Social Media, Digital Communication, and the "About Me" page--with Val Casola

What does it take to become a captivating copywriter and brand storyteller? Our guest, Val Casola, shares her inspiring journey of discovering her love for writing, and how she's turned it into a successful career in communications and external relations. From early encouragement in second grade, to pursuing creative writing in college, and earning her graduate degree in writing, Val's story reminds us all that you should always chase your dreams.

Val is a copywriter and brand storyteller for service providers.  She helps female entrepreneurs ditch the DIY messaging and align their brands with words that deeply resonate with their ideal clients, and represent them as the established business owners that they've become.

In today's digital age, communication has taken on a whole new meaning. In this episode, we delve into the importance of social media in large organizations, the challenge of understanding your audience, and the art of repurposing content to keep it fresh and engaging. Val also shares her thoughts on the fear of losing face-to-face interaction skills due to the pandemic, and how her experience as a copywriter and brand storyteller has helped her navigate the ever-changing landscape of digital marketing and virtual communication. 

Enjoy this insightful conversation with Val Casola, and don't miss her free gift:  go to https://view.flodesk.com/pages/639896f9cdbf00ebab867641 to get your own guide to write an "about me" page for yourself!

This is a show where ideas come together. The guest statements expressed on The Savvy Communicator Podcast are their own and not necessarily the views of The Savvy Communicator.

Thanks for joining us! Become part of the conversation at www.savvycommunicator.com, and follow me on social media: my handle is @savvycommunicator.

Transcript

Amy: 0:00

Calling all entrepreneurs and business moguls. If you want to know how to attract your dream client, this is a show for you. Welcome to the Savvy Communicator podcast. This is a place where we discuss all things communication, facial expressions, body language, but, most importantly, how to talk when you're not sure what to say. My guest today is Val Casola. Val is a copywriter and brand storyteller for lifestyle service providers. She helps female entrepreneurs tell the story that make their dream clients feel seen, heard and inspired to act so they can step into the next level of their business and change more lives. Val, welcome to the show.

Val: 0:43

Thank you for having me. I'm so excited.

Amy: 0:46

Really excited to have you here today. This is just really interesting all the stuff that you do, So you're a writer.

Val: 0:52

Yes.

Amy: 0:53

Tell me about how you got started. In writing.

Val: 0:56

Yeah, i have been writing ever since I really could. I guess you could say When I was young, probably in like second grade, i had a stutter and I got bullied in school because of it and I kind of just stopped talking for a little while.

Val: 1:17

and I think one of my teachers noticed and she introduced me to writing. I remember one day at recess I was sitting at my desk and she came to me with like a blank book and encouraged me to write a story and then from there I went to write like 12 more and we had a little classroom library so there were other students who were writing these stories. But I think I really just took off with it and my books became like the most checked out out of our class library and they were about, you know, like silly things. Like I did a series about a cat and her family who, like, lived in the woods, and things like that. I did a book about my dad, things like that. So that's kind of how I first got into writing and then it was just something that I kind of just carried through and you know, did and other opportunities when they came up.

Val: 2:12

I was on the school newspaper, things like that. And then when I went to college I really didn't know what I wanted to do. I had this idea maybe I would go into politics or be a lawyer, but I kind of quickly realized that wasn't me. And then I started to, you know, take some creative writing classes. And then I learned that my university had a writing major with all different kinds of writing courses, with things like poetry, nonfiction, fiction, rhetoric. So I took whatever I could. I declared that my major and then I had the opportunity to go to grad school for writing as well and I did a half professional, half creative program. I took courses in screenwriting, i took a young adult novel course and I kind of thought when I was like in high school, maybe I'll write a book for young adults.

Val: 3:05

And then I quickly realized when I took the class I absolutely hated it. So I think you know I just grew up a little in that time and realized maybe that wasn't the genre for me. I also really fell in love with poetry and writing essays about my life. So my thesis for grad school was kind of like a memoir of me meeting myself and I wrote that through poetry and nonfiction essays about my life And yeah, so that's kind of my history with writing. And then I got my first job out of school. I got my first job in fundraising at a non-profit and I was writing like social media posts, direct mail, appeals, email campaigns, i was writing blogs for their website and things like that. And then I transitioned from that job into a role where I worked in social media for a professional development company and I was on a team of eight people who managed all the different pages that they had and things like executive communications and external communications. And then I started my own business.

Amy: 4:15

That sounds huge.

Val: 4:17

Yeah, so I guess like writing has always been with me and it just kind of like progressed as I grew up and. I was very into it and very open to like seeing what was out there for me and I really never imagined myself having my own business, but I think my experience in corporate America and the desire to just like work on something that I was really passionate about sparked this idea in my mind You could do this for a living on your own. why not go?

Amy: 4:49

for it.

Val: 4:51

And so that's what I'm doing.

Amy: 4:53

You're chasing your dream.

Val: 4:55

Yeah, that is wonderful.

Amy: 4:57

That is what I think everybody thinks about doing, and how fantastic is that. What a story to start from writing through such a terrible experience. Yeah congratulations to that teacher, yeah.

Val: 5:11

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, she was definitely inspirational to me at the time and. I think I always wonder like how things would have like turned up if that didn't happen. But I do feel very fortunate that I knew from a young age like I wanted to write in some capacity and I just didn't know what that capacity would be.

Val: 5:34

But thankfully, you know, writing has a lot of opportunity and all different kinds of like jobs and I just you know went through a few different ones and found really what I really wanted to do, and I feel really like grateful and lucky to have the chance to pursue that.

Amy: 5:53

Yeah, yeah, it sounds like it. You talked about wanting to be maybe a lawyer or a politician, and you know writing is at the heart of those. You don't get anywhere without writing. So I'm not surprised that your work and your business has grown, because you know that's really what everybody needs.

Val: 6:11

Yeah, i think a lot of people underestimate the skill that writing takes and the role it plays in our lives, and I think because it's such a passive experience like to experience writing that's reading and we read everything. We're reading all day. We're being consuming content all day long and sometimes you don't think about the idea that someone had to put that together or someone intentionally set out to deliver a message to you in a specific?

Val: 6:43

way and being able to do that and communicate with people and bring them along a journey of whether it's through marketing or just, like you know, communicating between friends or in relationships and things like that just communicating. It takes skill and I think you know it's really awesome. You're doing this podcast and uncovering those different layers of the skill of communication and like how it manifests in everyone's day-to-day life and it's such an important skill that is just consumed so passively but when you are able to actively think about it and how words come together and work to influence other people, it really is a skill everybody needs in some capacity to have a successful career or successful friendships or relationships in life.

Amy: 7:31

Yes, i so agree with you and thank you very much, by the way, but you know you're talking about someone sitting down and deciding to convey a message, and I think that you're right. It is so skillful, especially because we just sort of absorb it in a moment and we don't think about I certainly don't think about all the time. Okay, somebody studied the way to bring this message to me and probably tried in several different ways and came to this conclusion that this was the best way and, yeah, that's really interesting. That's really interesting and it sounds like you have a lot of skill to be able to do that.

Val: 8:13

I was on the social media team of this organization with over 700 employees, and we had a very large audience and I was responsible for, you know, helping sell their products and communicating member benefits and helping sell the idea that what this company had to offer was useful to their audience and people looking to grow in their career. So it took a lot of skill in like knowing who I was talking to and what phase of life that they were in and we had different personas to try to understand like there's people at all different stages of their career journey who are interacting?

Val: 8:53

with this organization and we have to figure out which products relate to which types of people. when was the most appropriate time to begin marketing to them, to participate in these different products or free offerings, to get involved with the organization?

Val: 9:10

So it took a lot of knowing who we were talking to and trying to find the right time to connect with them make them interested in these products or services and inspire them to take action and purchase from the company or attend an event or, you know, just engage with us on social media and answer our questions and just interact with the company so we could learn more about them and what they needed so we could integrate that into our marketing efforts. Moving forward.

Amy: 9:38

Well, it sounds like an ever-moving target, because when I think of social media, you know, when I log on to, you know, instagram or TikTok, whatever you know, i don't expect to see the same thing twice and if I see something similar, it sort of takes you back. You're like, oh well, i must not have refreshed then if I'm seeing the same thing. So, yeah, it sounds like constantly changing directives and goals, like you said, to meet people where they are, and yeah, that that sounds really interesting, certainly fast paced.

Val: 10:12

Yes, yes, it was very fast paced and there was a lot of pressure to come up with new ways to interact with people and also repurpose content so that it looked new or it hit a new part of a thought that someone was having or an emotion they were experiencing. So if it didn't work the first time, maybe, you know, we try something different and we can get engaged with this person in a different way.

Amy: 10:40

So one of the things that we were talking about previous to this interview is you mentioned that we are getting so good at communicating digitally and virtually and quick, quick, quick that it's almost taking over, say, written media or face-to-face interactions in a new way. Would you talk about that a little bit?

Val: 11:09

Yeah, of course I think and just big speaking from personal experience when COVID started and there was that kind of like mad rush to get set up and start working from home. I have worked from home ever since and the idea of going back out into society and attending like networking events and interacting with people in person again gives me a little bit of anxiety, because I haven't done it in so long and I'm sure I'm not the only one who feels that way and it's just a fear of losing a skill or not working on a skill for so long, and then you're being thrown back into it and it's kind of like a shock of like how do I interact with people again? and I think that's kind of one way that is manifesting in my life. But I also think another way is, you know, being at home during that period of COVID all we really had were our phones and the television and the computer and kind of get like sucked into that world and your primary form of communication becomes through those devices and I do

Val: 12:23

think that there has kind of been a degradation of empathy and interacting with other people, and sometimes we forget that we're talking to another person through a screen, and I think that manifests in all different sorts of ways. Of course we've seen it in politics, we've seen it in culture, but we've also seen it in marketing, where people think that you know, they can say whatever they want to try to attract people's attention and make promises that they don't really follow through with and kind of like pray on people's emotions to get them to act certain ways or take a certain action or spend money on certain things that otherwise that might not be the case if we were all together in person more often So.

Amy: 13:18

if it were a perfect world and you could wave a magic wand and help to alleviate those problems and help, to you know, get people back in the world again, to create some kind of balance in between the digital and the virtual and the you know in person, what would you do? It was just a total fantasy question, but it just what you said kind of inspired me so I thought I would ask.

Val: 13:48

I think, just reminding people that it's important to listen to each other and you know, the emotions you might feel at face value might not be the full story, and I think that's something as a society that you know we've kind of internalized and made that reality, when that's not always the case and people come from different backgrounds and different experiences and whether you agree with the words coming out of their mouths or not, we're all still people and it's important to listen to each other and try to understand each other and when we do that we're able to communicate so much more effectively and move forward on certain ideas or on certain paths much more comfortably and with a plan.

Val: 14:35

And I just think that that's lacking in society today and we just don't listen to each other and we take what we're feeling as the single source of truth all the time, and that's not always the case and sometimes just listening to people can kind of unravel that and help you see a new perspective or understand someone, and you still don't have to agree with them, but it just helps you move forward and creates healthy relationships with people but also just communication in general yeah, i think that you must be an excellent listener, especially growing up yeah growing up the way you have, and and I don't know, of course, what that was like, but what it makes me think of is that I can just see you sort of being barraged with whatever else was saying and not being able to do anything about it at that time, and so your listening skills must be through the roof, and that's exactly what you do now is you work to get clients to sort of find their dream.

Amy: 15:47

You work to, you know, make things work for them. So, yeah, you must be a great listener, and it's to their benefit, i would think.

Val: 15:56

Yeah, I would say I'm a very like, I'm an introvert and I'm a very like reflective person. So yeah a lot of the times when there's a lot of external like stimuli happening around me, i'm absorbing it like one item at a time, and people's words or it can also be that kind of stimulus as well, and I just being a writer, naturally I put a lot of thought and weight behind every word that I say or write down And it's important to me to make sure that I'm actually saying what I mean and listening to other people, to make sure that I'm conveying my ideas in a way that I think that they're going to understand it best.

Amy: 16:43

So clients come to you for your marketing expertise? What kind of techniques do you use to help a client really feel seen and supported as you work together?

Val: 16:58

Yeah.

Val: 16:58

So I would definitely say listening to them and taking note of their current state and understanding what they're struggling with in this moment and what they want to achieve down the road, and understanding what's missing between those two spaces in time and being able to listen to a client who comes to me and make it clear that I am understanding what they're struggling with, what they're desiring, maybe the limiting beliefs they're telling themselves about why, they can't achieve what they want, and using those items and understanding them by listening to them really helps me create like a comfortable experience where they can feel empowered to share with me the information they need, to be vulnerable and allow me to really get to the heart of the message that they want to share with other people and then put that into words in a way that sounds like them and feels like them and makes them comfortable getting out there and repeating those words to people that they want to sell their services to.

Amy: 18:13

Yeah, i think. Well, i know, and I'm sure you know too, it takes a lot of courage to be vulnerable, especially when you really want something. It's hard to say I really, you know I'm doing X, but secretly I want to be doing Z and kind of putting that out there to somebody and so to make yourself that safe place. We don't think of that in marketing or social media. We don't necessarily think of it as a safe place. We certainly consume it and creating that authenticity certainly speaks to us, but it must be a really interesting job to be the one creating that safe space that they will be vulnerable with, so that they will be vulnerable with you. Yeah, and I also. That's really cool.

Val: 19:04

Thank you, and I also. One of my goals is also to recreate that kind of atmosphere for the client that the person who comes to me is creating their services for, because, in my mind, if you can't be vulnerable with someone, how can they expect to really be vulnerable with you? and a lot of the women that I work with they have businesses and services that revolve around being vulnerable, so like, for example, if I was working with a professional organizer they are asking people to become vulnerable enough to let them into their homes and see the maybe chaos that exists there and just like the

Val: 19:44

real, like raw life behind someone's front door that's also not on Instagram, set up to be so aesthetically pleasing. So it takes an amount of vulnerability from the professional organizer to make the client they want to help feel vulnerable enough to let them inside. And the same thing goes for if you're a nutritionist and you want to help someone lose weight and you have to understand so many things about why they make the decisions that they do, and you know you need to understand how someone eats, how they exercise, why they make those choices that they do And for a lot of people that can be like a really just like tough thing to talk about or a tough thing to like face up to the choices that they make that result in something that upsets them.

Val: 20:37

And so to get to that place with someone where they can really dive deep and participate in an empowering experience in an empowered way, to get the real results they're searching for, requires a lot of vulnerability on behalf of the service provider who's there to help them, because it's all about making people feel comfortable and empowered and like they're ready to invest and make a three, four or five figure investment in a service that is going to change their life.

Val: 21:08

Like you have to be open and honest and just you know very empathetic towards people, to kind of create that environment where that can happen.

Amy: 21:18

Yeah, so many layers. I'm seeing, while you're talking about this, that I think for a lot of us who aren't writers, we think, well, you know, you have an idea and you write it down. How hard can it be? but you are really explaining beautifully all the layers that have to go into it, because it really is. It's not just about the person receiving, it's about you being able to create the circumstances with which you know somebody's going to see that and have it speak to them. We're going to take a quick break back in a moment with our expert guest, Val Casola. I want to go back to something that you said earlier. You were talking about that. Some people who come to you are really feeling like they can't achieve. What do you see in situations like that? Is there a pattern? Do you see consistent things throughout, or is it really individual to the person?

Val: 22:45

There are a few patterns that I see, and I think the biggest one is trying to do too many things or be too many things at once.

Val: 22:56

So for example, there's this old saying in marketing and I think it really rings true If you're speaking to everyone, you're speaking to no one, and you want to as a writer, narrow down the person you're speaking to, because then you can have that more intimate conversation with them and make them feel like they know you and they trust you, especially if you're trying to empower them to make a large investment and take their harder money and give it to you to receive some kind of transformation that they've been desiring.

Val: 23:30

So I think one mistake I see is that people are trying to talk to everybody, but in reality just like you aren't for everyone, your business isn't for everyone, and having the understanding that that's the case and that you need to really know who you're speaking to to be able to communicate with them effectively is so important, and I do think sometimes people are so interested in making as much money as possible that they try to just go for and attract as many people as they can when there's a lot of value in actually repelling people who aren't a good fit for your services, because when you're working with people who can't really like get the full transformation of what you're offering or it's just not relevant for their life, you're saving yourself a lot of time and energy, you're saving other people a lot of time and energy and it allows you to focus on making the impact that you want to make for the person that you are especially equipped to make it for.

Amy: 24:35

That's so interesting because two things. What I'm going to digress for a minute. You talk about really focusing in on the type of person that you want to attract, and that's one of the things that I really discovered early and often when I was starting this podcast, is everybody's like you gotta find a niche, you gotta find a niche, you gotta find a niche, you know, find what you want to do and then focus it down and focus it down even further. And you know and that's been interesting for me because you know it's sort of like well, but I do want everybody, i want zillions of people listening to this. And so then, what you said about how there is value in repelling the people that aren't a good fit for you, i think is a fascinating way to look at it, but it makes a lot of sense.

Val: 25:27

Yeah, i mean also you're only one person, you can only do so much and you want to if you want to have a fulfilling business and a fulfilling life, you want to focus your energy on the type of work that fills you up and fills your cup and also allows you to make the impact that you set out to make in the first place by starting your own business.

Amy: 25:48

Val, i want to sort of turn things around for a second, and we've talked a lot about your experience and how that has informed everything that you do and how vulnerability can lead you to being able to get someone to be vulnerable with you, and so that made me think of you know, just as you are working with clients and inviting clients to come work with you. you've also been a client, you've been a customer, you've been a patient, you've been all of these things yourself. How does that influence your work, would you say?

Val: 26:29

I actually.

Val: 26:30

So this is an interesting question because the type of woman that I work with and the type of business owner that I work with I've actually hired and made my own investment in, and it really did shed a lot of light on what I can do and how I can help business owners in a writing capacity.

Val: 26:51

So I won't go into a ton of detail about the problem or struggle that I was experiencing, but it was a health related issue and I felt failed by the traditional medical system.

Val: 27:06

I had been through a few different doctors who had told me some things that I just wasn't super comfortable with, and I was put on different medications and the side effects of those medications were sometimes worse than the actual symptoms that I was struggling with and I honestly felt like the exception to all modern or holistic medical advice and my life was really just kind of like at a standstill and I was experiencing these symptoms. That made me feel really gross and just bad, and, as a consumer of Instagram myself, i know that people share a lot of useful information on Instagram. So I started to kind of go down the rabbit hole of like remedies that I could try to help alleviate my symptoms, and I found this holistic nutritionist. I found her page and I felt like she was listening to someone just like me, and she really showed me that she had a clear understanding of what I was struggling with, where I wanted to be and what was keeping me from moving on to that place of where I wanted to be.

Val: 28:22

And I felt like she was listening to me, like someone was finally listening to me, and one of the best things that I experienced and I also do for my clients as well is that she used language that I have used talking to my friends, my family and my doctors and she used that in her marketing and that made me feel like she was really an expert in what she was talking about and she knew me and she knew what I needed and that made me feel comfortable in making a four figure investment with her to improve my health and it just made me feel great as a client and you know my experience with her was wonderful, but I do think she did a really great job of attracting me to her services and setting me up to ultimately take the action and empowered action

Val: 29:14

to improve my health and have her be the person to help me, and this technique is something that's very common in copywriting and it's called voice of the customer research, and that is where you go to the places that your ideal client or you know that the person you want to serve is hanging out and you eavesdrop on their conversations and you learn from them directly the things that they're struggling with, the things that they want, what's keeping them from achieving that desire that they have, and you take those phrases and words and use them in your own copy to attract that person and show them like, hey, i know you're experiencing this, i know you want this, and then you position yourself as a solution to help bridge the gap between those places and you can really show someone that you are the expert that you know they've been looking for and inspire them to take the action, to hire you, and you can change their life while also changing your own at the same time through the growth of your business.

Amy: 30:26

Wow, that's really interesting. I had never heard it put in that way voice of the customer research. But it sounds like it's not only attracting the person you want. They're not only attracted because you've said, hey, i understand this, i know about this, but because you've done that research, you actually do know and understand, so you're ready to work with them.

Val: 30:52

Yeah, yeah, you know, anyone can go to places where people are talking and see what they're saying and internalize that and use it however they want. But there's also like you have to do it ethically, to actually give the client an experience that you're promising. Right, and if you don't do that that's going to reflect in, you know, that person maybe dropping out of the experience and asking for a refund, leaving you a bad review or you know word getting around and you starting to get a poor reputation.

Val: 31:27

So I would never encourage anyone to go do those things and position themselves as an expert in something that they are not an expert in.

Amy: 31:36

Oh of course.

Val: 31:37

This is just a technique to create those connections and develop that trust that you're going to back up with things like testimonials from other clients or client case studies that you publish on social media or on your blog, or you send in your email newsletter packing it up with credentials. So your education, your certifications in a certain field. So this is only one piece of the puzzle that will ultimately create an experience that empowers someone to invest in your services and support your business so they can receive a transformation in their life in return.

Amy: 32:15

That sounds wonderful, Val. thank you so much for being here today. I really appreciate hearing your expertise and your perspective.

Val: 32:22

Oh, thank you for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation with you.

Amy: 32:27

I'm so glad Now I understand you have something for our listeners.

Val: 32:31

I do, yes. So, as mentioned in the beginning of the episode, my business is all about empowering female business owners to craft a message that they're comfortable enough to get out there and market and use to sell their services. And I know that something that's really difficult for people is writing about themselves. And when you have a business and you have to write your website and you have to write your about page, sometimes that's where people get really tripped up because they feel like writing about themselves is like braggy or it just makes them uncomfortable.

Val: 33:06

So I've created this guide to help you write your about page in a way that's empowering for you, but also empowering for your readers, and it shows that you are an expert and that your solution can really offer a true transformation for someone's life. So I've provided Amy with the link to that guide, so you can just click the link in the show notes and input your first name and your email and that guide will be delivered to your inbox. And this is really great if you're a business owner and you struggle with writing about yourself and you want to show your expertise and build connection and trust and just a good relationship with new people coming into your business. So yeah, that's why I created this free about page guide that you're more than welcome to go ahead and grab if you're interested.

Amy: 33:57

That is wonderful. Thank you so much, and for everyone listening, that link will be in the show notes. I highly recommend that you take advantage of it. Thank you so much for listening to the Savvy Communicator Podcast. Join us at our website on wwwsavvycommunicatorcom. We'll see you next time. Bye.