Meet Meryoli Arias, a marketing maven who’s crafted compelling social media strategies across a range of industries, from retail to tech startups.
Her success mantra? Connection. Meryoli believes that understanding and addressing the unique needs of each customer are key to influential social media strategy.
Whether scaling LinkedIn followers for Apollo from 23K to 40K in just three months, or getting media recognition for Chili Piper’s TikTok, her focus remains the same – building strong relationships and creating engaging content that reflects a brand’s values.
As a dedicated user and keen observer of social media trends, she knows how to stay ahead of the curve and captivate audiences with her distinctive spin. While others might chase virality, Meryoli’s approach prioritizes consistent community engagement for long-term, sustainable growth.
Join us as she shares her insights on achieving both immediate metrics and lasting success in the digital marketing landscape.
You’ve had the chance to work across several different verticals, from retail to tech startups. How do the social media strategies and goals differ across these industries, and how have you tailored your approach for each?
My approach is the same for every industry I’ve been in because people are people regardless of what they are looking to buy. And the main thing people look for on social is connection, so keeping my strategy human, honest, clean, and level-headed is what would describe my strategies across the many industries I’ve been fortunate enough to work in.
Having said that, the needs you cover in each industry that will make the push for that purchase are different. What has helped me define how to approach those needs is an exercise of understanding the buying process and the motivations behind a purchase like the one I’m trying to influence with my social media strategy.
You have a stellar reputation for achieving significant growth in social media communities and followers. Can you walk us through your strategy for increasing followers and engagement, using a particular success story as an example?
Being social on social is the greatest strategy. Knowing that you are on a platform to build relationships so strong that it eventually turns into sales. But the main thing is the relationship you create with your community. That has to be front and center. You do this by doing the hard work of listening to the conversations and starting some of your own.
In the end, success in social nowadays is a combination between: what your company says, what your employees say, and what your customers/potential customers say.
At Apollo our LinkedIn community went from 23K to 40K in the last 3 months.
At Chili Piper, during my time there, I helped take the social media community from 13K followers to 80K.
With the rise of platforms like TikTok, short, impactful, and human-centric content has become increasingly important. How do you capture the essence of a brand or message in such a short amount of time while keeping it authentic and engaging?
Having a clear understanding of your brand values and brand voice is the best way to do that. When you have that, you can ask yourself: Does this represent our values? And if the answer is yes, you’re on the right track.
How do you keep up with the ever-changing landscape of social media and digital marketing? Are there any particular resources or strategies you use to stay ahead of the curve?
Being a user. I don’t think I could go back to the times when I wasn’t a professional trying to dissect the strategies used by some social media professionals. I am an avid user of social media in my professional life and my personal too. Paying attention to the patterns is very helpful to stay on trend.
But even more important than that, adding my twist to trends and getting inspiration from literally anything has helped me seem different from others throughout my career.
You’ve had to balance short-term goals, such as increasing followers, with longer-term community building. How do you approach this challenge and ensure a balance between immediate metrics and sustainable growth?
It always goes back to the community. I don’t believe in virality as a strategy so I don’t pursue it. It just happens sometimes when you do good work consistently. So, my main take is to put your community first. The balance is not between immediate metrics and sustainable growth, the balance is between the amount of content that is about giving to the community and the part where you request something from it.