She's Next Webinar - De la antreprenor la vocea brandului în social media (Arina Lazăr)

From Entrepreneur to the Brand’s Voice on Social Media

Core Strategy

• Treat social media as a business channel with a purpose—not simply a place where every brand needs an account. Define what the business wants to build: visibility, credibility, community, leads, or sales.
• Build trust before expecting a sale. A founder’s experience, values, and story can make a business feel more human and distinctive, especially when competitors offer similar products.
• Founder-led content is not the same as influencer marketing: an influencer’s product is their content; an entrepreneur’s product is the business. The founder’s role is to build trust in the business and its vision.
• Don’t try to be everywhere. Choose one or two channels based on the audience, business model, and available time, skills, and production resources.

Channel-Selection Guidance

• Facebook: Has a broad, relatively mature audience. Groups, Marketplace, and events can support community-building. Organic reach is limited, so paid promotion may be needed.
• Instagram: Useful for visual presentation, storytelling, and community. Combine organic content with paid campaigns where appropriate.
• TikTok: Its algorithm can distribute videos beyond an account’s existing followers. The platform can support discovery, search, and purchase influence. Simple, phone-shot videos and creative testing can help keep production costs low.
• LinkedIn: Suited to many B2B and professional services, including thought leadership, networking, lead generation, recruitment, and employer branding. Advertising can be expensive, while organic visibility can benefit from employee participation and an active community.
• YouTube: Suitable for educational, explanatory, and tutorial content, including complex services. Videos can attract search traffic over time; titles and descriptions should support SEO.
• General rule: Audience behavior matters more than generic advice about when to post. Use platform insights and testing to learn when and what your own community responds to.

Content and Brand-Voice Playbook

Establish five to six recurring content pillars to keep communication coherent and make planning easier:

• Founder and business story: Origin, difficult periods, lessons, and important decisions.
• Expertise and education: Practical advice, industry insights, myth-busting, and answers to common questions.
• Behind the scenes: The people, processes, workspace, and day-to-day work behind the business.
• Community and conversation: Replies, customer questions, feedback, and discussion.
• Offers and sales: Clear promotions and calls to action, balanced with other content.
• Proof and validation: Case studies, projects, figures, reviews, and testimonials.

Match the content mix to the current goal. For visibility, emphasize storytelling and expertise. During a sales campaign, use clearer sales messages and calls to action.

Vary formats—short and longer videos, carousels, static visuals, voiceovers, and testimonials—rather than relying on just one.

Define the brand voice by considering:

• The business’s beliefs and non-negotiable principles.
• The audience’s needs, questions, and challenges.
• The promise the product or service makes.
• How viewers should feel after consuming the content.

A brand voice can be mentor-like, expert, educational, or friendly and informal. It should reflect the entrepreneur and the business rather than feel like an invented persona.

Operating Recommendations and Metrics

• Block social media work into the business calendar. Batch-create content—for example, several videos and visuals in one session—and schedule it ahead to improve consistency and reduce last-minute pressure.
• Test different formats and topics for two weeks to about a month, then assess what generates conversations and what the entrepreneur can communicate naturally.
• Suggested cadence from the webinar:
  • Instagram: Roughly 3–4 high-quality posts per week, rather than posting every day just to maintain frequency.
  • TikTok: Aim for at least one post per day, if resources allow.
• Review platform analytics for audience age and location, reach, views, comments, likes, shares, and responses by format and posting time. Use competitor content as a reference for audience behavior, not as a template to copy.
• Track outcomes against the goal: visibility, community engagement, trust signals, leads, or sales. The webinar did not provide revenue, CAC, conversion-rate, or other financial targets.
• Treat testimonials and reviews as trust-building evidence, not as the entire content strategy. Invite genuine feedback, respond transparently to negative comments, and use feedback to improve products or services.

Practical Examples and Recommendations

• A Cluj-Napoca confectionery used a multi-episode “path to entrepreneurship” series, showing that longer videos can hold attention when they have a clear narrative.
• Another entrepreneur shared business setbacks and debt, illustrating that candid accounts of difficulty can make founder content more relatable than presenting only success.
• A business documented its build-out before opening. This created anticipation and helped it gather a potential-customer community before launch.
• Behind-the-scenes examples included a bakery showing its construction and production process, and a car service introducing its team and ending with a clear invitation to visit.
• A consultant’s educational video explained that a quiet audience may still be evaluating and comparing providers. A lack of immediate interaction does not necessarily mean a lack of interest; consistent value can support trust over a longer decision cycle.
• A product-promotion example opened with a clear discount, explained the product’s benefits, and repeated the offer at the end—an effective structure when the goal is direct sales.
• For service professionals, use the founder’s name as the account identity and add relevant search terms in the bio. Social platforms also function as search tools.
• A business that has operated for years should consider having a website as well as social media. A website can improve discoverability and trust, especially when supported by SEO.
• Use AI to organize ideas and develop content prompts, but personalize its output. Generic AI-written copy can make brands sound alike; AI-generated imagery or video should be used thoughtfully and not at the expense of authenticity.
• Trends can help attract attention, but adapt them to the business and audience. Relying only on trends can undermine credibility and leave the brand without a consistent message when trends fade.
• If resources permit, invest in marketing early. If a full agency is not affordable, consider consulting or strategy support, then implement internally.
• To reduce camera anxiety, practice without publishing, speak as if addressing one person, start with a topic you know well, and focus on the value of the message. Voiceover and business footage are alternatives when appearing on camera is a barrier.

Metrics and Market Figures Cited

• The presenter cited approximately 12.9 million social media users in Romania, or 68.3% of the population, and 5.3 million LinkedIn users. These were presented as the latest available figures at the time of the webinar.
• The presenter said TikTok had surpassed Instagram numerically in Romania and was the platform where users spent the most time. No detailed engagement or sales benchmarks were given.
• A TikTok example illustrated that an account with 50 followers could still reach 500 people with a video, because distribution depends on views and recommendation behavior—not just follower count.

Presenters and Sources

• Arina Lazăr, Senior Social Media Manager at ING Bank Romania, presenter.
• Dana, webinar moderator; surname not stated in the subtitles.
• Social-media statistics source cited by Arina: DataReportal. Examples discussed included businesses and professionals in confectionery, consulting, dentistry, floristry, food service, automotive services, law, and retail.