YouTube Videos

Podcast Transcript

Jasna Burza 0:00
Right here, Jennifer Radke. Welcome to Business Spotlight.

Jennifer Radke 0:05
Thank you. Yes, that’s so great to be here.

Jasna Burza 0:08
It is, like I mentioned a true pleasure, because I’ve heard so much about you, which is very common with the people that come on the Business Spotlight, because we always want to feature amazing people doing incredible work in our community. And your name has come up many, many times. And like I always say, what I love about is that people are referred to us like, you should talk to this person, or you should really feature their work because they’re doing amazing things. So I really, really love and appreciate that. So we’re gonna talk a little bit today about your your company, your institute and the social media, but you run National Institute for Social Media, in a world that we live in right now, like that’s, that’s a mouthful, but really important, we cannot live without it. So tell us what National Institute for Social media is, and how did you get started?

Jennifer Radke 0:58
Yeah, it’s such a fun story. And, man, believe it or not, we’re celebrating 10 years of being around this year. So it’s amazing.

Jasna Burza 1:09
Yes, even if social media was around 10 years ago, it

Jennifer Radke 1:14
really was, it really was. And the National Institute was around 10 years ago, we actually launched our first certification exam in July of 2012. So it’s super exciting for us to be where we are today, the National Institute was developed to really help bridge the gap between companies, looking for talented marketing professionals, and those marketing professionals who understood how to utilize social media tools in their strategy to those companies, right? Because social has still been and I would argue, still today is kind of like the Wild Wild West, right? Everybody’s an expert, because they know how to do their own social, right. And unfortunately, doing a business social can be very, very different. And there are legal issues, there’s ethical issues, there’s so much to consider right in creating content and managing platforms for a business entity, and whether that be for profit or nonprofit. So the institute really is here to help set some guidelines, create a benchmark, and then train marketers to really one do social media strategy well, but to educate the population about what that means, by having an industry standardized certification.

Jasna Burza 2:39
I love that that’s really beautiful. You You hit on something really important in a world of noise, where we feel like we can do it DIY everything ourselves. And it’s interesting, I talked to Janet Johnson earlier. And she’s like such a specialist in in, you know, ads, and that is amazing. Amazing, you just love her to pieces. And there’s there’s also a lot of noise. I’ve heard so many horror stories of people working with self designated social media experts who really lead them down some wrong path. So there’s what’s really important to you and what you emphasize is that you’ve created Institute to create a nationally recognized entity. That is there’s a recognition, there’s a certification, there’s a code of standards, code of ethics, that you all abide by, which is really important to you. And that’s I assume that that was your mission from from the beginning.

Jennifer Radke 3:37
You know, it was the mission that I bought into, so I didn’t actually start the National Institute for Social Media. It’s crazy. I know, a gentleman by the name of Eric Mills, was the brainchild for this institute. I came along in about June of 2012. As a business development representative, I was helping him to educate colleges and universities about this offering that we could help tool students better, right, with the credential. And it wasn’t until 2016 that I took over as owner and CEO. So it’s been a fun journey. But the thing that did pull me here was that code of ethics was the very oh, gosh, what’s the right word, regulated and thoughtful process by which we assess social media strategists, right? The fact that we’re not focusing on here’s where you click on Facebook, to place an ad or post content because that changes like every day, but looking better at the bigger picture, right? Like, what are we even trying to accomplish with social media? Who is our audience? How do we best give them what they need? meet them where they are? And then from a very strategic standpoint, how do we use data to backup what we’re doing? Right? How do we measure our effectiveness instead of just throwing content out there and hoping that it sticks? Let’s use something that can educate us on really giving our audience what they want? So that’s what pulled me in. The second thing that pulled me in, honestly, is there a requirement to keep certified. So our certification

Jasna Burza 5:27
is things change all the time, you have to continue to learn and evolve.

Jennifer Radke 5:32
Absolutely. So certification is only good for two years. During that time frame, people need to get continuing education credits, in order to continue to boost their skills and stay relevant. And those can be received in a variety of ways. You know, that could be traditional college classes, the stuff that we offer at the National Institute, it could be getting Google Ads certified. I mean, it could be a ton of different things. But we really love that ongoing learning and professional development focus of a certification.

Jasna Burza 6:07
Because you get that’s how you get the expertise and the end the credential. So we you just hit on something really important. Things have changed a little bit in the social media landscape, I read, I took a little pause in 2020, I went to sleep and two inches deep Kevin, I deleted all my accounts, or deleted them from my phone, and I almost deleted all of them. Thank God I didn’t. That was a moment of a temporary insanity. But what’s interesting is that we live in a radically different world where it’s I was talking to earlier to Janet, she said these are now more social media. They’re advertising platforms. And what is so interesting is it tick tock is becoming one, right? So we have all these different things and business owners are still forgetting they’re upset that they don’t have the reach. And they’re there. There’s a lot of frustration with so many of us who have put so much time and effort into growing these accounts. What are you noticing? And is there a tip or two that you can give us and how to? How do you feel positive and excited about social media

Jennifer Radke 7:18
again? First, yes, no, I think it was fantastic that you took a break. One of the things we’ve all learned is, we cannot be utilizing social media as a lifeline. At least personally, right. And I know for business owner, that that’s really hard to hear, because we’re trying to keep our businesses pumping and moving forward. But we personally need to rejuvenate ourselves. And sometimes that means unplugging from social for a while, or strategically removing notifications from your phone or social apps from your phone in general so that you have designated times to check it. So kudos to you for recognizing that and doing it and then entering back into this world on your terms. Right. And in a way that sucks. Yes, it does. I agree. No, I agree. And even though I haven’t yet heard the conversation that you and Janet had, I know her fairly well. My guess is one of the frustrations that you all talked about was the minimizing organic reach. And that’s a frustration that businesses have. We’re constantly being asked to put money into our social plans. And I agree, that’s frustrating. And it’s necessary for the reasons that you mentioned, right? Like the businesses of Facebook and Google and Tik Tok, they need to run as well. And so they have to figure out ways in which to monetize what they’re doing. And advertising is the way to do it. We, most of us in social media marketing, have a love hate relationship with social media because of it, right? So I guess, a couple of words of advice might be take a deep breath. Remember what you’re right, we can do that right now. Remember what you’re right. Remember what your mission is, and then do only what you can do right now. You don’t have to do it all. You don’t have to be everywhere, right? If you remember what your mission is and who you’re serving, you can choose the social platforms that you want to be on and go at it carefully, strategically, and much more cost effective than trying to be absolutely everywhere. And everything to everyone. Right. Oh, how

Jasna Burza 9:51
beautifully said Oh, thank you. It’s such an important lesson, isn’t it? Yeah. In doing well, well It’s interesting, a lot of my former clients, and a lot of my friends in the industry are social media strategists. So if they’re listening to this, which I hope that they will, why get certified with the Institute? I know how important it is because of the the authority that comes with it because of all of the things that we already mentioned. But why don’t you tell us like, who is the good fit for the institute? And why should people consider being becoming certified? through you? That

Jennifer Radke 10:33
is such a fantastic question, and one I love to answer. So the perfect fit for us is a marketing professional who utilizes social media, for their work on a daily basis. So if they’re in charge of just print media and not touching social, then this isn’t right for them. But if they’re utilizing social tools, and really trying to make decisions on how to move forward, whether that’s creating content, placing ads, engaging, you know, doing organic engagement, whatever that might be, that marketing professional is the right fit for us. Typically, they have about three to five years of experience, on the low end to really understand what’s going on in the business environment, right, and they come to us. And one, they’re going to learn something they didn’t know before. Because chances are that the training that they had taught them one pillar of social strategy, more focused more on the tactics behind creating content and less on the strategy or the umbrella that goes over why we do that content, right. So I guarantee that they’ll learn something. But the real benefits of it for marketing professionals, and those marketing professionals might be solopreneurs individuals on a small business, right, the only marketing team, but it also might be agencies who offer social media marketing services to their companies, the companies they support, or large, you know, fortune 500 companies who have a marketing team for doing these social practices. So it doesn’t really matter where they fit in size, as far as the size of the company. Yeah, as long as those are their job duties, right. But the benefits of it, and you hit on this when you talked about the credential, right? It gives people one some confidence. And I know that a lot of our markers out there, like what I’m confident in my abilities. But I also know that most of those people have also faced challenges and questions and roadblocks from business owners or leaders who don’t necessarily believe in their ability, nothing personal, but they don’t trust social, right. So having this will give them one the confidence to prepare for those meetings a little bit differently, but also the credibility that goes with. Look, I’m not just telling you this, because I grew up with Social, I’m telling you this because I’ve been assessed by a third party who says I know what I’m talking about. Right. And these are the tools that they use. So that credibility, that confidence. The other thing that I have found has been a huge blessing to the majority of our community is just that, and that is a community. Social media marketing, unfortunately, is starting to diminish in longevity, right? People aren’t staying in this industry, because it is stressful. And having a community of peers, to share best practices to vent with, to learn from and grow with is keeping people satisfied in their work and reminding them to do what we did earlier. And breathe.

Jasna Burza 13:54
Oh, that is so beautiful. Well, if that is not the great elevator speech for the year. I love that. But really in a sea of noise. I often talk about this as a life coach and a business coach and God knows there’s like so much noise out there. Everyone is a coach. There is very often people tell me, what what do I really need if you need something that’s going to give you the credentials to stand out. So maybe it’s not an actual certification, maybe the expertise, but I always find being associated with any kind of body that recognizes you or support you. It just really it gives. It gives people that this reassurance that like no matter what I feel like I’m taking care of so I really love that. So if people really want to take either educational classes or they want to get a certification, where do they go and how do they how do they sign up for it?

Jennifer Radke 14:51
It’s super easy. You visit the National Institutes website at N I S M online dot o RG you can either follow the path for an individual which will walk you through downloading a candidate handbook and figuring out your best study plan with a readiness assessment. Or you can go straight to our shopping cart. And choose one of the training packages, we have a variety you can take just the test if you are an expert in your field and simply want to add that credential. Great, go take the test. If you’re a little leery of that need a little extra education. We’ve got some self study bundles, and a full blown instructor led one on one tutoring course option. That is great. So we’ve got a huge gamut based on the learning objectives of the individual.

Jasna Burza 15:40
Oh, I love that. I just love that some folks and I s m online.com. We’re gonna put that some up here.org

Jennifer Radke 15:46
I like sorry.com.org and

Jasna Burza 15:51
I asked them online.org.org Thank you for correcting me. Jennifer, thank you so much for taking the time to talk to me today.

Jennifer Radke 15:59
Oh, it was my pleasure. I appreciate it. I love your energy. And I hope more people come and get to talk with you.

Jasna Burza 16:06
I do I do too. We want to every every Wednesday. That’s what we do want to uplift and support others and hopefully connect. Because when it comes from a personal recommendation, people are more likely to work with people that they know like and trust. So that is what we’re trying to do in our community. We have fascinating humans that I know that Jenna knows. So we’re going to promote them.

Jennifer Radke 16:27
That sounds wonderful. Thank you for the opportunity.

Jasna Burza 16:30
Such a pleasure. I’ll talk to you soon. Bye bye