers?
Natalie Sherman 15:58
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we do. We, depending on the size of the client and in what capacity so we have some retained clients, so we're just keeping their socials going and you know, getting the brand messaging out there. Others we work with on a rotating basis monthly, but we'll run campaigns through the year. We'll also pitch to them ideas for what to do. So yeah, we've worked with, I'd probably say over, not a huge amounts, but we ran a campaign with Wiltshire police earlier this year, violence against women and girls campaign. Which has come from national police, police office down and it's about surveying all women in the community. So we worked predominantly with influencers there.
Joyann Boyce 16:45
Okay, that is a huge initiative, like.
Natalie Sherman 16:48
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 16:49
That is a huge initiative.
Natalie Sherman 16:50
Really proud to have been involved with it, really enjoyed working on it and really enjoyed sourcing influences from an entirely varied background of culture, and colour, and age. You know, it was and it was something that I was saying to one of the teams was, when I was asking them to plan the campaign and when we were brainstorming it, I always say like, don't think about it as influences equals millions of followers. Think about as like, influences are people of influence over a community online.
Joyann Boyce 17:29
Yeah.
Natalie Sherman 17:30
So it doesn't have to be somebody with millions of followers. It just has to be somebody who's quite active on social media and they have an engaged following, that is still a huge influence to the person trying depending on what you know, what they're trying to do. For us, it was to, to kind of galvanise their communities to complete a survey and respond on this survey. So it was so valuable that we could ask the local mayor to share this survey on their social channels, the local politicians, or you know, a few local people of influence in the business community. Swindon, North, East, South, West Wiltshire, like everywhere, because they had engaged people who listened to what they had to say and enjoyed their content. And so when they were asked, you know, by them to share their views, they're more than happy to.
Joyann Boyce 18:24
And that's the bit that sometimes I think we fall prey into when we're looking out for influencers for campaigns and stuff, the numbers, because I remember that story from a few years ago, someone who had like 20 million followers or whatever, launched a T-shirt line and can sell one T-shirt.
Natalie Sherman 18:40
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 18:41
And there's so many, but you, it really is it goes back to people who actually engage and that changes the whole way, that is such a equitable way to look at influences.
Natalie Sherman 18:52
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 18:53
Because it means that going back to the algorithms working against us, a lot of disabled Black and Brown influencers have low followings or have low reach, because it's not, they're not pushing their content. And a lot of the times they're either, especially within the disabled community, they get flagged for content violations.
Natalie Sherman 19:12
Really?
Joyann Boyce 19:13
Because it's deemed a certain way. So the way that AIs read images is that they take shapes. So sometimes they'll take a shape from an image and deem it as it's not appropriate when it could just be an amputee or it could just be something. It will deem it inappropriate and flag it or if a campaign, the other aspects of it, so you have the AI aspect, but then you also have the hatred online. A lot of influences if a campaign is doing well, it means it expands to an audience beyond their reach, which is good unless that audience is either sexist or racist.
Natalie Sherman 19:48
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 19:48
And then they start reporting their content and then some people lose their accounts.
Natalie Sherman 19:53
Christ.
Joyann Boyce 19:53
So it becomes this whole, being a person of influence and having the power because when you look at these influences comments and that's the one thing I go straight to the comments.
Natalie Sherman 20:02
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 20:02
Okay, hundreds and thousands, millions of followers what your comments saying?
Natalie Sherman 20:06
Who's talking? Yeah, exactly. Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 20:07
Who's talking and what is it saying? And that is, looking at that engagement is the most equitable way to do it and it's really good that you guys did it like that.
Natalie Sherman 20:15
Oh, yeah. 100 per cent. That's all I've ever done when it comes to influencer work, because one we've never worked with clients who've got huge budgets to pay for macro influencers.
Joyann Boyce 20:27
That's a whole other aspect.
Natalie Sherman 20:28
Yeah. To work with people who were open to me putting forward this notion of influencer marketing when I was first starting out and so it allowed us to, to work with people, even if they had, I mean, we worked with a client who is in the crafting industry. And we found this crafter on YouTube, that she had 100 Subs at the time.
Natalie Sherman 20:54
But she was brilliant. She was amazing at what she did amazing on YouTube. And we tapped her up and said, do you fancy doing some work with us? You'll get loads of crafting, long story short, did wonders for their social strategy. And we were able to, to launch live video and craft alongs and absolutely loved it. And she now has her own craft line and his own like craft channels and she's like, a full-on, full-on influencer.
Joyann Boyce 21:24
Love it.
Joyann Boyce 21:25
Yeah, so.
Joyann Boyce 21:27
And then she's gonna remember that brand and you guys forever because you were there
Natalie Sherman 21:30
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 21:31
When she had 100 subscribers.
Natalie Sherman 21:33
Yeah, exactly.
Joyann Boyce 21:34
How do you find it is for brands to take, because that's something that I sometimes have, when I'm talking to clients, they're looking and they're thinking about influencers and social and the big numbers and I'm trying to convince them, yes, this community or this organisation or the audience you're trying to reach, whether it be Black, Brown, LGBT, disabled, has a smaller, but their reach is deeper. How do you explain that to clients that understand that engagement stuff?
Natalie Sherman 22:01
Yeah, really good question. I would say for us is how we write the proposal.
Joyann Boyce 22:08
Okay.
Natalie Sherman 22:08
From the outset and educate from the outset and say, like, this is how we think we can deliver this campaign for you. These are the sorts of people we would be going for and why. Yeah and then we do the monitoring and the reporting back. So it has to come from that, that moment, that educational piece. And if I don't think that I can onboard an influencer, for whatever reason, or they, they have in their mind who they want to work with, and I don't think it's worth it, then I'm then I shall say, I've learned, I've learned the hard way to not say yes, yes, yes to things that you fundamentally don't agree with.
Joyann Boyce 22:45
And that goes back to your whole wanting to work with kind companies as well.
Natalie Sherman 22:49
Exactly. Exactly, like, you know, it, it doesn't add up and it eventually it adds a lot of stress and issues to mental health when you are not living, I think the word, what is the word, a congruent lifestyle. So if things don't add up, you know, you, you're going this way, but really you want to go in this way. There's only so long that can happen for before, before you struggle, I guess, you know and you spent a lot of time working and a lot of time talking about your work and you have to be happy doing it.
Joyann Boyce 23:23
I relate to that so much, because that's why I did the whole rebrand.
Natalie Sherman 23:27
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 23:28
I got to the point where we had a team of five, just solely doing marketing and we scaled scale out the agency. And I hated it.
Natalie Sherman 23:36
Was that as Social Detail or as Arima?
Joyann Boyce 23:39
Yeah.
Natalie Sherman 23:40
Wow, fair play to you.
Joyann Boyce 23:41
It was during lockdown. I hated it, absolutely hated it.
Natalie Sherman 23:46
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 23:46
Because it was clients, because obviously the lockdown had this whole other narrative of everybody jumping online and everything.
Natalie Sherman 23:55
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 23:56
I just, I guess before I had a lot more control about explaining and teaching the whole journey. But yeah, I was like, nope, because I love the numbers and the analytics and the creativity and the testing. But they were like, no, just post. We just want you to, just shut up and post. It felt dirty.
Natalie Sherman 24:12
Oh, yeah. Oh, God, it does. Oh I know, I hate that. I hate that. And I, again, comes down to the education piece. I get really frustrated if we get treated like administrators. And it's so funny that you say, I mean I hope I can say this on the podcast. It's so funny that you said it feels dirty. I have very recently started coining the phrase, it feels like prostitution. Because what I, what I have experienced in the past, and most recently, actually with some clients that I'm no longer. Is that people think they can they can give you money, particularly marketing, which is odd. They can give you money and then ask you to do whatever they want. Not even asked to tell you to jump certain way, do it and do whatever they say but the expectation was becoming unmanageable for me with some in some aspects. And yeah, like you said, it feels a bit dirty. You're going like this not what I believe in. It's not what I want to do. I'm expected to just sit here and you to talk to me like this.
Joyann Boyce 25:12
I, yeah, I want to find, yeah, that is relatable in some, so many weird ways. But it reminds me of this one time where someone came up to me after I did a speaking event about inclusive marketing and they said to my face, they were like, yeah, we've asked the client to, you know, put Black and Brown people in the campaign, but they said it wouldn't sell so we didn't push. And I'm just standing that, taking in this information. I'm just like I, I don't.
Natalie Sherman 25:38
How do I deal with that? What do I say?
Joyann Boyce 25:40
And then I'm also, also thinking, so that person made that tiny little bit of effort to be inclusive. And that was it?
Natalie Sherman 25:47
Yeah. Yeah. That is the biggest takeaway.
Joyann Boyce 25:52
That was it. There was just like, and then they thought that was enough to come and tell me after an hour long.
Natalie Sherman 25:58
Yeah. And also, why come and brag about that, like, don't say that, like the, the question is, have you got anything that you can share with me that I can go back with? Because I'm really, I'm feeling really disempowered and I want this to work.
Joyann Boyce 26:10
It was just such an interesting, and I have those little experiences every now and again, where? Yeah, I It's either people talk about they blame the client, the clients not letting them be inclusive. And I feel like that's because they have somewhat of a transactional relationship with the client.
Natalie Sherman 26:25
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 26:27
Or they're like, oh, we did this one thing. We didn't do anything else.
Natalie Sherman 26:29
Yeah. Tried it.
Joyann Boyce 26:30
That's it.
Natalie Sherman 26:31
Yeah. I feel you.
Joyann Boyce 26:33
That is the doom and gloom of social but in terms of where you see social media going, what do you think is the future of either the communities the platform, what do you think is the future, let's say 10, 10, 10 years?
Natalie Sherman 26:47
I mean, if Zuckerberg has his way we'll all be sat here in our VR goggles and living in the metaverse. So I came back from Social Media Marketing World in San Diego in March, and there was huge talk about NFTs and it fascinates me a lot. And I think bit like what you asked me in my podcast earlier, I'm trying to understand the business case for NFTs and trying to decide whether this is a early stage trend, that influencers are really coining like your Gary Vaynerchuks and your Mark Zuckerberg, and maybe it will die off. I don't know. But I'm not quite ready for that. So yeah, in 10 years, undoubtedly things are going to change big time in 10 years, you know, we are going to start moving from the 2D world to virtual reality. It's going to happen and already is happening in so many places that, you know, we look at gaming and stuff. So I think that interactive experience is probably coming our way. And that gamification element as well, in social, I think that's going to continue to evolve.
Natalie Sherman 28:08
I think, generally, there's a big call for authentic, inclusive marketing, you know, people want brands to be people and they want them to not fill their feeds with, with lies and falseness and you know, all that sort of stuff. So that ethical marketing piece is really big. And that is going to drive a lot of the way in which social behaves. And we've seen, even seen that in like how ads work, you know, removing based on EU laws, like really challenging Facebook and how we're able to target individuals. You know, the likes of BeReal and the fundamentals of that platform being very stripped back. And also things like TikTok and long-form video, sorry, mobile-first short-form video, where you're not inundated with ads. And it's a very stripped-back. It's creative, it's really creative, but it's authentic and it feels personable. That is what this generation loves.
Joyann Boyce 29:13
All of that makes me excited because it all includes tech and I am a tech nerd. I love it.
Natalie Sherman 29:18
Tech is always going to be, tech is, can. will drive forward everything in society right now and you're either with it, or we're going to be left behind and it's got to be scarier being left behind right.
Joyann Boyce 29:31
It's gonna be, specially if you're, so getting back to influencer marketing. I think it was Gary Vaynerchuk that was talking about it but, or YouTube that's testing it, where you can add advertise within the video without it being a commercial. Okay, so someone could stop a video on YouTube and click on it like a can of Coke in the background.
Natalie Sherman 29:51
Nice.
Joyann Boyce 29:52
And get taken to commercial and I'm just like, I am ready for that world. There are many times when you see things you know, I want that.
Natalie Sherman 29:58
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 29:58
But then you have to go and search and find it.
Joyann Boyce 30:00
Yeah, yeah. Well, they've got that now, haven't they on, like websites, for example, like Asos or whoever the like shop the look, you'll see somebody on Instagram and this was a few years ago now, picture the person wearing the clothes, shop the look at each item is directly tagged, it's about making people's lives easier. But also I think feeding into that attention span issue we got going on. And also that, what's the word, the need for that instant gratification.
Joyann Boyce 30:38
I do worry though, with the speed, everything essentially becoming faster and easier. We really does need for social media managers to incorporate inclusive practices because we can we can easily stray so far away.
Natalie Sherman 30:53
Yeah, definitely. And yeah, you can start, we talked about being too busy earlier to consider what you're attaching to your content and your copy, it's going to be very easy to get swept up in the newest thing and forget all that and what we don't want this to be, let's face it, we didn't want this to become a trend. You know, it was trendy to talk about inclusive marketing once, it was trendy talk about inclusivity for a while, like no, that's not gonna, it's not going away. So we can't let that happen. So we need to make sure that the conversation continues. And that people are a voice for inclusivity, online and offline. So that when these new things do come along, then they're embedded in our day to day practice. But also been really helpful, Silicon Valley, if we can have some different people up there making the stuff.
Joyann Boyce 31:43
I feel like that’s a direct message. Oh, my goodness, you know what, it would be interesting because I need to look it up cause I don't know if this is a fact. But I feel like all social platforms are created by men.
Natalie Sherman 31:56
Yes. They pretty much, well no, well, apart from there's a couple. What was it? Is it Bumble?
Joyann Boyce 32:02
Bumble is a woman. But that's, is it a social? I guess it is?
Natalie Sherman 32:06
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 32:06
It's not, its a dating app.
Natalie Sherman 32:07
Well if we're talking about tech, we're talking about tech and apps, in that perspective. And I'm thinking Silicon Valley, I'm not thinking just social. I'm thinking tech and apps. Because you know, things like the metaverse and if you think about all the dev people who are out there.
Joyann Boyce 32:20
Yeah.
Natalie Sherman 1:44
Who are building and creating stuff. Yeah, that, that they're, the majority white male. That is why there is a huge push, particularly in the UK, about women in STEM. Because we need other voices at the table.
Joyann Boyce 32:36
I'm trying to think, I feel like but this might be my own bias here. I feel like Pinterest was created by a woman.
Natalie Sherman 32:42
Maybe, maybe it was.
Joyann Boyce 32:43
I feel, I feel like it's just because I know, I'd haven't checked in a while but the stats were that it's majority women on Pinterest.
Natalie Sherman 32:59
Oh, yeah, definitely. But that, isn't that just about the platform itself? What it, what it can do?
Joyann Boyce 32:59
But my head is just like is it that is that's why I'm thinking it's a founder by a woman.
Natalie Sherman 33:03
I'm Googling it. I'm Googling it.
Joyann Boyce 33:05
Because I'm just like, oh.
Natalie Sherman 33:06
No, man.
Joyann Boyce 33:08
Damn it. I had hope. I had hope.
Natalie Sherman 33:12
Oh bless you. You really did. You really did. And I hate to be your like, you know, pessimistic about it, but no.
Joyann Boyce 33:20
Okay, so I'm gonna add in terms of the future of social media marketing, we will have a huge platform created by a woman.
Natalie Sherman 33:27
That isn't that isn't created out of spite, like Bumble was, you know, Bumble was, let's face it, I mean she's amazing. Like fair blinken play. I think she's one of the first female founders of her age to ever go public.
Joyann Boyce 33:41
Yeah. Yeah. And it was and she worked in Tinder. So it started in a toxic environment. And she went to create opposite. Yeah, but what's happening with Twitter right now, we might get someone that Twitter and want to create a better version of it.
Natalie Sherman 33:55
We might get one of those employees who got booted out at, you know, two minutes notice, go I'm gonna create something else that's like a microblogging site.
Joyann Boyce 34:06
Gosh, but yeah, so that's my prediction for the future that there's a platform and I'm only going, I'm going low hanging fruit. I'm saying woman. I am playing oppression Olympics and going for the the closest one. That is the current ranking order of things in the world. But anyway, my dark humour aside. In terms of campaigns you've seen any on the internet, has any been inclusive or not so inclusive? That you want to?
Natalie Sherman 34:33
Okay, yeah, so I'm gonna be, be, put my hands up here and say, you know what, I think I'm going to go home and really challenge myself to see campaigns in that way. Because I think my mind, my subconscious bias, does not challenge me to look at campaigns and say, that's really not inclusive. Or that is, I mean, for me, I very much, I'm quite, I'm a feminist. So when I'm looking at inclusivity, I'm looking at women in ad, in campaigns and adverts. Whether they be white, Black, skinny, particularly around body shape for me is a big thing. And that's what I'm always checking. But outside of that I need to be more analytical and more challenging.
Natalie Sherman 35:11
But I will highlight a horrendous campaign that featured on our social media fail a few months ago, I think, but it was a campaign by Dove. And they basically had, I think it was it was like a diagram of four images and I think it was Dove I must go and grab it, but they basically had two black women, two white women. And it basically said that if you, it demonstrated without saying it that if you use this product, you'd become more white.
Joyann Boyce 35:43
Sorry, I'm laughing because I've seen this one.
Natalie Sherman 35:46
It's horrendous.
Joyann Boyce 35:47
Yeah. Yeah.
Natalie Sherman 35:48
I mean, like, I have no words, to really convey how disgusted I am as a person to seen that sort of thing.
Joyann Boyce 35:58
It went through, so it had a couple. The thing is, it goes back to how many people see this content, it had a video version, where the black woman takes off her top and there's a white woman underneath and they're like better skin or something.
Natalie Sherman 36:13
That's it.
Joyann Boyce 36:13
And then it had the grids where it was dry skin on one side and moisturises skin on the other side.
Natalie Sherman 36:19
Yes.
Joyann Boyce 36:21
And they did so many versions of it. That I'm just like, No one? No one?
Natalie Sherman 36:26
Anyone see what I'm saying here?
Joyann Boyce 36:27
Anyone? No, no. I always feel that there probably is some young person in this offices that see it, but they just don't listen to them. I feel like there is someone.
Natalie Sherman 36:35
This is what I was saying on the podcast is like, how does this even get through? How does this go to the board? Or the committee or whatever, you know, head of whatever it is department, pitched, because this will be visualised in some sort of storyboard. How does that go on a storyboard and suddenly doesn't go? Doesn't look right to me. Got a couple of things to say about that. Disgusted.
Joyann Boyce 37:00
Dove have they, they have a few, sorry, they're one of our frequents.
Natalie Sherman 37:06
Oh, yeah they have loads.
Joyann Boyce 37:07
They did recently do, and I think you might like this, they did two inclusive spotlights where one was about different types of men's bodies. And then another one was about what good skin looks like. And they highlighted different types of bodies. And so they are actively trying, but I say they're very much in the kind of spotlight phase of things where it feels like they're trying.
Natalie Sherman 37:31
Oh, yeah.
Joyann Boyce 37:32
It doesn't feel like it's natural.
Natalie Sherman 37:34
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 37:35
It's this like, oh, dove is doing a thing? Oh, this feels awkward. But they're trying.0
Natalie Sherman 37:39
Yeah, yeah. But, and I guess like that was kind of what saying to you earlier is like, oh, how do you go from place A to place B where place B is correct and genuine and place A is completely not? When you're carrying that reputation, there is going to be that moment of awkwardness but you have to say, Okay, you're trying either that or they just need a complete change in staffing structure, a public apology, a public announcement that says things are changing from now, here we go.
Joyann Boyce 38:06
You say that, but in our H&M case study, they did that. But they assigned one person to oversee all their DNI (Diversity and Inclusion).
Natalie Sherman 38:17
In a company that size? Wow.
Joyann Boyce 38:22
Ah, I'm sure the person has a team now I'm sure they figured out. But that's the thing. They assign one person. And then that one person going back to like mental health and wellbeing gets completely shattered because they start seeing problems everywhere.
Natalie Sherman 38:07
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 38:08
My whole theory is that each department needs its own diversity and inclusion specialist and inclusive marketing sits within inclusive marketing, because we are talking about stock photos, we are talking about numbers, we are talking about campaigns, we are counting things.
Natalie Sherman 38:53
Yeah.
Joyann Boyce 38:54
Whereas employment, you need to think about the culture, the company, all of that does impact the marketing, but not in the same way.
Natalie Sherman 39:01
Yeah, I totally agree. It's that kind of conversation with a charity recently, who really fully committed through and through to equality and diversity and that, you know, they've got all their sentences and stuff on the job specs and stuff. But they struggle to recruit diverse people. Because we're in Wiltshire. And rather than, so that's a challenge. But I guess what I'm saying is the challenges like outwardly facing, you know what it is that you want, and you're saying those things, and it's part of your brand and your culture. But there's a, there's a disconnect of what's actually the reality of your workforce and that can that can be down to locations, but that's when as marketing, as marketeers you then need to be brought on the case. And not even just marketing really, but individuals together to say, what we can do differently to attract a more diverse workforce. There is, there is simple answers to it.
Joyann Boyce 40:03
The number one thing I say is that inclusive marketing can be done by a non-inclusive team, it could be all, everyone on the team could be named Bob and they could be all 40 all white, skinny, were full head of hair, but they can still create a campaign for a trans individual to sell hair loss products for. The whole point of marketing is to be able to...
Natalie Sherman 40:24
Adapt.
Joyann Boyce 40:24
Lean in and understand and adapt. Not saying that it's gonna be a good campaign. I will caveat that, they can still make that campaign and put the thought into it. But yeah, sometimes people will wait, wait for the diverse team before they do anything. It's just like just act.
Natalie Sherman 40:40
Just do. JFDI.
Joyann Boyce 40:42
Yes, this has been absolutely fabulous, Natalie, we have gone around the world.
Natalie Sherman 40:48
We have, haven't we? Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Joyann Boyce 40:51
Thank you for coming on the show and definitely make sure to check out Natalie's podcast as well which is called...
Natalie Sherman 40:58
Beyond the Hashtag.
Joyann Boyce 40:59
Yes. And I was on a guest on Natalie's podcast. So thank you so much and thank you for tuning in to Marketing Made Inclusive.
