EXPO 2014 Promo Staff Training Seminar

Get Social with Ryan Dahlstrom

Ryan Dahlstrom Speaks at ED Expo 2014

Still think the whole social media concept is a waste of your time when it comes to marketing your club? According to Ryan Dahlstrom and Michael Sartain of Rideout Media Group and RescueMyBar.com, it’s time to think again.
“The television industrial complex is what we have believed to be the best way to sell product and services over the last 50 years,” Sartain relays. “The internet has changed this. It took 50 years for radio to get to 50 million listeners. It took 12 years for TV to reach 50 million viewers. It took Twitter 18 months to get 50 million users. To put it lightly, the way social media works is exponentially more powerful than television, radio or print media.”
With that being said, here are the key points in the social media marketing arena that Dahlstrom and Sartain covered at the 2014 Gentlemen’s Club Owners EXPO during their Promo Staff Training Seminar.

Ryan Dahlstrom Key Not Speaker at ED Expo

The truth about ROI. “Everyone says that you can’t do an ROI (Return on Investment) with social marketing,” says Dahlstrom. “That’s bullshit. Social media is the only way to do a true ROI. You can track exactly what you’re spending, making, etc. It’s the only ROI that you can not only truly track, but that you can also see exactly where your traffic is coming from.”
Welcome to the dark side (of Facebook).  “Look up unpublished posts—or dark posts—on Facebook,” emphasizes Sartain. “I can’t tell you how helpful these are. You can target individual people by their spending habits, age, interests and numerous other factors. In most advertising, if you can get one percent of people to engage with you, that’s fantastic. With dark posts, even the shittiest post will get five percent. I’ve seen dark posts get 45 percent. Why? Because I’m only sending dark posts to people I know like my product/service or similar products and services.”
Instagram is your best friend.  “You can’t put links on Instagram, so this turns many club owners off,” says Sartain. “But if you’re a good marketer, you realize that this form is better for you. You work at gentlemen’s clubs. You have something magnificent to show off—images. If they can’t see what your club is like, if they can’t see it digitally, they will go right down the road to your competitor.

“Another thing to include in those photos are the things you are doing to contribute to your community,” continues Sartain. “For example, some of the large gentlemen’s clubs have charity events. They take pictures of these events and post them on their social media, which includes Instagram. Even if all you do is put a box outside for a food drive and at the end of the night take a picture of all the food you collected, that will get reposted and you will get nothing but good press from that.”
Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook (by Gary Vaynerchuk). “One of the most important books you can read on social media marketing is “Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook” by Gary Vaynerchuk,” says Sartain. “The jab, jab, jabs are the funny posts or posts of something cool going on. Half of the posts I do are just laugh-out-loud funny. I don’t want people to just be interested in your clubs so they go to your Instagram. I want them to be interested in your Instagram. Do you understand the difference? You want people to come back just for the sake of seeing your latest posts on Instagram or other social media sites. The right hook is drink specials. The right hook is free coverage if you do such and such. It’s what brings them into your club after you have gotten them interested with the jabs.”
Build your social army. “Don’t hire some geeky guy outside your company to do all of your social media,” says Dahlstrom. “Get someone inside your club to build your own WordPress site. It is so ridiculously simple. You need a fan page for your company. It’s called social layering. Also, pick someone in your company to have a personal page so you can open up other pages within your own company. Create multiple accounts within your company and share stuff within accounts—all of which you own. Have a DJ add such and such, a bartender add such and such, all different content that leads back to your fan page (WordPress site) for your club. Now you have a social army.

“It’s really important for you to have other people—even you, the owner or manager—reach out to people as an individual and then bring them back to your club’s site,” continues Dohlstrom. “I reach out as Ryan Dahlstrom. I don’t reach out as Nightclub Hall of Fame. But in the end, all of my social media sites, personal or otherwise, lead back to my company’s page.”
Social media internships. “Think about offering social media internships,” Sartain suggests. “Think about how many 20-year-old guys out there, who are already so much better at social media than you are, who are willing to do an internship with your club. I have 14 unpaid internships right now. Guys want to work for you, and these are the most devoted people you will find that want something more than money—they want the connection associated with your club. And if you run into a hurdle with the university not wanting to work with a gentlemen’s club, set up a new entity. I’m telling you, it’s not difficult to do. There are so many people who are fans of your gentlemen’s clubs that are willing to work with you.”
Make yourself SEO-able. “If you don’t have a blog, you need to get one ASAP,” says Dahlstrom. “Blogs feed SEO. You can’t go into your website and update all six of its pages every single week. Put a blog feed in there. That’s what all your stuff feeds into and what feeds SEO, so when people search different things on the internet, they can find you. Even if your website is mediocre, create a one-page kickass home page and link it to a blog that you update weekly.”
To listen to the entire seminar …
To learn more about Ryan Dahlstrom, please visit Ryandahlstrom.Rocks. To learn more about Michael Sartain, please visit Michaelsartain.com.