Social Media Portal

Head of social media and blogs at Wix Carolina Solari on creating sharable content for websites

Social Media Portal (SMP): What is your nameand what do you do there for Wix.com?

Carolina Solari (CS): I?m Carolina Solari, head of social media and blogs at Wix.

I lead the team in charge of all Wix.com social media networks and blogs across different languages. My team works in English, Spanish, Portuguese, French and Japanese. We also plan and manage all the social media marketing campaigns and promotions in the various countries our users are based in.

SMP: Briefly, tell us about Wix

CS: Wix.com is a cloud-based web development platform. We offer an advanced editor to create websites and an Artificial Design Intelligence tool that can design new websites, complete with text and images, just by answering a few questions. Wix empowers millions of businesses, organisations, professionals and individuals to take their businesses, brands and workflow online.

SMP: When was the company founded, how many people work there and how is it funded?

CS: Wix was founded in 2006 by three friends who, while trying to pitch another business, found that it was too difficult to create a website. Today, Wix has 1,400 employees around the globe.

SMP: Who are your target audience and why?

CS: Wix has users across every audience. We see a lot of small business that combine our website design with our ecommerce tools to run their business. There are also creatives who use our platform to feature their work and bloggers who use Wix to create and manage their blog. We also feature tools for businesses such as hotels and restaurants.

SMP: Briefly, what does your job entail and what does a typical day look like?

CS: There are three sides to my job: creating compelling social media content, coming up with useful articles for our blogs, and connecting with our users on different platforms. Most of my days start the same. First, I go over all the trendsetting websites to understand if there are some news or topics we can tap on our social media platforms. After that, no day is the same! My work day could be all about getting ready for a crazy Facebook live we?re doing in the evening, overviewing content for one of our fun marketing campaigns, or just going over the blogs? editorial calendar for the upcoming weeks.



SMP: What makes it a great job?

CS: I think that what makes it a great job is the fact that Wix marketing moves really fast. This causes our jobs to never go into a learning plateau. We are constantly facing new challenges which encourages us to do things most of us have never done before; this creates a never-ending learning curve. I just love it!

SMP: How did you initially attract users to your own site, social channels et al and how do you do it now?

CS: We?ve always grown our content outlets in the same way: by providing our users with original, high-quality content through our blogs and social media channels.

SMP: What are the challenges that you?ve encountered and how are you overcoming them in what you have been doing so far at Wix?

CS: I?ve been working for Wix for six years now. I?ve seen most of our social media channels grow almost from zero. As we grow bigger, it?s becoming challenging to keep our user-Wix team interaction on a personal level. I really believe that human connections are the key to a successful social media strategy, so this is very important to me. To overcome it, I continuously encourage everyone on my team to keep the human factor very present when talking to our audience. Our brand should be friendly and approachable, of course, but it should also be very clear that there is a human being answering in the name of the brand. I think people are looking to talk to other people, even when approaching big brands, so feelings should be expressed, jokes should be laughed at and feedback should be truly weighed.

SMP: What are the high moments of what you have been doing so far?

CS: A high moment had to be after the launch of our Artificial Design Intelligence (Wix ADI). We let Wix ADI run Facebook live streams to create websites for users that commented on the posts. These activities were AMAZING, the demand was so high that we had to stop promoting the posts! In the end, ADI had created over 400 websites on Facebook and each website took the amount of time that it takes to make a cup of coffee.

SMP: What do you see as your biggest challenges and opportunities for your sector and the competition that you have?

CS: We?re continuing to create better products across our platform. Whether that?s deeper ecommerce tools, a better editor or even Wix ADI. We were founded on the belief that the Internet should be accessible to everyone to develop, create and contribute. That belief still guides what we do today.

SMP: How did Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) take to develop and where did the concept come from?

CS: After talking to users, we found that their main trouble was creating content and making a beautiful website. We wanted to make the latter as easy as possible. Wix ADI brings in the learnings we have from our 97 million users to create unique and stunning websites.

SMP: How did you launch Artificial Design Intelligence (ADI) and how is that progressing (and how will it evolve)?

CS: We launched ADI in the summer of 2016 to English language speakers and have since expanded it worldwide. The feedback and the ways we?ve seen it used are great. As it?s evolving, we?re constantly taking in customer suggestions and looking at ways to make it better.

SMP: What is the most challenging part of building upon your brand presence in digital environments (including content/social media)?

CS: It?s not a challenge, but we are always looking to include our users. It?s why so many of our campaigns directly include them in the activations; from asking Manchester City fans to share their stories or shooting a commercial for a user, starring Shaq.




SMP: What do you think is going to be the most interesting aspect regarding social media, social networks and/or technology for the next 12 to 18-months and why?

CS: The next step looks like it?s going to be the further use of virtual reality. As technology becomes cheaper and more accessible, I?m sure we?ll see more companies and social networks looking to include VR.

SMP: What are your top five predictions for content/social media for the next 12 to 18-months and why?

CS replies with:

• VR.  Like I said above, VR looks to be racing towards a boom.
• Bots. It?s now becoming easier to program robots that are conversational and make it easy to interact with.
• Video. Video has not slowed down and will continue to dominate content. This is true as 360º video becomes more common.
• Live content. Not a shocker, but live social media will continue to grow as a legitimate and engaging way to share content. We?ll be doing more of it.
• Back to basics. I think social networks will thrive for encouraging real relationships, both between individuals, and between brands and people. More real people, real photos and real videos will be the secret behind marketing strategies.

SMP: What are your top overall five content/social media tips and why (please use one to two sentences for each tip, or write more if you wish)?

CS: Pick the channels that makes sense: Having every social media channel and being good at none is pointless. Pick the ones that makes sense and focus on those.
Brand consistency: Social channels should match the layout and tone of voice of your website and video content.

• Newsletters: Email is a personal and direct way to reach users. Wix users have access to our tool, Shoutout. If you don?t have a newsletter yet, try it.
• Be personal. Social media channels aren?t for selling; they?re for telling your story and engaging with users.
• Tell stories: Find ways in which you can reach users through a story, whether it?s the story of your brand or products.

SMP: Is there anything else we should know, or is there anything that you?d like to share?

CS: I think the main force behind the work on our social media at Wix is FUN. Have fun with your content, laugh at the jokes you post and be interested on the blogs you publish. If you are having fun with it, people will probably have fun too.

SMP: Best way to contact you and Wix?

CS: Wix on Twitter @wix, Instagram and Facebook.









SMP: What did you have for breakfast / lunch?

CS: I ate brown toasts with Philadelphia cheese and a cup of coffee.

SMP: What?s the last good thing that you did for someone?

CS: I found the car keys for my husband this morning. They go missing every day! :-)

SMP: If you weren?t working at Wix what would you be doing?

CS: Probably still managing social media somewhere else. I love it.

SMP: What?s the best site you?ve seen built using Wix and why?

CS: We see AMAZING sites created with Wix every day. I?d like to highlight Age of Beard, the winner of our Shaq commercial. Their site is stunning!

SMP: When / where did you go on your last holiday and why?

CS: I traveled to Argentina to visit my family as that?s where I come from.

SMP: What?s the first thing you do when you get into the office of a morning?

CS: I browse the web for interesting content, go over user websites and enjoy a second cup of coffee

SMP: If you had a superpower what would it be and why?

CS: I?ve always wanted to be able to breath underwater. The little mermaid made a great impression on me when I was young.

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