Unlocking Success in Content Marketing with Remi Leibovic

Tim Melanson: [00:00:00] Hello and welcome to today’s episode of the Work at Home Rockstar Podcast. Excited for today’s guest. We are talking to a content marketer, and her business is RCL Media. And what she does is she helps clients to create content, which is going to help them to market their business. So I’m excited to be rocking out today with Remi Leibovic.

Hey, Remi, you ready to rock?

Remi Leibovic: Yes, I am.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. So we always start off here in a good note. So tell me a story of success in your business that we can be inspired by.

Remi Leibovic: Oh, my goodness. There’s, I am so blessed that I have a lot of stories of success and it’s really fun to reflect on that. So a story of success that I can confidently say is So a recent thing that I did over the summer was I was my business and I were admitted to the let’s program through the statewide Hispanic chamber of commerce in New Jersey. And what that is, is the Latina entrepreneur training program. And, um, [00:01:00] there were tons of applicants and we Our business was picked to be part of the program.

And in that 8 week intensive program, we learned all this new stuff about our business, how to push it further. And it was such an honor to be chosen. And then it was such an honor to finish out. And, you know, now I have, uh, You know, a membership to the chamber, but now I also have a very strong network and community that champions me.

So I think that’s a successful point.

Tim Melanson: definitely. So what, what do you think made you stand out and, and, and win that, that honor?

Remi Leibovic: So what allowed me to get into the class itself was that like Dr. B, Dr. Borgia, he’s great. Shout out Dr. B, Dr. Borgia. He said in the interview that My business was definitely unique that we [00:02:00] had marketing businesses like mine in the past, but that none that were specifically You know, focusing everybody’s business plans are different.

And I think that he liked the fact that at RCL media, we go on site to create content for our clients through monthly photo shoots, and then we create marketing materials based off of that content. And then we manage our clients platforms and create campaigns and ongoing social media strategy with that.

And he thought that that was a very unique point. So I think that that is what admitted us.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. Yes. And, and I do agree. Uh, I think that is quite unique. I, I know I’ve worked with some social media people before and they, It’s, uh, they don’t go on site and do stuff like that unless you, I suppose, you would be responsible to hire your own team to do that kind of stuff, so we’ll get more into that a little bit later, but before we do, uh, along with the [00:03:00] good notes, sometimes there’s a few bad notes and some things that don’t go as planned, and I like to normalize that because we all go through it, and I want to make sure people understand that failure is not really a failure.

Unless you quit. And so I’m wondering though, is there anything, any big mistakes you’ve made on your journey so far that you can share with us that you learned from and how you got out of it? Okay.

Remi Leibovic: I think that the biggest mistakes that I’ve made have to do with my QuickBooks and I’m not going to lie to You I absolutely hate QuickBooks. If I could just, I mean, I have a bookkeeper. I have a QuickBooks, uh, supervisor person and I have a, you know, an accountant as well. If I could just never. do.

anything with QuickBooks again in my life.

I think I’d be okay with that. Basically what happened was I went into QuickBooks and I had some [00:04:00] reoccurring invoices that were set up from clients that were no longer with me. So I basically Deleted invoices for some current clients, which makes us, which made us get behind and I basically had to go to those clients that I deleted and say, hey, like, we’re a month or 2 behind.

Can we please make this up? I’m really sorry. I absolutely hate cookbooks. But the funny thing is, is that. All my other clients are all business owners. And they’re like, yeah, we hate QuickBooks too. It’s a very big consensus that no one likes this software and everybody hates it. And it’s crazy because I’ve talked to some people that are, you know, they’re dealing with multimillion dollar businesses and then they casually go, they’re like, well, Remi, guess what?

And I’m like, what? They’re like. When you reach that point, you actually have to create your own financial tracking software so you [00:05:00] don’t have to use it anymore and they don’t like it so much that they switch it and I was just like, I was just like so there’ll be a day hopefully that I never have to use this again.

But.

Tim Melanson: at the end of the tunnel.

Remi Leibovic: There is. And there’s also, you know, we’re united in our dislike of this software. And listen, there’s alternative softwares out there, but I was kind of pigeonholed into getting this one because, like, all the accountants that I spoke to all the people that I was was speaking to were just like, listen, like, It’s going to take the other people longer to understand this, just, you know, go with this software and, and while I wish that, you know, hopefully someone out there listening comes up with easier software to use when it comes to taxes and all that fun accounting stuff.

Um, it was just, I didn’t know what I was doing. So, I [00:06:00] made a mistake, not realizing it. But now I have a team of people that are not going to allow me to make those mistakes and that check in on me monthly, so that like periodically so that we’re not falling behind on anything. So it’s, it’s very. It is very upsetting, but at the same time, it’s like, it’s a necessary evil.

I feel that you have to use it or some other kind of software like it, at least in the U S a lot of people use QuickBooks because it’s just all the accountants know how to use it. So

Tim Melanson: Yeah. I actually, I still use spreadsheets,

Remi Leibovic: yeah, see.

Tim Melanson: I’m a super nerd.

Remi Leibovic: Yeah. I hate Excel. So,

Tim Melanson: yeah.

Remi Leibovic: which is why I do social media marketing and I don’t do accounting or Excel.

Tim Melanson: Yeah, well, I mean, [00:07:00] accounting is a big one. I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s something that, um, like you say, when you, when you’re first getting started in your business, and this is the next podcast, we’re, we’re, we’re all starting somewhere somewhat small, uh, you know, hiring an accountant or a bookkeeper to keep track of all that right off the bat.

Okay, you know it it can save you some headaches, but it’s also kind of expensive and especially when you’re running this on your own So it you know, you’re probably gonna have to start with some sort of software until you can hire somebody, right?

Remi Leibovic: Yeah

My favorite, um, some of my favorite people that just happened to be accountants, they run their businesses off retainers at this point. And I’m like, I love you guys. I’ll go hiking with you guys all the time. Can’t afford that yet

Tim Melanson: Oh,

Remi Leibovic: because they’re doing it for like mid sized to large. And me, I’m just a crew of three.

So

Tim Melanson: Yeah. but it’s good. I mean Like you [00:08:00] said, I mean you you learn something from it and the other thing too and this this kind of works for Like i’ve had other people with similar sort of like Maybe they’ll send out like a newsletter email wrong, like with some big mistakes and stuff. And, you know, having to go back to those clients and apologize, it’s like really scary, but it tends to like work out.

Okay. Cause we’re just people too. Right.

Remi Leibovic: right. And I think that it’s important to note that while there are so many ways that technology can help like AI and, um, virtual assistants and all of the stuff that can help you run your business. We are all still human and even AI makes some mistakes. I’m like, because I’ll be talking to chat GPT and I’ll just be like, you do realize that this does.

not make sense, right?

Like, and that’s the thing is sometimes we can utilize those types of tools, at least [00:09:00] in my personal thing where I will write a rant. About a subject matter that I’m really into. And I’m like, okay, condense this down. So that someone that’s not in this niche understands

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I love, I love AI for that kind of stuff for sure. Um, so let’s talk a little bit about practicing. So how do you get good, I guess, and stay good at what you do?

Remi Leibovic: you got to show up every day. You, you really accept weekends, you know, take a break, but, um, you, you do have to rise and meet your challenges. I think that the thing is, is that we’re moving at the speed of social media at this point in time. And at RCL media, we’re a social media marketing agency. You know, we. Are creating content for our clients that is not just like relevant, but it’s helping them achieve their businesses short term and long term goals. And I think that when you put that [00:10:00] into perspective, it, it requires a type of. You’re going to have to adapt and you’re going to have to pivot and you’re going to have to keep switching things up.

I mean, there’s this big thing, um, with trends, right? Trends, and I’m just going to say this because everybody probably knows about this trend whenever this comes out, but it’s called the very mindful, very demure, very cutesy, very demure trend, right? Trends are tactics that you can Tack on to your social media strategy.

They are not, uh, the concrete strategy because strategy can be anything from three months to a year to two years to a three year, whatever period is, um, I think that it’s very important. And this is where the practice thing comes on. I mean, [00:11:00] when, especially when you’re very green and you’re new, you’re like, oh, my God, we got to jump on all these trends for our clients.

We have to do all this stuff. No, I am about I want to say. I’m definitely over 8 years in this profession at this point, because I was always doing social media, uh, whether it be for the offices that I worked in, or, uh, when I went out and did it professionally, or when I got my own clients and started our sale media.

You know, I kept showing up over time and I kept, you know, I didn’t say no. I’m like, let’s see what this actually is. Okay. Let’s look into this trend. Let’s look into this new software that’s coming out. Let’s see if this can actually happen. Okay. How can this enhance our craft? Because. It’s very easy to be just like, [00:12:00] Well, I’m going to just wing it and do it.

But that’s the thing. It’s like, you have to fail. Sometimes some of the videos that I’ve made have for my, for my business, I’ve only gotten like maybe 90 views. And sometimes for my clients, they’ve gotten over a hundred thousand. Or 16, 000, depending on one reel, right? Like we don’t know what’s going to go viral.

And I think that’s the biggest thing is I would tell your audience is that you don’t know what’s going to go viral. And when you just keep, keep trying it, keep going for it. Keep, keep at it because the thing is, is that with those reels that we made for our clients that got over, you know, 16, 000 to 100, 000 views, that was when Instagram just started video content and trending audio.

And we, I was just like, all right, let’s put this, you know, trending audio to this video. [00:13:00] And see what happens. And then it went viral. And then same thing for, um, my other client, right? We, it was in, it was like one interview content was brand new and coming out. I literally asked our bartender, I was like, what’s our number one beer That’s like that people order here?

She’s like Miller Lite. And it like blew up a lot of Miller Lite fans out there.

Tim Melanson: That’s cool. So, so really, I mean, a lot of it has to do with, you know, having a, having an overall strategy, also trying new stuff and keeping an eye out on what kinds of things are coming out. Right? Because I think a lot of people will kind of get something that’s working, uh, and then miss something that is going to work.

Right?

Remi Leibovic: Yeah, and don’t isolate yourself. Do not isolate yourself from other professionals in your field. I am [00:14:00] on LinkedIn at Remi Ljubovic MCM because I have a master’s. So, Remi LinkedIn. You can follow me there. You will see me interacting with other social media people, whether they are the social media directors for their college campuses, social media directors for magazines or products or tech, social media itself is an industry.

And I’m not going to come out here and say, Oh my God, well, I know more than all these people know. I need to hear from my, you know,

Tim Melanson: Cheers.

Remi Leibovic: my peers, really, what is going on and if these things are actually worthy. So I will never come out and say that, you know, like, I know it all because in this industry, there’s No.

way that anyone can know it all unless you’re like Mark Zuckerberg, then you probably know what’s coming up.

But [00:15:00]

Tim Melanson: Because you’re creating it. Yeah.

Remi Leibovic: it, right? But other than that, we’re all just waiting for the flecks of gold to fall, I guess.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. No, I hear you saying it. And, and that’s probably, uh, uh, that’s really good advice. Because I think a lot of people sort of see the competition as competition. Don’t want to, you know, don’t want to get into that, right? But, you know, that’s not always a good strategy.

Remi Leibovic: Always view them as collaborators, never as competition because, you know, I did Taekwondo for like 20 something years. And I will tell you this as a highly competitive person myself, uh, you’ll drive yourself up a wall. If you see all these people as your competition, you will be so much more happier when you just.

Open up yourself to collaborating and, and wanting to work together. And I think that that’s a trait that I definitely learned by going to art school. So that collaboration is so much better than just competing. And [00:16:00] even on Instagram, you can collaborate and make posts with other businesses and collaborative posts.

Sometimes they, they, well, their reach is definitely more than those that are static. And, um, and just individual posts, but like, again, like these apps are encouraging collaboration. So why shouldn’t you as a business owner be collaborative?

Tim Melanson: Agree. So now let’s talk a little bit about fans versus an audience. Because, I mean, with social media, the audience is there. How do you create a fan out of that?

Remi Leibovic: So marketing, right? You have to. Empower your audience to make proper decisions about, uh, your business, right? When you have a social media presence that is engaging, that is [00:17:00] educational, that is showcasing your product and your story, Right? That is going to make audiences and clients, right? Because we want our audiences to become clients.

We want our fans to become customers. That is going to instill trust. That is going to make you show up authentically. And it is also going to help you, um, it is going to help you just tell your business’s story in a way that relates to people that confidence. Go and link to your your problem schedule an appointment or order your services.

Tim Melanson: Oh, cool. Yeah. And, and how would you do that then? Like, okay, so let’s talk about the engaging part first. Cause I think that that’s probably [00:18:00] the one that people would struggle with the most, like, how do you get somebody to start commenting on posts that you just made that has like, maybe it’s got a bunch of likes, but it’s got no comments.

Like, is that something that you look for? Or do you care about whether they comment on it?

Remi Leibovic: So as a business owner and as someone who does, so at RCL media, we do a lot of B2C marketing, but we also, our business is natural B2B business to business, right? Because I’m targeting business owners. My favorite place to engage is LinkedIn. LinkedIn is hands down my favorite form of social media. Why is it my, and I’m just using LinkedIn as an example here, because to use all of them would be like, ah, but. LinkedIn is great because when you comment on something, Tim, everybody in your network is alerted that you were commenting [00:19:00] on someone else’s post. And through that, it is encouragement to comment on back on and join the conversation. I mean, like I said, I follow a lot of social media people. So, you know, take 10 minutes to start engaging with others on social media, and they will start engaging with you.

And again, if it’s about your audience and who you’re targeting, right? If you’re targeting, for example, like, I’m targeting other business owners. I’m going to go to LinkedIn and I’m going to go not only showcase my skill set as a social media professional, I’m going to yak up about RCL media and I’m going to talk shop in the comments with other social media people.

And I’m going to, you know, share things. And does every post that I get, get a million impressions? Absolutely not. [00:20:00] But the ones that I’m seeing that are touching, like 200 people’s feeds, 400 people’s feeds, a thousand people’s feeds. That’s how I know that it’s hitting home and it’s definitely starting to grow.

And I think that people, you know, I went to a conference in Philadelphia, social media day, PHL shout out to them. Um, LinkedIn was there giving a talk and from the horse’s mouth, uh, LinkedIn said, It’s consistency and time that is going to nurture and grow your audience. You have to show up and that could be said across all platforms, right?

You must show up consistently and you must show up authentically. And you basically for these businesses, you need to hire someone like RCL media to help you do that. [00:21:00] Because Here’s the thing, right? Social media at this point in time, they’re becoming teams at these fortune 500 companies. It’s not just one person doing it.

It’s not like the youngest person in the organization posting now. It is a collective of three to five people that are working on the strategy that are creating content for it. So when people are like, Oh, like, well, how do we do this? How do we do this? Well, you have to invest into it. You need to hire out to it.

You are not the expert and you’re not going to grow your business by trying to be the expert of everything. You’re going to grow your business by being good at one thing. And then delegating tasks to all the rest because, for example, QuickBooks, I suck at QuickBooks, but now I have a team of people who can make me not suck at QuickBooks.

And yes, do I still mess up with QuickBooks? Do I still not [00:22:00] understand some of them? Some of the ways that it’s set up? Absolutely. But I have people that I can now go and ask. And my clients are all are always knowing that I’m checking in on them to make sure that they receive things from QuickBooks and that QuickBooks is operating the way that it needs to be.

Same thing with social media. If you don’t, a lot of people don’t understand that and I don’t blame them because it?

is a very fast paced and moving environment. Um, hiring an expert can make all of the difference.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Oh yeah, for sure. Yeah. Um, and that’s just it. And they, when you hire an expert too, it’s what they want to do. Right. And you’re offloading something that you don’t want to do, which is pretty cool. Right. Yeah. So it’s time for your guest solo. Tell me what’s exciting in your business right now.

Remi Leibovic: What’s exciting in my business? Oh my goodness. So, uh, I am excited that I am going to be hosting a [00:23:00] series of masterclasses, uh, in the upcoming months. When this episode launches, I know that will be in the fall. So we are going to be hosting them. A bunch of new and upcoming masterclasses for social media content and social media content creation strategy.

It’s going to be a zoom, they’re open to everyone, just hop on to the masterclass. Make sure that you can attend and we will be. Announcing these things through our RCL media on LinkedIn and of course on all our platforms, but we really want business owners to attend. And, you know, even if people don’t go with us with our clients, we are always asked whenever we host these kinds of events at chambers of commerce, we’re always asked if we can do it again.

So now we’re taking that and we’re putting it onto, you know, um, a masterclass in a zoom call [00:24:00] format. And just showing it to more people.

Tim Melanson: Wow. So, is there a certain type of person or business that would get the most out of these master classes?

Remi Leibovic: I think that every business can get the most out of these types of masterclasses, but the ones that the industries that I think could definitely benefit would be. You know, I think definitely cyber security businesses law, I think, um, so legal practices I think health care, like physical therapists and med spa owners and, like, um, All of those kind of clinics, they could get something out of it because they have absolutely no social media presence, or if they do, it’s very, like, on and off ish,

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah.

Remi Leibovic: it’s just, here’s the thing, and I’ll tell this to every single [00:25:00] professional out there, the frauds, the guys that are bad at their jobs, are getting really, really good at social media.

They’re fostering trust. They are getting clients. They, you might say, Well.

they’ll eventually come back to me. Well, guess what? We don’t know if they’ll actually come back to you. So one of the best things that I can do is that if you’re an actual professional in your craft and you own your own business, I would highly suggest that you come to these master classes, you learn something, and that you’re able to start developing and crafting a social media strategy for you and your business, because guess what, there are real life incidents.

That are occurring where quote unquote professionals are providing services to clients and the clients don’t know any better because they like for instance [00:26:00] right actual financial advisors in the United States haven’t have a number. On their social media profiles, which is their licensing number. They cannot post anything outside of, um, what compliance, uh, what the Federal Trade Commission, um, has set for them and everything else, right?

However, there are all these financial experts, quote unquote, I’m putting up air quotes who are actively on social media telling people that they’re going to be giving them financial advice how to set up things. Are these people actual fight licensed financial advisors? No, they are not, but they are selling courses.

teaching people how to budget, teaching people how to invest, teaching people all this stuff. And are they, and is the advice that they’re giving good? Well, [00:27:00] that’s up to who it is. But at the same time, they’re not licensed to practice that in the United States. And the only reason they get away with it is because they can, they can pawn it off and say like, Oh, we make people sign contracts that they know that we’re not real financial advisors. But that’s the thing. They present themselves as the financial experts when they’re not.

Tim Melanson: So, uh, well, I guess that kind of like answers the question I had is I think there’s a lot of, uh, especially financial people cause I’ve talked to them that say that they can’t go on social media.

Remi Leibovic: they can’t.

Tim Melanson: so what, what do we do there if they’re not allowed?

Remi Leibovic: so the thing is, is that you cannot solicit business. And of course, like, um, it depends on your country’s guidelines for that. But here’s the thing. If you showcase [00:28:00] you are and what you do, then there is a way. That you can start gaining somewhat of a presence and on LinkedIn again, compliance has guidelines, but they also have a set of approved content.

Tim Melanson: Okay. Yeah.

Remi Leibovic: If you were to start distributing that content, or if you were like, Hey, we want to invest in this and make sure that it’s up to, you know, compliance and it’s guidelines, you know, give it to your legal team, give it to that. Yes. Is it a pain? Is there tons of tape that you have to go through? Absolutely.

But it’s a start, you know, it’s start in the right direction. And I’ll even say this. There are attorneys on [00:29:00] LinkedIn and on Instagram, primarily on Instagram, they are giving advice. They are not giving direct advice to you and I, but they are giving general broad advice. They are not breaking any of their state’s guidelines or any of the ethics or anything like that.

They’re not disclosing, um, client information, but they’re giving these general. Overviews and While, you know, some of these attorney accounts have over 100, 000 followers, not every, not, not 300, 300, 000 people are not going to go and get a divorce from an attorney, but they’re following and they’re adding some kind of educational point to those 300, 000 people.

And they’re also just. What you may think is common sense in your industry is not common sense to [00:30:00] your clients, nor is it common sense to people who are, um, you know, browsing and maybe interested in your services. So it’s very important that. You know, what you think is common sense, you can turn into content.

And if you do have, if you are in one of those very heavily compliant industries, I’d have a discussion with your back room team and say, well, how can we actually get content approved? Where is there a bank that we can go to where, um, what I mean by bank is like content bank. Is there already pre approved assets?

How can we get these approved? You know, because especially at larger corporations. Legal is, is, is the final say on All the content that is created from my clients right.

now. It’s all, you know, small business, small to mid sized businesses. So there is no like lawyer [00:31:00] that’s taking a look at the content calendar, but for a lot of these larger clients and a lot of these larger businesses, there is a lawyer or a legal team that is, uh, overviewing the, uh, social media and the strategy to make sure that it’s compliant to make sure that it’s, you know, in alignment with the mission statement.

So it’s, there is, if there’s a will, there’s definitely a way

Tim Melanson: Right on. Okay. So how do we find out more about you then?

Remi Leibovic: how to find out more about me. So you can re you can follow me on LinkedIn at Remi Livic, MCM. You can also fo follow Rcl Media LLC on LinkedIn. You can follow on Instagram at Rcl Media Official and on TikTok at RCL Media Official. You can also follow us on Facebook at Rcl Media llc. And we have a website called www.

rclmedia. net where you can see our [00:32:00] work. You can read our case studies. Oh, that’s another fun, exciting thing. We’re going to be launching a new website. So, whatever. Is up right now. We’re going to be moving from the Squarespace platform to the WordPress. And just so you all know, here’s a little nugget of information.

Um, Squarespace sucks for SEO and you should not use it as a business. If you want to scale or expand because it does not comply with SEO. And I basically found out through all these web people that, and through my trials and error that. It’s not going to help you get found. It looks beautiful. They’re amazing, beautiful templates, but they’re not great when it comes to, like, Google or these and then finally.

Tim Melanson: Yeah. Yeah. I’m a web person myself. So I, I, I work with WordPress and I recommend people do as

Remi Leibovic: yes, it’s just that Squarespace [00:33:00] is it’s on every podcast, you know, it’s there everywhere, but it’s not from a tech perspective, you know, we were talking a little bit about this earlier. Um, you have to invest in your tech you have to invest in your software, and I think that just. I’m just converting everything and moving it over to Squarespace.

I mean, from Squarespace to WordPress, because it was just, it’s hurting our SEO.

Tim Melanson: Good for you. I’m glad you’re doing that.

Remi Leibovic: Yes,

Tim Melanson: Well, thank you so much for rocking out with me, with me today, Remi. This has been a lot of fun.

Remi Leibovic: absolutely.

Tim Melanson: Awesome. And to the listeners, make sure you subscribe, rate, and comment, and we’ll see you next time with the Working From Home Rockstar podcast.

Remi Leibovic: Great. Bye everybody. Thank you.