Beyond the Logo: Branding That Drives Action

Most sites look pretty until you ask them to do something. We sat down with Maria, a Maryland-born designer and agency owner with roots in art, photography, and action sports, to unpack how story-led branding and user-first websites turn browsers into believers. From building an agency on referrals to rebranding her own business to match her voice, Maria shares what actually moves the needle for small teams juggling client work, content, and life.

We trace the throughline from origin story to operating system: why brand is bigger than a logo, how motherhood teaches us to pivot without panic, and where consistency outperforms intensity in marketing. You’ll hear the case for clear messaging (say what you do in plain words), specific calls to action (ditch vague “Get started”), and designing for the scroll with hierarchy, contrast, and minimal text. We also get tactical on when to refresh vs. rebuild a website, how to audit UX and performance, and why fresh visuals and mobile speed can outshine a full redesign.

AI shows up as a collaborator, not a replacement. With answer engine optimization on the rise, original, helpful content paired with human voice and social proof—reviews, case studies, real results—wins organic visibility without sacrificing authenticity. If you’re a founder, marketer, or creative who wants a site that converts and a brand that feels like you, this conversation gives you a focused roadmap: fix clarity and CTAs first, commit to a cadence you can keep, use AI to work faster (not generic), and revisit your foundations as you grow.

Follow @maria.alcoke and visit 👉 mariavida.com for soulful branding, creative design inspo, and purposeful business growth. ✨🌿🎨💻

Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Maria: Art to Agency
• 3:20 Origin Story and Early Career
• 7:05 Building an Agency and Teaching
• 10:50 Motherhood, Leadership, and Pivots
• 18:10 Why Branding Is More Than a Logo
• 23:45 Social Proof and Content Strategy
• 29:40 AI, SEO, and Answer Engines
• 36:00 Consistency Over Everywhere, Always
• 41:10 Designing for Scroll: Impact First
• 47:30 Messaging, CTAs, and Story

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

Hey friends, and welcome to Mom Talk Maryland. I'm your host, Claire Duarte, founder of the Columbia Mom. And this is your spot for real conversations, local love, and a whole lot of community. Whether you're folding laundry, running errands, or hiding in your car for some peace and quiet, let's dive in. You ready? I'm ready. Let's do it. Um So Maria, I'm so excited to have you on today. Well, first of all, I'm so excited to finally like meet you in person. That's the joy of doing social media, digital advertising, all the things we'll talk about today. Um, but we've been talking for gosh, like several weeks now. Yeah. Oh month or two, maybe?

SPEAKER_04: 0:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:36

Something like that.

SPEAKER_04: 0:36

We got connected about probably say like a month or two ago. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 0:39

Sometime this summer, but it's a blur. It's relative. It's a complete blur. Um by the way, you just you are like the cutest like island princess. Like you're saying, I don't belong to Maryland. No, clearly. Like every like every time I talk to you, you're like, yeah, I'm over here in these other countries. I'm like, yeah, I don't know. Now it seems like it makes complete sense.

SPEAKER_02: 0:56

I'm wearing my new bracelet. I love that. It's like not really practical, but it's it's fun.

SPEAKER_00: 1:01

I have seen, I've been wanting one of those, like, but it's like kind of like this material. But I'm also like, would it drive me like nuts? Probably not you. I'm just gonna just get it. I probably should just get it. Where does it attach? Sorry, this is like it's just like a bracelet.

SPEAKER_04: 1:13

So it's you throw it on the wrist and then it's on the finger, and it's long enough to where it's not. I haven't tried to work with it, but I just thought it was.

SPEAKER_00: 1:19

Right, like it wouldn't be, it would be my evening. Probably not while I'm like going to work. Sorry, tangents. This is what we do. Um, I'm so excited. I'll you know talk to you, talk to you a little bit about like obviously like why what got us connected and the work that we're doing, but I'm excited to have you on as another woman-owned, mom-owned um business owner. And but today we're gonna talk probably like all things digital advertising, the social space, the the web and marketing space. And I think it'll be really cool because you know, two like women, two moms in the industry. I mean, here today I want to talk more about like your origin story because again, that's where I love to nerd out. That's kind of like my thing, a my shtick of like, you know, why I got started is like I love not that not only did I fall in love with certain like businesses and but it's their owners, right? It's it's knowing them and their story, their why. You know what I mean? So talk to me a little bit about that. Tell us about yourself, tell us what you do.

SPEAKER_04: 2:19

All right, where to start? Um so I'm from Maryland originally, from Howard County. My mom's from the Philippines. Very good. So yeah, and my dad's Irish, so there's There you go. That's the combo. But there's the Maria part of it. That's the Maria part of it. And actually, well, there's a whole Maria Vita origin story, which I'll get into. That's the second part. Yeah. I grew up here and um I have always been into art and into, well, surfing, skating. Like I love that whole like cut kind of counterculture. Yeah. So that was always what drew me to like design and graphics in that sort of like that space when I was growing up. And so I ended up studying art and photography in undergrad school. Cool, cool. And went to um Micah for grad school, Maryland Institute College of Arts. Um, studied digital arts there. And my dad your master's was in? It was, yeah, digital arts. So my dad's an educator, both my parents are in education, but my mom was an artist, an art teacher, an art administrator. So that's like the backpack story. Yeah, yeah. Um, but I love Maryland, and I also love the West Coast, so I ended up in California in 20.

SPEAKER_00: 3:27

Very much makes sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 3:29

I ended up in San Diego in 2007. So I finished up my master's program. I went to school, undergrad on the East Coast, went to Micah, went out there and got a job at an action sports company, go figure, a water sports company. So surfing, kiteboarding, skate, all that. Yeah. Um, worked in their marketing department as in-house graphic and web designer. Nice. Um and then I also, because it was such a small company, they were like, all right, you're gonna be doing package design and photography and video editing, I mean, all the things, right? And luckily I had that skill set from previous education. And a lot of it was just like learn on the fly. Right. Figure it out. Yeah. So I did and um loved it. And then by doing that, I just sort of got some side jobs here and there. Hey, I heard you can build websites. Hey, I heard you can design logos, like whatever. Can you do this for me? And it was sort of this just organic start to side hustle, freelance work, whatever. Yeah. Um, and then of course, you know, fast forward years of experience within like the marketing world, like corporate world. I actually taught high school multimedia and design for four years. Yeah, that was kind of weird. That's I loved it. I I loved the I love the students, I love the kids. I didn't necessarily love the politics of working in in a school system, even though it was a charter system in California. Um, but all the while, you know, building up a client base because again, I continued to just have the skill set that people were like, hey, like we we like your work, we trust you, we want to continue to refer you. And so I was just getting side jobs. Yeah. And then that essentially evolved into what I have now, which is going, it'll be 10 officially 10 years in January 2026 of the LLC. So that's like the official, yeah. The official incorporation of the business Maria Vita, which was inspired by Pura Vita, which is Costa Rica. There's this whole thing that's another, yeah, yeah. Travel there a lot, love that place. So Yeah, that's that's the backstory. That's a long-winded love story.

SPEAKER_00: 5:27

I love it. So, okay, so tell us about Maria Vita. Tell us about, I mean, makes kind of sense how there's kind of like the evolution, right? Of all those pieces. And I love kind of knowing your background and history, what you bring to that, because we'll come back to that because I want to talk more about like your just overall thoughts of the social media digital space, and because that's evolved and and will continue to evolve, right? Um, but uh tell us more about what you currently do, what are your kind of service offerings, um, and who are kind of like your ideal clients and things like that.

SPEAKER_04: 6:00

I love that question. Yeah. Uh so full service creative and branding solutions. So we do everything from brand strategy, logo design. I think to strip it away, logo design kind of is the thought. Oh, that's what I need, but it's more than just the logo, the visual branding, it's the brand strategy, the messaging, the positioning, the tone, all of that. So that's a big kind of component of how I work with clients. And then typically, if the client does not have a brand established already, they usually typically don't have a website, or their website is lacking because there's no consistency in their branding. So a lot of times clients will come and say, I need both, or I need the website to reflect the new branding. If maybe they've worked with somebody else in the past, so we do that. So it's web design, web development, web um maintenance support and kind of like tech support. Yeah. So it falls under the same umbrella, um, along with the branding and graphic design. And I I do occasional ad hoc work, um, but for the most part, it's um packages because it fits the needs of the client and it works best in terms of like what our business model has become over the years.

SPEAKER_00: 7:04

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no doubt. And um what's it been like building and leading your own agency while also being a mom? Uh, have you found that experience influencing your leadership or your creative approach?

SPEAKER_04: 7:19

Being a mom informs a lot of the way that I work, I think. Because I well, and I I'm speaking for myself, but I think a lot of female entrepreneurs, especially moms, get into the world of entrepreneurship because they want that flexibility, they want to feel like they have control over something. Yep. They already have their babies, their physical babies at home that they're raising, but the business becomes a baby too.

SPEAKER_00: 7:44

It that's what I say. People tell me, like, oh, when they hear I have two kids, like, do you want more? I'm like, no, this is this is my third baby. Right? Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 7:51

It's a lot of work, and you put a lot of your emotional energy, your physical energy, I mean everything that you pour into your children goes into your business as well. Yes. So spot on. And I think we talked about this briefly. I had a podcast years ago when I was, you know, kind of still at navigating entrepreneurship and I called it the engine mom because the idea was that as women multifaceted individuals, we have these gears that all kind of have to work in tandem with each other in order to really like be driven to move forward or whatever, right? So it's like if you have all these various gears or cogs that like you have to tend to each one of them in some capacity in order for you to continue to move forward and you know, be momentous and be driven to get to whatever the next step is. Yeah. Um, and I think that that's applicable to parenting and like navigating. I mean, because like nobody knows like what the next phase of parenting is going to bring. No. I've got a six-year-old and a ten-year-old, and so my oldest is just about as old as my business. That, yeah, yeah. And so, like, every so often in parenting, you have to pivot. Every so often in business, you have to pivot because you're like bought on. Take a step back, you're like, wait a second, this just isn't serving me anymore. My the schedule's not working, or whatever it may be. So I feel like motherhood uh has informed business and leadership in that it's okay to pivot, it's okay to step back. It's also okay to be like, yeah, that was I messed up. Like check your ego because like none of us are doing this for the first time. Like we're doing this for the first time, but we don't have to like reinvent the wheel. The the wheel is there and we just have to figure out what what part works for us.

SPEAKER_00: 9:32

Right, right. I saw a quote the other day. Um it was like, you know, obviously something like, you know, be gentle to yourself, because you know, we're also uh while we're parenting our kids, we're also moms and women living in our 30s for the first time, too. For sure. You know? Yes. Yeah, and I was like, oh my god, that's so right. So it was it was just also about like it's okay to find joy um and like not like be selfish, but be selfish. Do you know what I mean? Like it's okay to take time for yourself and like you know, go out and have fun and be with your girlfriends and and do those things. But yeah, in that same notion.

SPEAKER_04: 10:08

That's I resonate with that.

SPEAKER_00: 10:09

Yeah, right. It's so important because we need that. Um so let's let's talk about the social media and digital space. I mean, I keep saying social media because that's just where my brain goes. But let's talk about the digital marketing space. You've been obviously in your business, has been um going on for about 10 years, but you've been in the space longer than that, and I love that you actually have a whole background in, like you said, the photography, the art. Like you're kind of like fully in that words. Like, I feel like for me, this is a side part, side my my other side quest is like I constantly struggle with feeling like an imposter because um in my business, because my degrees are not in this world at all, in this field. I have a master's in counseling psychology, I almost became a therapist. Um, I was an executive function coach for like six plus years. So this was just literally the example of being like a side passion that turned into something else. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Um, so I kind of love that your line of work has always kind of obviously been aligned with many of your passions and has obviously informed the work that you now still do today. Yeah. So I kind of wanted to speak to let's talk about the the power and importance of um obviously branding, but um, but digital um I guess I'm I guess I I keep going back to digital marketing, but um and and what this means for um entrepreneurs, small business owners, things like that.

SPEAKER_04: 11:35

Yeah. So I I mean, working in the marketing space in what was it, like the early two well, mid-2000s, and then kind of pivoting into a role where I was now in charge of marketing myself. I'll be completely honest. I was not doing any kind of marketing, and I I have I will say this cut with a caveat that I didn't build my business through your sort of traditional marketing. It was all referral-based, but but I but I think that that's relevant because social proof, I mean the kind of work that you're doing with businesses right now, that social proof, that content marketing, you're taking a story and you're telling it in a way that's gonna resonate with their like ideal audience. Yeah, that is, in my opinion, how you become impactful and how you make a difference and how you stand out in the in com you know comparison to all the other competitors or to other brands that are similar that maybe aren't telling the story the way that your audience wants to hear it, right?

SPEAKER_03: 12:30

Right.

SPEAKER_04: 12:31

Um so and I'm trying to think back, gosh, because like when I was we were doing like print ads, we were doing like 75 pixels by 700. I mean, this is like not a shit. But like right, like and and how do you make an impact at that size, right? Or how do you tell a story when you've got 15 seconds? But I mean that that kind of rolls into you mentioned social media.

SPEAKER_00: 12:54

Right, but that yeah, they play together.

SPEAKER_04: 12:56

They do, and I I I laugh because I I love so like I love social media, I love other people's social media. If you go to my social media, oh my god, girl, I'm like embarrassed. I was like, actually, it's I still I have somebody working on some reels because I've got like a portfolio of work. The agency has been building websites nonstop, you know, for the last 10 years.

SPEAKER_00: 13:17

I mean, you were so busy, which is is what we want to hear, right?

SPEAKER_04: 13:21

And I think part of that is like, all right, I know this because I rebranded back in 2024, uh-huh. And it was more just for me personally, right? I was like, oh man, like I've spent all this time building other people's brands, but like what I have right now online does not reflect me. It's not my personality, it's not the tone, it's not the messaging that I want to put across. And so I was like, if I'm gonna be, you know, saying that this is what I do, I have to do it for myself, right? And I, you know, I I cut some corners and primarily because there's it's time, right? And like I love the clients that I serve and I want to have my, I want to have the capacity to do that for them. And sometimes, I mean, I'm sure you feel this way, like you have to make content for yourself on top of for other clients. So it's like, where do you find the balance in not burning out? I know. And I hope you were not asking me that's a that's a rhetorical question for like the universe.

SPEAKER_00: 14:12

Like, no, no, no, I will not answer that question for you. Um, but no, it's so true. And actually, um, you know, and you said an earlier point about how um, you know, you're good at obviously building, you know, websites and digital products for your clients, but also kind of like uh struggle with some marketing for yourself. And um that's definitely been like my case too. I feel like wasn't, I mean, even now the marketing that I do for my business is still very minimal because I mean, fortunately, yeah, seem like you know, been been mainly based off of referrals. Again, the uniqueness about my business is that like essentially my social media is essentially a walking billboard, even though it's I'm obviously you know two-pronged, we're community-facing back end business to business. Um, but yeah, I can basically serve as just like, hey, this is you can see a bunch of the content, not obviously all the pieces of content that we do, but a lot of them, right? Um but I think yeah, being a business owner, then it's it's funny where, especially for me, like obviously I do social media marketing. That's the medium, the content that we're doing. Um, but uh, you know, to flip it and then remind ourselves that we have going back to that branding aspect you were talking about, um, is so important to kind of come back to who we are, who who are we trying to serve, you know, um, because your brand is really everything.

SPEAKER_04: 15:32

Yeah. It is. And I think too, like being able to, I mean, you know, you you go through the exercises of, oh, what's your elevator pitch, core values, mission vision, right? And I I mean, I I admittedly will, you know, kind of roll my eyes when it comes down to that, but it is really like the crux, right? Like it is so important. Of course. And even if you don't overtly put it on your wall or like have it on your website, if you turn to it and like kind of lean into it when you're feeling a little lost in business, I think that it can help. Um I'm actually re-kind of structuring mine or like re-evaluating because I think it also is something that you should do every few. Maybe not every year, but you know, maybe five, some years. I know that's when rebrands tend to happen. Yeah. When like the branding doesn't feel aligned with the existing individuals, or whether it's a large organization or whatever. And that's what I find a lot of the work that we've been doing recently has been businesses that have been really well established for years and years, but they are like, okay, now we've got like this whole new like fuse of of people that have come in and that have a different type of energy, and like we still have the same quality of work or service or whatever, but we need to kind of pivot our messaging and the way that we like communicate with our clients. That's right.

SPEAKER_00: 16:48

And I think that's so true and so important. I mean, I think we all in business and all areas of business have to kind of re-evaluate and re-tick certain spots. I mean, um, I mean, in full transparency, like, you know, when um Laura connected us, um, I've been wanting to, we've finally been consistent with our email newsletters, like I had mentioned to you, and um we've grown a lot this last year, and my goal recently has been to kind of update the look of the email newsletters, not to kind of go crazy and you know, and I'm so we spoke at length about this, you know, and I showed you some examples of what we're kind of doing and talked through kind of the vision that we have for moving forward, and but there's and I mean you get this because this is your world too, you know. Um, but I was like, hi, these are my goals, this is where I want to go, but I don't want this to be a zero to 180 kind of thing because I also have to separate from what you do, my team and I are still developing the strategy piece of it that also informs that while you're also kind of working on the external, you know, visual look but function of it while also maintaining, you know, um, the organization and the flow, and it's there's so much that goes into it, um, and that people don't always like realize the details of that and why that matters, you know?

SPEAKER_01: 18:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 18:09

Oh, the strategy piece alone, right? Like it can seem very I mean, I want to say not intentional, but I think people can just take it for what it is, okay. Here it is, like, here's the content that I'm used to seeing. But there is, there is intention behind everything, and like even just like the hierarchy of what's being presented and like what images are being used, what colors are being used, like all of that. And it it does it, you can kind of go blind trying to like really determine like the best strategy, and maybe it's like A-B testing or whatever, but right, and that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 18:39

Yeah, for sure. Um, I mean, I feel like naturally, as a content creator, I feel like even though we're not intentionally A-B testing um with things, like our content literally is A-B testing because, like, okay, that didn't perform well. You know what I mean? Like, okay, that's fine. Doesn't mean it was not a failure, it's just like, okay, now we know that we should, you know, we can then we can take all the time to evaluate why didn't that perform as well, whatever. Um, but um, but going into the back to the digital space, what are some kind of whether it's website, whether it's logos, whether it's just if you're doing other types of digital products or something like that, what are some certain trends that you're sort of seeing in the space in your work that business owners should kind of pay attention to?

SPEAKER_04: 19:27

Um, okay, so trends, I would say, as far as like from digital marketing and visibility online, AEO or answer uh generate uh answer. Oh my goodness, I'm gonna so it's SES search engine optimization, answer engine optimization, all the acronyms, right? Right. So I mean it's I think you posted something about it maybe a month or two ago. ChatGPT picked up something from your blog when you asked it a question, right? So Google's using this. I mean there's other platforms out there, right? Yeah. So SEO is is kind of it's it's less based on answer specifically and more just based on content that that is being searched in queries and keywords. And I'll be I'll say this full transparency, I'm not an SEO expert. I collaborate with SEO experts, but something that I have seen that has kind of been consistent across a lot of my clients is that they're looking for ways to be visible online without having to make a lot of content themselves. Like everybody wants a social media presence, but nobody, or I'll say nobody, not everybody has the capacity or the means to have a social media manager or to have content that's like well curated and that's consistent and that's on brand, right? Right. Um and so what I have seen a lot of recently is folks really being curious about well, how can I get picked up by by ChatGPT, by Gemini? How can I get more how can I get more organic traffic to my website through these tools? And I mean the tricky part is that like, well, yeah, you can get blogs written by ChatGPT or whatever, but like what but then you've you've stripped away all of the authenticity of your voice and your tone and your brand. And I think that's where it comes back to knowing your audience, knowing your messaging, all of that. Um so I don't know if that exactly answered your question in terms of trend.

SPEAKER_00: 21:13

But that is, I mean, that's something that like I know we're we like my team brought that to me, and again, like because I'm kind of so over, I feel like I spend well my I have 8,000 hands in different buckets, but like I'm probably spending majority of my time in content management and um content management production, you know, all of that. So, you know, my team that does, you know, my girls that do like you know the blog writing and um the FCO and stuff, like you know, so she was the one that brought that to me. I'm like, oh, I didn't even know that was going on. Makes complete sense. You know what I mean? That's the that's the evolution that we're seeing.

SPEAKER_04: 21:42

Um well, and you're consistent because that's the other piece. People, oh, if I post a blog once a month, I mean that might not be good enough. And it it is it's very hard because it's hard to balance and you've got a million other arms of business that need attention. Then it's hard. And and where is like where is the juice most worth the squeeze?

SPEAKER_00: 21:59

I know, and and again, this it goes back to I hate to be so annoyed, but like goes back to your business, who's your audience, who you're trying to hit, you know, and then you can kind of talk about the strategy piece of like And where do they spend their time? Where do you spend your time, right? And that's you know, and that's where you can develop the strategy, and even if in again, and even to make the point too, if all you can do is one blog a month, just do that and do it every month. You know what I mean? Like I always say, you know, I when I'm talking with certain clients or other businesses, like if all you can do is post once a week, I like I want you to nail that before we try to move the dial even a schmidge. Yeah, you know what I mean? Like, I think we I mean I m myself too, like I get overwhelmed um just as easily about like, I mean, now I post, you know, a couple times a day, you know, and that's very different than that looked, you know, even different a year ago. You know what I mean? Um, but uh, you know, you can only move the dial so much as you know, because I feel like we're speaking to lots of small business owners, um, entrepreneurs, and even if you do have a small team, it's still it's impossible to create all the content and be in all the places. And we all use AI, and we should be completely embracing in that. And yes, we still use AI to help support our content writing and things like that, but there's the element of like we don't just like copy paste, right? We're going back through to make sure, obviously, checking for accuracy. Um but to make sure that it still sounds like us and still is nailing that, and that's why I don't think AI is going is replacing you know us, but that's where using it as a tool can help improve the production of your content for sure. Um, you know, but that's where I think if you can kind of find that sweet little marriage can help with that AEO aspect of things, you know?

SPEAKER_04: 23:50

Yeah, definitely. And I think I mean people have asked me that, oh, you know, I I've I saw someone made a logo off Chat GPT or whatever whatever tool it was, right? Logo AI or something, um, or built a website. Great, I those aren't the types of people that I want to work with. I want to work with someone that I can collaborate with. I want I want to have this, and that's one of the like kind of the themes within the agency is that we're not a faceless agency. Like you get to work with people face-to-face, you get to have these like organic conversations that allow for collaboration and feedback as opposed to like, okay, well, here's what you're getting. And if you don't, you know, you have this many rounds of edits. I mean, yeah, like we have some parameters like that too. But at the end of the day, I think one of the reasons why the my business has been successful is because the service is I I believe that there's a premium service, but it's also an experience, right? And I think that the same for you. Like you're providing an experience for people that you work with, but also for the people that follow you and that are, you know, work looking to you as somebody who can provide good information. And if they're not, if the experience isn't optimal for them, then they're gonna move on and find something else. So I think it just it speaks a lot to how you can operate as a business owner, but also knowing that like, yeah, we're we're humans. Like we want to have connection, we want to feel like there is some quality right you know to that and and AI can't provide that.

SPEAKER_00: 25:12

No, I know. Well, and here's kind of another thing that I'm kind of interested in too, because again, I I know that I'm constantly coming from the marketing standpoint, but like sometimes when I'm working with some um clients and I do a little consulting here or there, and you know, and I'm sure I know you do a little bit of this too when it comes to like helping clients, because I feel like you can kind of help, you know, when you're having those branding conversations and that um initial discussion when you're because uh I know how thorough you are, because you want you need to know not only like what the purpose of the brand is, but like how it's gonna be used, because I've had similar conversations when I've done them myself, because it's not just like here's my colors and fonts, and like da-da-da, because like knowing the what and the where and the how um like not only expands your work, but it helps inform like I'm like, oh snap, I didn't even think well, yeah, of course I want that and need that, you know what I mean? And it's expand and it informs so many things. Because like for me, from my lens, I think about okay, there's so many pieces of branding that goes into yes, just the overall like stamp and the things that we place, but when it trickles down into the actual marketing pieces, so like you know, for instance, I was working with a client that had completely finished their branding kit and their website, and she was like, I need help with social media. So I was doing all these things of just like teaching her a lot of Instagram basics. We would spend time on the phone, like how to create reels and using Canva, and how to take like her essentially like her media slash brand kit, inputting that into Canva, how to um create some basic templates, just some like little things that you know she can kind of because I was like, again, this is type perfect example of like I'm not gonna go from like this point of your business and this with your knowledge of Instagram, be like, okay, now go post five reels a week. Like right.

SPEAKER_04: 26:53

Never in a world and music and right, never in a world would I ever say that.

SPEAKER_00: 26:58

Like I like I would crumble. I still crumble, but um, you know, so um, but perfect example of again using digital medium, you know, and I'm just curious how you are advising some clients when because when I mean because carousels are certainly still a thing. Um, and uh, like I mean, for instance, like one tip that I kind of try to give my clients when we're talking about creating different types of content outside of like photos and videos, like if you're gonna every business is different, so I can't sit here and say this is the advice. Yeah, because again, it goes back to completely knowing your audience, knowing your product, knowing your service, whatever. Um, but for instance, like I try to be like, you know, especially especially on Instagram, that's obviously my biggest platform. Um, but stay away from like flyer style graphics. Yeah. There's a time and a place for flyers, for sure, but to me, I don't think they belong on Instagram. Well, again, again, I'm like, there's a yes and a no, but it's like it depends on how it's done. I just think limiting um text i is so important on Instagram, but it's doing it and doing it strategically.

SPEAKER_04: 28:10

Yes, I agree. I mean, I think it's it's a combination of like you said, there's a time and a place, but you've got to make, we've had this conversation off camera before, you have to make an impact in a small amount of time and and in a small kind of visual space, right? Right. People are scrolling fast. And it's like we want to consume so quickly. And so how can you draw attention to how do you stand out? How do you draw attention? A static image may not be the case, or maybe you're using, you know, maybe that's where that branding comes in. There's some pops of color that kind of jar the brain a little bit and say, oh, okay, that kind of that caught me off guard. Let me go back and see what that that is. Or maybe it's the font styles, or maybe it's the word, the specific word. Um and it and it yeah, it depends on your audience, what are they drawn to? And what if you don't know that? Well, then start experimenting. But can't can you do that in a in the lens of your brand still, right? Because that's one thing drives me crazy. And this is why like I I say I don't love social media as a as a visual creative because I've seen some beautifully curated Instagram accounts, whether it's the the filters or like just like the aesthetic, or if it's like the templates or whatever, but like you know when you go to somebody's account and it's just haphazard. There's no rhyme or reason. I mean, I don't know what's wrong with mine, honestly. Right, right, right, right. Right. Like, I mean, for the longest time I was posting fitness videos because I was coaching fitness on the side. But but it's like that's me. I'm good with that because I'm not trying to be a curated account. I don't need to be a curated account. But you know, if you're using this your platform, well, your platform form is very curated, I think. It has a very cohesive look, feel like I don't know, maybe at the beginning that was never said. I don't know. But think back to like where you started, right?

SPEAKER_03: 29:54

And you're like, I don't know what I'm doing.

SPEAKER_04: 29:56

I'm just gonna go out there, put myself out there. And I think that's part of that. Process too is you said something earlier about feeling like an imposter. The amount of times that I have like recoiled into myself being like, Who do I think I am right like daily? And and it's funny because I mean, I'm again I'm generalizing, but I don't think that men have that same feeling, or maybe they aren't as like vulnerable to share that they have that feeling for sure. But also you have to get to a certain point when you sit back and you think, okay, well, I've done this or I've built this or I've I've been there, I've ex I survived. Yeah, I have learned so much over the years on what not to do, who not to work with, what contracts not right, like and it and it happens because that's part of the experience for the for the business owner, but then you're also kind of it that helps to inform how you move forward with your interactions and you know. Yeah. Is social media like is social media going to be the thing that breaks your business? Absolutely not. Right. But do you can you improve upon it or can you can you start creating content that is like more aligned-term business? Sure. And I think it just depends on yeah, is your audience even hanging out on Instagram, right?

SPEAKER_00: 31:11

Right. I mean, you and I, I'm sure both can think of many examples, and you probably have clients that are fit that's built too, of many their, you know, successful businesses that um are wildly successful when you then you go to their Instagram and it's like womp womp. And that's not always necessarily a problem. Right. Because clearly, you know, because I mean there's so many ways we can slice that, right? Because okay, clearly you're generating success, referrals, whatever, without the need for a social media presence, right? And yes and no, again, it depends on again, it goes just back to knowing your business, knowing who your audience is. But I mean, in this this day and age, of course, everyone is craving and wanting and kind of demanding that businesses have a social media presence, and that is important, and that's why that's why I go back to like being consistent, even if consistence consistent means once a month, once a week, whatever, like you need to have a heartbeat as opposed to the haphazard like every other month or something like that, you know what I mean? Because you can always build from there sort of thing. Um but uh wait, I'm trying to get back to the point that I was saying. Um but when we're talking about branding, web design, um what uh what do you think are some of the most important? Oh, here it is. What makes the most impactful branding and web design? And what do you why do you think those things matter for small business owners? That's a great question.

SPEAKER_04: 32:45

So and it's also the same kind of answer, right? It depends on the business, it depends on the audience, it depends on the goals. Um what if you're a nonprofit, it's going to be positioned a lot differently than if you're a service-based business. And if you're a service-based business that has really affordable services, it's gonna be different than if you're a service-based business that's got very premium um services, right? But I think the the broad answer to that question is you have to consider what is authentic to you and how can you tell that story. I goes back to that storytelling aspect, I think. So having everything aligned to your core values, what you what you offer, the value that you provide, not the only the value that you have for your like the core of your business, but the value that you provide to your clients. And like what is that unique value proposition that you offer? And and how are you getting in touch with your audience? Are they people, are your clients, your prospective customers, people that would need to work with you on a regular basis? Are you, I don't know, I wouldn't throw it, like, are you a dentist and you have, you know, you have these sort of consistent um patients that come and and you need to create a certain experience for them so that they continue to come back and then make the referrals or are you a home builder where you're only really going to get one shot to see how to deal with that client because it's likely that you're never gonna build another home for them. Right. And so I think it just really depends on um what the what the ultimate goal is. And so, like with a website, for example, I always tell my clients, like, you you need to need to be clear in your messaging. It can you know, there's some really catchy taglines out there. You know, it's like, I don't know, you're a financial management firm, it's like sailing into your future. And it's like, okay, great, that's awesome. But like what do you do, right? Right. We provide comprehensive financial management solutions for baby boomers. I don't know, right? Like, but like how can you use that messaging to communicate it instantly? But then also like what then once somebody knows exactly what it is that you do, then what do you need them to do? So that's the call to action on the website, right? Yeah. Contact us, schedule a call, like what whatever it is, like you know, I think get started is very popular, but I think get started is too vague, where it's like, what do I start doing, right? Just tell tell people what you want them to do and give them that journey. Wait, that's that's the tagline right there.

SPEAKER_00: 35:07

Tell people which is true. I mean that that same principle is used in social media. We have to, you know what I mean? Because again, I'm again a website medium is gonna be very different than social media content the way it's being digested, but you're using the same CTA call to action principle that frankly, every piece of content, every piece, like flyer, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_04: 35:31

Like has to have QR code, scan this, and then the scan when you go to the website's gonna tell you what uh what to do next, right?

SPEAKER_00: 35:37

Yes, we have to be told what to do because otherwise, you know, we're trying to, you know, funnel or direct, you know, our little sheep. Right?

SPEAKER_04: 35:44

Well, much like our children. Right? Here it is, I guess. This is how we're talking about motherhood, right?

SPEAKER_02: 35:49

Tie the shoe.

SPEAKER_04: 35:50

Yes, put the fo put the shoe on, then tie, right? Like you have to give people instruction because I'm not people know what they want, but they don't know what you want. It's like, I mean, I that that's a whole nother conversation. That's like, oh, your husband, your partner's not a mind reader. Yeah. Like you can't why didn't you know that I wanted you to do the dishes? Like I also shouldn't have to. But but right, like it's those types of things where if you prompt them, then it can kind of train and then it it it informs the the behavior of the next customer or the next visitor of the website or the next person that clicks on your story or whatever, right?

SPEAKER_00: 36:24

Well, and this is I think this kind of goes back to exactly why we're having this conversation in the first place. Like, you know, you can say that what you do isn't directly marketing, but in its core element, everything that you do is marketing because you're without those elements, the person couldn't aff couldn't effectively market. Correct. Right? And um, same like, and I'm and then what I do obviously is more direct, you know, marketing for sure. Um, but uh, you know, I I think of the example all the time. Like you can have the greatest product in the world, the greatest service in the world, but if nobody knows about it, you know, then it doesn't matter, you know. You can be walking by, but if I've never heard about it, if you don't talk about it, I you can't assume that I know. Right. You know, yes, influence is great and reputation is great, brand reputation, grand recognition, but marketing is is really everything. And yeah, every business is different with their marketing approach, how much they need to market and and how, but um, but it goes back to, you know, it is still our job, I say our job as entrepreneurs, as business owners, to market. To we have to be the ones to repeatedly say and say it over and over again, even if it is the same words, um, or do our A-B testing, whether it's in the words that we're doing or the content that we're changing, you know, to kind of keep putting that material out there.

SPEAKER_04: 37:49

Right. And I can't remember if we talked about this on camera or off camera, but the social proof, I mean, that in itself is so powerful. I think we did we m we touched on that. But even I asked you about your camera. And you said, Oh, let me tell you about the camera. But it wasn't that, you know, you were you weren't marketing the camera. You were telling me a story about how this camera has been impactful for you. And I'm like, okay, cool, I want that. Right. And I think that that is whatever you have, whatever you can call it, influencing marketing. It is sharing an experience.

SPEAKER_00: 38:17

It all comes down to, I think, that that the same, like the every single conversation that we've had, mini micro conversation in this, has gone back to I swear that I actually, if you crack me open, there is a regular Well, I don't know about regular There is a human being and not just an influencer in there, but I'm it's that's the problem. I'm too far gone.

SPEAKER_04: 38:36

We're wired like that now. And I don't necessarily think it's become maybe it's from social media, I don't know. But I mean I know that if I've had a good I I love, I love a good Google review. I love if I had a good experience, you better believe I'm giving you five-star Google review. Oh my gosh. Yeah, it's the truth. And I mean, and you think about the way people give feedback, right? It's either one star, I hated it, it was all my gosh. You don't want a three-star review because that's just meh. You don't want to be meh. Like I'd rather get a one-star so that I can take that advice like whatever that feedback and then work to make it better. Yes, right. Um, but I mean, who doesn't want to hear just like praises from you know the five stars? Right, right. It is like, I mean, think about how you shop. If you're buying something online, I'm gonna look at the reviews. Does it is it true true to like if I'm buying clothes, is it true to size? Is it like frequently returned? Like I want to know this stuff. Yes, right? That's so important. And so it's I mean, how do you infuse that into service provider or you know, into a brand? That's it's not it's an arm or an extension of a brand, but that's but it all goes back to what are you doing for your audience and what are you doing for like from the core of your existence, right?

SPEAKER_00: 39:44

I know, I know. Um, I mean, I'm trying now I'm trying to decide which prong. I like have two other questions in my head, and I'm like, well, there's only so much time. And then that, you know, this is just part one of you know the things that we want to discuss. Keep going for sure. I know. Um, because I'm like, okay, well, here, I'll I'll I'll let you decide. Okay. Which one do you want to talk about more? Because I have a question on website and email. Maria's choice.

SPEAKER_04: 40:07

Um, I mean, I'm I'm web all day long, so I would prefer web, but I mean, what are you thinking?

SPEAKER_00: 40:11

Let's let's talk about web. So when you're um well, I'm kind of like asking this question kind of from the lens of like, okay, like, you know, let's talk to some of those business owners as entrepreneurs that, like, yeah, they've they've got their established website. Um, you know, how what do they need to keep either doing with their website? Because it's the answer isn't always a rebrand. The answer isn't always like, let's start from scratch and and build a whole new website. I feel like I have a friend that's a I mean, granted, they're a large medical group, right? And so they're using a whole different agency when they're, you know, doing their website and stuff like that. But I feel like since I've known them in the last 15 years, I feel like they've done at least three websites in that time. That's me. It feels like a lot. Again, I don't yeah, that's in a completely different genre that I know nothing about. Yeah. You know what I mean? And and they have they're also, you know, well, the industry is several like seven, eight figure businesses. You know what I mean? So very different. Um, but what do we say to these businesses, like, okay, you know, um, and I guess we're assuming that, you know, um if they're not maybe getting hits on the website or the traffic that they're looking for, what do you say to those types of individuals?

SPEAKER_04: 41:24

So, yeah, and a lot of times that is kind of like where the work comes from. It's that, okay, we've lived online for a long time, we've established what we would call domain authority. So like if you search them, people can find them. Maybe they're decent, their their rankings are decent on Google, even though they don't have really much SEO. It's because they've lived online for so long. Yeah. But it could come along the same lines as a rebrand, or it could come along the lines of, okay, well, now our website's just not keeping up with the times, right? Like there's sites out there that are still not mobile optimized. There are websites out there that aren't optimized for, you know, different devices, or maybe there's like integrations that are old and outdated, so they're clunky, they break the site, they don't allow the site to function optimally in terms of like performance and speed and all that kind of stuff. It makes for a negative user experience. Yeah. And you think about a website that you visited and you're like, all right, this isn't loading, or I'm trying to get to what I want and I can't, I'm gonna go find something else, right? And people leave. And so in in a lot of cases, clients will come and say, listen, our business is fine, but in order for us to continue to scale or to potentially expand into different markets or whatever, like we cannot continue to operate from where we are currently. Right. Right. And so in that in some cases, it may not be a full rebuild. Maybe it's just, okay, now we need to revamp some of your messaging. Your visuals are outdated, we've got to get you some fresh visuals. Maybe your your team is turned over so many times that the custom photography on the website is outdated. Right. Right. Um, and then there's always going to be like visual trends, right? Like you know, back in the day it was like that sort of magazine layout was very clean and sleek. And so and in some cases it still looks great. It just really depends on what type of content you're sharing. If you're service-based, you know, how many pages is the site, how much um recurring content or dynamic content do you have. So I I would say to a business that is maybe comparing themselves, if you do like a sort of this competitive analysis, look at a variety of businesses that are local to you and maybe more global, but are in your industry. Yeah. Yeah. And you can tell. I mean, either you know you check the copyright on the website, or you can look at a website and you can tell that uh that that was updated maybe 2020. 2020 was a big year for websites, by the way, if you would imagine. I mean, gosh, people, I mean that's when I went, I went kind of, I was doing some like part-time coaching at the time, and I but I I stopped working at the gym, and then there was like, all right, well now I'm like all in because people were like, hey, I I gotta get back online, I've been offline for a few years, and now I can't operate without a without a web presence, right? Um but typically it's is your user experience still aligned to what you want your users to do, going back to that CTA? Is your visual branding and just like kind of overall like aesthetic aligned to your existing brand? Yeah. Um and then are are there some specific reasons why you would need to rebuild and why is it and why is this the right time? And a lot of times, like we'll do discovery calls with clients and kind of go down that rabbit hole of like, well, why now? Right? Yeah. Um and some clients are like, I don't know, it just felt like the right time. Or yeah, I don't know, we've been talking about this for months, and we have we now have a marketing person that we can use to kind of like be the point person for this project, right? Like there's always different circumstances there. Um and I mean I I've gone to different websites that are maybe, you know, someone that I'm a provider that I'm seeing for whatever reason. I think, oh, you know, I could totally help them get their website feeling, looking and feeling a little bit more 2025. Yeah. But I don't necessarily, you know, I I try, I'm also like not I sales is not my thing.

SPEAKER_00: 44:56

Oh my gosh, right? I mean, yeah, we're not in this world. Oh, yeah, that's why I hired Jill because I was like, I can't, uh that's not what that's not my language, I don't speak it. But yeah.

SPEAKER_04: 45:04

But I think just, you know, if if there's I mean, I know I also know that not everybody has a website manager. So your website goes live in 2021 and nobody's made any content updates to it since 2021, and four years later you're like, well crap, I've got this person, this person no longer works there. This messaging's outdated, our office address is done, right? Like, so like at what point do you not necessarily rebuild, but at what point do you need somebody to come in and just make those edits and make sure that it's also like there's back-end stuff that needs to be optimized, server thing, like all that tech nerdy stuff. Right, right. That's something that I like to provide to clients because it's called also peace of mind. Like if you are busy running a business, the last thing you won't have to worry about is like dealing with like tech support for your website. I know. Right. I know.

SPEAKER_00: 45:45

Well, and I'm sure you get hear this all the time, but it's like your website is kind of like your front door, right? And if it's you know, dusty, it's not gonna be too inviting. You know, the handle's broken, they're not gonna be able to get in. Yep. You know, and I I feel like again, as business owners, especially, I mean, we're creatives, clearly, you know what I mean? So it's easy to spend obviously a lot of time in this space um and paying attention to all of that. But I realize we're we know that all business owners don't have that luxury because you know, because you are in a million places at one time, so it's like, you know, I you know, you're like, I I just need this done so I can kind of keep doing da-da-da-da-da. Right? But that it does it, I hate to sound so annoying, but it just it comes, it all goes back to branding. If you, you know, you need to make your website functionally optimized and uh functional in the um organization, in the layout, in the look, in the um verbiage, um, and the uh user user ability and the experience, right? That's for sure. And all of those, it needs to hit all those points while also always coming back to branding.

SPEAKER_04: 46:49

You know? And that's you can easily audit your website for that stuff too. And that's something like you know, people have those freebies on their website. That was always like an intention of mine. A lead form. When when? One day. Maybe one day. But like audit your website or audit your brand, right? Like just you can do that. Use Chad GPT. Go back and talk to ChatGPT about where you're at. I mean, that's that's something that any business owner could do on their own time.

SPEAKER_00: 47:13

And there's nothing wrong with using AI for all of these tools, right? It's it's it yeah, sorry, serving a purpose. Yes, exactly, right? Using it as a tool, right? They're they're tools, that's the whole point. So um well, listen, on that note, I feel like we've talked, we've just I mean, this is welcome to my brain where I kind of just jump around all over the place. But I'm here with you. I know. Thank you so much for nerding out with me today as we talked about all things like digital and um websites and branding, because I think that's that's so important. And you know, it's something that I'm always trying to remind myself of, you know, going back to like who we are, who we are as TSCM, what I am, what I'm doing. I mean, I'll get all these ideas, and even my own business consultant be like, that's great. But remember, this is what we're focusing on. He's like, where do you want to be in a year or five years from now? And I'm like, shut up.

SPEAKER_04: 48:00

You know, you gotta have that third party to kind of reel you in. Exactly. It's annoying, but like, yes, it is good for us.

SPEAKER_00: 48:05

Like, fine, okay. Um, but thank you so much. Um, I'm really excited to kind of put this material together and go from there. And, you know, like I said, Maria's helping us with our, you know, refresh the email newsletters. I know I've like, I've speaking of emails, I have emails to get back to you on what you do.

SPEAKER_04: 48:21

All in good time.

SPEAKER_00: 48:22

All in good time. I was like, you know what, we'll get there. Like, you were traveling, I was traveling, and now we're getting back into it.

SPEAKER_01: 48:27

School's starting next week. I know, it'll be a different, different ballgame. All right, girl. Thank you for having me.

SPEAKER_00: 48:34

Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Mom Talk Maryland. If you loved it, leave a review, share it with a friend, or tag me at the dot Columbia Mom on Instagram. I'd love to hear what you think. And don't forget to follow the show so you never miss an episode. Until next time, keep showing up, keep supporting local, and keep being the incredible mom, woman, and human that you are.