Build Your OOH Social Media Presence w/ Michael Palatnek

Welcome to out-of-home insider today's episode is all about, well, a little bit of everything from the currency of, out of home and drama in LBC that's land of billboard conferences for short to how companies like yours are doubling down on social media to drive sales, join Michael Peloton, Nick and I, and as we cover the entire target with this conversation.

Before starting Phoenix, social, Michael was the CEO of poster scope and see to see outdoor. Now he's helping out of home companies step up their game with social media marketing in a way that leaves an impact almost as much as a billboard. And if you're looking for ways to help your business grow, head over to one screen.ai and click get listed in the upper right corner, whether you're on the buy or sell side of the business, provide technology, our agency hardware.

Or even social media marketing. We want to list you in the first free public access directory for out-of-home. So go to one screen.ai right now, and click get listed without further ado. Let's go welcome everybody to the out-of-home insider show, a podcast like no other hosted by the one and only Tim Rowe.

You ready to have some knowledge dropped on. You went to being detained because nothing's more valuable than food for your brain. So sit back. We're about to dive in as the best industry podcast is about

Michael. Thanks for, thanks for being here. Of course. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Big fan of what you're doing. I really appreciate that. And it was, uh, you know, I wished that folks could have been a fly on the wall in our initial conversation. So we'll try to recap some of the, uh, the big stuff that we talked about, uh, just last week, but there's been a lot of news coming out from the out-of-home ad industry this week.

Uh, you know, last week. Some news with intersection, a company that you're obviously familiar with it having come from tightened your background, C to C poster scope. I'm really excited to get some of your insight on some of the top news of, uh, of the, yeah, it seems like everybody is finding a pony to a saddle in with, in terms of programmatic, which I think you and I spoke about this in our initial combo that programmatic really hit the gas during COVID and I think.

Clients brands vendors saw the advantages that come with running and executing on programmatic and how easy it is. Uh, I go back and forth on it. To be honest with you. I know we spoke about this a little bit too. I think there are roles. I think there are places for it where it's a great tool. And then there are times where.

You know, speaking directly to a publisher directly to a vendor, looking at at-home like real estate, um, as it was for a long time is beneficial. So it's just interesting. I was talking to a friend in the industry today and I was saying how. It's unique because you have, you know, this star somewhat attached to Lamar.

Now you have placed, exchanged somewhat attack attached to intersection. You have JC Decaux with their platform that they have overseas. It's interesting that there really isn't outside of maybe one or two smaller guys that I can think of, like an appear independent in the space. And I'm curious, I wonder how your listeners feel now knowing that, you know, these guys are somewhat attached to each other.

Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but does it blur the lines and what does that mean for the. Yeah, it seems like the camps are kind of dividing. Some, some folks are saying, you know, Hey, this is a good thing. And other folks are very adamantly against it saying, you know, Hey, uh, Lamar's investment in, in Vistar means that Lamar is going to get all the love and no one's going to pay attention to me anymore.

Do you think that that ultimately plays out in that way? Or how does this benefit some of the smaller folks in this. I think, I mean, it's a, it's a concern. It's a knee jerk concern, but in the grand scheme of things, I think this star runs their business very independently. I think they're obviously very happy to have the investment from Lamar and it gives them the ability to continue to expand.

So will Lamar get preferential treatment? I hope not. That said they're also one of the largest players in the space. So. They're going to, regardless, because they're going to receive a lot of the funds. So I know that, you know, Ian and I'm sure Michael will have a very open line of communication and dialogue.

I could see the independence, you know, Not happy about how this is looking and seeing right now, but you just hope that all of these programmatic companies that are out there are looking at the greater good and what they're trying to achieve, as opposed to, you know, lining their pockets, which obviously we're all in this business to make money, but you want to make sure it's done in the right way and that everyone's getting a fair shake and, and a look and has the ability to do business via programmatic channels at the same capacity that a Lamar.

And now front or a clear channel or JC Tacoma or an intersection. What, and that's how I think of the investment, right? Lamar created this investment vehicle to take advantage of some of the tech advancements. I think that probably all told there's that maybe the most advanced company in the space is really into like a series B round.

Um, so we're still in very much an infancy and it was a smart move of Lamar to create the vehicle, to be able to invest in these companies. I, I, maybe I'm thinking too granularly, but if I'm an independent, I look at this and say, Hey, Lamar's picking up the bill, right? They're going to, they're going to make this great investment in this technology.

And that's ultimately going to benefit me where I may not have had the resources to go out and build these things on my own, or I may not have. Been big enough or had a, uh, an expansive enough footprint for Vistar to say, Hey, I really want to focus on this one, independent in Tuscaloosa. Uh, who's got some things going on.

So I see it as a good thing overall for the industry to, to have this infusion of capital coming in and really starting to build out the technology and the news. Isn't a bad thing either. Uh, we've seen some, some changes. A couple of months with oh, AAA and geo path and measurement. Um, coming from your background on the buy-side, how do you re look at this kind of evolving measurement picture and then.

Well, I think evolving is a great word to use because we need to define what it is. And I think that the industry, as a whole needs to figure out how we are, what is our measurement tool going to be? And we need to stick with it. I mean, I've been in the industry for 20 years, which dates me dramatically that said, I think I've seen five or six different ideations of how we're going to do measurement and then the press that followed along with it.

And I joking around with you the other day. So. You know, the past a month or so ago, it was like, it was like real Housewives of, out of home going on with the negative publicity in the press. And, you know, I'm a huge Kim Frank fan. I think she's phenomenal. And regardless of what people's thoughts were, she was a huge fan of the industry.

So it's not a judgment on Anna or what they're doing over there by any means. But I just think the industry needs to pick the direction it's going into and stick with the measurement and. We discussed this. Every other industry has, you know, what they're measured on, measured by, and it's been in place for a long time.

And that's what the buying community uses. So it just causes confusion as, as the industry, as a whole is trying to gain market share. We need to all come together and the analytics and the data and the measurement needs to be tangible. They need to be real and they need to be sustainable for us. A specific amount of time, more than, you know, one, two or three.

As, as a, you know, in that buyer's lens, what are the things that you would look for in that consistent credible message around measurement? What are the things that you would, uh, you know, confidently present to, to advertisers and say, look out of home is a credible, uh, ad. Well, I think, you know, back in the day we were focused on D as we discussed, and you had one board on one side of the road that showed a hundred thousand people.

And then our board on the other side of the road that had 80,000 people and it was a mess. So continuity and specifics around what the numbers are, I think is the most important thing and sticking with it. So putting my finger on exactly what it is, I don't know, off the top of my head, but I just know from my time at Densu and talking to, you know, 360, I am busy and I'm encountering.

Their concern was always, well, you know, all these other mediums that we're buying and planning and day to day have measurement and have specifics in place to be able to value and evaluate the media and out of home. It's like, ping-pong, it's going back and forth. Is it eyes on, is it ability to see, is it impressions?

Like how are we valuing it? So as soon as the industry figures that out and sticks with it, the better it's going to be, but I can't really tell you exactly, you know, one magic bullet. Theory as to how to fix it. I just think, you know, there are people a lot smarter than me that probably know the answer, but I just think we need some longevity on the, and 20 years makes you an OJI at this.

So we're excited to have your perspective on that. And you know, at home has this super power and that's the only traditional ad format that's continued to grow as TV declines is radio decline. Newspaper. He kind of goes the way the Buffalo out of home has this brilliant staying power. And we see a resurgent, a resurgence, a bit of a recovery, uh, going on right now from, from being impacted over the last 12 months.

Where do you see the growth in the industry coming from? Is it new advertisers testing out of home? Is it blue chips doubling down? Where, what are you seeing? The conversations that your. I think it's going to be a mixture of everything to be honest. And that might not be the specifics you want in the answer, but I think, you know, digital and the transformation that is providing to the industry is phenomenal.

It's giving advertisers good or bad, the opportunity to come in and come out to buy via day part to select certain networks. To run specific creative, depending on time of day or weather or temperature, which I think is phenomenal. I think that's the stuff that the industry can do and talk to clients and agencies about that it couldn't 15 or 20 years ago.

So I think that there is a dramatic opportunity for the industry to grow, utilizing digital assets. And I just think there's so many different formats. Now. I know we joked about this when. We spoke, but the reason why we're able to launch the agency that we had back in the day was because clients we'd go in good or bad and really confuse clients.

We'd say you want to buy buses in six markets, you have to speak to four different vendors. So now I think there's a lot more tech. There's more software. If you have to make the industry easier to buy, which I know is something you guys are working on. The process is complicated still. It's convoluted.

Still. We still live in a world of excels and grids as much as we don't want to. And I know we discussed it too. You can have the best software possible, but clients at the end of the day, want you to provide them with the information that they're looking for. So whether it's via dashboard or coming from your software, there's still.

Person to person interaction, but I think digital and educating marketers as to how to best utilize out of home is where we have the best opportunity for growth. And I do think that all of the vendors need to play nice in the sandbox together to really help the business rise and continue to. And speaking of playing nice in the sandbox together, this will be a of, we can do a fun back and forth here.

There's always a lot of pressure from the local and regional level to cut out the agency, go direct to the client. And that may or may not be the best thing for the client may or may not be the best thing for the agency. There's certainly a frustration I'm sure on both sides of having to constantly RFP for the same inventory what's available.

How much is it? How do I build this into a plan? Do I include you? Do I, not planners have a lot of stuff going on. They may not always get back to folks. How do you, how do you see us mending the relationship between folks trying to cut out the agency and agencies who obviously provide, um, a lot of value for clients to D to deliver the best, uh, best experience for advertisers?

I think we were always the most successful when we had an open line of communication. So, you know, if you're the vendor and you want to go to the client and I'm at the agency or the buying service call, have a conversation with me, explain your idea as to why you want it to go to the client. We always looked at it and said, if we can all make more money, Client look good.

Then it's a win. Like we shouldn't have our defenses up to say, don't call my client. This is my client. You shouldn't speak to them because if you have a great idea or you have an opportunity that is. You know, 75% off rate because a client canceled at the last minute and we can bring it to a client that would love that opportunity game on let's do it.

I don't like the people who get so defensive and say, well, this is my client, but if you want to have me on the phone, you want to have me in a meeting, great. Or even just tell me where you're going to talk them about. I'll make the intro over an email and let you guys. Figure it out. But I think we, as an industry, everybody like really digs their heels into the ground and says, don't call them like, not everybody, but a lot of people say, don't call my client.

It's my client. You know, they still farm. You it's like sports. They want to keep you away from their client. Now, all of that said, and I'm not playing devil's advocate, but you have to think about how busy these agency planners and buyers are and the clients are, they're getting, you know, for every one of you that's reaching out.

There's 50 more of you, you know, there's the guy who's got wrapped vehicles. There's a guy who is selling pizza boxes, coffee saves elevator ads, movie as mall ads. And, and, and, and they're all great pieces of inventory, but there's all of those people, times four or five coming at these buyers every day.

So I've spoken to a lot of vendors who get frustrated with some of the agency, people. It's challenging. There's so much inventory out there. And that's one of the things that makes our medium, where it makes the out of home medium. Great. But it also makes it challenging to buy. It's why they're agencies buying services and companies like the one that we have that exists.

And a lot of the companies that are thriving right now, or out there for that exact reason, because clients are like, whoa, hang on. I can't get 85 calls from at-home companies when I have. An entire marketing mix I have to fulfill that includes other media formats too. So, you know, you think about other medias.

There aren't as many options, most likely, and there aren't as many players in the space here. You look at a market like, you know, I'm in New York, you look at how many out of home vendors and how many people on inventory. It's probably north of 50 easily. So now that's just New York take that and apply that across the country.

And you're a client you're trying to put together a campaign it's like, you're damned if you do, you're damned if you don't. So I just think you have to have a clear line of communications. It's never going to be a perfect science, but. Telling people kind of what your goal is from the, from the start and allowing people to speak to a client, as long as the idea is good and they're calling in good nature, then I'm all for it.

You know, it's not a, it's not a quick fix. It's not, it's not the sexiest solution, but it's proactive collaboration. Putting in the putting in the effort. So much of this industry is built on relationships that as we get some great, exciting technology, and we start to, you know, use some of these tools to, to maybe streamline some of the workflow.

Let's not lose sight of the fact that there are people involved in this and it's relationships and the technology is there to help us with workflows and processes and make that stuff go smoother. But it's not a replacement for building relationships with everybody all around the table. It sounds like.

Absolutely. And there's a, there's an education. That's part of it as well. You know, people who have been in this industry for a long time who have gone on market rides, who always talk about the specifics of going to see inventory and going to see locations that shouldn't be lost because it is important.

And every market is different. And everyone who knows me has heard me say, Like Dallas is different from San Francisco, which is different from Miami, which is different from New York. It doesn't mean you can't buy a programmatically. It doesn't mean that you can't tap into digital inventory. But when you're talking to people who are pure at a home enthusiast, they understand the difference between one market being more big color, one being more pedestrian, a downtown area.

In a certain market verse, you know, really highway driving and another one. So there, there is a blend and you need a little bit of both, I think, to have successful campaigns and to use at-home success. Let's talk about pricing for a second. Uh that's maybe one of the hottest hot button topics is, is pricing.

I don't want, I don't want to put my pricing out there because I don't want my competition to know my pricing, but it seems to me, and maybe I'm being a bit naive here, but it seems to me that whoever puts the price out. Ultimately wins because then your only option is to go lower than me. My price is published, you know, move is yours.

Now, how do you think about pricing and, and, and revealing pricing as the industry grows? I think that I agree with you that you should just put it out there because at the end of the day, everybody negotiates. You know, rate card is taboo. Nobody believes in it, but you got to start somewhere. So you put a price out there, you plant your flag in the ground, and then whoever you're talking to or wherever it's coming from, whether it's via DSP, SSP.

Direct from an agency, people are going to negotiate off the price anyway. And I think that anyone who's halfway educated in this industry knows ballpark pricing for formats in different markets who have done their homework and who have bought it in the past. So I just think we need to get to a better place.

And we spoke about. Well, we talked last week and my ex business partner always said like, we need an MLS for this industry needs to be simpler to buy. I get that people don't want to reveal their pricing, but then we're always going to be stuck in somewhat at this market share because of, you know, how hesitant we are about.

My background. I come, I come from the retail automotive industry and, um, it's, it's, it's crazy to think about going at least in 2021, maybe, maybe in 2000, this was still in play, but you would never go look at a car without at least seeing what the price was first. Right? If the dealership was like, Hey, I have all these cars for sale and I'm not going to tell you the price.

You're just going to go down the street to the guy. Who's willing to tell you what the price of the car is, right? We're not, it's the unreasonable consumer. Amazon's trained us to expect things tomorrow. Everything should have free shipping. I've got door dash and grub hub. I can order anything and have it at my house in 30 minutes.

This unreasonable consumer mentality leading into that I think is really an opportunity. And, um, and you're helping brands to start branding themselves and create actual. Um, to, to out of home companies, media owners, and those sorts of things. How are, how are you helping brands kind of come into the 21st century and in terms of social and their brand presence?

Yes. So we saw a pretty big gap in the market from a social media perspective. And what I mean by that is you have some huge social media agencies, Vayner, horizon, or horizon has a division. Then, you know, there's a few others out there, then it kind of falls off a cliff and. Watching and monitoring a lot of my friends in the out-of-home space.

It seems like they really weren't paying. A lot of attention to their organic social media. So Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube video. And it seemed like, you know, during COVID, especially you had planners, buyers, clients, everybody was at home, so you need to stay top of mind. So our team basically started having conversations with.

Vendors printers agencies, clients, uh, across the at-home sector there and just said, listen, you need to have a presence on Instagram. You need to have a presence on LinkedIn. You need to have a presence on Facebook. We really build out campaigns that are channel specific. So what we're putting up on LinkedIn is going to be more businessy.

Instagram is going to be more graphic. Yeah. Facebook is more boomer ish. So it's going to fall somewhere in the middle. And then we use YouTube video depending on, you know, what clients have video that we can utilize. We go in, we do custom engagement, um, hashtag research and so on. But what we found is that, you know, a lot of the clients are getting great response.

They're getting DMS, they're getting comments. They're just looking more like a real company. And you and I discussed this too. You know, websites are great, but nowadays. You tell somebody where you work and what you do. The first thing they do is go to your, their Instagram handle. They're not, they're not going to your website where they might be going, but they're going to go check out Instagram first or business-wise, they're going to look you up on LinkedIn and they're going to see what you have there.

So we've had some really good success working with companies so far in the space and just upleveling their social. And it's been a mixture of companies, some that, you know, we're posting throwback, Thursday photos, and we started working with them. Some that had little or no exposure, but it just offers an ability to look more professional.

And it is to some extent like your front door or curbside appeal for a company. And here's the, here's the unpaid endorsement of what you just said. There might be somebody listening right now that goes, do I really need to be on all those places? You know, my, my business is on Facebook or I'm local or this and that.

And when I started the podcast, it was just YouTube. And I think I would use like LinkedIn to promote it a little bit. And then as I got comfortable, I started to add in Instagram and then we started adding Twitter and what I've found, and this was a, you know, a lesson for me as a digital marketer was, you know, in starting this podcast, that was there's there's people everywhere.

There's people that like, uh, a great friend of the show and a great friend in general, Ian Dalmore. Uh, I was, gosh, I was trying to, I was trying to stalk him out and, uh, I was trying to do it on LinkedIn. W Ian's way more active on Twitter and Instagram, and that's ultimately where we ended up connecting.

So these brands that you're working with, is it just out of home? Is it just media owners? Is it agencies? Is it what's the what's the mix looks like it's a ma it's everybody to tell you the truth. We're working with some brands outside of the at-home space, too, but it goes across all of the. Divisions and kind of companies that you just spoke about.

And although it's a lot of companies in the at-home space, every one of them has a different strategy or a different game plan or a different view of how they want to utilize social and how they feel it's impactful to their business. We still talk to people who were like, I'm not on Facebook or I don't want to have LinkedIn, or I don't have social media and that's fine.

I mean, the biggest challenge we find that we hear from people as well. It doesn't close the loop. We do have paid social and we do offer that. But it's challenging for at-home companies because if you're a brand that cities where you're a new tradition and you're selling units on average that are upwards of a hundred thousand dollars a month, I get it, you right?

Like, you're probably not going to get someone who's going to DM you and say, I want to buy your unit. And I have a hundred grand to spend. Cause if you start finding those people, let me know. Right. Then I'll have a great company. But I understand that and no, we can't close the loop, but the, the comeback I have is always like, well, is it that much different than at home?

Because I get it. Like, unless you're, you know, cracker barrel saying, turning right on this sign to go to my restaurant, a lot of out of homes about branding and awareness. And for when you go to make a decision. You subconsciously are thinking about that brand and social media is no different in a lot of ways.

And yes, the world is where you're opening and that's a beautiful thing for, at a home, but social media is not going to go away and people are still going to be on Instagram and Facebook and Twitter and LinkedIn and Tik, TOK and snap and everything else. That's out. It's funny. You just reminded me of a story.

I kind of forgot about, which was a, I sold $18,000 worth of digital billboards, uh, via Twitter. Um, and you know, I was still at Adams at the time and just moved into the business development role and, uh, and it was, it was political season, 2019. Gosh. Like it was yesterday, but, uh, and, and found a super pack that was really excited about doing some billboards.

And, uh, I had just commented on the tweet that said, Hey, you know, make sure to take advantage of the dynamic components. You're doing a political campaign. Like, there's all this other fun stuff you could do. And they said, well, what's all that. So that led to a conversation and that led to a meeting and they said, We had no idea what that you could do.

All of that stuff. Maybe the company that we're working with, can't do those things and I'll leave the name out, but who you working with? And it was definitely a company that had all those capabilities and they were really kind of discouraged and said, well, Well, I didn't name by mention that they just asked for our creative and the check and they didn't tell us about all this dynamic stuff.

And ultimately that led to, we want to work with you as we go into these other markets and it turned into, you know, an $18,000 opportunity and a really good campaign for the, for the candidate. But, uh, that, that would be my encouraging message to maybe a, a smaller operator, a regional operator. That let your, let your sales team get engaged on different social platforms.

It's not just smiling, dial there's opportunities all over the internet. And what you're doing is, is really creating a presence for these folks to create that engagement from a, from a credible platform. Sound. Yeah, that's exactly what we're doing and there's little tricks of the trade, but you know, we're all in business here and, you know, LinkedIn is a great tool for people to utilize and they don't realize every time that you go in and like, Your entire network sees that.

So if you're a company with a hundred or 150 employees, and all of your employees can go in and like the post that's being shared, you amplify that by how many followers they have, or how many people within their network have the ability to see that. And it's. So to me, it's like, why wouldn't you do it?

And honestly, like the price points are not that high to be doing organic social paids, a little bit different, but from an organic perspective, I just don't know why you wouldn't, at least whether you're doing it. Look at this. Isn't an ad for us. Like whether you're doing it on your own, whether you're engaging with another company.

You need to think about social as a strong vehicle for your brand, for your company, for your agency, for your assets, whatever the case may be. Yeah, like, um, and one of the things I liked about LinkedIn is it's one of the few platforms with like really strong, organic reach. The podcast only has a hair under a thousand followers, but over the course of just posting one, one post a day, Um, I think last month that generated like 4,000 impressions.

That costs me nothing. I probably just posted stuff, right? Like content from the show. And it's a few thousand impressions and now the podcast, they stop a mine and it continues to grow. So whether it's a podcast or a billboard company or, uh, or a brand, um, there's these great opportunities, Instagram reels has been, has been a really powerful tool.

You know, you post Instagram reel and get 1500 views like. So this leads to the other part of it now, is that think about how much out of home is posted on social media. So think about how many vendors are unaware that their inventory. Is being posted because 90% of the time, like maybe 95% of the time, no, one's tagging out front intersection.

Adam's Lamar vector. I can promise you that. So you have to go out and find it and you have to use social listening tools to keep an eye on your media formats. So this way, you know, because if Paris Hilton or somebody is posting a photo of your inventory, that's getting 4 million impressions that, that client wasn't paying.

You should want to tell your client about that. You should want to give the client the numbers and show them the ha so, so we've, we've just convinced someone that social's a worthwhile goal for their out of home company. And you just mentioned social listing. Some folks know what that is for, for somebody that's never heard of social listening before, give them kind of the layman's version of how you would do that.

How w how you would find maybe a social media influencer. Posting about an ad that was on a piece of your inventory. Yeah. So there's different softwares that we utilize now and tools that we have, and we can track and follow certain items. So you go in you type billboards, wall scapes, LA New York, you add, you know, celebrities, certain keywords that are important to you and it formulates for you.

And it gives you the ability to track. All of those celebrities, what they're posting anything at home wise, we don't have the complete, you know, magic bullet set up yet, but we can do enough where we can go find these items and you can go people. We have people that are scanning, doing engagement constantly as well.

So you have the ability to listen for that. You can also listen and watch competitors and see what they're doing and track what they're up to across any space. So if you. Spend the time and the small investment to look at social as to how it can help grow your business. It's pretty phenomenal when you look at like what the CPMs are like and the click-through rates and things of that nature, it's not the end all be all, but I don't know why somebody wouldn't be utilizing social or social listening or organic, or even like a small amount of paid to help them.

And it's kinda like programmatic out of home, right? Like I can start with just about any budget. I can start it. I can stop it. I can scale it up. I can scale it down. It gives you, it gives you flexibility. You're not necessarily locked into one budget or one strategy. You can, you can pivot pretty cool.

Yeah, you can pivot very quickly. You can post things on the fly. You can, you know, tone down your cadence. You can make it stronger. You can focus on one channel. We've had some clients who just want to be on LinkedIn, because I solely want to focus on the business side of it for hiring for. You know, looking for talent for scouring, for leads, for engaging people in their space, you can get super granular, granular on LinkedIn doing targeting where it's a little bit harder on Instagram or Facebook to find someone who is a marketing director or someone who is, you know, in a spurt specific role at an advertising agency.

So from that perspective, it's like, you can get very targeted with LinkedIn. You have a lot of flexibility across all channels, but there's so much flexibility. You can come in, you can come in. But I think, you know, people should really think about organic and how they're using it. Right. And you've got a team, you know, most of these companies have a number of people that are also on those, on those channels.

Those, those folks, the, the team members can be a force multiplier and share stuff, comment on things and create engagement to, uh, to, to, to activate those algorithms so that you get a little bit more reach out of it. So really it makes making the most. Out of what you've got a thing. It sounds like a great opportunity for folks to get in on.

I was just having a, a conversation with a young lady and we were talking about how we're out of home marketing is right now is kind of where, like the internet was 2006. So the playbooks are already there. There's very little risk for an out of home company to take what we've learned over the last 15 years.

Uh, you don't have to learn a ton of new tricks. You could work with somebody like Phoenix, social, uh, w w how do folks get in touch with you if they want to work with you? Where what's your, what's your last. Sure. So you can email me at Michael at Phoenix, social.co there's. No M that's not a mistake. It's a.co, or you can go on our website, Phoenix, social.co, and ping me there as well.

And then the other thing that you and I spoke about the other day that I'm excited about is, you know, we're building out a social amplification tool that we're going to be offering as a white labeled service to add a home clients or companies I should say. That we're just about ready to go on. Now, we're going to do some testing shortly here, and we're really excited about that because that's basically going to take, what's very turnkey.

You're gonna have the ability to have a paid ad on Instagram and Facebook running simultaneously with your ad on campaign in the market. And we'll have the ability to do studies as well. Measuring attribution lift on the back end, should a client want to do that? Or we can just run the campaigns in conjunction.

So literally taking the ad that you're running on a billboard or a transit shelter and running that across Facebook. And it's. Uh, and the, and it's, it's a strong play. In fact, I'll tell you, I'll take a moment for the shameless plug. If you want to go to beat F B with billboards.com uh, beat FB with billboards.com.

We ran a, we ran a test doing that at one screen a couple months ago. And what we found was that. When we combined Facebook and Instagram ads with the billboard component that we had an 85.4% higher return on ad spend, we unlocked that much yield by just combining the two, not by spending more, but by combining the two, so that offering, you're going to be offering that to media owners and brands alike.

I'm guessing to couple the out of home piece with the social feeds. Hello there, we've got a special guest who is. It is Lacey. Hey Lacey. Welcome to the show. Say hi. We're going to have to get Lacey some swag. Hi, smile. You wait, wait, waves. Everybody at home, we wave to everybody. There you go. There you go.

Thanks for hanging out, Lacey. We'll see you later giving me a good plug though, with that number right there. It was crazy. And, um, you know, that's been an opportunity at one screen. We, you know, we're having those same conversations with advertisers of you're doing boom. You're doing Facebook and Instagram, you might as well have the two things work together.

Right. And that's essentially is that the social amplification platform that you're building exactly what we're doing. You know, we, we see the benefits that mobile amplification has, and this can work in conjunction with it, or it can run next to it, or it can run solely. But with all the challenges that we discussed with what's going on with iOS and with Android and people opting out of that, You know, being in an actual platform, that's serving real ads.

I think it's going to be even more important now. And we can target down to zip code. There is a lot we can do from a trackability perspective and the two mediums speak really well together. It makes sense. Right. And you know, my, my introduction to billboards was at Adams and selling some of the digital marketing products to folks who are already buying billboards.

The two things working together makes sense. It makes sense for, uh, for a, a billboard company to want to diversify the portfolio of ad products that they can sell. And this is just a natural fit. If you're already doing billboards, if you're already doing social, you might as well be able to put the two things together.

And that's, that's something that you're going to be offering. That's that's exciting. I'm looking forward to hearing more about that. So we're going to have to do a follow up, uh, when you got some good case studies on that, um, game. Excellent. One more time. Give the folks that latitude and longitude. How did they find you Phoenix?

Go ahead with that email on the website, Phoenix, social.co, or you can email me at Michael at Phoenix, social.com. Awesome. And are you, uh, are you a podcast guy? Are you a book reader? How do you, where do you go for motivation, inspiration education? I mean, in my free time, I'm everywhere. I'm on Twitter. I'm on LinkedIn.

I'm reading constantly. I'm not a big book guy, just because I'm enough time in the day I have, as you can see, I'm almost 18 month old and one on the way. So. These are thanks days are tight mixed in with a twelve-year-old. So reading books is not happening right now, but, um, I'm on every channel reading as much as I can and staying in touch with as many people as I can to stay educated.

Um, I'm the same. I've got, I love books. I've got bookshelves full of. That I've never read. Um, I go to YouTube, I'll buy the book and then I'll go to YouTube and find, you know, as much content from the author and, and, and consume it that way. Uh, and that was ultimately the inspiration for the podcast is this is, uh, this is a format native to me.

So it's great to be able to have a guest like yourself. Michael really appreciate the perspective that you brought here. Thanks for having me a big fan of what you're doing, what the company's doing and what you're doing, you know, for your personal brand as well. Thank you. Thank you. It's proof that social works.

This was a podcast started with a $35 logic tech camera, and I'm excited to be a part of the team at one screen. That was ultimately how I, how I found myself there. So social. Works. If you're listening to this and you haven't been convinced at least go check out Phoenix, social. If this was helpful, please share it with somebody else who could benefit, make sure to smash that subscribe button down there in the corner and we'll see you all next time.

I finally came to my senses. I finally got my hand up on the tinted. Lenses with the dream and the drive, the possibilities are endless now upfront that send this all the way to Tokyo. Take a trip down south van of Mexico. Next step, Shang how the world-class trade show first class all the way. Cause that's how we call us the rockstar.