Successfully Managing Social Media and Online Presence with Magbee’s Marketing Manager
Participants:
Francesca Halberg – General Manager/CPO of New Media Retailer
Elizabeth – Marketing Manager of Magbee
Video Transcript
Francesca (00:02):
Hello everyone. My name is Francesca. Thank you so much for joining me today. I am super excited to be joined with Elizabeth from Magbee. They are a lumberyard in Georgia. But Elizabeth, I’ll turn it over to you. Can you introduce yourself, tell us a little bit about you, your role and the business in general?
The history of a small lumber yard
Elizabeth (00:21):
Thanks, Francesca. So I’ve been the marketing manager here at Magbee for about a little over a year. I love my job. I really do. This is an amazing company to work for. Magbee’s a really, really cool company. They’ve actually been in business for about 67 years. So, it was actually started by two brothers, because of the need for lumber supplies for the Atlanta area. Right after the Korean war, people were coming, were moving in. And so it’s just got such a cool story of growth. There were 67 years and, currently we really focus on windows, doors, customer work, and it’s just such a really cool business. The people are amazing. What we do is really cool, and I go back to the warehouse every so often. I’m just amazed at what we do just a couple of steps from my office. But yeah, that’s def just a little bit about Magbee.
Francesca (01:27):
I love that. So just how far are you from Atlanta?
Elizabeth (01:30):
We are kind of in Metro Atlanta. We’re probably about, I don’t know, 35 miles from the very center of Atlanta. We’re really in a great location. We’ve actually got three locations. One in Winder, which is kind of northeast Georgia. Then we’ve got a location in Ball Ground, Georgia, which is in Northwest Georgia. And then we have a truss plant also here in the Atlanta area.
Francesca (01:54):
Yeah. Got it. Good thing I didn’t say what city, cause I definitely would have put Winder, I’m sure. I want to touch on your enthusiasm for the company. It’s so, so, so cool, so I want to talk on that a little bit. Like you mentioned, it’s a super cool company to work for and to be a part of. What are some things that kind of sets it apart, that makes it unique?
Small businesses grow from the passion of individuals
Elizabeth (02:20):
Well, I would have to say, just going back to the history, the rich history we have is just such a cool story. The brothers started the company in 1954. Things were so different, imagine that, and they started a little store, and then over the course of time the demand grew. And then in 1989, our current CEO, Bob Magbee — he’s actually the son of one of the brothers that started it — he took the reins and he was kind of destined for it. He actually started his own custom millwork business right after college. And so it was kind of always destined to take this from the reins. And when he took the reins in 1989, he actually changed the business name from Magbee Brothers Lumber to Magbee Contractor Supply and kind of really opened up the doors for us to really reach a broader audience. And that’s kind of why we’re one of the largest independent LMCs in the Atlanta area, which is kind of huge because most LMCs are currently bought out by bigger national companies. And so we’re kind of one of the biggest independently owned in the Atlanta area, but we work with some of the top national builders. So that’s one of the big things that probably sets us apart.
Francesca (03:38):
And what is your customer base? Are you mostly contractor or are you contractor and DIY?
Elizabeth (03:44):
We are primarily contractor and builders. We do have, you know the typical DIYer, you know, can’t get it at Home Depot come, you know, request it we can get it for him, but I would say probably primarily over the last year, just because of the supply and demand, we are very primarily contractor at this time.
Diversity of store spaces and offerings
Francesca (04:06):
And so what are your physical locations set up as? Do you have an actual store? Is it more a showroom for contractors, or how does that work?
Elizabeth (04:15):
So funny you should say that because our Winder location is actually right on the railroad tracks, which is huge because we were able to get lumber direct, et cetera, you know, all that. That’s very cool. Yeah. And at this location at Winder, it’s our corporate headquarters, so we’ve got all of the main corporate offices, and then we’ve got an actual lumberyard, and we’ve got a huge warehouse where we actually make windows and doors. And then in the very back, we have a custom mill workshop, so we make custom millwork and trim and windows. And one of the big projects we’re working on now is these giant, almost like 10 foot windows, like for this beautiful remodel of the church down in south Georgia. It’s like a hundred years old or something. So yeah, we have that here in Winder and then we have a truss location, a truss plant right down the road, maybe like three miles where we make truss for holes. And our Ball Ground location is kind of like a centralized point where we ship things from our Winder location to Ball Ground, and then we’re able to take it up farther into the mountains or even to Tennessee or wherever it needs to go. So those are kind of our three locations, primarily everything happens in Winder, but yeah.
Marketing for a lumberyard is a rewarding niche
Francesca (05:40):
Got it. Very cool. And what’s your background? Are you familiar with the construction contractor market?
Elizabeth (05:49):
Okay. Yeah, I actually got into the business right after college. I just happened upon it. I didn’t really know what I wanted to do in marketing, and I stumbled across a job in real estate as a real estate marketing coordinator. From there, I had kind of worked my way into the private builder sector, the private building, you know, multi-million dollar projects marketing, and then eventually went into Century Communities, which is a national builder. I worked for them here in the Atlanta area as one of the marketing coordinators. And then actually generally general contracting, forgot that job. So I was able to kind of learn the ins and outs of actual contracting. And that’s when I was like, “This is a really cool niche of marketing, just the contracting, the land, the architecture, just the bones and the foundation of, of building,” and so I came to Magbee and I just love it. It’s because it’s a little bit of everything.
Francesca (06:51):
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Now in working, so I’ve worked at NMR for almost 11 years now, and we work with a lot of lumberyards. It’s not always the case that a lumber yard will have a dedicated position internally for marketing. Sometimes it’ll be like, a marketing specialist will work with someone who has other responsibilities. Sometimes it’s like someone in billing and like they’re kind of managing the website and things like that. So just for people that maybe like would be interested in like hiring for a marketing position for their lumberyard, can you speak a little bit to like some of your responsibilities, like a day to day for you could look like?
Elizabeth (07:34):
Sure. So my primary responsibilities are the website, just keeping up to date. We’ve undergone a lot of different changes in our website over the last year. That was one of the big projects. When I first came on last year, we really revamped the website, added a lot of content. So website, social media, and I get to do fun things like PR and events, things like that. We just have big employee appreciation events, so that’s fun and I get to plan those things. But it’s really like the digital marketing side, like the analytics, the ads, the backing — like the LinkedIn, the connecting, the PR part of it, what we look like online — that I handle. In addition to, like I said, the social media. That’s a huge component because social media is life at this point in 2021. But even with that, I do a lot of things on LinkedIn, just interacting. A lot of it’s just interacting for the social media parts, just interacting with people, other companies, employees. There’s a lot of photography that I do. I’ll go back into the warehouse, I’ll go to our different locations. I’ll go to building sites that we’re working with just to capture what we’re doing, capture different projects that we’re doing, things like that. Photography, digital marketing, social media events.
Francesca (09:02):
Is this role new for you, or was this role already established then you joined?
Elizabeth (09:06):
No, actually it was created. I’m the first marketing manager. This is it. They’ve had some people that kind of did marketing on the side, like if they had a sales position they would do some marketing on the side, but I’m actually the first one to come in. And my immediate boss, Stewart, when we were interviewing, he was like,” I don’t, you know, you just, you know what to do.” I was like, “Okay.” But it was great to come in and kind of be able to be. It was fresh for them, fresh for me, and together it’s really been a great fit, and I’ve been able to take my experience like with Century Communities and my experience with new home construction and we learn a lot from being on this end. So, yeah.
Understand your audience to build your social media presence
Francesca (09:56):
Awesome. Well, I’m so glad you’re enjoying it. And obviously you know, your enthusiasm about it comes across, which is really infectious. Talk a little bit about some of the things you’re doing on social media. I mean, you mentioned going to job sites and taking pictures, going to their house and taking pictures. So talk a little bit about that and your journey there and like the story that you’re telling on social media on behalf of Magbee.
Elizabeth (10:21):
So one of the first things I did when I came in last year was that I identified our different audiences on social media. That was big for me because I noticed before I even came in on my first day, I had already been stalking the social media channels for Magbee. And I realized primarily Facebook was really employee-driven. A lot of the employees were commenting. A lot of the employees were engaging on LinkedIn. We really didn’t have a huge presence on LinkedIn, but I knew that we needed a better presence. And then Instagram is kind of a mesh of all of that, but you’re also really wanting to, I really wanted to kind of take photos and use hashtags. And so what I did was I said, “Okay, Facebook is going to be primarily more employee tailored.
Elizabeth (11:16):
We’re going to post faces. We’re going to post fun content, engaging content.” People love to see themselves. People love to see a smiling face behind the scenes. So that’s kind of what we’re doing on Facebook. Fun content, you know. Trivia, we repost blogs sometimes, but whenever we have a position open, we’ll do like employee hiring blasts on Facebook, just more engaging things. And then on LinkedIn. over the course of time, we kind of tailored our content. We definitely do post out there like, “Hey, we’re hiring these kinds of positions,” but I also try to engage by posting articles or blog articles, because we’re an expert in our field. We want you to read our blogs, you know, because we’re an expert, so we repost our blogs. I’ll interact with different like LMC, journals, builder.com, you know, reposting those articles and connecting with our kind of upper level management. Then also people that our sales team has connections with. There’s a lot of connections that our sales teams have on LinkedIn. And so it’s kind of curated on LinkedIn, and Instagram is just for fun. It really is just posting pictures of what we’re doing, cool projects that we have and things like that.
Break up the time dedicated to social platforms
Francesca (12:48):
Yeah, absolutely. That’s awesome. It’s probably a different answer for each of the three platforms that you are using, but what would you say, like for Facebook, for LinkedIn and for Instagram, what is your personal lifetime investment for each maybe on like a weekly basis? I don’t know. Whatever’s easiest for you to break down.
Elizabeth (13:07):
Yeah. On a weekly basis. I mean, on a weekly basis, I break it down to maybe like an hour to two hours a day. It can’t be consecutive because things are constant, especially on Instagram. Things are posted throughout the day. I find that when I’m going and I’m liking things as our brand that helps, but I have to kind of do that throughout the day. But I would say it’s probably like an hour to two hours every day, maybe a little less than that. Linkedin requires a little bit more time than Facebook just because you want to engage, and you want to like comments and like responses and engage. I found that even commenting as Magbee on different articles posted by different people helps because then people are like, “Ih, who’s this Magbee Contractor Supply? They’re really engaging in the conversation.” So yeah, it is different, but I would say probably like an hour to two hours total.
The pressure to keep up with new features
Francesca (14:18):
No, that’s a good answer. And you know, I do feel like through my journey of working with lumberyards on social media from where I started to where it is today, I do think that there is a better general understanding of Facebook. Instagram, though, is still a new terrain, and one that I think can often be intimidating to stores, especially because in my opinion, I think one of the reasons it’s intimidating is they so often are coming out with new features. So like it used to just be that people were posting photos. Right now, it’s stories, and I think there’s more pressure maybe to use Instagram stories than there is to use Facebook stories sometimes. And then they come out with reels and then they come out with all these things. So what, if any, pressure do you feel to be using all of the tools that every social media platform puts out there, and is it possible?
Elizabeth (15:26):
Yeah, no, you were literally getting my mind going there just just a second ago. Cause I was like, oh my gosh, you haven’t done any Instagram reels yet. Oh my goodness. Let’s not even talk about Tik ToK either.
Francesca (15:39):
You can’t even know.
Elizabeth (15:41):
I can’t even. But no, you’re exactly right. I feel like primarily, Facebook is you post, you have a great caption, you monitor the comments — same thing pretty much for LinkedIn — but Instagram is probably like the beast that I’m intimidated by. You know, you have to constantly if it’s stories, if it’s Instagram reels, and then they’re constantly — I mean, they just unrolled another update where it’s completely changing the way we’re doing stories now with this new update. And I don’t know if I’m just blessed to be one of the beta users or not, but the way they kind of brought it, and it is intimidating. It really is. I think you have those moments where I’m like, “Oh my gosh, I’m not doing enough,” and then I just kind of like reel it back in and I’m like, “You know what, I’m just going to breathe. I’m going to focus on what I know really is successful,” and then I’ll tackle that when I can, and it’ll be okay. It’s not the end of the world, but yeah, there’s definitely pressure.
Learn from similar businesses and competitors
Francesca (16:49):
Yeah. Yeah, no for sure. And I think you said it really well, you know. Tackle it when you can. I feel like if you think about all of the ways that there are to engage or interact with your customers, it is incredibly overwhelming, but just trying to digest it one at a time. I think a piece of advice, and I don’t know if you would agree with this, but a piece of advice I would give a lumberyard, maybe even before getting started on Instagram, is to create an Instagram account and find five to 10 accounts that you like what they’re putting out there and see. Do you have sources of inspiration for you?
Elizabeth (17:31):
Yeah, absolutely. That was a huge thing right off the bat. Another thing that I did when I first came in on the job, I asked, “Pkay, who are our top 10 competitors? Who are they? Tell me who they are.” And then I neatly took the next couple of weeks and I just stalked their files. I’ve got word documents. And yes, I have copied and pasted captions because I was like, “I’m new to this, you know, what should we be doing?” Because I didn’t know our audience at that point, but I took notes and that’s huge. I would totally agree with that. That’s really great, and it’s easy, it’s simple. One of the first things you can do to really cultivate success is to kind of gear up, see what they’re posting, see what their engagement is. Exactly.
Set digestible goals to share a story
Francesca (18:21):
Yeah, yeah. And so I feel like with creating reels and pictures, I have an Instagram account myself, not as a business, just where I post content. The real thing it is intimidating still, but I’ve tried to identify for myself, just set small goals, you know? :ike first step, what kind of reels are you engaging with? You know? I feel like for lumberyards,, a lot of contractors specifically that I’ve talked to do not at all like Joanna and Chip Gaines. I feel like they have like resentment towards them. I remember watching a behind the scenes episode a few years ago, and them saying it was Chip’s idea to incorporate the before and after as many times as they can throughout the episode. So it was his idea to have the huge billboard before they do the reveal so you can remember exactly where we started.
Francesca (19:20):
And now in the new season I’ve noticed, even when you go into a room, they show you the before again, to like remind you, and, you know, creating that story and telling that story — whether that’s through a reel, whether that’s through just multiple photos getting posted, or through a story or something — I’m always trying to break this concept down, like, “What are the little things we can do?” It’s so interesting how even different industries, if you stick to the concepts, follow your competitors, find sources of inspiration, and then is there a story you can tell? And I feel like such a natural one for you is before and after, you know, working with contractors and getting to see those shops, sites, and stuff. That’s so cool.
Elizabeth (20:09):
It really is. That’s essentially what social media is, right? Storytelling, you know. You’re telling the story of something, and I’ve actually got to go back out and take pictures of the after of a project we just did over in downtown Canton, Georgia. Because in the before pictures, it was kind of a rundown area. And I just remember thinking like, “This is going to be so good. The after’s going to be so good.” And it does take time. That’s definitely, you got to curate. Another big thing is content curation, just making sure that you’re doing it over time. We’re such an immediate society. And so we’re like, “Ih, we want immediate results.” And sometimes it takes time to curate it, but in the end, if you can really get a good base of photography, good base of content, don’t put pressure on yourself.
Francesca (21:03):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I do think that that is one struggle with Instagram — especially when it comes to home renovation or doing a DIY project that can create very unrealistic standards — is the final content seems to appear so fast. No one is talking about the fact that you will hit bumps in the road. It is inevitable that there are issues with supply, which will have a very direct impact on your timeline and things like that. And so I would imagine, you know, those might be like great things to shed some light on as a part of the storytelling journey.
Yeah, exactly.
Social success does not always look the same
Francesca (21:49):
Now for you, what are you considering successful on social media at this point? Everybody has a million followers. What is successful for you?
Elizabeth (22:04):
I mean, on Instagram right now with our current following? I think we have, the last time I checked… this is terrible. I think I’m not even going to give the number actually, even now. But between 15 to 20 likes is good for us based on our current wellbeing. And then same thing on Facebook. If I can get like 10 to 12 likes right now, based on our current following, I’m happy with that. On LinkedIn, I’ve been a little bit more hard because I actually have been able to help LinkedIn grow a lot. And our LinkedIn really kind of exploded, and we have a bigger following now. So right now I think it’s anywhere between like, you know, compared to where we were, again, anything between 12 and 20 likes is really good for us.
Francesca (23:03):
Great.
Elizabeth (23:06):
You know? That’s kind of what I envisioned. That’s what my goal was. Now does that happen every time? No.
Right. It’s a really good post.
Yes. But, you know, and that’s another thing, you know. A lot of people are like, “Oh, why didn’t this get some likes?” Well, how many followers do you have? Like, just in the context of how many followers you have, how many people, because that makes a difference. And so I have to remind myself of that sometimes, cause I hate, why didn’t this get 200 likes, right?
Francesca (23:41):
Yeah, no, it’s so important. And I’m so glad you said that because the sources of inspiration that stores identify may have a following of upwards of 500,000 to a million followers, and you cannot compare yourself like it’s following their content. And the consistency of how often they’re posting are important takeaways, but you cannot because you’ll never feel successful, and that will deter you from being consistent, which is the most important thing.
Elizabeth (24:13):
Exactly. Yes. And in comparison, that’s huge. I’m a firm believer in “Don’t compare yourself.” You can grasp takeaways in how they’ve been successful, but I never compare our stuff to anyone else’s, even our competitors, no matter how good it is, because we’re not there. I’m not there yet. Because when you compare, you can get discouraged really easily in a world that thrives on likes. And if I get discouraged, I’m just like, “Forget it,” but I can’t do that. It’s a slow road, but there’s success at the end of it,
Create a showstopper with video content
Francesca (24:55):
For sure. Oh my gosh. So well said. That’s awesome. And just for the people that are listening, I would definitely encourage you to check out Magbee’s website. It’s magbee.com. Because the video. I mean, when you open up your homepage and there is a video looking at you, it’s so engaging and it really stops you in your tracks. You want to see what’s going on. Talk a little bit about that. You mentioned taking photos and stuff, were videos taken from a third party?
Elizabeth (25:28):
Yes. So unfortunately I don’t have a drone. I don’t have a license. It’s probably a good thing.
Francesca (25:35):
You have to have a license to have a drone?
Elizabeth (25:36):
Yes you do.
Francesca (25:39):
Okay. That’s interesting. Yes.
Elizabeth (25:42):
Do you? Yes. I learned a lot when I was researching. This is one of the things. I came in and I was like, you know, a three month goal would be to get some drone footage, and my immediate bosses were like, “That’s a great idea.” So back in the early spring — I think it was February? Yeah, it was February because it was a really super cold, super windy day — and I thought we weren’t going to get this footage, but it was beautiful. Like the sky was beautiful.
Francesca (26:11):
Is this the video that’s on the site now?
Elizabeth (26:14):
Yes, and I was like, “It’s got to be today.” And anyway, yeah, I contacted a third party, had some connections. They came out, and I kind of had an idea of what I wanted. I still have this big dream to get a drone in a warehouse, but that requires some major pieces being moved through.
Francesca (26:35):
You don’t think about these things, you know?
Elizabeth (26:39):
Yeah. But I think it was one of the best decisions we’ve made content-wise. Because it just gives you such a great idea of Magbee. Cause when you say, “Oh, Magbee’s an LMC,” you’re thinking, “Oh, we’re like ACE hardware,” but no, when you’re above and you see our facilities, it’s just, you know. So from that perspective, and we knew we wanted to put it on the website. And so I worked with an immediate retail team and they were phenomenal. Our account rep, she made it happen. And I mean, like, I couldn’t even. it was…yeah, it still makes me speechless.
Francesca (27:28):
It’s so good. It really is. And then, do you have plans to do other things with the video? Like obviously that was a financial investment, and so I’m sure you and your team and your bosses want to get the most bang for their buck with them. So in what ways are you anticipating using the video?
Elizabeth (27:47):
So we have some other different videos that I’m working on kind of in the background and producing. Cause that’s another thing, video editing is in my responsibilities. I like doing it on the side. I can be handy here, but kind of editing some stuff in the background here for videos that kind of correspond with the services that we offer, which is another project we’re working on our website. So kind of using that footage and more footage that I’ve taken in our warehouse of what we do exactly. Like windows. This is how Magbee does windows. This is how Magbee does doors. This is how Magbee does their delivery, and using that footage in like a minute to two minute little videos we’ll post on YouTube, use on social, and then hopefully link them back on the website as well. Yeah, and there’s long-term plans for the footage there too.
It pays to have a dedicated marketing employee
Francesca (28:53):
Awesome. Well, as I kind of touched on before, definitely check out their website, it’s magbee.com. From there, obviously all of their social channels are also linked, so you can get to have a glimpse into all of the things Elizabeth works on. I want to ask you two questions, advice from you. The questions are similar. One for a lumberyard that is maybe considering hiring a marketing person, what advice would you give them? Second, for someone who maybe has a full-time job at a lumberyard, what advice would you — Sorry, I’m in the office. We had someone come in. What advice would you give someone who is maybe doing marketing as just one component of their job? Maybe important things that they can focus on to feel successful in that new venture early on?
Elizabeth (29:51):
Okay. Those are loaded questions. Well to someone that’s maybe then considering hiring this kind of position, do it. You know, if you have to throw in some extra responsibilities there, I would definitely. It always pays. You’re never going to not need marketing, ever. It’s a vital position. You always need to market your business. And so I think it pays, you know? Like it pays to have a dedicated marketing person. You need somebody dedicated to stay on top of trends. That’s another thing that’s one of those lost, forgotten things, but they’re very important components of my job, is I need to stay aware of trends, stay aware of what’s going on in the construction industry so that I can help my superiors understand what are some new directions we need to take our marketing and do things like that.
Elizabeth (30:56):
So that kind of goes into the second part of the question. As somebody in this position, one of the first things you need to do is identify companies, businesses, competitors, but I don’t like to call them competitors. I like to call them other companies, because again, that comparison thing. But find those people that you can really glean from, understand, see their content on social, see their website, and start making a list of how you want to evolve your own company — things that you want to take away, things that you want to learn from, and then start to implement that where you can, as you can. Again, don’t compare but kind of start implementing these things.
Elizabeth (32:00):
I still have a three months, six months, nine month kind of plan of action. There’s things on the three month and the six month that should have been done that aren’t done, but it just kind of rearranges according to what’s happening. I think that’s really important if you’re in this position and if you’re just getting into this kind of position in construction marketing is to realize that it is an ever-changing industry. Stay current with the trends, stay current with the data and the stats and the news and what’s happening and then, you know, adjust accordingly.
Francesca (32:37):
Awesome. And thank you so much for that perspective. I definitely think anyone working at a lumberyard could really benefit from listening to this, especially as it relates to social media and things to look out for and how to get started. I very much appreciate your insight and perspective there and for taking the time to share with us. You’re off the hook. I’m so grateful for your time today. To everyone listening, be sure to check back for another episode where we take some time and talk with other businesses about different things going on in business, whether it be social media or things as a result of COVID or new things going on in the websites or Google. Thank you guys so much. Check back soon. Bye.