Here is a transcript generated by otter.ai of The Content Mix podcast interview with Giuseppe La Paglia, content marketing manager at StubHub, on the power of social listening:

Carlota Pico 0:13
Hi everyone and welcome back to The Content Mix. I’m Carlota Pico, your host for today’s show. And I’m excited to introduce Giuseppe La Paglia, who is EMEA Content Marketing Manager at StubHub and is also a former radio host. Welcome, Giuseppe, and thank you so much for joining us today on The Content Mix.

Giuseppe La Paglia 0:34
Thanks Carlota, for having me and congratulations on this series of shows which are great.

Carlota Pico 0:40
Thank you, that’s so sweet, Giuseppe. Okay, tell me a little bit about yourself. How did you get into StubHub? What led you to where you are today?

Giuseppe La Paglia 0:49
I’d say it’s been like, you know, looking for content marketing if I had to summarize it enough, as for my academic academical background, I graduated in marketing and communication and then I attended a master in digital marketing. But my first relevant experience working in marketing was in 2012 when I worked on the sports broadcaster Eurosport, I mean, you may know it. And there, I took care of communication campaigns. I was part of the marketing communication team. And I was taking care of communication campaigns both offline and online. That experience was very important for me, because it was my first contact with digital marketing, let’s say. For the first time, I was handling digital campaigns and using all the power of the possibilities that social media offered, especially for for a very big account. And this led me to the second milestone of my career at a digital marketing agency called Haiku Media, headquartered in Barcelona. I started working there as our community manager, but very soon the agency needed a new project manager. And I completely switched all my tasks to project management, and I taking care of developmental applications and websites, commerce, and also digital marketing strategy—media like email marketing and strategy. And so as at Eurospot sport, I discovered, the potential of digital marketing at Haiku Media I found out how content could be useful for our clients. And it was clear to me that that was the path I wanted to follow. So after that experience, I started working as a freelancer developing content strategies for my clients. And then I in 2017, I arrived at at StubHub. My first role at the company was catalog tools manager—I was the person responsible of the tools that the content team used to upload content, especially events. It was a pretty technical role, let’s say. But my previous experience of Haiku Media, working with CMS, websites, migration and other technical tasks was fundamental to this. But then at the end of 2018, I had the opportunity to change my role and to go back to content creation. And today I’m working as a Content Marketing Manager as you said for EMEA, in EMEA markets.

Carlota Pico 3:55
Okay, excellent. So you’re an Italian now living in Spain. Soccer wise, who does it better— Italy or Spain?

Giuseppe La Paglia 4:04
Well, over the past years, I mean, Spain has been a model, let’s say, for football fans, but you know, the Italian championship is coming back. It’s coming back.

Carlota Pico 4:19
Okay, excellent. Well, Giuseppe, tell me a little bit about your favorite marketing moments, any project or campaign that you’d like to zoom into?

Giuseppe La Paglia 4:30
I’d say two moments for two different reasons. The first one I’d say, it wasn’t you know, when I was working on Haiku Media, one of our clients was industrial, you know, a traditional Italian company selling industrial components, okay, like electric motors, turbines, and valves. Let’s say not exactly the sexiest topic. Okay, so what we when they asked us was to totally renovate the website. And as a SEO copywriter, in that case, I had to write content. For example, the whole content of the page, including, for example, very technical texts, like product pages, and I had to write about, yeah, electric motors and stuff like a turbine, so, and it was such such a challenge. Writing about traveling is great writing about sports is great, but, as I said before, writing about valves may not be the sexiest thing. So in the end, you know, I had to write, like, more than 100 texts, about these topics. But that experience allowed me to move on because you know, a daily task, you know, everyday work life, you know, it’s not always… I mean, sometimes you have to take on tasks that maybe aren’t, are not your favorites. So that was like, really helpful for me. And another experience was very structured and long campaign that we carried out on Haiku Media—I mean StubHub—last year. It was a campaign focusing on France, Italy and Turkey. We wanted basically, for Q4 of 2019, we wanted you know, to maximize investments, or football and in basketball in all these three countries. So it was about creating buyer personas for football and basketball fans, for three countries. So six buyer buyer personas in total, six different creative concepts. And then copywriting for the numerous assets that we produced, together with our studio team. So we prepared for that campaign for two months—really hard work, but inventive, creative. Very hard, but in the end, you know, we saw really good results.

Carlota Pico 7:30
Excellent. Giuseppe, American football or European football?

Giuseppe La Paglia 7:35
Soccer basically.

Carlota Pico 7:36
Oh okay!

Giuseppe La Paglia 7:37
Soccer, soccer.

Carlota Pico 7:38
This is a perfect example of why localization is important. Right?

Giuseppe La Paglia 7:42
Yeah, exactly.

Carlota Pico 7:45
Giuseppe, what’s your biggest challenge with content?

Giuseppe La Paglia 7:49
There are many challenges, many challenges. But if I had to pick one, I’d sat sometimes you have to resist the temptation to create a piece of content just because you like it, ad not because it’s the best thing for the company at that moment. Imagine for example, you’ve just come out about creative brainstorming, you know, to come up with a creative concept. Okay? So it happens that you, maybe you like it, you like one but you know, it’s not the best fit for the campain you have to develop. So you have to resist sometimes for the temptation to pick something just because you like, and not because it’s useful.

Carlota Pico 8:50
Okay, well moving into StubHub. What is it? Could you offer our audience a thirty second elevator pitch?

Giuseppe La Paglia 8:57
Well, StubHub is the world’s largest ticket marketplace. It’s an American company. It was founded 20 years…exactly 20 years ago. Then it expanded globally. And StubHub is now a place if you want to sell or buy tickets for events—all the types of events you can, you can imagine—and it’s really customer focused.

Carlota Pico 9:26
Okay, very interesting. As the largest ticket marketplace in the world, how has StubHub used the power of content to retain the attention of an audience on lockdown?

Giuseppe La Paglia 9:41
Well, as you may imagine, I mean it’s, of course it was a difficult, unprecedented time for everyone. But I think especially for tourism and ticketing industries. In our case, I think we did it in two ways. First being useful. We tried, you know, to keep our users informed about rescheduled or canceled events. And at the same time, we would try and you know, to amplify the various initiatives like live streamings, for example, that, you know, the world of music and culture in general carried out during the lockdown. It was great…especially, I don’t know if you remember the One World live streaming curated by Lady Gaga. This is an example. And on the other hand, we tried to be both useful and support. Supportive to the industry, because in the end content marketing and content in general, I think it’s about being helpful. So we decided to support the industry—the music industry—with various initiatives. For example, one of them was called Match Monday, and every Monday we featured three profiles of emerging artists. with picture and text to give them more visibility in such a difficult moment. Or we—as you are doing at The Content Mix—we’ve been hosting a series of interviews to emerging artists, which was very, very interesting, because we had the chance, you know, to discover what the main problems—the main issues—for the artists were. So we wanted to be supportive giving them a voice.

Carlota Pico 12:06
Okay, very interesting. I’ve actually hosted around 120 interviews now, since we started The Content Mix, in roughly three months. And time and time again, people have constantly been saying how important it is for content to be genuine and authentic, but Giuseppe, what does that really mean?

Giuseppe La Paglia 12:25
Well, I think to answer this question, we should reflect a little bit on what users look for today. I mean, when when a user looks for something on Google, they look for an answer—they have a need that they want to satisfy. So starting from this point, we need to create authentic and unique content. And by that, I mean useful, and human content. Because our customers must be always our focus. So focusing on our customers and their needs, you need to talk to them addressing their needs, their concerns. So in my opinion, authenticity is not originality, okay? It’s not being original, —there are two different things. It’s being able to address with a simple language, avoiding jargon, or too much complexity, addressing your customers needs. I think this is, as I mentioned before, I mean, this is, in my opinion, what content marketing at the end of the day, is about.

Carlota Pico 13:52
Okay, so then let’s take one step back, how do you know what your customers need?

Giuseppe La Paglia 14:00
From a technical point of view, I mean, if you know, of course, the best scenario is that you know your customers. I mean, in the sense, social listening is fundamental, tracking hashtags, listening to your community, talking and striking conversations with your customers, this is fundamental and you have to listen using all the resources that the digital world allows you to use.

Carlota Pico 14:44
Okay, would you like to recommend any social listening tools to our audience?

Giuseppe La Paglia 14:49
For me, it’s the one I’ve used the most so far, it’s HootSuite. HootSuite is very powerful, easy to use. Maybe not at the beginning, but I mean, as every tool, you need some time to get accustomed to it, but in the end it’s a really powerful social listening tool.

Carlota Pico 15:14
Okay, well, because of COVID-19, I feel like all brands have turned to the internet and people are just being flooded with so much content that’s not always valuable. So in terms of views that turn into actions, how do you know what platforms are going to generate the best ROI for your company?

Giuseppe La Paglia 15:35
Well, I think if you if you’ve been working for many years in a company, you should already know who your customers are, and what are the the channels that convert the most. If you don’t, I think there’s…you know, for z specific campaign once I had to use BuzzSumo, which is a really powerful tool, and to know where our customers were and where they were talking. And BuzzSumo is really powerful. You have the opportunity now to search for a topic, and according to that topic, you get many results about where the topic has been shared the most. Okay, so imagine you want to look for unknown holidays, holidays in Madrid, you get a full list of results with the social media, for example, with all the channels where people are sharing the most about that topic, that keyword.

Carlota Pico 16:54
Okay, so interesting. So basically, don’t reinvent the wheel. Follow what your competitors are doing and listen, listen to your audience where they’re already are at and then replicate that.

Giuseppe La Paglia 17:05
Yeah, at the same time, I would also suggest having a look at what your competitors are doing where they are, as well. So yeah, I don’t think it’s about reinventing the wheel, as you said.

Carlota Pico 17:22
Okay, very interesting. Well, Giuseppe, I am going to pick your brain on website development. According to HubSpot, 63% of global marketers are looking to make a website upgrade in 2020, since part of your responsibility at StubHub is to manage the copy on your website, I was obviously on your LinkedIn profile, and saw that that was one of the things that you highlighted on there. Do you have any website best practices or tricks and tips for marketers that are looking to make that website upgrade?

Giuseppe La Paglia 17:54
I mean, if we talk about copywriting I mean, maybe I’m going to state the obvious, but trust me—proofread. Once you once you have done the upgrade, proofread the new content because it’s surprising the quantity of typos, the quantity of mistakes that you can find on a website—even even the biggest ones. So I think proofread, and but also take this opportunity, I think the upgrade as an opportunity to, as a chance to, to do something that you didn’t dare to write before. So try to test things, test and analyze things. I think this is a good way to optimize and raise the bar with your performance. So this is my advice.

Carlota Pico 18:58
Okay, so again, let’s take one step back. Why do you think marketing professionals want to upgrade their website?

Giuseppe La Paglia 19:06
Well, I think mainly because I guess the HubSpot data is also given due to the COVID-19, and the fact that bought the fact that people are turning to digital more than ever.

Carlota Pico 19:26
Okay.

Giuseppe La Paglia 19:27
So, above all, in terms of ecommerce, they are thinking more digital today more than ever. And also the fact that in this thinking more digital, people are increasingly likely, I have to say, given more and more importance to content as a great way to attract customers, not just to attract, but attract and engage customers.

Carlota Pico 20:05
Very important—engagement aspects. Okay, let’s take a walk down memory lane, Giuseppe. If you had to give one piece of advice to your younger self about pursuing a career in marketing, what would that advice be?

Giuseppe La Paglia 20:22
Well, if I imagine myself 10 years ago, I think I liked only to do things that I liked. Okay. And talking about marketing in doing this, I overlooked some some aspects of marketing that are really important, like ads, or analytics, for example. If I could go back in time, I think these are some aspects that I would deepened, I think.

Carlota Pico 21:03
Okay—so a data driven approach? Learn more about how to use data incorporate into your marketing strategies?

Giuseppe La Paglia 21:09
Yeah, not only data, but also advertising, for example; I have to admit, it’s an aspect, it’s a branch of digital marketing that I’ve never felt enthusiastic about, but if I could go back in time, I will certainly study more about advertising.

Carlota Pico 21:35
Okay, well, it’s never, it’s never too late to learn something new, Giuseppe.

Giuseppe La Paglia 21:40
Oh, no, no, no. Exactly for that reason, I had to compensate after for what I didn’t study at that time.

Carlota Pico 21:50
Okay, excellent. Well, moving into our set of rapid fire questions, which are basically your recommendations for audience. To get this section started off, I’d like to ask you about your source of inspiration. So who do you admire—a professional role model or an influencer?

Giuseppe La Paglia 22:06
There’s a—and volleyball fans for sure know—Julio Velasco. Julio Velasco is an Argentinian former volleyball manager. He arrived in Italy, and at the end of the 80s, and he revolutionized basically volleyball in Italy and created a winning team—many winning teams in Italy. He used to say one thing about teamwork. He said, you know, when everyone is always saying that teamwork is an ethical issue, he said, it’s about the method, actually, and how to implement it. So I like this vision. And I like his vision for many other aspects.

Carlota Pico 22:58
Very interesting. Thank you. What about a book, an event, a hash tag, a community, a publication that you’d like to recommend?

Giuseppe La Paglia 23:08
Well, we are in such a difficult time of pandemic. We are used to hearing about contagious, of course, in negative terms as the assumption. But there’s a book which is called “Contagious: Why Things Catch On” written by Jonah Berger, which is great. Even though it was written in 2013, it’s still valid. And it’s where he identifies the six aspects that make things catch on. So I really recommend this. “Contagious: Why Things Catch On”

Carlota Pico 23:57
Very interesting. I think there’s also a movie called “Contagious”, but it’s actually about a virus. So, I would shy away from that movie right now! Okay, Giuseppe, and last but not least, what’s your favorite app at the momen, and why?

Giuseppe La Paglia 24:15
I mean, this is not a very famous app, but it’s called Stellar. It’s an app which is great for visual storytelling, especially for the traveling industry. It allows you to create very visual and engaging stories, I think, better than Instagram does. So I recommended you this — Stellar.

Carlota Pico 24:46
Okay, very interesting. Well, thank you for all of those recommendations, for those great insights, tips and tricks. And I look forward to hosting you again on The Content Mix in the near future.

Giuseppe La Paglia 24:58
Thanks for having me, Carlota, and congratulations again on The Content Mix initiative.

Carlota Pico 25:03
Thank you. That’s again, so sweet. And to everybody listening in today, thank you for joining us on The Content Mix. For more perspectives on the content marketing industry in Europe, check out The Content Mix. We’ll be releasing interviews just like this one every day, so keep on tuning in. Thanks again, have a fabulous day and see you next time. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai