Building Your Online Brand

Christine Zito: 0:05

Hello and welcome to Arcadia FYI. I am so happy that you’re here with me. I just want to say thank you for being a part of the show. Thank you for your emails, your questions, your suggestions. I wouldn’t be able to do this if it wasn’t for you, the listeners, especially those of us here in the city of Arcadia. And what I like to focus on in this show is information. That’s why it’s called FYI Arcadia, for your information, whether that be events that are coming up, things that we can help businesses with, things that we don’t even know is going on in the city of Arcadia. And I’m so thankful for you guys emailing me and even on Facebook, you Facebook me about things that I didn’t even know that were going on in the city of Arcadia, and also things that we can entertain. I don’t sing, I can try and sing, but maybe that would be entertaining. I don’t know, but that’s what this show is all about. And today I have a I’m going to say it every show and at the end of every show you got to go out there and just check out Longo Toyota. It’s right off the 10 freeway. Say hi to Mike and Brooke, because they do more than just sell cars. Star 7 Financial with Francine Chu, who I think is one of the best financial advisors in the city of Arcadia Of course I’m biased. The Santa Anita Park I just talked to Pete the other day and he’s going to be coming in like mid-September, end of September, to talk about the things that are going on at the park. It’s going to be very exciting. The Le Meridien Hotel in Arcadia and Pasadena next week I know she was supposed to be on this week, but next week Gaby is going to be on with us and we’re going to take a tour of that that hotel also. It’s going to be a lot of fun. All right.

Christine Zito: 2:14

If you are a business owner, okay. Or you’re an in-house marketing professional and you’re seeking to enhance your organization’s online presence, whether it be through strategies like search engine optimization, also known as SEO, developing content you know good content tailored to your target audience on your website. Implementing effective Now we’re talking effective email marketing or utilizing the crazy social media. But there’s a way to utilize social media marketing. We’re going to be talking about that and if you’re interested in that, then, for your information, this podcast will be highly informational for you.

Christine Zito: 2:59

Joining me in studio is a very good friend and I’m going to say this, and if you’re watching on YouTube, you already see MJ Finstrom. I refer all all did I mention all all my clients to MJ, because I just it’s, it’s hard to find someone with integrity when it comes to online marketing and MJ is, and you can. You can judge for yourself, of course, we don’t judge and you can judge for yourself, of course we don’t judge, but you can judge for yourself. Observe for yourself the integrity of MJ Finstrom, the HUTdogs of , a digital marketing service provider, along with your brother, David, and they specialize what we’re going to be talking about email marketing, social media marketing, workshops, coaching. That’s MJ. Welcome, MJ.

MJ Finstrom: 3:45

Thank you for having me, Christine. This is going to be fun.

Christine Zito: 3:49

It is going to be a lot of fun. So I do want to say, before we start, a little background on myself. Okay, because people probably just think I just host a podcast show and make millions of dollars Just kidding because I don’t a podcast show and make millions of dollars just kidding because I don’t when I’m not doing Arcadia. Fyi, I am a website designer. I build and design websites and I do work off WordPress. I’m not an evangelist for WordPress, but WordPress gives me the opportunity to do custom websites and to be able to utilize search engine optimization effectively for the client. I could do that with WordPress because I can touch the content, edit the content, optimize the content and I also produce award winning. And I just say that I want two tellies for online video and for a television commercial. And winning a telly is like winning an Oscar, that’s huge it’s amazing it is amazing.

Christine Zito: 4:46

It’s. It’s really hard to do and I was I, I mean, I I cried when I got my first one. It was a television commercial and if you’re interested in doing a podcast and you want to rent this studio that mj and I are in, you can do that. All you have to do is go to puremediamarketingcom and right up at the top there it says podcast studio and you can rent $75 an hour. It’s amazing, that’s a great price. It’s a great price. And if you and if it’s $75 an hour, and if you need help with that, then we can talk and negotiate how you can utilize those services. All right, so that is what I do, and that’s what we’re going to talk about is helping businesses in Arcadia, or wherever they might be, with their online presence.

Christine Zito: 5:33

But first of all, let’s get to know MJ a little bit, and you know what? I did forget to start my timer, so I’m going to start it right now. Whoops, okay, now I’m totally messing it up and let’s see here. This is what we do when we. Oh, there it goes. You just heard the beep. Okay, so, mj, how long have you? How long have you been in Arcadia? Are you an Arcadian? Were you born here?

MJ Finstrom: 5:57

No, I was not born here, but I’ve been here about 25 years and I moved here when I met my husband and got married and it was sort of a middle ground between where he lived and where I lived and we ended up in Arcadia. But I’m born and raised or was born in Colorado, grew up there. Do you do snow ski? Yes, yeah, not anymore. That ship has sailed. My knees are not as not like they once were, but, yeah, I grew up on.

Christine Zito: 6:23

I love the slopes oh my gosh, that is so great. I okay real fast. I just have to say I tried snow skiing and I couldn’t do it. I bruised myself so bad I fell down that hill I don’t know how many times. So I water ski nice, nice, so okay. So you said you’re you’re married, you’re your husband do pets.

MJ Finstrom: 6:42

Yes, I’m a Gen Z mom of a great kid and I have a dog, and that’s me Okay so your daughter, where does she go to college? I know, it’s really a terrible place. Somebody has to do it. But somebody has to go to the University of Hawaii in Manoa.

Christine Zito: 6:58

I can’t believe it, Hawaii you get to go there.

MJ Finstrom: 7:00

Yeah, it’s awesome, it’s so awesome. All right, let’s talk about hot dogs. I’m HUTdogs , it’s a hut, not a hot. How did you come up HUTdogs? Oh, I don’t know. I think a long exhaustive me. I wish I had a better story for it. But my brother and I, when we were developing this business I think back in 2002, we wanted something kind of catchy and that’s a whole thing of marketing. If somebody can remember you and remember your name, that’s. You know you got half the battle won there. But, um, we were just in a meeting strategizing. You had the whiteboard out writing all kinds of things on it, and then my husband two hours later is kind of sick of us. He walks through the room, just call it something HUTdogs and we’re like could we? You know, like you think about Kinkos? You know how that name came to be. You know that’s an interesting story and and everybody knows Kinko’s.

MJ Finstrom: 7:50

I still call FedEx Kinko’s, you know. So yes, I just like a name that people remember. Although I’ve been, they begged on me to it was should say something that you do in your name. But I’m like, no, let’s have a memorable name.

Christine Zito: 8:02

So it’s been a fun thing well, you know, it’s funny that you bring up names like that. You think of Google. Yeah, google doesn’t have search in it. No, kinko’s doesn’t have printing in it. Nike doesn’t have no short shirts, shoes, socks, whatever, but it has a great swish. It does have a great and just and just do it.

Christine Zito: 8:20

Yeah yeah so, and it is funny when people you know when, when, when I talk with marketing, with people, they always say what kind of name should I have? Or or should I match my name with the url? And I said you can, that’s the best way to go, right, but search doesn’t find you by your url, they find you by your content, right? It is most important because sometimes, uh, you can’t, you can’t find the exact match of your name with the url because it’s taken, right, you know. So names are important, but it’s in a name, yeah, what’s in a name, but it’s, it’s. It is truly the content so absolutely what is it that you?

Christine Zito: 9:02

what do you do exactly?

MJ Finstrom: 9:04

I. I know we kind of do about four things. You know, basically we help people get a little more creative and now work smarter when they’re doing their marketing. We come in kind of four flavors we do it for you, we do it all for you. We can handle your social media, your email, help you with, just you know, old school marketing. We do a lot of print and a lot of design rooted in graphic design and then we have educational series.

MJ Finstrom: 9:30

We do a lot of coaching. I mean we do a lot of workshops and seminars and people love those. We have a good following on that. And then I do a lot of coaching and I love those people who sign up for an hour or two and they’re either a work session where we’re like hammering out an email or a strategy or something. But lately, what’s been really something I’ve probably grow into? I’ve been helping people sort of empower their up-and-coming talent in their world. Like a small business owner a couple of times have hired me to work with their younger marketing teams and staff and they’ll do one on one sessions and because they don’t really know how to mentor, strategize and man, I love that work because I’m a mom of Gen.

MJ Finstrom: 10:16

Z and I just love. I love mentoring and it’s fun and helping them, empower them with with skills and just practical advice, you know, because a lot of times people are trained in, oh here’s how to do this skill, but then there’s a human side of it and just a business side of it. So I really dig that part of it too.

Christine Zito: 10:35

Gen Z. I was a high school teacher. And one thing when it comes to the younger they are, so they want to learn.

MJ Finstrom: 10:45

You know, when I was that age, I had lots of mentors and I was willing to be mentored. I think that there are some that are not willing to be mentored because they think they know it all.

Christine Zito: 10:55

Because the internet’s true. Yeah, they don’t know what they don’t know, you know.

MJ Finstrom: 10:59

But you know, I think that I don’t know, it’s kind of a cool space to be in here.

Christine Zito: 11:04

All right. Well, that’s a great place to start. Let’s talk about when marketing. Yeah, okay, so you’re a business and you may or may not have a website. But let’s just for the sake of this conversation, you don’t have a website, okay. So marketing, you come and say, first thing, okay, I want to be, uh, powerbusinesscom. So they come to me and they say, okay, I need a website. And for very first thing, I ask them. I’ll ask them do you what? What is it that you do? Well, I’m a power company. I’ll go okay, power company. Well, what do you mean? Electricity, or you know. So we talk about what their dream is. I want to know the dream, okay. So we get the content, we build the site, I optimize the content. So now we need marketing. So what do I do? I call up MJ. I call up MJ, and I’m glad you do. Thank, you.

Christine Zito: 12:04

Yeah, I do Okay. So now that you’ve got the website, you’ve got the content, now, what do you do, mj?

MJ Finstrom: 12:10

You know, I kind of think you know same with you. I’ll do an intake process, but I always like to ask people what problems do you solve? You know, because it helps people like narrow down who their audience is and who they’re trying to reach. You know, because not everybody is for everybody let’s, you know, face it. But what problems are you solving? What are you helping people do? And a lot of times, mostly people need like a way to push people to the website, you know. So, really, basically, the email marketing and social media are ways to. Yes, search engines great if somebody’s searching for us for that fancy business, but sometimes they’re not. So now we need to figure out another angle to get them into the website. It’s all channels to direct traffic over to their main hub, which should be their website that is and that is so key.

Christine Zito: 13:02

I hope you heard that Number one. You get your website. You want to get your domain. You want to buy your domain, buy your hosting. Then you build your website. Make sure you know what your dream is so we can turn that into a vision. We gather your content, but I like what you said. What problems do you solve? Only you would know the conflict that people will have with whatever service or product that you have and that you want to promote. And search engine optimization works like this, and, of course, mj and I are being condensed in our conversation. There’s a lot more conversation when I have a client before me, but for the most part, I always tell people when it comes to your services, when it comes to your products, if you don’t know who you are, google doesn’t know who you are, right right, right and important to know Google and to work with somebody who’s kind of experienced in it, because you know that’s important.

MJ Finstrom: 13:56

Google’s changing all the time To keep up with that. You know you keep up with it all the time and that’s amazing and you have to right, and so that’s why it’s so important to have different, different levels of service. You know social media and AI is hard enough to keep up with versus all the web stuff.

Christine Zito: 14:14

It’s just it’s changing all the time talk to me about an email campaign, because when, when I’m done with the website, that’s the first thing that the client will say Okay, now what do I do?

MJ Finstrom: 14:25

I think for a business if businesses who build a really good quality email list of people who want to get their services or want to get their messaging, that’s one of the best things you can do for your business. Hands down. Know it over and over and over again. You know we’ve. When you build a good quality email list, there’s nothing like sending out a list to like 12,000 people and in an hour five or 6,000 people open it. You cannot pay for that kind.

MJ Finstrom: 14:58

It takes time, it takes good content. You use social media. You know social media is sort of like like dating. You know it’s like fast and it’s, you know, furious. It’s quick, quick stuff.

MJ Finstrom: 15:11

But email is like that long-term relationship. You know we have people who’ve been on our email list for years. We started growing ours in 2008 and people will come back. They’ll see an email oh, we haven’t thought about you for a while. But, um, because I send them a monthly email, I need this service or I have a referral for you. Um, some people get too much into by myself, by myself, and it just comes out so crash online and even an email. You have to play with content and you know there’s so many ways to build an email list online. You could have different hooks, like join my email list for to download something or to get some kind of special offer. But then you always want to start with your current customers. Make sure they’re the first people who are on your list, because that’s where your next point of business usually come from is from a referral. You know there’s. We have all these fancy tools, but word of mouth is still the best way to get business. I think so.

Christine Zito: 16:11

For sure you know what is an, what is an email campaign? I know you kind of touched on it, but what does it consist of? Like when?

MJ Finstrom: 16:19

when, well, you talked a bit about domain, it starts with your email address. You do not want to be bob at aol because people get so many spams and you know things nowadays like I don’t know bob at aol, but I know christine at pure media marketing because she has her, don’t her business. This is where you want to have your business name in your email address mjf at hot dogs yes, we know her, but we don’t know bob at aol, or todd at gmail.

Christine Zito: 16:50

Yeah, yeah, yeah, oh god hotmail or aol.

MJ Finstrom: 16:53

I mean it’s just like oh, that’s so antiquated to me, but it’s funny when I see an aol. But even at gmail, like some people, they’ll trick it, they’ll do like hot dogs at gmailcom, but still there’s. You want to feel like you’re getting it from a legitimate person. So it consists of that. And then it consists of a great subject line. The first two words they’ve done statistics on it are what gets you to read the rest of the subject line. Not open the email, but just get you to read the rest of the subject line. And then you hope they open it. Yes, and then, once they open it, you don’t need to send the whole encyclopedia to people. You can link off again to a website or to a video or to a blog to read more. Just tease it out and just be really.

MJ Finstrom: 17:39

Don’t give people a ton of choices either. We find that and and it’s just true in life in general, it’s true with Generation Z as well you give them too many choices, they’ll do nothing because it’s too overwhelming. One email or one choice, one call to action is pretty much all you need for a successful email campaign and a good list. You want to make sure you’re not buying a list. Don’t go over to the Arcadia Chamber and pilfer their list because it’s spammy. It feels you know, have people sign up and when you go out and network, you know, hey, I send out an email once a month. Can I add you to my list?

Christine Zito: 18:16

make the ask yeah and see, and people will say who opens those People who are interested? Yeah, and it’s very true. Same thing with online video who’s going to watch? You know, 30 minutes of an online People who are interested? Yeah, people who are interested, because people will. They will ask me how long should my video be? Well, it depends on the content.

MJ Finstrom: 18:38

Yeah, it depends on the interest.

Christine Zito: 18:38

yeah, yeah, they’ll listen and they’ll watch if it’s interesting to them. So there’s absolutely. They’ve stopped with the research, like only three minutes, and if you do see that, just ignore it, because it is about the content they will yeah they will listen and they will watch. Um, what has been I know you have to probably think about. I should have asked you this beforehand what was your most successful email campaign? That, yeah, I know like as an example that, oh my gosh, this one got a huge response.

MJ Finstrom: 19:12

I don’t know if it’s one single one, but I’m always amazed when people who haven’t been doing email marketing they’ll send something out to their current customers and they’ve never done it before. There’s a photographer who is well established and he never sent out an email marketing ever, but he had this huge list of people who loved him and an email list and we sent out a constant contact. I’m a big fan of constant contact, as most people know, and he had like a 90 open rate, which is considered amazing.

MJ Finstrom: 19:44

You know, it is amazing and he was just blown away by how fast the responses were and just the fact that people would open something from him, and it was like a light bulb, like oh my gosh, I haven’t been staying in touch with people and that’s. That’s the one thing with business owners, I think they build a website. People will come. It’s not filled the dreams, you know.

Christine Zito: 20:07

It just doesn’t work that way Hope is not a strategy you know that in there will come yeah, it’s a movie. Yeah, it’s a movie, it’s not a strategy for your website and your marketing.

MJ Finstrom: 20:17

They hired people to come to that field.

Christine Zito: 20:19

They hire, yeah and we paid our tickets, darn it.

MJ Finstrom: 20:22

I know, yeah, we came because we paid for the ticket but you know you’ve got to have a strategy to get people to your website or get people in your door of business, or get them to call.

MJ Finstrom: 20:32

Or get them to buy your product too. Exactly, exactly. And that strategy often is not buy my stuff, buy my stuff, buy my stuff. Especially on social media, when people are just blasting, hey, buy my stuff, it takes out the personalization. Like you said, when you go to that about section, people want to do business you know, it’s an old saying with people they know, like and trust. And that is where social media comes into play. People start to get to know you better and get to know what you’re about, and then that’s why you also have to have a policy for your social media. If you’re a business owner, what is your policy for social media?

Christine Zito: 21:10

What do you mean?

MJ Finstrom: 21:11

Well, do you blast about politics? Do you blast about controversial topics? If you’re a business owner, your brand is on the line and I think that there are corners of social media where they’re just creating boxing rings. They post so they can get the most contentious fights going and they think that’s so much fun, and at the cost of community immunity, and I mean all kinds of things. You know, but there are people who just live and breathe for that and you see it all the time.

MJ Finstrom: 21:44

You see it even in our sweet town of arcadia, um, but the thing is, if you’re a business owner, you have to have a policy about that. You know, stay clear of that, unless you want, unless that’s your business, of course, and that’s a whole other, whole other topic and subject. But your brand is on the line and and what you say matters and how you say it matters. Words mean something, words mean something and, if you know, you’ve got to remember customer service, because if you, if you see somebody like you’re gonna take your dog to the dog groomer and that business owner is over here causing a big ruckus on social media and saying all kinds of nasty things or blasting, like Yelp is another one of those areas where, if they’re giving a nasty Yelp review or something, does that make you want to do business with that business owner? You know, that’s sort of what I mean. Have a policy online and stick to it, even when you have to sit on your hands.

Christine Zito: 22:41

Yeah, and stick to it, even when you have to sit on your hands. Yeah, this is good information. I hope you’re taking notes. I’m in studio with me as MJ Finstrom. Am I saying your name right? Finstrom finstrom? Okay, I just want to say I always, just, I just know you as MJ mj’s cool owner of HUT dogs not hot dogs, even though she is hot. She is a digital marketing company and we are talking about helping you to be effective online with your website. And we just finished with email marketing.

Christine Zito: 23:14

And now I want to talk about how businesses can get social with their brands or their products or their services. When, when, again, after I finish a website, one of the things I like to do on their website is put their Instagram feed on there, because anytime that you post on Instagram, it automatically updates on your website or you and you could do that with with Facebook also. So they’ll say now what do I do? Because I don’t do any outside marketing. I only I optimize the website and I fully optimize a website and also ADA compliant. I wish I can go into ADA compliancy and shorten to the point. It’s making your website accessible to those with disabilities, blind, deaf and things like that, and when we’re done, that’s, they’ll say now what do I do? And I say, if you want to have an effective way of drawing people to your website other than an email campaign is social media. So I say, let’s call MJ, mj. What do you now? You got a client.

MJ Finstrom: 24:17

Well, you determine. You know where their best audience is, you, I mean, there’s so many choices, but the big boys are obviously facebook, instagram, tiktok, um, x, all those. But does everybody need all of those, or do you just start where you think the audience is going to be? If you have an older audience, most likely people are on facebook, yeah, um, you know, if you have really young audience, that’s going to be um, tiktok, and, and even snapchat I was’s going to be TikTok and even Snapchat.

Christine Zito: 24:45

I was just going to ask you about Snapchat.

MJ Finstrom: 24:46

Okay, yeah, like the kids are all over on that, but I haven’t done a lot on Snapchat. I don’t know I must be aging out or something.

MJ Finstrom: 24:54

I don’t know, but I watch my other younger people use it. But Instagram is always a good bet. And Facebook? What’s cool about Instagram? Facebook? Facebook owns Instagram so you can sync them up together. But if you have no reach like if you are posting the greatest content, the greatest videos, the best picture in the world, but you have nobody to reach to you’re just posting pictures, pixels in the wind. You know it’s like um. So you need to find a way to build your audience online as well, and you can do pay for play and that’s where you know that’s how facebook, instagram makes their money. But you can target as creepy as it is. I mean, they’re measuring all of our behaviors, so they know that christine’s a runner, they know she’s likes bikes and that’s right, you probably get served up ads for bikes and running stuff.

Christine Zito: 25:45

And you know what? I actually click on some of those ads because they relate to me, yep, so I don’t mind it too much, I just don’t. Yeah, I don’t. I’m not a tea drinker, so I you know, when I see that I don’t.

MJ Finstrom: 26:04

But yeah, that’s how they. You know that’s kind of how they target and what what’s great is that it’s affordable, like you can do something effective for 50 100 bucks. Obviously, if you spend 500 bucks you’ll get more eyeballs right, but that’s sort of how you want to build your. If you’re, if you’re starting from zero, if you’re starting and you just haven’t posted for a while, that’s another problem. I see people posted before 2020 and that was their last post. People come to your facebook presence saying, oh, they must be out of business so that’s another thing to consider is like how important it is to.

MJ Finstrom: 26:29

That’s my fault. Keep up with it you know?

Christine Zito: 26:32

yes, it is so true, and, being a business owner, it’s like you need someone to help you.

MJ Finstrom: 26:38

Yeah with that, and that’s why there’s.

Christine Zito: 26:40

That’s why there’s mj and dave, that’s why they’re here, so you can have a place to to help you with that, um, with social media. Let there’s so many things I want to talk. Talk to you about let’s. Let’s dive into video real fast okay um, now, online social media video is different from the online video that I do. Mine is professionally done and I do it strictly for strategic reasons for a client and it’s usually for promotions. Yeah, and we will all put together a really nice. I like docu stories.

Christine Zito: 27:11

I don’t care what any Some marketers don’t believe in this. I believe in story. Marketing is about the story Absolutely. I am the story I own the business Marketing is about the story. Absolutely, I am the story, I own the business, I want to know and I can turn that story into a docu-story or a full-on, you know. Rated G movie. Yeah, that’s how I or PG.

MJ Finstrom: 27:31

That’s as far as I go. You do a great job with your videos. They’re amazing.

Christine Zito: 27:34

And people love that.

MJ Finstrom: 27:37

Mm-hmm.

Christine Zito: 27:37

Because if you want to sell the product, tell the story about the product, the story about the service, right, okay, so that’s what I do. Social media is it? Is it basically?

MJ Finstrom: 27:48

on that? It’s probably. Yeah, definitely it’s. On that it just might be shorter snippets of that story served out different times instead of the whole big chunk served at once. Yes, you can serve portions of that story like one component could be like hi, I’m so, and so this is why I started my business. Next one this is this is me giving you a tour of my business.

MJ Finstrom: 28:13

There you go this is the problems I solve. I always tell people what problems do you solve? What’s the solution? You know, and you know, if you own a grooming store, we’ll go back. I love dogs, so your dog stinks. We got five point, it’s available. You know, I mean that’s the solution. Problem solution. It’s just like a great match. You know when you can do that. But video online and video on social media very important, oh, it’s very important. It’s that’s where you actually on Instagram, the reels. If you have good reels, they get the most attention. And if you’re tagging and now Instagram, you can share things. For the first time, you got that little share button now. That’s great, oh.

Christine Zito: 28:54

I love to share. I do do a lot of sharing, so that’s helpful.

MJ Finstrom: 28:57

But if you tag somebody that you have a reel on, it just goes really viral. I mean, we had a and that’s organic reach that can help you with your organic meaning. You’re not paying for it and then if you had a pay model to it, then you’re really reaching people. But the videos and the reels are where it’s at, especially on Instagram.

Christine Zito: 29:16

Okay. So MJ said something I want you to remember Organic is something you don’t pay for, Right, and non-organic is what you’re paying for. So remember that you could do things organically. So online video how about this? Online video gives you the big story. Social media online video gives you the journey of the story.

MJ Finstrom: 29:36

Great, I love how that sounds. Yeah, absolutely.

Christine Zito: 29:39

Because you just said it, here I am. I’m the about. This is how I got started. Yeah, so here are my services here. This is how I cook spaghetti. Yes, next video I’ll show you how to cook pasta right it shares the journey, right? Why? Because it’s about relationship. Yep, that’s what. So people don’t understand that it is about the relationship, so I do agree is being careful how what you say on social media. Yeah, well.

MJ Finstrom: 30:01

And then it’s also about being social, and that’s the part people miss too. If there’s a when we’re social, like you and I are having this exchange, let’s pretend like we’re at lunch we I listen to you, you listen to me and the part that people are missing is they’re not listening. They’re not listening to their customers, and you want to go to your customers, your vendors, your best people who give you your referrals, and listen to them and comment on their stuff. That’s just being polite, that’s being social, that is yeah Right. So I think that’s part of social media. It’s not about you. You know, it’s like going to lunch with a bad friend and just they just talk about themselves the whole freaking time. You know that’s not a fun friend, you know, and this is building friends and relationships. That is so gosh.

Christine Zito: 30:50

So I’ve never believed meet me halfway and I’ll meet, and I’ll meet you halfway. I’m like, right, you meet me all the way, you meet me all the way, and let’s just that’s how. I’ve always, yeah, believed on that. You know, when it comes to that type of journey, social journey, love it on a website, people you know you have. You have your main navigation, which is your about page, your services, your products, your shop, your e-commerce shop, your contact page, yeah, your testimonial page, blogging. People always ask me what’s the best way to draw traffic to my website. I say blogging.

Christine Zito: 31:26

And now I know, I say that and everybody’s all like I can’t, I don’t have time for blogging, which is true If you’re a business owner, I totally get it. And now you know, like ArcadiaFYIcom, I can blog because I just I blog my podcast. But blogging you could do that with your social media, I can’t. You know blogging. Why is blogging the number one way to draw traffic to your website? Because it’s content Right. Search loves content, content, content, content.

MJ Finstrom: 31:56

Yes.

Christine Zito: 31:58

Google doesn’t search you by your pictures. Google doesn’t necessarily search you by your videos. Doesn’t necessarily search you by your videos, but they will search you by your content. Yeah, because it’s content they need. They need content, right. Did I mention content?

MJ Finstrom: 32:09

I think you did a couple times that. What was that called? What?

Christine Zito: 32:13

was that? So, yeah, content, and but when someone’s, when I say that, they say well then, how do I create content? Okay, I know what I would say. What would you say?

MJ Finstrom: 32:27

MJ, how to create content? Yeah, how to create content. Start with your FAQs. What are the frequently asked questions that you get asked all the time? Thank you, and start with those and then start I don’t know, I don’t know, I don’t know. Is there anything else?

Christine Zito: 32:42

yeah, I would think, write out each of your services, you know, and people say well, how, what can I write about? Uh, a broken toilet. Oh, you right, when I talk to a plumber, they can’t stop talking about a broken put that yeah, that’s great.

MJ Finstrom: 32:56

I mean people love to watch like mishaps and failures and how they’re doing things and how they make things or how they fix a pipe or you know they love that stuff and then how it fits in relevance to today’s world and remember this, that with any videos, that that you either do with with me, pure media marketing, or with mj, which she would probably do a lot more when it comes to social media marketing.

Christine Zito: 33:27

you can all videos have a transcript. Yeah, and that could be. And you could take that transcript, copy and paste it onto your, your blog, which is separate from your content, your main content, and you’ve just taken care of not only your blog but ADA compliancy. Yeah for sure, because you have your video, a little bit of maybe an introduction into the content, and then your transcript. Right, you’ve just taken care of everything and then click publish.

MJ Finstrom: 34:00

Yeah, there’s so many ways to do it, and the thing is, technology is getting better and better all the time. I’m a tech geek, I mean I I anything that makes my life easier. Technology wise. I’m there. I’ve got these glasses.

Christine Zito: 34:13

They listen for me and I I even have shoes that I don’t.

MJ Finstrom: 34:16

I don’t tie my shoes anymore. No, I’m not filming you. I should, I could. I wear slip-in shoes all the time. Oh, okay, I have slip-ins. I like my slip-ins, yeah. Yeah, are those slip-ins? Yeah they’re. Hey, dudes, I love it, you know so, anything that makes my life easier.

MJ Finstrom: 34:33

And so, with content, and I’ve talked to writers and people. I’ve been around the editors for a long time. They’re loving AI and that kind of stuff as well. But I did during the fires. I interviewed one of my best friends who was a fire survivor from a Colorado fire and do you know, on our phones you can record a phone conversation. Yes, and that phone conversation will transcribe into copy and then you can put that copy and have a. I clean it up and that could be a blog, like if you’re interviewing somebody. I interviewed her about what are the best ways we can help fire survivors and she gave all this great information and just did this Q and a with her Brilliant. And I said clean that up, chat, gpt or whatever I was using and it created this amazing kind of blog-like thing.

MJ Finstrom: 35:26

I use LinkedIn sometimes for newsletter stuff, but technology can help you now with content more than ever, you know, I mean more than ever. I just want to say one thing about your website. You talked about the whole navigation thing, and I feel like I’m just talking about what people are missing and what they’re doing wrong. And I’m not. But one of the things I find out there is people in business have no way to collect money for their business. It drives me bananas. I’m like put that on a cart on your website, yes, and I find that. Find that. Oh no, I don’t know. Well, we’ll get to that later. I’m like no, no, that’s the first thing you should be doing if you have a business is how people pay you you know what?

Christine Zito: 36:11

on my website I have that. Yeah, if you want website maintenance, you can buy it on my website. If you want to rent this studio, you can buy it on my website. Yeah, and it is important you gotta. That is so true in today, in today’s uh technology, it makes it a little bit simple.

MJ Finstrom: 36:26

I don’t use the word easy because it’s not always easy, but it is simple, you okay I know we could go on forever, but I want to touch on artificial intelligence.

Christine Zito: 36:37

Okay, ai, I do want to. May I work in it every, every single day. You work in it every single day. You work in it every single day. But I do want to remind everybody it is artificial, yep, okay. People always ask me is it going to take over the world? It’s already taking over the world, but it doesn’t have to control you.

MJ Finstrom: 36:52

No.

Christine Zito: 36:53

AI will always and be forever, whether it turns into robots or whatever, it’s going to be controlled by human beings. So, in saying that, let’s use it and have fun. Let’s use it. You know, I always say artificial is a tool, not the rule, so let’s have fun with it. You know, when I work in artificial intelligence to create content for clients, I will use Copilot and I will also use Gemini. I love Gemini. Do you, it just takes you. All of them have their weaknesses and their strengths.

MJ Finstrom: 37:26

Yes.

Christine Zito: 37:27

And so it’s hard for me to say one is better than the other. But I do like Gemini, because it just gives you a longer version of things.

MJ Finstrom: 37:33

Interesting.

Christine Zito: 37:34

Yeah, it just does, anyway. So artificial intelligence and how I use it with websites is to create content, and then I add the human touch, because I’ll say this Google is the one that invented artificial intelligence for for online. So, in saying that, even they Google finds it hard sometimes to know what’s real and what’s not real. Even they have that problem and they will tell you that on their blog. Yeah, yeah.

Christine Zito: 38:04

So when they crawl your website, that’s why your about page is so important and a picture of who you are, 100%, yeah, and that’s why I’m a stickler when it comes to the about page. And remember, on the about page, you don’t have to be revealing, but at least be transparent. Right, that’s it? Okay, you don’t have to talk about you know all your past life and things like that, and no, just talk about who you are and who you are in the business. And so, when it comes to artificial intelligence, just make sure that you’re always using it on the human level, because that’s what Google is looking for. That’s what search is being Search Yahoo, because Yahoo still has their search engine. They’re looking for the human element, and when they can’t find it, they will spam it, and you just need to fix that content 100%.

Christine Zito: 38:59

So how do you approach artificial?

MJ Finstrom: 39:02

intelligence. Well, I think humanizing it’s like that seems to be a theme all over. We were attending these, the Pasadena the talks you know, I forget the name of it, but they’re wonderful and there was Sanjay Gupta and the Economist I mean all these great people, but they always talk about ai in every one of them and it’s been fascinating, but they all kind of have a thread. You got to make sure you’re humanizing it, because that’s where it’s at, and in marketing in particular, um, I always tell people ai is never going to replace you, it’s never going to replace your relationships that you build.

MJ Finstrom: 39:39

that’s the most important thing in business, that’s the thing, Say that again, let me write that down AI will never replace you, will never replace me Will never, replace your relationships, never replace, will never replace your expertise and your skill set, will never replace your creativity.

MJ Finstrom: 39:56

Are you listening to this? You still own that. What it will do to all of us, which is a good thing. It should sharpen our critical thinking skills. Of every piece of content that we see. We should use our critical thinking skills in judgment to say, hmm wonder if that’s real or not. And you see it like on Facebook all the time there’s a picture of a lion with a cute baby dangling out of its mouth and their best friends and you’re like that is not real people. You know, um, it’s not real.

MJ Finstrom: 40:28

When in in actually Sanjay Gupta, that’s happened to him. There’s the kind of thing they put him out promoting some product and he looks a little weird and movement. That is not real. Just it more. Question it more. And, on the reverse end, make sure, if people are questioning you, that you can prove you are real and that you are human and always know how to humanize your brand. I mean this was before artificial intelligence. Everybody talked about the importance of humanizing your brand. That mean this was before artificial intelligence. Everybody talked about the importance of humanizing your brand that’s why I believe in story.

MJ Finstrom: 41:04

Yeah, yeah nothing can take away nothing in this world.

Christine Zito: 41:08

No, can take away from your story and bring that into your marketing and, like you said, it’s about having fun.

MJ Finstrom: 41:13

You know, we started um an ai user group. We meet once a month on. I think it’s the second Monday we just met yesterday. Oh my God, we’re learning so much from each other when?

Christine Zito: 41:24

Second, I didn’t know this, it’s online.

MJ Finstrom: 41:26

It’s a hot dogs AI users group.

Christine Zito: 41:29

So much fun. I’m going to put that Francine is part of it.

MJ Finstrom: 41:32

She always has great things to offer, and so it’s spearheaded by hot dogs. But we are just, we’re talking, we’re showing how we’re using it. I’m always showing the fun I have with AI.

MJ Finstrom: 41:43

I mean, we went to Breckenridge to talk about the ski slopes and I planned an AI. I planned a day trip to Breckenridge with AI just to see what would happen if we were going to end up in Nebraska or whatever, and then made a video and that’s on HUTd ogs’ Facebook page If you want to check that out. But so fun and it was really great to plan that way. Made me think of things. But one of the key takeaways from our AI user group and this was just in the last week it’s just like massive light bulb going on Ask AI to give before they generate, generate ask whatever ai tool. Ask me qualifying questions. Now that is a game changer when it comes to ai. So what I mean by that is before I asked ai and I I’m a co-pilot fan. Um, before you give me my itinerary for my day trip to Breckenridge asked me qualifying questions and they asked me do you need any special accommodations?

MJ Finstrom: 42:44

well, yeah, we’re taking my mom. We need wheelchair access. Do you have any food preference? Well, yeah, we’re taking my mom. She wants a cinnamon roll. Uh, do you have any? Um other needs do you want? What kind of stops do you want to that? I love waterfalls and I love real scenic things and it pulled out an itinerary that was just fantastic, right and so that that’s what was cool. Yeah, yeah, that. So there’s so much fun to play and I’m always playing like I probably have pictures for my husband right now because we’re always co-piloting each other where we make each other into cartoons. He, we laugh at that. Everything is the funniest thing on earth. It is an.

Christine Zito: 43:20

Artificial intelligence is fun and I use it and I and I did a.

Christine Zito: 43:24

You know I’m part of the arcadia chamber of commerce and at the breakfast I was showing how artificial intelligence has evolved and is going to involve and how you can manipulate pictures yes I said you know, I I showed this one where, um, I just pulled a picture off stock, a stock photo of sheep, because sheep are my favorite animal, and I said this is what happens when I can manipulate that picture with artificial intelligence. Well, all the sheep in the picture came alive and they were walking around. And I said now, if I were to post that on Instagram because it was, these sheep are from Ireland, if I were to post that on Instagram, I can say anywhere where I’m at.

Christine Zito: 44:01

I say here, I am in Ireland, I’m here with the sheep. You know how many people would believe me? Yeah, 100% yeah. And so I said just be careful who you hire as a marketing company using artificial intelligence on the behalf of your brand. You just got to be careful. Yeah, and YouTube has strict rules too, that when you upload a video, you have to answer the question if it’s if it’s artificial or not.

Christine Zito: 44:22

Yeah, and and if you say no and you get caught, you are not. They will make it very difficult for you to upload another instagram is that way as well.

MJ Finstrom: 44:30

Yeah, for sure you. Oh my gosh, MJ there’s so many careful and so many things we could talk about right now. It’s so much fun you know what we?

Christine Zito: 44:37

you’ll have to come back more towards the holidays, all right because there will be things marketing wise that you and I well actually you, you well, me too because we work together.

Christine Zito: 44:46

And and do you see why I refer MJ, all my clients to MJ? Because she, we work together. And especially when it’s a website that I build, she will say or a video that I did, she’ll say, okay, send me some cuts, send me some, you know, edits and stuff that she can use for social media. And the thing I love working with MJ is that we can be consistent with the brand there’s. I don’t want you know, when people go to social media, they can, they can also see that on the website.

MJ Finstrom: 45:13

So yeah, and you want to pull stuff from your. If you have a really, really good website, it makes the social media that much easier, because you can take that website apart and have a thousand posts based on a great website. You know just one snippet at a time and that’s.

Christine Zito: 45:27

That’s a beautiful thing yeah, and she’ll give me some ideas too. Hey, christine, can you do this on the website? I’m all, absolutely you know.

MJ Finstrom: 45:33

So we trust each other because we know each other. So MJ.

Christine Zito: 45:37

thank you so much, you’re welcome.

MJ Finstrom: 45:39

Thanks for having me oh my gosh.

Christine Zito: 45:40

Thank you for being here. Thank you for letting us know what more we can do with email marketing, social media marketing, artificial intelligence and we just touched the surface 100%.

MJ Finstrom: 45:53

Yeah, there’s so much Just touched the surface. Well, the thing is, it’s all changing all the time, probably right now as we speak. I know it Well.

Christine Zito: 46:00

The thing is it’s all changing all the time, probably right now as we speak. I know it’s like buying a brand new car you take it off the lot it’s already depreciated.

MJ Finstrom: 46:04

Already done yeah.

Christine Zito: 46:05

So, all right, All the information that we talked about here on Arcadia FYI with MJ, it’s going to be on arcadifyi. com in the resource tab or even on the blog with her and I’ll have on there. The link so you can is the AI group that you have on there.

MJ Finstrom: 46:26

Oh, just go to hutdogs.com and our user group will be up there.

Christine Zito: 46:29

Okay, and so I’ll have that link for you if you want to join and learn more about artificial intelligence and using it in your brand, in your company. And gosh, I wanted to ask you another question, but we have to go. I mean it’s great. I’d like to thank our sponsors, Our sponsors Toyota Longo, Toyota Lexus in El Monte. Again, you got to go by there. Say hi to Mike and Brooke. They do more than just sell cars. It’s a huge, this huge lot, and there’s things inside of it. It’s great you got to go see it. They have restaurants, everything Star 7 Financial with Francine Chu, the Santa Anita Park and the Hotel in Arcadia and Pasadena. Until next time, just be blessed and make it a great day.