I'm Matt Navarra: Creator 'Geekout w/ Matt Navarra' podcast + social media tipster. Ask me anything

Matt Navarra
18 replies
'Geekout with Matt Navarra' is my new weekly podcast which discusses the latest social media news and features - https://anchor.fm/geekoutmattnav... I previously worked for the UK Government as a digital lead inside the Cabinet Office, 10 Downing Street, and other departments. I was also the former director of social media for global tech news publisher The Next Web. I'm now a freelance social media consultant. Ask me anything! :)

Replies

Jon Rojas
Hey Matt! What channels are you using to promote your podcast? Have you found more success in one social platform over another?
Ryan Hoover
Yo, Matt! What's the next big social network that people or companies should invest in today?
Matt Navarra
@rrhoover right now TikTok still remains the platform which balances being established enough that it had a big audience and plenty of traction to get results from, yet not being flooded with brands and ads that you’ve lost the moment. LinkedIn is also a good bet right now even though it’s not new.
Abadesi
Hi Matt! How should indie makers strike the balance between marketing themselves and marketing their product? @anthilemoon and I were talking about how lots of early stage founders hide behind their brand when their is almost more value in developing their personal brands. Would love to hear your thoughts on that.
Matt Navarra
@anthilemoon @abadesi I think In the world of competitive startups and founders, one of the best things you can do to give your product something extra or different is to build out the supporting personal brand of the creators / founders. We all know the saying people buy people, and it’s far easier to inject personality and character into a brand using people rather than relying solely on the product to someone convey that. I’d advocate leveraging the makers story any way you can, and also use that as a platform to help develop side projects and product extensions.
Mubashar Iqbal
As a maker of many products, I always struggle with the question of building a personal social media presence vs one for each product. Anything specific makers should be thinking about here? Any advantages or disadvantages for these options?
Matt Navarra
@mubashariqbal it’s always going to be easier to launch new products or services if you as the maker have an establish personal brand and good reputation. In an ideal world, I’d suggest developing both in parallel and in time the personal brand if nurtured well, will make the product side of things a bit easier to get traction with and interest in. Of course, makers have a finite amount of time and resource and can’t do it all, but I do think it is possible to have both and each of them to help feed the other. Spend time investing in your content and growing an audience alongside the day to day building of your product.
Mubashar Iqbal
@mattnavarra Thanks, this is great. I've been trying to do this, and yes it is a lot of work to develop both at the same time, but seems worth it in the long run.
Jessica Wayock
Hey, Matt! What advice do you have for social media professionals that strictly work with paid? I recently started a new role where I will only be working with paid social and I'd love to hear your thoughts.
Matt Navarra
@jessica_wayock don’t lose sight of what’s going on in the organic space. Being on top of what’s trending and going viral and driving engagement is part of what makes you a great social media manager. It would be easy to become lazy and start pushing out sub-standard context and campaigns with the knowledge you will be putting money behind it to drive clicks or engagement instead of relying on your social media spidey senses as to what will resonate most with your audience if purely organic. If you are only working with paid, I’d get real close to your analytics and have laser-focused attention on who your audience is and upskill on your understanding ad targeting options and features. I would also consider how you can use more UGC in your paid output to boost how authentic it will feel to an audience who will see its paid content.
Amrith
@mattnavarra thanks for doing this! 🙏 What would you like to see Product Hunt do more of on social? Asking for a friend 🤭
Matt Navarra
@amrith I have always been a fan of PH on Twitter. I think you guys do a great job already. Maybe sharing collections of apps for different types of users would be useful eg. top collections of social media tools, or productivity apps, or the top 10 apps for the month on PH. And giving away free access codes to new apps or products, discounts, or beta access codes etc, would be cool. Also, more video from makers describing their product in short clips in tweets may be interesting.
Sarah Evans
@amrith @mattnavarra Love this idea. PH has access to so many cool things, packaging it together so us regular folks can keep track of everything better would be awesome.
Marko Markovic
Hi Matt. How to set up a social media strategy?
Ben Rad
Hey Matt. Any tips on growing an audience from 0 followers? Launching TW/FB/IG strategy shortly and looking for insight on quickly growing an organic audience without the help of too much paid backing.
bobby
Hi Matt, any books that you think a social media manager should not go without reading?
Jonathan Sun
What's it like doing social media in the UK vs the US?