EP388: Navigating Social Media for Profitable Growth With Armando Leduc | Leduc Entertainment

1
Stacy Jones: Welcome to marketing mistakes and how to avoid them. I’m Stacey Jones and I’m so happy to be here with you all today. And I want to give a very warm welcome to Armando Laduk. Armando is the founder and CEO of Laduke Entertainment, a full service social media marketing agency that excels in helping businesses generate leads, add clients, and increase revenue. With over two decades of experience in the television and film industry, Armando is an expert in creating captive, creating content that sets businesses apart as industry leaders. Beyond his entrepreneurship, he brings a wealth of experience from theater world, earning him critical acclaim, prestigious awards, and well deserved recognition for his remarkable contributions to both the stage and screen. Armando’s success stories are a testament to his skills and innovative strategies.2
Stacy Jones: He’s transformed businesses, helping them grow from 150,000 a year to 600,000 in just six months, while also propelling startups from zero to a remarkable 100,000 per month in just nine months. His unique approach and creativity have earned him, well, recognition as an award winning entertainer and filmmaker. Today, Armando and I are going to be chatting about social media strategies to take for driving profitable growth and improving customer experiences. We’ll learn what works from Armando’s perspective, what should be avoided, and how some businesses and individuals just miss the mark. Armando, welcome. So happy to have you here today.3
Armando: Thanks for having me. I’m happy to be here.4
Stacy Jones: Yes. And so I talked about, you have a theater background, a film, tv, all this. What got you to here today? How are you now? This social media guru helping brand.

5
Armando: So I have a chemical imbalance, I believe my wife would say so. I don’t know. It’s just how my brain works. I’ve got a lot of things going on. Good thing is that I’ve been able to surround myself with people that can implement all of the visions that I have in my head. And I think that’s what’s been the secret to my success.

6
Stacy Jones: And so what made you decide to get into social media marketing from all the different things that you’ve done? I mean, obviously, content creation has been a key core to who you are and what you’ve done, but how did that parlay over?

7
Armando: So I got involved with a friend of mine from high school. He has a personal injury firm in Atlanta called Bader Scott. Super successful, right? Eight figure firm. And during COVID he wanted to get into consulting. And so he started a company called eight figure firm where he was teaching other attorneys how to scale their businesses to eight figures. And so he called me, said, hey, I want you to come out and I want you to shoot some content for my business, but a lot of it. And at the time, I had only done maybe one offs, like commercials and things like that, but I hadn’t really thought about a volume of content creating. And so I learned, failed a lot, got overwhelmed, but in that process, learned how to really crank out a volume of content for companies.

8
Armando: Like anywhere from like 50 to 100 pieces of content a month for one client. And we just saw how this approach was just growing businesses like ten X, like fast. I mean, we saw this nonprofit attorney go from seven hundred k a year to 2.4 million in six months, right. Using some of these strategies. And I was like, man, success leaves clues, right? And Lewis was like, hey, you can also have a million dollar business. And I said, how? And he said, well, you can pay me $2,500 a month and I can teach you.

9
Stacy Jones: That’s how he has a million dollar business.

10
Armando: That’s right. And that’s how he has a million dollar business. But it was obviously more that I was paying for my house at the time. And it was just one of those scary things that I think every entrepreneur needs to do is to step out of their comfort zone in order to grow. And I did. I made some financial just risks and they paid off, thank God. And I learned how to scale my business with content marketing. And I’ll tell you, when we became a product of our own company, that’s when things really started to work for us. And we made sure that were posting every day across all platforms, building authority, credibility.

11
Stacy Jones: What do you mean by that, when you became a product of your own company?

12
Armando: So we took on Lagoon Entertainment as a client, where were treated as a business. Right. We shot every month, we batch created the content. And so everything that we do is what we sell to our clients, which is great as a marketing company. I think marketing companies don’t necessarily walk the walk. They tell you what you need to be doing with your business and if you ask them, oh, well, are these things that you’re doing for your business? And they’re like, well, not really, because. And then the excuses start, right? And I go, well, I didn’t want to do that, right? I wanted to be able to sell from conviction. I wanted to be able to sell from our own experience. And we saw how went from like $69,000 a year in revenue.

13
Armando: And this was consistent since 2012, like anywhere from like 40 to year in revenue to our highest year was like 70k. We went to half a million dollars in a year, like fast, and then we hit seven figures the year after and then we’ve just been doubling every year since. And just really with this sort of organic social media content and it’s just us building value, entertaining, educating and just building value. Just answering questions.

14
Stacy Jones: And then, so you did exactly what the cobbler did not do. You paid attention to the holes in your shoes and you repaired them and you set yourself up to have the best shoes in the world so you could actually shine and show you by lead by example. A lot of companies don’t do that.

15
Armando: I don’t know why that is, but no, I’ll tell you, I know why.

16
Stacy Jones: Because of the cobblers problem.

17
Armando: Yes, it’s definitely difficult a lot of times, and I have to still train my staff to treat Ladug Entertainment like it’s a client, but it’s just one of those things that you have to continue to do to make sure that you don’t treat it like it’s a side project. It’s got to be priority.

18
Stacy Jones: We have the same thing with Hollywood branded. So I started our blog in 2012 and then we have over 1700, 800 blogs written now. Then we started the podcast, I think six years ago, and we have over 380 episodes of that. And anytime I took my eye off, I have been very diligent. Like, Hollywood branded is a client, our social media is the client, our blog is a client, our podcast is a client because it’s our recipe of how we actually do something on a continuous basis of marketing the agency. And that’s what you’re doing as well. And our services don’t include blogs and podcasts, but they do include influential marketing, product placement and celebrity endorsements. And we’re able to write about that and share about that and build an inbound system and our own marketing machine.

19
Stacy Jones: It’s the same thing that you have done because it allows people to learn from what you have to teach.

20
Armando: Yeah, I think it’s scary to put yourself out there, especially like when it comes to video. And I think that’s a real barrier to entry for just people in general when they’re thinking about, oh, content marketing, I have to be on social media and do I have to be there and do I have to dance? Because it’s TikTok. And so they get all in their heads about it and then they may start, right? Because they get that motivation. They’re like, all right, I’m going to do it now. And they do it and it’s not as good as they thought it was going to be right.

21
Armando: And so because they’re not giving themselves grace and they’re not giving themselves enough time, consistency over time, then they stop because they’re like, oh, if this is what it’s going to be like every time, they’re going to put myself through that torture, right? And so they stop. But if you can just stick it out. And part of our customer journey is showing our clients what it looks like before and after, right? And we have a whole video of just like before and afters of our current clients from their first shoot to six months down the road. And I was like, this is going to be you. I promise you will hit that epiphany, you will hit that stage, and then it’ll just all make sense to you. So stay on it. Stay with it. Hold on. One.

22
Armando: Driving me crazy like this whistling sound from the AC.

23
Stacy Jones: I know what you’re talking about. I don’t have it going on right now, but ours does another lovely sound on occasion.

24
Armando: And I can’t take. All right, continue.

25
Stacy Jones: Okay, so when you’re working with a client for the first time, how do you launch that partnership? How do you get it going? How do you figure out what the right social media strategy is for them?

26
Armando: So we start with the offer, right? Like, what is the offer? What is it that we’re trying to create? And here’s how I try to work. Like, what does five years, ten years down the road look like? Right? And down the road for me, looks like a book. Speaking engagements, pr, getting invited to podcast for me, right? That’s what I think everybody should work towards. Not everybody’s going to get there, but at least if we’re working towards that, then we’re on the right track. So I go, okay, what is the book? If you were going to write the book on something, what would it be? And so we’ll start with that. And then we’ll go, okay, if we’re writing this book, then these are sort of the table of contents. These are your content pillars for what you’re trying to create. Because guess what?

27
Armando: After the end of six months or a year, you can take all of this content. And I’ve done this for clients, take all of the content, send it to a writer, and the writer can write a book for you based on all of your content. So now what we do is from the very beginning, we go, okay, what’s the brand? What’s the offer? What’s the book? What is the keynote? What’s the online course? What does that look like? Right? And then we start creating content that funnels everybody towards the offer, right. And I don’t care if they’re a personal injury attorney or a family law attorney, if you’re going to write the book, what is it about? Because none of these ideas are necessarily original anymore. It’s just what makes them different is the person’s lens, right?

28
Armando: It’s a person’s experience and that’s what we’re trying to capture. So that’s the first step is like, let’s see the world through that person’s lens. What’s their perspective, what’s their opinion? And when they’re creating content, it should always be through that lens, right. To stay consistent. So that’s first step.

29
Stacy Jones: And what’s the second step?

30
Armando: Second step is execution and consistency. It’s just setting it up and understanding that every month it’s the same, don’t worry about it. People are, they say it takes what, 17 touches for a prospect to become a client. So you got to hit them with the same information and they go, Armando, didn’t we just cover this last month and be like, yeah, we’re going to cover it again just this way, or say it this way or say it in this environment because you might be living it, somebody that is consuming the content may only get it for 3 seconds, right?

31
Stacy Jones: They’re just dipping in, dipping out, and you’re not top of mind for them. So when you’re sitting here going, oh my God, we just say the same thing over and over again. As long as it looks different and it’s written a little differently and it’s still getting the same message. And you’re not just simply posting the exact same social content over and over and over again. You have a system in place.

32
Armando: Yes. And you just got to work. The system implementation is tied to growth in your business.

33
Stacy Jones: So what are some of the things that you see people do wrong with social media?

34
Armando: I think people ask a lot. I think there’s a lot of call to action and not enough value build or just posting to post some infographics or whatever. It’s just like what’s the point? There’s no engagement on this post. Sure you’re posting, but why it’s almost was counterintuitive is like just don’t worry about it at that point. If you’re not building value, if you’re not educating, if you’re not showing yourself as the authority, then in my opinion, what’s the point of posting? Then don’t do it. So I would say, those are some of the big mistakes that I see. And then just treating it as an afterthought, treating it like it’s something that you have to do. But I’m going to put my intern on it. Can you guys handle our social media?

35
Armando: But if you really prioritize it and really focus on it is a game changing tool.

36
Stacy Jones: How can you make it be that game changer? What is that recipe where I know you have drilled people from making pennies a month into making hundreds of thousands of dollars a month or more, but what is that secret magic sauce? Besides having systems in place, besides making sure that you duplicate content and do it and post on a regular basis, what is that secret sauce?

37
Armando: I like to call it content into clients. I created an online course for it. I’m finishing the book on it. But it’s our five step process on how we create content from actually the Hollywood production, right? So I’ve been doing television and film for years now, worked on some huge projects, and I just sort of took notes and was like, okay, what seems to be the same thing that is running through this entire system? And it is a system. It’s a formula, right? Otherwise, if everybody had to reinvent it and improvise every single time, it would waste so much time. Everybody knows what their job is.

38
Armando: And so that’s why a lot of these production companies stay with the same people, because it’s just like, okay, we’re going to take this same template, the same formula, and infuse it into this movie and then infuse it into this movie. So the template is there. And so what we did is we just took that template and we put it on sort of a micro level, right? So your channel is a network television show. And so we’re looking at it. Is it spike tv? Is it Oprah? Is it oxygen network? Is it hallmark? Is it, you know, what is it? Why are people going to come to your platform and what information are they going to get? That’s the development phase. So we’ll figure that all in the development phase. Then from there we’ll go into pre production.

39
Armando: And a pre production is all of your topic extraction. What are people looking at? And some of the things that we do are like, top ten lists, which are really super powerful. So we’ll go top ten restaurants in New Orleans. And I usually do referral partners, so I’ll go top ten web digital marketing companies in Louisiana, top ten digital marketing companies in Miami. Everywhere where I work, right? Everywhere where I have clients. And so I get to tag those people. They share it. They follow me back. Now I’m shouting them out. So that’s a really quick, easy way to start increasing engagement and start creating strategic partners with some referral partners. So we’ll do top tens, we’ll do reaction videos, we’ll do trending reels, obviously, Q and a podcast type stuff. We do a history of in your niche.

40
Armando: So we have a client in New York that’s a family law attorney. And so we’ll take fun divorce stories and we’ll have her tell the story. So, for instance, a guy had his kidney removed and gave it to his wife because she needed a kidney. She cheated on him, and then they wanted to get divorced.

41
Stacy Jones: Did he have to give the kidney back?

42
Armando: Well, he wanted the kidney back in the divorce. And they were like, no. The court said, no, they can’t do that correctly.

43
Stacy Jones: Wanted to kill her.

44
Armando: Yeah, pretty much. So he got the money, so she told a story. And so we do stories like that, which I think they do really well on social media. Social media, like story wise, do really well. I always recommend, if you can tell me a fact and then infuse a story as to why it happens that way. I think that’s the way to go. And so we’ll do the pre production, figure out what it is that we’re going to shoot on that one day a month, because everybody can get prepped for one day a month, right. And this goes into some of the mistakes people make. They think that they can be consistent if they’re doing it every day. And I don’t necessarily think that’s true. Right. Because what if you get sick?

45
Armando: Or maybe you don’t have the time, but if you batch create the content one day a month, then you can record it all, edit it, and then you’ll have these videos in the bank. Right. And so then you can distribute this content a lot easier because you’ll have a tool like Asana or Monday.com and you can put all of the topics in there with the videos. And when it’s the day to post, super easy. And it takes ten minutes to post on all platforms.

46
Stacy Jones: And so once you’ve done that and you’ve created all of the content, would you keep this and would you repost the same content later on?

47
Armando: Again, I will if three months or four months down the line, there’s some videos that do really well, I’ll post those. But here’s the magic of creating content on a monthly basis is that you learn about you right? Like, you get better at the messaging, you get more confident because you’re living and walking the walk. And I didn’t really understand it was an epiphany I had the other day because it was like, wow, if I’m a personal trainer and I’m putting myself out there as a personal trainer, well, then I better stay fit, I better stay eating well and doing the right things because I’m putting myself out there on a consistent basis. And because people see that consistency, they’re going to remember you as that person. Right?

48
Armando: So it reinforces the authority when you create content on a monthly basis, that’s new and it’s fresh. And it also lets me know that you care about your business, right? Because you’re like, okay, you care about you care about how you’re being presented. So it also subconsciously tells me that if I was your client, you would also be treating me like that. And so I think that along with getting referrals and return on investment and leads and all of that good stuff that happens, if you could post consistently, the side effects of what will do for you personally are priceless. Just priceless, right?

49
Stacy Jones: And so this is a great time to share. If someone wanted to actually find you, Amanda, if they wanted to get in touch with you, I’m assuming you have maybe a little bit of a digital presence, a social know, something like that. But can you help lead our listeners to.

50
Armando: You? Number one, if you google my name, Armando Leduce, you’ll immediately I’m on the four pages of Google. So everywhere from the movies that I’ve done, obviously my website, obviously my social handles, and ladukeentertainment.com, armandaladuke.com, they all go to the same website. And you can just hit me up there. And we do free consultations, free social media audits all the time, where you just contact us and we’ll look at your social media and we’ll take a look and say, hey, this is probably what your brand should look like. And I like to put it through the lens of acting class. Right? When you’re going into an acting class and they’re typecasting you because that’s just the way it goes. Like, you have a type. So let’s lean into it instead of trying to repel it. And so we’ll go, okay, these are your archetypes.

51
Armando: This is how people are going to perceive you. This is how you operate normally and naturally. So let’s lean into that a little bit more and let’s not shy away from it. Let’s go 100% all in on that brand. And so those are the things that we’ll figure out in the social media audit and basic things on how to really improve their stuff. In a day, they’ll be able to take some of these tools and really change what they’re doing.

52
Stacy Jones: And so also, what are some other things that go wrong when people are approaching social media? What are other mistakes?

53
Armando: Other mistakes not staying brand consistent, being confusing when you’re offering too many products, confusion on what it is that you are offering. There’s so many mistakes. I would say one of the biggest things is just not getting started. You got to get in there and you just got to get started and get some mentorship from somebody that already knows so you don’t have to waste time banging your head against the wall. They can save you years. It might cost you money at the front, obviously, but if it’s going to save you years and it can potentially get you exponential growth, then why not make that investment, right?

54
Stacy Jones: Any last parting words of advice to our listeners today on how they could better succeed with social.

55
Armando: I’ll tell you what I heard in a public speaking seminar, and the public speaker was talking to other public speakers and he said, don’t allow your hang ups and your imposter syndrome to prevent you from telling your story and your message, because people are going to receive it from you in a way that they’re not going to receive it from somebody else. So me and you can have the same exact words, like the same exact words and perform it, and one side will be able to resonate with me and then a whole nother side won’t even get it. And then when you say it, they get it. So don’t deprive the world of your message because of your own hang ups.

56
Stacy Jones: And that’s an easy thing to have happen. I mean, I don’t think I’ve met many entrepreneurs or successful business individuals, actors aside, but I think actors, even themselves have this where impostor syndrome is a real thing, it hits everyone and it’s just part of being human in general, I think. And it’s easy to not think that your message is valid. It’s not that you actually are better than the other people around you, and it’s a hard thing for a lot of people to combat. How do you suggest people kind of step in and embrace and get over that hurdle?

57
Armando: If you’ve never taken an improv class, I highly recommend taking an improv class. It will make you fearless. Because once you get past yourself, and you focus on the message and you focus on how you’re helping rather than what is it? Oh, it’s about me. It’s about me. It’s not really. Nobody cares that much. They’re more focused on your messaging, and improv will just beat it out of you. Improv, you will fail at improv, and in that process of failing, you’ll become irreverent. And once you become irreverent, then you can operate. You can be creative when you’re irreverent, but if you’re judging yourself before that process, it’s going to be hard to get out of your own way because you’re trying to critique yourself during the process. When that shouldn’t be the time you’re critiquing, it should be after the fact.

58
Armando: And being okay with sucking at the beginning. Like, it’s not going to be great and that’s okay, just not going to be great. And that’s fine.

59
Stacy Jones: I completely support you on that improv. But I think also it’s figuring out your why. Like, why are you doing something? And so that you can actually focus on that message instead of focusing on yourself. And if you have at least enough faith in the fact that you’ve created a message that is going to help someone out there, whoever it might be, you’re going to be able to share that message, even if you do so stumbling and stuttering and saying the wrong words sometimes and looking like a total asshole on occasion because you don’t have everything dialed in and you’re not perfect. And it’s easier at that point because you can use that as your crutch instead of trying to find it in your inner essence, yourself.

60
Armando: You’re preaching to the preacher.

61
Stacy Jones: I could talk to you for a very long time, but thank you for sharing your time with us today and your insights and all things social and how to be successful.

62
Armando: Thanks. Yeah, you’re really good at this, obviously, 300 something episodes.

63
Stacy Jones: Malcolm Gladwell says you have to do something 10,000 times, so I have a little ways to go still, but thank you. And I too have impostor syndrome quite often that I have to get over. So it hits everyone for sure. And to all of our listeners, thank you for tuning into another episode of marking mistakes and how to avoid them. And if you have any interest in how you can get some really cool content for your social Hollywood branded, my agency is the one you should reach out to chat, because we can help you amp up that content with cool things from movies and tv show product placement to celebrity partnerships and influencers. Getting other people’s content is a really easy way to make content for yourself happen, and it’s really cool content that gets some sparkly attention.

64
Stacy Jones: So reach out and until our next episode, have a great one. Bye.