“Educate: giving education on a topic you’re knowledgeable about is a sound way to drive traffic to your business” with Brenda Schamy and Candice Georgiadis
Educate: Social media has become a go-to source for education, giving something of value to your audience like education on a topic you’re knowledgeable about is a sound way to drive traffic to your business, educate them on your brand, and make you a credible authority in the space you want to build.
I had the pleasure of interviewing Brenda Schamy, a founding partner at DiSchino & Schamy, PLLC. She practices a blend of litigation and transactional work. Brenda concentrates her practice in the areas of entertainment, hospitality, branding, startups, and general business dealings. She skillfully uses effective negotiation tactics and creative solutions to further her client’s interests. Brenda, an active entrepreneur, has been a business owner for many years, owning both brick and mortar and online businesses in the fitness, music, and travel industries. Due to her extensive entrepreneurial experience, Brenda understands the different issues and challenges that businesses face. Her entrepreneurial ventures have taught her valuable business management skills and how to be a strong, out-of-the-box thinker, which has allowed her to actively anticipate the needs, concerns, and opportunities of her clients. Brenda excels at looking beyond the legal scope of business and working closely with clients to actualize their goals. Born in Argentina, Brenda is fluent in Spanish and English. She received her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and her Juris Doctor degree from the University of Miami. Prior to founding her own law firm, which subsequently merged to become DiSchino & Schamy, PLLC, Brenda was a Miami-Dade Public Defender. She is comfortable in a courtroom and is always ready to fight for her clients’ interests. Having a passion for travel, Brenda feels privileged to have the opportunity to work with international as well as domestic clients from all over the United States. Helping people connect and working with creatives is where Brenda thrives.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Can you tell us a story about what brought you to this specific career path?
Well, as a kid everyone assumed I’d become a lawyer because I was always about what was just! Having been an entrepreneur my whole life owning all types of businesses in the fitness, travel and entertainment industry and growing up as a dancer it was a natural progression that I would combine both the law and my passion for creative industries into one.
Can you explain to our readers why you are an authority about Social Media Marketing?
I’ve been fortunate to interact with social media as a lawyer, business owner and consumer. As a lawyer on behalf of my clients negotiating deals for clients as well as brands, advising on FTC regulations, protecting content and more; as a business owner interacting with influencers for marketing, brainstorming and executing strategy, and creatively creating content (that’s a mouthful!); and finally as a consumer, I’ve watched social media affect how we consumer products, services, and how it affects our daily lives. Having interacted with social media from so many different ways has given me some insight others may not have.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started this career?
That’s a tough one! I worked in criminal defense before opening my own law practice, so I’ve had some wild stories when visiting jails! More recently, I’ve gone to see some of my music clients in the studio and may have ended up doing background ad libs on a track or two!
Let’s talk about Instagram specifically, now. Can you share 6 ways to leverage Instagram to dramatically improve your business? Please share a story or example for each.
1. Interact with your audience: Interact with your audience and get to know what they like what they don’t like, what they want to know, what the care about, etc. One of the most valuable things about social media is the immediacy of information and answers from your target audience.
2. Familiarity: a psychological phenomenon that claims that people tend to develop a preference for things merely because they are familiar with them. Social media allows you to get your brand in front of your audience several times therefore causing this familiarity effect so that later on this brand seems familiar to them and therefore prefer it.
3. Educate: Social media has become a go-to source for education, giving something of value to your audience like education on a topic you’re knowledgeable about is a sound way to drive traffic to your business, educate them on your brand, and make you a credible authority in the space you want to build.
4. Use it to network: Use it to network with strategic partners. Social Media allows us to reach out to people and companies that we may not otherwise have access to. Know your audience and think of it as the world’s largest professional happy hour.
5. Marketing: As simple as it sounds, use social to market your business, expose your brand. It allows you to reach an audience that you wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise, the amount of money required to reach that type of audience on another medium is near impossible (i.e. a $5 Million dollar commercial for the super bowl which is viewed by only 98 Million would get you 1.7 Billion, with a B, impressions on instagram.)
6. Call to action: Using your social media audience you can get your target market to do certain things, things as simple as repost to broaden your network, come to an event, raise awareness about a cause, or even promote your company!
Because of the position that you are in, you are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I think education is fundamental. Not in a conventional sense but real-life education changes lives.
Some of the biggest names in Business, VC funding, Sports, and Entertainment read this column. Is there a person in the world, or in the US with whom you would love to have a private breakfast or lunch with, and why? He or she might just see this if we tag them 🙂
Probably Jay Z or Kris Jenner. Their mix of entertainment, culture, and business is admirable.
Thanks for all of the great insights!
“Educate: giving education on a topic you’re knowledgeable about is a sound way to drive traffic… was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.