Episode 18: Grow Your Business Through Genuine Engagement With Celina Moreno

   📍 Welcome to CreativeMind Smart Money, the podcast where creativity and business smarts collide. I’m your host, Samantha Eck, bookkeeper, business coach, and your go to guide for building the creative business of your dreams. Whether it’s mastering your money, streamlining your systems, or growing your business, I’m here to share insights that empower you to thrive.

Plus, I’ll be bringing in industry experts to dive into all aspects of entrepreneurship, so you can turn your passion into profit without losing your creative spark. Let’s get started.

 You’re listening to the creative minds, smart money podcast. And today I have a special guest with me from Luna marketing services.

A Salvadorian with an international marketing degree and 10 plus years of experience in the workforce. Mom gamer and amateur singer. Celina is one of the founders of Luna marketing services, a small digital agency that focuses on helping small businesses build a healthy online presence. How are you, Celina?

I’m doing fine. Thanks for having me. How are you doing today?

I’m also doing great. It’s a beautiful Thursday in Texas, so I love it. I absolutely love it. Can you describe how you started Luna Marketing and what led you into social media marketing?

Well, I started working on social media 10 years ago, probably a little bit more. Whenever the only platform around was Facebook, everybody was talking about Facebook. Facebook pages were really recent. It was a chaos, you know, on the marketing world because nobody knew what to do.

Nobody knew what this was. We were coming up with best practices. It was super fun. I have been working on marketing since then. I decided to start Luna about a year and a half ago after the agency that I was working at got acquired. You know how acquisitions go, half of the time they will go great, you will stay there, everything will be nice.

And the other half is, okay, we acquire you now, please leave. So, we started the project with, my best friend from high school. We have remaining contact and, it has been a fun experience, I will say, to run my own thing.

Yeah. No, that sounds amazing. So I know you said Facebook started this whole thing, but what really inspired you to like start creating content specifically and how has that kind of evolved over time?

And specifically, if we talk about content creation, I have always liked to see myself as a very public person. I love sharing what’s going on. I love sharing what’s around me. whenever the whole social media thing started back in the 2000s, I was like one of those persons that will post. freaking everything, you know, like, Oh, like I saw an ant, yesterday and it was out of place, whatever.

So I have always been like very cheerful, very sharing, very caring. And I always thought , this probably can have all the uses , it’s not just me sharing my personal life. What else can I make out of this? And that’s how I started getting more and more involved , with social media and with how businesses use it. And once that I finished my career and everything, I have a degree in marketing. I started working as well with a lot of startups and small businesses.

And kind of that combination was , what created the idea of Luna as well, that we want to focus on small businesses, small creators, because usually those are the people that can take more advantage out of creating content and out of social media, and they are usually the ones that really don’t know how.

Right. Yes. And I think that’s so true. A lot of business owners who just start up don’t actually expect that they need to also run their own social media profiles and create all the content and things like that. And then it becomes quickly overwhelming when you realize how much is actually out there.

Doing social media is a full time job, really. So, it’s basically that having to have your business and on top of that, work as your own social media manager, it can be a lot.

It can, yes. And here at Firestorm, we know all about wearing many different hats, especially when it comes to like bookkeeping and things like that. So for those just starting out, what are the most essential elements of building a really strong online presence?

The very first, thing will be to try to be everywhere. I know that sounds overwhelming, but, just the fact that you have a profile, Somewhere, even if you’re not updating it, as often or if you’re just recycling the content, posting the same thing, for example, on Instagram, on Facebook, on Twitter, that starts telling people you’re out there.

And particularly when you identify where your audience is, for example, if you know you have a product, for example, that it’s targeting Gen Z’s, you’re not going to go ahead and put it on Facebook. So you can have a Facebook page because it will be great for your SEO. It will be great for when people search for you, but most likely you’re going to be showing your product on TikTok because that’s where you will find that a specific audience. So try to be as active as you can try to have a face everywhere, even if it’s just like repurposing content that you have done on your main platform. And trying to not, copy others. Try to be yourself as much as you can.

Yes. Authenticity is so important. I find that so true because people want to actually. know you and get to know you as a business owner. A lot of people that I’ve heard say, Oh, you know, people don’t actually want to know your business. They just want to work with you. And I’m like, I find that so untrue because especially as a social media marketer, or , even a bookkeeper, if they don’t know you personally, or they don’t know something about you, they feel like they’re not going to want to hand off anything to you because they don’t know you. You’re a stranger to them.

Exactly. And being like fully honest, usually your best clients are people that you have relationships with of any kind. either a friend of a friend that you were introduced to and that he knows you, even if it’s just through your friend or somebody that you interacted a lot with on social media, the fact that they get to know you more than just like the little brand, it’s very important for them to build that trust that you’re gonna need to be able to work with them.

Yes. And then you’ll be able to find more of those aligned clients as well, which is amazing. So how do you really balance creating content for different platforms while maintaining a consistent brand voice across all of those platforms?

For story days, I try to keep the message consistent. for example, whenever we start planning, a content calendar, we select the specific topics that we’re going to be talking about through that month. currently, for example, I have this client that is posting on LinkedIn and Instagram, which is two very different platforms.

If you think about it, like you don’t find the same type of people on LinkedIn that you will find on Instagram, but we try to keep the topics consistent. If we’re posting, let’s say about, Oh, for example, a couple of days back, there was like a new rule about how to , you cannot buy followers. By the trade commission. So if we’re not talking let’s say we’re going to talk about that topic We’re going to do a post for that on linkedin With certain specific branding that we use for linkedin for this business, and then we will repurpose that same topic And use a different graphic more always keeping same color same branding same everything from the brand but repurposing it or trying to convert it more to an Instagram post that might change a little bit the tone you know it will not be as serious as whenever you write on LinkedIn but it will keep the same topic the same colors and the same energy that the brand is trying to display on both platforms.

Yeah. And I think that’s so important because. Each platform is going to have their own different nuances , for how you talk. , I’ve noticed on Threads, for example, I’m more open and more casual because that’s how Threads really is. People are more casual. Whereas on Instagram, it’s a little bit more professional and then when you go to LinkedIn, it’s super professional. It’s like people only speak in really professional talk

Exactly you can see that change a lot or that their friends a lot whenever you look at a specific trends for example. Right now, everyone is talking about it, oh, so mindful, very demure, you know, thing. I’m surprised that that kind of stick to threads as well. But threads is like that you can adapt, a lot of trends to threads and they will work.

But so far, I haven’t seen a post on LinkedIn talking about being demure, because it’s not, even though it’s, great, everybody’s talking about it. It’s fun. LinkedIn is more of a serious platform. So it’s not the thing for it over there and trends on linkedin that you will never see out of linkedin because they are too serious for other platforms

Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So can you share some effective strategies for growing an audience with super limited resources?

Yes, one of the very first thing we usually recommend to somebody that doesn’t have big budget, you know Is to take some time to engage Really, posting is great , of course you’re going to get certain traction out of your posts. But, just posting and pretending that the post will do the magic, it’s wrong, some people will see it, might like it, but if you don’t, at the bare minimum, respond, for example, to their comments, or try and see who these people is, try to interact with other, similar content, or from the content for, that your target audience, is sharing, it’s very hard for them to notice you. The way that social media is right now, we’re basically competing, not, only with regular people posts, you’re competing with paid posts you’re competing with other people, in your same category on your same business with people that it’s outside of your business. So doing little things here and there to engage with your audience will make them notice you and can help gaining more followers, getting more engagement to your brand and little by little building that traction that you’re looking for.

Yeah. Absolutely. So speaking of building and engaging, how can you really foster those authentic relationships with your audience? What do you suggest they do in order to foster that?

First, try to participate in active conversations. one of the mistakes that I see the most with people when they tell me , no, yeah, I engage with my audience is that they tend to leave one word comments. For example, you post, let’s say you, put , the post for this podcast up and you start seeing comments of people saying great and the little hand, awesome. And the little two hands, It’s cool to get those comments, but they’re not really Getting or apporting anything to the conversation other like that the kudos, so Whenever you see a post That you can provide value or add value with your comment Those are the posts that you should start interacting with Because once that you start adding value to those people will start conversations with you as well They will start asking you more questions. They will start interacting with your answers and you will start calling their attention little by little.

Yes. And I think that’s so important, too, is that engagement just for the sake of engagement isn’t good. So if you’re engaging just to be like, oh, look, I’m engaging with other people. I’m going on people’s posts and I’m saying great or awesome. That’s not really engaging. It’s not building that relationship. That person that you’re commenting on isn’t necessarily going to see you as someone they really want to connect with.

And as a matter of fact, it can actually affect your reach. Instagram, for example, does have a specific, very specific filters, in which if they think that your comment is just engagement bait, they will delete it. they will delete it. You will just receive a message saying , we removed your comment because it was against our , terms of service. They won’t tell you why, they never tell you why, which is annoying, but, they will remove it, basically, and they will tell you, no, this is engagement bait. So, it can even affect your profile, and you can see less engagement out of leaving that type of comments.

Yes, on the flip side of that, I’ve had it happen to me a couple times where I’ve left a really meaningful and actually, nice comment and Instagram’s like, no, we’re not letting you post this. And I’m like, but why? Yes.

and once I was even making this joke because the same week I got three or four comments removed because they said oh no it’s engagement bait they were comments mostly on reels because I guess they didn’t see the actual content on the reel and they were like no it’s just engagement bait and that same week I got a comment on one of my posts that was Definitely and most likely spam because it looked like somebody had copy paste like a line of code into the comment It was like a comment like this big, you know with just a bunch of letters and I was like Why did they delete mine? But this one is still here Make it make sense, you know

Right, right, and I think that’s important to remember too is that despite trying to do some of that stuff, the platforms are all limited, so sometimes they’re just gonna do stupid things even if we don’t want them to.

Yep, you gotta be patient you gotta keep insisting and I mean little by little that’s gonna start working

Yeah. Can you share an example of how community engagement has maybe positively impacted one of your clients or a brand that you know of?

Well, I can actually give you a very close example. This is something that happened to us Whenever threads open, okay We honestly open the profile because we’re an agency we have to try everything if you tell me tomorrow look we find the social media under this rock I’m probably gonna open a profile just to see what it is, and little by little, we started, engaging with people, like, actually threads is our, strongest social media . And the same way that we, will share just, important information, like, oh, there’s this new regulation, or, do this with your social profiles, we will, as well, just, have fun with it, and participate in conversations and whatnot. And actually, one of our, strongest clients, It was somebody that we will, that we randomly started a conversation with, and we started finding out that we had a lot of things in common, not as brands, but a lot of things in common, personally, and that led to us having conversations outside of just the like, Oh, you should do that because it’s the recommendation of an agency to like, Hey, we think this is cool. what are you doing? Where are you going? And this person ended up actually becoming a client. And I was telling my friend, sometimes you just gotta be patient and just keep talking to people and people eventually will come to you.

Yes, yes. And I think that’s so important to remember, too, is I was talking about it when I had , my SEO episode up a while ago, how that’s a long game, but organic social media is also a long game, because when you’re taking that time to engage and things like that, it’s not instantaneous. Sometimes people need consistent contact in order to be able to want to work with you. They might not feel comfortable with you yet, but if you continue to talk to them, you continue to interact with them, eventually they might come around and say, Hey, I really know that person really well. I want to work with them.

Exactly. And even though it’s a long game, it can be a really effective game if done properly. Usually these type of clients that come to you out of those little interactions, tend to be not only more loyal but easier to work with because they already know how you communicate, they know how you, how your work is and that will make your life easier as well.

absolutely. What are some common mistakes that you see content creators make when trying to build their online presence?

One thing that I see very commonly done besides leaving the word, one word comments is the fact that people Tends to get very desperate sometimes they will make this one post and it’s , oh nobody liked it Maybe I should stop posting and then they take a huge break and then it’s like I’m gonna try again And then the second post flops as well and they’re like, no, this is not working. It definitely doesn’t work. So everybody’s lying the lack of consistency will kill more content creators and more brands than anything else because people tend to give up sometimes way too quick. And same thing happens, for example, with people that’s chasing, virality.

A lot of people tend to think that, oh, I’m going to make this post, it’s going to go viral, it’s going to go great. And when it doesn’t, it’s like, no. So that, therefore, that means that all my content sucks and I shouldn’t post anymore. And it’s not like that. I mean, a lot of people that has very viral content or that has succeeded as content creators took the long road. I know he has been cancelled, okay, we’re not supposed to be talking about him, but for example, MrBeast, MrBeast was not viral from the beginning, he started on YouTube like years ago, and at the very beginning he had 10 views on each video,

Yeah.

he grew little by little, same thing happened for example with PewDiePie, he uploaded a bunch of videos, And until he got to this one video game he was playing that was a scary game and that he really got scared and took the headphones and threw them away and everybody started finding that funny he started gaining traction. It was not something that happened in the blink of an eye.

Yeah. Yeah. And I think that’s so important to remember is that, it doesn’t happen overnight. There are some people that it will happen for. That is true. But it’s like a one, one in a million shot that that actually happens.

I mean the amount of people that actually get viral with the first post is you can probably count them with one hand. It’s not something that happens as often. And people has issues understanding that concept that virality and getting famous or for your content to actually have millions and millions of likes. It’s gonna take time.

Yes, absolutely. When you’re talking about consistency, can you touch a little bit more on that? Does consistency actually mean, posting every day or does it mean just posting every three days? What does consistency mean in terms of social media?

Consistency actually can mean all of the above. There is not like a particular term or like a particular rule. If you don’t post every day, you’re not being consistent. Consistency can look like posting every day. It can look as well as having an specific schedule, like, Oh, I’m just going to post on Wednesdays. it can look like twice a week, thrice a week. The idea of consistency is making sure that your audience knows what to expect. Not exactly like, oh, do it every day. So, for example, looking at our schedule. We, when we started, our blog, we were posting twice a week.

right.

was a lot of work. Eventually, we decided to change the schedule and do it instead every Wednesday. And we stood some time doing every Wednesday, every Wednesday, every Wednesday. So people knew that always the post of Wednesday was gonna be a little graphic about the blog post and what we were doing. And we stood that for about a year. And not so long ago we changed it again and now we’re doing every other week but still on Wednesdays. So the whole idea here is that people will eventually associate Wednesday with reading the blog. And it’s not necessary for us to be every day reminding people, Hey, Wednesday, there’s going to be a blog post. Hey, Wednesday, there’s going to be a blog post. Because they already know, , at least the people that follow us, they already know, this Wednesday, there is something I should go and read. Same thing happens, for example, if you have an email list. If you email them , every day at certain times, they might actually get tired of you, because they will see you as spam. But at the same time, if you, for example, do it once a week, once a month, they know already what to expect from you. So it’s that, it’s more about building the expectation for your audience and for them knowing that you will stay consistent on that, that they will, they can always expect that from you.

Yes. Yes. So when we think of consistency as well, how do you stay motivated and avoid burnout when consistently creating content?

One thing that people tend to believe is that you should be on the humor to create content always. And that’s not always true. There are gonna be days in which you will have 50 ideas and you’re not gonna know what to do with all of that You’re not gonna have enough hands to create all of that content

And there are gonna be days that you’re gonna be sitting on your couch with a little ice cream Thing eating and thinking like i’m supposed to be posting something and I have no idea what to do So My advice there it’s take advantage of those moments when you have the most creativity you don’t need to post all the content at the same time. You can literally create the 50 ideas that you have that day. Just sit down, think some time, make as much as you can whenever you have those moments of like creativity, those like bright moments and make a content bank. That way, whenever you get to the point in which you have no idea what to do or no idea what to post, you can just refer to the content that you have already pre created and just grab something from there and that will help you stay consistent on the days that you are not able or don’t want to or don’t feel like creating content.

Yes, absolutely. And I totally believe in that because sometimes there are times where you just are feeling so inspired and you don’t even have to actually create the content, even just writing down those ideas and getting them out of your head when you are so inspired could definitely help you for another day so that you’re prepared instead of being like, I have no idea what I’m like, everything falling out of your brain. I know I’ve, I’ve had moments like that where I’m sitting on the couch and I’m like, What am I going to say?

Yeah, I

don’t know what I’m going to say.

those moments happen and yeah, I mean, just writing the idea down, it’s a way to create a content bank. You don’t need to like do it everything at the same time. Just take advantage of those moments and you should be fine. Same thing happens, for example, when you have a content calendar. If you’re, for example, using a scheduling tool. Which is very common for most businesses, right?

You scheduled your content, but you have to understand that that schedule can change. So, something that happens very often to us is that we tend to schedule our content about a week or two in advance. But then, out of nowhere, there is this news about Instagram doing an update. So what we usually do is that we grab that information, we create the post, and whatever post we have for that date, we move to the end of the schedule. And that way we have space for anything that it’s like last minute, and we still keep that content that it’s already created, content is not something fixed, you can move your calendar to put new content whenever it, makes sense, and help you keep. Your consistency up

Yes, and I love that because sometimes there is that thing where you see it on another social media. You see it in the news and you’re like, I need to post about this right now. You can take that time to post about it right now and then just shift what you’ve already created to another day. so looking ahead, what trends or changes do you foresee in content creation and online presence building?

That’s gonna be very strong very quick and very soon it’s going to be AI content We’re already seeing a lot of AI content being generated in a lot of places a lot of people is using AI Generated images, which is not bad We’re gonna see more of that, I know there is a lot of complaints online, particularly saying that oh, AI content is so low quality, oh, AI content is , whatever, or , even people thinking like, oh, no, if you just AI your content, that means that you’re lazy, but honestly, even if people doesn’t like it, AI is here to stay, so You’re going to have to , one, get used to it if you can. Second, try to start learning how to identify that AI content because that will be helpful and understand as well that whenever you see, for example, an AI label, it doesn’t really mean that this person is lazy. It doesn’t really mean that this person is not, doesn’t have ideas. Like AI is an aid for content creation. And that’s not going to change, at most, it’s just going to get worse, so.

Yeah. Yeah. We actually talked about this, I think, in my last episode that we filmed, where a lot of ideation can come from AI. That doesn’t make you lazy. It can also help you on those days when you are drained mentally. I’m not someone who advocates 100 percent creating everything in AI, but it’s a great tool to help you build on certain ideas and things that you’re thinking of.

It has to be a balance, you cannot fully depend on AI because people can’t tell. We have this internal joke between marketers in which is like, Oh this post was sponsored by ChatGPT and then we do the little rocket in the little star because whenever you ask ChatGPT to write a caption, there is always a little rocket and a little star on the emojis. Always. So you can always tell when something has come from the because of that single detail, right? So it has to be a balance, right? It doesn’t have to be obvious that you just chat GPT or AI it, just make sure that it does have like certain you want it. And You don’t know when a trend will come out of that. recently we had a trend that came out of an AI generated post. It was a TikTok trend. The whole like, Ooh, fancy pants reach McGee over here song. It was a twitter post that somebody copy paste, put on AI and asked to make a song off. And , it was literally an AI generated thing out of a Twitter post. And it was so viral. Out of something that was created with the help of AI. And we’re going to start seeing more and more of that in the future.

Yeah. I totally see that. I totally see that. So what is one thing that my listeners can do today to take action when it comes to social media and content creation?

The first thing that I will say is, don’t forget to engage. that’s the first, that’s the one thing, well, there are three things that I will always say, you will see these constantly on threads. One is , have you engaged with your audience? Second, have you talked about your offer? And third. The follower count is a vanity metric. Those are my three favorite things to say, over and over. Take advantage of the time that you have. I would say free time, but not exactly. And this is another internal joke that we have. usually, a lot of those comments you will see around, it’s a bathroom break. Because people will take their phone and just, use that time, and As fun as that sounds, go for it , take those little moments, whenever you’re on the line at Starbucks, waiting for your coffee, you can use that little time to engage with somebody, whenever you’re in the bathroom, even if that sounds funny, but

Yes.

does it, it’s not a new thing, so don’t come at me for that, but, , use every little time that you have, uh, to engage with people. And don’t forget to have fun. That’s the other thing. Don’t forget to have fun. Creating content can be really fun and it can be really stressful. And even though it’s necessary and a good thing, no amount of followers or engagement or content is worth your mental health. So if you’re not having fun, take a pause, take a breath, and then come back.

Yes. I so agree with that because I myself have found There’s certain content where I’m like, I just don’t like creating this kind of content. For example, with the podcast, I’m really enjoying talking to people, getting to know people. I’m really enjoying on YouTube, being able to teach and educate and things like that. But I think if you’re not enjoying the content that you are creating, then yeah, take that break. Give yourself grace, find a different outlet, find a different way to say something. Maybe a blog isn’t a way that you want to create content, so find a different way. to create that content. Find something that makes you happy and have fun with it.

Exactly. That’s It’s the best thing you can do.

Yes, absolutely. So where can my listeners connect with you?

We’re most actively on threads and on instagram But of course they can find us pretty much everywhere like facebook, twitter Yes, it’s still twitter. I’m, sorry and it’s gonna be twitter for the rest of its life facebook twitter instagram, you can find us on our website as well lunamarketingservices. com of course And you can shoot us an email as well to contact at lunamarketingservices We’re usually very responsive unless it’s the weekend because I’m busy raising little tiny pixel cows, so

absolutely. That’s my weekends too. I’m out there, either playing a cozy game or playing games with my husband. So I totally get it. I want to say thank you so much, Celina, for coming on the podcast today. I really appreciate it.

Well, thanks to you for the invitation and I’m looking forward to see what value we can provide

Absolutely. Thank you so much.

📍 And that brings us to the end of today’s creative mind smart mini podcast episode we’ve journey through the world of social media marketing with our guests, Celina from Lena marketing services. Let’s recap, some key takeaways. Consistency is key in content creation, engage authentically with your audience.

Don’t be discouraged if your content doesn’t go viral immediately.

Create a content bank during your most creative moments to help you stay consistent, even on less inspired days.

And embrace AI as a tool to aid in content creation, but balance it with your unique voice and ideas. Remember content creation should be fun if you’re not enjoying the process, take a step back and reassess your approach. Your mental health is more important than any feller account or engagement metric. Thank you for tuning into another episode of creative minds, smart money until next time, keep creating, keep engaging and remember to have fun with your content farewell fellow traveler. ​