Interview Summary

In this interview, freelance social media consultant Daisey Cooke discussed the current state and future of social media marketing for businesses. She emphasised that despite predictions of its decline, social media usage remained high, though user behaviour had shifted towards more passive consumption. Cooke advocated for a strategic, data-driven approach, advising businesses to define clear objectives, understand their audience, and focus on consistency over chasing viral trends. She explained how to measure success, communicate value to senior management by linking social media metrics to business goals, and apply marketing theories like the sales funnel and social proof to create effective content. The conversation also covered common pitfalls, such as misusing trends, and the importance of content pillars in maintaining a focused strategy.

 

Key Points

  • The social media landscape was characterised by a rise in passive consumers or "lurkers," making it harder to generate engagement and requiring businesses to be "front and centre" to be remembered.
  • Businesses were advised to treat organic social media with the same strategic consideration as a paid marketing channel, focusing on where their specific audience spent their time.
  • Success in social media was not about luck or going viral, but about consistency, purpose, and playing the long game to build brand awareness over time.
  • Measuring success was not a one-size-fits-all process; metrics needed to be tied directly to specific business objectives, such as brand awareness (tracking reach) or website traffic (tracking link clicks).
  • To get buy-in from senior management, social media managers needed to translate metrics into language the leadership understood, showing a clear line from social media activity to business outcomes like increased website traffic and conversions.
  • Effective content strategy leveraged established marketing theories, such as using the sales funnel to guide customers from awareness to conversion and using social proof (like testimonials) to build trust.
  • Businesses should be wary of jumping on trends that do not align with their brand message and instead use content pillars to ensure their content remains focused and strategic.

 

Interview Transcript

Transcrips are auto-generated.

 

Kiran Kapur (00:00):
Hello and welcome this week. We are in the world of social media.

Daisey Cooke (00:03):
If people come to me and ask, should I be on TikTok again? It's are your audience on TikTok? And that's always the key thing is thinking about where your audience are. I would say that the best social accounts aren't lucky. They're consistent, so they show up with purpose, speak with clarity, and always play the long game.

Kiran Kapur (00:21):
And I'm delighted to welcome Daisey Cooke who is the founder of DC Digital and is a freelance social media consultant. Daisey, welcome. I know you are massively enthusiastic about social media. It is your world, and it also seems to be your hobby, which I think is wonderful. Could we start with what we actually mean by social media, because it's quite a big landscape now,

Daisey Cooke (00:43):
So I actually think it's a little bit of a strange time for social media. On the one hand, users and time spent on platform is up for many different channels. Whilst many professionals are documenting and predicting this abandoning of social media, as was most things. I'm sure the truth lies somewhere in the middle. We're all becoming more conscious of what we consume and how social media may be affecting us. But I don't think for one second this means that overnight everyone is going to delete all of their accounts.

Kiran Kapur (01:13):
So what makes professionals think that maybe people are going to come off social media? What's the driver behind that?

Daisey Cooke (01:20):
I think there is data that suggests that some platforms, that time spent is down, but if you think about the years that have come before, that's been sort of the COVID era, where we know a lot of people did spend a lot of time on social media. And I also think, we are shifting what platforms we are using. And so time naturally on platforms such as X, formerly Twitter, is definitely down because people are changing and moving onto different platforms. And so I think that's why it has become this unplug, and I'm sure for some that is true, but as with everything, it's no one size fits all approach. What I will say is that we seem to be in an era of passive consumers or lurkers, so engagement is down across the board as our attention span seems to be getting shorter by the second. So for businesses, simply having a presence on social is not enough. You do need to be front and centre in order to be remembered.

Kiran Kapur (02:21):
Yes, we're going to come on a bit to this later on. I want to know about how I persuade senior people in my business that I should be on social media, or also as a senior person, when my social media person tells me that we're doing great because likes are up. I dunno if that's a good thing or a bad thing. So I think that's something we definitely need to explore. But before we get into that, when you hear people talking about social media, they talk about X, Threads sometimes. Is it still around? It doesn't seem to be talked about very much.

Daisey Cooke (02:53):
So the platforms themselves continue to evolve and multiply. When I first started as a Digital Marketer around eight years ago, Twitter and Facebook were the main platforms that businesses used. This has now evolved into Instagram, TikTok, YouTube, LinkedIn, Threads, Pinterest, Blue Sky, I could go on and on. So it's actually a very demanding time to work in social media marketing. We've also watched this first wave of these hugely successful mega influencers and how they became pivotal for many businesses, only to rapidly decrease in trustworthiness, which has now shifted the landscape and spotlight onto micro or even nano creators. So when you're thinking about social, not just the platforms themselves, there's all these other things, organic social, which is what I specialise in, and so we were mostly talking about today, but influencers on social, and paid social, and it all comes together to show the bigger picture.

Kiran Kapur (03:46):
Okay, so you've said organic social, let's just be very clear by what we mean by organic social before we get into the details. So define organic social for me.

Daisey Cooke (03:55):
Sure. So that would be posting natively onto the platforms themselves without having spend behind that. So creating a post, posting that out, that is essentially organic.

Kiran Kapur (04:07):
Okay, brilliant. So I often get asked for things by small business owners, and I'm sure you do too. It's like, should I be doing social media or worse, I know I ought to do social media, but it's really time-consuming, and I dunno where to start. So what do I do? Or even worse, should I be on TikTok? I get this a lot. I'm sure you do. What do you say? What do small business owners do? How should they be thinking about this?

Daisey Cooke (04:36):
Social media is time-consuming, but I think that because it's free to use organically, I think people have a different attitude towards it than they would other marketing channels. So actually, my advice is to treat it like you are paying to be on the platform, because this usually helps businesses to think about their presence and posts with more consideration and care, rather than just posting for the sake of it. So whilst I live and breathe social media, it shouldn't be your only marketing tactic regardless of your business size. So I really think you need to think about how it fits into the other activity that you're doing. I know it can seem overwhelming, especially with all the conflicting advice out there, but you can make it simple. Simple, not easy. By going back to basics and creating a really well-researched strategy, which I do think helps eliminate the confusion when you know what you are working towards and why. So if people come to me and ask, should I be on TikTok again, it's are your audience on TikTok And, that's always the key thing is thinking about where your audience are, and also your capacity. I would say that the best social accounts aren't lucky, they're consistent. So they show up with purpose, speak with clarity, and always play the long game.

Kiran Kapur (05:52):
Oh, now that's a really interesting one. Okay, they're consistent and the long game. What do you mean by the long game?

Daisey Cooke (05:59):
So, especially with organic social these days, it's a much longer process, it's not all this going viral and overnight success. It's actually about building that brand awareness in the background, and I think people really want fast results, but actually that can be more damaging to brands. There have been brands that have spoken out recently that have actually folded because they had this viral overnight success, and they couldn't keep up. So, actually playing the long game and not necessarily having too much pressure on the growth can be really helpful. It is more of a brand-building tool.

Kiran Kapur (06:38):
So are you suggesting it's very much, I should think of it as brand awareness rather than necessarily something I'm going to sell from?

Daisey Cooke (06:46):
I think it really depends on your goals and objectives, and that's what I come back to all the time, but I do think there's so much emphasis on using it as a selling platform when actually the results we're getting from social aren't the same as they were when a few years back or when they first started. And it is much more of a, like I said, consistency and growth over time, and that's where businesses do see success from it. But yeah, it's hard to say one way or the other. It really does depend on what your goals are for it, but those that use it for brand awareness rather than this pushing to sell, I think do see greater success.

Kiran Kapur (07:26):
Okay, so let's come back to results because clearly, results matter. And I think we all get the general idea that we can post things up on social media and as you say, it's free to do. Sometimes they can be beautiful, sometimes they can be behind the scenes, all of that seems to be more than acceptable. What results should I be looking for?

Daisey Cooke (07:48):
There's really not a simple one-size-fits-all answer to this question because it does depend on what your objectives are for social media in the first place. If you're wanting to increase brand awareness and recognition, you might want to be tracking reach and engagement. Whereas if your key objective is to drive traffic through to your website, you'd be looking at very different metrics of traffic acquisition in the background of GA4 and link clicks. So when I work with my clients on social strategy objectives are always the starting point because this is your measure of success and the metrics tracked will be really different for each business, but ensure your team agrees on what you're going to track and a quick spoiler alert, this shouldn't be everything because having a big old spreadsheet with a load of numbers on it that nobody understands is just as useless as having no data whatsoever.

Kiran Kapur (08:37):
I think that's such a good point because I think we've all made that mistake, and you end up with analysis paralysis and you just dunno where to go.

Daisey Cooke (08:43):
Absolutely.

Kiran Kapur (08:44):
Okay, so we are sort of skirting around how do I know social media is working, and you are saying that it's very much what I am trying to achieve. Can you give me some examples so I can make sense of that?

Daisey Cooke (08:55):
Sure. So as I said with brand awareness and recognition, it might be that reach and the engagement that you are looking for. So how year on year, month on month, how many people that you are reaching. So that's obviously the audience that you're reaching. Views on videos and engagement is such a key one, it is all well and good having millions of views on a video, but are people actually engaging with that? Are you getting comments? Are your videos being sent to other people or bookmarked? You can see all of this data in the backend of each of these platforms. So it's not just eyes on content, people are actually...there's dwell time, and they're responding to it and engaging with it as well.

Kiran Kapur (09:41):
That's really interesting because I think, particularly as you said that engagement generally is down across social media, people are lurking, but what you're suggesting is there ways of seeing just how much they're actually lurking or whether they are still, because if I'm sharing something but I haven't put a comment, then obviously I am engaging but I'm simply not going to bother to spend time writing a comment.

Daisey Cooke (10:02):
And that is also the tricky thing because social media data is hard to read, sometimes we can't see. It's one of those touch points where you can't always track that through, especially if you were to go and then go purchase in real life. And again, because the engagement is down. But I think that's why it's important to have your data and your benchmarks to know what generally it looks like for your business, so that when you are testing and trialling new things, you can see okay, well in comparison to normal this month our results are better than last month or not. And so it is really tricky to track the data, and that's why it's knowing what is important to you and your business. And that's why I say it is really hard to answer because every different business will be tracking different touch points and have different software to track different things too.

Kiran Kapur (11:00):
There are literally hundreds if not thousands of different types of tools to help you track. What do you actually use? I always find that's more interesting than what's available. There are millions of thousands of products available. What do you use to track?

Daisey Cooke (11:17):
Unfortunately, some of it is good old-fashioned spreadsheets, because as much as there are these tools out there which seem to pull data, sometimes they're not quite as reliable as you'd hope. And so actually taking the data raw from the platforms and then comparing it, and that's why it's such a big task and why you don't want to be pulling all of this data and then because you would never be able to sift through it. So I do use a tool, Agora Pulse and obviously GA4, which is the new version of Google Analytics, and then I take data from the platforms themselves, and it does become a bit of a manual task. There are businesses, I'm just me on my own, I'm sure there are businesses that have multiple various different tools, but that's just what I found works for me and my clients.

Kiran Kapur (12:12):
I have to say sometimes actually, even though you can automate these things and even though you could then perhaps find tools, sometimes there is no substitute for getting your hands dirty at least initially in the spreadsheets and the data, because as you say, it means you actually understand what it is. You're not black boxing it to something else that may not be tracking exactly what you want.

Daisey Cooke (12:33):
Yeah, and also context is really key. This is what I've found with everyone I've worked with. When you are pulling the data, actually knowing you can't almost hand that over to someone else because knowing exactly what went on in that month or that week and those context points are really key for understanding your data as well as there might have been something going on in the world contextually, or there might be something going on in the business and with timings of your posting. And so actually knowing those and being able to report on that rather than handing it over to an automated process or AI or someone else, I think that is as important, and noting those down is as important as the data itself.

Kiran Kapur (13:16):
I think that's fantastic advice. So I mean most people listening will either have a business that is already doing social media but they just want to improve it. Sometimes as I said, it's small businesses wondering where they should be. So quite often what you are doing is you are going to a senior manager and saying, I want to change what we do because. How do I have those conversations?

Daisey Cooke (13:41):
It honestly makes me really sad that we're still in a place where senior management need sometimes convincing on social media. Not everyone is on board or really understands, but I think starting with data is really important. So 79% of the total UK population, which is 54.8 million people, are using social media in 2025. If you want to compare this, 56.8 million people are watching TV and only 20 million people are buying and reading magazines. So it is not even all about how many people are actively using social, but the way they're using it. So according to Sprout social, it's the main discovery channel for new products, with 30% of UK users planning to increase their purchases from social in 2025. And we're also in this whole new age of search, with Gen Z using social media as their main search engine. So beyond the general statistics, it's important to show the value that social media brings to your business.

(14:42):
And again, we've just touched on data, but to speak on it again, you need to show the value in language that everyone understands. So reach doesn't mean an awful lot to people that are not working in social, but if you can say your video has been watched a million times and in that same day your website traffic was up 50% and then how many purchases conversions from that. That shows the impact in a way that others can understand. I think it is always about speaking in their language in a way that it makes sense to them. That's why your data is so important, because how is what you're doing on social media contributing to your overall business goals? It's not just posting pretty photos anymore. We've moved a long way that from that, but I think it's like with anything I know social is kind of still a relatively new-ish part of marketing, and that does still scare people.

Kiran Kapur (15:35):
I think it's also part of trying to decide where you put your marketing budget. I mean I'm totally sold on the idea that I need to do social, but I also need to do, I dunno adverts, or I need to do events or I need to do something else, and therefore where do I put the focus on my budget? And I think it's as much that conversation, but I think your advice of talking in a language that people understand. Don't talk about or we've got likes on Facebook or we've got reach, as you say, what I'm interested in is who am I reaching? So if by reaching they're then coming to my website, and even better if they're then purchasing. That's fantastic.

Daisey Cooke (16:14):
Exactly. And it's being able to, as much as you can track that follow-through, which is why being data- focused even though social is a really creative role, is really important.

Kiran Kapur (16:29):
Brilliant. So I know because I've been watching your videos on LinkedIn, and you talk a lot about the science behind why people scroll. And I think this is so interesting because so often when we're talking about social media, we are into the, it's pretty stuff, but actually there is a science behind catching someone's eye, particularly if you say people are using social media as their search engine. I'm just scrolling, you've got to stop me at some point. So what is the science behind that?

Daisey Cooke (17:00):
So I do like to look into how popular marketing theories apply to social media so that we can create better content. One of my favourites is the sales or marketing funnel. If you're not familiar with this, although I'm sure you are, it represents the customer journey and there are a few different versions, but at the top of the funnel is awareness, then it's down to consideration and finally conversion. That's just a version of it, and it's shaped as a funnel as theoretically less people move through to each subsequent stage. So the confusing thing about social is that it can be used as a touch point at each stage, whereas historically each of your marketing tactics might be designated to a certain stage of the funnel. The issue is that most people skip right to conversion focus content, before even touching on awareness. And the second mistake is cramming too many messages into your content. Trying to tap into each stage of the funnel.

(17:56):
But one post cannot do everything all at once. And so I encourage people to consider how you nurture people through the funnel, guiding them from one stage onto the next. So content for the awareness phase, we'll be introducing people to your brand, who you are and what you do. This might be kind of a bit more of the trend-led content because obviously that is what is pushed out more like of the masses to get people to know who you are and follow you. Industry insights and how-tos, consideration style content, this is more nurturing. So frequently asked questions, customer testimonials, it's all about building that trust and showing how your product to a service could fit into their life. And then finally, conversions might look like these special offers with clear calls to action and urgency driven posts. But you can see how a lot of content on social media tends to be that conversion style rather than starting straight right back up at awareness.

Kiran Kapur (19:00):
So you talk about social proof a lot. Why is that so important, and how can I tap into it?

Daisey Cooke (19:08):
So that's actually another one of the theories that I have looked at. So Robert Cialdini's social Proof theory, and that is kind of saying that we tend to copy the actions of others when making decisions, because this is what we perceive to be the correct decision. So I think that kind of summarises why social proof works so much, but in our content that like I said, would look like customer testimonials, reviews, and case studies, because we trust other people's experiences or positioning products as a bestseller to imply popularity. It's building that trust and recognition, but in a way that feels safe to us. So knowing that your friend or a trusted influence that you follow or somebody else has had a really positive experience makes it feel more safe for us.

Kiran Kapur (19:59):
Yes, I mean we all check reviews, that's just a giver. We all check reviews. Yes, and it's also part of that herd mentality, isn't it? I feel safer if everybody else is doing it.

Daisey Cooke (20:10):
Yes. And a lot of these theories do overlap, so it's interesting to see the overlap in them and then see how we can apply those thoughts into our content as we're creating it.

Kiran Kapur (20:25):
So one of the things I'm intrigued by when I'm putting together a campaign for example is, should I be thinking of discrete campaigns in social media? So we've got, I dunno, a Christmas campaign or a Black Friday campaign or a campaign around new products. But what you are also talking about is having a constant social proof meeting, just awareness raising. Do I do both? Do I do one all the time and then have campaigns that I slot in? How does it work best do you think?

Daisey Cooke (20:59):
I think that it really depends on your organisation and how big your campaigns are, for example. But again, I'd say that the social proof and the awareness content is like your evergreen and it's your ongoing. And that actually it is really nice to sort of pepper that in with your campaign content because it breaks up the message a little and it's almost, you don't want to be focusing on that. Say you've got a Christmas campaign if every single thing that you're sending out is Christmas number one, it's quite exhausting for the social media manager to be everything that you're posting is in November, December, is that. But again, I think it's really dependent on how you set up your social and what your campaign plan looks like and what your content calendar looks like.

Kiran Kapur (21:56):
We've been talking quite abstract. Let's sort of come down to something sort of quite real. So is there a campaign that you've particularly liked?

Daisey Cooke (22:03):
Not one that's that recent, but last year for Christmas, Tesco had their TV advertisement, but then on social they created these snippets. So in the TV commercial they had sort of these real life items made out of gingerbread. I'm not sure if you remember, but they then had a gingerbread guitar in King's Cross or someone reading a gingerbread newspaper outside around London. And I think that's the thing with social, like I said earlier, is that it doesn't sit in a silo that it should integrate with the rest of your marketing and the rest of your campaigns. And that's what I really am so passionate about. And so seeing these social specific moments that they made that brought their campaign and their TV ad to life, I think that was a really clever way of doing it rather than just cutting down the ad and posting it on social, actually making these extra moments that were, if you were in London and managed to see these moments were out of home, real life for you, but equally having them videoed and on social. I thought that was really clever and I really enjoyed that.

Kiran Kapur (23:10):
Yes, it's a lovely one. I think it must be King's Cross Station or somewhere like that, the man just walking across with a guitar

(23:15):
It's obviously an actor. He's just strolling across looking very, very relaxed and casual and obviously the advert picks up people's reactions to that.

Daisey Cooke (23:24):
Yeah, it was really fun.

Kiran Kapur (23:26):
I think there was a little girl wearing gingerbread headphones, if I remember rightly as well.

Daisey Cooke (23:30):
Yeah, there was quite a few I did really enjoy. Definitely the newspaper as well.

Kiran Kapur (23:35):
Yeah, brilliant. So you've said a couple of times some things not to do and I always think this is very, very helpful to know. So you've said don't try and make your social media post to every part of the funnel. Are there other things I should be thinking about that could trip me up?

Daisey Cooke (23:51):
I would also say to be wary of trend-led content. And I think this is where having a social media strategy in place really helps, because it is easy to be sucked up and hooked up into these trends. It seems like every other business is doing that, but it can really dilute your message. And I think there are a place for some trends. My advice is always, if it is not an immediate yes, it's should be an immediate no. Some people have been using the Coldplay concert trend and it was just really out of touch I think, and it felt quite uncomfortable. And so as I said, you sort of need to have enough flexibility in place to be able to use trends, but this is where having content pillars or content themes within your strategy really helps to know whether it is appropriate for you or not. And this comes back to your planning and helps you to remain focused and remain streamlined towards those goals and not get to who confused and listening to what everyone else is up to.

Kiran Kapur (25:04):
Yes, it's interesting, isn't it? I think the Louvre heist, the German company that they used, the German company's lift outside the building, they did jump on that with social media, but they would sort of caught up in it anyway. So they either acknowledged it or they didn't, and they did it with humour and they did it with a bit of fun. But if anybody else had jumped onto that, that would I imagine have felt a bit strange. So you use the term content pillar there.

(25:31):
Tell me a little bit more about how I use content pillars.

Daisey Cooke (25:34):
So when creating your strategy, it's really helpful to break your content down into content themes or pillars. The term is used interchangeably, so this is thinking about maybe three to five key themes that you speak to in your content. So this might be kind of the brand behind the scenes, the brand story, employees, and that is more brand awareness and brand building. Other pillars might be to educate or to inspire or to entertain. And again, this is so unique for each business, which is why when creating strategies with my clients, everyone is unique because there's no cookie-cutter approach. You can't take someone else's strategy and make it work for you. That's just not how it works. And so having these unique pillars about things that are unique to your business and what you speak on is how you create your strategy, which you then take and use on a day-to-day basis to then inform what content you make and put out on social media.

Kiran Kapur (26:41):
I'm really getting a sense that strategy and knowing why you are doing it is so important because that helps you to explain it internally to those senior managers and the grumpy finance director who always wants to know why you're spending money on something, and also helps you to understand, let's not just jump on this trend, let's stick with what we do.

Daisey Cooke (27:02):
Exactly. It gives you that confidence to push back if something's not quite right. We've all had that request or can you just post this on social media? And it gives you that confidence to push back on requests because it doesn't fit with what your plan and what your strategy is. And that helps other people in the organisation to understand boundaries too and understand why you're doing what you're doing and why you're not doing other things.

Kiran Kapur (27:27):
And I think the other thing I noticed, particularly when I've got a social media expert in is how much content they create and then just ditch. Because I mean, they seem to be standing there taking photo after photo after photo, and then there'll be one killer photo that they use rather than, oh, we're going to splurge all of these across social media.

Daisey Cooke (27:45):
Yeah, I think it is about being selective and yeah, I dread to think what's in my camera roll or been deleted out of my camera roll. It is about getting that the right shot for social, and that can be quite time -consuming sometimes. Unfortunately.

Kiran Kapur (28:00):
Yes. And of course, the basics about getting permission before you use people's photos and things like that. So Daisey, you've been running DC Digital for four years, and I'm always intrigued by what makes people suddenly go, right, I'm going freelance because it's a very brave thing to do. What made you decide four or five years ago that this is what you were going to do and how were you finding it?

Daisey Cooke (28:23):
So I always had the dream of having my own business at one point. I just wasn't sure what that was until I was found out about the world of freelancing and realised I could be the business. And to be honest, I was also searching for a bit of that freedom that a traditional nine to five doesn't always allow. I was at an agency before I went freelance, and yeah, it was just quite tough and didn't quite align with me, but really it's evolved into much more than just the freedom I was looking for. I love working with multiple businesses at once, and I have this passion for storytelling, which is really what marketing and social media is all about. And that's kind of the thread that weaves through everything that I've always done. Getting to the heart of the brand story and communicating that out is what really is sets my heart on fire. How I found it is difficult to summarise, it's been challenging, inspiring, empowering, but sometimes disheartening because being a founder doesn't only mean being good at the services you're providing. You are also the finance, sales, business development and marketing departments too. I don't think I realised quite how many hats that I would have to wear when I first started, but perhaps ignorance is bliss.

Kiran Kapur (29:41):
I think so. I think everyone actually knew the amount of admin that comes with setting up a business and running your own business. You'd probably go, oh, maybe not. But it's part of the parcel, isn't it? But I mean, I think your enthusiasm for being a freelancer, running your own business really, really shines through. You're obviously loving it.

Daisey Cooke (29:58):
On the whole, it has been so rewarding. I love helping businesses to have that light bulb moment with their social media. So that's always what I'm searching for.

Kiran Kapur (30:07):
And I think the killer is anybody who's running their own businesses. Would you go back to being employed?

Daisey Cooke (30:13):
You know what, I actually wouldn't write it off. It would have to be the really ideal role. I wouldn't write it off, but who knows? I'd never say never. I think I'd find it tricky, but yes, if something amazing came along, I'm sure I could be swayed.

Kiran Kapur (30:32):
Brilliant. I love that sales pitch. Daisey Cooke, founder of DC Digital Freelance Social Media Consultant. Thank you so much. Your enthusiasm, your insight, and I love the way that you use marketing theory to inform what you are doing and the advice that you give clients. I think that's a really great thing to do. Thank you so much.

Daisey Cooke (30:51):
Thank you.