Dhariana Lozano Show Notes

Dhariana Lozano has been in the social media and digital marketing world for over 7 years. She is the co-founder of Supremacy Marketing, a boutique social media marketing firm based in New York City who manages the social media presence of clients like Chef Jordan Andino, Flip Sigi and more.

Her experience ranges in creating social media strategies and consulting for both B2C and B2B brands to help them stand out and break through digital walls for ongoing success. She blogs at DhariLo.com where she provides social media tips, resources and courses. You can see her work published in Social Media Week, Social Media Today, and the AgoraPulse blog.

Most passionate about

• I’ve been in social media marketing for about 8 years now. I started off in the corporate world and I went to agencies and I felt that social media was a bit of an after thought; people would bring me in last minute into meetings. They didn’t really understand social media and what I could do. I got a little frustrated and I decided I wanted to do this on my own and work with the companies I wanted to work with and work one on one with people to help them understand social media, so that it’s not the last thing we think about, but something they think about in the beginning, when they want to create a campaign or start a business or a product the want to market.
• I started my business about 4 years ago with my partner; we help entrepreneurs, small businesses, large businesses, we help anyone who wants to be on social media.

Dhariana’s best advice about approaching customers

• I think, as an entrepreneur or small business, you have to be very clear about who you are so you can project to your potential customers or your ideal customers in the right way. I know sometimes people try to talk to everyone but that doesn’t work, so be clear about who you are and who your customer is; it makes the process a lot easier.
• That’s not the easiest process to go through, figuring out who you want to work with or who your target customers are, but it’s worthwhile sitting down with your team, if you have one, or just by yourself, and thinking about who you are and the image you want to project; like what do you want people to see you as and what makes you stand apart from every other business.
• I live in New York City, so we have hundreds of thousands of sandwich shops, but every one is a little bit different; you need to find what differentiates you.

Biggest failure with a customer

• I worked with a company, this was 8 years ago, back when social media was fairly new, at least to them. I created a post that had a political tone, but I didn’t think much of it, and people got upset. The customers of the company got upset. We took the post down, and it really affected how I felt. I thought it was no big deal, my customer was very upset with me, their customers were upset with them, and that was really hard.
• It was funny because now, in 2018, we’re seeing brand take on issues that they wouldn’t touch before, political issues, social issues, and I think it’s such a drastic change from 8 years ago. I think it’s great that brands are embracing issues that, before, they wouldn’t go near.
• So, that was a learning experience, but now I feel okay, because brands are really taking a stand politically and socially.
• Eventually, it wasn’t a match, for different reasons, but it did affect the relationship, but we got over it and fixed it. I profusely apologized. It taught me to have deeper conversations with my customers about what they want, what they don’t want, what things we can talk about, what things we can’t talk about; so that’s become routine now.

Biggest success due to the right customer approach

• I worked with a restaurant in New York City. I was sitting in the restaurant when someone walked in, holding their phone out, and they had pulled up Instagram, showing a post that we created and published online for my customer, and they said, “I want this.” They pointed at their phone and it was such a good feeling.
• I had a conversation with them and they said that 60-70% of their business was from online; people would see them on the Internet and come in. So, that was the biggest moment where I thought, it works!

Dhariana’s most recommended tool

• Because I work in social media, we use a lot of different tools. I’m going to go really simple here: Email. Email helps people communicate; it helps people to reach out to us if there’s a problem.

Dhariana’s key success factor

• I think that It’s because I really care. I love social media marketing, I want to help businesses learn and understand my job and social media. I genuinely care, and I want my customers to feel good about what they’re putting up there.
• And I genuinely think that I’ve gotten to the point where I am now, with the support of my business partner, obviously.

Dhariana’s Mountain

Since we believe that the best way for entrepreneurs to get a fast, big, and sustainable success is by leading your (new) market category, and the entire entrepreneurial journey reminds me of mountaineering, or conquering the mountain; I want to ask you if there is a mountain you dream of climbing or a mountain you have already climbed.

• I don’t spend much time outside. I’m not an outdoorsy person. I’ve been camping maybe once. To climb any mountain would be great. I would be so out of my comfort zone, but I do like to explore and do things that I’m a little bit uncomfortable with because you learn so much about yourself.
• So, if there is a small mountain in New York I think that’s the right place for me to start with climbing…

 

The best way to connect with Dhariana:

• Instagram
• Facebook
• Twitter
• Blog

 Dhariana Courses & Free Library

• Paid Courses
• Free Library 

More resources for Entrepreneurs

1. Don’t Miss – Customer Focus Strategy & Execution: Market Analysis for Fundraising
2. Hayut Yogev’s Latest post: The three free, most practical steps to researching and locating your market
3. Former interview: Matt Sweetwood’s key success factor “I never quit. You quit when you win.”