There are a lot of ways to make money. My personal preference is to make money by doing a service that positively impacts everyone involved in the transaction.
For the last nine years, that service has been digital marketing with a heavy emphasis in social media marketing.
As the owner of Spry Digital Marketing, I not only have to be intentional about providing a positive impact for our clients, I also must think about our clients’ customers. Is the company we’re marketing for actually creating a positive impact in the lives of its customers? If the answer is no, then we won’t take them on as a client. We refuse to market something that isn’t bringing value into the world.
Moreover, a good marketing company should think deeper about the tools they use to market to their audience as well.
There’s a growing audience of adults and youth carrying around phones in their pockets. These phones are often the primary means in which we engage with them. Social media apps allow us to engage often and intimately in order to create connections leading to relationships and then transactions.
Youth, however, do not always have the maturity to understand the impact these tools have on their daily lives, their relationships and even their brain chemistry. To us marketing gurus, that’s just not acceptable.
This year my team started a program called Guidelines for a Healthy Digital Life. We are going from middle school to middle school and youth group to youth group throughout the state of Washington discussing how youth are using technology and how technology is using them. The goal for this program is to create a more open conversation between youth and adults about what habits are being formed with technology and how those habits are affecting lives.
If we want to be able to continue using social media as a means of connecting companies with customers, then we need to keep the relationship from imploding by helping youth create sustainable habits within those platforms.
Some of the habits we discuss with youth are:
- How private is the content on your phone? Would you be mortified if your friends or family saw things you’re saying on social media or in private messenger apps?
- How often do you take time and space away from your phone? Is it the first thing you look at in the morning and the last thing you look at before you fall asleep? If so, do you know how that affects your brain chemistry?
- Do you stress over being “left on read” which can lead to inappropriate communication expectations in many parts of your life?
- Are you proud of your online activity? Does it produce an accurate picture of the type of person you want to be in your life?
Although this presentation is focused on youth, we find that it’s beneficial for people of all ages to think about as well.
In 2020, we’d like to do about 24 of these presentations across the state and we’re looking now for schools and groups who would be a good fit for this type of material. If you’ve got a connection to a group who would benefit from this presentation, please contact our Digital Strategist and Community Service Coordinator Amber Gerard at amber@thinkspry.com.
Our plan is to keep marketing businesses who bring value and positivity into the world – creating social media presences that help businesses and customers get to know, like and trust each other.
Lacey Faught is CEO and lead digital marketing educator at Spry Digital Marketing. She has a degree in broadcast news and political science, and started Spry back in 2011. She can be reached at lacey@thinkspry.com.
