Why Passion is the Number One Ingredient for a Social Media Manager

I eat, sleep and breathe Honest. If you go on our feed, you see a picture of me. All of the stories kind of, they’re planned, but they’re also done if I had an idea and I’m sitting on my couch on Sunday, I have the freedom to post.

I’ll tell you what, Adam, I think increasingly that’s what it takes. You have to live in social as if it is one of the most important things in your life. You have to really dive in and be present and be part of it. It’s not really a job in the classic sense. It really kind of is a calling. Our guest this week, Bari Levenstein from Honest Tea, their social media manager, just epitomizes that. If you’re looking for a community manager or what does a community manager sound like? It’s her. It is exactly like chapter and verse. She is the quintessential, modern day social media manager, where she loves, loves, loves, loves, loves in a very real, authentic way the brands that she represents. You can feel it in this episode, but man, what a lot of work.

Yeah, and you can feel it. She [inaudible 00:01:12] in this episode, and which you’ve said on so many shows that as you just said, that A, you’ve got to believe in social media, but number two, you’ve got to love social media or you are not going to be successful in this industry. Bari demonstrates that with her enthusiasm, her knowledge of the space and I think her awareness of how the craft and the art of social media is changing.

It’s interesting. She’s so into it, but she knows what she’s in for as well. She understands that this is her life, and that she doesn’t have a lot of time for outside interests because she’s always either on social or thinking about social, but she’s okay with that. It’s interesting. I hadn’t really thought about that until this episode, this idea that to some degree social media practitioners at this level, it’s almost like a religion. It’s almost like a calling to the priesthood or whatever, and that you’re going to set aside other elements of your life because this is what you were born to do.

Social Pros listeners when you tune into this episode, and you hear Bari talk with the kind of conviction and passion that she has for Honest Tea, you’ll see what I mean. This episode got me a little shook because it makes me wonder do I still have that much passion, right? It’s like man, it’s amazing.

I want to tell you if you’re a young social media practitioner, you’re going to relate to Bari, and you’re going to say, “I want to achieve what she’s achieving right now.” If you’re an older social media practitioner, you’ve been doing this like Jay and I for a couple of years, it is going to give you enthusiasm and confidence that our arch and our craft of social media is in good hands.

Good hands indeed. It’s a special episode. You guys are going to like this. She is really, really smart, and doing some amazing things for the brand. This week on Social Pros, Bari Rosenstein from Honest Tea. Before we jump into it, thanks as always to our sponsors, Adam’s crew at Sales Force, [inaudible 00:03:17] who’s new report the State of the Connected Customer is must reading for everybody out there in Social Pros’ land. All about what customers expect of brands today, and it’s a little crazy expectations continue to go up and up. I want you to download it. It won’t cost you a thing. Go to Bit.ly/thecustomersrule. That’s B-I-T.L-Y/thecustomersrule, all lowercase. Also, if you are looking to take your social media program to the next level, as Bari has done for Honest Tea, and you’re struggling a little bit to make all that work, maybe we can help you.

My team and I at [inaudible 00:03:51] We’re at work with many of the world’s most iconic and interesting brands to take their social content and digital to the next level. If we can help you, please let me know. Go to convinceandconvert.com for more. Here we go. Get yourself your favorite cold beverage, preferably an iced tea and listen to Bari Rosenstein from Honest Tea this week on Social Pros.

Bari, welcome to Social Pros, and I got to tell you something that I’ve never admitted to anybody in my whole life. It was only within the last four months that I realized that Honest Tea was honesty. I literally could not piece that together that it was a play on the word honesty, and it was Honest Tea, and now I feel like a not very smart person to have written six business books. I’m delighted to have you here and a little bit sheepish about my shortcomings.

Thank you. I can’t take any credit. That is all Seth Goldman and Gary [inaudible 00:04:54] They are the co-founders of Honest, and it just makes my life a lot more easier on social because people love puns, and people always say, “Oh my goodness!” They have that moment that Honest Tea is honesty.

Yeah, I feel like I should get a T shirt or something.

I could send you one.

At this point. Thank you. Double X. One question. Honest is part of the Coca Cola company, as some folks may know. Tell us a little bit about how that’s structured. Do you get advice and counsel and best practices from sort of Coke corporate or do you guys kind of get to do your own thing? Adam, you may know as well as a former manager of social at Coke, how does the sort of big, Coke ecosystem work from a social standpoint?

That’s a great question. Honest is more of its own thing. We are based in Bethesda. That is where Honest was founded by Seth Goldman, and he wanted to keep it hometown, home roots right in Bethesda. This is the second office that Honest has been in in Bethesda, right here on Bethesda Row. Obviously we are owned by Coca Cola, but we kind of work on our own team. We sit in Bethesda. We have our own brand team. We have our RND team. We have our procurement team all sitting in Bethesda. We obviously have cross functionals in Atlanta to kind of keep us together with the big ecosystem within Coke, but from a social and PR standpoint, we kind of run our business right here in Bethesda, which is really nice. I think one thing that is special in my position, I am the social media manager for Honest Tea, is that no other brands have their own social media person. The core Coke brands, whether they choose an agency or do it in-house, they don’t have a sole person handling their social.

I kind of have the leniency to do what I feel right. I eat, sleep, and breathe Honest. If you go on our feed, you see a picture of me. All of the stories, they’re planned, but they’re also done if I had an idea and I wanted, I’m sitting on my couch on Sunday, I have the freedom to post. It’s been a long time. I’ve made [inaudible 00:07:18] with our legal team. I literally eat, sleep and breathe Honest so I know kind of what our brand tone is and what works for our brand. In terms of how we sit within the Coca Cola company, we really work like a start-up, like an entrepreneurial mindset and that is really because of Seth Goldman who really has and had a stake in the company, and kind of teaches us the way to always keep it Honest.

I think you had said that your social media crew is really you and your manager so it’s not as if you’ve got lots of people to be getting into complicated meetings about, which is amazing. So you kind of figure out like okay, Bari, go make it happen. That’s got to be a tremendous opportunity, and also probably a little bit scary because [crosstalk 00:08:10] I hope I’m right.

I definitely feel like I have the creative freedom. I have my manager to bounce ideas off of. It’s really fun. When people tweet at Honest or comment or DM or send us pictures, I am the one responding. Obviously I have my customer support team over in Atlanta to help me with more technical things, but when it’s someone telling us a story about their child had found Honest Kids and it’s the only drink that they can drink because they have a health issue. I love those stories, and I have a personal connection because I am Honest, and I’m able to respond very personable and very personalized. No robots involved. Which is really nice because I get to know our audience very, very well. More of like a one-to-one relationship. I think that’s what makes Honest honest because I am literally checking DMs Monday through Sunday, 24/7.

Do they know you as Bari or do they know you as Honest or do they know you as the Honest social media lady? What does that relationship look like?

Yeah, I don’t use my name. I don’t speak in first person either. I usually say, “We at the Honest team.” We use team, but spell it tea-m. I don’t want people to think it’s just one person or another. I’d rather it just be us since we are all here together as a family.

I love how you’ve articulated this because I think what you have articulated is what any brand aspires to do. We can hear your voice, your enthusiasm for Honest Tea, your excitement about it, your authenticity. You even said, “Hey, I’m sitting on my couch thinking about what I’m going to post,” and I think it’s revealing that you can even do this as part of the world’s largest beverage company, the Coca Cola company. My question for you is, you do so much of it, you have your PR counterpart that you work closely with, but I’m sure you bring in agency assistance or other folks, how do you kind of embed this enthusiasm and this authenticity in them?

We do use some agency help. We have a PR agency. We used a creative agency this past summer, and we have a media buying agency, and I think when we onboard these agencies, it’s a very personal conversation. We work really closely and because our team is so small, we’re able to bring that enthusiasm into our brainstorms, into our conversations, and this past summer we launched a IFC campaign, called Small Decision, Big Impact, and once we had that idea we actually had the Social Summit up in New York. Where we had all of our agencies come together to really figure out who we are, how we’re going to speak to our audience, and from there I was able to have that freedom to [inaudible 00:11:17] in a way that works for Honest and works for me, and really worked together, all of the agencies working together to…

We have this message we want to portray, but how do we it in our brand voice? And what is our brand voice? How do we define it? And how do we keep it the way that it is, but also kind of telling our brand story throughout this summer?

I think because Honest is such a lovable brand, and for what we stand for. Our mission is our North Star, and that’s what people want. We’re able to, it’s like contagious. Everyone loves Honest and everyone loves the feeling they get when they drink an Honest or see Honest or think about Honest so I think it’s contagious, but I think since our team is so small, our agency partners appreciate the one-to-one conversations. I think that is kind of what is the gold nugget in our team and our agency partners. They’re the best.

I would assume a big part of what you’re trying to do, and this is true for any type of program like this, is a bit of evangelism ambassadorship. You want to get your fans and your Honest Tea drinkers to share their stories that are emblematic and representative of your brand so kind of two part question here. What is the balance of that content that you and your team are creating and sharing? And what’s the percentage of content from others that you’re re-sharing or re-tweeting, and then how do you kind of work with the workflow of actually doing that? Because again, I think this is something that so many people who are social media managers are aspiring to do.

Yeah, that’s a great question. We are a very small, agile and scrappy team. We like to call ourselves scrappy here. A lot of what you see on our feed is a mix of we use a local photographer here in Washington, DC. We actually had our own little photo shoot in our designer’s kitchen and a lot of it is UGC, and a lot of it is just pictures that I have in my phone from just drinking Honest, and giving my friends Honest, and sending cases to people. I think one thing that I’m learning and have learned from posting all of these different types of content is that people like to see real, approachable, less edited photos, and I think that that’s something that we’re going to try more of in 2020, but I think that when we re-post or re-tweet UGC, and people telling us how much they love Honest, I think that’s when we get the most bang for our buck.

One beautiful thing that we have on our glass bottles is that we have what we call bottle cap wisdom now. We have, Seth approved quotes underneath our caps, and that is a content driver. People love that. I think that in itself is a content pillar. People are buying Honest, not just for the tea, but to have that little cap of wisdom that some people keep forever and ever. I’ve sent out bottle caps because people have lost their favorite quote. It’s crazy. It’s amazing. I think hearing those stories, seeing people talk about the flavors and seeing people saying that they buy [inaudible 00:14:41] by the caseload. I think things like that is just so powerful and amazing, and you don’t really realize how much of an impact you have on people’s lives until they tell you, and what’s nice is that I have the power to bring those stories to life on social. And people love when people get retweeted or when I just even do one of the quick reactions on Instagram stories.

Those small things go such a long way, and I think just from a brand owned by Coca Cola, people don’t realize that it is just one person handling this account. And I think that’s what makes this special.

When you sit down with your manager and Seth and other folks at the brand, Bari, how do you guys put metrics around social success? What are you really looking at from a scorecard standpoint?

That’s a great question. I think follower growth is something that people are very interested in, but one thing here at Honest is that we want quality over quantity. We want people to follow us because they like the brand, and because they want to follow us. I think we look at engagement per post so we look at likes, comments and shares and from there, we use those trends to plan our content accordingly.

Like I mentioned before, the other day, we have a vending machine in our office with every single Honest flavor, which is amazing, and I took a picture and posted it, got over 500 likes organically. That was a top performer. Now, that is something that I’m taking into account when planning my content, getting it approved and working with my manager on what type of content people want to see. It’s real. We want the authenticity. We want UGC. Last night we posted a post about our new labels that are, people are starting to see on the shelves. People loved it, and I think when we look at comments and we look at what people are talking about, whether that’s for Honest Tea or Honest Kids, that is something that we’ve used on the brand team and it’s really understanding what people like and what people don’t like.

For example, another example is our larger bottles are now in a new bottle shape, and people had opinions about it, and I think those types of nuggets are great for moving forward in our RND, and moving forward in our innovations. We really use social as a listening board for what people have to say about Honest Tea and Honest Kids, but from a content perspective we just look at the trends and we look at pretty much the likes, comments and shares.

How far in advance are you planning out new content? Obviously it sounds like you are allowed to be and very interested in being realtime in responses, when fans tag you and respond, but if you’re saying, we need to create an Instagram post that talks about the new bottle, what have you, is that a monthly content calendar? Quarterly? Seasonally? Daily? What’s sort of the time horizon for your planner?

We go a month out. I usually write that content the last two weeks of each month for the next following month, but when it comes to bigger campaigns, that obviously has more thought and more hands involved. For example, we ran a campaign this past summer. I started thinking about content maybe two months in advance. But what’s really nice about my position is that I can post whatever I want real-time, but I usually have posts scheduled weekly that I write a month out.

You mentioned, Bari, a couple of things that I think are interesting, and I think it’s emblematic of a trend that we’re seeing. You talked a little bit about the new bottle, and you’re listening to people talking about the new bottle size, and I’m going to lead the witness here a little bit, but I’m assuming you’re probably sharing that information with other parts of the organization. You also mentioned that you’re engaging, you’re sending out cases, and you’re doing things, I would guess, Bari, that are larger than your title of social media manger. You’re doing things that, in some cases, have less to do with social than mere marketing and communications and engagement, things like that. I’m curious in a small, scrappy team like you have, but still under the [inaudible 00:18:58] of the Coca Cola Company, how does that work? Are you kind of taking some of your social listening insights and sharing those with the RND and the packaging team?

Are you finding ways of building new loyalty programs, and working with those respective people? Any tips or suggestions on people that are trying to kind of break out of a very social role, and do things that are kind of expanding the studio space, as they would say on that SNL skit? As I remember.

Yeah. Obviously social is my sole responsibility, but I also manage the website. Not something that I mentioned before, but I led the project of revamping our website this past summer, and I also had the opportunity to put the sip and scan technology on our [inaudible 00:19:50] which was really, really cool. It was a really cool experience to work with another team within Coke, and to work on technology that Coke created, and putting it on our bottle. We were actually the first tea brand, within Coke, to use sip and scan technology on the bottles. What’s been really nice in my position, and I think a lot of social media managers can attest to is that it’s not just social, it’s digital. Social is just a part of the big, digital picture, and I think that social is important, but social kind of expands into digital, expands into other tech and it expands into other places in the internet world.

This year one of my projects was going to be working on our Amazon store. Really being able to branch out, I think is something that I have the opportunity to within Coke, which is really nice, and also having a small team is really nice, but I think when you’re doing social listening and you see a trend, and if there’s an issue with a follower or people are talking about the new bottle, I think making relationships with the cross functionalis is really important because people will learn that when something new happens, people will talk about. And they’ll usually go to social about it. If you want that realtime feedback, whether you’re in packaging or whether you’re in RND, creating a new flavor, people are going to talk about it so having that relationship with every single part of your team, I think is very valuable as a social media person who sits within a larger brand team because everyone can learn from it.

I have really great relationships with our RND team and our packaging team because a lot of consumer inquiries are about packaging, flavors and things that are totally over my head. Having those relationships I think are really important, and you get to learn at the same time.

Bari, another big topic, and I know you listen to the show so you’ve heard this before. Another kind of tangential topic that we talk about that social media professionals have to deal with now is social customer care. From my experience at Coke, you have a company here that 1.8, 1.9 billion times a day sells a serving of something that you put inside yourself. Issues and crisis communication and product recalls and all those things that are inevitable when you’re talking about the volume that you’re talking about, I’m assuming is something else that you have to deal with. My question is how does that happen in your world? When you had someone who has a product satisfaction issue or you do have some type of incident that you have to respond to? Are you kind of handling that at the Honest Tea level or are the folks in Atlanta kind of coming in and assisting you with that? What does that type of workflow look like?

That’s a great question. I handle everything. If you have an issue with your Honest, I am the one responding. Then if it’s something that, it has something to do with the tea itself or packaging issues or things like that, I work with our customer support team and they put it in a database, and then I have a response that I send out to the person that has an issue or has a comment, and we give them a number that’s in the database. Then they can call our like customer service number, which is on the bottle. Then from there, our customer service takes care of that inquiry.

But kind of how I got here, I do [inaudible 00:23:38], a lot of people will talk about the sweetness levels, talk about the flavors and talk about things that are definitely opinion based, and it’s definitely a learning curve for a lot of people as well. Like I said, I eat, sleep and breathe Honest so I kind of have the freedom to answer in a very personal way kind of how I would speak to someone if they had asked me a question in person about whether it’s Honest Kids, and whether it’s I like Pomegranate Blue, what other flavors will I like, and I’m able to give them different options and send them to our website, and potentially send them a case to try Honest [inaudible 00:24:19] It’s really on a case by case basis, but again, that’s the beauty of me being the sole person here working day-to-day, and doing the community management.

I have a rapport with some of our top fans, and when people have issues, I’m able to pretty much put out the fire, and have my customer support team in Atlanta that can help.

It’s great that they give you so much leeway to solve problems without having to pause and go ask for permission. It just slows everything down, and speed is such an important element of customer satisfaction now, especially in social. It’s fantastic that you guys have it structured. Adam and I are also interested in getting one of those vending machines with all those flavors. You can work on that, that’s been a part of the deal.

[inaudible 00:25:07] It got lost in the mail I guess.

I don’t know if we can blame FedEx for that. Your enthusiasm for the brand is so palpable, I love it, and we’ve had people on the show in the past, I think of Adam Ryan from Ceaser’s, right? Who’s not at Ceaser’s any longer, but the way that team was structured, at least at that time, which was I don’t know last year at some time, they had, if I get the numbers right, I think 12 casinos in Vegas, four people on the social team. So each person was running the social for three different casinos. My question for you, Bari…

Multi hundred million dollar businesses [crosstalk 00:25:46]

And it’s not even like the size of the business, I think it’s just, you’ve said a couple of times that you breathe, eat and sleep Honest. What if you had to do Honest plus another couple of brands, could you do that? Could you really make your head shift gears like that or do you feel like that’s just an unfair assignment?

Well funny you ask, I do come from an agency background so I have the experience of working with multiple clients, but I am also the social media manager for Zikko Coconut Water, and they are also… [crosstalk 00:26:20]

Stay Hydrated! That started off as a short term assignment, and I’ve been on the brand for about six months now, and it’s been so much fun. It’s a completely different demographic, and what’s nice about Zikko is they’re also structured like Honest. They are based in LA, not in Atlanta, and they have their own brand team, and they have their own RND team out in LA. It’s been a really, really fun ride with them so far. It’s been really nice to be able to shift my brain, talking to the older millennial families, and then shifting into more of a younger gen. Still families so it’s nice to have a cohesive mindset, but the products are very different, and the conversations are very different, and the content is very different. I think adding more brands and having those opportunities within Coke has helped me professionally and creatively, and it’s been so much fun.

See. Now we’ve got another vending machine full of coconut water. Coconut water is my go to beverage when I’m traveling.

Really?

Yeah, I just get, I don’t know on the plane you just feel…

I hope you’re choosing Zikko and none of our competitors.

I have. I drink it only in airports, but I drink it religiously in airports so there you go. [crosstalk 00:27:47] Last question for me, and I’ll turn it back over to the beverage expert, Adam Browne. What do you make of brand Twitter? So there’s all of this Aunt Jemima is all pissed off at Betty Crocker or obviously probably the most famous kind of Wendy’s scenario or Steak Um or whatever, like do you have other brands on Twitter that you’re like, like iced tea fights that you’re getting into? What is your take on all of that?

Yeah, I think it’s fun. I think if your brand is made for that then I think go ahead, shoot your shot. I think from an Honest perspective, we are a little bit older, and I think when we do those types of conversations it has to be very strategic, everyone has to be onboard. We actually had one of those conversations with Boston Market because Honest Kids was put on the menu at Boston Market so that was really fun. Actually Sheetz tweet last night and we responded, which is something fun like that. I like to hop on those moments, but I think because we’re not a very millennial driven brand, it has to be smart, it has to be once in a while. We’re not thirsty for that type of engagement.

I think we’re more so organic, and we’re more family driven, and we don’t want to be stuck in a conversation that we don’t want to be seen in so I think those moments are hot and I love it, from just a Twitter user standpoint, but from a brand perspective, I have to be strategic and think about, is this really a conversation we want to be in? Is this where Honest should be? And from a Zikko’s standpoint, yes, but we’re still kind of driving their social to become what it’s going to be in 2020, and then also just from a Coke perspective, there are some rules and regulations and things that we have to keep in mind when we do those types of things. Just playing it safe is more my take when it comes to things like that.

Wow. I remember, Bari, [inaudible 00:30:01] over a dozen years ago so I’m sitting at Coke and an influencer at the time put out a bet if you will, asking whether Coke would reach out to Pepsi on Twitter or Pepsi would reach out to Coke first, and like you, I made the executive decision without consulting anyone in Atlanta, to reach out to Pepsi and win that bet. I think about where it’s gone today, and it’s a whole different enchilada. Bari, I do have a question, you’ve mentioned a little bit about demographics, and how those are different for some of your products naturally to be expected. One of the things you told us before the show was how you’re using different social platforms to kind of reach different demographics, and I’d love for you to share your strategy for that?

Great question. I’m sure you probably have heard what I’m about to say from a lot of Social Pros. I think from an Honest perspective, since we are older gen and that’s kind of who we’re demoing to, but we also have the millennials who drink Honest Tea. Honest Tea is huge in college campuses as well, and people love to [inaudible 00:31:14] It’s one of the puns that the youngins use when talking about Honest. I think from a Twitter perspective, we love Twitter at Honest. Seth Goldman is on Twitter. All of our different partners and brands are on Twitter. I think from a realtime perspective, it’s perfect. I think a lot of brands use Twitter in a great way to really share their message and be part of the top moments, and use the hashtags to be part of conversations that they wouldn’t normally be in.

From a Facebook perspective, very much older population is on there. We have our top fans that we love and we bring back with every post. We use Facebook for PR announcements, posting video, and really just having that one-to-one conversations, especially in our messages, a lot of people come to us if they have problems with the product or have questions. That’s kind of what we use Facebook for. A lot of community management happens there.

Then Instagram content sharing, using the different platform capabilities so stories and using gifts and asking questions, and putting out holds, I think we learn a lot about our consumers from doing those little things, whether that’s what flavor should we drink today? Do you want a vending machine in your house? And re-posting people, people love when we repost them, and it adds loyalty to them. I think just by doing those small things, it makes a big impact from our audience. We look at our platforms pretty separately, but in all we just want to really up our one-to-one communication and just our consumer loyalty. We want that to be as strong as possible.

I think that comes through with the content, Bari, your team are creating. One last question and kind of a fun question from me before I hand it back over to Jay. I think it’s inevitable when you have kind of a hot, hip, sexy product like Honest Tea is right now, you’re going to have influencers. You’re going to have celebrities that are reaching out to you. Maybe they’re trying to get that reach in cooler for their mansions, but any celebrity/influencer interactions, Bari, that you’d be wiling to tell us a little bit about?

Yeah. I think, we have someone from the Hills and Laguna Beach era, love Honest. That he actually has a cooler in his house, which is really cool. I would have to look. We have, actually a lot of the times we see people tweet Honest Kids. Honest Kids is a huge business endeavor for us. It’s in McDonald’s, it’s in Chick Fil A so we see actually I just reached out to Casey Nestate on, he’s a big YouTuber.

Oh yeah, Casey. The biggest of YouTubers.

Yeah, he tweeted that his wife organized his pantry and there was Honest Kids in his pantry so that’s amazing. I’m trying to think, off the top of my head. I would have to look…

[crosstalk 00:34:46]

It sounds like you don’t have a proactive influencer program, necessarily.

Nope, not right now. That is definitely on our bucket list and things that we want to do. We do a lot of local influencer programs. We just ran with our partners at Wegmans. We ran one with Kroger. We do a lot of local influencer programming, but right now…

When you’re doing that, if it’s a local influencer, like with a Kroger in [inaudible 00:35:10] or whatever, are you looking for parent influencers? What type of influence are you looking for?

It’s a mix. We work with our partners, our customers so Wegmans and Kroger are our customers. We work with them and the come to us saying that we want to do an influencer program and say yes most of the time. It’s a mix. It’s health and wellness focused. Influencers with kids, some with no kids, whether that’s ranged from their late 20s to early 30s. It kind of doesn’t really matter about the age, but we want them to be shopping and kind of have that organic, health and wellness mindset.

If you have a middle aged social media strategist, podcast co-host influencer program, Adam Browne and I would be delighted to be…

I would love it! Everyone drinks Honest! Yeah, everyone drinks Honest. You could be a teen. We have Honest Kids, we have Honest Organic Juice and we have Honest Tea. It’s perfect.

When you get Honest Old Man, until then you give me some [crosstalk 00:36:21]

Honest OG, there you go.

OG Tea, yeah.

I like it.

Bari, thanks so much. I really appreciate you taking the time. We’re going to ask you the two questions that we acquire each of our guests with here, dating all the way back to January of 2012. So we’re just over eight years of programming here…

Multiplied by seven for internet years and we are OG.

Yeah, yeah. That original episode about Friendster. That didn’t age very well. It wasn’t actually Friendster, but I think it was only Facebook or only Twitter, something like that. Anyway, Bari, what one tip would you give somebody who is looking to become a social pro?

I think follow your heart. I knew from a young, college age, that I was going to be in social, and I worked my butt off to be where I am. I eat, sleep and breathe Honest. I eat, sleep and breathe social. I literally spend all of my downtime on social, and I think if you want to make it you’ve got to just do it with your full heart. You have to network yourself. You have to put yourself in situations that make you uncomfortable, ask questions that make you uncomfortable, and really just love what you do. I am blessed that I am in this position, and I’ve met so many amazing people along the way. Social media is the best. If you don’t have that mindset every single day, you won’t be successful. You have to really love what you do, and if you want something, go and get it. Nothing will stop you. Really just be as passionate as you possibly can, and people will notice and people will flock to you and give you all the opportunities you’d like.

Hell yeah. I’m going to slow clap that up here [inaudible 00:38:11]

My 2020 mantra is no excuses. If you want to change, do it. If you want a new job, get it. If you want to be the best, be the best. Don’t make excuses.

If you don’t love social, you will suck at social.

Exactly.

That is the truth. All right, Bari, you know that’s coming here. If you could be on a video call with any living person, who would it be?

This one was hard. I didn’t want to do anything that you thought I was going to say. I would love to chat with Johnathan Vanese from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy. The Fab Five.

Nice.

Yeah!

What is your take there?

I think he is the happiest, the most positive life on this planet. I think his energy, I don’t top his energy, but I feel like our energies would vibe, and he is confident. He loves what he does, and he just is such a bright light, and I love people that are like that, and I want all of that energy around me all of the time, and not only that, I would love for him to touch my hair. I would love for him to [crosstalk 00:39:30]

I think that from a social perspective, he lives his life, he does things that he wants to do and he shares it on social. He’s ice skating, he’s doing gymnastics, and he’s posting his failures on social. He’s posting his wins on social, and I think the transparency he gives his fans, whether that’s on his Netflix show or on his personal, social feed, I think is powerful. It’s engaging. It’s empowering, and I just love his vibe, and I would love to just sip some tea with him.

All right. Great answer. You get like into the ecosystem with your Twitter accounts, and then we’ll get him on the show. Talk about his social media and then we’ll bring you on as a special guest host. That’s what we’re going to do.

I would die. I would give you free Honest Tea for the rest of your life.

See, work it out. We can make [crosstalk 00:40:24]

Yes, got it.

All right, guys. If you haven’t been convinced to drink Honest Tea and Zikko Coconut Water in this episode that’s the best I can possibly do for you. Bari’s been our guest. Wasn’t she fantastic? Thanks so much for being here.

Thank you so much for having me. This was really, truly an honor, and it was so much fun!

Thanks. It was a blast, indeed. Friends, this has been what I hope is your favorite podcast in the whole world. This has been the Social Pros Podcast. I am, as always, joined by my special friend, Adam Browne, the executive strategist of Sales Force marketing [inaudible 00:40:55] and I am Jay Behr, the founder of Convince [inaudible 00:40:57] Thanks as always to our sponsors. Don’t forget, you can get the show all the places you’d get your delicious audio program. A lot more of you listening via Spotify recently so that’s cool. I like to see that as well.

Don’t forget, if you haven’t left us a rating or a review hand that would make us so happy. Fantastic. And of course, every single showing date all the way back to January 2012 available at SocialPros.com. We will see you next week here on the Social Pros podcast.