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“—and I know you and Layla are…” Reagan ran his tongue over his front teeth and glared at my forearm like it had personally offended him. “…close,” he finished.
I nodded. It would be entirely inappropriate—and, yes, unprofessional—for me to discuss Layla’s management decisions or our relationship with Reagan. But I also understood his frustration.
“Well, I’m impressed,” I said. “By your hard work and passion. But…”
He smiled tightly. “There’s always a but.”
“But,” I emphasized, “I need you to explain what a potential social media campaign for PennCo and Elustre would look like because, I’ll be honest, this Nova Davidson business is showing me the ass-end of social media’s impact on a brand. Before I can agree to move in this direction, I’m going to need more specific information.”
Reagan’s brows knitted together, and I could almost see him replaying my words in his head, like he was looking for the catch and unable to find it.
He cleared his throat. “Well… you’re right,” he said slowly. “The power of social media can be used for good or for evil. The Instagram giveth, and the Instagram taketh away, as we’ve just seen. But…” Excitement kindled in his eyes. “When you have an experienced social media strategist—and I’ve been running my own accounts and my friends’ for a while now—you’ll find that you can get back what was taken away and more. There is no better way to direct a narrative and shape or rebuild a reputation than a positive social media campaign.”
I made a mental note to search for whatever personal social media accounts he might have been referring to. In the meantime, I wanted to hear more.
“So what would you do if you were in charge?” I asked.
“I mean, it’s pretty obvious. We need to make sure that the negative posts aren’t the only thing the public sees about Elustre or PennCo, you know?”
I nodded.
“So in addition to the regular social media strategy we should be running, I would recommend—and honestly, any PR crisis company would tell you the same—a campaign specifically targeted to overcoming this particular gaffe. Like…”
I listened intently while he went through the kinds of accounts, posts, and influencer agreements he would include. He explained the reasoning behind every decision and gave examples of PR disasters in the past that had used similar techniques—including some he’d managed for his friends. It made me realize just how much worse our situation could have been than it was, but I still liked the idea of fighting fire with fire.
“So how do we start?” I eventually asked.
“Start?” Reagan repeated.
I pointed to the screen. “One of the examples you gave was a simple set of posts showing regular good news the company was involved in. We can post about this tour. Do a post for each event explaining a facet of why Elustre is such a game-changer in the performance fiber industry. We might even be able to get some of our industry connections to help us.”
“Well… yes.” He cocked his head. “But the posts need to be a little more engaging than, like, ‘Here are three long, science-y paragraphs about fibers.’”
“People in the textile industry would enjoy?—”
He reached toward me like he was going to lay his hand on my forearm but stopped himself. “We’re not talking about just reaching textile people. We’re talking about reaching non-textile people, too.”
My skin tingled where he would have touched me. “Non-textile people don’t care about textiles.”
“They do if we make them care.” The excitement in his eyes was contagious. “We want everyone to fall in love with Elustre. Period. We want the industry to fall in love, yes. Definitely. But we also want the soccer mom to know why she loves the new uniform shorts. We want the yoga instructor to recommend us to her students. We want the coolest kids in school to put a word on their favorite new fabric so that they can set a trend that’s defined by it. We want to reach consumers.”
He was right, of course. It seemed like we’d set a priority a while back of marketing and selling to manufacturers, and it had landed us in the situation we were in now, without a robust consumer marketing program in place. I was confident that Layla had excellent reasons for not jumping into the social media fray earlier, but if she was concerned enough about the fate of the Elustre launch to throw together an impromptu road trip, surely this was the time to try new things.
“Let me talk to Layla before we create any Elustre-specific posts,” I said. “She’s in charge of PennCo Fiber, and I don’t want her to feel like I’m countermanding her orders, especially when there might be a solid reason for her hesitation that I’m unaware of, like a conflict with some part of our launch strategy with Apex Athletics?—”
“Yeah.” Reagan’s disappointed sigh felt like a cloud blocking the sun.
“—but I don’t see why we can’t take advantage of this trip to create some good general content about PennCo,” I concluded.
His eyes met mine. “Wait, really? You’re giving me the go-ahead?”
“Yes. It makes good business sense.” The words were a reminder to both of us that this was about more than the way my own heart galloped when Reagan’s eyes sparkled with hope. “It can’t hurt to try, and it won’t cost anything. If the posts don’t move the needle after a while, we can conclude that Layla’s right, it’s really not a good fit for this industry. I’ll have January get Layla on a call so we can decide about the Elustre-specific content and get the credentials for you to have access to those accounts?—”
Reagan winced. “Layla’s sick, remember? Should she be doing calls?”
“Good point.” I ran my hand over my jaw, still surprised to find stubble instead of my usual beard. “Who has the login information for our accounts?”
“Nataly could get them. I’ll shoot her an email.” He turned his laptop toward himself and began typing.
