All Social Y'all Podcast

I tell my personal story experiencing my family (immediate - who I live with) getting Covid 19.  I also share examples of brands that are sharing content on social media relevant to Corona Virus!

Regarding concerns and US users use of TikTok, There is a value based belief system in the US that social media is an avenue for free speech (it’s not just the US either).  The President and the White House Administration is contemplating banning TikTok from American users due to national security risks and collection by the Chinese Gov’t of United State users personal data, as explained in my previous episodes.   I will be breaking this down much further in this episode.  I will help you think further about what it means if TikTok is banned – what it means to you and your business, what is trending in response to the looming changes and what it could mean to Facebook and other social media platforms? On Friday, an alternative solution was announced and that is for Microsoft to purchase the American entity of TikTok.  Huh??   I had the same reaction in 2015 when IBM purchased The Weather Channel. But then I realized it was for data!  Microsoft has the same interest.  Their future business is more and more focused on consumer services data to support advancements in their products like Xbox and future game streaming services.  Furthermore, there are future generations moving up into the workforce and with Googles Gmail for instance, they understand that consumers have other choices today, once they hit the workforce they may not choose Microsoft products. They’re going to become business decision makers as well.  Once they hit the work force they may not choose Microsoft product.s It’s a constrant branding, innovation, differentiation, software as a service company. Microsoft is also serious about AI (Artificial Intelligence) and because TikTok has AI built into it’s tool it could accelerate AI initiatives centered around consumer data.  Same goes as with augmented reality (or AR)….TikTok has filters and ads that are powered by AR.  Their mobile focused capabilities is not something that Microsoft has had success in to date.  And because TikTok is mobile, well they are ahead in that regard as well. Microsoft is not unfamiliar with acquisitions;  Skype, Nokia and LinkedIn to name a few large complicated acquisitions in recent years. There still lies the question of the algorithm tho.  Who’s going to own that? The White House has given TikTok until Sept. 15th to sell or it will ban it’s service to US users.  The President met with Microsoft’s CEO, Satya Nadella. And then out came Microsoft’s formal statement which said, Microsoft fully appreciates the importance of addressing the President’s concerns. It is committed to acquiring TikTok subject to a complete security review and providing proper economic benefits to the United States, including the United States Treasury. So Microsoft is considering purchasing TikTok not in it’s entirety, but in the US, but also 3 other countries and those are Australia, Canada and New Zealand which is 30% of TikTok.   In an article in chinadaily.com, it said that TikTok denied it could be a tool for Chinese intelligence. In a statement on Saturday, (so I’m recording this on Aug. 5th) TikTok US General Manager Vanessa Pappas said the app is staying in the US and is "not planning on going anywhere". The article then goes on to say, “ByteDance (TikTok’s parent co) founder Zhang Yiming also said on Monday in an email to staff that TikTok has always been committed to user safety, platform neutrality and transparency, and the company has initiated preliminary discussions with a tech company to help clear the way to continue offering the TikTok app in the US.” He continued by saying "We do not yet know the exact details of what our end solution will be. Candidly, it is unlikely that the level of interest and speculation around TikTok will cease in the short term, and I recognize that this can be very distracting," and he is talking to his employees. In an article by Forbes this month, linkedin the show notes to all these references, That dataset, in the hands of an adversarial foreign government, is a risk—a very serious risk, in a world where social media is used to push propaganda out to users who tap those platforms as a primary source of news. When TikTok is described as a national security risk, that is essentially what those governments mean. It goes on to say , “The more insidious view,” Thornton-Trump says (no relation to Trump, as far as I know LOL), “is that TikTok and other apps present a danger of mass manipulation and social control and disinformation. The danger may be minimal to the individual but serious for society and democracy.” TikTok is at pains to stress that it has not provided user data to Beijing, that it would not do so if asked. See I wanted to give you perspectives from TikTok, from Microsoft and from the White House Administration. She goes onto say, “TikTok is led by an American CEO, with hundreds of employees and key leaders across safety, security, product, and public policy here in the U.S.,” the company told me (author of this Forbes article) in response to talk of that U.S. ban. “We have no higher priority than promoting a safe and secure app experience for our users. We have never provided user data to the Chinese government, nor would we do so if asked.” As to how to potentially the monetary exchange will look like,if some kind of acquisition does go through, Trump stated in the last week, “But the United States should be reimbursed or should be paid a substantial amount of money, because without the United States they don’t have anything, at least having to do with the 30%.” Now - how this might be possible is very uncertain at this time. I’m not going to speculate.  It has to do with exchange of money between the US Gov’t and a software co inside an acquisition at global scale. In a press conference on Tues. Aug.4th  https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/press-briefing-press-secretary-kayleigh-mcenany-8-4-2020/  , a question was posed of Press Secretary, Kayleigh Mcenany – the question was, “the President has argued that the United States should receive money in return for a potential sale, but he hasn’t really explained how. Under what authority could the Treasury collect fees from China, from Microsoft, or from any other U.S. buyer to get this done, as the President demanded?” MCENANY: Okay, so I’m not going to get ahead of the President on any official action, but he has made that point. And he and both Secretary Pompeo have said that the U.S. action — that the U.S. will take action in the coming days on Chinese apps, including TikTok — TikTok, excuse me, due to the national security risk. And we all agree that there needs to be a change, especially with TikTok collecting significant amounts of private data on users. It’s unacceptable, but I won’t get ahead of the President on what those actions look like. Another question was posed, Q Thanks very much. I wanted to ask, also on TikTok, about — Beijing has said that it may hit U.S. firms as a response to sort of slammed — this sma- — you know, smash and grab of TikTok. What do you say to that, in regard to China? That was the question.  This is from the press conference notes. He asks also, “And secondly, China has not complied with its commitments under the U.S.-China phase one trade deal. We’re reporting today that, you know, they’ve only completed 5 percent, for instance, of the energy purchases in this first half of the year. Can you just sort of say?” MCENANY: Yeah, we encourage China to fulfill their obligations in the phase one China deal and to fulfill their end of the agreement. But the President remains keenly focused on TikTok and protecting the private data of millions of people in this country. And PRC’s, the People’s Republic of China’s, laws require Chinese companies to cooperate with PRC’s security and intelligence services, enabling the CCP (Chinese Communist Party) to access foreign-user data. And what this means is that these entities ultimately answer to the CCP, which actively undermines U.S. interests and is hostile to American values and the rights of individuals. And the President will stand firmly against China on this. So much of what I want to offer you here today with this information and back ground, What if TikTok is banned?  What if TikTok is sold? But what if TikTok is banned and let’s start with that? I never urge businesses to put too much stock or reliance into one social media platform.  Many digital marketing and social media marketing leaders say that same!  Don’t put too much stock into one social media platform because it could go away.  We are seeing it unfold before our eyes!  We don’t own our followers.  That’s another reason why you should take building your email list!  Email remains one of the highest, if not the highest, converting method.  Instagram released a feature that competes with TikTok called Reels on Wednesday, last Wednesday, so you can now create 15 sec. short form videos with many of the same features available on TikTok.  Many TikTok Influencers are downloading other apps like Byte, with the unfolding of all of these events and announcements, and or they are putting more investment in Instagram with Reels. It could be viewed as a short term win for Facebook, but look, if it can happen to TikTok (despite the fact they are Chinese owned) it sets a precedent that nations have the power to ban or attempt to force a sale, which would be overall negative for Facebook.  We are in a new era of complex data and privacy considerations, and it’s somewhat of un-chartered territory.  So I hope this helped.  I know sometimes you see news announcements and ask yourself, what is that all about?  Why would Microsoft want to buy TikTok?  Are they just doing this for governmental reasons?  So I wanted to just put together a top level progression to date of information for you to just let you know what’s happening today and how it might impact you, your business and your social media efforts.  Have a great day.  Thank you for being here with us. Music: https://www.bensound.com    

Carey (00:07): Hello, and welcome to Carey Sperry, All Social Ya'll podcast. I'm your host, Carey Sperry and All Social Y'all. We discuss how to employ social, to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a fuel for business growth. And we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs, and digital marketers, our guests, Sarah inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms. Carey (00:45): Hello, and welcome everyone to episode 31. And I have such a special guest today. I've been so excited to connect and speak with her. Name is Catherine Caldwell-Harris. She is professor of psychology at Boston University. One of my favorite cities. She specializes in cross-cultural psychology and bilingualism. She was trained at the UC San Diego until 1991 has been a faculty member at BU ever since.  But I want to also quickly thank the very talented musician and singer Gustavo Trebien for sharing his gorgeous singing of Alanis Morissette's song, You Learn, played in the middle of this episode.  For the full version I strongly recommend you go to his YouTube Channel via this link!  https://youtu.be/3K64yY8OLi8 Welcome Catherine. Thank you so much for being with us today. Thank you, Carey. Pleasure to be here. Carey (01:26): Can you tell us a little about yourself and your work in your own words? A little more than I I described? Oh, well, I've been, I've done a lot of research on cross-cultural psychology and along with cross cultural psychology comes the issue of what happens when people immigrate to a new country. There's interesting issues of acculturation. Dr. Caldwell-Harris (01:52): There's interesting issues of learning a new language. One aspect of learning a new language is that when you become proficient, you still can feel like you're missing nuances in the language. And bilinguals often report that humor is a real challenge and especially difficult. So that was a topic I was drawn to and has led me to learn more about how humor works in the brain. Carey (02:20): Very cool. And that's what we're going to talk about today is incorporating humor into your social media content strategy and advertising strategy. But as I mentioned, well, I don't know if I mentioned it here to our listeners, but I discovered you from an article in the Boston Globe, you are quoted that "humor is used a lot during war time. For one reason, it has a lot of power to bring people together." And I just thought that was such a great way to put it. Can you tell us kind of what makes you say that? Dr. Caldwell-Harris (03:00): Well, a big theme in human evolution is how we can bond with members of our in group, but also be skeptical and wary of our outgroup. Certainly historically outgroup members would want to exploit us, even enslave us, go to war against us. And a whole group is needed to be united in order to win these battles. So how can you unite people? There's lots of different mechanisms for uniting people. One of them is religion. We can talk about it -- that's a whole topic of itself....sort of feelings of nationalism, anything that can bring you together as a group, but it seems that when you're in your group exchanging jokes, there's this real feeling of bonding and group cohesion and exactly how humor causes this isn't completely clear, but there is evidence that humor generally does something kind of interesting. It does two things at the same time, that sound kind of opposite Dr. Caldwell-Harris (03:54): It activates us; wakes up our autonomic nervous system, so that we're alert. And then it also relaxes us in the sense of making us feel secure and calm. So it's actually a lot like one of our favorite drugs, coffee, which both stimulates us and also makes us feel relaxed. So when we're using humor, it basically helps regulate our emotions. It makes us feel good when we're feeling good, we're starting to feel good about each other. And that leads to the pleasant feelings and a banter that people can have in groups where each person's playing off another person's prior remark. And there's a feeling of good cheer among everyone. Carey (04:33): Awesome. Yes, that is so true. And I didn't thought about it that way, but you know, I always say that social media is a way that people and companies can really just extend the face to face conversation. And that humor is also something that can be found outside of face to face interactions. It isn't just the kids who are making, like in saying funny things on social media to capture the attention of many. I think this might be a shift in culture here in America where we're responding more now than even in 2019 to funny content. And so I urge businesses to think about incorporating it into their strategy where it makes sense. And like the big insurance companies are doing a great job. I've noticed in the TV ads and many other industries as well, but like Jake with State Farm and Progressive with Flow and Allstate has their Mayhem commercials. What are your thoughts kind of around that? Dr. Caldwell-Harris (05:33): Look, I think it's fascinating that humor is such a recent addition to the arsenal of advertising tactics. Why haven't advertisers years ago, figured out how well humor can capture attention, galvanize us and make us think, make us pay attention? I think historically what happened was when advertising began --widespread mass advertising, with radio first, and then soon after in the early and mid 20th century, it was very important for businesses to convince people that advertising was acceptable, that it's actually acceptable to get information from someone you don't know, from a strange leaflet or radio message. And so it was important to be very authoritative and to focus on content, to get people to even accept advertising. Well, that's a century ago now. And of course advertising is part of our everyday life. So it's actually a little surprising that advertisers didn't discover humor until recently, but I kind of understand the historical background to it. That authoritative aspect was so important. Carey (06:40): Yeah. Cool. Yes. And it really captures the attention, which is so tough to do on social media. So that being said, what should businesses keep in mind when they're trying to figure out how to incorporate? Dr. Caldwell-Harris (06:57): Well, I'm a huge fan of using humor and advertising because it is a natural way to get people's attention and humor. So interesting that it rewards us. One problem with a lot of ads is they're annoying. They're just a drag on our attention and we regret and are kind of angry about the time that our brains are captured by advertising. People want to fast forward through, as you know, don't want to pay attention, feel manipulated. The great thing about humor is that humor is inherently rewarding. There are -- one of the main theories of humor involves reward . The idea that during evolution, our brains needed to detect errors in information processing. This is the theory that when our brain detects an error, it’s is a mistake in the conclusions that we've come to. We actually reward -- our brain rewards itself with a squirt of Dopamine into the nucleus acumbens or the reward centers of the brain. Carey (07:55): So humor, when you detect a mistake, you actually get a little jolt of Dopamine. So the way humor takes advantage of this is it sets up a context using just automatic associations where you're going to think that the, the whole meaning is going one direction. And then all of a sudden the script switches, and you realize that your prior assumption was wrong and you have to reconceptualize. The whole idea of what's being said to you being purposely miseading, this is called the incongruity resolution theory of humor. And the idea is that when your brain resolves that mistake you get that burst of Dopamine. So the point that I want to make here is that there's a key theory of humor is that we get rewarded with Dopamine. So to get back to advertising topic, I said, advertising is often exploitative and manipulative when we, we don't like being manipulated, having to watch ads, but when ads use humor, they are giving us a reward. And in way, it's of like this introduces some equality into the interaction. Hey, if you pay attention to me and record my product name, I'm going to reward you with a little joke that will give you a burst of Dopamine. Carey (09:07): Yeah. Sometimes my husband comes up to me with his phone and says, watch this. He replays it. And I mean, you know, cause he wants me to laugh, right? So, so Catherine, that's very interesting. What, what should businesses keep in mind then? Dr. Caldwell-Harris (09:24): Well, as I said, I'm a fan of businesses using humor in their advertising. But one thing to keep in mind is that a key part of humor, one of the key theories of humor is called derogation theory. This is the idea that we get, we feel extra pleasure, an actual award when the joke being made is at the expense of a member of an outgroup, a stigmatized minority or someone that we don't associate with. And that the function of humor in this case is making the in group look good; the idea of putting down the outgroup. This is the basis of ethnic humor. A lot of sexual jokes draw upon putting someone down, which makes ourselves feel good. Dr. Caldwell-Harris (10:03): And because these aspects of humor areso deeply intertwined, all of them are in the works. I want businesses to being very careful when they use humor to avoid falling into the trap of getting, adding in some of the outgroup, - the denigration aspects. Carey (10:22): Hm, yes. Super important. So what, what are some ways to avoid that then? Dr. Caldwell-Harris (10:29): If advertisers can just keep in mind that the main way that humor works is first group cohesion, making people feel good about being member of group, but also keep in mind, incongruity resolution, just focus on the reward aspect of bringing together two opposing scripts and pointing out an incongruity and letting people laugh over them - focus on that. And that can keep advertisers away from brushing up against the putting-people-down aspect of humor. Carey (11:15): How have you noticed with COVID-19 has affected people's sense of humor? Dr. Caldwell-Harris (11:21): Well, early on in the COVID epidemic, it was observed that South Korea was trying to post some humorous ads and actually trying to get teens and young adults to go on social media and use humor to do things like mask wearing and social distancing. And then the teens started picking up on it and making some humorous TikTok and other posts that were actually kind of mean, and that weren't so nice. And there was a lot of discussion over this saying, isn't it bad that these teens are making fun of some aspects of COVID? However, most of the (in my observation), most of the jokes about COVID have been pretty positive and it seems to serve the purpose of bringing the group together and actually encouraging good behavior like the mask wearing and social distancing. Dr. Caldwell-Harris (12:14): So while teens and young adults have been so good at trying to use humor in the COVID epidemic, it's been really important too, to try to find a way to increase group cohesion and make everybody feel like we're all in this together and we all need to work together. But second, when you use humor, you really get people's attention and you're relevant. So when people use social media, they want to get eyeballs, they want to feel relevant. So if COVID is what everyone's talking about, then humor about COVID is going to be a natural outcome. CareySpeaker 1 (12:50): Yeah. I follow this guy on TikkTok that it's more subtle. He is - it's obvious that he's quarantined. Cause he films all his TikTok videos from his home and he's a young adult. I think he's in like his early thirties and he's he plays a dad and he makes funny dad remarks and talking to his kids. And in real life, he's not even a dad, but he it's hilarious. And it just it's like, like you say, it's relevant, but it's around COVID but it's not necessarily in your face, COVID, it's more subtle. So it's done in a lot of different ways. So what you know, around emotion - humor being one emotion. But what are some important aspects of emotion that comes from using language to make someone laugh? I think it's important for business owners and for them as marketers to remember that when advertising or branding it elicits emotion in a buyer and that's really important. Dr. Caldwell-Harris (13:51): So key thing about humor is that it gets us aroused and it wakes us up and makes it alert, alert, and it's pleasurable. So the emotion is basically one of pleasure. Researchers use the word "hedonic" state meaning a pleasurable state. Even even when the humor is denigrating others. You know, if we're in the in-group, we still feel good and we feel good about ourselves. So the emotion of humor actually – hm, let me switch gears. One of the useful things about the emotion that goes along with humor is that it helps our memory. So humor and laughter activates the autonomic nervous system, that's the fight or flight response, and we kind of wake up and we're alert whenever something arouses us whatever's going on then is more easily remembered. So the one thing to keep in mind for advertisers is that humor is a a good way to get memories laid down and strengthened and solidified. There was actually one funny study that my thesis advisor did back in the nineties where a researcher wanted to find out what do students in college classrooms remember from a lecture? Do they remember the main ideas or do they remember the actual literal words? It's like referring to  a surface content versus where the deep content. And so when I asked my advisor about that famous study, she said, you know, we didn't really write this in the results, but the actual main thing that students remembered was the jokes. Carey (15:29): Wow. That was going to be my next question is about learning ....that funny teachers get kids and people more engaged, but there is a lot of social media content that is to teach people things. Right? Dr. Caldwell-Harris (15:43): Right. So humor is going to help with that because humor rewards us. It keeps us staying with the material and wanting to learn more. I mean, so much of the way we learn things today draws on this. The last 15 years or so these political shows, for example, a lot of people's news and information about the world actually comes from learning from John Oliver or Stephen Colbert or some of the other famous talk shows.... People who incorporate so much humor into their content, but actually give you good information at the same time. Carey (16:20): Absolutely. Yes. I've seen some, even financial industry people and other more serious industries, I guess you could say that do short form video - like less than 60 seconds and they are teaching like how to save money or how to make a side hustle and they put it in a light and kind of humorous way. And then not in a way that, like you said earlier, that will annoy people. So it's very creative. There's a lot of ways that if you really sit down and think about it and you map out what is it that challenges my customer or my prospective customer? What is it that I want to teach them and what message do I want to get across to them? And, you know, breaking it down. Some people might say, you know what, I'm not funny, or I can't be funny. Carey (17:16): And I want to help you dismiss that and open up your mind and try to not judge yourself and your team and consider this, consider it because if you don't consider it, other people will and your competitors might get ahead. So, and you might even get (this is kind of a whole nother episode), but I've been reading that corporations are incorporating humor, exercises, team building, and creative sessions to stimulate helping people during their employees during COVID, relax; maybe not feel so stressed at work, maybe being more receptive to teamwork. There's all kinds of stuff that's being done in the corporate world now in the big corporate world. So that's another thing that you might hit two or three or four birds with one stone. So yes, I think it's so interesting. So, we're out of time, but Catherine Caldwell Harris, you have been amazing. Carey (18:24): I can't wait to get the show notes typed out and kind of reread over because you know, you're so knowledgeable. And I think that if people do refer to the show notes as well, that I post with every episode, it might kind of help you have some of these concepts sink in and kind of reflect on them to help you. Thank you so much for being with us today. I so appreciate your time. I know how busy you are. Thank you so much. It's my pleasure. Okay. Have a great day, everyone. Thanks for listening to the All Social Ya'll podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to all social y'all dot com. That's all social Y a L L.com. Also we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us, by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at all social y'all.  

Hello, and welcome to Carey Sperry, all social Y'all podcast. I'm your host, Carey Sperry. On All Social Y'all, we discuss how to employ social, to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a fuel for business growth. And we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs, and digital marketers, our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms. I want to share with you all, we're almost to a thousand downloads subscribers on Carey Sperry, all social y'all. And I just wanted to thank you from the bottom of my heart for listening, for sharing this, these episodes, for being with me through since we've launched at the very end of November of 2019, and here we are 30 episodes in, and we're almost to a thousand. Then our goal is to grow to 5,000 and then 10,000 and help more and more people and spread the word with more and more people about how their business can be helped by, you know, futuristic looking ways of doing business with social media and other digital ways to interact with customers. So thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hope you enjoy this episode. TikTok Currently ticktock has over 1 billion users and has been downloaded over 123 million times in the United States alone. It has surpassed Twitter and Snapchat and popularity yet it's less saturated with ads. 60% of ticktock users are gen Z, but a ton of people and other age groups are now spending time on TikTok to explore, be entertained or to learn over 36% are over the age of 30, according to Statista in less than 18 months. The number of us adult TikTok users grew 5.5 times and 90% of TikTok users visit the app more than once a day. TikTok's business page says , "don't make ads, make news, make it interesting. Make a new trend, make a connection, make someone's day." They say, "TikTok for business is where you can unleash your brand's creative side. A fully immersive, no judgment world where there's an audience for every voice, no matter how big or small your business, no matter what you're making or selling, we believe your brand deserves to be discovered here." They state that their users are one, - at the forefront of the latest trends and movements. So if you want to be relevant, this is one way you can express that relevancy is more important than ever. Consumers really value that personalization. A study by Accenture showed that 91% of consumers are more likely to shop with brands that recognize, remember, and provide them with relevant offers and recommendations in the past. Messaging was more general or, you know, basic by observing your customer data. You can understand what is relevant to them and curate a content and video marketing strategy around what their likes and preferences are. These will make your brand able to connect with people where they are, And innovation - It is reported by Salesforce in their 2020 marketer survey, as the number one top priority. Number two is engaging customers in real time. Their survey showed a flip in marketers top challenges with number one, being engaging with customers in real time. And number two innovating. They state that today, customers seek more and new types of information from businesses through more and new types of channels. When Instagram Stories took hold, people got used to short form video content. People started preferring it at times to consume short form messaging. The great thing about tiktok videos is you can save them to your phone and repost them on other social media platforms. So what I mean by that, short form content that we've gotten used to is when you sit down and you know, in your dentist's office, your doctor's office, wherever you might be waiting for an appointment, you've got a quick car ride where you're the passenger, you know, you can consume and be entertained or learn something. It's easy to figure something out in a very short period of time now because there's more short form content. It's not like you have to sit down for 30 minutes or 20, even five minutes, right? Chipotle ran a hashtag challenge. The brand launched the challenge on TikTok, created a video and chose a song to go along with it. Then they challenged users to produce their own version of the same video and song with that hashtag. So Chipotle did one #guac dance that went viral. They timed it around the national avocado day in 2019, and ended up being the highest performing branded challenge in the United States with over 250,000 video submissions and 430 million video starts during a six day timeframe, holy guacamole y'all! What did this result for them financially? Well, they served 802,000 sides of guac. Chris Brandt their chief marketing officer said we were blown away by the passion people have for our guac and the enthusiasm for national avocado day. He said, "the overwhelmingly positive responses as seen in both our digital orders and the 430 million hashtag guac dance, tiktok videos confirm our fans real appreciation for Chipotle's handmade guac." That's what he said. Collaborations with influencers is super helpful to boost views, engagement and conversion. Guess, the clothing brand, collaborated with a YouTube star, Brent Rivera. He has (Brent) has 13.1 million subscribers on YouTube. Guess, plus Brent did a 15 second video around Valentine's day of Brent in Disney world with one of guesses tee-shirts on holding a bunch of heart shaped balloons with a young lady licking ice cream. The tiktok video got 1 million views over 881,000 likes and hundreds of comments and shares. Of course, it's important to remember to collaborate with influencers who match your jibe with your demographic. Don't just go with those with millions of followers. That's not just about that and give the influencer some creative input to the piece because it'll come out way better, more authentic and recognizable as them not just like acting for the brand so that their followers will know. You know, they're not just acting like someone else. Hope that makes sense. At Emily.Capshaw, she is a writer /Filmmaker - wisdom made simple. Um, her company is called CEO of good vibes is what she calls herself. She has almost a quarter of a million followers on tiktok. She teaches people how to find happiness, overcome anxiety, and a link in her bio takes you to a free anxiety, survival guide. It takes you to her podcast and a club membership that has a $5 member per month option. And then a $250, $500 sponsor options. She uses that as an influencer, pretty smart, huh? Another one doing a fantastic job has over 1.6 million followers on tiktak is a colorblind artist at Roni Langley, R O N I L A N G L E Y. She features her art projects, but she also makes videos that help people to get to know her. Some are funny and others are just her talking about her values and beliefs. Another one is a travel planner, Dina green Beana. She highlights deals, hotel do's and don'ts safety while traveling, et cetera. So how can you get started on tic-tac or consider it as a social media platform for your business? 1 - One, ask yourself, what do customers value in your brand and list out those reasons? Number two, aligning to that... What can you entertain or talk about or teach them? Number three, make a sensible order. Like there's a beginning, middle and an end and in the different stages of their journey with your, with your brand. So what I mean by this, as, you know, you might have a week of a theme or you might kind of take them from the beginning of the journey with you kind of like some common questions that people have or needs that they have and kind of map out like some kind of a sensible order that you can post your first set of series of videos on, but just think about what the first one, this will help you determine what the first video will be. Number four, script out what you want to get across. So you've got kind of what you're going to talk about, but then script out, um, a 60 second or less like a 59 second or less message to get across. Or if you want to do your first one in the 15 second slot, you can do that too. Number five is get on the tiktok app. This is really important. Spend some time on there to just see what other businesses are doing. Use hashtags in your industry to see what others are doing. And this will really help kind of break down in your mind. What kind of formats and humor and different ways you can go about getting your message across. So some people spend more time than others doing this. I recommend spending as much time as you can, because the more time you spend on tiktok, the more exposure you'll get. Trust me. It's not going to be a waste of time because I can promise you you're going to laugh at least once. And, it's pretty neat how different individuals come across in different ways with their brands. Also observe how people are setting up their bios. Think about using linktr.ee. It's spelled L I N K T R dot EE to give users the ability to go to multiple pages, to take action with your service or product offerings. So linktr.ee is a website / application that you can subscribe to. It's very inexpensive. I want to say like seven to $11 a month. And then this allows you to put the link in your bio. When people click through to it, there are options for you to customize the different buttons that users can click on to take them. Like I was saying, the one lady that has the guide, the free guide, you know, things like that. If you have a podcast that service can take people to your podcast for them to listen, it can take you to a landing page to sign up for X, Y, or Z. That's what that is. Number seven, when you're ready to create your first video. I do most of mine longer than 15 seconds. You can go up to, like I said, 60 seconds on tiktok but in plain video mode, I do it on my iPhone camera. And then I piece them together on an app called Splice. Then you save the video to your phone and tap the black plus button at the bottom of your screen on tiktok and find your video and just add it. Tiktok number eight is choose your music song or audio by clicking on the sounds button near the top of the recording screen. This is optional. I have noticed that they get watched and picked up and more views when I add music. But it's not required and not all of the videos on tikTok have music. So in that portion of the App, it will show you new releases and different genres and trending playlists. You can adjust the original sound and the music sound as you want it. So let's say you're talking in your video and you want people to hear what you're saying. Then you can put music in the background of your voice quietly so that they hear your voice more. So you just move the, um, I forget what it's called, but you just move your finger to like increase the volume of your voice. And then you move your finger to decrease the volume of the music. So you can completely customize the sound in the app. There are a bunch of effects that you can use to in your content, but I'm not going to get into that in this episode. Number nine, tap the red circle with the white check Mark at the bottom, and then tap next, right? What you want to say at the bottom of your video and put a few hashtags and you can also tag people or add links. So this is just the same thing guys, as it is on other social media platforms, you know how you write with your post, you write something in the field of writing and you put hashtags and you tag people. Number 10 post 'er up and let the views come in. That's the fun part. There's something called "for you", quote unquote for you on TikTok - the videos at TikTok places in your feed with the videos of those who you follow that aligned to the preferences that you have demonstrated in your behavior on the app. Okay. So what this means is the algorithm takes those preferences and finds videos of users who are, you are not following and suggest or reveals them to you. So if you find you love someone's content, then you can like and decide whether or not to follow up, follow them. So for you users, abbreviate, quote unquote, "F Y" is short for, "for you". And sometimes if they find you via F Y - for you, they will let you know, in the direct message portion - the direct message portion of TikTok. So I'm just going to kind of break this down visually for you, if you're not on TikTok yet, is that the way TicToc works is that it'll feed you the videos of the people that you're following. If it's the first time you can just go into like a main feed and just scroll through content. And then once you're following a bunch of different people it will connect to the algorithm as you're behaving, like watching videos all the way to the end or watching videos more than once. Like you'll just let it go and go and go a few times or you're liking it, or you're going into the comments and commenting on it. It's going to learn like all the other algorithms do what your behavior is and what your preferences are and such. So if I'm doing a lot of activity around dogs, cause I love dogs and I'm following a bunch and I'm commenting and, making, likes and stuff, it will put videos in your feed for you. It will feed me new dog creators videos. And so that's what all that's about. So if someone does that and they put F Y in your direct message, that just means, they're trying to tell you, Hey, I found you on "for you", like other platforms. You always want to check your direct messages and respond to people because it's all about, you know, supporting each other, relating to each other and communicating. There's also a discover feature. The eyeglass icon that opens a field that users can plug in search terms and find your content. If they know your brand name, they can also plug it in under users. So that's like if they're looking to learn more about finances or they're looking to learn more about travel or whatever it is, you know, home organizing, they can put that in there and then you, your video might come up for them to discover there is a live feature of tiktok it's different than Instagram and Facebook live in that it's more a like conversational and purposeful. Um, and I'll explain what I mean by that in a second. And B it's to help creators earn what's called tokens from other other users. And I'll explain a little more about that too, in a second, but I'm not going to deep in it. Um, what I mean by that is like on Instagram and Facebook live, it's more, um, like that the creator, the owner of the live, right, your life has more of like a formatted, um, purpose to the live. Like usually just don't go online and be like, Hey, what's up, man? You know, you have like, okay, I'm going to go on live and talk about this. W it, it often isn't scripted. It's just from your, your mind and your personality and everything, but there still is in business, especially a purpose to that live like that, a value that you're going to deliver on tick tock. It, yeah. There's sometimes a message being delivered for sure. But it's also a lot just like you go on to give people a chance to directly have exposure to you and talk to you and give you feedback and, um, see you more in like an, an prerecorded environment. Um, there's a lot of questions on the ones that I've been on. There's a lot of just like support. Um, like I love you so much. You make my day, Oh my gosh, I'm so glad you're, you know, you're you do this? Um, they ask questions like what's coming next, stuff like that. It's like kind of just really conversational like that. Um, and with the tokens, they have the system where, when you're on tick-tock for awhile, it rewards you with these tokens. They have different names for them that you can give to creators when they go live and it can translate to money. Um, and that is a whole, it, in my opinion, um, quite detailed and extensive, um, subject in and of itself to learn how all those tokens are are used. Um, so I'm not going to get into it today, but I just wanted you to know that that's one unique feature of tic TOC is these tokens and part of why some of the big creators go on to live, to earn tokens over time. As I mentioned earlier, the ads are not saturated at all on tic-tac. There are four ways that ticktack offers their ads as with others, just social media ads. You can target, of course your audience by gender or age location, what their interests are and other unique, um, variables, but for more advanced users who want to take their ads to the next level, you can create custom audiences and you can create lookalike audiences to reach more people similar to your existing customers like Facebook. You can use the tick tock pixel to monitor your ad performance, of course, and to measure your results by tracking users' behaviors on your landing page or your website from your ad. So depending on the placements that you choose, your ads may appear in four places in feed, um, the detail page, post role and story. Um, but here are the four offerings. There's one there's brand takeovers, and these are placed. As soon as the user opens the app, the users can go to the brands, advertising landing page, only one ad shows in its category per day. So every time I open up the tick tock, um, app, I see an ad and either I can watch it, I can take action on it, or I can, um, sometimes it shows me that I can skip it. I don't know if it always allows you to skip it, though. That might be a couple of different levels. Number two is native ads. These are nine to 15. Second ads played between user content or videos, and they can be scrolled past if the user does not want to watch it. Number three is sponsored hashtag challenges. Your brand can pay to sponsor a hashtag challenge, and you'll get a unique banner across the discover page. Users can tap on that and it will take them to your videos that you make doing the challenge yourself while generating awareness of your brand and offerings. So that's like what Pulte did, but this is sponsored. And, um, for is branded lenses here. You can design a ticktack filter, that's associated with your brand and users can choose the lens when they're looking for a lens for their content for a 10 day period. So tick-tock puts your lens in the top 10 trending. And it also is offered in 2d, in 3d and augmented reality, AR it'll be called it's coming. Something like air brand effect is what I understand. It might be called a, our brand effect. That version will be out later this year, sometime in Q three, partly in effort to compete with Snapchat's lenses. So probably more important if you're going after that demographic, that's on Snapchat. Cause if they like it there, they're going to like it on tick tock. And you just want to kind of appeal to that audience. But if your, if your people are older, um, it probably will garner more attention quicker. Um, but since it's not out yet, I don't really know. The lens will allow users to interact with the physical environment around them, which is kind of cool. I'm excited to see that as for add pricing, to sure that your ads have sufficient budget. The minimum budget at the campaign level is $500 on tick tock. And the me minimum budget at the ad group level is $50 Or a bid. A bid indicates much you're willing to pay For the actions that you want users to take after they see your ads and tick tock ads manager offers you different bidding methods to select from just like with Facebook after you submit your content it's reviewed and approved by ticktock before it will go live. And some sidebar news, I didn't want to skip just mentioning this because it's kind of major, but it may or may not be something that you choose to, um, stop you from getting on tic-tac and using TechTalk. Um, you know, I do believe that the other platforms are going to come out with tick tock, like feeling features. I'm sure they're all thinking about doing it. Tick tock is owned by a Chinese company, so it's headquartered and owned in China. Um, and this is the news that came out this past week resulting from a crisis that has been going on for a couple of months. India just banned Chinese apps. So I'm gonna read you this quote from the wall street journal, India banned dozens of Chinese mobile apps, including widely used tick-tock. And we chat after a border clash between troops from the two countries left 20 Indian soldiers dead this month, new Dell high cited cyber security concerns and blocking the Chinese apps from one of the largest and fastest growing markets in the world. A senior Indian government official said the band was imposed because the apps might have been used to harm India's defenses, as well as to send a message to China rising tensions. Since the clash between the Indian and Chinese armies along their disputed border in the Himalayan mountains has been accompanied in India with calls for the government to retaliate against China. It, the raw street journal continues to go on by saying research from sensor tower estimates that the 59 band apps have accumulated 4.9 billion downloads from Apple inks, India app store and alphabet Google play since January of 2014, including 750 million. So far this year of the top 25 most downloaded apps on India's app store and Google play since April eight were for, from Chinese publishers. Take talk is bigger in India than anywhere else outside of China, owning to the South Asian natives, massive population and legions of young and largely unemployed fans in that, in that country. Um, so, you know, end of quo, um, there's also some speculation that China is using tick-tock to gather data for their own benefit for their country's benefit and not for other countries, but that's like another tangent. Um, I just wanted to mention that because it is in some people's, you know, dialogue about other things that are behind tic-tac, but you know, the bottom line is, you know, just know more about it to at least consider so that in a couple years you don't look back and regret that you didn't even pay it one bit of attention in your business. I also, again, if you're used to it on, um, the app itself, when the other platforms come out with it, you'll already have your game on, um, it's not for every business by any stretch, but it may maybe great for you. I know many people that are doing awesome with it, besides the ones that I've already mentioned. So let me know what you think about tic-tac for your business. Hope everyone has a great week. Thanks for listening to the all social ya'll podcast for free resources and materials, head over to all social y'all dot com. That's all social, Y a L l.com. Also we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at all social y'all.  

Hi everybody. Thank you so much for being here today. I am so excited to introduce you to the owner of The College Investor. His name is Robert Farrington. He's with us today. Robert, you want to say hello? Robert Hey Carey and Everyone, thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here. Cool. And you're, you're out in sunny, Southern California. I'm here in Atlanta. So, um, it's nice place to be during this time of year, especially. No, it's great. I I'm blessed to be able to be here. Awesome. Well, tell us a little about yourself and how you got started with your company, the college investor. Definitely. So I started the college investor, honestly, as a side hustle. When I was finishing college, I had always been passionate about making money investing and, uh, you know, I wanted to share my random thoughts on the topic with people. And I, you know, I really love technology and websites and I saw some other bloggers starting and I was like, you know, I can, I can start a blog and share my thoughts as well. And so that's honestly how it started over 10 years ago now at this point in time. And it's just really grown into a full on, uh, you know, media company at this point in time. But it started just as me wanting to share my random thoughts and kind of evolved quite a bit from there. Wow. That's amazing. And are your customers teenagers, college students, parents? Can you tell us a little bit about who, who, um, you help? Yeah, Definitely. So I started really just wanting to share my thoughts mostly with young adults, right. But at this point in time, I would say most of the people we help are anywhere from college graduates to families, to people approaching retirement. Um, you know, we don't get too many young people and we don't get too many retirees, but everyone in the middle there, um, seems to be who we help. And sadly, I think that kind of reflects more on how who's dealing with student loan debt. Who's trying to get started in life. Who's trying to get investing than anything else. So, um, yeah, we have a really broad range of people we help. That's awesome. Such a needed thing. And I don't think people really know where to turn. So your blog helps with discovery online. Right? And that's it? I mean, So student loans is one of our bread and butter topics and, uh, it's hard because there are so many options out there and there are so few tools out there to help people and the tools that we have, like they don't, people don't trust them because it's like our loan servicers, and they're the ones that are part of the problem. And so, you know, it's really hard for people to get an independent resource, to help them navigate their student loan debt. Um, and then in turn, you know, start building wealth and navigating personal finance because, you know, sadly it's not something that's usually taught in school and, you know, a lot of people's role models might not have been the best in terms of showing them how to do it. That's so true. Yeah. I've heard that, like kids have to move home after college and, um, gosh, with the, with that pandemic now it's even harder to find a job. So can you tell us yeah. What, what services do you provide and can, can you kind of take us through like the buying journey online? Like where did they discover you and kind of, how does it go from there with the various interactions? Yeah, definitely. So, I mean, we're a traditional media site. So the services we really provide are just trying to provide the best in depth, comprehensive knowledge that you can have when it comes to personal finance topics. Um, we do a broad range of editorial content. We also review as many products and services as we can find to give people an honest opinion on, you know, what's legit, what's not legit, what's the best, what's not the best. Um, you know, we do have some products and services as well. We have lone buddy, which is our DIY student loan software. You can put all your information in and, you know, it'll tell you the best outcome for your student loans. Um, but really like, I really want to educate and that's really the bread and butter of what the college investor is. It's designed to educate people on their student loans on their money. And, you know, we really try to be top notch and search we're on social or on video or on audio because I'm also a big believer in meeting people where they're at. And, uh, you know, if people really listen to podcasts, like listen to this show, right? Like they're listening to audio, so can we connect with them there? But you know, there's also a good contingent of people that love YouTube and love videos. So how do we connect with them there? And then of course there's always the traditional reading and searching for things on Google and we want to connect with them there as well. Yeah. Awesome. You sound really savvy like, because you've been and also have been in business for 10 years. That's funny. Yeah. You know, it's, it's hard. I mean, we didn't start there though. I think it's important to, if you're starting out like pick one lane and then iterate as you go forward, because it's a lot of work too. That's right. And you really want to listen to your customers and find out what they're needing and kind of pivot from there. Would you say you're like, are you finding that people are having a harder time now managing their college debt and earning income? Like have you shifted at all since COVID has hit Oh yes. A hundred percent. So it's sad because, you know, there's just topics now that we didn't touch on until now. So unemployment stimulus checks, uh, how to navigate some of the small business loan programs. Um, what's out there for side hustlers, people that were driving for Uber and door dash. How did that, how does that work in the new unemployment system? Um, and these are topics that historically, I mean, in 10 years, we've never really had to dive in and talk about, and, you know, people don't really care so much about other things when they're like, I don't have a job today and I don't know when I'm going to be working again, like what can I do today? And so it's really been important for us to put out the best content we can as fast as we can, but it's also been challenging because I mean, it's been a fire hose of information coming out of Washington DC. And it seems like these programs are changing and shifting and, you know, new proposals are coming out all the time. And so there's also a ton of misinformation out there. And so for us, it's really cutting through all that misinformation, trying to get people what's accurate and timely, um, so that they can, you know, help themselves today. Yeah. That's, that's really so important. And also with mental health now that, you know, they, the reports are saying that mental health in the world really is really getting worse and worse because of the challenges that people have financially, you know, with the relationships that might not be so great at home and stuff like that. So I would think like you providing support and some reassurance that there is a way there are there answers, you know, would probably help a lot of people. Do you have, do you have any stories? I know that's not like something we necessarily talked about, but I was just wondering if any good stories or examples? I mean, it's, it is sad. I do see a lot of it. I mean, sadly, one of the things that has increased in trending a lot is suicide and student loan debt. And a lot of people see that as the option. And it is really heartbreaking because there's a lot of options out there that is definitely not a good option. And, but people don't know how to navigate it. And when people are in such desperate straights and there's not a lot of answers out there and there's definitely no one to help you. And now in this remote day and age where like, you can't necessarily have like someone with you, like it's all virtual, it's even more challenging. So it is definitely challenging. It's sometimes sad to see, but that's why we also try to be there is that source of education be there as those tools and resources so that hopefully people find the answer before it's too late. Yes.... Do you have a Facebook group? I know I went on all your social media. You're on a lot of different platforms. Do you, do you do help people connect with each other? So they don't feel like they're alone?  We Do have a large Facebook group, ....probably about 24,000 people in it.  you know, I keep it pretty vague cause it's, it's the investing and personal finance Facebook group and it's all for people that are interested in money topics. And so yeah, we do find a lot of connection and things in there, but it's hard because, you know, it runs the gambit of people's personal financial situations. I mean, you have to have so many people and so many diverse perspectives that even in a Facebook group type setting, it's hard to foster connections. And then the other challenge with money topics is that there's a lot of people that prey on other people, insurance salesman or, you know, unscrupulous financial planner. And so sometimes when people do open up, I mean, they just get unsolicited, you know, direct messages and, and things. And you know, so it's, it's very challenging to, you know, make sure people connect, but you know, you have to remember you're online and people try to take advantage of that as well. I hadn't thought of that. That's so true. And then it's just the main maintaining it, like, and making sure as the owner of the group that you like, see if there's any inappropriate comments and stuff like that. Right. Yes. So, I mean, we're very vigilant. We're very vigilant on it.  We do. We have a good moderator team and, you know, we have all the Facebook alerts set up. So when people comment certain things it flags right away, but where they get around it is through those direct messages. So I would say like every two weeks we have to remind our group, if you get an unsolicited direct message, please let the moderator team know so we can take action and remove it. And I've been known to publicly shame some of these unscrupulous insurance salesman. I'll reach out to their companies and organizations and say Hey, you need to follow up with this individual.... Who's violating your company, social media policy, and you need to follow up because it drives me nuts. Especially I rag on insurance people a lot, but it really usually is insurance salesmen, not financial planners. And they do not have the best interests of you at heart. They are trying to sell you on a product that you probably don't need. And it drives me nuts. Yeah. Well, I have a friend that is in that industry and she said that, and this isn't true for all., but she said that the management was still kind of pushing the salespeople as if it weren't like COVID and like just like pushing them so hard. And so you sometimes kind of wonder like how much of is coming from the leadership and doing the right thing for the customer and having the salespeople be the, the interacting face and yeah, it can, it can be so easy online and can be kind of dangerous to people if they're in a vulnerable situation as to what's real, what's not real, what should I pay attention to?  Yeah, my rule of thumb though, is, you know, no one in this world is going to care more about your money than you. So always go into every conversation with that in mind, you know, anyone that's out there trying to help you probably isn't going to care as much as you do because they have no reason to.  Yes!  And start young and they're always there. Time is on your side when you're younger, I can attest to that. So what, what are some of the most important things you think that the younger generations need to know about personal finance? I think the biggest thing for me is that it starts with getting organized and this might sound counterintuitive to like a personal finance conversation. But honestly, there's just so many moving parts today to everyone's money. Right? You have different incomes, you got side hustle, income, your job income, you have multiple accounts, probably got a bank account, a savings account. You got maybe a 401k. Maybe you have an IRA. And then like you have a bunch of expenses. You might have a credit card or a debit card and you're charging. So it starts with just getting organized with your money. And the other thing that's hard about this is everyone's different. So like I'm an app guy, right? So I like to have my finances on an app on my phone. And that's where I'm most comfortable, but I'm not everybody. Some people really like Excel spreadsheets. Other people really like planners and pen and paper and writing stuff down on like a paper calendar. So the real thing is, is find whatever style works for you and get organized with your money because you can't make an informed decision about what to do. If you don't know where everything is, what's coming in, what's going out. Like, should you budget better? I don't know. Are you organized? Should you try to get a side hustle? Like, I don't know. Do you need to earn more money? Like if you're not organized, you can't make the next financial decision. Hm. Good point. Yeah. And just not putting it off, like, there are different types, like you said, it's individual and there's some different types of people and some people avoid, some people worry, some people don't, you know, they're so generous. They give, give all their money away to other people like theirs. Yes, totally. And if you put, if you don't know what's happening, like you can't even make the decision. And I, and I will tell you that in 10 years of working with people, helping people, talking to people that 99% of people that are struggling, it all goes back to this organization. And well, if I ask I'm like, well, like what's your budget look like I don't have one. Or, or like, what's the shortfall? Like, are you short a hundred bucks a month in your monthly expenses? Like where do you, what, what is it? And they couldn't tell me how much debt do you have? I don't know. When are you going to pay off that debt? I don't know. Um, you'd just be, it always starts with knowledge. Like if you get organized, you know, where everything is, then you can decide like maybe, maybe all you need to do is cut $50 off your monthly expenses and you will be in the black and you'll be rocking and rolling, and you can do that easily, but maybe there's a bigger gap here. Maybe it's a $500 gap. Maybe you need to look at getting a second job or a side hustle or asking for a raise at work. But like, we can't even figure that out if you don't have it all laid out and organized and know what's going on. Yes. So knowledge is power and reality as well. Like when you get organized in whatever way that is, like you said, it's a variety of different ways to get organized, but then you have it in front of you. And, you know, you have that knowledge which has power to move forward and then take steps that, you know, really help, help get to the next, next level and security financial stuff. Exactly. And that's the thing is, you know, personal finance is personal. Right. And so I can't tell you, I can't just say it's a blanket, one size fits, all thing. Like it definitely is a personal conversation And accountability. Would you say that, like your services kind of help people with any accountability at all? Or do you not really track that? Yes, we don't really track it because it's hard. I don't also want to get in the business of being the data collector. Um, you know, it is personal, right. And there's also a lot of laws and regulations and rules and other things around all that kind of stuff. Um, but really it's about, you know, getting organized, but then we can take the next steps and I love being there to guide out. Like, let's, let's talk about budgeting and let's talk about earning more. I'm a big believer of the earn more mindset, like, uh, you know, yeah. There's probably some fat, we can all cut from our budgets, but like, is there a way you can go out and side hustle and earn a little bit extra and then live a lifestyle you'd like to live more of instead of like really cutting down to nothing. I love that. That's huge right now, like on, on tiktok, do you, have you ever gone on ticktock ? I'm a fan of tiktok. We were really doubling down on tiktok and I follow a lot of the financial influencers and others and, I'm all about, I'm all about tictok! Speaker 1: (16:19)All right. Let's talk tick tack for a little bit then, because I actually have not touched on this yet in our series. And so this would be a great start since you're a fan. So how did you get on, when did you get on and kind of what, what is, what are you finding as far as like what people like? So, I mean, I've been, I've been on the platform since last fall, so probably about nine months now, but we didn't start creating content until earlier this year. I really just like consumed. I just consumed a lot of content seeing what was working, what's not working and I'm still figuring out I'm not by an expert by any means. But the one thing I love about tiktok is that even if you don't have a huge following on tiktok, your posts have a very good chance of going viral. If you're following trends and talking about interesting things and, or just being interesting. And so a lot of people think tic talk is like about dancing to music and, you know, yeah, that's a good chunk of it, maybe 50%, but I would say the other 50% is, you know, just people talking, being interesting, being funny, being entertaining in some way, shape or form. And, and for us on talking about money on Tech-Talk, it's the same concept. It's like, how do we make something short, sweet, interesting, and entertaining in a, you know, 15 to 60 second video. And so, you know, we try to use some of the music sometimes, or some of the trending themes, because some of them are kind of like jokes effectively, but you have to kind of know what's going on, on tiktok to follow the joke and you integrate your own concepts into it. And so I find it to be a lot of fun and you can go down a rabbit hole of watching tiktok videos for like an hour. And you're like, Oh my God, where'd my afternoon go?! For sure!  I've heard people say that they've gone even longer, like three, four hours. Yeah. And then sometimes like it just this morning, as a matter of fact, it was early and I love Italians. And, there's a Italian guy and his mother and they are so cute and funny and I'd realize, Oh, I haven't been on tiktok for a few days. Maybe I missed some of his, their videos. And so you can click on just like with Instagram y'all if you're not on tiktok yet is you can click on their bio, like ontheir name or whatever it shows their channel. And then you can go and see all of their posts just like Instagram. So I consumed like six or seven of their videos that I had missed,.... which, ticktock for business as something that's real, you can use hashtags, you can, like Robert was saying, do things that are trending, make it entertaining, also educational. So it's to attract the attention of, like Robert said earlier, where people are. so that's cool. And, and I think a lot of people have this misconception that tiktok is all teenagers. And, you know, there is a lot of teenagers on there, but you know, your content and your, whatever you are will attract your audience because there are over 60, there are a lot there's I think a parent's over 30 hashtag. Like there are a lot of adults on the platform as well. And there are so many different industries and niches, and here's a great example. Um, we're thinking about redoing our backyard and it's kind of like a dream board wishlist kind of thing right now. Right? Well, I'm scrolling on TechTalk and I found a local landscape designer on tiktok. I loved his work. I reached out to him and he's going to come out and we're going to talk about things. And so like, I don't know, result in any business, but when you're thinking about it for your business, whatever your business is, there is things on there that, I mean, your business should be on tick talk. If you want to connect with people that are engaged in that audience. And it's a huge audience. I mean, I don't know, you can kind of talk about all kinds of things. I see woodworking, I see a lot of construction. We're doing remodeling stuff. So maybe that's my feed right now. Right. But I see a lot of those kinds of trades showing up in my tiktok feed. It had, the algorithm definitely picks up and how you went about it is exactly what is recommended and what we recommend to get on the platform first and just start discovering what other people are posting and what people are doing, and kind of just get familiar with it. And, you know, if you start now, if, if you can make it relevant to your business and make it relevant to your customer is that, you know, it's going to benefit you a year or two years from now. And you can also share the videos on other platforms so you can save the videos and then post them in, on another platform. Do you ever do that, Robert? Oh, yeah. And I mean, that's the thing is like, if you're already kind of doing short format things, if you're on YouTube or Instagram using Instagram stories, like, I mean, it's like a natural repurpose bit and, uh, you know, you might as well be there for minimal extra effort, but, uh, you know, when you look at the growth of things, you know, tick talk is definitely on the growing end and you know, some of these other platforms are not growing as much anymore. And so, you know, it's get there early claim, your stake, be one of the early influencers in your space. And, you know, maybe it fails, but you will have learned something because I think video, however, its purpose is going to be around forever. So Absolutely. Yeah, I think that will happen was when stories came out, people got comfortable and then started really liking the short form. And, you know, you're just sitting, waiting for an appointment. So, you know, for them to call you from the lobby or whatever, and you can just real quickly go online, be entertained, discover something, learn something, whatever it is. And then, you know, we got used to that. And then now that tiktok's you can post a 15 second video or, or a 60 second video on tiktok. And,so yeah, we're at, and I love your enthusiasm about it, Robert. So before we wrap here, what other platforms are working well for you? Like you mentioned YouTube - what is your favorite, would you say? Or is it tiktok? Well, it's hard. I don't know, like my personal favorite social media platform right now is Reddit. I would say Reddit is my home base of not necessarily for my business, but as a personal social media consumer, I I'm a Redditer and I love it.  I think every business should be on Reddit. You should own your own subreddit. And I think you need to engage where your audience is. So the one thing about Reddit, right, is it's, it's, it's made up of subreddits, which are kind of akin to Facebook groups, right. Um, and there's groups on every single topic under the sun. And it's, I want to say that Reddit is, I am betting that within the next 12 to 18 months, Reddit is going to surpass Facebook. I think it's already like the now it's like, I think it's tied or just beat Instagram in terms of monthly visitors per month, uh, in terms of traffic. And so it's just, it's just continuing to grow. Whereas some of the other platforms are declining, but, uh, there's, your, your audience is on Reddit. You can subscribe to subreddits and you can become, you know, a voice on there and your things. And I just think it's, it's got such a better user interface. It provides a better curated content than it does for like Facebook and other things. So I am a huge Redditor. That is so interesting. I I've not heard anyone else say that. So I think that is just awesome. And it reminded me when you were saying that this weekend I Googled something and the answer was on Reddit. Yup. And that Reddit comes up in all the search results. And I would say that, you know, and granted it is my primary social media platform. But if you look at my social media referrals to my website read, it's usually fourth. I'm right there. You got the, you got Facebook, you got Pinterest, you got Twitter. And then read it, usually beats all the other ones. Um, and it's usually, it's very quality traffic because I'm talking about things that are related to what I'm doing. Right. And so it just all works out. Nice, great information. You, you seem so savvy. I love it. I'm so happy that you joined us today and I'm sure you inspired a lot of people. where can people find you, your website, social media, wherever you want to send people? Yeah, definitely. So our website is the college investor.com. If you like to listen to podcasts, we have the college investor audio show, and then we're on pretty much every social platform out there at the college investor. So whatever is your favorite, maybe you're not a Redditor like I am, but we're out there on pretty much everybody's social media platform. Yay. Awesome. Thank you so much, Robert. This was a thrill and I really appreciate your time and, hope you have a great rest of your week.

Episode 28:  6 Facts, Industry Trends & Predictions to Help Inform whether your business should start a podcast The simple concept of the ability to stream content like talk radio on demand on any device over the internet is gaining mass market appeal or what’s also referred to as “Mainstream”.  The podcast industry is becoming more mature and inevitably is seen to take over radio since 90 to 100 million Americans listen to a podcast every month.  Podcast shows are being made into television, movies and books and the distribution channel lines are being blurred with the evolution of video and audio consumption options. Said by, Cara Meverden of Scout.fm, “Our user studies have shown that tons of people who don’t listen to podcasts listen to YouTube while they drive. YouTube will help this market listen in their cars without breaking the law, and podcasters will start to aggressively jump onto YouTube.”Cara Meverden, Scout.fm Podcast discovery is much easier and widespread After the concept of podcasts being a reality now for 10 years, now the technology companies that are hosting and distributing podcasts, like Stitcher, Castbox, iTunes, and Google Podcasts, are paying attention to discovery like never before.  Google is placing podcasts in search results in effort to reach the 51% of American’s who have never listened to a podcast.  They have rolled out a feature where it will make search placement based not only on the episode and show title, but also the content itself.  In other words, based on exactly what was said in the episode.  From there, Alexa (and Siri?) will read extensive paragraphs from podcasts from audio search technology accelerating. “The market for shorter, bite-sized podcast content will grow, as will podcast consumption on smart speakers.” Tom Webster, Edison Research “More shorter-length sub-five-minute podcasts will be made — these work well on smart speakers, and respect listeners’ time. Expect not just news updates in this format, but others, too.” James Cridland, Podnews Podcasts are Reaching brand new audiences every day 32% of US population listen to podcasts (its was 26% in 2019) iHeart Radio is putting up podcasts every Wed. onto 110 radio stations in effort to reach more people who have never down loaded a podcast app on their mobile device.  Alternatively, radio station NPR launched a podcast early on in effort to reach the 25-34 age segment who tend not to ever listen to radio. A Westwood One 2019 study showed that listening time increased 19% for ages 50-64 between the July 2017 & July 2019 two year time frame. Industries are more often now helping customers by making podcasts available. Last Sept. Delta Airlines made Spotify podcasts available in flight 700 planes. According to Delta, the partnership with Spotify is an effort to bring new offerings to customers so they can make the most of their “me time” in flight.  Right before the busy holiday travel season, Jet Blue expanded its in-flight entertainment options with the addition of podcasts. The podcast content will come as part of the airline’s alliance with Spotify, which will put shows created by its Anchor, Gimlet, Parcast and Spotify Studios into the in-flight lineup. Growth Opportunities Financial Times has an average listen-through rate of 75% and its 2019 audio ad revenue from podcasts tripled in the past year.  They are expanding their audio podcast programming by testing a subscription only podcast rolling out this month, to see what the market will pay for exclusive subscription only content (kindof like a Loyalty Program). The first show in this wave is The Rachman Review, which premiered earlier this month. The program is hosted by popular FT columnist Gideon Rachman. “Consumers start paying for podcasts in a more meaningful way. From Luminary to Stitcher Premium, from Wondery+ to Patreon, consumers will increasingly come to accept that there’s a place for ad-supported and a place for ad-free, consumer-supported podcasts, as they have in nearly every other form of media.” Hernan Lopez, Wondery Gender Opportunities - A 2019 study by Edison Research % 36 women have listened to a podcast in the last month, compared with 39% of men. women are more likely to be currently defined as ‘rookie’ audience members, or people who have listened to podcasts for six months or less. Women account for 53% of that group, compared with just 37% among the ‘veteran’ group, defined as listening to podcasts for three or more years. Despite often being newer to the format, women listen to more podcasts per week on average than men. Women spent an average of 7.3 hours listening to podcasts per week, compared with 5.9 hours for men. Women were more likely to take show recommendations from their friends and family (25% compared with 18% for men). About a fifth (19%) of women found shows based on social media posts, while only 14% of men did. There was also a marked gender divide in discovering shows through Internet searches: 34% for men and just 18% for women. Advertisers are increasingly putting more ad spend to podcasts. Forrester: Data shows Podcasting Could Hit $1 Billion In Ad Revenue In 2020. A May 2019 study by Westwood One called Advertisers Perceptions shows steady growth of Advertisers increasingly putting their dollars to podcast audiences which means there is an audience and targeting is there. 39% are currently advertising in podcasts. That total has grown 2.5 times greater from the inaugural September 2015 result of just 15%. “The audio industry continues to innovate in response to consumer needs, habits and preferences,” said Frank Papsadore, EVP of marketing for Advertiser Perceptions. “Podcast growth is a clear-cut example. Add to their wide range of topics, new media superstars, and provocative, unedited content – the unprecedented growth of new listening platforms like smart speakers…”   Ability for Podcast to help achieve business Goals: BBC StoryWorks, the branded content division of the BBC Global News, commissioned a study by Neuro-Insight researchers into the power of sponsored shows to connect with listeners and achieve business goals. The Audio:Activated study found that the tendency to engage in other tasks while listening to a podcast increased receptiveness to the company’s messaging. The results showed that nearly all (94%) listeners consume podcasts while doing other activities, with chores at home (61%) and driving (55%) the most common tasks. The active group outperformed its counterpart on all engagement measures, including a 40% higher score on emotional intensity related to the branded show. The research observed that brand mentions delivered 16% higher engagement and 12% higher memory encoding than the other content in a branded show. These programs also saw an 89% boost in awareness, 57% increase in brand consideration, at a 14% boost to purchase intent. The study noted that branded podcasts posted better metrics in reaching “ad avoiders” than television…..(a category that go out of their way to NOT watch ads).

Hi Everyone, Welcome to Episode 27 – Hiring a Drone Pilot – 9 Basic but not so Basic Things You Need to Know to Save You from Potential Big Business Mistakes This is a continuation of a series (previously episodes 15 & 24) on the many many opportunities with drone videography ad photography with Drones that can be shared on social media, while I share with you my journey to earn my FAA Part 107 Remote Pilot License.  I’m still in study and learning phases!  I’ve competed 25 modules so far and passed all my quizzlets

Welcome to Episode 26 How to Incorporate Humor in Your Video Content Strategy and What Humor is Making People Feel and Do in 2020 Open with a played joke from TikTok @careysperry That is a wildly viral and trending audio on TikTok’s social Media right now of people who put dogs around their dining room tables. Laughter is a universal language and although there are cultural Emotional connection with humor.  Humor is everywhere today because there is fear everywhere too and laughter binds us together.  During the pandemic, we see jokes about the frustration with quarantine, family dynamics, exercise, food and drink indulgences, political animations or voice overs….it goes on right?!  In your business it can be aligned to this cultural relevancy either directly or indirectly and this episode I hope will help you piece it together as you think through or include more humor into your video social and advertising strategy. Humor thought of as entertainment, but it can leverage your message. Audiences need to be considered. And it’s worth noting that Not every video benefits from a laugh It makes sense to consider brand advertisements as a backdrop to your video content strategy.  We know that some of the best brand advertisements, such as during the Superbowl, are funny!  Now in a global pandemic, young generations and sometimes all are turning to TikToks of political impersonations, rhythmic dances and adorable child and animal funny instances!  The Boston Globe writes, “…young people are using social media platforms to channel their energy into something a little less serious: creating content that finds the humor — silly or grim as it may be — in the midst of the pandemic.”  The piece points out Catherine Caldwell-Harris, an assistant professor of psychology and a faculty member at Boston University since 1991, she says, “Humor is always going to be pushing the envelope, and we’ve got to kind of give it some leeway for that,” Caldwell-Harris said. “I actually think it’s a neat phenomenon where people are pulling together and having a national conversation about something that’s actually important. Maybe there can be more conversations, you know, income inequality or other things,….” So What is it that Makes Something funny? Well, usually it’s universal in that it goes against what we expect to happen or what we expect someone to say.  I love Bloopers!  I laugh and laugh – why?  Because they aren’t how I expect it to go for whatever they are doing!        There is sometimes a gender difference in “taste” shall I say in humor.  Some women may appreciate what is referred to as a "guy joke", but some find them annoying.  They usually have a shock factor – or a more sexual nature, which isn’t going to fare well in the business world anyway.  But when you are of a certain gender you probably have a tolerance for things that the other gender does not. Culture is another area that will make humor resonate in differing ways. I have to acknowledge there is sometimes Fear in using humor in your content or advertising If used wrong it can offend.  When it is either hostile, degrading, overly aggressive, righteous, of course any of these can be a turn off.  Or like a joke that goes too far – it can do more damage than good.  You’ll hopefully either know where to draw the line because you are vetting out the delivery or you will share it with people on your team or people you trust to share their professional opinion. Remember K-Mart’s ad, “I Shipped My Pants?”  They took a lot of criticism for it sounding like a certain expletive.  Many people thought it was funny and repeated it to their friends and family….others – too much. There are academic Studies out there to help us inform this subject: Recent Studies show that a good laugh can instantly improve mindset and put us in a better mood.  According to Psychology.org, “human emotions such as anxiety, depression, fear, joy, and laughter, profoundly affect psychological and physiological processes.  It goes on to say, “Ronald A. Berk, a pioneer of humor research, from Johns Hopkins University (1976–2006), has published more than 150 articles regarding humor, laughter, and learning.” He proved that “humor can bring dead, boring content to life.” To overcome the challenge of teaching “dead, boring content,”  Might you think if you’re honest with yourself that any of your content, products or services may be perceived as a bit dull at times?  Consider taking a funny twist!  If you are selling something that may have some anxiety associated with it – and there are many – think of financial services, mental health help, relationship related companies like dating or counseling, medical….I could go on…anxiety is at a high level right now with the Pandemic anyway…. Even mild Humor may lower defenses and establish rapport which can increase your persuasive effects. According to a recent Nielsen study on social behavior as it pertains to the TV, as consumers keep close to home and to their TV sets, they’re using social media to stay connected now more than ever.  It further found that, “As more consumers shelter in their homes, they’re turning to social media to pass the time.”  The study was focused on TV, but this closely parallels social media video content and Social Media Lives or Live TV. Neilson also reports that Humorous Advertising themes resonate highest of 16 categories!  They go as follows (and I put the graphic in the show notes) 1 – Humorous 50%, 2- Value Oriented 38%, 3- Real Life Situations 35%, Family Oriented – 33%, 5- Pets/Animals Centered 27%.  The rest of the categories are Health themed, High-Energy/Action, Aspirational, Sentimental, Sports Themed, Celebrity endorsements (which is only 8% in the US), Sexual, and Athlete endorsed. I found A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan and Stony Brook University found that 20 minutes of improv experience causes people to feel comfortable and more tolerant of uncertainty.  In one experiment, improvisation activity was to a control group with social interactions where people picked a friend to talk about, a movie to discuss and physical actions to demonstrate. The improv group improved more in divergent thinking, but both groups increased in feeling good and comfort with uncertainty.  This goes along with the point I highlighted earlier that funny things are what disrupt what our minds and emotions expect.  And it in a very short period of time makes us feel better.  I put a link to this study in the show notes as well. Strategies for incorporating humor into your video content – word play, timing, visual, self-effacing humor or humbling yourself so people feel you are real or authentic/  Also, humor aids in the attraction first of all (just getting their attn in the first place) then sustainment of attention when you are trying to teach someone something. So many brands ARE trying to teach people things and the consumer will execute on learning more or buying the service or product just because you got their attention and kept it – while they were laughing at your message. Let’s highlight some Brand Examples             In Insurance: State Farm – “Who are you talking to?”  “it’s Jake from State Farm” "What are you wearing Jake from State Farm?"  "Uhhhh Khakis?" (laughter) Geico – with the lizard Progressive with Flo and also the half man half motorcycle dude – being a Motaur Product:  Old Spice with Isaiah Mustafa Dollar Shave Club did this ad on a dime….it’s on YouTube and I put it in the Shownotes. The CEO is riding around their ware house…it’s hilarious.  This same also talks on CNBD at iConic Conference in 2017 about how he came about with the co., the ad and how it led him to a $1 Billion dollar acquisition by Unilever. Video:  So we all know hopefully by now that a video strategy will serve your content and marketing strategy well – your viewers/followers and customers want it in short form and long form at times, but so do the platform algorithms. Now How can you Incorporate Humor Into your Video Strategy Here are 6 Steps You can take Today: What will be relatable to your target customer? For instance, I did a video series broken down by ea “episode” targeting authors.  Before Covid, I had a program to help authors with their social media strategy to market their book that included capturing video content for them, editing it and delivering it either straight to their social walls and stories, OR storing it all in a Drop box for them to post. Step 2 – Make a list of challenges or situations that your target customer has. So, using the author persona again – my list included writers block, play with words and I did a meaning of slang word video, sleep apnea…..laying in bed thinking about the book and finishing the book.  Do you follow me? Step 3 – Don’t need to spend a lot of time on this step, but definitely helps to spend a few minutes searching for videos that are targeting the same target as you are. Is anything trending?  Did you find a video funny and now you can make it your own? Out line a script. Depending on who will be in your video(s) besides yourself, you may or may not need to get ultra specific.  The new style of video first revealed in YouTube and now TikTok – I’m referring to the “style” of video, not the purpose of the videos….is multiple quick cuts – back and forth with little delay time if any inbetween. Edit it together – use an app like Slack to merge the clips together and write text over the Add music and even captions…depending on where you are going to post it. On LinkedIn, you really need to have captions on your videos. A bit less important now that people are working from home, but if they are bored in a meeting they often will scroll away on LinkedIn and read the text while watching your video with sound down or off all together. I’d love to hear what’s made you laugh lately?  What brand caught your attention?  What questions do you have about how to formulate a video series?  DM me on Instagram or Facebook @allsocialyall (Audio from @careysperry TikTok Video #1 on What is an Influencer Anyway??)

Welcome to episode 25 – How 1 Restaurant sold out in 3 hours online using social media and a committed digital strategy;  What hospitality brands need to do to win in this digital environment. You’ll hear me interview bbq restaurant owner, Shawn Walchef of Cali Comfort Barbeque.   Shawn emphasizes how important it is to have your leadership and employees engaged and contributing to your brand’s social media conversations, We highlight text messaging as the “next” effective way to delight your customers and give them instantaneous 2 way interactions allowing you the ability to convert orders AND! how humanity can be a winning factor in post modern branding;  when you show and express kindness, and you participate with your community it will build connections that go a very long way.

Use Cases & The Current Opportunities & Realities of DRONES and Drone video footage Today we are DIGGING IN further to the state and opportunity of DRONES.  As I explained in Ep 15 the Drone market is growing to 129.23 billion by 2025, according to a new report by Grand View Research, Inc. The Drone market is growing on an extremely HUGE projectory!  The FAA reports that there are guess how many registered drones in the US?  1.6 Million, 442,000 of which are used for Commercial.  Many pilots own more than one drone it’s worth noting. The fastest growth comes from businesses and civil governments. It is overall impacting a vast majority of industries: Drones are becoming a part of business in Construction, INsurace, Oil & Gas, Police or Fire Force, The Coastguard, Journalism, Customs or Boarder Protection, Real Estate (which I reference specific use cases in both residential and commercial in a bit), Utilities, Energy, Cinematogrpahy (movies which is how many of us think of Drone footage - which is at a 21MILL industry alone – bottom of the $$ projection list hey!) In this episode I also share follow up on My journey to becoming a certified remote pilot of an unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV and the growing Drone market and what it can mean for YOUR business!  For these flying objects - There are some very interesting uses cases being developed. There are unlimited use cases that are virtually untouched.  1 of the more obvious and talked about is delivery.  The FAA is encouraging innovation in package delivery and is organized to facilitate it with industry, local, state and tribal entities.  There is a five phase certification process that companies who want to incorporate a package delivery service. Traditionally, we’ve had UPS, FedEx, The United States Postal Service (where I still have to wait in line to get a package mailed), Uber Eats transports food to our homes and workplaces. On September 27, 2019, UPS Flight Forward conducted its first package delivery by drone with its part 135 certification when it flew medical supplies at WakeMed's hospital campus in Raleigh, NC. Allow me to introduce you (if you haven’t seen it) to a social media post (on Twitter) about a Drone experience serving a customer with excellence! He an Aerospace Ocean Engineering professor. He posted a video of receipt of a store order via a drone while his dog looked upon this odd machine dropping it down into his back yard. His Twitter handle is Shane Ross @RossDynamicsLab Professor @VirginiaTechAOE Aerospace & Ocean Engineering Apr 10 2020 he posted, Drone delivery to me & my dog at home. My 8-month-old Labrador was unperturbed by the drone, but curious and eager to go fetch the package (dog food?). The delivery was from Walgreens via @Wing , & arrived 5 minutes after placing the order. #logistics #dronedelivery #covid19 #dogs Now Grocery Drone Delivery  Speaking of Wing! Bloomberg reported that Wing, which is Alphabets Drone delivery service, is seeing a big increase in orders in the Christiansburg, VA pilot program  it has been running since the Fall of 2019.  In fact, demand has doubled since Covid 19.  Wing partnered with FedEx and Wallgreens to send household essentials to local residents .  They even now have added a local bakery and coffee shop! To expand offerings during the Pandemic.  This drone pilot on YouTube, Dmitri Marian, reversed engineered coffee delivery – during Quarantine because of  Covid19 from his home, ordered a cup of coffee from his local Starbucks and flew his drone that had upgraded antenaes, TO Starbucks, they put his coffee in a bucket attached to the drone and he flew it back.  Dude!  Take a listen and I put the link to the video in the show notes if you want to see it.  It He posted another one on both YouTube TikTok where he orders a cup of coffee from McDonalds.  If you want to watch it and you’re on TikTok he is @dmitritv There is still a lot to figure out before we will see multiple brands doing this….having to do with regulation and safety. Prime Air with Amazon is coming, you may have heard.  It will be a service that will deliver packages under 5 lbs in 30 min or less.  Prime Air has development centers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Austria, France and Israel. We are testing the vehicles in multiple international locations.  The link in the show notes has a few videos – quite entertaining and humorous videos, where Amazon helps you understand how what they call “a miracle of modern technology” will help you understand the conveniences it will offer you and imagine under what circumstances you will be able to use it!  Your child has a soccer game, the dog at one of her soccer cleats – Amazon Prime Air to the rescue! Dominos Pizza has been investing in automous delivery for a few years now.  They tested drone delivery but the automous car will be released first as they have partnered with start up mini manless self driving car, Nuro.  The little bug like cars drive up to 25 mph.  Dominos announced their partnership in 2019.  I have the link to a video featuring the car and the service in the show notes. The service is limited to customers who place online orders in Houston, and they deployed its grocery delivery service in Houston in March. Nuro’s partnership with Domino’s initially will be limited to a single location and will begin in the fall. “We are always looking for new ways to innovate and evolve the delivery experience for our customers,” Kevin Vasconi, Domino’s executive vice president and chief information officer, said in a statement released by the company.  Quoting again, “Nuro’s vehicles are specially designed to optimize the food delivery experience, which makes them a valuable partner in our autonomous vehicle journey." "The opportunity to bring our customers the choice of an unmanned delivery experience, and our operators an additional delivery solution during a busy store rush, is an important part of our autonomous vehicle testing,” the statement added. Now you are Visualizing your product being placed on a Drone. Or let’s back up – how can the order even be placed for Drone delivery? I encourage you to to consider text …I talk about this in an upcoming episode with a barbeque restaurant who is DOMINATING this!  If you’re a restaurant owner, please hear me on this.  Text ordering will help you.  I plan to release that episode explaining it all next week. So! Onto Use Cases in the Medical field Matternet M2 Parcel Delivery Drone Matternet is the world’s leading technology platform for on-demand drone delivery in urban environments. They specialize in very fast accurate delivery of medical items such as blood samples between locations inside of healthcare or hospital systems.  Their drones can carry up to 4.4 lbs and travel twelve and half miles within 30 minutes.  This benefits both patients (customers) and the healthcare efficiencies and man hour costs. A company called Dragonfly has created a model that from nearly 200 feet, their drones can detect several coronavirus symptoms, including fever, blood pressure, heart rate, and breathing rate.  So if one of these drones (you’re standing out on the street) detects Coronavirus of someone else who has the virus you might be glad.  You might be glad if it were you! Or some might feel this is an invasion of my privacy.  I don’t know….it’s so new.  It’s in similar vein of regulating wearing masks – at the time of this recording, states like Massachusetts and NY, NJ and many others are all fining citizens when they are out of their homes without masks on their faces. I don’t live in one of those states right now. There are phenomenal Use cases for Residential and Commercial REAL ESTATE There are results floating around the web claiming that Listings that feature drone photography and videography sell 68% faster! Well a Company called SoldbyAir conducted their own study to be sure of that data, and they report that 83% of home owners prefer to work with an agent who uses drone videography to feature their home.  They also found that high volume agents meaning those that are more successful I guess you could say, selling more homes, or spending more time on the craft – they use aerial footage 3.5x more often than lower volume real estate agents.  Which I thought was really interesting. The footage can be used (the drone footage) for real estate on the listing platforms like Zillow as well as formatted to social media platforms.  Apartments, townhomes and senior living homes can be viewed from a buyers home.   Which is really convenient, and experiential, you know what I mean?  They feel like whoa – there’s music and they start feeling like they are seeing it face to face. For Commercial developers, instead of looking at outdated Google Maps, current drone footage informs a purchase consideration or project preparation.  There’s also something called, Orthomosaic Mapping which is stitched together drone footage that provides a high resolution piece of gigantic perhaps hundreds of acres of property with extreme precision, accuracy and detail.  Commercial realtors know that the maps are a crucial piece to closing on a deal – and these deals are most often very large in price.  The maps – particularly video – help engage the emotional connection to the property.  It helps the realtor demonstrate the market expertise and opportunities of the special area transitions between you know - the various spaces, roads, natural elements like trees etc.  Very powerful!  Jerry Inguagiato, friend of mine, Senior Vice President with CB Richard Ellis, which is a commercial real estate broker or agent, told me “it enhances the visual experience for my clients.”  So he said that very confidently. It is a reality that a drone is yet another moving vehicle – thus the name, “unmanned aerial vehicle or UAV”. With that comes the inevitable accident or collision.  My exam studies this week have covered many aspects of drone pilot safety knowledge so far.  One, you cannot fly at night and there are very specific guidelines around when is considered night.  When is it night? Do you know? They are very specific - How the pilot has to be within 3 statute miles  of the drone from the control station a person standing at the control station of the small UAS must be able to see at a diagonal distance of 3 miles into the sky in order to detect other aircraft that may be approaching the area of operation So much like boat safety, there’s “see & avoid” laws and the pilot cannot be in a moving vehicle or aircraft while operating the drone.  Meaning you can’t be driving something while you are operating the drone which sounds obvious but there are some wild risky people out there!  So there’s rules around this pilot license. So with your business…there may or may not be something that there is an application.  But of all those industries that I listed, it isn’t even a whole set. These are the Questions Thinking of yourself - YOU as a consumer – is often how I urge people to think about it we are all consumers ourselves, put your self in the customers shoes which I know you do pretty much every day – ask will you get great benefits??  With Covid19 we are all needing grocery delivery at times…some of us are using that exclusively, some of us are blending – using it most of the time, while supplementing with “mini trips” and others are doing ONLY mini trips and no grocery order.  So anyway, it’s just a mish mash of how people are going about it depending on their circumstances.  But it’s transforming the industry as well as the customer experience.   So what’s relevant to all of us today is Food – food delivery, restaurant experiences and grocery stores.  And I want you to think about how can your business either have a dotted line to the food business or how can you learn from the essential food business customer experience?  Because this is not just about beautiful  videography right?  It ‘s also about practicality, so it just depends on what it is. ….pause (music) Back to case uses - Another active use case is in Agriculture where our food sources are grown or harvested.  Drones are saving time for farmers, ….they are being used for things like, scouting fields, discovering weeds and diseases that erode growth, they help identify things like water deficiencies! Important stuff to the Ag industry. Now there are 3rd party software that agriculture companies can purchase to create maps on the health of their crops.  Why I highlight this is to connect the technology capability.  The Drone is the capture device and with it, it can inform and VISUALIZE which can then be transmitted into data visualization software to help business owners see and understand realities, patterns, and insights. No matter what your business or industry is, what you can ask – ask yourself these questions: How can I help my customer better visualize my business or offerings? This relates to the video aspect, similar to the real estate examples I gave; What kind of insights can I discover in my business to improve my customer experience? This means discoveries from footage…or engagement or conversations from customer viewership; How many perspectives or discoveries can I make available to either my customer or my management team to help them make informed decisions? This is long term findings and patterns….throught long term patterns to be able to make changes. The Emotional Connection - We are going through the living experience of change with the growth of Drone use – both professionally and the hobbiests flying them….how do you FEEL about the buzz of Drones being around you?   I am talking about the emotional or feelings you might have of them being being a part of our lives? Have you envisioned or FELT this becoming our new norm?  I’ve listened to people share how they are very uncomfortable with Drones being around them.  It’s weird now but do you think it will be like, “normal and fine” after we adjust and reap ongoing benefits? I’ll leave you with that.  Thank you for being here once again.  Please share it with anyone it might help in their business and let me know if you’d like anymore content like this around drones.  I am going to continue to cover the topic through my journey to become a certified pilot myself.  I have a little ways to go!  But I am chipping away at it and I appreciate your support.  Have a great rest of your day or evening.        

This is Part 2 of a 2 part series recorded in a live radio show called El Sassa, about How Businesses Will Change after Covid 19 Coronavirus.  Radio and podcast host Sassa and I discuss the current impacts of Coronavirus in our business communities, the government loans and what business owners are facing waiting for that….how services like Uber and Lyft or hair and nail salons might transform.  Very importantly, how to decide what to do next in your business – such as how to decide – what businesses are thriving right now, how to deal with fear and the fear of failure and finding strength from trying and finding successes when you don’t quit.  I talk about digital solutions that you can try if you want to succeed in a new area of competency. Sassa: Let's talk about this loan, this government funds there, the loans that people are supposed to be receiving. Can you just tell me what do you think about these big change like route Roots Steakhouse, Del Frisco, Popbelly, I could keep going for a couple of... Getting 40,000,000 20,000,000 10,000,000. How do you feel about that? You got small businesses like yours and mine's and many other small little businesses that we actually went out of business waiting on this. I mean, what do you think about that? I mean, do you think that things are going to be different on this new second role that they're doing? Well, I think absolutely that... My full understanding, I found out first about it for my CPA, she sent an email out to me, my business and several other of her clients that are small businesses and said, "Hey, just so you know, you can apply for this loan. Which actually isn't a loan because, it doesn't have to be paid back. But it's being called... Everyone knows what it means. It is money that's given to you to help your business survive and pay your employees." So it was intended for the small businesses and the mid-sized businesses, not the huge revenue making businesses. So if that was the intention, then there should have been check boxes. I can't remember every question- They should have separated. Right? I think they should have allocated them differently. Because I mean, they get public help already probably, because of the... They trade in the public. But again, one of them gave the money back, so that was this hamburgers chain, I think fast food restaurant. Shark, I think it's called. Oh, Shake Shack. Okay. Yeah. They gave the $10,000,000 back. So that's good because they say, "You know what, I'm giving it back." Yeah. But you gave it back because you got another loan from the equity partners here. If they were not giving it, you probably would have kept it. And you know what, you have enough money. You have 100 stores in the whole United States to be able to survive. Small businesses who've saved all their lives' savings, they pretty much lost everything. They have to restart. That doesn't necessarily mean that you're going to get back in business and running 100% the first day it opens. Correct? Well, another thing about a large business with a lot of revenue and capital is preparation for emergency or I forget what the word is for this that we're in, but there were data models that showed that Bill Gates predicted this in a TED Talk a few years ago that this was the number one thing that we had to worry about. Instead, our global economy and business world was focused on cyber terror and cyber construction, obstruction rather of privacy and privacy now is taking off. I'm not saying that it's massively important, but unfortunately we overlooked that this was coming. I do believe that the larger businesses, because they have more revenue, they should be able to allocate and prepare better. Just like a lot of them haven't done a great job at customer experience satisfaction because they're not transforming in the digital world fast enough to meet consumers needs. I talk like that because I come from Forrester Research of six years and I know this is true because I sat in the meetings and heard the executives of these gigantic companies talk about it. I'm not saying it's easy, but I do believe that the larger businesses with more revenue should be able to prepare better for if something goes wrong and there is a disaster of some sort, whether it's environmental, economic, technical, war, whatever it is to have some runway with being able to stay afloat. Whereas the small businesses don't have that cashflow or they would be a large business, right? So, the small and mid-sized businesses are trying to get to levels where they can save more and invest more in things that can keep them going when there is a disaster. That's try. I'm going to tell you maybe, if there's 15 businesses that are striving during COVID-19, Coronavirus. So I'm going to share some of them for you, so you know this and you can share this with your audience as well. Cleaning services, one. Delivery services, grocery stores, liquor and wine stores. I don't know how, but liquor... I guess people are still drinking. Go open a liquor store and get happy, right? Meal prep, delivery services, [inaudible 00:36:05], good companies, things like that. Game makers and sellers like gaming, I guess kids are at home, they want to play video games more now. Fitness equipment companies. I don't know how fitness companies, maybe they're not selling to gyms anymore, maybe selling them to the home. Landscaping and Carey, you're right about that. Landscaping because I need to still cut my grass. Because even though COVID-19 is here, I can't let my house look all busted. That one is good. Bread baking company. So if you like to bake and you like to do cookies and baking and all that stuff, might be a good one to get into. Helping Americans relieve the stress by eating some cookies, it always helps. All right? Coffee subscription companies, go drink... I've been drinking more coffee this COVID-19, so that might be going. Gardening, I've been home a lot so I've been doing a lot of my garden stuff. Mask makers, there's a lot of people who are doing masks out there, maybe get into that. Tele-health. So those are some of the businesses that are striving in this industry. Yeah. So, we talk about how many businesses are going to be affected, how much my business got hit and how I'm restructuring. How I'm doing everything different. How I'm going to move my office now from a home base office until I get back in my feet, maybe by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. Hopefully by then I should be back to normal and I can probably look back into a different location and continue. But if I like that the way we said it, maybe I'll stay there. I mean, I'll save me rent and maybe I could use that money for a good vacation once airlines start traveling and start doing things back again. But this is the time for restructuring. This is the time for you to save a lot of money and cutting things that you don't need. This is the time for you to start thinking, brainstorming, how to get back, how to restart, how to just... Think about how when you started, when you first opened your business. Like man, you were a one man shop, think about it that way, man. "I'm a one man shop. I got to go fight this battle and I got to go out there and do a lot." Yes, you probably weren't used to doing it because you had help so many years. But go out there and think with that mentality because you know what? It's kind of like you knew how to do the business before, you knew how to do the product, you knew how to sell the product and you were teaching all these other people. So that way that could be your team, pretty much rebuilt your team. That's what I'm thinking. I don't know what you think about that girl. Yeah. I think it's partly personality. Because with personality, you have your interests, things that you're just plain not interested in. I'm interested in so many things, but I am not interested in learning how electronics, how to connect wires to make my lights work. Once my husband tried to explain that to me and he's like, "You love to learn. Why don't you want to learn this?" And I said, "I don't know, but I don't care. I don't like electric." Yeah. So I think people need to be honest with themselves because yeah, you got to do what you gotta do to get through this, but don't pivot into something that you cannot stand or that doesn't really interest you because few months down the road you're going to be miserable. The other thing is, I've noticed like with people with COVID and with quarantine is that some people are like, "Gosh, I feel more relaxed than ever. I feel stressed in a different way." And then other people, like my mom, she texts me the day that they came out and said that Georgia is opening up this Friday and Monday and she was ecstatic and I was like, "I'm not really going to be ecstatic yet because I kind of got to see what this is going to mean and everything." I had to see more information and she's just chomping at the bit to get out. So I think that's part of it. I don't know if I answered your question. No, no. You did. You know what? I know that the mayor over there in Atlanta doesn't want to open. Right? Because, she's still concerned about that. She's still thinking that- That's right. There's a possibility that you guys can get a big wave and coming back and getting more infections and things like that, which I am under the impression that we're doing it too fast. But I understand people are complaining that, "We need the economy, we need our jobs, we need our work, we need this, we need that." But I think we can always make money in life, but we can never make our life again. We only live once. That's right. It's a balance. Exactly. And you know what? Any government can probably redo an economy, can restructure, can do this. You can go out there and you can start a new business. You can actually start a new job. You can actually rebuild somewhere or the other. But your life is once, once you're gone, you're gone. There's no way coming back. Now, if you know a place where you can go and come back or something that makes you go and come back, let me know, because I'd love to know that. Right? But we have to take it seriously. And that's what people are not doing. Oh, yeah. What do you think about that? I think we need to be really smart and listen to the experts. Listen to the scientists and form our own decision around how our lives are. People have different situations and it's not easy. It's a lot to decide on and things are changing so fast. It's like, "Okay, what's going to happen today?" And there's a lot of uncertainty. But this is still new. But I think too, the other huge thing is mindset and attitude. I think I touched on this before about some business owners kind of freezing or not knowing what to do or people that have lost their jobs and they're like, "I'm not going to apply for anything because I just don't know what to do and I don't know where to go and I don't know when this is going to be over." But I believe in doing it scared. Someone asked me the other day, "What if I start a YouTube channel and I fail?" And I said, "Well then you..."- They're failing already because they're thinking about failure already. Right? Exactly. And I liked how he was being transparent with me and the real reason why he was hesitating. But this is really what he wanted to do. But then this fear of failure was perking up and preventing him from taking action. I said, "You know what? When you have small failures." You hear all the people that become self-made millionaires and billionaires say, "I failed too. But what I did was I kept going and I learned from my failures and I kept going." I feel like I finally am... I'm a young agency, just two years old in June. I look back just two years ago or even a year ago and I say, "Gosh, if I wouldn't have tried this and I wouldn't have put deadlines on myself." While I was doing it scared because I didn't always know everything that I was doing. I was figuring it out as I went that I wouldn't be where I am today and I have so much further to go in my goals. Unbelievably, I put so much pressure on myself but I do feel like I've finally kind of come full circle with knowing what that feels like and I can just... Any listeners out there that are hesitating because of fear with the unknown in your business, hone in on something that interests you and something that you would... If you look and you say, "If I were successful I would be so happy." And just do it scared. Lean on people that you can ask questions of and consume as much information and just start, keep going. That's my take. I'm gonna follow up with yours as well. People who say, "Man, I don't want to apply because this and that." You pay so many years of this, it's probably time now they give you something back. This is the time when you need it the most is a great opportunity for you to say, "You know what, I pay this as an American." You pay this, you get it back. Go out there and you need it. Don't come out there and try to feel like, "Oh, I'm scared or I'm embarrassed." Girl, you need it. You need to feed your kids, your family, your husband or your wife. You need to survive in this time. Two, failure... And we pay this. I mean, I paid it. You paid it. Everybody's paid this. I mean, they've taken it out of us. It's time for us to get back from the system what you put into the system. That's the way it should be in some way when this situations happen. This is a time for you to be able to... That's what it's there for. Whenever you need help, be there for me, lean on me. The other thing about failure, when you start to think failure already, like you say girl, you're already coming with that negativity. That's what you're going to attract and that's what you're going to start thinking. That's what you're going to start believing and that's what you're going to start bringing. So what you need to start thinking is a way with negativity, whether you go ahead, either be successful or not, you're going to give it your best because you're going to be the best at it as you can. You're probably not going to be an expert at the beginning because you don't know as much, but that's why God gave us something and that's why He gave us a mouth. Ask questions. That's why you have friends like you and I, you can text messages and I'm here to help anybody on podcasting or helping them how to get started on a podcast and things like that. Because remember, I am a firm believer that all the good deeds you do in this life continue and carry on with you to the afterlife. Okay. I agree. So if you do bad deed, you're going to continue and pay them over there. So let me tell you something. My life, I see this, I'm a firm believer, as a good... I'm Catholic, by the way, for a lot of folks that don't know this, as a good Catholic, a Christian believer as well, I feel I'm here to help. That's what God has sent me into this world, to help others and love others for who they are and help them in the time of need. So if you need me, I'm here. I'm a brother, I'm a friend, I'm here to help. So if we will all think this way, we can all help each other and not have envy and not have jealousy and not try to be better than you in this and that. If we all work together as a team, we will be not only a better country, but we will also be a better world a better humanity, for the whole world. So, listened to you to because I like what you say, they have to go ahead and give it their best and work at it. I think that's good. The YouTube channel, podcasting and all this stuff. A lot of people, sometimes they don't even get the support from their husband or their wife. This might be a time for you to say, "You know what, I'm going to do it and I'm going to show the world I could do it." Am I right on that? Oh yeah. Amen. I feel so bad for people that don't have support from their family. Because I'm fortunate and so thankful that I do. But I think about that. I try to be full of gratitude for that, wake up in the morning and write down the things that I have gratitude for. Everyone can have gratitude for something. I think too thinking, being conscious of your self-talk. If you find yourself saying these things in your head to yourself, being able to catch yourself and then turning it into a positive even if you don't yet believe it. I learned this because I learned how to sell. I've been a salesman most of my career and in technology and I learned from Mary Kay that old fashion company where you put- Hey, Mary Kay has made a lot of money for a lot of people. My mom started with Mary Kay and she used to make a little bit of money, believe me. But it was a lot of time consuming. I learned so much about sales. I didn't care anything about makeup. Isn't that funny? But I learned about sales and then I moved on to technology and that's what I love. Every time I think about Mary Kay girl, I think about the cream Royal jelly, I think, oh, what was it called? That one day my mom will always sell, her friends would come over and she would always sell it to them. The cleanser. Yeah. They're a great company. Really great company. Great company, yes. But they taught me to write down positive affirmations on sticky notes. Some people are opposed to sticky notes because they get lost and whatnot. But write on something, put it on your bathroom mirror, put it on your refrigerator. Just a few positive affirmation. So when you catch yourself saying these negative thoughts, that you revert right back and you say it to yourself, if you can out loud, that's even better. But speaking of giving and being Christian and everything, I am too. It reminded me of this company of... I'm very close to their family. It's called Perillo Motors out of Chicago and it's Perillo... They sell BMWs, luxury vehicles all kinds of... Six different lines of automobiles that they sell. Well, of course sales of automobiles have gone down and manufacturers have decreased production and whatnot. Well, what they decided to do was to give back to their community by... There's a suffering pizza store there that has two locations. And the pizza owner, store owner, restaurant owner was suffering saying, "I don't know what I'm going to do. I might close." So they decided to offer through their service center, the dealership, sterilizing the cars. So people come in, they pay $25 to have their car sterilized, which people need right now because they can get back in their car from wherever they are and they're worried about how long the virus might live in their car. And then they're taking that $25, buying pizzas from the pizza shop owner and then taking the pizza, actually delivering it to the frontline medical personnel at the hospitals. Awesome man. Awesome. Great. And who doesn't love pizza? Everybody loves pizza. So it's a great cause. It's just like a win-win-win, and I think people will even go in and get their car sterilized if they probably think, "Well, my car's fine, but they'll probably do it anyway if they have 25 extra dollars." Right? That's right. And Carey, the reason why I share, I'm here to help anyone in my life because that's my path. I think that's what the Lord wants me to do is help people and that's what I'm going to finish my life doing, continue. Because a lot of people who don't know how I got into radio station, how I got into podcasting. How did I get into this? When I went to school at the University of Houston for business, I own an insurance company, very successful one here in Texas. How did I change everything and went into this? Well, in the insurance industry I needed to sell more and more and more. So, I needed to promote myself. I had to go do advertisement at radio stations and this and that. It would cost me money. Univision was killing me, $800 a week. You can imagine the numbers a month, a year and every day. That was only for 30 minutes once a week, not even every day. So I started thinking saying, "Hey, you know what, I might need to go ahead and do this on my own." So finally, I met someone who would say, "Hey, I could put a studio for you. I could put a radio for you, this and that." I said, "You know what, I'm investing my money into this because it's pretty much my marketing money that I'm doing." Well, to make a long story shorter, he left me two years later by myself. Just want you guys to know this. I would come in here to the studio, sit and I would just look at the video camera and I would just talk because he would work everything. I would just pretty much sit and just talk and never learned nothing, never knew anything. I saw so many cables. I saw so many things and I never paid attention. I don't need to know this because he's here. Well, one day someone came, offered him more money, this and this and that, took him from me and then he never taught me nothing in my life. I asked him, "Can you teach me?" He said, "No, I'm gone." He left. People have bad heart. So how did I get into this? Well, I learned it on my own, everybody. I learned it on my own. I came, I was stressed. There were days I would come and say, "Man, how am I going to turn this thing on? What am I going to press? Nothing. What about if I mess up this and people are not listening to me? What about this?" And I would press the stuff and the radio will go down. So one day I went into Guitar Center and the gentleman that was selling products saw me all stressed out and I said, "I need to buy maybe this. I've been reading on and this and that." He goes, "Man, you know what Sassa? You're a good guy, man? I like you. Ever since you've been coming here, you've been showing me how to love." I said, "Man, I appreciate that. Johnny." He says, "What's wrong with you?" I said, "Man, this happened to me, this and that." He goes, "Man, you know what Sassa, if you give me till Thursday man, I'm off and I can come in and look at your studio, look at your station and I can help you and see what you... And I could teach you." Wow. I said, "You would?" He goes, "Yes man, I'm here to help man and I want to help you. I know you're stressed." He came, he put things together, he spent time, he showed me, he did everything and he taught me everything. He left this studio running like a multimillion dollar radio station. Okay? Really good. And guess what? That's how I learned everybody. So when you start thinking about fear already, fear brings to you, fear comes to you. You will have hurdles in your new venture you're going do from now on after COVID-19. You will have a street with many rocks and you have to maybe jump on more, you know this and that and curve and this, but never give up and there will always be... I mean, I get chills because the Lord is telling me to share this with you and I'm telling you, you will always have some angel that will come into your life because remember, continue practicing your good deeds. He will help you. The angel will come and help you. They will always be angels out there. They will leave you and give you a hand and say, "Man, I'm here to help." That's why you don't give up. You continue fighting. Today our radio station is listened to all over the world, Elsassa Radio. You could download the app. It's a radio E-L-S-A-S-S-A Radio. Elsassa Radio and you can also check our website. It's elsassaradio.com and I learned in that way. That's how I got into this. Never in my life, I imagined I would be doing this. Never went to school for this and now we have what? An app. We have a new website coming in, entertainment and we just continue sharing this. And just to show you the powerful... How this does. How do you and I meet? On Instagram. Correct? Yeah. And here we're doing this podcast. That's an amen. God bless that conversation. That's how I started testing. I wanted to share this and I wanted to tell you, you have a friend in me, just like your audience has a friend of me and my audience have a friend as well. So my positive feedback from me to them and to you is, you are a warrior, you are a fighter and you are the most valuable thing to you. Never give up. Remember, you can do this. You can. That's right. I love that. That's beautiful. And likewise, Sassa you have a lifetime friend in me and I do believe that we were, God made us born perfect and it's just we're the ones that don't see ourselves as perfect in God's eyes. But we are. If you really listen to what you're here for and what you are good at and what you're great at and how you're special, that can just really evolve into things in your life that open up as major blessings. Thank you girl. You know what? I know we're getting to the end of this hour. I really had a great, great time doing this podcast. We need to do this more often. Me too. Maybe have an idea of might pop out of this and we might be starting to do this, consistently and I like that because you know what, I need ATL coming out of the way H-town together, making this for people that need us right now. I love it. I want to tell you, stay safe. Uh, take care of your family. Hope one day I get a chance to see you and meet you and hug you, once everything is gone, Coronavirus is gone for good. That's right. I tell you what's going to happen to me, as soon as this COVID-19 is done, I'm actually going to take a little vacation back to my place where I'm from originally. Go to the beach and I'm going to just drink me a margarita and say, "Thank God this is over." Because it's so stressful for everybody, that everybody just needs a relief in some way or the other. But again, keep being a fighter. Keep doing what you're doing. I love your podcast. You do an amazing job. Not only are you a beautiful woman from the outside, but you are a beautiful angel, beautiful person in your heart inside. I want to thank you for giving me this opportunity to do this with you today. I loved it. I had a good time and we will continue working together. I think I just want to go ahead and say hello to everybody that was listening to us. We lost her for a minute, but you know what? We want to go ahead and say goodbye and see you, till the next one. El Sassa Radio, with you. Don't forget, follow me on Instagram Elsassa37. Chao chao Be good.

Hi Everyone!  I hope you and your families are well.  You’re listening to the All Social Y’all Podcast Episode 22 and this is Part 1 of a 2 part series recorded in a live radio show called El Sassa, about How Businesses Will Change after Covid 19 Coronavirus.  Radio and podcast host Sassa and I discuss the current impacts of Coronavirus in our business communities, the emotional perspectives – like overwhelm and dealing with every day being ‘just weird’ in some ways, how the food industry is transforming, how the media is informing and influencing consumer’s decision making, the education system and learning disruption and what this will offer in the future….we talk about , remote or virtual experiences like the NFL Draft first time going Live with the draft virtually.  We discuss how Covid19 is driving innovation in a different way, plus more.    Carey Sperry: I'm excited to be here! Sassa: Great. Man, I'm actually excited to do this podcast with you. This is something we've been talking so much for the past maybe few weeks or days, right? Since COVID-19 started and we've talked about, "Hey, let's get together and do this and it feels good to work together in this and just kind of like talk with your listeners, my listeners and kind of share some of this business things that are happening with COVID-19. I know that your podcast, you kind of talked so much to the business people out there, correct? Carey Sperry: That's right. Yes. Small and midsize businesses, some large business owners and executives tune in as well. But we focus on digital, social and how you can best serve your customer through the customer experience through social and digital. Sassa: That's right. So Carey, tell us a little bit more. I mean, you're, you're located in Georgia, you said, right? In what city? Carey Sperry: Yes. We're just right outside Atlanta and we're in the greater Atlanta area out of Alpharetta, Georgia. Sassa: That's good. So, how has Georgia been handling this COVID-19 and I know you guys are going to be opening pretty soon here too, right? Carey Sperry: Great question. Yes. Well, first we've been handling it quite well. I've been pretty proud of our state and we had one city, I think it's Albany that had a really bad breakout that had the most deaths from a funeral that people attended. But that wasn't their fault because it was before they knew that there was COVID-19 and it was as prevalent as it was, here. But since then it's been... Since there's been awareness, there's been a lot of compliance. Nothing's perfect but even the young kids that normally would be outside at basketball courts in parks and things that... You know what I mean. High school kids that can drive and whatnot. Sassa: Yeah. Carey Sperry: They're even, I see them staying home and so we're supposed to open up Friday and Monday I think in a phase effort. The strategy, which seems a bit a little early to me, because we didn't really have time to like get ready so to speak. But we'll see how it goes and I get the logic behind it. Sassa: That's true. And Carey, here in Houston, I'm in Texas. For your listeners that do listen to your podcast, we are a Houston company, Texas [inaudible 00:02:35]. They say they do big everything in Texas, but right now we're feeling like everything's so small with COVID-19. Right? I was actually just telling you before we started this podcast I was driving by Twin Peaks, it's usually packed over lunch in the evenings and it's empty. Some places in Houston you feel like ghost towns. You're like, "Man, I remember when this used to be so crowded, so packed, so jamming. Now it's empty." Are you getting that over there as well in, in Georgia? Carey Sperry: Absolutely. Yes. We're blessed to be able to see, right? Because it's another sense that we have to absorb this experience and our eyes connect to our feelings and when we see things differently, when you're taking a walk outside and you normally see like 1000 cars go by in an hour's time, now you see 10 go by or something. That's just very weird mind body connection. But yeah, about, I don't know how many weeks ago now, it's kind of hard to keep track of time, although I am keeping a daily journal where I'm documenting my own perception of the COVI9-19 experience, hoping that one day my great grandchildren will read it. Sassa: Yeah. Carey Sperry: We're going to forget. Sassa: Let's hope that they don't go through this no more. Right? Let's hope that we can just tell them what it was, right? Carey Sperry: Totally. Oh my gosh. I wouldn't wish this on anyone and yet it's a global issue, which is another kind of thing to absorb. But I don't know how many weeks ago it was, but I remember some stores being open and being able to go in and seeing cars out in the parking lot and people going in and out of the stores. I'm not saying that it was the normal volume, it was definitely a lower volume. But then the day before Easter I went out to pick up a ham from Honey Baked Ham and all those stores were closed. There was no cars. I think one store was open and they were letting in 10 people at a time and you had to wait outside, taped sidewalk with tape to stand apart six feet and things just- Sassa: And they're not listening, right, Carey? I mean, I don't even know if I want to go to the grocery store as much no more because they just go by you. They cross you. I understand people's stress and I understand people are just trying to get in and out, but I think it's not even about them maybe not listening or not doing it. Maybe sometimes you just got so much in your mind, you just want to just go and come and you don't see the other person. I think we need to also take care of ourselves but we also need to take care of other people as well. Correct? Carey Sperry: Oh, totally. I'm wearing a mask when I go out, but like you, I'm wanting to go out. I don't want to go out, but if I have to, I will to get necessities or just food if I can't get a delivery for what we need. But that's been pretty good. But I put the mask on just out of respect for people that have compromised systems or older people. I've noticed that definitely not everyone here is wearing a mask, but probably maybe 60% it seems like are wearing the masks. I mean, I think a couple of things. When people aren't being aware or they're not abiding by the social distancing in public. Is one, they're either kind of checked out, their stressed, their mind isn't concentrating on that as what they're concentrating maybe doing what they're there to do. It's kind of an innocent thing but still they need to try to remember. Sassa: Yes. Carey Sperry: I think the other thing is unfortunately some people just aren't paying attention as much on a daily basis as would help. I think they just maybe are watching movies and I don't think watching the news all day long is healthy at all. I've limited myself to just staying in tune every day, but not watching hours upon hours of it. Sassa: It stresses you girl. Let me tell you, I did that at the beginning of this whole pandemic. It was stressful. I had to get the phone out of... I mean, the television out of me and the phone for a side because I was just watching news. If I didn't get on the computer, I got on the cell phone, I got on the television. It was just too much and it comes to a point where it also stresses you and you're like, "Oh my God, it's putting too much on me." Did you feel that? Carey Sperry: That's right. Oh, totally. I was doing the same thing at first, because it was just such a big change from normal life. Like you said, being a business owner, thinking about, "How am I going to take care of my family and what is this going to mean and how long is it going to be? What does it mean in my community and just the children having to be home for school." We just have one left at home now who is 17 so he's pretty independent, but he still has some needs that definitely, I worked about two hours with him yesterday on his goals and his grades. They only have like four weeks left of school now. So, it's just a lot. Sassa: Yeah. Texas. We're actually not going to have no more school for the rest of the year, they announced that. The governor said that all Texas schools will be closed. So you can just imagine how... I have one of my children who was graduating from high school this year. I'm also wondering how this is going to work with him and I'm going to work with the school on graduation and things like this. So I could just imagine how many parents are out there also stressing with things like this. But today, we need to just focus on staying safe. Sassa: That's what I told my son, worry about staying safe, healthy, "Don't worry about graduation right now. We'll figure that out." But I'm thinking they'll put something together, maybe in the summer. Hopefully they get something going. Even though... I don't even know how graduations are going to be no more, because Carey here in Texas, I don't know if in Georgia is the same, but I mean, I graduated with 800 to 1000 kids when I graduated. So my son's probably going to graduate with even more, probably 1500 more. How are you going to do it? That's my question, right? Me and my mom- Carey Sperry: I believe... Oh sorry. Sassa: No, no. Sorry. I was going to tell you, my mom, my father, my brothers, myself, his mom, my younger son, I mean we all want to go to the graduation and see my son graduate. Maybe it's hundreds of other families who want to be at the same place. So that's going to change a bit, right? Carey Sperry: Yes. I believe, I'm not 100% but I believe our high school where our son attends is doing a virtual, they call it very special virtual experience for the ceremony for graduation. Sassa: Wow. Carey Sperry: Like I said, I'm not 100% because my son is in senior, but I believe that's what I saw, which reminds me tomorrow night, which is Thursday, is the NFL draft and for the first time in history they're doing it remotely. Sassa: That's right. Carey Sperry: So I'm going to tune in because I'm just interested in how that's going to work. My son and I were talking about it the other day and I was saying, "You know what, I think is going to kind of feel like a news program when you're watching the news and then they bring in a weather caster or guest..."- Sassa: And the sport. Yeah. Carey Sperry: But the players will be at their homes and in front of their computer. Sassa: I mean, Carey, look at what ESPN did. I mean, they don't have sports. So they put the Michael Jordan 10 episodes, which I watched it and it kind of brought me back to my time when I grew up watching Michael. I'm from the '90s and '80s, so I saw that and everything I was watching just made me forget COVI9-19 and started thinking, "Man, I remember when I was listening to the song. I remember when that happened. I remember this." So it brought something good. I think that's what sports probably are going to start going into because I mean, we can't be in crowds and I just can't wait to go see a sports event and see how many people are going to wear masks because it's going to be so many people. Right? Carey Sperry: Yes. I mean, I don't even know if there's going to be contact sports with audiences in the hall. I hope there will be, but they said today that they're the outbreak in the winter, the CDC came out and said today that the outbreak in the winter might be worse than what we're experiencing now. Sassa: Yes. Carey Sperry: I can't even imagine, but we just have to take it a day at a time. That's part of the acceptance part of this, I think. Because, I mean, I don't know what your perspective is Sassa about Americans, but anyone that lives here, it's such kind of high intensity pace that we have. In Europe, they take a couple hours in the afternoon, businesses shutdown for an hour or two to- Sassa: Yes. My country, they do it too, they close. I'm like, "Mom, why are people close here to 2:00." "Oh, they're in their lunch break." I'm like, "Can they just open?" She goes, "No, they said once it hits 11:59 they're telling you, you need to leave because we're taking our lunch." Two hours, they close. Why do they do this? And they're gone at 3:34 o'clock. They don't work an hour or a minute afterwards. I understand them because I mean, they don't get paid as much as we do here in America, but they're just ready to go home. I think we need to start looking at doing things like that more. I personally as a business owner myself, Carey, I actually am in the process of doing a transition of my company, my office, my studio at home. Sassa: I have a house where I have enough space to build a room and maybe another suite there. So I'm considering doing that. I mean, yes it's going to save me some money, but working at home these last few days has also made me restructure some things of my business and think differently, but also in the way where I'm thinking like, "Man, if I have to start all over, because that's what we want to talk more today. I'm pretty much starting all over as of now." My company went in marketing and advertisement, 70 to 80% of my clients cancel my contracts because they can't afford them right now. They don't need the marketing because they don't have their business open. I feel we all need marketing. I feel we all need to continue doing this. But your average business owner, they got to survive. They got to have family, they got to pay other bills than for me to do marketing and sponsorships. That hit me hard about 80%. Now, you can imagine, and I'm probably not the only one in this, I can tell you that right now. Carey Sperry: No. You're absolutely not. Not alone. Sassa: How am I going to start? I want you to also share with your audience and my audience and I want you to share with me as a friend, how are you planning on restarting if you're doing a business or what have you heard from friends? Because, what I did this last few weeks, it's just continue brainstorming, thinking, "What kind of business can I open now? I mean, what can I do now? Do I need to create another app that does this, does that? Do I need to put a little bit of money here more? Since I'm pretty much going to restart all over." Sassa: I might just do something new. It's kind of a new life, a new change. Because we were talking earlier, remember when I told you girl? Two or three months we've been with no work, it's going to take me another two or three months to kind of get back on my feet. By then winter comes. Guess what girl, boom! It hit me again because like you said, CDC said it might come stronger. So I feel from here to December, I'm pretty much... It's all going to be a loss for me. What do you think about that friend? Carey Sperry: Oh, I totally understand. I have clients that are going through the same thing very strongly and with the compound effect. It's what you're talking about. I admire you and applaud you for thinking ahead like that because if you just get paralyzed in your mind and in your attitude and say, "I'm just so overwhelmed, I don't know what to do, my business is losing. So I'm just gonna wait, I'm just not going to... I don't know what to do and I can't ask for help because I'm embarrassed or I don't know who to ask." Or all these things. I mean for my business personally, it absolutely hurt. The new business prospects that I was working with decided to hold off, because... They happened to be brick and mortar that were touching people, like an eyelash extension company and another was a computer security that had to do with face-to-face, like someone actually looking at the computer. Carey Sperry: So, I of course 150% understand their decision even though I encourage them to brand during COVID so that then when the economy did open back up and they were able to do business again, like Georgia and Texas is opening up now, that then they could convert faster to appointments. If they did the branding online upfront and then people are like, "When it opens up, I'm going there." I understand the decision either way. As far as my business with... I started pivoting back in 2019 where I wanted to become a podcaster. I launched the podcast in November, of 2019. I'm so thankful I did that because now I have had a studio at home this whole time and now, I'm just continuing that and I feel like podcasts are just right on the bottom. If you picture yourself on a roller coaster and you go down the big hill, I don't ride roller coasters myself, but- Sassa: It's been a while since I ride one too, so don't feel bad girl. Since I rode. Carey Sperry: Then you start to go back up that next incline. That's where we are with podcasts as far as saturation. People think that YouTube is completely saturated. It is not, it is not saturated all the experts in that space say so. So I became last year a YouTube channel manager and I'm working on a channel with my daughter. It's called conservation Schick. And she launched the day before Easter on April 11th. My son wants to start his own channel and as I'm actually doing this myself, I'm also helping businesses with that as well with. So that's something that businesses can do, is reach audiences. Now as far as conversion to payment and a product that varies business-to-business- Sassa: Yes. You're right. Carey Sperry: I think one thing that is going to happen with this new way of life is education is absolutely, I believe going to transform to more online, more digital. All these teachers now are learning how to do it and the ones that like it are going to want to continue to somehow offer that in school. They're going to find, "Oh my gosh, people want to learn at home." But with that, so do business people. Business people want to learn from other business people and consumers want to learn from home. Sassa: That's right. Carey Sperry: So courses are a huge thing. I haven't- Sassa: And you're right about that because for example, restaurants that didn't have an app, they didn't think digital was the key. They didn't think internet was... If you weren't in this platforms before let's say January, 2018 you were already way Flintstone era, old already. Because this is where you got hit the most because you weren't on these digital platforms, these online services, all these apps and things like that. Now they are seeing, "Man, I should have had my one app. I should have had this. I should have had that, because maybe my business would have strived during that time and now it got hit harder because I didn't think that was coming anytime." Sassa: It took a COVID-19 for them to see this, in a different way because now they're going to have to integrate whether they wanted or not digital stuff into the platform. I think that's one of the things that COVID-19 will change on some of these restaurants now. Another thing that they said here in Texas, check this out. They're trying to open the economy, right? To the To Go, the retail To Go. One store manager, some of the challenges he's facing. I don't want to face financial ruins yet also, I don't want to get sick because we're still in the early stages. Right, Carey? Carey Sperry: Yeah. Too early. Sassa: How is retail going to work now to go, remember... I mean, you as a woman, you got to go out there, maybe try the dress or tr the shoes. I understand online was getting big and it was popping in is still going to continue, but a friend of mine told me last night, "I still like going to the mall and I still like going into different stores and trying this. I spent more money going in the mall than online shopping." So I think that's going to impact a lot of many places in a lot of businesses. So a lot of these mom and pop shop stores, like you were saying, the eyelashes and things, man, especially hair salons Carey, how do you think hair salons and eyelashes and all these spas are going to work now? Because number one thing, they got to touch the person. Right? Carey Sperry: I know. I was thinking about that yesterday because that's one of the things that is opening up in phase one, is hair salons and nail salons and I'm wondering- Sassa: How? How is that going to happen, girl? Carey Sperry: Yeah, you're actually touching people. But I think they're going to wear gloves. And really, I mean, since consumers aren't required to wear the mask, I feel like they should be, if they want to go get their nails or hair done because all it takes is one cough while maybe the hairdresser's trying to trim your bangs and that's it. Sassa: I didn't tell my hairdresser, "Oh maybe I was sick, just a few days ago." Or, guess what? I don't even know if I'm sick because remember you might have it and not even start showing the symptoms till later on. So how is this going to work? Especially how do you think that's going to evolve in this industry, in the hair salon. I mean, I can give you my ideas, but I don't know if it's going to happen that way. But you tell me, you as a woman, how do you think that's going to change? Because I know those businesses, they have been hit hard. Carey Sperry: Big time and my hair looks horrible. Because I've been trying to do it myself and it is not working very well. Sassa: Don't worry. I used to cut hair when I was in high school. So I did my friends at high school and I used to do my taper and things. So I kind of do it on my own with a mirror but when I do need help, I kind of call my friends, "Hey, can you come over and kind of fix a little bit?" But yeah. We were talking and let me tell you what I think. Basically I told her, "You might have to wear protection." She's like, "Right?" It's going to be difficult. You're right. Maybe use a mask because she has to use a mask. I said, "What about gloves?" She goes, "I can't cut her hair with gloves. It's uncomfortable." So you tell me, Carrie, I mean, you as a woman, would you want to sit there and see that the hairstylist during this COVID-19 phase one, she's not protected and you're like, "Man." Carey Sperry: well, I love being a woman and I love the differences between men and women. I support all people's choices with gender identity and all that. Personally, I love being a woman, but I am different in that way, that I call the mall the dungeon. Sassa: Okay. Carey Sperry: I do not like going to the mall, but I love those outdoor malls. We have one here. Anyone in the greater Atlanta area will know. It's called Avalon. We live like a mile from there. It's just beautiful. I love to stroll around the stores outside there. You can carry a drink, if it's an evening. Sassa: Oh, okay. It's good. Carey Sperry: It's so nice and I enjoy shopping like that, but I feel stressed out when I shop. Because I have so many criteria and so many just... Yeah, I have so much criteria, I have too much criteria. So it takes me a while, but it's almost as hard online. But I am a huge, like I said before, well, first of all I love to learn and I love to teach and share with people knowledge, resources. I think that's a lot of what podcasts and YouTube are all about. And so what I think is going to happen is these beauty YouTubers and hair specialists YouTubers, I think more of those are going to evolve and there's going to be some kind of a blend between more that you can do for yourself at home really well. That's going to explode the product offerings and then I think more studios are going to start opening up in hairdressers homes. I know a couple. One was doing it before and one is starting to open her own now. Carey Sperry: I think there's going to be more of that, which just means more control over the traffic. If you go to a hairdresser or nail salon that's in the home, they can space out, they can clean, plenty ample time to clean. I'm not saying that the brick and mortar traditional ones aren't going to survive anymore. I think those will still be around too. But I think there'll be this new evolution of- Sassa: Evolution. Carey Sperry: Doing more for yourself at home and more and then- Sassa: And they've got to be more cleaner. Right, Carey? They've got to be... I know a lot of times, it's so busy one after another, one after another, but they have to be more cautious and more cleaner. They have to kind of be more of a show the client, "Look, I just cleaned everything so we can get started." So you as a customer will make yourself feel more comfortable because you feel like, "Okay, a little bit more cleaner. It kind of gives me a little bit more of a trust to get my hair done or things like that." Right? Carey Sperry: Yeah. You know the first time you went out with COVID-19 and you saw people actually wearing the masks for the first time and how weird that felt? Now when we go out and we see the mask, it feels a little less weird and it feels a little more normal. So I think as time goes on and we have these protective measures, whatever those may be in the future, that we're going to adapt and we're going to get more used to it. I think that what looks like... Remember when you were a teenager in your 20s and you kind of tried to picture what it would be like 20 years from now and you had a little bit of an image? Sassa: Yes. Carey Sperry: It's pretty different than it was. I mean, they're making cars now that can drive themselves and they're making flying cars and stuff are even happening. And so our kids are going to be ordering groceries almost 100% if not 100% from Alexa and audio devices. They're not writing down a list and actually going there. They're going to be like, "What? You used to do that? Are you crazy." Sassa: "That's old school, right? Yeah. That's old school. I even think a lot of things change. Like you just said, they're going to be ordering more if they weren't ordering already. It's even going to get bigger and bigger and bigger, more and more. Correct? But grocery stores, for example, they're going to have to be competing also with restaurants. So here in Texas, let me tell you what, some of these restaurants have been known to survive. They have what's called the restaurant To Go. You just coming pick up and go or order To Go. But they're also starting to sell like market, groceries. Okay. Fruits, vegetables, meat of the same stuff that they used to cook. Sassa: They're selling it to them like, "Hey, we got groceries if you need some. You need some broccolis, you need some tomatoes, you need some steaks, you need some chicken, you need fish. We have it, so we can sell it to you." They're doing that transition from the restaurant. They're called restaurant grocery stores now. So it's kind of like they can't survive just only on a to go right now. So they have to put in all these little groceries in there. So grocery stores- Carey Sperry: Interesting. Sassa: Yes. So grocery stores are now competing with the restaurants in that area too. Because well, guess what? A lot of grocery stores apps are so loaded that their delivery takes about two or three weeks before it gets delivered to you and you're like, "I don't have no food. I need to eat." So they might be going to this restaurant and maybe they have the groceries that they needed so, "Let me get them, let me go." They're even selling paper toilet in there and paper towels in those little restaurants, can you believe it? Carey Sperry: Yeah. Whatever they can do to help people. Sassa: Exactly. And also generate an income because they lost so much, they lost everything. There's a lot of folks like myself who've lost pretty much everything who are restarting. These brick and mortar restaurant chains or restaurants are paying 25,000, 10,000, 8,000 a month on rent. It's a lot of money for that and put a plus the expenses, the employees, all the other. I mean, one of them sent me... It actually took him about 30 to 40,000 to generate every month to keep this restaurant going in and I'm like, "Wow, that's a hit." You know what I mean? Sassa: They have to sell the things. So, that's one of the areas where evolution of restaurants are going to be. I want to ask you, maybe Uber and taxis, I mean a lot of people might not want to go ahead and go on a cab no more, because... I mean, do you think this is going to probably have the chance where self-driving cars, like you say, maybe come in and maybe something of the future? What do you think? Carey Sperry: Sure. Well, I think that Uber and Lyft have such a strong hold on the convenience, a need that consumers have. Consumers want, they want it to be easy, they want it to meet their needs and they want it to be a little bit fun, easily. And so the Uber and Lyft are great because it's easy. It may not be fun, but you know how sometimes in the app it asks, "Did you enjoy the conversation with your driver?" So I think that's kind of tip tapping into the fun aspect of it, because that's what creates loyalty. So I think it has such a strong hold on our culture that, that's not going to go away. Probably what will happen is that there will be some maybe questions that you have to verify in the app before you booked the call. Just for legal... Not the call but the ride, just for maybe legal reasons. Carey Sperry: Then there'll be probably made plastic barrier between the driver and the back seat and maybe even drivers will be required to have perhaps larger cars if they want to be a driver. I don't know, but that's kind of what I see. But I don't see that going away. I just think it has to... People love it too much and with drunk driving, people can now opt to have fun, go out, have a few drinks and then not have to drive.  

This is episode 21 Coach & Athlete Training & Workout Ideas in a Digital Virtual COVID19 Quarantine.  It was so timely because I had noticed the challenges athletes and coaches were going through having to translate the in person experience to digital and virtual.  Coincidentally or by God’s Will, I was invited to be a guest on this podcast, SportsLifeTalk with 4 incredible hosts out of Austin TX. So for middle school, high school and college level athletes transitioning their workouts to the home (gyms have been CLOSED)….may be opening soon but - The areas are the same – cardio, weights, position drills, reps, rest, stretching, diet, mindset, teamwork, sleep and injury care and prevention.  That’s a lot!  Now while at home players all have differing equipment, differing needs, ….strengths and weaknesses to work on, their mental state coping with quarantine….some struggle in school and may or may not have the parental or family support they need…. So we discuss here – where coaches AND parents! can start….what coaches and families can incorporate to achieve better results for the individual athletes and for themselves and the team….and some steps they can take….i list some creative ideas that can increase player engagement in both their own workouts and with team work and accountability.  I share some great Apps – food and nutrition apps, speciality or niche apps, etc.  We talk about some great outdoor set ups and inexpensive if not free stations players can make in their back yards.  Last, I note the childrens online privacy protection act, or COPPA, that adults should be aware of. I have put this tip sheet up on the All Social Y’all Facebook Page Coaches, players and parents can download free so please go there and I’d love to have you comment or ask any questions there or share ideas and pictures of what’s working for you!  I hope you enjoy this episode.

In this episode dropped today, I interview Jerry Abiog, Co-Founder and CMO of Standard Insights - an AI as a Service growth marketing platform that enables businesses to: Execute data-driven omni-channel campaigns and Monetize their data to find lookalike customers on Facebook & Instagram. . This helps them target the right person with the right product/service, at the right time. . They help empower businesses to become more competitive in a data-driven world with marketing precision. . Prior to co-founding Standard Insights, Jerry had a consultancy that helped SaaS companies with sales and marketing initiatives. Some of his clients had successful exits. . One of his old clients was an AI start-up that failed miserably. He learned two things at that time: -customers want an easy to use platform and that -there was an explosive growth that was likely to occur with AI-powered business applications. . Now, according to some estimates, the AI market is projected to grow to $390 billion by 2025. ‘Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.’ as said, Winston Churchil. . Standard Insights was born from lessons learned from past failures. Through serendipitous events, an AI-powered start-up was formed where the co-founders have strong experience in: digital marketing, sales, statistics, and computer science. Their mission – to be the global Standard on how successful businesses prioritize and execute their re-marketing campaigns from Insights gleaned from their data. Thank you for being here if this is your first time listening to All Social Y'all. If you are a regular listener, thank you for coming back again. This is a very challenging time that we're in and so I've been doing a pandemic-related series and we're really going to get into business in this episode. I have Jerry Abiog. Jerry, am I pronouncing that right? Jerry Abiog: Yes, you got it. Carey Sperry: Abiog. I love your name. He is Co-founder and CMO of Standard Insights, an AI as a service growth marketing platform that enables businesses to one, execute data-driven omni-channel campaigns. So we're going to talk all data today and their company also helps people monetize their data to find look-alike customers on Facebook. This helps them target the right person with the right product and service at the right time. In the marketing world, we call this personalization. They empower businesses to become more competitive in the data-driven world with a marketing precision. Carey Sperry: So Jerry has been in this industry for 25 years. Prior to co-founding Standard Insights, Jerry had a consultancy that helped SAS companies, software as a service, if you all don't know what SAS means, companies with sales and marketing initiatives. And some of his clients had successful exits. One of his old clients was an AI startup that failed miserably and he learned two things at that time. That customers want an easy to use platform and that there was an explosive growth that was likely to occur with AI powered business application. So AI, we're going to get into what that means if you don't know what that means. But now according to some estimates, the AI market is projected to grow to $390 billion by 2025. Carey Sperry: Hello and welcome to Carey Sperry, All Social Y'all Podcast. I'm your host, Carey Sperry. On All Social Y'all, we discuss how to employ social to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a fuel for business growth. And we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs and digital marketers. Our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms. Carey Sperry: So Jerry, thank you for being with us. Thank you for being my guest today. Jerry Abiog: Hey, thanks Carey. Honored to be here. I wish we could meet in person even though we are living in the same city, but given the the light of what's going on, we've got to do this remotely. Carey Sperry: Absolutely. The power of technology when it works. So great. So tell us a little bit about your background and the story behind Standard Insights. Jerry Abiog: Yeah, so I've been in sales and marketing for 25 years and about nine years ago was my last corporate job, if you will. Started my own business consultancy to help small software companies with sales and marketing initiatives. And that was great. Had some great clients. And then the one thing, as they say, you learn the most from your failures. And I learn from another AI company that I worked for that failed miserably, so we learned from those mistakes and amongst our four co-founders, we all came up with Standard Insights. And our global mission or our mission, if you will, is to be the global standard on how successful businesses prioritize and execute their remarketing campaigns from insights gleaned from their data. Carey Sperry: Awesome. Yeah, I mean a lot of times failures, that is kind of the silver lining to what we're going through now is what can we learn and take away and how can we be better and stronger? And business has always been like that. And people like you that are starting companies based on needs in the market, what can you take away in the failures behind that and help companies? So I think, a lot of people don't really... I always say data is reality and you can have data right in front of your face and as an owner of a company, completely ignore it. So I'm really excited to be addressing this at this time with you. And AI, a lot of people don't know what that is. So can you break it down for us? Jerry Abiog: Yeah. AI, artificial intelligence simply put is getting a computer to think and act like a human. And believe it or not, Carey, we're already seeing AI applications in our daily lives. Two that come to mind are Amazon, when they give you product recommendations on what you're likely to buy as well as the Netflix when they present you movie recommendations that you're likely to watch. So it's been in our everyday lives for a little the last handful of years. Now it's nascent stage and now we're using AI to help drive growth for businesses. Carey Sperry: Driving growth. I love it. Yeah. So we hear a lot about data-driven marketing. How do you define that? What is data-driven marketing? Jerry Abiog: It's basically acting on the insights that your data provides. So it could be one in a handful of ways. It could go with scoring of your customers on their potential profitability. And what does the data say? "Hey, here are your top tier customers, here are your bottom tier customers," and then you execute campaigns based on that. You treat everyone or each group as unique individuals. And the last thing you want to do, especially in today's day and age, is to have a blanket spray and pray approach with your marketing initiative. Today, it has to be pinpointed and mean something to the customer in order for that customer to convert or buy from you again. Carey Sperry: Yeah, that's super important because we always say before you have a social strategy to really define your brand and get specific with the words and the tone and everything around the culture of your company and how you treat your customers and then bring it into personas and put a face to the image that the brand has in their mind of who their customers are. And really just you want people, when they interact with you, whether in any of the customer journey, whether they're discovering or they're making a decision on the purchase or they're actually doing the purchase, going through the purchasing phases and then awaiting their product or actually enjoying it immediately if you're a restaurant or something like that, which unfortunately we're not able to enjoy that at this very moment. Carey Sperry: But if they're actually enjoying it now and then you want to help them become a loyal customer and then interacting with them and in every interaction, helping them be familiar. So I always say like, Jerry, do you think of it this way where if you have a friend that calls you on the phone and says, "Hey, I'm going to stop by your house," and you already have immediately a feeling in your mind of what is going to show up as a person. And that is with the brand as well. You want to get that minute. And so AI really helps almost, not automate it, but yeah, maybe can you speak to that? We're having to do this as owners and business people ourselves very manually and knowing it, but with data, how do you extract those insights, would you say? Jerry Abiog: Yeah, so the devil's always in the detail, right? And today's customers are more savvy than ever before and if you're not targeting them with what they're likely to purchase or what they're interested in, simply put, they're going to go to your competitors. So that lowers your revenue, decreases your market share and to look at things or the model of your ideal customer... So I'm here, I live in Grand Park, you live in the Alpharetta area and yeah, we live in the same city, but two different behavior patterns. And you as a business owner should recognize that if the Atlanta market is your target. And a couple things you can look at and you can look at your buyer persona. Could be their demographic behavior, geographic, psychographic or behavior data. Jerry Abiog: And while a person can look at a spreadsheet and figure this all out, I mean there's just tons of data available nowadays. You could have 200, 2000, 200,000 or two million customers and how are you able to synthesize this quickly and efficiently and then act on it? Now with artificial intelligence, once you get everything connected, they can spit out the analysis in a few minutes and then you can take that analysis and immediately within a few clicks of your mouse execute campaigns. That could be an email, text or social media. Carey Sperry: Wow. It sounds magical. So the paper that you wrote on AI Driven Doppelgänger, I don't know if I'm pronouncing that right. Doppelgänger? Jerry Abiog: Yeah. Doppelgänger. Yeah. Carey Sperry: Marketing. So AI Driven Doppelgänger Marketing. The next wave for Facebook, what is the next wave? Can you connect those dots for us? Jerry Abiog: So yeah. So what that paper is meant to say is that we're giving the business owner, we're empowering them to take ownership of their data. And what does taking ownership of your data mean? It means that you know the nuances of your customers so you can better target on Facebook. Right now Facebook allows you to create your customized audience. But I want to ask you, is that customized audience based on your best guess or is that based on facts? And that's the main driving factor, best guess versus facts. So I just want to give you an example. Jerry Abiog: One of our customers, they sell sunglasses online. They're a small to midsize company. They're not the big guys like Ray-Ban or Oakley. They have roughly 2000 customers and 100 sunglasses that they sell online. Prior to us meeting them, their customized audience was veterans and people that rode motorcycle. What we were able to break down for them using artificial intelligence is that we were able to predict the top three selling products in each city and state. So now when they're running Facebook campaigns, it was much more precise that sunglass A, B and C tend to sell better, will sell in Atlanta versus sunglasses D, E and F that were predicted to sell in Boston. So when you're getting that precise with the creation of your customized audience, you get more on your return on ad spend. And as we all know now that Facebook ads are going up in cost. Carey Sperry: So yeah, I mean we were saying all of 2019 buy ads now, because it is going to go up and it's a real thing and there's more and more businesses that realize, gosh it works and so spend is going up. So the sunglass company, can you talk a little more about maybe breaking down how they knew their persona before versus after, kind of a little more detailed to help visualize? Jerry Abiog: Yeah. Yeah, so they're a veteran-owned sunglass company, so they just put a generic, customized audience of veterans. And then part of their sunglasses, instead of it being a bunch of different sunglass offerings, I think they had sunglasses for golf, for running, and a one for sunglasses when you're riding motorcycles. So to just put a generic ad out there for people that love motorcycles and for veterans. And it was just too broad of an audience or too broad of a customized audience. And so what we did was we broke it down for them for their top selling city and state. And so we went with a geographic-based segmentation and broke everything down. So now out of their 100 products we can pinpoint the top selling products and they were able to execute data-driven campaigns based on that. Carey Sperry: Super powerful and it sounds like they got great outcomes from that too, like a difference between... Jerry Abiog: Yeah. Yeah. Carey Sperry: Because you want people as soon as they interact with you to be like, "That's me." And that's not easy to do. So, that's awesome. Jerry Abiog: So that's the difference between a best guess and then something that's really precise and targeted. Carey Sperry: Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's just a really uneasy feeling guessing and you can take, like I said, very manual applications to addressing people in ads. But if you really have the data, that's what is... You have to sometimes put ego aside and what you've been doing for however many years you've been in business, sometimes owners try to rely on what they've been doing in the past and think that it's going to work today. And just, things are moving too fast. So data is the real deal. That's what I say, the real deal. Jerry Abiog: Yes, not always. It's not always easy. I mean we're all humans. We act sometimes in emotion. So it's kind of a balancing act, "Hey this is what the data says, but my gut feel..." So it's never an easy process. But I think the more we educate people on the value and the power of data, hopefully businesses take that into account. Carey Sperry: Absolutely. So what impact do you see AI having in business and in society with especially everything we're going through right now with the pandemic? We're going to come out of this a different society. I mean in a better way, I believe. And I know you do too. What do you see with being straight in the industry of the impacts that it might have? Jerry Abiog: Yeah, so a couple things. So I think AI is going to be crucial now and in the next foreseeable future. So there were two studies that were put out, one by Grand View Research, and I think we mentioned this in the beginning, that AI is projected to be a $390 billion industry by 2025. And then Accenture put out a study late last year that failure to scale AI could put up to 75% of organizations out of business by 2025. And we are already seeing AI applied in things like marketing, sales, inventory forecasting and improving customer experience to name a handful of the applications that it's going to be used for. Jerry Abiog: And just on a side note, I know this is more geared towards social media, sales and marketing, but think about what's happening right now in the world and particularly here in the US. We had data on this late last year and we failed to act on it. And I'm not here to blame anyone or what have you. I myself didn't take it seriously until my basketball games were canceled. That's the emotion side of things. But we as a society, whether it's in business, sales or in the medical profession, if we take a look at the data and act on it, maybe we would not be in the place we are right now. Carey Sperry: Yeah. Jerry Abiog: We could have maybe mitigated the current situation. So my thing is, "Hey, do not let your business fall in the same mistake. Act on data not on emotion." And that's sometimes easier said than done. Carey Sperry: Right. Yeah. I mean, like I said before, it's a real thing and it's just setting aside the time to really take a look at what's available and what is relevant. And when you and I first met on LinkedIn, I love that we met on LinkedIn, Jerry and you and I connected on email and got on the phone. I've never really worked with data-driven tools like you offer and I've learned so much from you. And I think the timing is really key for people right now to be able to have the opportunity. And I honestly thought that for small and midsize businesses, a tool like yours is just incredibly unaffordable and I was wrong. Carey Sperry: And so I'm really happy to be able to introduce A, the knowledge and content that you have with all the years of experience that you have being a founder of a really intelligent company that you guys are offering. And you have a niche in the market that other solutions are not addressing. And I think, the fact that it's affordable for small and midsize businesses and easy to work with you all. And now with the timing of everything, business owners and just individuals are scared and uncertain of the future. We still don't know what next week's going to look like. But having people and companies like you that are giving us some power and some... Power, I guess, is the best word I can use to able to explore what they can do to connect with their customers better. Jerry Abiog: You're absolutely right and you have to really be focused and be hyper-personalized, if you will. And just to give a... I mean, obviously we're going through what we're going right now, but you probably have seen the memes on LinkedIn where someone has bought a product from a company three, four years ago and that company's sending them a generic message, "Hey, we're here for you," and they've only bought from them once like four or five years ago. So you know that company is sending just a generic message. And what AI can do, it can segment your top tier and bottom tier customers and really focus on the top tier, the old 80/20 rule. They're the ones that are going to help you through this and not so much the customer that bought from you once and never hear... So that's just one little example on how AI can help things, help companies move and survive and be competitive in the situation we're in right now. Carey Sperry: Yes. So Jerry and I put together a special offer for any of you that would like to explore what data-driven insights, marketing insights can do for your company by a landing page that we created on our socials website at socialxeno.com. It's S-O-C-I-A-L, X as in xylophone, E-N as in Nancy, o.com/data. And if you go there, you can learn more about how very quickly just to get a consultation, I guess you could say or demo with Jerry and- Jerry Abiog: Sure, just quick demo. Yeah, just a discovery call. Carey Sperry: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And just see, take a look, 15, 20 minutes, maybe 30 if you have the time. And so go there. We appreciate, Jerry you giving us this information in such a timely way and more related to the pandemic but some things that you guys can take action on for your business now. So thank you, Jerry. We really appreciate you being with us. Jerry Abiog: Yeah. Thanks, Carey. Carey Sperry: Okay. Have a great rest of the day everybody Jerry Abiog: So hopefully we can meet after April 30th. Carey Sperry: Yeah, we can get face-to-face. And yeah, actually, everyone talked about doing a segment two on this to maybe do a little more deeper dive because I mean, we could literally talk all day long about data and data-driven insights. So stay tuned. We might have a second episode on this. So thank you everyone. Have a great day. Jerry Abiog: Thanks Carey. Carey Sperry: Thank you. Carey Sperry: Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all Podcast. For free resources and materials head over to allsocialyall.com. That's all social, Y-A-L-L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at All Social Y'all.  

Hello and thank you for tuning into this episode whether it is your first time or if you are listening yet again.  Thank you.  While this list of 16 things is not all inclusive, it does highlight some of the realities of our business/working life and our personal lives.  It’s all more blended than ever if you are still working and if you are not working right now – I am empathetic if you want to be working, but many in the list remains true! More Video! Business people are holding way more video meetings than before Coronavirus!  Not only more video meetings but video conversations.  Facetime one on ones, or one on twos!  This weekend I learned how to have 3 people on a Facetime and see all 3 of us on the same screen – Swipe left y’all!  It’s that easy.  But if you hit “more” in the bottom left, you can pull up your photos and put a photo backdrop behind you in the camera.  How cool is that!  It’s helping us feel more connected when we can see and hear our friends and loved ones.  And of course our colleagues at work – sometimes it’s just easier to communicate.  But, there’s a fine line – I come from this space having worked for Premiere Global, now PGi back in the day before web collaboration tools even existed.  We sold audio lines for $0.34 per line!  Then came out the web collaboration tools and we sold those licenses and trained business users how to hold excellent web meetings.  Well, human nature is such that not everyone wanted to be on camera.  The product team of iMeet – a tool invented by PGi in 2008 – allowed for attendees to create a avatar where they could put up after entering the meeting instead of their live camera.  OR they could put up a photo of their choice from their computer.  Cool huh?  So many of us during quarantine, we are looking a bit shabby at times, yes?  Some people wake, shower and dress up – make up, every day because that’s what they do.  But even so we are past due on our hair dresser, nail manacures, and hair is long or turning colors we are not confident in.  I talked last week about doing TOO many video meetings.  We need to give our people some breathing room during the day.  Deliveries not coming I ordered two things off eBay last week and was promised to receive them  one on Friday and one on Sunday.  One item was a Spin bike I paid hundreds of dollars for – the seller cancelled the order = still has my money and I have no idea when my refund will show up.  I’ve heard some people’s grocery deliveries they are having to schedule 6-7 days out and 2 days prior to their delivery day, their order is cancelled. Zoom Bombs So Zoom is the new Webex – or web collaboration tool.  Why I say that is because like Kleenex is to Tissue Webex was the brand name of the solution category.  2019 it became more popular to use Zoom.  Well, if you haven’t heard….a “photo bomb” is when someone or something living gets in the back of your photo without you being aware.  Zoom meeting hosts and attendees have - unbeknownst to them – had un-invited attendees who at some point in the meeting disrupt it.  They draw on presentations…..as written by Fortune, April 2nd, the trolls attempt to disrupt the video chat and upset participants by shouting profanity or racial slurs, or put up disturbing or offensive images in their video feed.  It’s a modern form of trolls.  These guys are hackers.  Since the determination that there were deficiencies in the security protocols on behalf of Zoom, the CEO, Eric Yuan,    has taken responsibility and apologized in this blog posted on April 1st.  Zoom declairs that they designed the platform primarily for “large institutions with full IT support” and that since Quarantine, the user base has expanded way beyond what they could have ever anticipated for.  Regardless, they are under scrutiny of the FBI and NY Attorney general having to answer questions from security experts about the levels of encryption and they have also been served two (2) class action law suits that a feature on their platform (which has since been deactivated) shared privacy data with Facebook. Zoom 101: Securing your Meetings & Virtual Classrooms Some schools and other companies are moving their virtual meetings while Zoom says in the next 90 days they will focus solely on security and not add any new features outside of Security. So, it’s a choice – move over onto something else or stick with Zoom.  I’m personally going to stick with Zoom.  I love the platform.  I’ll follow their guidelines as to how to keep my meetings secure.  One of the things is at this time encryption is not possible when you dial in from an external device like your mobile phone so I will be dialing in from my computer.  I’m happy that the CEO has taken accountability and so I’m going to stay on it and take the security measures that they advise. Tech Talk Boy there must be a ton of people out there who’s skillsets and talents exist not inside technology yet they are having to figure out their home band width, their virtual meeting equipment, kids school computer, website sources to access information….it goes on.  It must feel like another language at times. In my promo video for this episode posted on LinkedIn and some shorter video format duration on other social media I joked, And so the DS 2407 is not available, By adding a block of code at the top of your script called a param block, you can add a parameter to pass into the script.  We will see if Schisizm co can get one delivered to one of their guys houses and we’ll test and engage dept 222 for advanced third tier support. It’s a bunch of jargon but it was to laugh at the fact that sometimes those of us in segmented industries it’s almost impossible to understand sometimes! We need to be able to reach out to people who understand to help us.   Essential & Non Essential Businesses Things are changing so fast and depending on where you live, there are different categories of closures.  The State of Georgia, where I live, went from restricted to “stay at home order” or what I have been referring to as “lock down” last Friday April 2nd.  It’s a little bit confusing as to what is essential and what is not.  I saw a sign outside of new housing development and it said, “housing is an essential business but we are only taking scheduled appointments.  Call this number to schedule your appointment.”  My husband and I were talking about cleaning services. Are they essential we were pondering?  If you look up questions online it isn’t always in your face what is what.  Last night we decided to order food for either delivery or pick up…. Wine Text Do you know Gary Vanderchuk AKA, Gary Vee?  He’s famous in the digital marketing entrepreneur space.  His story if you don’t know him is that he grew up as a young man working for his dad’s liquor store and he brought his dads liquor store online and nobody back then thought it was possible to sell wine online and that nobody would research it or gain info about wine online and he took his father’s biz which I believe was struggling to some extent anyway to a multi million biz  because he took it online back in the day when the internet first came out way before we are today. and so he helped his dads wine co who I believe owns Wine Text – open up this new service – it’s called Wine Text -  it was back before Corona Virus hit. Every day they send you a text if you guys don’t have it – some of you may be using it and enjoying it.  But if you don’t have it every day you get the text, open it up and it has a video of a guy or woman behind a table talking about the featured wine of the day and the features of it.  You get the wine per bottle at a discount and they quantify the number of bottles you can order for a discount and you just text back and tell them how many bottles of wine you want and they tell you how much the shipping will be and you you’re a min. you get free shipping depending on the number of minimum bottles, 6 or 12. And so hello we are trying to stay home and we are trying to not go out and we are stay at home and the govt is telling us stock up - don’t hoard but stock up for a week or two and try not to go out at all until we get thru this apex – this tipping point in the no. of cases and stuff, where the peak is with all the number of cases there are – so having wine delivered to your house!  Some of you may have been doing this thru NAPA or whatever but most people haven’t so if you drink wine and you’ve never heard of Wine Text and haven’t been doing this and you are interested, I’ve really been enjoying it.  It’s cool. Grocery Trips This past weekend the Gov’t announced that the Center for Disease Control urges now people to wear home made masks when they go out particularly to the grocery store while remaining the 6 foot social distancing.  Well, we have seen many people doing more than that:  gloves, shoe coverings, neck coverings under the mask, plastic bag outfits, and even plastic Halloween costume face masks….it’s been nothing short of shocking. Anti Virus-ing This is yet another category where personal choice is coming into play.  Some of my friends are antibacteria and anti virus spraying all of their groceries either before they put them into their trunks or after they get home an unbag their groceries before they put them away.  There’s no right or wrong here. It is true that it can  be helpful because the virus can stay alive for days on the things that people touch in the stores then you put it in your cart and touch it with your hands and then you could touch your mouth, nose or eyes.  People are using bleach and sprays to clean surfaces in their homes….in their cars, on front door nobs – you name it.  This all is very time consuming and a lot to be thinking about every day!  And it is definitely contributing to our mental stress levels or wellness adding up with everything else that we are thinking about. Frequent & Proper Hand Washing So the CDC first recommended singing or humming Happy Birthday Twice as being the simple way to time the amount of seconds you are supposed to scrub the soap on your hands before you rinse and dry your hands.  The CDC has a guide available to de-bunk any miss information about how to kill the virus if it gets on your hands titled Show Me the Science – How to Wash your Hands  I feel like we have all heard it a million times, but honestly today when I pulled it up I did learn that the water doesn’t need to be warm or hot (I’ve been wondering this in the back of my mind lately). The guide, based on studies (of course it comes from the CDC) says, “he temperature of the water does not appear to affect microbe removal; however, warmer water may cause more skin irritation and is more environmentally costly.” Kids Need to Eat & Eat Again It’s hard enough to plan or make our own meals let alone every single one of our children’s meals every day.  Our oldest daughter has a 3 year old and we were on Facetime with her last night and her daughter asked her for food and she said, “I just gave you a plate of chicken nuggets and you only ate half so no wonder you are hungry already.  Not to mention, I ate the other half and I am trying to not eat things like chicken nuggets.  I’m trying to eat like salads and stuff that’s better for me.”  Three year olds can’t make their own meals, but they can watch you.  Leading by example and teaching them while they are young the art of food preparation is a gift.  Our youngest who is 17, I am always cooking for him because I love to cook but I am definitely holding him accountable for helping write the grocery list and learning how to cook new meals.  It isn’t easy because he wants me to do it – he does enjoy some of it at times - but it’s a great time for young people to learn. We had one of his friends stay with us over the holiday season and he was cooking all kinds of things! His mother did a great job forcing him to cook for himself sometimes before Corona Virus hit.  So I’m sure she is having an easier time then most of us in this department right now because her son was already “trained”.  So it does help when the older kids help and it’s safe for them to cook and it’s safe for them to cook – or even more complex meals they can cook the older they are. Some of you have kids who are college age and post college  it just depends but it’s just nice when the kids lend a hand with the food and meals. It’s just nice when the older kids help when the kids contribute.   It helps us working parents! Hair-ness Well I get my hair colored and cut and my husband he gets his hair cut like every 2 weeks!  My hair is turning colors I do not care for and my husbands hair – I like it long haha but he doesn’t. I’ve got some grocery store grade root touchup dies and also some purchased from the beauty supply outlet – called SALLY.  I’m not sure how it will turn out.  I’m quite unsure haha  - I think I need to order a “toner” online.  A toner to kindof tone down some of these brassy shades showing thru.  Who knows whether it’ll show up or not!  But wth us getting onto video cams we want to feel our best. Whether it is Facebook, video meetings or whatever.  So this is taking time and thought also. The NEWS I was guilty of watching too much news at first.  Were you?  I know a lot of people were.  We were like, what is going on? What is going to happen next? What is the deal with the schools? What are they going to ask of us next? What can we do? Am I gonna get it? Are the older people I know going to be ok??  We felt like if we watched the news constantly that it would help us feel real time informed and somehow more in control of our lives.  But then it starts to wear on people psychologically.  It can be too much, even confusing.  So we started to hear advice to “limit it”.  Stay informed but direct activities, work and personal without the news on.  And also everyone has their own ways they like to dedicate and decide on timing as to dedicating it and living with someone or many others, we should work together to try so everyone is mentally doing okay with the consumption of news.  Know what I mean?  What’s worked for your family?  One thing we try to do is watch several sources at times and try to decide for ourselves what is truly important and action oriented. We still have our Ailments Geeze the pollen has been bad here.  Last week, I got the worst head ache in the middle of the day. I didn’t know why I had this head ache.  I finally put 2 and 2 together and figured out it was allergies from all the green stuff outside!  I wasn’t even thinking previously about taking any medicine. I actually have year round allergies but it’s worse in the Spring.  During Coronavirus it’s easy to forget about our other ailments that we used to totally weigh importance on.  The news too – they used to exclaim every morning – OMG the pollen is SO bad today! Don’t go outside! Like it was the worst thing ever and not once this spring have I heard the news talking about it  yes it is WAY WAY WAY less important than Covid 19.  But I must say I think that pollen and allergies can really hurt people who have asthma or other lunch vulnerabilities. So I’m not down playing it.  I’m not saying one is more important than the other but all we hear on the news now is Covid 19 and Corona Virus.  What I’m saying is part of taking care of ourselves is to eat right, exercise, get outdoors, try to sleep enough and take your vitamins and consider your bodies needs, like allergic reactions to pollen so you can feel your best.  We’re under enough stress.  We still have our ailments.  I just wanted to acknowledge that. The Subtle Art of not Giving a F*CK – Now it’s spelled differently from the way it’s spelled on the book but I am a clean podcast so….The subline to the book is A Counterintuitive approach to living a good life Well, I’m not all the way through this book but this NYTimes Best Seller is helping a lot of people. The inside flap of the book Mark Manson says, “Let’s be honest; sometimes things are fucked up and we have to live with it.” For the past few years, Manson – via his wildly popular blog – has been working on correcting our delusional expectation for ourselves and for the world.” “……Once we embrace our fears, faults, and uncertainties – once we stop running from and avoiding and start confronting painful truths- we can begin to find the courage and confidence we desperately seek.”  Interested?  Animals & Coronavirus The NY Times news confirmed, “Tiger Tests positive for Coronavirus at Bronx Zoo” and online there are articles that veterinarians are advising us to keep our pets using social distancing which is no less than 6 ft from anyone they are living with.  Some people are going to the extent of covering their pets in protective gear while outdoors walking them. Alexa So where we are with technology currently is audio is going to revolutionize the way we do many many things.  Our children today will be grocery shopping via these audio devices is just one example.  It isn’t just Alexa - Amazon owns (Alexa), Google (Google Assistant), Apple (Siri) and Microsoft (Cortana).  Virtual assistant robots are being developed.  It will soon have the capability to access all information on the internet and at lightening speeds.  AI (artificial intelligence) and data will allow for it to develop conclusions and scenarios to consider.  For those of you who have Alexa or one or many of these devices if you are like me, we way under utilize it today, just because most of us still do many of the tings we do every day out of habit.  Did you know that you can tell your audio device, “Play Carey Sperry – All Social Y’all Podcast?” For links to references I made here today please visit www.allsocialyall.com for the shownotes.  Please review and subscribe.  Stay well and I am thinking of all of you who are struggling either with a job loss or reduction of income or of someone you know with Corona virus or you yourself having it.  I am praying for all of our medical personnel and the scientists behind finding medications and a vaccination.  This is a very scary and important time for us to get through.  Thank you for listening and I wish you a peaceful rest of your day.    

Hello and welcome to Carey Sperry, All Social Y'all Podcast. I am your host, Carey Sperry. In All Social Y'all Podcast we discuss how to employ social to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a feel for business growth and we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs and digital marketers. Our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact and emotionally connect with customers where they are: on social platforms. Hi everybody. Welcome to episode 18 adjusting to becoming an at home worker, the considerations of being happy, comfortable and productive. We have a free asset for you this week of Tips to Working or Being an At Home Worker - to help you get closer to being happy, comfortable and productive. The tip sheet also provides you with new ideas of how to keep young children occupied and entertained and we have put together for you a list of wonderful healthy get ready ahead of time snacks to help keep you from pondering over what to eat or "stress eating" on bad choice but easy to reach for choice foods. To get your Free guide tip sheet - and you can share it with anyone you think can benefit from it! To get it on your PC or mobile device go to www.allsocialyall.com and at the top you will see Episode 18 and this free asset. So a lot of people are talking about working at home right now of course, because as you guys know, or some of you that listened to last week's episode on Coronavirus, COVID-19 I didn't want to skip over that because everything else right now about social media seems kind of secondary, although it's a great way for us to stay in touch and be communicating with each other. Despite that, number one is we're just trying to get through every day right now and trying to keep on top of what's going on. So I've been so fortunate to have my husband Stephen Brown of Inseego, Vice President of Sales at Inseego offer to talk with us about working at home. Most of you have already created a space for yourself. Maybe you're experimenting, maybe you're good to go, but some of you we figure are still struggling with kids at home, distractions, schedule, being comfortable, your body, concentration, there's all kinds of things. So we really wanted to focus on that today. And so I would like to again introduce you to Stephen Brown of Inseego and Stephen, thank you so much for being here today. Oh, thank you Carey. Glad to be here. Glad to join your show. All right, so if you can't tell, we're at home ourselves, this is our living room where Stephen works. Because Stephen, maybe it would help if you kind of give our listeners some background on yourself and your role at Inseego. Sure. Thank you Carey. So I've been at Inseego for a little over three years and this is the perfect work from home challenge you might face when you have uninterrupted or unexpected interruptions from pets, children or others. The best thing to do is just be a pro and just flow with it. But I've been in high technology most of my career, again, probably close to 30 years now and I've worked from home at least half of that and I've been at Inseego now and Inseego is a 5G company, so our broad portfolio of smart device to cloud solutions extend the 5G network edge. It's providing ultra reliable internet connectivity, expanded 5G coverage, faster data speeds and increased security. Because Inseego solutions provide robust carrier grade features and processing capabilities at the network edge, new use cases leveraging 5G speed become possible, ultra low latency become possible. Okay. I don't know if y'all understood what that is, but if you do, awesome. IoT, internet of things, for those of you who do not know is the way that I like to explain it is think of your home and being able to connect everything to the internet, to the remote devices, to opening the locks on your door, controlling your lighting and your TV and now even your refrigerator and things like that. So it's just really connecting everything. And there's all these applications that are happening in the business world with airlines and every industry you can imagine. So that's what they're working on. So let's dive right in. So like I said, many of you have already set up your home office. But Stephen, you work from home, you have for a long time blended working in the office as well as at home. What are some considerations that you would say to highlight besides the basics? Yeah. Once you get beyond the basics of finding a nice quiet space, maybe you have an office, you've got your technology all set up, which we'll talk a little bit about. But for me, the first thing is you have to understand how to work at home. And the first thing that I had to learn to do was to learn how to fix a schedule. If you don't, what you'll end up with, and I'm guilty of this, is you wake up at 6:30-7 in the morning, you go strolling by your office and you sit down and you open up your email. That is mistake number one because it will be 11:30-1 o'clock before you realize it. You're still in your pajamas, you haven't eaten and you're already into your workday without really starting. So rule number one is really ground yourself in a good schedule. For me, it's number one is just don't open your email. Start your day off by a natural habit, whether it's getting up, getting your coffee, walking the dog, maybe catch up on the news, but let yourself get going. Get into your work routine and be purposeful about it and then start your day when you should, of course. And it varies from job to job depending on what your role is, whether it's making calls to customers or taking calls from a support center or there's numbers of different things, but the best takeaway I would give somebody is to really be purposeful about how you start your day. So I'm guilty of that myself. Sometimes I just go right into my office before I comb my hair or I may have brushed my teeth, but then I dive right into my computer. And then before I know it, it's lunchtime and I look a rack, I feel gross. But when the days that I do get up and I put my nice clothes on, I put a little makeup on, for us girls and clean myself up, I just feel more energetic. I feel prouder of what I'm doing. So it does make a difference and kind of making that discipline and that routine is another word for it. So that's good. And I have heard a lot of people saying lately, get a routine. Don't just fly by the cedar pants with your day. But that's huge. So with setting up, having a comfortable workplace, like you're in the living room and I'm surprised that your back doesn't hurt sitting on the couch all the time because mine would, I have a home office where I have like a proper desk and monitors and everything. But what are some other things that people can do or kind of allow for lesser distractions would you say in the living room like you do it? And how do you kind of manage us as your family with some of the times that you're on a call? Like I say... You and I kind of talk in the morning, when your call so I kind of know when to sort of be considerate of that. So first thing is learn to become a quick draw with the mute button because things happen pretty quick. Now, it could be somebody wanting to start a conversation with you or it could be a garbage truck backing up outside, or some loud noise, maybe the landscapers are outside. So you just have to be prepared and just don't overreact. Just hit your mute button is one thing and know your technology. Not to get too far into that, but I get a good set of noise canceling headphones because that blocks out most of your ambient noise around you and just make sure you know how those mute buttons work on them. And the key is just talking with folks ahead of time and just setting some ground rules. Normally people can tell if you're on the phone and engaged, people will just kind of walk by and let you go about your business. Particularly if you're on video, you don't want a dog, and then kids and everybody else popping in there. But you just kind of learn to adapt just like anything else. The longer you do it, people just learn how to get into routines. Yeah. So I came up from the steps, I was on the phone with someone and they were on speaker and I came up... Our level where Stephen works is on a level above a set of stairs and I came up the stairs and he was like, put his finger up. "Shh. I'm on a call." And I was like, "Ooh." And I took them off speaker. So sometimes you're going to have, and I said to him, I go, "Everyone knows we're all working at home right now. So don't worry because whoever you're having a conference call with should understand that you're going to have things in the background and everything." But it's still, when you're trying to focus on delivering value on a call, we all can get a little serious with each other about being quiet and considering each other's feelings. You're right. If you just think about human psychology, if we're in the middle of something and we're in the zone and we're focused and our attention does get broken, it takes the average person sometimes multiple minutes to get back into that groove. Now that's more if you're studying or reading, takes you a minute to get back in that zone. Usually if you're in the middle of a conversation you can get there. But to your point, I would just encourage people to really don't beat yourself up. Don't get too nervous about it. Just learn that... Give each other a break. We're all in this together as we've heard most of the folks on the news, the media, we just got to learn how to you give each other a break in these scenarios. And just, I guess the best example, we've probably all seen the poor guy, I can't remember what he was, he was some sort of a diplomat being interviewed on one of the news channels and he's sitting there in the middle of this briefing and his kids who are coming in and he's trying to be cool and his wife is low crawling behind in dragging the kids out, slamming the door. It's hilarious. But he handled it like a pro. He just kept going and everybody understands. And it went viral. Yup, it did. It was awesome. Gave everyone a laugh because I know how that feels. Speaking of that, I didn't put this to y'all in the introduction is that we contacted or reached out to my sister Quinn over the weekend and let her know that we were going to do this episode and we said our kids are older now, our youngest is 17 and so we don't have the challenges that many of you have, which is having young children at home and they have energy and they have needs, the things they can't do for themselves that you have to do every little thing for them. And not to mention to be cooped up and entertained and things like that. And maybe, or maybe not you have a hand or maybe you're rotating as spouses or cohabitating, helping each other out. So there are some tips that she gave us to share with you all at the end that I think were amazing. So stay with us because those tips I thought are things I never would have thought of. And she said they're working really, really well, so. Okay. So back to your kind of set up. Now you've got yourself set up. You have some considerations how to manage your day and your family's expectations and such. What about your team? You're all working virtually now. What are some things that you've shared with your team or your team has shared with you about how you best can maximize your productivity working virtually? That's a really good question. So my team are sales folks that are field sales folks, so they're in front of customers. Most of them are on the road, either on a plane, traveling, driving to a customer. So today they're at home. Now there are inside sales folks that are normal, are used to that type of stuff. So for those folks, it's relatively easy. But for folks that thrive on being out and being in front of customers, that's a big change for salespeople. And so what I've encouraged my team to do is, and they really have just embraced it, is number one, spend this time to get intimate with your customers. Everybody wants to talk about the virus, but understanding how that's impacting them, their families, how is it impacting their work schedule, whether it's a work from home shift or whether it's just business in general. Understanding a little bit more about your customer and their challenges and then post coronavirus. Start to help them think through that. I mean, we're in the technology business, the connectivity business so we spend a lot of time working with not only our end customers that use our technology, but our partners that sell the technology. We build products for folks like Verizon and AT&T, so we're looking at the shifts now. If you think about the three biggies, just remote or teleworking, one, telemedicine and extended or distance learning or education, whether that's a higher education or even K to 12 now, these kids are being challenged to work and learn differently. Now, the trends for remote or teleworking was actually headed up anyway. Fairly, I don't want to say a sharp ramp, but it was ramping up. But what we're hearing is what we're seeing is that's probably going to stick because I think people are going to become more comfortable with teleworking. Whether they resisted it for just cultural reasons or they didn't understand it or they were a little mystified by the technology. But once they've actually done it and I think they're like, "Oh, you know what, this isn't so bad. I can be more productive, I can get a lot of work done and I can find that balance." So for us it's really about learning and listening to our customers and spend time investing in yourself. So this goes back to preparing your day. Set appointments in your calendar during the day to read. Whether it's topical on technology or an adjacent technology to your business. Anything to add value to you as a person to fulfill you to fill your day, I think is valuable because in the workspace we're fortunate where we work, we have a great culture where our leadership team, senior leadership team encourages us to learn and spend the time thinking strategically. I don't think there is any more important time than now to embrace that value. That's a great point. I think unfortunately a lot of managers, because they're new to this, they're just overwhelmed with the adjustment and their own balancing everything at home and they're demanding of their team and they're almost more worried about productivity and, I mean, understandably like every company has to survive right now with the economy pretty much coming to a temporary halt. And so thinking about the workers and their wellbeing and how they're going to maximize their time, which actually I've talked about this I think in a previous episode about over digitization and how when we're on our mobile devices and our computers, and looking now at Zoom meetings all day and having back to back to back to back, there are studies that have come out that have shown that there are eight brain centers that are all firing and working and which lends to productivity at the beginning of the day. Well, when those are firing all day long, all the centers are going, they start shutting down. It's a self protective mechanism that is part of the human body and then only one or two are working. And guess what? Productivity plummets. So I urge you management and leadership to not make your people be on Zoom all of the Workday. And to put in some buffer time for them to like what Stephen just said, reading, maybe talking with a colleague on the phone, just the audio or just having reflection time, time to go outside. Which kind of is a segue to the next question I had was kind of scheduling, like scheduling breaks. How do you and how do you encourage your team to schedule your day as it comes to your activities, like your meals even or snacks? Some people stress eat and then they find themselves running in the pantry or refrigerator while they're on calls. Or they're just sitting on the phone all day on Zoom or whatever WebEx platform that they're on and they're not giving themselves any break and they forget to eat. Right. Personally, I rigid with my schedule, so I have a lot of meetings, whether it's talking about customer engagements or management meetings, planning meetings. We try to be purposeful with those meetings. And one of the best things you can do, and this really has nothing to do with working remote, this has more to do with managing your meetings, is just be prepared ahead of time. Meetings are to make decisions. So when people show up to the meeting, they need to be prepared. And what are we here to decide? Because if we're just meeting for the sake of meeting, we're wasting time. So the better you can prepare the folks for the meeting, like, "Hey, here's what we're coming to this meeting for, here's what you need to prepare ahead of time when we leave the meeting, this is what we're going to have to sign in." So those simple terms are just very, very helpful for folks. But definitely put in if it's lunch or if you need to just take a break every hour or a couple of minutes. Now I have a smart watch, I wear a Garmin and it'll tell me about every 20 minutes or so. Hey, move. So if I'm sitting too long I'll get up and walk around a bit. Because sitting is the new smoking I've heard. But that's just good advice whether you're in an office or working at home. But just get up and move around a little bit so you don't get into a rut. But going back a little bit to the psychology of working from home, particularly for people that are new to working at home, we are so conditioned to showing up at an office at eight o'clock and I walk in and I'm at work. Well today work is more about what you do, not where you are. But that's a lot easier said than done because that's a lot of conditioning where folks are used to walking into an office. When they're at home, all of a sudden it's like, well wait a second, I'm at home. Am I really working? And that is a big psychological barrier that takes some people some time to get through. And the best way to do that is be task-oriented. You start your day off with, Hey look, these are the three to five things I need to get done. At the end of the day, maybe you got three of them done, great. Cross them off, re-prioritize the other ones and just keep going. It's all about goals and objectives and moving forward. That's really smart. It's one reason I married him. So how to not get too, I feel too isolated. Working at home can be lonely. Some people don't live with anyone else. They may or may not have a pet. They may or may not have children. We're going to get to children in a second. And then kind of contrasting how to not feel too isolated with thinking, knowing, having the hope that this soon will be behind us and that we're not going to be necessarily in this state forever, of course. Now some of you are like, dang, I love this little working at home thing. Thank goodness, this awarded me the opportunity and I'm never going to go back to working in an office, but some of us like a blend. I personally like a blend. I like being with customers. I like being at home. I like being in another setting in my office out by Avalon or maybe some people go to Starbucks. You know what I mean? But how can we kind of help during this time of quarantine not feel so isolated? It depends on the type of person you are. There's lots of different technology out there. At Inseego we use Skype, so whether you're an audio person, you like to talk. Or video to feel more connected, that's really a personal thing. I don't really subscribe to, Hey, if you use video, you're going to feel more connected or not. I think it really boils down to what you're most comfortable with. And just what this... I have to bounce ideas off people. I find if you're thinking about an idea, it may seem like the most brilliant thing in the world to you, but as soon as you say it out loud to another person, you're like, "Oh boy, that doesn't make any sense at all." Right? So just reach out. There's lots of tools out there, instant messaging, Chatter on Salesforce, Microsoft teams, Zoom. There's many, many ways to stay connected and these tools have been around for a long time. I spent a lot of time in the unified communications space selling these tools and they really do make you feel more connected and you just have to embrace them. And it is different when you're in the office versus when you're remote. And if you're not careful, you can allow your employees, particularly if you're in a leadership position, it's incumbent upon us to make sure our employees are being taken care of and looked after because that old term out of sight, out of mind, that cuts both ways. Absolutely. Great points. Well, one thing that I will never forget is one of my managers at Forrester told me, because I worked remotely in Atlanta and they're headquartered out of Cambridge, Massachusetts and a lot of the analysts and people that I needed advisors were up there and he said, "Just once a month or once a week even put an appointment time on the calendar with the people that you work with, just to have a one-on-one or one-on-two." And that went so far for me because I would connect with them one-on-one just on the phone and they would say, "What can I do to help you?" And I would say, "What can I do to help you?" And it'd be very collaborative. We'd talk about common challenges and things that we were trying to do to serve our customers and it went so far and then we could follow up with it too. So I think that's something you all can put on your calendar is just say who can I connect dot with in my finance department, in my human resource department and my management product, whatever departments you have. Just put time on the calendar, 15-20 minutes and it goes a really long way. So to kind of wrap up before we completely wrap is, I don't know if y'all noticed our dog's tail was wagging in between us for those of you who are watching on the video. For those of you who are just on audio, our dog was... Her big tail was up in between us, anyway. Is my sister Quinn. So a couple of things that she said were one and Stephen tell me if I'm forgetting anything is with... Oh here she is. Hi Fergie. This is Fergie, our dog. Is to take corrugated boxes from your garage or if you don't have any, ask your neighbors if they have them and allow the kids to tape them together and color on them. Make them into houses. She said they do castles and different setups for them and then they can move them around. They can have multiple of those and that will keep him occupied for hours. They can also take them outside on days when it's nice. The other thing that she... and she said she can't say enough about that. So it gives them a little for, it can be all day long, anytime of day, indoor, outdoor, movable and multiple of them. And then the second thing she said was they do chalk outside and they make little cities outside. So they do like a gas station. A little, what else did she say? Like a school, park. Sidewalk chalk. They use sidewalk chalk to do that. Yeah. And she said that she tells the kids our batteries are our vitamin D and when we get outside that's when the sun can recharge our batteries with the vitamin D and it kind of makes them think, okay. And then another great thing that her community has done, they live in San Diego, so they're blessed with the almost beautiful weather every single day. But popsicles frozen, those frozen stick dollar popsicles that you can buy and they're are even less than that when you buy them in the big packet, Walmart or Target or wherever is, they freeze those and they take them outside and it kind of breaks up. I know there's sugar but it kind of breaks up their afternoon or their early evening when you're trying to wrap up your day and it kind of keeps them occupied and something that look forward to. It makes really cute pictures too. So that's a wrap. Thank you Stephen so much for doing this. And we wanted to not get too into like meetings and how you have productive meetings because Stephen and I both come from that collaboration remote worker environment, he from Mitel and me from PGI. And what's that? Oh, I did want to talk a little bit about network and technology a little bit just because you hear a lot about security and it is paramount for businesses. Oh, good point. Yeah, I and so today most Wi-Fi networks are probably the most unsecure thing that are out there. Particularly your hotspots, like your Starbucks or even most home Wi-Fi networks, they don't have the robust enterprise security that's out there. So there's VPNs that are on your laptops and all that, that's good. But one of the things that make Inseego different is we're delivering connectivity into the home over a separate connection, over a cellular connection, be it a hotspot or some other device that's 4 or 5G connected. So it's a separate secure network with triple layers of encryption that does two things for you. Inherently makes you a little bit more secure. But the other thing is we're not competing with Whitman's PlayStation down there or somebody streaming video over your home network. I read the other day, I think the average number of devices connected on a home network are like 12. So if you start thinking about all these smart devices like thermometers, TVs, light switches, all of that stuff just makes for a crowded network. So providing a separate connection dedicated to your work environment is something that'll make you more secure and way more productive. Great point. I'm so glad that you brought that up and like you said, or like I said and we said before we started the recording is that we didn't want to get into the nitty gritty of off technical and how to hold good meetings because that's related to that, but it's also related to you just having less stress during the day, being more productive because the kids and the other things that are going on in your home technically are slowing you down and cutting you off and people can't hear you, whatnot. So I'm so glad you brought that up. Stephen, thank you. I really enjoyed doing our first episode together and I hope you all got a lot out of it. Please follow us at All Social Y'all. Our website, you can drop a question on Instagram. Stephen can be found on LinkedIn at Stephen Brown on LinkedIn. He's with Inseego, the IoT company. And we hope that this gave you guys a few nuggets and we do wish you well. We wish you and all of your family to be well, to be as free of anxiety as possible, hopeful for our future, and we want to support you. If there's anything else you'd like us to about or answer, we're here and thank you so much for joining us. We will talk with you next week. Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all Podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to allsocialyall.com. That's allsocialyall.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at All Social Y'all.

Corona Virus COVID 19 – Reality versus Uncertainty, What to Expect in Business - Episode 17 Going to provide you hopefully with some helpful thoughts – not the same ole same ole I didn’t want to skip talking about this subject because our world has drastically changed recently, and it’s forced us to prioritize public health and safety to preserve life in ways we have never experienced and so other things can feel someone secondary.  While at the same time we know that we need a thriving economy as soon as possible and we also need to keep food on our tables for our families. I want to share how I have prepared for what’s next in my business and hopefully hear from you what you have done or what I share here today and any Please comment on IG OR FB All Social Y'all.  I’d really really love to hear from you what you are doing with your planning around the pandemic or where you are stuck and where you need help. What can I DO?  I have my own ideas but I’d love to hear from you. So here’s what this episode will cover for you. I’m going to summarize in my own words, Where we are today March 24, 2020 – You all know this I’m sure so I’m just going to whiz thru this just to paint the landscape, esp if you are listening to this episode some weeks, months or even years later.  -Businesses are either having to lay off or close, drastically alter by accommodating work at home, finding new revenue streams and figuring out how to forecast which is close to impossible because we just don’t know what is going to happen yet. - We are trying to adjust and find ways to deal with isolation.  Maybe you live alone, maybe you live in a troubled marriage, or maybe you are enjoying more time with family.  Perhaps you have plenty of space and the people you live with are helping out, or you may be on top of each other having to work through new rules, new routines, new necessities to be aware of like washing hands, and not inviting people over. - Brands such as Walmart, Instacart, Kroger, Dominos, Dollar General are all hiring tens or thousands of people….Walmart 150k, Instacart $300k, Kroger, the grocer j-10k, Dominos 10k, Dollar General 50k! - Many predictions are saying we won’t be back to a more what we know as “normal” social life until Q3 and that is if everything goes well. - The stock market is extremely volatile.  Some can make $ in this market while buying while stocks are “on sale” so to speak, but many are scared, don’t know what to do and losing money.  While for quarterly outcomes, we hope it will rebound with the stability we have had previous to Covid 19, later this year, we also are hearing of a possible recession or even depression if the virus mutates and there’s another out break.  Just today, the Dow Jones Surged 1,600 Points On Coronavirus Stimulus Hopes     What the World Needs right now -isolation, practical solutions, positivity (not all doom and gloom because we will come out stronger from this)flexibility, and communication - Empathy – whether it is for parents of sm children trying to work at home, a pregnant co-worker about to deliver a baby, someone who lives alone struggling with isolation, financial repercussions….we all should think about other people and try to empathize with their unique situations - scientific data.  I listened to an epidemiologist from Stanford University confirm that we do not have enough data on the effects of this virus.  Validating scientific data is paramount - we also need a balance between good versus harm. Benefit versus suffering. The decisions our country and it’s leadership and people are making have trade offs.  I am not going to get political.  What I am saying is this is just facts.  We do not really know what the long term effects are going to be on the human psyche, mental and physical outcomes   What the World Does not need right now Miss information.  There’s a lot of miss information out there.  This is very important.  You cannot believe everything you read on Facebook!  In fact, FB is testing new tools now to detect miss information, it is so prevalent.  I’ll put a link to the article in the show notes. Panic.  Panic never saved anyone.  Fear – we’ve all had fear during this.  You may have cried, or gotten into an argument because you are fearful….that is normal and ok. Fear is a natural protective emotion.  But balancing that with pragmatic decision making and emotional regulation is what is going to allow us to get through this productively.  We will get through this and I believe we will come out stronger.  After I finish the 2 books I’m currently reading, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck by Mark Manson LOL and Be so Good they Can’t Ignore you by Cal Newport.  I’m getting ready to read the book, The Obstacle is The Way The Timeless Art of Turning Trials into Triumph  Quoting from the book - The book draws its inspiration from stoicism, the ancient Greek philosophy of enduring pain or adversity with perseverance and resilience. Stoics focus on the things they can control, let go of everything else, and turn every new obstacle into an opportunity to get better, stronger, tougher. As Marcus Aurelius put it nearly 2000 years ago: “The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”  We listen to a morning radio show out of Atlanta that does this quiz every morning 1 person calls in and has to answer the questions and one of the questions was, “what is one thing that most American’s did not do last year?” and the answer was not finish a book.  Lol During quarantine, I’m wondering what will happen to the reading stats!  Will they go up?  I hope so. WHY DO WE REALLY FEEL THE WAY WE DO? Anticipatory Grief this is traditionally very common among caregivers and family members of those suffering from Alzheimer’s disease, cancer, and other terminal illnesses.  It’s also common with divorce – grieving the life that we thought we would have in the future and now we see it is not so and never will be the same.  This is what we are feeling now.  We are grieving the loss of what we used to have.  Our world will not be the same.  But I believe it will be better – we just don’t know quite what that will look like yet. Uncertainty and Sensitivity - picture a quadrant Uncertainty on one axis and sensitivity on the other axis.  With new news coming out every day it puts our emotional response into the upper Right quadrant:  high uncertainty because we just heard the news of the day and also high sensitivity because it’s super important to our lives and our livelihood…..our ability to predict our lives physically, emotionally and financially As Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence says, emotions drive some really important behavioral and they are learning, decision making, creativity, relationships and health   HOW CAN WE GET BETTER AT DEALING WITH THIS NEW NORM? Mindfulness – meditation, connecting with nature and deep breathing https://www.headspace.com/meditation/work-meditation Limiting time spent consuming the news Keep a routine and build frameworks into new routines. Me – virtual yoga and a home workout center built affordably.  More reading, make sure I shower and put on some nice clothes and make up. Do your hair. Virtual – social distancing – socializing.  Yoga, mumba, cocktail hours! While at work – Zooms or Web collaborations.  But I was reminded today by somenone I met with about a virtual conference – too much of a good thing isn’t good either.  So be careful as in a management role to not have your teams day be all day all the time on the web on video or on conference calls.  That can really drag down someones productivity and emotional state.  Study after study has come out that over digitization ) and this was an issue before cornona virus, that Ask people how are you doing?  Listen.  Don’t advise necessarily or dismiss because everyone is different. What can we do to not be stuck in our business?  Sit down and write it out.  Write out all of your offerings, your services, and contrast them to the corona virus climate today.  What will make sense for your customers do you think?  Who do you need to ask?  What can you offer now that is new and valuable in this climate?  Write down if this happens then I’m going to have to do this and if that happens then I am going to need to do that.  It will give you some plan and some amount of peace.  You can only control what you can control. If you have faith in God or whatever your spiritual or religious beliefs are, know that God is in control – or whatever spiritual strength you believe in.  Let it go and don’t try to carry all of lifes burden on your own shoulders.  It’s too much right now.  I know it’s easier said than done.  I sometimes wake in the middle of the night and my mind reels and it’s difficult to go back to sleep because I am trying to solve a million challenges at once, half or more of which are completely out of my control!  What do we have to hopefully look forward to? Innovation Scientific improvements, vaccines Healthcare – telehealth improvements and CX s Technology advancements Social innovation and traditions Celebrations During coronavirus, Costco designates special hours for shoppers 60 and older Starting today - March 24 and effective each Tuesday and Thursday from 8 a.m. to 9 a.m. for the time being, the warehouse club has added special shopping hours for customers ages 60 and up. Costco joins fellow big-box chains Walmart, Target and Dollar General in designating senior shopping hours during the pandemic. People will be antsy and excited to get out and socialize, shop and dine together.  Those brands who might actually find productivity leveled UP with remote workers, perhaps more people will be afforded more work life balance by working at home.  It isn’t for everyone!  I enjoy a blend but I hope that you found this valuable and helpful.  I appreciate you and for listening.  Take care.

Hello everyone and welcome to Episode 16 - How to Craft a Rolling Social Media / Digital Marketing Internship Program for your Company.  In this episode you’ll hear this amazing guest, Jennifer Osbon! She is a Full-time professor at University of GA leading the Digital Marketing Area of Emphasis in the Terry College of Business and she teaches Social Media Marketing Strategy and Digital Marketing Analytics to both undergraduates and MBA students. We discuss the needs on both sides – the students and the corporations which sets the table as to why you should consider an internship at all. Where you should start?  She gives a great framework and ideas for the steps and considerations so you don’t make the mistake of “winging it” and she even reveals common pitfalls you can avoid!  You want to develop a reputation where students talk about how great the experience was with your firm as opposed to them saying things like, “they didn’t let me do hardly anything and I was bored to death!” She explains What is and how can you structure a “rolling internship program?” and paid or unpaid – if paid – how much?!! Did you know that universities have Internship resources – career services as well as the specific college or department with people who you can develop relationships with in order to recruit Interns? Listen in and thank you for listening! Carey (00:01): Hello and welcome to Carey Sperry, all social ya'll podcast. I'm your host, Carey Sperry. We discuss how to employ social to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a fuel for business growth and we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs and digital marketers. Our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 16 how to craft a rolling social media digital marketing internship program for your company. Thank you so much for being here. I am delighted to introduce you to an amazing guest, Jennifer Osbon. She is a full time professor at university of Georgia - go Bulldogs! She leads the digital marketing area of emphasis in the Terry College of Business. She is faculty supervisor for the UGA collegiate chapter of American Marketing Association and teaches social media marketing strategy and digital marketing analytics to both undergraduates and MBA students. The courses are based on curriculum that she developed mixing strong digital marketing principles with sociology, economics and analytics. She also sits on the marketing executive board for UGA, ensuring that the curriculum taught in the classroom, provides the students with an employable skill set upon graduation. Jennifer, thank you so much for being here with us today. Jennifer Osbon (01:58): Oh, I'm so excited. Thank you for having me. Carey (02:01): Sure. So we met through LinkedIn how appropriate haha I feel fortunate and lucky to have met you. Really. Um, and when we met we had an immediate rapport, which I loved and maybe because we share both our passion for digital marketing but also teaching, I'm no college professor, but your story and how your career has evolved into playing a super important role for both students and our business world. Can you, can we start off by you briefly sharing that journey with us and kind of how you ended up becoming a full time professor of digital marketing at UGA? Jennifer Osbon (02:40): Yeah. So, well it's a little bit of lightning struck. I was at the right place at the right time. Um, but, but it is kind of an interesting story I guess. Um, I was guest lecturing in a masters of internet technology class and the PR, I basically was doing a, a capabilities presentation Jennifer Osbon (03:00): for my company. I used to own a full service digital marketing agency, and was talking about here's kind of how we see the world and where we think it's going and that kind of thing. And he said to me, you've got a lot of content here. And I said, yeah! I said, but it's really difficult to hire students to come into this world because while they're digital natives, what, they're not...., They're not really good at using these technologies as marketers. They're really good at using these technologies as users. And so that led to a conversation, um, with the marketing department chair at Terry college of business here at UGA. And I went in and I met with Charlotte Mason and sat down with her and said, she said, what's on your mind? Jennifer Osbon (03:55): And I said, well, I can't hire your students. ...Not just me. I mean, industry-wide, these kids, ...they're coming out great users, but not coming out as great marketers. And so, you know, she said, well, what would you teach them? And I kinda said, well, some sociology, some economic principles like momentum and how we develop those things online, the tectonic shift and how we spend our money in marketing these days. And, and all kinds of things- that is not tips and tricks, it's more strategies. And so she said to me, why don't you write what you just said - write it down in this particular format? And I went to a meeting with a teacher and I came away with homework. So that's kind of a what I would have expected. So I did my homework, I turned it in and she called me six weeks later and said, "I got your course approved. " And I didn't realize I had written a course, but what she had put in front of me was curriculum. Jennifer Osbon (04:56): Yeah. And so, you know, as a small business owner, I thought to myself, well, this is perfect. I'm going to have academic credentials that's going to help me with business development. I can hire the best students right off the top. The rest of them can go to work for my competitors. And, and I've done some good in the world and you know, but at the end of the day, I was thinking all about me, me, me, what am I going to get from this? And, um, I wound up, -so my deal was I was going to teach only Tuesday and Thursday mornings and be done by noon. And so I thought, all right, this is good. I'll keep my business and do this part time and it was going to be great. And I got here and I absolutely fell in love with the students. Jennifer Osbon (05:40): I fell in love with the energy that you get from being around young people. And what I learned very quickly from the students is that, you know, they've got this aptitude and if you just shift their lens, so they look at it from a business instead of a consumer perspective, their light bulbs go on. And it is amazing what they can do if it's just framed right and they're just like, Oh....I get this. And they know exactly what they're doing. Well, three year story condensed, down to 30 seconds, I wound up shutting down my business. I wound up coming to teach full time and I literally have done a complete career pivot to where now I am a full time professor and absolutely loving the ability to grow and build the digital marketing area of emphasis and breaking down what that means. The emphasis is basically students who are business students in the Terry College of Business, where they have, declared marketing as their major. Jennifer Osbon (06:45): And then what they do next is they have a choice to go deep in either professional selling or in digital marketing. And I lead that, that emphasis. And within that the school has been very, very accommodating where they say, you know what, my job description is, teach these students what they need to know. S it's not about - you need to use this particular textbook. I don't even use textbooks. Right? This industry moves so quickly. That's not that where we need to be spending our time, effort, and money. Anyway, it's turned into an absolute amazing situation. And now we're graduating students who have digital area of emphasis on their diploma from the college and they're moving straight into the workforce. Carey (07:35): Wow. What a gift to both the university, the students and the business world. I mean, you're like, what if there weren't that sequence of events? ...if it wasn't for you, I wonder how long it would have taken? Which I'm sure they would've figured it out, but it's just awesome. With that, and that you love what you do and you love being around the young student body. Jennifer Osbon (07:54): Absolutely. What was interesting about the way that it came about is that they look at curriculum every few years and they realize what's missing and then they try to go fill in those gaps. And I happen to have been the right place at the right time that made that work. Carey (08:10): Yes. Awesome. So we're going to get into a way to craft a rolling internship program for our listeners. But I just wanted to kind of mention, you know, hearing that you guide your students who are preparing for the workplace to apply their social media learnings and other digital marketing strategies and tactics to what are mostly strategies, like you said, to what's needed in the current business landscape. And this requires you and university to, like you said, continually assess the needs of corporate America. Right? So let's start with the backdrop of the needs on both sides, the needs of the students and then the corporations, which will kind of set the table as to why, - why, you know, businesses should consider an internship program at all. Jennifer Osbon (08:56): Okay, sure, sure, sure. So, well, there's lots and lots of different flavors of internships. There's part time and full time there's paid or unpaid and, and in general, what I feel like that we should talk about today is really paid full time internships where students have set duties or planned rotation where they can get a real comprehensive look at a role or a function within a company. When you think about it, students want to do internships to gain experience in their desired field. It's hard to get a job without experience. And honestly, the easiest way to know if you like a job is to actually do it. So internships really offer students that hands on opportunity where they can connect what they're learning in the classroom to the real world. And in theory, that internship experience makes them stronger candidates for jobs after graduation, right from the company being active. Jennifer Osbon (09:56): Obviously, if you hire for entry level roles, internships give you that option to try it before you buy it. College students can intern in the summer between their junior and senior years and then join full time after they graduate. And, and that usually works for large companies who have like an ongoing new associate program. But for small middle-sized businesses, you know, the predictability of, of head count increases is maybe a little bit more fluid. I mean, you don't know what your life's gonna look like six months a year down the road. But that doesn't mean to consider interns. You know, you don't have to have the carrot of a potential job in order to get students interested in interning for you. Students are building their network and they're interested in gaining experience in the industry. They're looking to line their pockets with a little bit of cash. So you can actually help students. What you become is a really good reference for when they are finding their full time job. Right? So, so internships don't have to always lead to that full time job. If the internship is crafted properly, students can add real value to your business and they can save you a little bit of money over what you would have to pay a full time person to do the same work. Right? Jennifer Osbon (11:28): People often ask, do I have to pay interns? And you know, like with most things in life, you get what you pay for. If you pay interns, it makes them feel appreciated. It makes them work harder. It also allows you to grow greater diversity when it comes to your hiring. Because if you're not paying interns, you're only gonna hire the rich kids whose parents can financially support them while they're not earning money. Right. So people ask sometimes, you know, what should you pay a digital marketing intern? Their wages can be between, you know, 12 and $20 an hour, which is way less than that 50 grand you would be paying a full time person, right? That 12 to 20 an hour would be something like 24 to $40,000 a year - just cash outlay as opposed to a $50,000 for a full time person. Carey (12:26): Well I just having a daughter in the college world right now, she's a senior at Georgia state between her friends and just random interactions that I have with college students. Like I had one in an Uber, um, not too long ago who says to me, we have to have an internship and it seems like there's a shortage. I don't know if that's accurate. That's just from there, kind of like, not desperation, but I see all the time how eager they are to find an internship and how they're saying that you have to have one to get a good job. Is there, is there a shortage? Do you know? Jennifer Osbon (13:08): Well, it's not that there's necessarily a shortage. Students know that they really do need to have an internship. Think about graduating from college and all you've got on your resume is I have this fancy shiny college degree and I scooped ice cream at the local ice cream shop and I was a lifeguard. You know, they really need something that says I got this degree and I actually know what I'm getting into. So that internship is the thing that really drives credibility for students. And so, you know, some of them will actually tell you they would rather have an internship than a study abroad. And the option to travel the world and learn how to do that is not a very attractive thing to too many college students. And they're saying, no, no, no. What's more important to me is I'd rather have a good solid internship because that gives me something to talk about in interviews. That's how I said that how they plan to launch their professional career is really, really your job. If you have absolutely no experience at all in, in whatever your field is,- it is and can be daunting and scary. Carey (14:21): Um, so wow, that's super helpful. That really kinda sets, like I said, sets the table and as to why and on both sides. So now as a business owner might say or an or a management high up management, I think this sounds like a great idea. I might want to hire an intern. So a lot of business owners and leaders might just be tempted to like slap a job ad out there without a plan. A great plan always, of course, sets up the chances for the best success. We all know, but it's not always done in practice. So like where should we start? Maybe can you kind of break out some of the steps and considerations? Jennifer Osbon (14:59): Yeah, yeah! The first thing I feel like you really need to do is set your goal and come up with what you want that intern to do and it needs to be an actual, you know, they don't just show up knowing what to do or how to add value in your business. They need well-defined responsibilities, they need deliverables. You need to set expectations just like you would for a full time employee, right? Honestly, the less time you plan, the less time you spend planning your internship roles and responsibilities, the more you can expect that they're going to get on your nerves or be a burden. These are people that are going to show up to your office every single day and they can only bring you coffee once or twice. So they need to have something to do and, and if you don't plan it out and you don't really design that experience, then you just feel like, oh, this person's always here. Just remember that's your fault. It's not theirs. Right? You're bringing them in for a reason. The first one really, really lay out what you want that person to accomplish. Oftentimes the way that you can do that is you can say, okay, here's a specific role. Maybe if it's a social media coordinator role, then they will have responsibility for creating certain posts or managing your editorial calendar or they have goals for what kind of engagement you're trying to accomplish, to see that driven up over some period of time. You can kind of set your goals based on what you're trying to accomplish, but if you lay it out, it's really clear for both you and them as to what success looks like. Right? Another thing that's really to do with interns is to let them rotate through your business. So you know, if your social component is part of a larger marketing effort and you've got some event marketing or you've got some traditional marketing or should the have different kinds of things going on, let them rotate through and see how what they do fits into the overall wheel of what you're doing doing. Then it's always a good idea to say, Hey, come with me to this meeting. And literally just put them in there and say, don't say anything, but sit here, just listen and see what's going on. It's always a good idea to do things like that with them. Sometimes an internship program, we'll have a capstone project where they tell the student, okay, here's what you'll be doing on the day to day, but also longterm you're going to be working on an over, you know, I want you to present at the end of the semester or however long the internship program is. I want you to present this. And they'll give you, you know, the students a case study or they'll say, make a case study out of what you're doing and give us feedback at the end. So the student has a longer term thing as opposed to just daily tasks and those, yeah, those all make really, really good internships. Another thing that I always advise is to get to, so it's a sediment intern program coordinator or make sure every intern that you have has an assigned buddy. Um, because again, they're not going to speak up like a full time employee would, if there's a problem, sometimes they're a little shy about bringing problems forward. So, or they're confused and they might not feel like maybe asking a question. They need it. They need that person that they can go to that they feel comfortable with asking whatever they need to ask or getting whatever answer or maybe they're getting push back in some area of the organization and they don't feel like they can, you know, take that on head on. They need to have that person that they can go to. So really having that program coordinator or a buddy or whoever is super important. And then, just making, making their development one of your priorities right? Making their development as a, you know, they're going from student to professional. Anything you can do to help life coach them in to where they need to eventually wind up is, is always is always good. Carey (19:07): Oh, those are fantastic tips and giving people bullets and things so that as they're writing out their plan, they can build those components in there. Jennifer Osbon (19:17): We also have pitfalls to avoid. One thing to remember with interns is they really are young. So if it's part of your company culture to go out and grab a drink after work, just realize they may not be 21. And what you don't want to do, put them in a position where they could feel pressured to drink. I mean, it just, it gets awkward for everybody. So if that's part of your culture, make sure that you let the student understand, we want you to come, we'd love you to be a part of this, but don't feel pressured to partake if that's not your thing. Because again, they're still very impressionable young people. Carey (20:01): Yeah, great point. I wouldn't have even gone there, but my husband and I were going by this road that leads to the Greenway here. It's for him to run on. And we noticed this brewery tucked away in a in a business community and we're like, we didn't even know that was there. And there are people inside. Um, I don't know if they serve anything besides beer, but maybe don't go there haha Jennifer Osbon (20:26): Exactly. The fact that they're young and, and speaking up for things like this can be awkward because they want to please so badly. That's their thing is that they want this to be a great experience for you and they're trying as hard as they can. So you just want to respect and maybe not put them in difficult situations. Carey (20:46): Yes. Very respectful. So looking ahead as we plan, should companies think and expect to hire one intern and then sort of see how it works out? Or what are some like alternative plans to what you referenced as like that rolling internship program? Jennifer Osbon (21:06): So, so one thing that you can do, I think you definitely need to start with with one cycle and see how it goes and see how it fits within your company. But, but let's say that you've done that and you you've had a good experience and you're like, you know what? I really could see having interns as a part of how we grow and how we deliver the work that we do for our business. A rolling internship simply means that you're continuously rotating interns each semester. So it's not just a summer long program, but every single semester. So there are students that would say, I'm going to take fall off - just work and do an internship. So that's their thing is they would not go to class, they would go to work for you, in the fall, or some would choose to do it in the spring, when spring term starts, you know, January, right after the New Year. Then some would do it in Summer. If you do a rolling one each semester you're planning to bring in new interns and say goodbye to the old. Ideally you would want to have some sort of a two week overlap so that you're not spending all of your time training and retraining people. But yet part of that is that you can actually assign permanent duties to these interns. And it's a way of having interns fill a role as opposed to hiring a full time person. Yeah. I mean it's been proven that that turnover is expensive. Jennifer Osbon (22:38): And in this situation, you're literally planning turnover, right? You're planning to have three people per year, but it may be worth it if you're doing your part to help students launch their career and you've got a really good business function that they're actually able to deliver for you. Then it could be very much a win win situation if that's how you wanted to approach it. You just tell students, you're like, okay, here is going to be a fall internship, but I need you to be around the first two weeks to make sure that we've trained in the new person or be available for questions and have kind of a little bit of an overlap or to spring internship. But I need you to start before this semester so that we can, you know make sure those overlaps happen. But that means that you're always in a cycle of reviewing resumes, interviewing and bringing in new people. But at the same time, every once in a while you find a real, a real diamond in there that you want to hire full time. Carey (23:42): Yeah. Wow. That's inspiring and you'd get real pretty good at it, you know, and comfortable with that process and meeting a lot of different people and maybe one intern would recommend another. So, then that also allows for the transparency in the expectations with the timeline. I think that's really helpful to everyone and that'll be fine. Moving on. So what, what are some ways that you see companies recruiting interns? How are they finding people or how should business leaders think about where to go to find Intern candidates? Speaker 2 (24:13): Well, finding them is actually not that hard. Finding students is not that hard. You look to your local university, right? Whichever university of choice that you would like to, to, to recruit from. Every single one of them will have a career services department. You also can reach not just university-wide but to the college. So you could go to the journalism school or the business school. You go directly to the college, or Terry college of business. Even directly to the department, the marketing department or a professor who teaches a class that's designed to build the exact skills you're looking for in your internship, whether that be sales or digital marketing or, or anything else, finding the students isn't that hard. You just look to the school from which you want to recruit, design a really, really good internship experience for the students and then build a relationship with the school and you'll have an endless supply of interns to help you grow your business. And it becomes repetitive and it just becomes- it actually becomes an enjoyable experience for sure. Carey (25:21): Yeah, very rewarding. I didn't even know that. Is there, is there like boards, digital boards that they're posted on or anything like that? Or is it more just kind of like them knowing the opportunity of the contact at the university and then them knowing the students and kind of putting them together? Like matchmakers? Jennifer Osbon (25:38): Every university will have a career services department at the university with a website specifically where you can post internships within that year. You are able to go in and upload a job description and you say, is it paid or unpaid? Spell out what kind of skills are you looking for? All of that kind of thing. And students search those pretty regularly. Also, you know, specifically in our department, I get hit up all the time, right? So I spend a lot of time with the business community trying to make sure that what I'm teaching in the classroom translates to the skills they need in the workforce. And so they'll call me directly. And they'll say, Hey, I'm looking for this and for that. And we have, we literally will send an email every single week. We also have opportunities at the college level for employer of the day. And so you're welcome to come up and stand and kind of our student area for the business school. And you can kind of, literally do speed interviews, collect resumes and that kind of thing. So, really building a relationship with the college who can then funnel the students to you is the one thing. Um, and then just be aware of this: students definitely talk about their internship experience and you wind up building a reputation as a good or bad intern opportunity. The spiral happens and the best students are competing for them and the bad ones are spiraling down and no one wants to work for those companies. Carey (27:23): Ah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're texting each other too! Jennifer Osbon (27:33): I guess the worst thing is when a student says, I was there for three months and they never let me do anything. So definitely right now, form an internship experience, you know, if you design a holistic and valuable experience, I promise that'll pay off for both you and for the intern. Carey (28:16): Yes. Well that's a great note to end on. I learned so much. I hope you all did too. Jennifer - Pofessor Osbon, thank you so much for being with us. This is just amazing. Jennifer Osbon (28:16): Thank you so much for having me. Carey (28:16): Okay. Have a great day, everybody! Thanks for listening to the all social ya'll podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to all social, y'all dot com that's all social Y a L L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you, what subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at all. Social, y'all.  

Welcome to Episode 15:  Drones – Capturing Fantastic Videography for your Business Customers & Prospects Today is another solo-cast – just me y’all and we’re going to talk Drones.  But I wanted to give you a teaser that NEXT week on ep. 16 I have a professor of social media and dig marketing from UGA – University of Georgia talk about considering and crafting a social media Intern rolling program so don’t miss it. But back to drones…..One of the 2020 Marketing trends is capturing incredible video content going aerial.  Once drone videographers started creating works that consider creative patterns and frames of thought in a visual aspect, it broadened the field of aerial photography and videography.  Previously, drones were used in the commercial space for documentary purposes.  As I sought out to prepare this episode for you, I realized that the large majority of our perception of the earth and all it’s offerings is from our view here ON earth, not above it.  I mean, unless you are an astronaut.  Or, if you are spiritual – which I am.  But for the most part how we relate primarily to what is here – we relate to it from here. So integrating drone footage into your video content strategy has huge opportunities!  I’m going to give you some examples for a few common brand types in a bit to illustrate how you don’t have to be a travel company or a movie production company to get memorable, super engaging imagery related to your product or services.  Also, to help evoke emotion of some type. Not a ton of brands are using aerial footage in the video works yet.  While the drone market place is rapidly growing as more applications are discovered, the commercial/civil use is around 15% of the total market; while 65% being military and 20% consumer or hobbyists.  Emergence of use cases in fields such as real estate, construction, oil and gas exploration, utility inspections, agriculture, logistics, government, insurance, law enforcement, and retail.  The impact of commercial drones could be $82 billion and a 100,000 job boost to the U.S. economy by 2025, according to AUVSI. Drones are also known as Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs).  They require a license to fly.  If you pass the licensing test, you are a pilot!  I had heard that oh, the licensing isn’t really enforced for these new weird machines flying around overhead - if you’re just a small company flying it in either a residential or small community level setting the license isn’t necessary and a big time-suck to get it, I might add.  Well, we live adjacent to a Live/Work/Play under construction currently, what’s been dubbed as “Mini Avalon” in Alpharetta Georgia, just outside of Atlanta.  There are large grassy fields awaiting retail contracts and construction builds as one Hyatt Hotel is going up on the peripheral. Every weekend at least 1 person, more often 2, come and park their cars, get out and start flying their drones!  Walking my dog one Sun morning, I struck up a conversation with one who brought it to my attention how important it is that since I own a drone and I want to help brands capture aerial videography, I need to get my license!  There are strict laws and hefty fines I wouldn’t want to have attached to my name or my business. So I have set out to get my drone pilot license.  Another part of my drive here is that my daughter, Taylor, who is 22, about to be 23, science major at GA State Univ. and scuba diver, is starting her own YouTube channel on ocean and sea life conservation to help the spread of awareness of key initiatives she is involved in such as coral restoration and the human group projects surrounding those efforts.  I want her to be able to affordably include ocean and beach aerial footage – which imagine – how beautiful the views and how much closer and much more emotional the viewer will FEEL while watching that imagery with either music or her voiceover! I decided to take you – anyone interested – on this licensing and pilot learning journey with me – starting today.  I have signed up for an online course to get prepared for the test and I then will take the test and do all the steps.  And I will practice driving this quite intimidating medium size flying ship! The license is called FAA Part 107 test.  FAA stands for US Federal Aviation Authority. The requirements to attain it are Be at least 16 years old. Pass the Aeronautical Knowledge Test. You can register to take the test at any FAA-approved knowledge testing center. Apply for and obtain a Remote Pilot Certificate. You can apply using the FAA’s online IACRA system48 hours after taking the Aeronautical Knowledge Test. Pass a background check by the Transportation Security Administration (this process happens automatically during your application process). The test fee is a hundred and fifty bucks. There’s also a $5 registration fee for your drone. Then you must insure operation; A popular way of insuring drone operations is through companies which offer it in small, predetermined periods of time such as AI. Most students report spending between 15 and 20 hours of study time to prepare for the exam. Once you’ve taken the Aeronautical Knowledge Test, the FAA anticipates that it will takesix to eight weeks to issue a permanent remote pilot certificate via US mail. An expedited temporary remote pilot certificate can be issued upon request in about 10 business days.  Because I have a feeling I am going to want to get out there and start using my drone, instead of waiting, what – eight weeks, via US Mail?  Phhhtt sheesh – hahaha – my husband always imitates me when I do that haha Then you must retake an exam every 2 years or Keep your license up to date by passing a recurrent aeronautical knowledge test every 24 months. I wanted to also share some ideas how brands (you) can make really impactful, memorable and emotionally invoking videos with Drone footage and I will sample some video footage in my practice Vlogging

As a B2B Marketer, it is very challenging to capture the attention of busy business buyers. Video is not the only way, but it is one of the best ways to catch the attention of buyers while they are on the LinkedIn platform. It is no longer an, “up and coming” trend. It’s here and here to stay! 2020 is the time to get fast organic traffic and when you post organic videos it can really boost your traction and engagement.  1. Some Stats LinkedIn is the #1 Platform for B2B companies to share content.  Over 50% of social media traffic to B2B websites comes from LinkedIn.  Remarkably, Google has predicted that 90% of all content consumption will be video in 2020.  That being said, if you want to get the attention of B2B buyers then concentrate on LinkedIn and use video to get their attention. 59% of business executives would rather watch a video than read text says Hubspot.   According to Small Business Trends in 2019, 50 percent of executives look for more information after seeing a product or service in a video. In fact, 65 percent of them visit the brand’s website and 39 percent call a vendor after viewing a video”. Also noted is “76.5 percent of marketers and SMB owners that have used video marketing said that it had a direct impact on their business.” 2. Length Viewers will Watch This episode is based on a blog post I wrote last Summer - June of 2019 - you can find it at www.socialxeno.com under Blogs - and it's still relevant today, in my opinion and the opinion of other strategists.  If you’re getting started and growing an audience with LinkedIn video, we encourage limiting each video to one (1) minute and focus on one simple subject that provides value. With this approach, your videos will be easy for viewers to understand.  Videos on LinkedIn can be up to 10 minutes. However, LinkedIn viewers most often will not want to watch that long of a video. One (1) minute is a great start especially when posted consistently, such as every Wednesday morning at 8AM (it should be when your audience is on the platform). 3. Message that will Resonate LinkedIn conducted a study that resulted in findings that video on LinkedIn should “show” people expertise, not “tell” them.   In other words, people don’t want to see “talking heads” on LinkedIn anymore. What people like and take the time to watch is a well thought through message tied to your business value. Show them how you can help achieve their goals and needs. Ask yourself, how can we make it easy and fun and show them our unique place in the market? Demonstrate credibility, experience and trust. Definitely come up with a hot title, intriguing description that makes them feel anticipation and start videos with some excitement and quickly get to the point. 4. Imagery to Induce Emotion Great imagery is key and lifts engagement.  Get people to watch your video in the first place by posting a video that has an appealing thumbnail that is relevant to the video itself.  Some brands make the mistake of posting a video where the thumbnail is black and despite how amazing that video may be, humans won’t be immediately interested in viewing it. Personally or professionally curated video content with interesting imagery and the right lighting makes a big difference. Then authenticity in your message is important in order to engage emotion. Marketers are talking a lot about authenticity this year and some brands do it better than others. It can be explained in a variety of ways, but what it comes down to is not coming off as fake, not coming off as trying too hard, and not over-selling or making the viewers feel like they are just watching an advertisement. A quote by Dr. Donald Kahn says, “Emotion leads to action while reason leads to conclusions.” This also means that videos that are overdone, often don’t feel authentic or engage viewers emotionally. 5. Pleasing Sound Some basic editing can give music in part or all of the video. It is important the sound is tested so any voice doesn’t come across as “tiney” or annoying background sound(s). We add captions to video because people more often than not have sound turned off. People will see the video in the LinkedIn feed and the video plays automatically. Most people do not want the sound to come on as they’re scrolling because they are with other people or want to decide for themselves whether to hear. So adding captions makes your video content as easy to consume. 6. Tracking Metrics Typical engagement metrics include views, likes, and comments. The LinkedIn platform algorithm works analyzing content on relevancy not recency.  What this means is it will show posts to followers who it thinks the content is relevant to, as opposed to showing all followers the most recent post, like Twitter's algorithm.  Posts that also generate the most reach and engagement will also be prioritized higher.  So think  both a) relevancy and b) reach and engagement.  The more relevant it is to the most people then the larger the reach, thus increasing chances for engagement.  When it comes to tracking shares, this can be tough because if someone quotes your video in their own post, you don’t see that share. To work around this issue, we add hashtags to video posts so we can manually track the share. We can see the job function, company, and location of people who have been looking at each video and that helps lend insight to future video ideation and creation.  7. Platform Optimization Last, we optimize the video for the way the LinkedIn platform works. Tag people or other brands who are associated with the video. Use #hashtags, including one that is unique to your company so you can use it to search for the post in the feed later.  Last, take a few minutes to ask friends to check it out and share what they think!

Tablescapes & Cakes! Learn how to bring the theme, decor and food vibe to expand into the room and venue.  Mia Salmieri and Susan Gerbie inspire and explain to us how you can make your event memorable, while giving lasting surprise elements to your customers and guests.  We encourage you to host events for your business that inspire, engage and give interest to your customers and loved ones.  Go Big in 2020 and if you can't go Big, then we encourage you to do something different, unusual, and meaningful for your customers or employees.  

This is the first episode of a short series about making memorable, unique events and party planning that take your customer experience to the next level this year!  Mia Salmieri and Susan Gerber share cool ideas, and break down how to approach and plan your events.  No matter what your budget, we challenge you to do something different and amazing this year for either your customers, your employees, your prospects or your family and friends who support you and your business.  Of course, how to incorporate communication and social media content to inform, excite and capture memories and awareness with your audiences!  #2020events Watch the live podcast at the link below!  https://youtu.be/oonecWSqr9Y

This is a continuation of my interview with Ronan O'Connor who is @yogagolfdad on Instagram, a micro-influencer. Episode 10, I interviewed him and helped you guys get to know who he is, about how he became a micro-influencer, what a micro-influencer even is and kind of laid the groundwork. In this continuation of that conversation, we get more into how he uses personality and makes it relatable to his followers using humor and the fit between himself as a micro-influencer and the brands that he works with. He talks about some of the benefits that he gets and how the brands, how they experience benefits, how they communicate with him and find him and kind of strike a deal together, so to speak. And he gives examples of brands, experiences that he creates around the brands with his followers. So, I hope you find this interesting, valuable and fun. Hi, everybody. Welcome to Episode 11 and I didn't know we were going to be able to have Ronan O'Connor back, but he's been so gracious to give us some more of his time so we can go into a little more of the nitty gritty around the influencer world and micro-influencer world and how it might help you in your brand this year and in 2020 and beyond. So Ronan, thank you so much again for being here. He's at @yogagolfdad on Instagram. Yeah. Thanks, Carey, great to be back. Thank you. So, I'm going to dive right in here. I wanted to ask you something now so our listeners can think about how aspects of the micro-influencers personality can be really powerful in relatability. When you think about what will be relatable to your future customer or your customer that you have today or that you want to upsell or resell, that's kind of what I want to talk about. So Ronan, we often see your sense of humor. I mean, I literally laugh out loud when I see your feed a lot of times. You're so funny and your sense of humor is shared regularly with your following. Can you tell us kind of what that means to you? Like how do you integrate it into your communication and why do you kind of go all out with it? To grab attention? To be memorable? Like where do you come from with it? Yeah. Honestly it's just naturally how I am and as we spoke about in the last podcast, I don't overthink things too much on my Instagram. I'm just putting myself out there to the world and what I'm doing with my life and yeah, it just so happens that I'm naturally funny. Yeah, I don't overthink it. And it's just stuff that I'm doing, whether it's golfing with my friends and we're just having fun, like I'm just showing people what we're up to, you know what I mean? Because not a lot of people golf and they don't know what goes on. And a lot of people, like as an example would be like, "Well, if only I knew golf was this fun." And a lot of people ask me to play golf with them and all of that as well. So yeah. I mean just to answer your question, it's just, I'm just putting myself out there, you know what I mean? Anyway, I am and it just so happens that humor is something that I am naturally good at and just putting up my videos which so happen to be funny sometimes. You know what I mean? Sometimes I'm not even trying to be funny and people like... I get so many responses and it's like, "Well, I didn't even know that was funny." And then like for example, I don't know if you noticed, I haven't done it in a while, but I'd be driving home in traffic and just dealing with slow drivers and like- Prius. ... in particular Prius's. Yeah, exactly. I was going to bring that up. That became a thing. That's probably one of the biggest thing that people go on about is like, I don't know, for whatever reason they find that so funny. It is. But to me, like when I'm doing, I'm in like, because that's how I am in the car. I don't overthink it. I'm just in a rage in my car it's like, "Come on," you know, and there's a little Prius driver, driving literally like 20 miles under the speed limit. I go, "Come on, I can't cope." And I don't know if everyone's like this, but when I'm driving, it's the only time where I'm really aggressive and it's not really... I'm not like that outside of my car for the most part, but it's just, I don't know, it's probably another topic for another day. But in the car, I guess people, you can be yourself and just really scream out, you know what I mean? And that's what I do and that's what I'm putting out there. That's just who I am. You know what I mean? Well, you round it out. Like it's not like you're only talking about yoga, golf and being a father. Yeah. You're showing more. And I think why people think it's funny is because we all have been there in the car when we're so frustrated with someone around us in another car and then it's just like, we're not in it, or we're likely like at our desk or waiting for a doctor appointment on our phone. And it's just funny. And just to finish off quick with the Prius's, it just so happened that I was driving through Harvard Square, which is right near Harvard University and for whatever reason in Cambridge, Massachusetts, it seems to be like the Prius capital of the world and every car was a Prius. So it was torture just going from A to B. So I was just like expressing my frustrations and that's how it all came about. You know, maybe Prius will call you and you can represent their brand in some hilarious way. I'll never. You'll never see me in a Prius like. Oh, that brings... I wasn't going to answer this question next, but it brings about something that you and I talked about is with some influencers, like the big ones have said that they regret taking on certain brand deals so to speak, because it wasn't really fitting with who they are. In the previous episode, everyone, if you haven't listened to Ronan, we do kind of lay the groundwork for getting to know him and kind of making the influencer come alive for you. He did, we talk about an amazing campaign that he did around a whiskey brand, a yoga brand and some clothing, I think. And it just really demonstrated well a partnership that he had as a micro-influencer that was really fitting with who he is and it was a huge success because he enjoyed it and he got the brand involved, they got involved and the community came together and it was just awesome. So Ronan, can you kind of share your thoughts about like what kind of brand relationships you would use or not use and I mean not giving specific names or anything like that, but just kind of how you think of it? For me, personally, as I mentioned previously, I don't do it for the money and I'm just putting my life out there and so I just, if someone approaching me and I don't like... I'm not tied to any brand is what I'm trying to say. So there are some brands that reach out to me and I respectfully declined, thanked them for reaching out, but I haven't... When money's not involved that you can really, really be yourself more and more. I'm on Instagram as a user, obviously myself and I follow like tons of people and I just noticed when some big influencers really take off and they start, it just seems like fake and scripted and they get away from who they really are. You know what I mean? To me it's important to just continue to be myself and never get away from that regardless of how many followers I have and all of that. Yeah. I think people love, just like we were both in sales, like at the end of the day people buy from people and just being authentic and who you are and not scripted and fake. That's a really good point. People see right through that, you know what I mean? That's a really good point. Well, the next kind of area is like a lot of small brands don't think they can tap into anything around so called influencers because they cost thousands of dollars, tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even influencer marketing rather as an industry. I talked about this in the episode that I did just alone to kind of let you all know what's happening in the influencer world this year, but it's going to become an $8 billion industry, that's billion with a B, and it's emerged into its own marketing channel, which is crazy. When Ronan and I were at Forrester, Forrester kind of laid out the analyst concentrations around different marketing channel and the concentration, the specialties within those. So there's like email marketing, content marketing, SEO, of course social media marketing, pay-per-click advertising and paid ads like Facebook ads. Those are some examples. And now influencer marketing podcast, too, by the way. Crazy but good but true. But I talked about how Estée Lauder recently announced that they plan to allocate 75% of their marketing budget to influencer marketing in 2020. That is just a huge, I really was shocked, but- Well, that is. That is a lot. But like also kind of, I guess it just got here a little sooner than I expected, too. But part of the movement behind micro-influencer opportunities for both sides, for you all as brands and for the influencers themselves is that brands started to realize quite frequently that often they're not only expensive, but that they're difficult to work with, the big huge influencers, and that's kind of sometimes the grumble out there. But also it's obvious that they can be more accessible and more quickly responsive, the ones that are smaller, like from 10,000 to 50,000 or something like that. So you talked about how you're excited to work with brands that are a good fit with you, Ronan. I guess a question that I think would be helpful to people, too, is do you put your contact information in your bio and kind of how do companies find you and how do you like to be communicated with when it's fresh? Like when you don't know it's coming? You know what I mean? Yeah. Just like when people reply laughing at my stories or comment on my posts, most of it's just from people like direct messaging me on Instagram. I do have my email up there. Some people email me, but I honestly, I don't check my email that much. So the best way and what's happened for me in the past is just direct message and then if they want to take it offline, then we take it offline, whether it's through email or phone. But yeah, just the best way really is just through direct message. What do they say? Are they kind of straight forward and not take much time or do they go into a lot of detail? Like what does it look like? Yeah, it depends. Like different brands, some of them send you to links. I'm not sure if your listeners have dealt with this, but they send you to links and they have a whole writeup of what they would like you to do in return. To me it never seems genuine. It's just like they're probably sending it out- Oh, really? ... to hundreds of people, you know what I mean? But that they still can help them out. So I don't really spend too much time with them unless it's a brand that I like and I'll give it more of a look and then reach out to them directly, so it's not like it's more personal, before I commit to doing anything. But a lot of the brands that I've worked with, they really tie into stuff that I love and just naturally use in my day to day life. So it's like, "Wow," like I don't even... Yeah. I love this product, I love this brand. You know what I mean? It's just it's a no-brainer to me. Cool. And yeah, or like I've had, I've had like companies like 88 Acres, which is a local healthy and non-GMO nut free snack company here in Boston. And like they reached out to me and sent me a load of free stuff and I was like, "Oh my God, I love their products. I eat them all the time." Yeah, yeah. And it all started just because I gave my daughter, Natalia, some of their, it's not like called chocolate spread, I can't remember what they call it, but it's basically like a chocolate spread and it tastes so delicious and it had all the healthy ingredients and I was just like, well I just happened to put up a funny story of me and Natalia eating and people thought it was hilarious and then they reached out to me that way and that was just a... And then they sent us a lot of free swag. Like a lot of companies has done this where they'll send free swag to myself and Natalia and they'll have like my double XL size T-shirt on her, like three-year-old T-shirt and it's so cute and I love that. And I love when we wear matching clothes and stuff, so all that stuff is just so natural, you know what I mean? It's just a no-brainer. And again, it comes back to what we were talking about earlier, just being authentic and not forcing anything. You know what I mean? Yes. That is awesome. Okay. So, I explained earlier like micro-influencers tend to have a higher engagement rates because they aren't in the hundreds of thousands or millions of followers, so it's just easier to communicate with their base on direct message, like Ronan said, and in comments, they check them. It's more manageable. And Ronan, you don't even know this, but because of you, I purchased kombucha, that probiotic drink that you always- [inaudible 00:13:36]? [GT's 00:13:38], yeah, and I chose the ginger one and I didn't even fully even know the benefits, but because I perceive you as an athlete and I perceive myself as an athlete, so to speak, exercise very much a part of my life, I wanted to try it. I got it from Whole Foods and anyway, perhaps the repetition helped by me seeing it and I remembered it. But this is the real thing. It's conversion and can it be measured? Yeah, yeah, but sometimes not really. It just depends. But does it work to the extent that brands like literally invest the time and concentration on finding well-suited micro-influencers to feature their products or services? Absolutely. So we already kind of talked about like some of the examples of the partnerships, the brands that you've worked with, but can you kind of talk about what goes in it on your side? Like do you say like, "Well, I'm going to post a certain number of stories," or do you just kind of organically go through and integrate it into what you're already doing? Or does it vary? Yeah, it varies. Like, if for instance, it's an event that we're doing together, like a yoga event as an example, obviously you will meet and I'll ask them like, okay, what are they looking for? What are the expectations? Sometimes depending on the brand and the company, they're like, "Just be yourself. Whatever you think is best. You know your Instagram and your followers." Sometimes they want to see it done with their product, just certain words, certain things talked about with their product, but for the most part, they're just letting me do my thing, you know what I mean? And that's how I like it. That's great. Yeah, and I just do whatever I feel is just natural at the time. And that leads into like the whole conversation around trust, like the trust factor and all of this. I mean, we can tell that you aren't faking it when you share what you love. Yeah. I mean, just being authentic is something that, well, I think it's so important. And like another example, like Bold Body Apparel, one time they sent myself and Natalia matching yoga pants. No way. I didn't wear yoga pants at the time. Yeah. I would wear shorts. I was like, I thought they were layers. They had like goats on them. I don't know. Yeah, like they were black with like goats in white. Like G.O.A.T.'s great, like they're actual goats images, but it was like insinuating like the greatest of all time, which is a pretty big expression here, like just with Tom Brady. Oh, I just put that in my last TikTok video, if anyone wants to go check it out at All Social Y'all on TikTok. It's just a like a play on words and a lot of adults don't know what G.O.A.T. means. Yeah. Greatest of all time or B.O.A.T. is another one that I've heard, best of all time. Well yeah, they just sent me some free swag for me and Natalia. Then I just went and did a video just to thank them of the two of us wearing the swag and it was all matching and- That's so great. ... I actually loved it, you know what I mean? And I wore them to my classes and I was just amazed that they had a pair of pants so big to fit me. Yeah, oh, no, it's great. And the other thing, a little side note, because obviously most women have worn a pair of yoga pants before and I haven't worn them, I was like, "Oh, my God. Now I get what all the rave is about, you know what I mean?" They're comfortable. Like they're so comfy and stretchy and I love them. It was- Yeah, I wish I had more honestly, even though I don't do yoga every day, they're just nice to wear. Yeah, exactly. Have you ever had like any kind of interaction from a follower that stands out to you regarding a product? Like something kind of elevated or, I don't know, I just wasn't sure if there was like something that stood out to you when you were representing a product that someone said like, "Yeah, because of you I bought kombucha." Yeah, I mean off the top of my head there's nothing that necessarily stands out. But I do get a lot of people asking questions about the products like, "Oh, what do you think?" And even sometimes I'm not even, they're not even... I just happened to be drinking it or using whatever it is. It didn't come directly from the company. It's just I'm trying it out myself and people are asking, too, you know what I mean? And it's people, I just tell them what I thought of it. And for the most part, like if I'm using it, it's something that I like, you know what I mean? And I just give them my honest feedback and opinion. And just like you mentioned earlier, you then went and got like the probiotic drink, you know what I mean? It's just the same thing. And I do the same. I see things myself and I go, "Yeah, I'm going to give that a try." Just get ideas and... Yeah. What advice would you give brands in finding micro-influencers if they don't want to hire an agency to identify a really good fit? Yeah, I mean for me personally, just have a person reach out to them directly just like in anything. I treat Instagram like I treat the real world. Like with all my followers, with people, I just communicate with them. Then just be authentic, like whether you're commenting on their posts, like don't have your end goal in mind. Get to know the person, reach out to them and just say, "Hey, we love your stuff," and just direct message them. They're not going to not respond. Especially if you're a brand looking to send them stuff or talk to them about potential. Yeah, just that's just how I am. You know what I mean? I don't know if you have different thoughts, but just being authentic and just reaching out to them. That's the best way to go about it. I agree. I agree. And not seem scripted, just in that you've sent this post to hundreds of other people, you know what I mean? Make it personal. Just like in sales, like we were both in sales and it's the same. The 20 minutes goes so fast talking with you Ronan. Thank you so much. You've given us two really great episodes getting to know you and getting to understand a little more about micro-influencers and we thank you. Have a great day everyone. Thanks for being here. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all Podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to allsocialyall.com. That's allsocial Y-A-L-L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram @AllSocialYall.

Last week, I did a short 10 minute episode on the current landscape of the influencer world and how it has recently evolved into a new marketing channel. In this episode, I interview micro influencer, Ronan O'Connor. He shares with us his passions, which are yoga, golf, and being a dad. And how his journey growing his following too close to 20,000 on Instagram by sharing all of these passions in a fun, entertaining way. He also talks about how he works with brands who ask him to share their products and services with his followers. I sought out in this episode to help you get to know Ronan so you can hear for yourself that influencers are real people and not all of them participate with brands just for the money. In our conversation, he breaks down a collaboration that he was a huge part of with multiple brands centered around a yoga event to increase exposure and engagement with males in his Boston community. It was a huge hit. The day we recorded these episodes, there was unexpectedly some extremely loud construction going on outside of my office where I normally record this podcast and I said, "I am not canceling, I'm not postponing." So I took to my closet. I had to move my Yeti mic and my computer and I guess a setting got altered so my voice doesn't sound like me as much. I don't know if you noticed, but I sure did. I didn't want you to think that I hired someone else in my place. It is me. This is episode 10, a two-part interview with @yogagolfdad, Ronan O'Connor. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode. Thank you so much for being here today. I am excited to introduce you to Ronan O'Connor. Ronan lives in the Boston area, which is part of how we know each other from Forrester, where we worked there together years ago. He is a father, a yoga instructor, and an amateur award winning golfer. He's a five time club champion at The International, which is the longest golf course in North America. Have you ever of it? I hadn't. It's so cool. But it is a 36 hole world-class destination. So we'll hear more about that. But you'll notice immediately he's Irish. Not just from his surname, from his awesome accent. I love hearing it. Ronan has grown his Instagram following to a five figure following officially moving into the micro influencer status. Ronan, thank you so much for being here. Thank you so much, Carrie. You delighted to be on. Appreciate you having me. Good, good. So you are, but of course not limited to at all, a yoga instructor, a golfer, and a dad. I love it. How did all these cool interests begin for you? Kind of, what's your story? Yeah, no. So I mean, for me, I've always played sports right since I could walk and a lot of that was just growing up in Ireland as you mentioned. In Ireland, sports are such a big part of our culture and what we do so I played a lot of sports growing up play like rugby, football or as you call it over here, soccer and played everything, and then with golf and that, I was just getting into at a young age, golf is obviously very big there. Got into that just, actually my dad got into it later in life and I was probably eight or nine when I really got into it. And then you have to be 12 to get in as a junior member. So I did that at my dad's golf club and was just hooked every day. That was my daycare for the summer and was there pretty much every day from sunrise to sunset and yeah. And then yoga. Got into yoga, well just by chance, just a friend of mine back home in Dublin that asked me to do an eight week yoga program with him that was at the local high school when I was 15. Yeah, so did that and was really just amazed how I go in there so tired and just wrecked from rugby practice or school, from study and I come out with so much energy and just feeling amazing and being naturally on the stiffer side just from the rugby and all of that, it was just something that I really loved and then didn't continue it by any means and until much later in life. Did it sporadically at my local gyms and stuff like that, but never consistently. And then it was just so happened, before my daughter was born, moved beside a CorePower Yoga here in Boston probably three years ago now. Just over three years ago. And just got it back into the routine and was just amazed with everything that it did for me and my body and the community and just a lot of positivity that came with it. That's great. Yeah, yoga is pretty, big. And I've found, when I do it, I feel so better afterwards, but then for some reason until I really do it consistently, I don't look forward to it. But I guess that's how it is with a lot of different exercises until you start. Yeah. Because it is kind of a discipline. But then once you really get going you can improve and improve. And you're an instructor now. So can you tell us a little more about your yoga career so to speak- Yeah. And also kind of where you've taken the golf career? Yeah, of course. So for me, as I mentioned, just before my daughter was born, we moved and moved beside CorePower and was going there regularly and I just did my free week at CorePower Yoga offers a free seven days unlimited yoga to every new yogi. And so did that and just got hooked and was like this amazing because it felt like it was the best of both worlds because it was still a workout because of the heat and the sweating and you do a three to five minute core workout in the middle. So you're doing a lot of ab work. but it was still restorative, you're still stretching your body. You're still getting the mindfulness of relaxing at the end of class and just more restorative, which I think everyone needs. Especially these days with so much technology and constantly being on. So I just fell in love with it and then I wanted to learn more about it and that's how I got into the whole teacher training and did my 250 hours of teacher training, got certified and naturally just loved it. And I love being in front of people. I love helping others, I love coaching and also I like motivating people. So it was like a win-win just with teaching- Wow. Yoga in general. So yeah, it's not like you set out to be an instructor. It's just kind of evolved and it's become a huge part of your life. Yeah, yeah. No, I definitely didn't set out to be an instructor. For me, a big part of it was just learning more. I was like, "How does this work? Why do I just feel like in my zen, feel so amazing? How do I feel on top of the world during and after class?" And I wanted to learn more. And then it became more about giving back and and also there's not a lot of men in yoga. And one thing that CorePower really does a great job of is they're open to everyone, all walks of life. And then for me being a naturally stiff, bigger guy, I always felt empowered that they always give the options because at the end of the day, my body is very different than your body as an example. You may be a lot more flexible than me and whereas I might not be as flexible as you, but there's options for my body and there's options for your body and just being able to break them down. So I always tell empowered, whereas when I'd gone to other yoga studios, I never felt that way. To me, I'd have fun and I'd be laughing, but I never felt I really fit in just I couldn't do most of the poses that the teachers were asking me to do. You know what I mean? So that's the one thing that I definitely try and do in all my classes is I give everyone options to feel empowered in their bodies because I have been that body, you know what I mean? That is naturally on the more stiff side. And I know what it feels like to not be able to do certain moves. Yeah, that's not a good feeling. It's a gift to give that to people when they're there and to share the same type of lifestyle if you go regularly and choosing to make that part of your day. I remember one yoga instructor said to me once that stuck with me so much in such a good way, and I'll tell you why in a second. But she said, "Do not look to your left or your right and compare yourself to them. If you look left, right, great. But don't compare yourself to what they're doing because we're in such a comparative world." We're constantly- Yeah. Comparing ourselves. And it makes us feel bad. Yeah. And so I took that and I decided I'm going to just, painting. I've never been taught how to paint and I'm just not going to judge myself. And so I find it helps translating that. And I never would have had that if it weren't for yoga. Yeah. Not saying I'm a very good painter. Yeah. Yeah, No, I mean, but it's so true. And I talk about it myself in my classes as well, because as I mentioned, we all have very different bodies and structures and there's just, in anything, not just in yoga but in life. We all have things that we're great at and things that we're not so great at or we're not interested in and there's no right or wrong at the end of the day. And it's just feeling great in your body that you have and that you brought to your mat. And then as I experience my own practice, I notice just from showing up and taking classes on a regular basis that I was getting more flexible and then all of a sudden I could do a crow pose or pose that I couldn't do before. And it was amazing to me how it just all fits together, you know what I mean? And there's still a lot of poses, like a handstand. I can't do a handstand on my own without being assisted from another teacher or using a wall. That's just one example is because I have been very stiff upper back, thoracic spine area. So you know what I mean? It's just like anything, if you want to get it and you practice and at CorePower, as an example, there's a lot of teachers out there, just some days we're feeling tired and we don't want to do certain things. But that's another area in my classes and just in CorePower in general that they instill in us as just, it's okay if you just want to lie down or if you just want to take child's pose, you know what I mean? I it's okay that you feel tired this day. You don't have to overexert yourself and feel discomfort and just that negative feeling of not wanting to do something. And it's okay to let go. This is your 60 minutes to do you want. So I always try and make sure that I let people know and encourage people to do it. And So that's awesome. So I think a lot of people don't know, and I had never really honestly thought too much- Yeah. About it until I started following you. It's that with their golf career, how much yoga helps it and you compete in golf, right? I see you earn these huge trophies and stuff. Oh, yeah. That's so exciting. So maybe can you tell us a little bit about your golf competitions- Yeah. And kind of how yoga lends to some of your success to earn those huge trophies? Yeah. Yoga obviously is great for golf, just with the mobility and the core work. And so for me, it was a lot of my golf nowadays is local here in the Massachusetts New England area. So it's been extremely helpful and it was a natural fit just when I got into yoga is another reason why I loved it so much. Because I was never really that interested in CrossFit, as an example. I know that the competitive side of it from pushing yourself, but to me, I always tell sore and stiff and my body just felt injured. You know what I mean? Whereas the yoga, I like to free up my body and free up my mind, you know what I mean? So that's how it really helped my golf. Oh, no way. Time of 2018 I grew up playing golf with Roy Mcilroy who's a pretty famous golfer. Yeah, I don't know- Very. If your audience has heard of them. But I'm just putting his name out there. He's on the PGA tour, he's well known and while I was with him, he was up here for the Dell Technologies Championship at TPC Boston and I was just asking him, I was like, "I heard that you love going to the gym and getting a pump on before you play golf." And I was like, "Is that true?" And he was like, "Absolutely. Yeah." I mean, he said for himself, he feels very loose and likes to get stiffer and that's how he feels like he swings the best. And I was like, "Wow, I'm the complete opposite." You know what I mean? But the main thing is just feeling good. Just like why some people work out before they go to work, it's just to put your mind in a good place, releasing endorphins and you just feel in a good mood- Wow. After a good workout. And it's the exact same thing. You know what I mean? And some of my best rounds have been after I've done yoga in the morning, I can't always do, because sometimes I've early tee times and stuff. But when I have been able to get in a slower yoga class before my workout or before my golf riders, it just feels so good. You feel loose and your mind just feels, you just feel so positive. So it's something that I try and do whenever I can. And then as you mentioned in your intro, I'm at the International Golf Club in Bolton, Massachusetts. I've been there for about 10 years and I've won the club championship there. There's a lot of good people up in that club. Yeah, they even do yoga classes there now and they're doing goat yoga and that was, yeah. When I really first got into it, it was- And no one will misspell that @yogagolfdad Part of my life and it was as simple as that. It was, yeah, this is really my passion and these are my passions and just, yeah. I figured it just made sense. So you share your relationship with your adorable daughter- Sure. And your life with her as dad. It's so touching. And I know I've told you that you can drop Natalia off at my house for the weekend anytime. I'm not kidding. You come to Atlanta, you bring her and I'll take care of her. But it rolls you out as a person and it makes us feel happy and entertained quite honestly. She's just adorable. And some people purposely don't disclose their children on social media because I do believe it's a personal decision. There's no right or wrong. I'm curious how you see it and why are you open to sharing your father-daughter relationship with the world? Yeah. For me, well I love them getting her just capturing the moments and I try to be as real, as genuine and just showing people my life, you know what I mean? With my Instagram account. And yeah, I mean, you know yourself having two kids, it's something that they're just going to be kids and sometimes she'll be doing her own thing and saying- Yes. These things. And you know what I mean? I find it hilarious. You know what I mean? A lot of the stuff that I'm putting up there, I don't really overthink. I just think it's funny and we're having fun. You know what I mean? And obviously there's times when she's cranky and upset and all that. And I do respect that, you know what I mean? And as parents, sometimes we do laugh because there are times. But If I find it appropriate, I'll put it up. But for the most part, I don't overthink and I certainly know everyone has their own, it's very topical area. Some people choose not to put their kids up on social media. But for me it's not something that I'm against, and something that I think personally, I love seeing other people's kids and I find it hilarious. And just to watch them grow, even looking back at my own Instagram or with my friends Instagrams or Facebooks, seeing the kids and just being like, "Oh my God, they're growing up so fast." And for me, a lot of it, especially being in a foreign country, my life is here now in Boston and my daughter and all that, obviously. But a lot of my family and friends and all that are back home in Ireland. So just to be able to show them, this is what I'm up to and you know what I mean? This is what we're doing. So her grandparents, my parents and her auntie and uncle can see what she's up to and to see her growth, you know what I mean? And that's, I think just a part of my generation. I remember when Facebook first came out back whenever it was in 2005, 2006 and I had just started college down in South Carolina at the time. I was putting up photos of the same way. I was putting photos up of my life on Facebook because I was like- Absolutely. Oh, well this is what I'm doing as I'm in college. You know what I mean? All my friends and family are back home. That's awesome. So it's a way for me to connect with people that are not with you. You know what I mean? So it's just something that I'd been used to and it's something that I've done with my daughter. If one day she says, "Daddy no more videos." You know what I mean? If she tells me that- Oh, yeah. Then obviously I won't. But she loves it. Sometimes she'll ask me, "Daddy, take a picture. Daddy, take a picture." And I try to limit her. Obviously, I'm only putting up a tiny percentage of what we're doing and what I'm doing, you know what I mean? But there are times where she will have my phone and she'll be FaceTiming with her mom or her grandparents or whoever, you know what I mean? And then she'll be playing with the camera and she'll be fascinated by it and I don't necessarily overthink it, necessarily. Yeah. And it's all on my Instagram in particular. I love that. It's been just so much love and support. And- I always say social isn't the only way. It's one aspect of the buyer's journey, but we all know the bigger your presence is, the more people you can help and influence. But can you kind of speak to your intention behind growing your tribe? Yeah, great question. And so for me, I don't put too much thought into it. I just try and show my life and just what I'm up to and what I'm doing. I don't do it for the money, necessarily. I do have brands obviously that ask me, that reach out to me and ask me to be an influencer or send me free stuff. And I know there's some folks out there that do make good money from Instagram, but for me it's not about the money. For me, it's more just putting my life out there to the world as I mentioned earlier. And then also I use it a lot just for people here locally, whether it's my yoga students or my friends or the community. And then also just for folks in different parts of the US that I've connected with. But I used to be a little bit more regimented, but it just, for me personally, it's not how I operate. And if I'm totally honest, I noticed that I was getting way too addicted almost, to Instagram- Good for you. And a lot of these things can be very addictive- Yep. And yeah, don't get me wrong, I love Instagram and I've met so many amazing people, but I try to not get so bogged down into it because they want it to be addictive in a way. You know what I mean? Because I used to be like, "Oh I have to get my posts up." And I'd almost like stress about it. The episode that I released last week before this one- Yeah. I kind of laid the groundwork for how there used to be these huge influencers, still is, that have millions of followers. And then the micro like yourself that are above 10,000 and then now there's nano influencers that are 1,000 to 8,000, 9,000. Somewhere around there. So I'd be curious to let us know and let the audience know kind of when, in your journey, when you started getting free stuff sent to you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, for me it was a few years ago when my Instagram really started taking off. I had brands reaching out to me. And over the years, but one that sticks out for me was actually almost a year ago now, it was this time last year, they had reached out, Mindbody, not sure if you've heard of Mindbody. Yeah, so they are a CRM for the fitness industry and amazing company. And it was a girl by the name of Michelle who was the Boston manager here for Mindbody. And she had reached out to me just to help get more men using their app so you can sign up for like free fitness, free and paid classes through their app. Similar to ClassPass, if you've heard of them. And so yeah, they're looking to just get more men using in their app. And obviously I have a lot of men that follow me just from golf and with the yoga and all of that. Yeah. So that was one that with the buildup St. Patrick's day, we decided let's do a yoga event and it was a collaboration. And so we did a yoga event and then I had Proper No. Twelve whiskey. I'm not sure if you've heard of them. They are Conor McGregor's whiskey brand that he started a couple of years ago. And just being from Dublin, I was absolutely because yeah, I got them involved and because obviously men do like their whiskey. Wow. And so we made the event, it was a St. Patrick's day pregame, we called it and it was yoga, sweat, whisky. And yeah, it was a lot of fun and a lot of guys showed up. I mean, I think we had about 88 people that came- Oh, here too. To the event and there was a good 50/50 split, which is rare, especially in a yoga class, you know what I mean? It's predominantly, I would say 70%, 80% female, at least here in Boston. You know what I mean? So it was great to have more men coming out and try, there was all walks of life. There was new people to yoga and they were regulars and yeah. It was something that I was really excited about, because it's like, yeah, this is just what I'm passionate about. When a lot of the brands that have reached out to me, it's, as I mentioned, it looked like that because it was a small room so it was packed, literally, we had to move tables an all the furniture out of the room at the Revolution Hotel, it out of control. I was stressing out about it then, but we made it work and fit everyone in and yeah, it was all organically created. I just was using my Instagram to put it out there and send to everyone. Everyone's signed up, true to Mindbody app. And yeah, and I don't even know, we tried because to me it wasn't about the money, again. It was just about getting people in, getting guys, men and just people in general into yoga. I mean, I didn't want to make it all about men and so then had Lululemon involved as well. The local Lululemon here in Boston, which obviously Lululemon make clothes for men too. I wanted to attract all walks of life, not just men necessarily. You know what I mean? But yeah, to answer your question, It was all organically created and we went crazy. And then for that particular event, one of the things that I'm passionate about is connection and community. I'm being Irish, that's something that I'm naturally good at. With it be in St. Patrick's Day, it was a perfect time to be able to do. What I also did was I brought in a lot of the local teachers to the event. I brought in, I think there's five or some total. I'd say. So they were all part of getting it out to their followers too and their community and their students. You know what I mean? And so I cast a pretty big web to drive attendance and publicity for the event. Your personality. Why you chose your handle, how you've grown, you know you're really a person. You're just sharing your life and things that you're passionate about and so everybody, I just want you to know that these influencers, micro influencers, nano influencers, they're real people. And I hope people feel that. So we've run out of time, but Ronan, if you would be willing, I have so many more questions to ask that I think would really help people kind of take this to the next level. Would you be willing, I don't want to put you on the spot, but if you'd be willing I'd be able to ask the rest of the questions in another episode whenever you have time. So thank you. You're so welcome. Have a great day and we'll talk soon. Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to AllSocialY'all.com that's allsocial Y-A-L-L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you, what subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram @AllSocialYall.

Episode 9:  Influencer Marketing – The Emergence of it’s own Marketing Channel & How can Micro-Influencers & Nano Influencers can Help Grow your Brand with me – your host Carey Sperry Data is showing that Influencer Marketing is gaining sig more spend from marketing budgets.  I was shocked to read that Estee Lauder recently announced that they plan to allocate 75% of their entire  marketing budget to influencer marketing in 2020.  Some of them are big names such as Kendall Jenner and others are what we are going to break down later in this episode, what are Micro-Influencers like on YouTube and Instagram.  You might be saying, yah well, that’s a HUGE company and that isn’t relevant to us.  With this announcement and data, it is a definite sign of what works today in social media marketing so I thought the subject deserving of some attention so you can consider what it means to you and your business.  SMBs have some distinct advantages and brands large and small are changing the way that they work with Influencers.  Bigger isn’t always better in 2020!  As my kids say, “Facts” This is going to be a shorter episode as I decided to let you know about this shift if you hadn’t already realized how stark it is and second kindof lay the ground work for next weeks episode where I interview a Micro-Influencer. In this episode I’m going to go over what could miss out on if you don’t at least think about partnering with a Micro or Nano Influencer and I’ll break down what those are for you also. 1 – Influencers have Large & Often Engaged Followers You can see right in their bio how many followers they have and when you click on their posts, you can assess the engagement and number of comments.  So this may seem obvious but for those of you who haven’t really put much thought into what Influencers really DO – when they post about your brand, you could get noticed by their followers. 2 – Influencers are more trusted by Millennials than are advertisements       With the Drive to Authenticity & Trust – this is important data.  If Millennials are in your customer base or will be soon, then think about it – the speed to conversion will be faster via an Influencer because they already trust them or they wouldn’t be following them most likely. Unless they’re a hater! 3 – Neuroscientific studies by firms such as Whalar,  show that Influencers content measurably has shown higher levels of emotion and memorability compared to television, Facebook in general or YouTube.  Additionally, in many instances people go from doing nothing in response to content to a “yes” after they consume content promoting a product or service when promoted by an Influencer. The Whalar study demonstrates that Creativity, Authenticity and Values Driven are key components that prove to drive the success of the Influencer’s results so when you determine these components are present in an Influencer’s content, you can more confidently expect they will gain the attention about your product with their followers 4- There’s opportunities to give product or a free service in exchange for promotion by Influencers Not all of them require to be paid or be paid big!  It’s just a matter of finding them and striking an  arrangement that makes sense for both parties. Some brands create affiliate programs where the Influencers get a link to post in their bio or in specific posts – such as a blog post with the link where people can click thru to buy and they are transparent about the factg that they are an affiliate and they may be compensated if they are, if that’s the case.  Side note! 5 – Tracking conversion or results related to that Influencer can also be done if you give promo codes like JOGINJANUARY for a jogging pant or COOKING42 for a pregnancy cookbook let’s say.   Alternatively, you can use referral links which are URLs to a landing page.  You give one of these to the Influencer while they include your brand in their posts organically. 6 – Brand Ambassadors use your product ongoing for typically long periods of time. It’s called Brand Ambassadors.  They use your product,  occasionally urge others to use it too and they are a reflection of your brand.  You can then also then repost their posts, acting as like a testimonial for your brand or product.  In Episode 4 with Heather Cox of @Aglowpresets she talks about how she’s built a very successful Brand Ambassador program and it’s growing every week pretty much, by she gaining university students to represent her brand and preset products.   7 – Some influencers are also bloggers and you can ask them to include a link or two in a blog taking readers to your offer(s)!  Bloggers post social media posts directing followers to go read their blog.  See how this works?!   Now how do you find Influencers if you choose to go it on your own without an agency’s help – first you can start with who already follows you today!  So go to your followers - Then dig into their followers and comments they get on their posts.  Then you can search by hashtags #.  So go into the search field, click a hashtag relevant to your business or service, then click thru to their presence to see you know, how many followers they have and what kind of engagement they have. You look specifically and I know it’s time consuming but it could be worth it.  Look for people in your niche or who are interested in your niche with the number of followers between 5,000 and 25,000.  Those are what most brands consider the Micro-Influencers.  Influencers will collaborate sometimes too, so you can ask an influencer that you already know, who you know and trust and are well aligned to your brand – who do you know that is also an Influencer who might be interested in collaborating with you around our brand?!  Ask that of the Influencer you like working with.  Add hashtags to that collaboration or collab. campaign and your reach could really blow up!  In these show notes you can find a couple of message to Influencer outreach templates. Ok? They are email or message templates you can use to get started. It goes like this: Hi Betsy,  I came across your Instagram when I searched by #___________ and I was really impressed with your content.  I saw you also have a blog and are really passionate about _______.  We are a _________ and _______ company.  My role here is _____.  Our IG handle is __________ and you can visit our website at www._______.com.  We would love to see if you would be interested in partnering up with us to promote our _______ next month, in _____.  If so would you be available later this week or next for a call to talk through and see if our synergies align? Best, Carey That’s just one example.  I’ll have one more in there for you to try. Now Conferences are a really great way to meet Influencers too.  Face to face is always the fastest way to detect chemistry and start to form a relationship. No onto this next term.  Nano Influencer.  Have you heard of it?  These are people with over 1,000 followers but not yet reached Micro levels of 5-10k Next week we feature a microinfluencer.  I interview this microinfluencer so you can hear specifically of what some of them do, how personality plays a role and considerations that will help convert people into being your customer.  Don’t miss it! Influencer Outreach Template 2 go to www.allsocialyall.com

Carey Sperry:                     Hello and welcome to Carey Sperry, All Social Y'all Podcast. I'm your host Carey Sperry. On All Social Y'all we discuss how to employ social to become truly customer centric. We identify how social is a fuel for business growth and we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs and digital marketers, our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms. Carey Sperry:                     Hello everyone and happy new year. Thank you for being here. It is a new decade and I am so excited you're here with us. I have some exciting news to share with you and it is what this episode is going to cover. Social media as an author. We know that the huge majority of authors think that once their book is published on Amazon, that it will sell and that is not the case at all. What happens more often than not is no marketing plan is put into place before the book launch date so the author is so busy just getting their book written and polished perfectly to publication thinking that's it. Inevitably, countless authors become sorely disappointed when book sales are suffering and they feel upset, ashamed, and even worse, very discouraged. They believe that people want to read what they have taken such grand efforts to put down on paper, yet they cannot understand why they aren't being found on Amazon. Carey Sperry:                     I have brought on a woman to our team here at Social Xeno. Her name is Danielle Brown. She comes from the publishing world and in this episode we break down what not to do when you want your book sold. Are you an author yourself or are you an aspiring author? Do you know someone who's an author or are you just interested in applying some practices that we share here about selling something? It doesn't just have to be a book for you to take away a few learnings here in this episode. We break down the mistakes that authors make that fail the sale of their book. They are not committing to following through and executing on finding readers and building large audiences before the book is published. Not asking for help, not defining specifically who is going to get the most out of your book instead of broadly thinking about how many people will be interested in reading it, and not getting out from behind the desk to be visible to the ideal reader. Take a listen. Carey Sperry:                     (music) Carey Sperry:                     Hi everybody. So happy to be back. This is episode eight and I would love to introduce you to Danielle Brown. We have partnered together on this new package that we just explained and introduced to you, but she's formerly with Entrepreneur Press. She specializes in writing, editing, book proposals, pre-order and post-launch book marketing and author branding. She's also a podcaster and a Toastmaster leader, so, so happy to have her here today. We're going to talk about what is to come, starting today, for everyone here and Danielle, maybe if you could just tell us a little bit about yourself and your experience in the publishing world. Danielle Brown:                Absolutely. Thank you, Carey, so much for having me. I have always been drawn to books and the book world and I am a huge reader of pretty much anything. When I first ventured into the publishing industry, it was just a godsend and it was really enlightening to see behind the scenes of the publishing world while I was with Entrepreneur. But while I was there, I really worked with the Entrepreneur brand and dealt with authors, with the Entrepreneur brand's needs in mind. And now I've ventured into working directly with authors because I see that as a real need, that authors need help and guidance for their book marketing, for querying it to publishers, and I'm just really passionate about helping those nonfiction authors build their brands and platforms to help their book succeed. Carey Sperry:                     That's so great. Yes. We're just such a great pair because my strengths are not your strengths and your strengths are not my strengths. That's been such a joy to so quickly, we were introduced by a common peer in the agency world and it's just been great ever since. We're so excited to be here today to talk more about it. About books. How difficult or easy would you say, Danielle, that it is to sell a new book today? Danielle Brown:                Wow. That is really a tough question. I think the industry is changing a lot. Everyone wants to ask the question about, because of this digital age are book sales going down? But I don't think that's really the question anymore. It's more about where people are buying books because they're no longer buying them in stores, they're buying them from online retailers. The sales process is just different. There is definitely a need for books and there are plenty of people buying them, but that process and that journey to get people to buy your book is very difficult nowadays. It's much more reliant on the author directly selling the book than it used to be because it used to be just get it in the stores and people will pick it up, but that's not the process anymore. It's becoming more and more difficult to really understand and fine tune that process. Carey Sperry:                     Good points. It's crowded where you can buy books today too. Everyone, of course, thinks of Amazon, but it's not like you can just put up a book and assume it's going to sell. A really thoughtful process and being able to maneuver through that landscape is key. A book takes a ton of focus and so many writers say, "I'm going to do this." And then they get into it and they realize how challenging it is to actually finish it, but it takes expertise on what you're writing about, a motivation to write. Do authors often see the launch or publishing date as the end to their work and is it necessary to have a marketing plan for the book, really? Danielle Brown:                Oh boy. That's a loaded question. Well, first of all, yes. A marketing plan is crucial, but this definitely goes back to what I was saying about that journey and the industry changing because for so long, I think the landscape has been that when an author finishes writing the book and it's either been released or been sent to the printer or whatever that last little milestone is, it's like a weight has been lifted off your shoulders. There's no more editing you can do and the book is done. That's what we've thought since the beginning of books, right? But nowadays that marketing and the sales side is not just about getting it in the store, in a physical store. Now, it's about online retailers, eCommerce marketing, and it goes far beyond just that launch date or that release date. A marketing plan needs to start, I'd say, even while you're writing and editing the book, because in order to have a really fleshed out successful marketing campaign, the sooner you start, the better. Carey Sperry:                     You've seen authors fail, I'm sure with your career so far. What have you witnessed as the top three mistakes, let's say, that authors make while they're, when they do set out to write and publish their book? Before the launch or after they launch? Danielle Brown:                Yeah. Well, a big one I think is follow through. I think that authors naturally, we're naturally writers or we have these big ideas and by the time we've put it into a book that can sell, like you said, it's taken so much focus and research and effort to package it in a way that makes sense. And we have all of these ideas as authors, as writers, and when it comes to marketing, we'll have even more ideas, but it's the follow through and the execution that sometimes can just fall through the cracks. Because maybe that's not your strong suit or it's not something that comes naturally to you or it simply isn't what you've been doing for the past six to nine months. Follow through is really key. Danielle Brown:                And to that end, I think the second mistake is not asking for help because a lot of authors, if you aren't a marketing expert already, it's easy to think that it'll be no big deal and you can handle it yourself. But as soon as you're in the thick of it, you need someone to help you. You need someone to ask the right questions, to know what's going to succeed, and to give you that advice. And I think authors don't always know when to ask for help and aren't good about doing that. Danielle Brown:                I think the third biggest mistake and the third thing that can make an author the most successful is focusing on building a platform and earning a loyal following. Now, obviously, this can sound like influencer marketing, mumbo jumbo, just everyone wants to be an influencer, but it's less about that and more about reaching the readers that actually want what's in your book and you need to find them. You need to find them and get them already bought into you in order to sell the book to them. And I think that authors don't understand that before the book comes out and they need to. They need to understand it as soon as possible so that they can build that platform to reach the right people. Carey Sperry:                     Those are really key. Follow through, not asking for help, and building your audience and your platform. There's different words for it, but it's like talking to who it is that you know wants to read your book. It's like marketing anything else and it's, when you do it and you find that audience and build those listeners so to speak, then they're going to follow through and buy your book, which is really exciting. Carey Sperry:                     Why is it important for authors to find their target market? Let's dig into that aspect of it. Finding that target market or who it is, depending on what the book is about, who are those people and defining that? Let's just start there and then I kind of have a followup question to that. Danielle Brown:                Yeah, absolutely. Well, I think, like we touched on already, it's so important to find that target market because authors need to understand who they're speaking to. Now, obviously, because they've written the book, they should have an understanding of who that ideal reader is. There should be an image in your mind of what they look like, where they've gone to school, how old they are, how far they are in their careers, what career they're in maybe. You have this ideal image of what that reader looks like and you need to hone in on that so that you can put your book in those reader's hands. Because if you just say it's for anyone and you market it to everyone, then people don't feel as connected to it. They need to feel that personal connection. They need to feel like you wrote that book just for them. It's speaking directly to where they're at in life and the pain points that they're feeling. And if you can connect to them on that intimate, personal level, then that will create, not only a sale for your book, but also a long lasting relationship. Carey Sperry:                     There's that word again, y'all. It's that emotion and tapping into that. When people feel something, then they take action, whether they follow you, your readings online until they purchase your book or they go to an event where you might be speaking. Whatever it is, when they feel something and that emotion kicks in, that's when people really start taking action. Would you say that most authors know that they need to define their audience like this and create events or content in order to expose their book to the right people? Or, Danielle, would you say most authors don't know that? I'd be curious. Danielle Brown:                I think most authors don't quite know that. I think they've thought about it, but not to the extent that they need to. And the reason I say this is because when you write a book, you become the expert on that topic. Like we said already, there's so much work, research, and effort that goes into creating that book. I mean, that might be 60,000 words, but there was 120,000 words worth of effort going into it. When you do that, all you really can see is the value of the work you put into it. And for you as an author, it's easy to think, "Well, everyone can get value from this. This is valuable to everyone." They could look at any person and find a reason why that person needs that book, but we need to reverse it. They need to think, "Okay, but who is going to get the most out of this?" And just switch it around and I don't think that authors do that quite enough. As soon as they do it, something clicks and it'll make sense. They don't quite put themselves through that exercise. Carey Sperry:                     Yeah. Let's take a self help book for example, where someone's gone through a really tough life and they've had hardships and then they learn all these things about themselves because they've hit rock bottom and then they emerge as this really amazing successful, both in personal and financial life. Anyone could use that book. We all have hard times. Facebook, what we post on there is just our life and the happy times. I mean I'm not saying everybody's life is equally hard. I'm not saying that at all. Some people really have it worse, of course. Carey Sperry:                     But what I'm saying is you can, like Danielle said, in concept with, and self help is not the only example. You could take a bunch of different subject matters of books and say anyone could and they might not even know what they're going to benefit from it before they read it, but then they'll read it and they'll be like, "Wow, I took this away and I had no idea this is what I would take away from it." But what Danielle is saying is when you identify your ideal reader and you hone in on that, you're going to make yourself visible in the online book sales world and the online digital world so that they have the capability of even finding you in the first place. Carey Sperry:                     That's a good segue into my next question, which is how important is it for authors to be present on social media? Because a lot of writers, from what I gathered and just from you and I preparing for this beautiful service that we're going to be offering starting now, is that social media isn't something that comes easy to every author, and it's not something that necessarily they think that they need to be consistent on, so to speak. Can you talk a little bit about what you've seen maybe in some authors, the ones that do this well and what comes of it? Danielle Brown:                Yeah, absolutely. I'd say, first starters, social media is not only important as an author when you already have your book released, but it is really important when you're just developing your book and querying to publishers. I mean, especially if you're looking at the big five publishers who might give you the most attention out of anyone, at least mainstream-wise, they might only look at authors who have 100,000 followers combined on their social media. That is a huge barrier to entry for any author who is a DIYer or solo-preneur or anyone who is a little camera of social media. It's really important even if you're just starting to get your book idea out there, to start building a platform right away. Danielle Brown:                Now, after the fact, social media can be a huge and powerful tool for authors to connect with those readers. Like we talked about already, those readers are buying their books online in most cases, which means that you'll likely have to connect with them online as well. There are some other more traditional routes of book sales and engaging with those audiences, but to really make a bigger impact in bigger quantities, you have to have a social media presence. That's what's going to make readers feel engaged with you and well connected to you. Carey Sperry:                     Well put and yes, it's about engagement, creating community. And there's lots of different ways that could make sense for, depending on the author, him or herself, the topic area, where, just like any other brand, you consider, "Where are my customers and where do I want to be so that I can be where they are?" Can you talk then a little bit about the importance of being, what we call visible and stages, like large stages, small stages, or even virtual stages, like a webinar-type platform to connect with and build these audiences? Danielle Brown:                Yeah, absolutely. I've seen a lot of authors find success with building entire courses or at least course material based around their book concepts. Sometimes that book is just the tip of the iceberg, right? It's one big idea, packaged in as detailed of a format as you possibly can to give the best takeaways you possibly can to a reader. But there's so much. You could probably take each chapter and build an entire webinar or even course around that one section. As an author, it's crucial to be ready to hit the stage like you said, whether it's a small stage, large stage, virtual, whether it's webinars. You could use platforms like Skillshare to just create your own small courses, but you really need to think about how you can further the message of that book. Danielle Brown:                What do people do after they read it? Or how are they even hearing about your book? Maybe they hear about it because they saw you speak about it or because they watched a webinar and now they're going to buy the book to learn even more because all they got was a chapter's worth. They're very interconnected. There's always more to talk about and more to expand on. Carey Sperry:                     Even though we are very connected to our phones and on our computers to various sites and that's heavy in our lives, so to speak, we still want community face to face and being at events where we can shake someone's hand and meet someone. It's exciting to meet an author if you really love what they're saying and believe in their message and hope that they come out with a second book or a movie or something else. That's just awesome. Carey Sperry:                     You and I both know that the number one fear is public speaking. People might be sitting out there going, "No way, not me. I don't need to do that. I don't want to do that because of that fear." What if they feel that way? What would you say, Danielle? And like what are the risks if they don't get out from behind their desks? Danielle Brown:                Well, as an author, I think the biggest risk is just that your book is not going to sell. If you're not willing to engage with your audience in some way, whether that's social media or public speaking. I mean, even social media can feel like a form of public speaking. If think about doing a Facebook live or an Instagram story. I mean, public speaking is practically built into what social media offers a platform right now or a brand right now. If you're afraid of it, I'd say try to take baby steps. Try to tackle what's most comfortable. Would you rather do an interview format or a chat with someone in front of a group? Start there to make it a little bit more comfortable and then when you're ready you can step up to bigger stages or handling the stage all by yourself. Work your way up. Carey Sperry:                     Good point. I agree. A lot of it is taking time to delve into what are you afraid of? What can I do to take baby steps? And one of your top three things is, in the mistake list, is ask for help. Do you know someone that's a great speaker? Where can you go for help? Thank you so much. Carey Sperry:                     We've gotten to our closing time, but I do want to help people know where they can go to find out more about our program. We're calling it the Step Out series. Step out from behind your desk, step out and let people know about your book. If you would like to learn more, go to www.SocialXeno.com/StepOutSeries for more information and to schedule a call with Danielle and I. Carey Sperry:                     Thank you everyone for listening. We'll talk with you next time! Thank you, Danielle. Danielle Brown:                Thank you so much. Carey Sperry:                     Thanks for listening to the All Social Ya'll Podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to AllSocialY'all.com. That's AllSocial Y-A-L-L .com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram @AllSocialY'all.  

In this episode with Tammy Riley of ACCI talking about building relationships on LinkedIn, she really helps us approach job candidates differently and in a way that is proven to work. Using current data as a backdrop, surveys of small and midsize US companies show that owners report that recruiting remains one of the top three challenges of the multitude of business challenges that owners face. According to a 2019 survey, by CNBC and SurveyMonkey, 52% of small business owners claim it's harder to find qualified individuals to hire now compared to just a year ago. For businesses with more than 50 employees, 63% of owners believe it's harder to find qualified hires. Another survey conducted by CNBC in January of 2019, they published that CEOs cited the ability to attract and retain quality workers as their top internal concern. For purposes of upping your game in recruiting on LinkedIn, Tammy provides really great tips that most people don't take the time to do today. That is going about one-on-one and one-on-many conversations on LinkedIn, without making people feel either like they're being creeped on or that the message is spam or canned. She also talks about setting up resources to enable continuous communication and message monitoring in LinkedIn. As well as creative ways you can capture video to allow candidates to get to know your company, your culture, and your job opportunity before they get to the interview table. Because candidates who are informed before they get to the interview table are much more likely to be hired. Why? Because if they like what they see and they hear about you online, and there's information they can consume ahead of time before the interview, they'll be able to visualize themselves whether they're a good fit or not. And if they think they are, they will have reason, and information, as to why they're a good fit. Therefore they'll feel excited, there's that emotion component, and eager about learning more. Tammy talks about similar things as what the Glassdoor survey shows, that some of the top influences on candidates include information on things like salary and compensation, company culture, company reputation, the interview experience, company mission and values, and your senior leadership. Welcome to Episode Seven, Leveraging LinkedIn to Build Relationships and Recruit Top Talent with Tammy Riley. In this episode with Tammy Riley of ACCI, which originally stood for Atlanta Career Connections, we're going to hear from her about how organizations can become much better at finding top talent by utilizing the working community and the platform capabilities of LinkedIn. Along with LinkedIn methods, she'll share with us how she helps companies build relationships with candidates throughout the recruiting process or life cycle. So allow me to introduce you to Tammy Riley. Tammy has been in the recruiting industry for 30 years. She began well before the internet age working for the second largest recruiting firm in the US. She has staffed for IT, or information technology, with data centers, computer operations, C programmers, which are like coders, WordPerfect, and data entry processors. Those are some of the types of jobs that she filled. And she left and started her own it recruiting firm out of Atlanta in 1989 I think, Tammy was that it? 1998. Oh, 1998. Okay. Yes. That's awesome. That's a good year. I know that was forever ago. Right. Tammy: Yes. Carey: So it has allowed her to stand up her own firm, and work in the Tammy way, and helping companies fill positions in such a beautiful fashion, and having surfaced with the evolution of the internet requiring a multitude of new skill sets. So at that time the internet was really taking off and people were still saying www. dot. [laughter) ....All of these new skillsets were coming about. So Tammy had to learn all these new technology skill sets that these companies needed. And she did a just amazing, she's amazing what she does for client companies, and she really engages with the hiring leadership, and the teams, to develop a modern strategy that sets the company up for success in their hiring needs. Because we need to face it. We cannot say in the nineties anymore with the way we attract workers today. So hi, Tammy, and thank you so much for being our featured guests. Tammy: Hi. Thank you. It's so awesome to be here, Carey. It's exciting. Carey: Yeah! So can you tell us a little bit in your own words about you and your recruiting from ACCI? Tammy: Absolutely. So I started in 1998. And it was right after I was managing a branch office for a CEO in Atlanta, and I needed to do a lot of hiring for that branch office, in addition to training a sales force and building a service team. And I didn't have time to do the hiring because I had taken a break from recruiting to do some management work for the companies. And I found that it was difficult to outsource recruiting to third party agencies because they weren't really building relationships with candidates. And I thought this is so difficult because I found that I was doing all the work, and then building relationships, and then paying a fee for that service. So it didn't really make sense. And I thought, "Ah, there's a need out there for recruiting to be done differently." And so with that in mind, I started at ACCI. Carey: Yes. And that just reminded me that Tammy got me into the technology world! Tammy: Yes. Carey: I mean we always talk about that. Tammy I know. It's such a great story. Carey: Tammy recruited me and she helped me. I'm thinking, I can't understand coding and guys that are software developers. She's like, "Yes you can. Yes you can. You're great at sales." So I started at sales for Tammy. And then I found that I had an aptitude for technology and I love to learn, and Tammy loves to learn, and we are just -  we are the prettiest technology geeks, aren't we, Tammy?! Tammy: (laughs) That's funny. Carey: So we really, that's how I broke into it. But anyway, it's not about me. I just wanted to say that you are a technology guru and you really helped me realize that really anyone can learn technology. It kind of can be overwhelming and assumptions can be made at first but that that's kind of where you started, right, in the IT space? Tammy: I did. I mean when I was early twenties I was kind of like one of the few women in technology and that was back when, I don't know, there was WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, and everyone was programming in C. Or maybe prior to C, BASIC programming. And I had started working for a temporary services firm. They were the second technology recruiting firm in the United States. They were founded by two developers, a husband and wife team. And so at that point, if we go back to 1988, we were recruiting technology professionals without the internet. You can imagine some of these recruiters, being on the phone all day, it was prior to voicemail even being on the scene. So we scheduled 10 to 15 in person meetings a day with technology professionals, and worked with them on their career tracks and goals and objectives. And then when we would meet with our clients and we'd talk about the top candidates of week and the people we thought would be a good match for them. And it was all done proactively through building relationships, both with the candidates and then with the clients. And everybody would know about each other, we'd coordinate, facilitate meetings between the candidates and the clients, who'd get to know each other. The candidates would get to know the companies, the career tracks and then they would, you know, wait. And when positions became open, the client already had the person in mind that they were going to hire, and they were already ready to go!  So it was a very proactive, engaged talent pipeline we were building back in 1988. Carey: Man, that takes me back. Yeah. But you know, it's funny because many, many companies are still recruiting the way they did back in the 90s and early two thousands. And what I mean by that is not utilizing the platforms that are available today and the social connectivity, with LinkedIn being one of the main ones for recruiting. Yet they report that their biggest challenge is finding talent or their biggest challenge is recruiting. Like the huge number of companies and leadership reports.  So usually when you have a challenge or if you want something different or better results, then you need to change what you're doing. So what, what would you say be the reason for that? Tammy Yeah. Definitely. Carey: What would you say has not changed? Like what do you find is the same now as it was back then before digital and social became part of the working culture?  And I guess because why I asked that is, I know you act really like a coach and an expert to your clients. And so when they are trying to do things the way they did back in the day, and they're not utilizing LinkedIn or other means to communicate and build the relationship when they're not face to face with the candidate, what do you find is the same now as it was back then before social became part of the norm? Tammy:  Recruiting. Yeah, so it's so interesting because it is the same. You would think that it would be different but the challenges are the same. And if I could narrow it down to two things for clients and one thing for the candidate, the top two challenges for clients are they think every single day where can we connect, and talk to qualified candidates about who we are, about our company, about our open positions. How do we effectively connect with those candidates who would want to be involved in our brand and take their career to the next level with us so that we can support their career growth? And then how do we market our company brand and how do we market our company so that these qualified candidates that are out there looking for us can find us? So that they know where to call and to send emails to!  Candidates are always wondering which companies are the best fit for my career long term and how do I find those companies? So see all the questions are the same. This is the... I would say the two things that I actually do in my career, my title is a recruiter, but I'm coaching clients on how to find candidates, and once they do, how to reach out and connect and build relationships, and start those conversations before they have open positions. To build an engaged pipeline, build credibility and trust. And then with candidates, I'm also teaching them how do I get found, what can I do so that companies can find me, and how can I become attractive to those companies for the perfect next role for my career? Carey: Yes. Okay. That makes so much sense. The way that you kind of see it from a high level. What has changed in preferences and expectation of candidates? Do they, I mean I hear the younger generations especially be like,  "they're taking forever, and like why haven't I received a text reminder?" or things like that. What do you see? Tammy:  Right. Yeah. I think that what I... When I coach clients on how to build an engaged, proactive talent pipeline, and I'm teaching them how to communicate their brand and to how to build relationships with candidates, I think that they have to have dedicated resources depending on the size of the company. It's a small company, one dedicated person, dedicated to relationship building with potential candidates. Larger companies may need more than one person because they have recruiting teams for each area of the company. But so it's getting involved in social media. It's getting online and connecting to people via LinkedIn messages, InMail messages, and striking up conversations, getting people to want to engage with them. Carey: Makes sense. Makes sense and a lot of people don't set aside the resources or realize the importance of that, and how it trickles down to the candidate experience? Is that what you're saying? Tammy:  Absolutely. Absolutely. If you have dedicated person reaching out to candidates, you can continue to start conversations and continue those conversations, so a lot of times you have to have a tech savvy person who's going to have a mobile device. They're going to have the LinkedIn apps on their phone and other social apps on their phone. That way when candidates are getting these messages and then they're responding to them, you can easily respond back quickly, and create that momentum, and start creating a rapport. Carey:  I see. So you approach the recruiting process, like you guide your clients to build those relationships in that way with all these ways and methods, I guess you could say, and best practices to find the most best qualified candidates. The LinkedIn platform, it's not just to have a profile on, right? It's used by working people to have thoughtful conversations, contribute, and get to know other professionals on, right? Tammy:  Absolutely. You want to connect and you want to be with like minded. Like for instance, you're looking for people that are also in the same networking groups, like women in technology for instance. And you can connect with those groups and start networking with other people that are involved in the same activities that you are in professionally. And the same goes with clients. You want to be able to reach out. Carey: I think there's a misconception that it's (LinkedIn) just for people to go on because they have a job and they want to have a profile to show that they have that job. But it's really all people that have jobs, or are looking for a job, to have conversations on, and get to know other people on, and therefore like work... where I'm kind of going with this too, is leadership needs to be involved on LinkedIn because that way they'll be in the conversations, and get to know and take notice of people that are really great on there. Like a CEO is noticing a chief marketing officer. Tammy:  I ask people their opinions of things. I network. I ask them if they know anybody who also may be a good fit for a position. But I also think that, you and I, as just normal people on LinkedIn, we can connect with other people like ourselves to create communities. Carey: Yes. Okay.... well I've seen come in and you're working with a hiring team. I've seen you in Atlanta coming in from Florida, and work with a team that you join them for a couple of days. I'm not saying this is the normal normal gig or anything, but you really work with them, and the way that recruiting is successful this year, not just this year, but in 2019, 2020 because they really don't know how to go about building those relationships with candidates seems like. Tammy: Right, exactly. And everyone's so busy that no one really has time to take the time to not only begin and create conversations, but to continue those conversations so momentum happens. And then before you know it, you're building credibility. You're building trust. You're building, you're putting your brand out there. And then those people, that are very excited about your organization, they're going to tell the people in their network. Then they're going to tell the people in their network. And that's exactly how the brand proliferates out in the work. You know, out in the communities. Carey:  Yeah. Yeah. And when I do a good job on LinkedIn in having conversations, and checking in, and joining groups, and getting to know people, that's part of building a relationship. But then it just extends out to the phone interview. And then they bring them in to the face to face. And they've already seen their nice professional picture that's in line with the organization's kind of look and feel. I remember at Forester, I had a SVP come in new, and at first one of the first things he had the whole salesforce do was change their LinkedIn profiles so that they were more conducive to people, when they go there, they automatically know that we work for Forester and were in line with the Deloitte and Touche, and the all of our competitors like McKinsey. And I was like, "LinkedIn is personal. I should be able to decide what I want my LinkedIn profile to be!" But I did it because he required it and I respected him. And after I spent time on my LinkedIn profile and then I saw everyone else doing it too, we were more cohesive as an organization and our leadership was trying to, like you said, exactly Tammy, extend the brand beyond just the company page. It's the employees too. And that's part of relationship building I think. Internally to bring that out and connect with people that will fit into your culture. Tammy: Absolutely. It does extend the culture out beyond LinkedIn. And people get, they look at business page profiles and they are looking for not only a brief summary of the company, the history of the company, they click on the people in the company, and they want to get a sense of do I belong here? Do I fit this culture? They click on those videos where they will showcase an employee of the month, or a person who's won an award. Or they'll have a little clip of where one of the employees, they were speaking at a trade show or presenting or accepting an award for President's Club achievement. And that gives a great idea of vision, actually a feeling of how it is to be an employee there, like a day in the life. And it just promotes culture. It promotes the brand. It promotes the initiatives and the what everybody is believing in in that company. Like what is it that they feel they stand for. And what they do, not only within the organization, but how do they extend out into the community too. Carey:  Yes, that is awesome. So is it a lofty, unrealistic expectation or goal for a company or hiring managers to say that they can find someone on LinkedIn and then develop a relationship? Not just through LinkedIn, but LinkedIn being a component of it. And then getting the candidate to a state where they're like, "I want this job.... When you have an opening."  Like "you don't have an opening now, but call me when you're ready and I'll make a jump." Like is that something that LinkedIn kind of helps expedite?  help it go faster? Tammy:  It totally facilitates those relationships. Some of the work, in fact the work that I do with companies is I'll go in and learn all about their culture. I talk to all the leadership team members, the HR and talent acquisition team members. And then I create a solution of how they want to reach out ,how they want to communicate, who their target candidate audience is. And then I literally train them on how to handle those InMails, and then the phone conversations, the instant message conversations, and then how to, like step one to step 20, this is how we get there from here. And so it begins with learning how to identify which candidates are the target candidates for the potential rules that we're going to be growing and opening up for the year. And then we start creating full files and we'll send those messages out for each group. And then we'll wait for return messages. Or we may have an email campaign where it's message one, and then after a certain period of time message two, after a certain period of time message three. And we look for common conversation points by reading the profiles. What college did they go to? What achievements have they accomplished? Do we have people within our organization that have commonalities in alignment with what they've achieved? And then we'll have those same team members reach out and start a conversation. And so now we're creating a dialogue. And then before you know it, we do get responses. People engage with us. And then the goal at that point is to continue the conversation. So it's all about continuing the conversation. And the minute we have an opportunity to meet someone for lunch or to bring them into the office, and this is prior to the position being open, they're coming in and they're meeting us, they're getting a feel for the office, the culture. They have a chance to interview us. They're saying to us, "I want to learn more about you. I want to learn about where you're going next year." They're thinking, "Can I trust this organization?" They're building credibility. They're visualizing their career path there. And so candidates are not used to that. They're not used to a role reversal. And so when they are talking to us and they're saying, "Oh my God, you're saying I can come and have lunch with you. You're saying I can meet you at your office and tour your facility. You want me to interview you and see if this is a good fit for me." It's a total switch of what the normal process typically feels like for a candidate. So the they do. They immediately engage and they're very, very interested in doing their research. And then what's happening is rapport is building, relationships are building. And then we have, of course, our a talent acquisition databases and our CRM systems. And then we just kind of compile the data and then we make a plan to stay in touch with them during certain points in the year, leading up to when the position becomes open. And when a position becomes open, it's easy. We just give them a call. They already have planned to be with our company. They've already communicated our brand to colleagues in their network, and they're ready to go. And they're bringing their network as well. And so it is a very successful, successful, I don't know what you call it, a plan, a campaign, a process. It works. And it just boils down to building relationships. The same thing we did in 1988 without the internet. It's just a different medium. Carey: Yes, it can be accelerated. It can be easier. And it can be more interesting too, with video and with more capability to see more from behind your desk or on your mobile device. So that's how people have to think about it. So what should business owners do? Let's say they're on LinkedIn but they really haven't paid attention to it. Their leadership maybe doesn't really have profiles, or they have a profile, but it's like a picture that looks like their Facebook picture. I know myself, if I get an inbox or a DM from someone inside, - DM means direct message - inside LinkedIn, nine times out of 10, I'll go to their personal and or their work profile to kind of check out what they're all about. And it's like a first impression as a face to face, like the first three seconds of meeting someone, and it's critical to that first impression. So do you have a few things that matter to kind of get that in line with what is a better setup on LinkedIn? Tammy:  I think that it's important to reveal details of where you went to school, and some career highlights, and talk about the company itself. A lot of companies they, like you said Forester Research, they create a brand. And they wanted each employee to communicate this same brand. Maybe the logo under their profile picture, everyone had the same logo. Everybody had the same first paragraph of the company mission statement, and talk about something interesting about the company that may peak someone's interest but also somehow have the link over to the company business page. Because you want them to also be able to do, they're going to land on your professional page, and see you and get to know interesting facts about you and who you're affiliated with, which is your company. Then they want to be able to easily click on over to the business page, which is the company presence, which will have the videos of employees, employee of the month, trade show, moments in time, and fun facts. And then they want to click over to the company website where they can get a traditional piece of information about what we're used to, company history, the leaders of the organization, contact us for these things. So there's three ways candidates do their research initially. And they'll hit the recruiters' page or a hiring managers' page. Then they want to click over to the business presence on LinkedIn. Then they want to click over to the website. Carey: Awesome. That's so smart. So what are a couple ways to initiate these one-on-one or one-to-many conversations on LinkedIn. How do you not be creepy when you're recruiting, or you're company and you're leadership, and you're trying to find the best people on LinkedIn. Do you have any examples or ideas how they can start those conversations? Because when they go to LinkedIn, they're in kind of a work mindset. Whereas Facebook, and we teach this, that people go to Facebook with one intention, that is to connect with family and friends. Even though they get ads and they're open to that now, people are... You go to Instagram, you have another mindset. It's same with LinkedIn. Tammy:  No, you're absolutely right. And the thing that I teach my clients is to not sound like they are recruiting. Don't sound like you're marketing. Don't send the same email to 50 people at the same time. You want to personalize each message if possible. And it can be quick process if you have the right message. And then you just change the message to attract that or to get that individual's attention, something that matters to them personally. So you have to read the profile. And then you find some alignment and then you talk about the alignment. You talk about common connections that you have in common. Talk about the same groups you may be both involved in. I always ask questions that I know they may have the answer to based on their expertise or their work experience or where they worked before. And to keep it really simple and personal, and that way they know this is not just a web bot or a massive marketing message, a campaign going out to 300 people. It's very personalized and short, but also something meaningful is happening, a professional question, something about their experience. The common person we might know or a common company we may have worked. Maybe went to the same school. But I do personalize and I don't let that conversation sound as though it's "businessy", like I'm trying to sell them something or I'm trying to get something from them, if that makes any sense. Carey: Makes perfect sense. It does automatically take away, even though it takes some time, thought, and energy, -  that creepiness factor. Or they don't even read the message factor because they think, "Oh this is spam." So that's super helpful. And last, I just want to close with the whole video stuff. You mentioned it earlier, videos about your company. And they don't have to be extravagant or completely, totally commercial level grade or anything like that, but videos are getting a lot of traction on LinkedIn now. People are really enjoying them. Can you talk about what brands can do on their corporate and personal pages to help candidates learn about like the company culture and hiring managers on LinkedIn. And is it worth the time even getting these videos done on LinkedIn, would you say? Tammy:  Absolutely. I do believe in providing content because it gives the candidate the opportunity to feel what it is like to be within the organization. It gives them a feeling of the type of people that are there and they think immediately, "Do I fit in here?" You want them to get a feel for the type of success the company's experiencing. So I find that social media companies like yourself will be hired by companies to go in for a day, and maybe walk around, and have short five 30 second interviews with key employees. And they may describe, "Hey, this is our break room and this is what we do here." Or "Here's where we develop code." Or "Here's where we go outside, and sit at a picnic table, and enjoy our lunch together, collaborate." You want people to feel like they get a sense of who the company is, what the culture is like into, and then they think to themselves, "Do I fit in here?" So I think that the content is extremely important. Carey: Yes, those are great examples. There are studies, that you and I have talked about, that show that candidates that come to the interview table after the phone screen, or if the phone screen step is skipped, if they're uninformed about the company, then they hardly ever get hired, like it's some super low percentage. Or they don't even show up to begin with. But those candidates that are well informed, which you just being a recruiter, totally help on that because you're that liaison, and that representative of the company, and filling them in and everything. So that really helps. But it also helps to have those videos on the social platform of like LinkedIn where the worker is looking for a job. Or maybe he's really happy with his job, but he's looking maybe for something better when the timing is right. That they, by the time they get to the interview table, they are way more likely to be a fit because they know more about the company and they're excited.  Those informed candidates are more likely to be hired.  So Tammy, this has been super helpful, so great. And I'm sure you've really got everybody's wheels turning! (laughter)  Can you tell everyone where they can find you on, I'm sure LinkedIn and your website? Tammy:  So my website is www.accisearch.com. And then from there there's a link to my LinkedIn. So it's pretty simple to find me. Thank you. It's Tammy Riley, T-A-M-M-Y R-I-L-E-Y. ACCI is her company. And Tammy, thank you, this is amazing. And everybody, hope you have a great day. See you next time. Tammy:  Thanks Carey. Talk to you soon! Carey:  Thanks for listening to the All Social Ya'll podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to allsocialyall.com. That's allsocial-Y-A-L-L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram @allsocialyall.

In this episode with Bita Arabian, How a Blog, Search/SEO and Pinterest together can grow a massive tribe, Bita shares how her blog and social media audience began small, as do most all blogs and social media followings. As a family health and nutrition coach, she began by wanting to create written and picturesque content for her clients, as well as interested family and friends. She named her blog Oven Hug. After some time, she became inspired by hearing other food bloggers on podcasts, where she heard them reveal that content creation consistency, was key. Bita shares how she improved Oven Hugs performance (meaning growing it’s reach or discovery) on Google and Pinterest by growing her team in order to BE reliably consistent. She also emphasizes her realizations in Google search keywords or SEO, as they tie to her blog copy after facing some challenging questions about finding her niche. Pinterest has become the social media platform facilitating much of her business success and we get into some of the nuances of Pinterest in this delicious episode. Welcome to episode six, how a blog search SEO and Pinterest together can grow a massive tribe with Bita Arabian. Bita is a creator of a recipe blog called Oven Hug. Her day job is a family nutritionist and health coach for teens, kids and families. She's a Michigander , like myself, and we met in the 6th grade. Can you believe? And we grew up in Michigan, both ended up at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, and ran around campus studying like crazy and doing some other things too that we enjoyed on the Lake. But Bita has since then moved out to Silicon Valley, and has a teaching background, and really has gotten into the whole space of blogging and has been wildly successful, especially with her blog and on Pinterest. So, Bita, say hi to everybody, and I'm so happy you're here. Bita: Hi, Carey. Hi, everybody. Oh, my goodness. I'm a huge Carey Sperry fan, we go way back. And I'm just so happy to be here to be featured among your first 10 podcast guests. I'm grateful for this opportunity. Thank you so much for having me. Carey: Thank you for being here. I'm so excited to talk about this stuff. So, let's just start though first by, I shared a little bit about you, but can you share some with us about you and your business, Oven Hug? Bita: Yes. Oven Hug started out as just an extension of my day job, my coaching practice. As you said, I'm a family nutritionist. What I do, day in and day out, is to help them to learn to make better food choices and plan out daily exercise. My students were asking me how to do this and specifically how to prepare healthier snacks and meals at home. So, going about five years ago now, I started the blog more on a small scale just to address my students' questions. At the time I was thinking, just again, of that small and narrow space. I was just trying to better serve the families I was helping in my coaching, so I began Oven Hug, a healthy recipe site. Carey: Ah, yes. That makes sense. Bita: Perfect sense. Carey: And you've always been a cook and a chef, just like myself. That's one way you and I really bond and share the love of cooking. And your parents are always cooking in the home, I remember going to your house and it smelled so delicious of wonderful Persian foods and really, really healthy foods, too. So, can you talk a little more about how you went about actually becoming a blogger at the beginning? Because a lot of people think about it and see other people doing it, but how did you go about actually putting pen to paper, so to speak? Bita: Great question. Sure. Yes. So, first of all, if anybody is thinking of starting a blog, or maybe as an extension of their business, adding some content with a blog, I would say just get started. That's what I did. Just basically, I had dabbling in it in my previous career, which was a school teacher and an art teacher. It's always been a creative outlet for me, and so I wanted to share ideas and DIY. So, my first blog, when I was a school teacher, was in that space, the arts and crafts and DIY. Again, I just kind of self-taught. I watched a lot of videos on YouTube, which is a fabulous resource to learn just about anything, as you well know. I did spend so much time though on that, just teaching myself, trying to teach myself all the aspects of it. It was super time consuming then in the beginning. At the same time, I was working for a startup here in Silicon Valley, which was awesome and I learned so much there. I wore so many different hats. I think that's when I started it up. Again, when I got into health coaching and switched the gears to Oven Hug, sharing the recipes. I did have that experience in my back pocket with the crafting and DIY, so it was easy for me to then start a second blog, Oven Hug. But again, I was doing it all. I was creating the recipes and the content, I was doing the photography in the food staging, I was doing all my Pinterest boards for both the business I was working for, the startup, and for Oven Hug. At that time, I was also doing Facebook. I would throw up a post on the blog, I'd throw it up on Facebook, and then also Instagram, of course. I wasn't able to do this all consistently, but I was doing that all on the side of my day job. Carey: That's a lot. That's a lot. But that's, for a lot of people, how they catapult to the next level with making it a business and really focusing and getting really good at it as they do so much, and then they learn it all, and then you realize, "Yikes. If I really want to take this to the next level, maybe I should get some help." But I want to back up before we get into that, because I know that something that you're really passionate about, your growth this year, is partnering with outside sources. When you started writing your blog and you decided to be more consistent to it, because you realized that it significantly contributed to the success and people finding your website through search on Google. A lot of people don't connect that all the words written put in to the blogs, and then the words changes on the blog feed the Google algorithm and in search. So, when did that all click for you and you decide to learn more and dive into posting more regularly? Bita: Yeah, that's a great question. I always tried to post around a post a week. It didn't always happen, but I had that goal that I wanted to try to share one a week. Again, it was just an extension of what I was doing at home, the healthy habits that we were practicing at home. So, it was relatively easy for me to do that. But then again, in the beginning, I was just thinking of my small little audience of students that I was coaching, some family and friends. I started listening to podcasts and getting inspired by successful food bloggers out there. And I thought, "Well, gosh. How do you go from just throwing up some ideas to this small audience, to be one of the players?" I just got curious, and I think that listening to the podcasts motivated me. I realized that in order to get to that next level, the successful food bloggers started to think of their blogs as a business and investing in it and outsourcing when needed. They stopped trying to do everything themselves, especially when they had day jobs. And I also started to hear again and again how important it is to focus on SEO. SEO, SEO, you always hear SEO. It is an acronym for Search Engine Optimization. I'm sorry if you know this or people out there know this, but I'll just break it down because I- Carey: Some people don't. Bita: I didn't. I didn't really fully understand it. But it's like when you go on Google and you're in the kitchen and you want to get a healthy pumpkin bread recipe. So, you type in to Google healthy pumpkin bread. How many people sit there and go through page after page once the search results come up? Not very many. You're probably going to look at the first one or two that pop up. It's like, "Oh." And you see an image, or you see a title that strikes you, maybe you see some star ratings. And so you click on that, and then you try it. That's what I do, right? And I think more and more people are doing that. They're just using their phone, their iPad, whatever, in the kitchen, and they're looking up a recipe and they're making it. They're trying it, or they're getting inspired and they're getting ideas or clicking around in different recipes. And so it clicked for me that, oh my goodness, like how do I get to be... Maybe it isn't it about doing everything myself. Maybe it's about how to get to be one of the first or second that people pull up on their searches. Oh, yeah. That's how you do it. Carey: Totally. Yeah. The light bulb went off it sounds like, and that happens to a lot of business owners and it's kind of this magical thing going on behind the curtain. And it's like, "How do I do that?" And there's people that all they do is specialize in SEO. It is a art and science and it's really... You can learn it all yourself, but it'll take way longer than getting someone to help you. So, then what then made you treat your blog as an integral to the success of growing your customer following and monetizing it through things like affiliate marketing? You do some affiliate marketing, right, Bita? Bita: I do, a little. I have the ability to put links in so that, for example, if you're on my How To Make Persian Rice In A Rice Cooker and you're really inspired by adding saffron to it by just using a saffron spray, I have a link to ordering saffron spray and that'll take you right to Amazon. I get a few cents, I don't know, from that. But it just made sense because I was putting those links in anyway and especially with my healthy Persian easy recipes, some of the ingredients are harder to come by and so I was putting those resources in any ways and I figured that why not start to go down the road of monetizing? I wanted to first grow my audience and grow my number of views before, I guess, going after brands. That's something in the future for me. Success for me has been more in gaining more traffic, which sounds funny because living in Silicon Valley, very anti-traffic, our area's getting way too busy. But in terms of the website and the blog it is about getting more traffic. Carey: Yeah, that's the work. Yeah. Not that kind of traffic. Not the traffic that requires gas. (laughs) Bita: Exactly. No, it's all about building your audience, as you know. Carey: For sure. For sure. And it's getting the attention of people to stop when they're in traffic too. So, that's another thing. You're a few years growing your blog and you're growing your followers, getting more traffic on Instagram and Facebook. And you decide to grow your team and use some outside sources to help you connect, be more niche, or niche as people say. And also with that, like we mentioned earlier, being more consistent, so that you could really grow and really monetize even more your blog and how many people you're helping. So, I've heard you talk before about how this is where you made a change in your mindset in your business, and you touched on that a few minutes ago. What has that done for you and Oven Hug? And how much faster have you been able to gain the attention of more people in the traffic? Bita: Yeah, good question. So, I think that it happened for me... The small startup that I was working for, basically an app tool, it's an app company and coaching program where we coach kids, teens and families, which had always been just a great, great opportunity for me in terms of both working for a startup and getting to really embrace and learn about being a family nutritionist. Well, our little company got acquired and swallowed up by huge multi international company and all sorts of changes came along with that, including that many of my job functions became automated. And although I'm still with the company, I started to feel insecure about my day job and thought, "You know what? I want to focus more on my blog as a business. I really want to take it to the next level and invest in it a little bit." So, it was around December, January, of last year that I started to hire a team to help me out. The first person I hired initially was just to redo my logo and update my site. Like literally just update the theme of my site. And she turned into just an integral part of the team. She forced me to think about by answering questions and questions and questions. "Okay, you're a healthy food blogger. Well, that's a very competitive space. It's a huge space. It's a somewhat over saturated space. Like good luck." Although it's not that I couldn't do it, but you know, she got me to think it was almost like having an identity crisis. Like who are you? What makes you unique and special? Well, it comes down to the fact that I was raised by an Iranian family, my mom made Persian food. I married into an Iranian family, my mother in law is an amazing chef as well. And my girls are teenagers now, grew up also eating beautiful, healthy Persian food. And that's something that's unique. And I know enough about nutrition and enough about Persian food that my focus is now, it's basically, how to make easy, healthy Persian food. My new tagline of the blog, of Oven Hug, is modern Persian recipes. Easier, quicker, healthier. What that does then... I was going to go on to say that what that does then by narrowing my niche, it makes me unique. And when someone now goes in to search for something... For example, I always give the example of, okay, if you went in and you did a search for overnight oats, you would get hundreds and hundreds of different kinds of overnight oats. You'd get blueberry overnight oats, you'd get... Everybody in the world is making healthy overnight oats. Well, if you put in Persian chicken and rice casserole, guess whose post comes up as number two? So, it just really kind of puts me in the game and makes me more of a player. Carey: So, it's a niche but it didn't require you to reinvent your business and your blog. You didn't have to completely do something different, but it really went into a more specific way that people can think about you. And you can then tie the words of the titles, what you're baking or cooking, and the words inside the blog itself and the recipe, to allow people to find you and for you to land on the first page. So, can you talk with us a little more about Pinterest? Pinterest, for those of you that don't know too much about it or are not on it or just like very randomly go on, it is a visual platform. So, if you have a brand that that's like Bita, something like food, fashion, travel destinations, it's a definite fit because of the customer intent when they go to Pinterest. People want to see the visuals and click through to see and read more. But Pinterest also now is even effective with B2B. So, Business To Business - because Pinterest has grown into a useful search engine. So, customers go there so that they can learn and discover more or they can be inspired. So, marketers, including B2B now, they've proven to be effective. While Pinterest has been assumed to only be business to consumer organization, to provide visual ideas and inspiration, like there are absolutely B2B success. And so when you add keyword descriptions and tags are added or images appear in the Google search, they allow you to potentially help drive new organic traffic to your website. Even if you're a computer company or whatever, that's not sexy, you can get people to your website from Pinterest. I did write a blog on it early of August this year, that businesses targeting men should know that 50% of Pinterest users sign ups now and, well, in 2018, were men. It might even be higher than that now. So, dads are going on Pinterest, browsing things, looking for things like outdoors or home projects or something to do with their kids at home, or whatever. And their household income is high too. Those are really important things to know, so don't just think, "Oh, I'm not a food blogger. I don't have anything sexy to offer in my images on Pinterest." You should still pay attention. But I wanted to ask you, Bita, to talk through more why you dedicated your strategy to Pinterest and how it ties to customer engagement and customers discovering your blog. Bita: Sure. Yeah. I could talk about Pinterest for hours. I love Pinterest. I have a pretty, I don't know, rich history with Pinterest as a user. I was kind of addicted to it. I used it as a user, like I said, and I think that that many people use it this way and that's why it is, I think, so popular. But standing in the line at the grocery store, it's like looking through a magazine. If you don't know what Pinterest is, I know for my husband he still has a hard time really getting it, like what it is or how to use it. Just imagine bulletin boards or vision boards, and finding images and ideas in magazines and putting them up on subject related boards, common subject related boards. That's sort of what it is. It's like a way to bookmark something for later and put it in an organized chapter or board. And then when it's time for Thanksgiving or the holidays or setting up your new kitchen remodel, you can go into that and find those ideas. That's from the user standpoint. Well, from a business standpoint, why wouldn't you do it? There are more than a hundred million monthly active users on there and that's an audience just ready to go in and get help, get resources, get more content. So, it's interesting that you talked about the men because traditionally it has been over 70% of Pinterest users are women. But it sounds like you have some more current data that... Of course, I know I have followers that are men, but I think that primarily. Carey: The new sign ups- So, the new. Yeah. So, the number of new signups, the men has really spiked in 2018. 50% of the new user signups. So, kind of like how I own SnapChat stock. That's hard to say. And part of the metric of investors in SnapChat want to see how many new users are signing up each month or each day or each week. Because it's an indicator, well, if they're not signing up there, then where are they going? So, that going in an upward trajectory shows that men are migrating toward that platform as opposed to others. Bita: Interesting. Even better, right? So, for food bloggers... Yeah, for food bloggers, or the food industry, maybe chefs, it's absolutely... It's essential. Again, I think people are on there looking for recipes. And so again, the reason that I started to focus on this and added a person to help me in this function on the team is because it's one of my top ways of getting audience views is through Pinterest. So, what happens is they later then click in there for a recipe that takes them to my site, right? And then that turns into an active audience. I could speak on the tools that I use. I use a virtual assistant to help, again, this helps with being able to be consistent. And if you'd like, I could speak more on sort of the tools that we use and how that works. But I've gotten to the point now where we have over a hundred thousand views per month on Oven Hug Pinterest boards. I'm so excited. Carey: Yeah, that's a lot. And that takes a lot of work and a lot of expertise. And just to learn one platform is a lot. I always encourage our clients to instead of trying to be everywhere on every single platform, all at once, just get really good at one or two and make sure that's where your customers are. Be where your customers are. And I just wanted to mention, you mentioned how people will go to Pinterest and then find your blog, but it's also in the reverse, right? In the customer online journey, if they find you through your blog... Let's say you spoke at an event and they go to your blog, straight to your blog, or they might Google and find your blog. And then you put a Pinterest button in your website, so that they can then go to Pinterest to follow you and get alerts and stuff. Is that how it works? Bita: Yes, absolutely. And then within Pinterest we use a tool called Tailwind, the Tailwind app. There is something called Pinterest tribes, and not to overwhelm or give you too much information, but the Tailwind tribes are... It's just such a robust platform. It's basically... You know what tribes are. It's a way for like minded people to support each other and pin each others pins and grow numbers even further. So, basically since I started to put this consistent focus in to Pinterest, hiring a virtual assistant and using Tailwind to consistently pin and post, our traffic for Oven Hug on Pinterest is up 350%. So, it's been absolutely worth it. Carey: That's awesome. Congratulations. And now you're turning your blog into a book, that is so exciting. Can you tell us a little bit about your book? And then we'll part here. Bita: Yeah, I'd be happy to. So, we have a series of books that we're really excited about. They're called Eat! E-A-T! (exclamation point.)  And our first one is scheduled to come out mid 2020, is Eat Breakfast! I have a fabulous coauthor I'm putting together recipes with, Michelle DeWolf of The Festive Table. And I am just beyond tickled to be working with her because she has 14 years of experience teaching cooking in her home. So, her recipes are tried and true. I have my favorite recipes on the blog that the Oven Hug audience has come back to time and time and again, and we're just happy to put it out there. It's something that you can hold in your hand. And again, like I said, it's going to be a first in a series. So, we'll have Eat Lunch!  Eat Dinner! Eat Healthy Snacks! And then something more specific to my niche is I'm going to be doing my first ebook, which is Eat Persian Food! So, that that'll be coming out early 2020 and that'll have a great resource in there, which is just essential Persian food pantry items. And so if you were to say want to have a dinner party and serve Persian food, you could easily go to the Persian pantry reference in there and figure out what you need. No complication there, just easy, easy. Carey: And not just Persians eat Persian food y'all, I'm just going to say. We have so many Persian restaurants here now, and there's one where our offices are at the Avalon and you have to wait forever to get in. It's such a nice atmosphere and the food is just amazing. But the fact that you can help people cook it at home, including myself, is just such a gift. Thank you so much for being here, Bita. Can you share with everyone where else they can find the Oven Hug blog and where they can find you on Pinterest and Instagram real quick? Bita: Absolutely. Thank you, Carey. I could talk to you all day. Thank you so much for having me. So, my social media handle is Oven Hug. My website is Oven Hug. I'm Oven Hug everywhere, I even have it on my license plate. Carey: Haha! Awesome. So, go to Oven Hug on Instagram, Facebook as well. And Bita, thank you so much for being here. Have a great rest of your week everybody! Thank you. Bye bye

Carey Sperry:                     Hello and welcome to Carey Sperry, All Social Y'all podcast. I'm your host, Carey Sperry. On All Social Y'all, we discuss how to employ social to become truly customer-centric. We identify how social is a feel for business growth and we talk with some of the best and brightest business leaders, entrepreneurs and digital marketers. Our guests share inspiring stories and effective tactics to discover, interact, and emotionally connect with customers where they are on social platforms. Carey Sperry:                     In this episode with Trish Inguagiato of Perillo Motor Cars, she shares the story of the re-invigoration of the family business, social precedence and digital reputation. She explains how she approached the discovery of a misalignment of the in-store customer experience and the digital or the online customer experience. Carey Sperry:                     She approached us with the owner, who's her father, Joe Perillo, in Chicago. She goes over four customer touch points she focused on and where she made measurable improvements. She talks about how she led the strategy, but she didn't do it alone. What's really inspiring is her story about integrating charitable events into the face-to-face and social digital customer experience. Carey Sperry:                     She shares how one of the Perillo brands first events of this kind was built around the community and the cause. It was built around the product brand or automobile brand that they sell and built around their customer, caring together about something important and allowing for customers who could not attend the live event to participate remotely through social media. This was so successful and enjoyed by so many in a multitude of ways, that they have continued to be open minded and creative with meaningful events with their customers year after year. Carey Sperry:                     Hi, everyone! In this episode with Trish Inguagiato of Perillo Dealer Group, we'll hear from her about a multi-generation family business and how perceptions from the differing generations can help revive pockets in the business, such as social media, one area that Trish saw that needed a big refresh and re-invigoration to align better to the superb customer experience that their customers knew and loved in the store, and the service center, on the phone, and on their website. She wanted all that to align. She saw that that was an area that should revive. Carey Sperry:                     She also shares with us some amazing experiences and opportunities in their charitable events they shared on social, that contributed to customer engagement, and brand discovery, and even customer loyalty. Carey Sperry:                     Allow me to introduce you to Trish Inguagiato. Trish and I met at the University of Wisconsin years ago. We became sorority sisters in Delta gamma and have been the closest of friends ever since, literally. We have worked and led philanthropic charitable events together in our sorority, is how we really started the whole ... Well, when we were children, we were exposed to that but as young adult through our sorority, it was one of the great ways that she and I bonded. This was all a long time ago, but it's part of our value system and we carry it into our businesses today. Carey Sperry:                     Trish is from the amazing city of Chicago and grew up there with an entrepreneurial family. Her father, owner of Perillo Dealer Group since 1975. Her father has an amazing career and family story that Trish is going to share with us. She has a degree in journalism and took her career first to sales. Oh, she also has a degree in advertising, sorry, but also commercial real estate is her background in San Francisco, where she lives today with her husband and two teenage girls, in Menlo Park, California. Carey Sperry:                     Since then, she's been involved in the family business using her love for writing and PR, but mostly sharing her passion to bring joy to as many customers as possible, while preserving and elevating a premier well-respected brand that her father and family built for the Chicago community and customers afar come to them. Carey Sperry:                     Hello, Trish and thank you so much for being our featured guest! Trish I. :                                Hi, Carey. Happy to be here! Thanks for having me. Carey Sperry:                     Of course. Can you tell our listeners that don't know you a few words about yourself and your family business Perillo Dealer Group? Trish I. :                                Sure. So really, the business started with my dad. The man is pretty incredible. He barely graduated high school, and got into the Army, and decided he wanted to sell cars. He eventually worked himself up to being the number one Cadillac salesman in the nation. People used to line up around the door just to come and see him, and so this is when he was really young. He was in his twenties, and his ultimate goal was he wanted to be a automobile dealer. Trish I. :                                He saved up enough money. He had an opportunity to buy a dealership. It was a Pontiac dealership in a very obscure area in Chicago, and there are two previous dealers that failed before he went into that location, but he decided to take the shot. He did it. It was in 1975, the economy was pretty tough around '76 through '79 but he persevered. He did great. He actually did so well that when BMW was coming from Germany, they needed to open up some dealerships in the United States, and he applied for it, and he got it. Trish I. :                                And so that's really put him on the map, is when he became a BMW dealer in 1981. He just continued to work really hard, and build his brand, and his customer loyalty. His employees, I mean his employees are amazing. They've been with us for over 40 years, a bunch of them. Trish I. :                                And so he then had a great opportunity in 2009. The economy was really bad, as you remember in 2008, and a luxury dealer in downtown Chicago went bankrupt, and so he had an opportunity to buy Lamborghini, Bentley and Bugatti. And he did it, and it was a big jump. Took a leap of faith, but he did it, and he really became successful. Trish I. :                                And so Rolls-Royce came to him because BMW owns Rolls-Royce. They said, "We'd like you to be a Rolls-Royce dealer in Chicago." And he took that on. He did really well. And then Maserati came to him and said, "We'd like you to be a dealer here." He did that. And then we recently became Alfa Romeo dealers. Trish I. :                                He has quite a few luxury manufacturers under his belt. He's doing great. He's in his mid-seventies. He doesn't look like it, doesn't act like it. He gets up and goes to work single day, and just absolutely loves it, and he thrives. If you ask him, "Do you ever work?" He's like, "I've never worked a day in my life. That's how much I love it." To him, it's not work, it's just fun, so it's really exciting. Trish I. :                                The way I was brought up was do what you love, follow your passion, follow your dreams, and you'll never work a day in your life. And so, it's great that I have such a great role model in my father, and my mother is just as hard working as my dad. She plays a role in the dealership also, but to a smaller scale. I come from a pretty good hardworking group of parents. I'm very fortunate. Carey Sperry:                     For sure, but so humble at the time in giving, which we'll get into a little later in the conversation, around the charitable events and all that activity. But it's just so inspiring. Can you tell us how it happened, where you re-entered the family business? You were in commercial real estate and you had children. Can you kind of tell us about that process? Trish I. :                                Yeah. As I mentioned, when I was younger, that's when my dad started the business. I was only six, but he used to bring us to the dealership on weekends, my brother and I, and I would work the phones, and I would do filing, and I would do all kinds of things to help. My brother would wash cars, and mop the floors, and do things. Trish I. :                                What happened was my brother stayed in the business and I decided after college I wanted to make a name for myself, and I moved to California, and I got into sales and commercial real estate, so I separated from the business, just to build my own identity, which was great. And then I had a family, I took some time off, and I decided when my little daughter was in first grade that I was getting bored and I wanted to use my mind, but I didn't want to go into a full-time job situation. Trish I. :                                I got on my parent's website, and I was like, "Oh my gosh. What's going on here? This isn't as professional. I know we could do so much better." And then I jumped on social media and I felt the same way. I was like, "Oh, no, this is not what we want. This is not who we are. I need to make this better." And then I jumped on our digital reputation site, and I saw there was only one star on Yelp, and I was just mortified Carey. I was like, "How can this be? I mean, our company is so great, and we're so successful, and the people that are getting on Yelp, they're just complaining and nobody is managing this. We've got so many great people, we just need to go ahead and have somebody really stay on top of this." Trish I. :                                I called my parents right away and said, "Listen, I want to see if I could help you guys out. I have a background in advertising and marketing and I'd like to help you out with a couple things." And they said, "Sure, go for it." They really didn't specialize in this. They were focused more on the automobile selling side of things and the service side. And I said, "I can help you." Trish I. :                                Really what I did is I gathered a team, and we just said, "Okay, our five goals is number one, we need to work on making our website a little bit more professional, a little bit easier to use, user friendly, and more call to action." That's what we really felt like we were missing. And so we worked on our website and our mobile app, and we streamlined it. Carey Sperry:                     Wow. Trish I. :                                Carey, it was almost overnight when we did that, we started to see more leads come through, and so it was really, really exciting. Yeah. Trish I. :                                And so then the next step was social media was huge at the time. When we started seven years ago, it was really starting to take on. I was like, "Gosh, we really need to get our customers more evolved, and we need to show how great our cars are, and what our dealership looks like, and spotlight some of our employees." We really went out to Facebook and Instagram, and we really got our social media cranking. That turned out to be great. Trish I. :                                And then my big role was the turning around digital reputation because, as I told you, we were at one star and I was like, "We can't do this anymore, you guys." We got together with our team of managers and salespeople and said, "Our customers are so happy and they do love us. Why don't you ask them after the sale or after they have a good service experience to get on Yelp, get on Google and tell them how great we've done?" Trish I. :                                And we've done that. And if you go to Google review right now, we have four stars. I'm happy to say that over the years, we've done a really good job of asking people to go out there and tell them exactly how their Perillo experience was, and they've done it. And so it's just been amazing. Trish I. :                                And the good thing too is I manage that, so the minute somebody goes out and they leave us a review, I immediately get back to them, and I thank them for the review, and I thank them for their loyalty, and I just want to let them know that we're so happy that they're our customer, and we look forward to serving them in the future. And so I think people like that, that ownership is really involved, and that they care. Trish I. :                                And the same if it's a negative review. If it's a negative review, we want to know what we did wrong, and how we can help them, and how we could make other customers, how we could service other customers better because we're always learning from mistakes. Trish I. :                                It's been a good process all the way through. Positive and negative, we've elevated our reputation, and that's really the most important thing, and we're helping our customers at the same time. Trish I. :                                And then the last goal for me, was to have more events at the dealership. For us, when it comes to selling cars, the most important thing is to get somebody behind the wheel because once they get behind the wheel and they drive one of our cars, they really love it. They love the experience. And so what we did is we put together more events, where we had people test drive, and we got more people engaged. Trish I. :                                And so, those were really the things I came in and I did. And honestly, Carey, it's just been a game-changer. It really has. Carey Sperry:                     That's awesome. Trish I. :                                Yeah! Our brand has just elevated to the next level, which is great. Carey Sperry:                     That is so great! And it sounds like your dad was really open immediately to you coming in and appreciated your early discoveries, from just doing a little bit of looking around closely and putting yourself in the customer's shoes. Carey Sperry:                     To recap everybody, one thing I want to say before I go through these four points that you just highlighted, is that the customers now don't care where they are when they're interacting with your brand. And what I mean by that is when they don't even consciously think anymore, we don't as consumers, about where we are actually interacting with the brand. If we're on our computer, and we go to a website, or we're on our mobile device, go to a website, or when we're on our mobile device and we go to an app; all we want is for it to be easy and to decrease the friction. Carey Sperry:                     So like Trish said, that they worked on their app, they worked on their website experience. You really have to have all of that down. You have to have all of that behaving and actually be putting yourself in the customer's shoes. That's exactly what Trish did. She looked at the website, made it more professional, had a call to action, looked at the mobile app, and made sure that there was consistency through. Carey Sperry:                     Another word for all of this everybody is called omni-channel. It's multiple digital touchpoints throughout the customer journey. The customers, no matter what stage they're in, there's a whole customer journey of discovery, exploration, consideration, and there's different names for these different stages, but really interacting with the customer through every single stage, no matter where they are. Maybe they've purchased cars from a Perillo dealership before and they're looking at purchasing another one, or they have a need to buy one for a child and they're a loyal customer. You have to serve them while thinking through the various digital touchpoints too. Carey Sperry:                     Besides the website and the mobile app, then she looked at the social media and wanting to get customers more involved in more engagement. Carey Sperry:                     And then three, the digital reputation is huge. A lot of customers don't really pay attention to that. There's a lot of negativity of understanding about what Yelp really is. Some people think Yelp is just a joke and they went through all these lawsuits and all this stuff. But there's other places where there's Yelp still, but there's other places too like Trish mentioned, Google reviews, so there's other places. People put comments, even on Facebook ads! They'll put comments on and they might say, "Oh you are the worst." Or, "I wouldn't go there if I were you." You've got to respond to those. Carey Sperry:                     And then last is the events, and the dealership getting customers involved through that, which we'll get into in a little more detail in a second here. But I want to back up Trish, when you really started digging into this, and you said you pulled together a team. What did that team look like, the social media, communication, PR type of roles and how have they unfolded since you've been helping with the strategy and steps? Trish I. :                                Yeah, no, we pulled together our managers. We put together a team of digital marketing experts. I knew a little bit, but I wasn't an expert, that's for sure. And so, we'd pulled in just a good group of people that understood the digital marketing world. Trish I. :                                And really for me, Carey, I mean you were asking how I came in and what I did. It's not that I was so great but what I was, was a fresh set of eyes. And sometimes when you're in the zone, like my dad, and his managers, and his salespeople, when you just keep doing things the way that you've always done it and your philosophy is if it ain't broke, why fix it? Sometimes that is a problem. In fact, most times it is a problem. And I just came in from the outside as a consumer and somebody that really cared. Obviously, I'm very invested in my parent's company and I care about them so deeply, that I came in with a fresh set of eyes and said, "Okay, I'm coming and looking at it as a customer and how would I want this experience?" Trish I. :                                And when I presented it to our team, they were like, "This makes sense. This really makes sense. We've got to elevate our game. We've got to make it easier. We got to make it better because if we don't, we're going to lose our competition." That's really what happened. We were so fortunate that at first people didn't buy into it, but then when they started to see the progress we were making, and how we were elevating our brand, and how we were getting more customers, and people were coming and saying so many great things about us, everybody bought into it. That was the most important thing, is that we changed everybody's attitude. Everybody said, "We're ready for this." Carey Sperry:                     They listened to you, that that's huge. Trish I. :                                They did. Carey Sperry:                     And so- Trish I. :                                They did. I was lucky Carey Sperry:                     The risks of leaving it, if it kept going the way it was before you made the discoveries, I think of it built up over time, where you might not notice something this year but then if you let it go the next year and the next year, even quarter by quarter, it's snowball effect. It seems like they realized, "Okay, we can't keep just doing the way we're doing it." Is that how the attitudes were? Trish I. :                                Yes, that's exactly what it was. And nobody really made a conscious effort into thinking that way. It was just they were on automatic mode. And so because I came in, I'm like, "We got to think out of the box. We have to be creative. We've got to come up with different things that nobody else is doing. That's what's going to set us apart." And first they were resistant but then they bought into it. It all worked out and it still does today. I mean, we're always coming up with new ideas, and new fun ways to do things, and elevate our brand. Carey Sperry:                     And it's not just you or one person. It's a team effort with key people have an interest and ability, to some extent, to contribute to the whole journey, and the whole content creation, and engagement, and everything, right? Trish I. :                                Everything. It's a team. It takes a village. Carey Sperry:                     It does. Trish I. :                                It does but you know what? It does, but you're better as a team. I mean, I always say it, there's no I in team. Carey Sperry:                     Yeah. And if people don't have someone that is like you, that can have that perspective inside the company, just owners take a look at the different digital touchpoints and the social media presence, and just start writing things down, and reach out for help. Carey Sperry:                     Do you think it's made the brand even more continuous across all parts of the customer journey with the Perillo dealerships? Because I know I've been in those stores and it's just an amazing, positive, energetic thing. I mean, even in the service center. You wouldn't think that an automobile service center ... You kind of think of you smell oil, or rubber tires, and you drink some bad coffee. But it's not that way at all, it's a really great experience. Have you been able to reflect that continuously digitally? Trish I. :                                Yes, we have. And so we've been really fortunate. If you go to joeperillo.com, it's all of our Perillo brands. And so I think that in the last couple of years, our focus is to really elevate our name and our brand. People have known that Perillo has been around for over 40 years. It's been 44 since my dad started the company, so people know it's a family owned business. They know that their employees are extremely loyal, they know that the company is trustworthy, has integrity, and they follow through on their promises. And so I do believe in my heart that when people think of the Perillo brand, they relate it to luxurious automobiles. And so that's what we really were striving for is the Perillo name is synonymous with luxury cars in Chicago. And I think we've achieved it. I really do. People know us and they feel very comfortable. Trish I. :                                We hope to just keep moving. We're not going to be satisfied with the status quo. We're going to just keep on elevating our game. Carey Sperry:                     You're helping more and more people, and people come from outside the Chicago area to interact with that experience that way because a lot of people don't like buying cars. They find it grueling but when you have a good experience when you buy a car, no matter whether it's luxurious or it's just a beginner car for your teenager or something, you want it to be positive. Trish I. :                                Yes. Yes. Carey Sperry:                     And you want to feel like you're ... It's a big decision, so I think you guys do such a great job at that. Trish I. :                                Oh, thank you. Carey Sperry:                     With helping the community, and having events, and using social to bring in more awareness and collaboration with that, is just awesome to see how you guys have been so generous helping the community and how you've shared that with your customers. When you re-entered the business, how did you get involved in charitable events or just events in general and how have you weaved it into the communications and engagement with your customers? Trish I. :                                That's a good question. What happened was when I re-entered, I thought, "We're having all these events and we're getting people to come in from the community." My parents have always been extremely charitable, but they've always donated anonymously. They just never wanted to put their name in the spotlight. They've always given back to the community, the causes they've really cared about. And so I approached them and just said, "Listen, this is an opportunity. You could still give. Okay? It's coming from your heart. It's coming from a good place, but why don't you make it known, and why don't we introduce a charity that's near and dear to your heart when we do our events?" Trish I. :                                And so I got them on board, and they said, "Okay, we could do that." So not only do we pay the money to sponsor certain events, but then we try to raise money for the organization. Trish I. :                                Just one example, about five years ago, Bentley wanted to target more women customers. Their key demographic, I mean most of the people that buy Bentley's are male. And so they came to me and they said, "Listen, we really need to hone in on the women out there. There are plenty of successful women that could purchase Bentley's, and we'd love to market to them." Carey Sperry:                     Well, yeah. Trish I. :                                Yeah! Oh, definitely. And so they're expensive cars, but you know what? There are a lot of great women out there that could do it. And so they said, "What do you think about holding an all women's event? Bentley just came out with all different kinds of really cool purses, all different colors, a very expensive purse but very elegant and beautiful. What do you think about having some sort of party?" I thought, "Wow! This is great." Trish I. :                                We had a big fashion show, and we had women from the city of Chicago, we pulled them in from the suburbs. We probably had about 350 women attend the event, and we matched the purses with the cars, and it was really successful. Before we did this I thought, "What would be the perfect charity and what is something near and dear to our heart?" And so I did know somebody that started a nonprofit to help women that have been victims of domestic violence. And so we brought them in, and they were a speaker. They were just phenomenal. They were really, really moving. I mean everybody in the crowd, we were all crying. Trish I. :                                We raised a ton of money for that organization, we brought awareness, and we also got people to come in, and come to an event, and have a great time, see the purses, test the cars out. It was just spectacular all the way around. Carey Sperry:                     Wow. Trish I. :                                I mean I felt so blessed and honored that we could give that kind of opportunity and that we could be a part of it. Trish I. :                                Yeah, from that point on, Carey, after that one, every single event that we do, whether it's the Children's Hospital of Chicago or just we've helped out kids at the St. Jude's hospital. I mean we've helped out several organizations and it's just been really rewarding, super rewarding. We just feel lucky and blessed that we're able to do this for people and give back to the community. The community has been great to us, and now we need to give back to them. Carey Sperry:                     Yes. Thank you so much for sharing that. That is just amazing. And I know some people say, "I don't want to make people think that I'm trying myself some big hero because we're contributing to charity, or to the needy," whatever that arena is in their community. But it's not that. Sharing it with more people and supporting the cause, while it's something that you're able to do because you have a business, and then bringing your customers to be able to celebrate in that thinking. We see that a lot with the big brands of Nike, and Nordstrom, and all kinds of big brands out there doing it. They're banding together with their customers, who they know their customers are through data, and then celebrating in those beliefs and in those causes. It doesn't have to be weaved in and out of the brand as extreme as some big brands do it, but just having it as another way to interact with your customer and bring them some joy, along with serving the community. Carey Sperry:                     Thank you, Trish, so much. We've run out of time but this was just amazing, and very inspiring, and such a wonderful story. I really appreciate you sharing it with us so much. Trish I. :                                Oh, you're welcome, Carey. It's been a pleasure to be on your podcast. Thanks for asking me to join you. Carey Sperry:                     Of course. Anytime. All right, everybody, thank you. We'll talk with you next time. Carey Sperry:                     Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to all socialyall.com. That's allsocialyall.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at All Social Y'all.  

Carey: In this interview with Heather Cox, we talk about what the younger generations want and expect from brands on social media. I always enjoy speaking with Heather about her business because she's super passionate about her work, and sharing her art of photograph editing. Two of the biggest take aways I had from our conversation are first, the importance of aesthetic, and what a thoughtful aesthetic can do to catch the attention, just what we're all trying to do, engage people, and excite this younger generation. And two, building audiences. Many times, brands find themselves just putting up content before they think about who they're speaking to about what they have to offer or share. It's kind of like sitting down with your grandmother and saying, "Hey, dude, what's up?" You would never do that. Carey: By Heather building her audiences and Instagram, she can then target them effectively to get them to stop, to look, and hear what she has to share. And then she keeps on building new audiences to broaden her customer base. Hope you enjoy. Carey: Hello, everyone, welcome to episode four, the younger generations, and what they want and expect from brands on social media. And today, we have Heather Cox. She's owner of Aglow Presets. And she absolutely has a love for photography her entire life. She believes, and she helps people optimize and enjoy pictures, and helps them use them and their modern qualities as a way to really create memories, which is what everyone loves to do. At least when they don't do it, they realize when they do create memories through pictures, how much everyone appreciates it. Carey: And then enhancing them with presets is really what she specializes in, to help pictures look their best. And not only does she get joy out of taking pictures, but it's her main passion of editing them, which is not easy for everybody. She has three kids, she owns this wonderful business that's just taking off, and she really wants to help people make a lasting impression, help people and their businesses take their images really to the next level. So, many of you may not have heard of presets before. So, that's really what her ... Not invention, but her own artistic way of creating presets, and that's what we're going to talk about today. Carey: So, Heather, thank you so much for being here. Heather: Thank you for having me. Carey: So, let's get started. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself, and your company Aglow Presets? Heather: Yes. Hey. So, I'm actually a speech therapist, but I have always had a love of photography and editing pictures. So, a little over a year ago, I created a company called Aglow Presets, where I create different filters for pictures in the Adobe Lightroom program. So, for people that don't know what a preset it, it's basically a pre-made filter that is made in the Adobe Lightroom program. A lot of people are familiar with Adobe. Each preset contains a specific combination of really high quality edits. You can edit every single color, 100 one way, 100 the other way. You can edit the lighting, the contrast, there's so many different things you can do to the picture to create that look. So, it kind of ... You save it as a preset. So, with one click, you can transform your pictures, and they can be reapplied to as many photos as you want to use them on. Heather: So, for years, I've just been using standard apps on my phone to edit my pictures. But I never really got the look that I wanted. So, I started researching, and wanted to know what professional photographers use to make their pictures look flawless. So, over the past year, I've created over 55 different presets that really enhance pictures by brightening them, bringing out the different colors, and giving different looks to pictures. Carey: That is awesome. I just learned about presets earlier this year from you, and it really opened my eyes to the possibilities, and so, we share it with businesses because a lot of them don't know. And it really helps that aesthetic that is so important now, especially on Instagram, where it creates this consistency to the wall, and to the pictures in the stories, where even though they might not have the same exact filter on each photo, they go together. Kind of like an outfit. Right? Heather:  Absolutely. 100% yes. Yes. That's why a lot of businesses do use them because when they're displaying products, or even fashion. Any type of business, it's all about the look and catching your eye. So, it really enhances that. Carey:  Yes. That's awesome. So, your customers, with our subject around the younger generation, your customers are the younger generation for the most part, not 100% at all. But they really do migrate toward using presets, which is part of why you focus on Instagram. So, can you tell us what you know about them, and how you think about serving them on Instagram and Etsy with content and communication? Heather: Yes. So, I did find out very quickly that my main audience and my customers for presets are the younger generation, specifically ages 13 to 25. I kind of found out just through my customer base, seeing the girls posting them, and getting insights off of my ads kind of telling me who my audience was. So, and I found that the younger generation really doesn't use Facebook as much as we do, the older generation. And they really are focusing on Instagram these days. Posting pictures, and specifically, posting on their stories. I think that's that age range outlet for their creativity. Heather: So, Etsy has also been great because I think it is user friendly for that generation, too. It has reviews, it's just easy to navigate. So, Etsy has been my main platform, really, for to sell my presets. I do have a website, as well. But I do like to direct most of my traffic to Etsy. But yeah, the younger generation, they really like that kind of instant gratification where they see the pictures pop up right away. And I just think that, for me, Instagram seems the way to go to promote my presets. Carey: For sure. And your traction has shown that that's a great decision, and you enjoy it, and you're so good at it, too, which really helps. So, for people that don't know what Etsy is, I started using Etsy when it very first came out because I'm kind of an artsy person, and it was originated for artists to ... As a platform to share and sell their handmade things. Now, I think they still have that as a central concept to the platform, but there's more on Etsy now than back in the day when it was just artists. But it makes sense that you went there because your craft is an art form, and it allows you to transact on the purchase. Is that kind of what your thinking was by partnering with Etsy, as well? Heather: Yes, correct. Like you said, it's really for handmade. I think they branched out a little bit, where you can have partners that can also create some of your items, too. But yes, it's like a home base for people with creative ideas, and it just was perfect for preset. Carey: It's a very visual platform, too. Kind of like Pinterest, I think. So ... Heather: Agreed. Carey: So, okay. Well, as far as aesthetic, that's people would become more aware this year, and I think in 2018 of what aesthetic even meant. But it's kind of that overall look that couples with your brand. We have a company that is sort of an outdoor flair that we work with that we help them with their social media and their Instagram. And we had a set of presets on there at first that made it look a little bit dark, and we were trying to go kind of after that edgy feel to the aesthetic because they're kind of a rugged outdoorsy kind of company, like I said. And then we decided when someone's outside, they prefer to be outside usually when it's sunny. So, let's brighten it up. So, we switched out the presets to a more bright look. But that's kind of what somewhat of what aesthetic means. Carey: Heather, I'd love your thoughts on that. But we'd also like to know what, if you could share with us, how you've built the aesthetic of your Instagram presence, and how it appeases the younger audience. Heather: Yes, for sure. And aesthetic feed is what everybody wants these days. I get so many questions that, "Please help me make my feed on Instagram more aesthetic." So, it's really, like you said, it's creating that flow and consistency from picture to picture that makes it appealing. And presets can make your feed very pleasing to the eye, and catch attention to really, like you said, get that flow. And it can be either using the same preset on every picture, or using different presets and just keeping the lighting, like you said, and the brightness the same from picture to picture. Because I know every picture is different, depending on the lighting, like you said, if they're indoor, outdoor pictures. Heather: So, I always encourage my users to tweak each preset to match the picture before so they have that nice flow on their Instagram feed. So, I created a YouTube channel with helpful videos on this topic, and different editing techniques. But my personal feed on Instagram, I like to showcase other people using my presets. So, it's not just me every picture. So, it doesn't look probably ... If I had my own feed, I would have maybe a different look to it of the same thing going on. But the good news is is even though I use all of my customers pictures, for the most part, I do post some that I have posted of myself. But they're all different presets. But the flow still ... My feed still looks aesthetically pleasing because they're all a similar brightness, and presets really bring out clarity. They not only enhance the picture, but they really increase the quality of the picture, as well. A lot of people don't know that. Heather: I recently started editing old photos. It's great for really, really old black and white photos, too, to make the picture even a better quality than it was on looking at it online. But, so, for the most part, it's just ... Yeah. Presets, just the brightness of them, keeping that consistent, and keeping the fairly same color scheme. But yeah, that's what everyone wants because that's ... Business, people sell products from visual. It's so visual these days. Carey: Absolutely. Heather: So, having that look great is going to help any business. Carey: Yes, yes. It's huge. And the older generations now are becoming more accustomed to seeing it. And it's kind of like when ... I think of it sort of as when the old TV quality ... If you see a older football game, back from the '80s, I can't believe how blurry it is. Heather: Mm-hmm (affirmative), yes. Carey: And we looked at that, and that's what our eye was fine with. And then [crosstalk 00:13:50] but now that we have high def ... I don't even know what the terms are for the super duper high definitely ones now. But now our eye is used to that. And I think the concept is similar with presets, that's that we're getting accustomed to seeing that, and that's what our eye is pleased by. But the younger generation, that's really what they demand. The demand, I guess, might be a little- Heather: It's, yeah, all visual. It is all visual, and what looks the best to their eye, for sure. Carey: And then I love ... I just want to comment on the user generated content because we spoke about that in a previous episode around content and building content ahead of time, and what user generated content is. Because some people don't know that. And Heather, you've done an amazing job of maximizing the impact for your customers of user generated content, which means she's using those pictures of what her customers are using with her product, and showcasing that on a daily basis. So, it's a great, great method. So- Heather: Yes. Thank you. Carey: ... speaking of your customers again, you have something you call brand ambassadors. Can you tell us about that, and how this effort helps contribute to your content and engagement? Heather: Yes. I currently have 73 Aglow ambassadors. I have 70 females and three men who help promote my presets. So, really initially, what I would do is ask some of my followers that had big followings and used my presets if they wanted to become ambassador. However, the good news is now I have people reaching out to me every few days if they can be one. So, to be an ambassador, basically I give them free presets and in return, they pretty much promote Aglow Presets for me. They mention me on their feed, they promote me on their stories, their Instagram stories about my presets, if I have a new release, if I'm coming out with a new preset, they tag me. And when they post a picture on Instagram, they'll tag me in it, and they'll post which preset they've used. Heather: So, one of my first ambassadors was a girl at a university near where we live, and that has really in turn, spiraled into a big following, not only from businesses in that town. I have the tanning salon there uses my presets, boutiques there use my presets, as well as a lot of the sorority girls at that college. So, it's really great to have people around. And I have my ambassadors are all over the world. I have one in Ireland, and France, and I have a few in Canada. So, it's really kind of worldwide that they're promoting my presets. And I do, like you said, I love to showcase them on my feed because that not only helps them, they get notoriety from that, and they get to show off their pictures, and they know that all my followers will see it, also. Carey: That's amazing. Heather: So, it's a win win. Carey: Yes. Yes. That's amazing. And it also allows people to see that variety, and people have ... Some of them have children, or you've got some men that are caring about their image and their personal brand, and it kind of gets people looking at the opportunities by showcasing themselves in a really professional and aesthetically attractive way, I guess is the best way to put it. Heather: Yes... Carey:Are brand ambassadors like influencers, would you say? Heather: Some of them are, yes. Some of them are just kind of regular people. But a lot of them are influencers. And so, they have their own kind of gigs going on. But they do this, as well. Carey: Gotcha. Okay. Because some people don't really know the whole world of influencers, or they've heard of it, but now there's something called microinfluencers that have fewer followers. So, for folks out there that aren't so familiar with the influencers world, there are many many many that have become really big, and they have millions of followers, and they charge a pretty penny to couple with brands, and they also tend to be ... Nothing against all influencers by any stretch, but brands sometimes feel a little anxious about working with some of the big ones because they're quite particular, or demanding sometimes is the word they use. I'm not saying that I've never had an influencer. But that's just kind of the world of that now, and the brand world. And so, there's something that has surfaced this year called microinfluencers that have fewer followers, but can be very influential, especially at the local level, or the industry level, and such. So, but that's a whole 'nother conversation. Heather: Interesting, yes... Carey: The one thing you've been really good at, Heather, is to continually using ads and promotions. So, can you take us through what you think engages the younger customer. For instance, with the language you choose, or the visuals you use in your ads and promotions. Heather: So, yes. Yeah, I typically run around six to eight ads at one time on Instagram. I say I do it on Instagram, I think some of my ads go to Facebook, and some the Facebook and Instagram type areas. But I find that most of my customers do find me through Instagram, through either on the feed, or sponsored ads on the stories. So, I do definitely try to create ads that speak to the younger generation through fun pictures, and bright colors. They like a certain look to a picture, which I found. They like the fun, being at a festival, or more party-type pictures than some of the older generation pictures that we used to use. Heather: So, and also, a majority of my ads are video ads. So, I think this is huge, especially for this generation. Like I said earlier, they want kind of quick, instant gratification. So, using a video, I scan through different presets with simple verbiage, just talking either about a sale going on, or what preset I'm using. And also, the younger generation definitely loves a sale. So, I typically try to include that in some of my promotions. But yeah, they really just ... The videos, and using just kind of short verbiage, I think it really helps. But I use Adobe Rush, which is a video editing program. And it's really simple, and that way, I can just upload it right into my Facebook ads manager. Heather: But yes, when someone's scrolling through a feed, I think they just really want ... They don't want to have to scroll picture to picture, but just if you have a quick, short video showcasing your products, I have found that's the way to go for my ads particularly. Carey: Yes. My youngest is 17. So, he's not 13 anymore, or anything. But he's always looking at videos, that's it. He doesn't ... I don't know. I'm not sure what he reads outside of school. But yeah, videos are definitely the eye catcher. So, well, when you've built these followers, and attracted new customers ... Your customers are between the ages of ... What ages, Heather? I forget. Heather: Well, 13 to 21 is the most. But I really think I would say 13 to 25, 30 years old. I do have several customers that are older than that. But the main, if I was just to group it in, that's the main group is that younger age- Carey: Yeah, we talked about how there's lots of opportunity with photographers, and chefs, and things like that that aren't using your presets. Heather: Right, for sure! Carey: ... you've done a really great job of defining your audiences inside that key age range that is making daily purchases with you inside your social strategy. And so, how are you building multiple audiences to target and sell your products to? Heather: Well, as far as audiences, this is definitely one area that I continue to learn and I want to grow in. I've taken polls, and asked some of the younger generation what are the things that they search on a daily basis, who do they follow? So, I can create audiences based on their interests. For presets specifically, I know that they're very popular with blogger, influencer-type people, college age girls, sorority girls. I do have a preset called clean and crisp that I market to realtors. I have a lot of boutique owners, realtors, anyone that really needs to showcase a product. So, I try to target as many of those types of people in my audience as I can. But I definitely feel that I have to continually change up my audience to reach a broader group of people. Heather: So, I guess the biggest take away I have for this podcast is just to continually stay on top of the trend, and stay fresh, and just know that there's always something ahead. Carey: Well, that's a great way to close. I love that. That's very inspiring. And you're a perfect example of that, Heather. Whenever I talk to you, you're always trying to think of ways to do things new, and a way to mix it up, and ways to attract new customers, and ways to grow and help people. Make them happy. Because it does make you happy when you're proud of your presence online, and on social media. Carey: So, thank you so much. Can you let everybody know how to get in touch with you, and to check out Aglow Presets? Heather: Yes, thank you so much, too. So, my Instagram handle is @aglowpresets, and I have a website, and it's www.aglowpresets.com. And you can also find me on Etsy, and search me up on YouTube at Aglow Presets. Carey:  Thank you, Heather. That's awesome. Everyone, have a great day. Thank you so much. Heather: Okay, thank you. Carey: You're welcome. Heather:Thanks, Carey. Carey: Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all Podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to allsocialyall.com. That's allsocial Y-A-L-L.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you. What subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website, or in Instagram @allsocialyall.  

What we set out to help you with in this episode, is to eliminate the feeling of feeling behind the eight ball with your posts. Business owners have enough going on and feeling frazzled over what to post and when to post. It really sucks. She helps us know where to start, how to make your organic content serve your set goals, and how to make your organic content speak to who your customer is, so that when they see and read your posts, they feel like, "Yeah, that's me," and they want to see more. Whitney also stresses consistency and how consistency is necessary for both the algorithm and to building the relationship with people online. Carey Sperry:                   Hi, everyone. Welcome back to episode three of All Social Y'all Podcast. Today, we have Whitney Stovall here with us to speak about organic social, and how to get the game on ahead of posting content. Basically, how to get ahead of it, how to not feel frazzled. Carey Sperry:                   Did you guys feel like I did on a daily basis, where you're just trying to figure out what you're going to post today, or later today, or even tomorrow morning, and feeling like it's a stressor? That's what we want to address today. We have Whitney Stovall here today. You want to say hello Whitney? Whitney Stovall:             Hey, how are you? Thanks for having me. Carey Sperry:                   Yes, yes. Thanks for being here. I met Whitney, it's been about seven or eight months. Is that how long we've been working together? Whitney Stovall:             Yeah. Carey Sperry:                   About that long. Whitney Stovall:             Yeah, something like that, about seven months. Carey Sperry:                   Yes, where I was needing help in our business, and for our direct posting, and ... Hell, I just couldn't keep up with it myself because I'm serving our clients, and I'm launching this podcast, and I'm doing a million things as a business owner, and I really wanted someone ... I'm CEO, business owner, founder, and I know social media and how to do content myself, and all of that. But I was like, "I really feel like our business could be better if I had someone that was dedicated to it, and could really help us plan ahead, and not feel like we were last. Like our clients are first and I was putting us last." Carey Sperry:                   And so, I found Whitney, and she has done an amazing job of brand consistency, calendaring, thinking of different ideas and reminding me of content that I need to collect when we're in life, and when we're in the business, and even on the weekends, things that I can capture and share, where she can beautify up, as I say. Carey Sperry:                   That's what we're going to talk about today. I guess I'd start with a question, Whitney, is where do you recommend a business owner start with planning ahead and not feeling frazzled in last minute with their content, their organic? Whitney Stovall:             I believe the number one thing or the first thing you should do, is decide what your goal is or what your goals are, and link those goals, your social media goals to your overall business goals. Whitney Stovall:             If your goal is to grow your brand overall, and to just get in front of more potential customers, then you need to ensure that on the social media end, you're amping up the content that engages with your customers or your potential customers, and really gets your message and your mission out there. And once you have a goal, then you have an idea of who your customer is or at least you should begin to think about who your customer is. And then from there, begin to develop your content. Whitney Stovall:             As most people start with the content ... And don't get me wrong, content is very, very important. But in the process of it all, it's more so like the third step because you really have to start thinking about what it is that you want to do. A lot of times, and I'll speak from experience, if I get in front of my screen, and I just want to post something that day, I get stuck because I don't know what I want to post. There's a thousand things I can post. There's so many things going on. Whitney Stovall:             But if I have a plan, even if I deviate from that plan for whatever reason, at least it's there, and I can always have it to reference, and go back to. You have, like you mentioned earlier, consistency. Versus it's kind of a one off situation or a tone that isn't carried throughout all of your posts. Carey Sperry:                   Yeah. You go to some handles or whatever, some brand's presence, whether it's a personal brand, someone that's in the fitness space, or it's actually a big business, and their posts don't have any aesthetic is what they call it. You know, where it has some consistency and expectation, like you just don't know what you're going to get when you go to their presence. Whitney Stovall:             Right, right. And that's the one thing you don't want because you want to cultivate a community and create an experience for your ... And actually, I was discussing that today with someone. You want to create an experience that really connects with your customers. And you can't do that if it's not consistent because they don't know what to expect, and they don't know who you're talking to. They're like, "Are you talking to me? Well, maybe this isn't for me. This has to be for someone else or a different customer segment of their customer base." Whitney Stovall:             You want to definitely, when someone goes to your social media or clicks on a post, for them to know, "Okay, they're talking to me, they're solving my problem, they're speaking in a way that I understand, that relates to me as a full person." And so, your content that in a lot of different ways. Whitney Stovall:             For instance, if you have an older base, you might discover that they aren't necessarily into all the frills and the thrills. They really just want the facts, or they really like videos, and so on, and so forth. And so, you can cater toward that, and develop content based off of what they want and what they need. Carey Sperry:                   Good point. When you say create an experience for them, do you mean within the specific post, or do you mean within a series of posts, or both? Whitney Stovall:             Within a series of posts. Your one post would be a moment in this experience. I would say if somebody are the most successful or biggest brands that are known, on particularly Instagram, are really great at doing this visually. You might click on their page, and you just see everything is like this. You feel like you're on the beach or you feel like you're about to go to this really great restaurant, from the moment that you click on that handle. Whitney Stovall:             And so, every post is a lead in to that. And the same fashion with blogs, right? When someone clicks on one blog post, it's usually in connection to a bunch of different topics that relate to one overall topic. And so, your social media is very much like that. You have one overall goal, one overall mission, brand experience you're trying to cultivate, and then each one of your posts are a piece of that. Carey Sperry:                   Back to goals because you mentioned that again, that's important because that brings through your purpose. Is a goal ... Let's say I want to get appointments, or if you're a hairdresser, "I want to get people to schedule with me online." Or if you're a school, you want to get students, is that what you mean by goal? Whitney Stovall:             Those are more like your business goals, right? And those are great. Let's use that as an example. If you are a hairstylist and you want to get appointments online, then that's your ... Or you want to get appointments, right? You want to increase your revenue by X amount of dollars. Then your social goal will look something like you're looking to convert X amount of people, in order to reach X amount of dollars. And so, your social goals are based upon conversion, engagement, reach, things of that sort. And your business goals are usually based on where you look to take your business in the next quarter or the next year. Whitney Stovall:             And so, relating those or connecting those I should say, can really, really make the difference in your business. Because I would say, for instance, I have a nonprofit, and 75% of the people who visit our website come through our Instagram page. And so, that is a huge converter for our organization. Carey Sperry:                   Ah! They find you on Instagram, and then they want to learn more, and they want to be connected more, and so then in your bio they click to your website, and it's driving traffic to your website, where you can then get them to volunteer, or you can have them read your blog, and do all kinds of stuff, right? Whitney Stovall:             Yes, correct. Exactly. Exactly what that does. And so, it's very important that each of our posts conveys something about our brand or our mission. And so, we do a lot of a mix of user engagement or user generated post I should say, as well as branded posts, to keep people feeling like everyone's a part of the community. No matter if you click on whatever I like, dancing kid posts or something about books in the community, it all relates to our overall mission of supporting men and boys, and us wanting to get people to support that mission as well. Carey Sperry:                   I get it, yes. With that, you mentioned ... With your goal being getting a certain number of people to follow or like, and the reach, reaching because the algorithm, Facebook decides, and so Facebook owns Instagram, they decide who they're going to put your posts in front of, your organic post, and that's why it's become ever increasingly over the course of 2019, to get to be successful strictly with organic. It's possible but it is very, very hard, and it's become close to impossible without paid ads. But you have to do both. You have to do both organic and and paid ads to really succeed on social. Carey Sperry:                   And so, if people are looking at the number of likes and people that are following them and then, ultimately converting, wherever that means, to a landing page where they can sign up for something, or making an appointment, or going to your website, whatever metric is, how long should people expect that those things are going to take? How do you gauge some sort of expectation or do you just need to do it and do it consistently every day to figure out how long it's going to take your brand? Whitney Stovall:             This is the key because really, you can honestly have a really successful post right out the gate, right? But if that isn't carried through, it really won't matter. Or if you don't have a plan to carry it through, it really won't matter because you won't have the next steps. Whitney Stovall:             Just having the process in place, in order to carry you through longterm, is really how you generate growth. Because social media, as you mentioned, algorithms change daily. And social media platforms pop up, they die down, and so if you have your systems in place, it ensures that you are not always giving in to the tide or to every change, you're being affected greatly by it. Whitney Stovall:             I would say definitely, longterm is better. I would say different analytical tools will give you a report, from a week all the way to a monthly basis. I prefer to look on a three week to four week basis, to really determine if something is having an impact. Only because like I said, things can fluctuate and they can change. If I have 30 days in front of me, I say, "Okay, consistently for 30 days." And usually, when we make our calendar as well, we do it for a minimum of 30 days. I can say, "Okay, this has worked. This hasn't worked. This is what people are responding to. This is what people are saying," and make changes accordingly. Whitney Stovall:             As long as you consistently ... Let me also add. Having a longterm plan doesn't mean that you just put it into place and you never look at it. You definitely have to continuously check on it, track changes, monitor your different platforms, and your different engagements, to ensure that with all the changes, that you're still staying the course. And if your goal is growth, that you're growing as well. Carey Sperry:                   I have a Facebook, let's say I'm just Joe, Joe or Sally, business owner, and I have a Facebook page. I've had it for three or four years, and I have barely posted on it. And if I post, I'll post once in July, and then I won't post again until October. I have very few followers. But then I want help, someone professional like we are, to help become successful. Is that something that through organic posts, that I can expect success in a month or two? Whitney Stovall:             I would say on the smaller level, yes. For instance, if you're doing something locally, and you are using local, very niche hashtags, and you're engaging with local influencers, or people who have a following in these different communities. Because the great thing about social media, is that every social media can develop some type of hub or community of other pages of people that you interact with, so you can expect modest growth. But I would say not to expect very grand growth until later on down, once you've built those little footsteps and created that traffic. Whitney Stovall:             Because right out the gate, you have to start somewhere. I think honestly, the thing about social media is that it gives you this persona, that you blow up overnight. And there a few of those success stories but for the most part, people really work daily to build these pages. Whitney Stovall:             With Hello, My Name is KING, and that's my nonprofit I mentioned earlier, we have been building our page for almost six years, at this point. Every year things change. We aren't as consistent as a lot of people in our little community and hub, who literally post four, five, six times a day. They're on every trending topic. And so, I can definitely see my growth, how we've grown, compared to how they've grown because the different cookies, as you can say in a way, through social media they've created. Whitney Stovall:             Yeah, I would say just expect modest growth in the beginning. When you're setting goals, you want your goals to be smart goals. You want to be realistic about what you can achieve in the time that you're given. If you only have a little time and your network isn't the largest, be realistic about that but also, use that as a foundation to build upon because you definitely can get there, it just takes time. Whitney Stovall:             The more that you put in, actually in the planning and the foundation of it in the beginning, it will be so much more helpful because trust and believe, you don't want to jump in and create a page that blows up and then you don't even have the system in place to support it. I've heard a lot of people say that, like, "Oh, we really wasn't expecting this to take off. And now, I feel like I have to post every day." And they feel really pressured and rushed, and they don't really understand where they want to go or what to do because it's a lot with social media to keep up. And so if you start small and slow, it actually is beneficial to you in the long run. Carey Sperry:                   Yes. I explain to people that it's similar to having any kind of a big goal, physical or maybe you start a new career, you become a nurse, you want to go into that midway through your life. It's really anything you can think of that's a big goal, it doesn't happen overnight. It doesn't even happen in a month or two. It takes time and it takes consistency. This sounds cliche, but anything that's hard is worth it. Carey Sperry:                   If you were to start that when you were younger or if you take a physical goal ... Let's say you haven't lifted weights for five years, you're not suddenly going to become a competitor in a month. It takes time. And so ... Whitney Stovall:             Exactly. Carey Sperry:                   Yeah. Let's say you then make a plan and you think you know what your goals are, at least what you think your goals are before you really get started and start listening, what are some of the indicators that you look at Whitney, that can help pivot maybe? You and I have pivoted a little bit a couple times on a few things, and I like how we do it quickly. We're like, "Okay, this is working great. Let's do more of that. How can we do more of that?" What are some other considerations and things that you look at as you're getting going in couple of few months with a plan? Whitney Stovall:             Yeah, so social media has gotten really advanced, particularly Facebook, and the insights that they have on Instagram, and then with Facebook business manager. If your business has a business page, you definitely need Facebook business manager because the insights not only can make a great difference in your presence on the platform, but in your overall business goals because of all the different ways you can segment your audience, and re-target, and track, and so on, and so forth. Whitney Stovall:             But yeah, so these social media platforms have great insight tools that literally let you know what your audience is responding to. And you can look at it over the course of that day, the course of that week, month, year, lifetime, so on and so forth. And it really gives you insight as to over time, what it is that people are responding to. And it also can let you know if you're deviating from your goals. Whitney Stovall:             If you're looking to target a certain demographic and they're not ... With most social media insights, you can at least look at age, and gender, and location, and things of that sort. And if you're not targeting those demographics, then you know that you need to reshape and restructure the way that you're going about your social media plan and direction. Whitney Stovall:             Definitely, take a look close insights, and also the numbers because I definitely believe in numbers. But beyond the numbers, look at what the people are saying, what people are literally commenting, who's commenting, and then in which ways that people are engaging with you. Are they sharing your posts? Are they using your hashtag? Because that's very important in just the overall growth. Because like I said, those little pieces is what helped to build your reputation and your brand online over the course of time. Carey Sperry:                   Exactly. And there are definitely some types of brands that are easier to market on and get engagement, than other brands. People don't really like engaging with content, marketing content. Marketing content, it's normal. But if it's something new, and more sexy, or something trending, or if it's something where there's a huge, huge need out there for most people, so some people have a lot easier time with it. Or if it's just aesthetically pleasing. With some brands B2Bs have a harder time. Carey Sperry:                   And while we're speaking of that, not to get off track, because I do want to talk a little bit about the calendaring. With B2Bs, you mentioned user generated content. I think a lot of our listeners might not know what that is. I think it's a great way for B2Bs to capitalize on bringing their customer to contribute to contents. Can you talk a little bit about that? Whitney Stovall:             I definitely agree with you 100% there. User generated content is content that your customers basically post. Maybe it's a product, maybe they post a testimonial, or a picture of you in action giving them a service, so on, and so forth. But it's something that they post themselves, in support of your brand, and your mission, and your product. Maybe they use your hashtag. Either way, they basically, shout you out. And that is, I would say one of the number one ways to be successful on social media, mainly because it adds to your social proof, so people don't have to question whether your product works or if it doesn't work because someone's validating it right here that it works. Whitney Stovall:             Another great thing about user generated content, is that it saves you time, right? So you don't have to consistently develop content all the time because you have a unofficial partner on, who's on your team, your customers, who are almost like your brand ambassadors, right? They are out there, in the space, on your behalf, yelling from the mountain tops how great you are. And so, that is invaluable for your business in so, so many ways. Whitney Stovall:             Definitely, if you have a product or a service, encourage people to use your hashtag. If you do a giveaway, a contest, that's another great way to get user generated content. I supported a lighting company one time, and they were a huge manufacturing international company, and one way they got user generated content, was they would have people take pictures of their light, spot their products out in the street or something, and submit the best photo, and then they would give a prize away every month or something. It was a really cool way to get ... And it helped them get content for inspirational photos and things like that. They never told anybody. But that was another way they actually got photos and stuff, without having to go out to every company in every city to take a picture, right? It was a really, really good tool that we used in so many ways. Carey Sperry:                   I love that idea. Yeah. And on the flip side of that, don't be afraid to ask your customers because nine times out of 10, if not 10 out of 10, they'll be like, "Yes. I would love to." And whether it's a text, and you can just erase their name out of the post because really, all people need to see is the authentic words, and that it's coming from a customer. And the little nuances that they put in their words, are things that you wouldn't think to say quite like that, you know? That's such a great way. I agree with you. It's really the best way to do it right now. Carey Sperry:                   Okay, in calendaring, I just think this is so important. That's why I want to close without missing this for our listeners. The calendar is so helpful to actually think ahead about the month. What's coming up in the business, what events do we have, what are we really trying to drive to our customers this month, what new products or offering services do we have coming out? Carey Sperry:                   And then, we put it into a calendar with specific posts, certain times of day. And by the way, everyone asks, "Well when should I post? Are there best times of day to post?" The answer is yes but it's also what your customers, what your audiences like, so you have to listen to that as well. There's no just blanket answer for that. But how do you go about putting together a calendar, Whitney, and what do you think is an idea or two about what a great calendar offers? Whitney Stovall:             I love a 30 day calendar. Some content managers and creators will swear by a six month calendar. I personally like a 30 day calendar because I feel like it gives you wiggle room, while still having, like I said, that foundation and that structure. That's one. I like a 30 day. Whitney Stovall:             And then, I like to go buy theme and quarter those things off. If our overall goal is to increase engagement, and we know that people engage with this type of content, and they're looking to have this problem to solve, then for the first quarter I might focus on one sub topic of that, and then the next quarter another sub topic, and so on, and so forth. Whitney Stovall:             That helps me to breakdown my plan, I should say. And then from there, I legit go day by day, and then determining based on how many posts I want to post that day, include content for that, as well as graphics, and media, and so on, and so forth. Whitney Stovall:             And so I think the important piece about this, is that it really just gives you a visual, not only a ... I'm thinking of Instagram, the layout visual. Not only that type of visual but it gives you a content visual of what it is that you're going to be saying that month, what it is that you're conveying to people that month. It's a really, really great way, like I said, to help to bring it all together. Carey Sperry:                   Yes. I love it, and the clients that we've done that for, they just sing accolades, like, "Oh my gosh, I've never seen anything like this, and this is so helpful." And I just feel so good when we hear that, so it's a great idea everyone. Take the time to sit down and do that or let us know if we can help you. Whitney, you're on LinkedIn. It's W-H-I-T-N-E-Y Stovall, S-T-O-V-A-L-L, and everyone check out Hello, My Name is KING. We hope this was helpful. If so, give us a subscribe, like, write us a review, and we will see you next time. Thank you so much, Whitney. Whitney Stovall:             Thank you again. I had a great time. Carey Sperry:                   Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all Podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to allsocialyall.com. that's allsocialyall.com. Also, we'd love to hear from you, what subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at allsocialyall.  

Carey Sperry:                   In this episode I speak with my good friend and business strategic Alliance firm partner Phil Graham, about how to leverage social media paid ads into 2020 and beyond. There are so many golden nuggets Phil gives us here, but a couple key takeaways I think you'll find helpful and interesting is how important it is to keep in mind the intent of the prospect of customer, and intent differs by platform. Many people have a different expectation of the experience and their intent is also different while on the Facebook platform versus when they're on the Instagram platform. Carey Sperry:                   So Phil explains how when you understand this and keep it in mind, it helps you to craft your paid ad to align with the viewers mindset, which ultimately he sees paid ads are higher than the ads are crafted with consideration of intent than when brands don't align their ads to the intent. Another key takeaway is he teaches us to approach ads with both a system and a delivery of value. Most people don't have a system for their ads, nor they do. They deliver value in their ads. They just sell right off the bat. He says, "It's like going to a party. You might be walking up to a person and saying, 'Let's get married.'" So you probably heard that analogy before, but most people out there do not keep that in mind. When they do paid ads, they just sell right off the bat, turn off. So he talks about what he means by system and also his EED framework. Educate, entertain, and differentiate this framework and how it will help make your ads convert way better than the majority of people. Carey Sperry:                   Hi everyone. Carey Sperry here. Today we have Phil Graham and we're going to talk about how to leverage social media paid ads in 2020 and beyond. A hot topic, everyone's wondering what is going to happen with paid and the algorithms and all that great stuff. So Phil Graham, he's a wonderful friend of mine who's become a friend after us working together since I launched our agency. And the reason why I really reached out to him and started to get to know him in his work is because he is very, very experienced deep in Facebook ads, Instagram ads, and YouTube ads amongst other digital competencies. And so Phil, why don't you say hello? Phil Graham:                   Hello. I am so excited to be here and thank you so much for the kind introduction, and I'm really excited to talk about this stuff because being able to run ads the right way can literally make the difference between success or failure for an entrepreneur or a business, especially moving forward. So I'm excited. Carey Sperry:                   Yes, thank you. And he's been on a several other really great podcasts. So we found this as a wonderful way to connect with our audience and share information that we're always talking about with our clients. So to kind of kick us off, what would you say is the fundamental differences between Facebook and Instagram ads? It's a question we get a lot, like which should I advertise on Facebook or Instagram and what are the fundamental differences between them? Phil Graham:                   Yeah, great question. And you definitely should ... most people should be on both but they do have differences that are pretty different. So for Facebook, the age is the big differentiators. So if you want to reach somebody that is ... and I don't like talking about age too much because there's always variables, but in general like 35 or 40 plus, you're more likely to reach them on Facebook and under 35 maybe even under 40 the numbers creeping up, you're more likely to reach them on Instagram. In this day and age, the default for somebody who's like a celebrity or somebody who's in media is going to be like Instagram or Twitter, not necessarily Facebook. So they're both great places to be. But depending on like the target, the age of your market, you want to definitely be both places but put more money, time and effort into the place where your target is spending the most time. Phil Graham:                   Just like if you want to reach 17 year olds, if you had a product for that, you wouldn't be on Facebook, you'd probably be on TikTok and some other places that are coming up. So it's audience is the biggest difference, and then also intent. On Instagram, short, punchy videos and lots of great images work well. And on Facebook, a little bit still shorter videos but not as short. You can go longer on the videos and do some different, and those are like the main differences. Carey Sperry:                   So I hear some people say, "Well, why would I advertise on Facebook when people go on there to connect with their friends and family?" Phil Graham:                   Yeah, and that's a, that's a great question. That is the perfect question because people are not on there to look at ads, are they? They're not using Facebook for that, they are using it for many other reasons and we're interrupting them while they do that. But the reason what you want to do that is because billions of people use it and it's the perfect place to actually get their awareness and get their attention. So I think of Facebook, like a social gathering, a social dinner party, something like that where there's people doing social things. And when you think of it that way, think of going to a dinner party. If you were to go to a dinner party tonight and you walked up to a stranger, you wouldn't just walk up and immediately pitch your product. If you wanted to try and sell your product tonight, you wouldn't just do that. Phil Graham:                   You would start off having a conversation and then maybe in a future conversation it would be the right time to tell them about what you do and how you can help them. But on Facebook, what most people do is they send out these ads that are literally just pitching their product, Hey, give me your email and I'll show you this. Or buy this, buy that. And they're sending these to cold traffic to strangers, not realizing that even though it's on the computer, it's no different than if you were in person. There's a human being on the other end of that. So if you do it that way, you're probably going to fail. But my version of in real life, if you wanted to talk to a stranger and become friends and then eventually let's say maybe sell them something or help them, let's say help them. Phil Graham:                   It's not just about selling them, you would just go up and start a conversation. And so my version of starting a conversation using Facebook ads is to put out valuable content as an ad. What most people do is they try and put out some value organically, but when it's time to run ads, they just do these spammy sales pitch ads. And I'm saying, "Don't do that." Do the great stuff, the educational stuff, the inspirational stuff as an ad. That's like having a conversation. And when you start doing that instead of just immediately trying to sell somebody, your whole world can change. And it's really exciting. It can work extremely well. We've had clients, it's not the norm, but we've had clients go from zero to a million dollars in sales in just six months. Again, that's not normal. It doesn't happen a lot. But the fact that it did, it's possible when you do it right. And that's exciting to me. Carey Sperry:                   Wow. Yeah, I would love that. Phil Graham:                   Who wouldn't, right? It's so amazing that, that it's possible and when you really connect with people and then follow up in a smart way, it's just like if you, let's say you were out and about and you moved to a city and you had no friends at all. You didn't know anybody, and you wanted to start making friends. Well, you have to start talking to people to enable that to happen. And if you, let's say you start talking to somebody, you just strike up a conversation like at Starbucks or something, that person is not going to be your best friend right away. Phil Graham:                   You literally just met them. Do you need more conversations. You need more frequency of conversations with them before you start to really get to know each other. And many times when you're running ads, you need the exact same thing. Now, if you've got like a $20 e-commerce product, that's a little bit different. But for most people, if they're selling a product or service that isn't a cheap impulse buy, you need frequency. You need to start conversations by giving value before trying to sell anybody. And when you do that, you stand out because guess what, nobody else does that. And 99% of the ads you see are probably spam sales pitch ads that people hate. And so when you do it right, you stand out. And that's the exciting part. Carey Sperry:                   Yes. It kind of reminds me of us being the first generation of having digital kids and we tell our kids, "Don't type something on a text," or through through whatever means you're on. It might be on a social media platform that you wouldn't say to someone's face and it's a little bit different, but it's sort of the same thing. Like don't assume just because you're going through an ad and you're not actually looking at the person and interacting with them in real life that they're going to take your content in a different way than they would face to face. I've heard you use the analogy before where like if you're at a party, you don't just walk up to a woman and say, "Hey, let's get married." You got to warm up to them. And so yeah. Phil Graham:                   Yeah. And a lot of people will run ads like that. They'll like metaphorically speaking, they run ads, I call it like they profit shoot themselves in their ads. I know it sounds kind of weird, but like they're really, immediately going for a sale or an email address. Even though the person doesn't know who they are, they gave no value or credibility first and they're just doing that over and over. And then when it doesn't work, they blame Facebook or Instagram or YouTube ads and say it doesn't work, which is not the case. So when you do it right, great things can happen. There's no easy buttons. It doesn't just magically happen for you. You've got to do it right and you've got to work hard at it. But when you do, it's awesome because nobody else does it. Carey Sperry:                   Doesn't the algorithms, depending on what platform the ads are being run on, take some time for some sets of ads where it's smart to not expect the best to happen within the first month or even second month, that really to get rolling. Sometimes it takes a little longer. Can you talk a little bit about that? Phil Graham:                   Yeah, absolutely. That's a great point. Sometimes you can get immediate results, but a lot of times it takes time and testing and there's so many factors too. Like how much is your budget, how big is your audience? And things like that. There's plenty of times where it might take a couple months to really kick in, especially if you have a larger audience or a smaller budget that's completely normal and you have to be able to give it the time. I love using analogies and there's many times somebody will start some ads and a week or two later they might freak out if they're not already making all kinds of money. And my analogy for that is like if you were in a football game, you ran two plays and you're freaking out because you're not ahead 20 to nothing yet and you've only ran two plays and you're ready to just quit the game. Phil Graham:                   And I'm like, "Wait a minute, you only ran two plays. We have a huge game left." A lot of people just run two plays and stop, meaning they run ads for a week or a month or whatever, and then if it doesn't work right away, they think it didn't work and they quit, and that's a recipe for disaster. You also have to look at intent. How are people using Facebook? They're using it many times when they're multitasking, they might be standing in line at a grocery store, or Target, or something, or they might be at a stop light, or cooking dinner, or doing two or three things at once and they may see your ad and they may actually love what they saw, but the timing might not be right for them to actually buy something at that moment. And many times it's not right at that time and/or they may not trust you yet. Phil Graham:                   They may not know who you are. They may need to see a little bit more from you first. And so when you take that into account and you don't just try and sell somebody on the first ad, but there's an actual formula here. You're not just going to send them an ad, you're going to send followup ads to people that actually watched your initial ads and you're going to keep giving them value. When you start doing that and you give it the time to work that it needs, then it becomes a beautiful thing that can work extremely well for people. Carey Sperry:                   Yes. So what is working with Facebook ads for you? Phil Graham:                   First of all, first and foremost, having a system that you can use that attracts your ideal customers or clients, whatever you call them, that attracts them, gets their awareness, attracts them to you and brings them in and then converts them into a paying customer or client. So that you don't have to number one, chase after business, and number two, since you're attracting them to you, it's more valuable and you can charge what you're worth. Having an overall system is the key. You don't want to just run a few ads. Phil Graham:                   Number two, doing value based ads. I actually have a formula I use that I call EED and it stands for educate, entertain, and differentiate. So when you're creating your ads, especially if you're doing like a video ad, you want to try and do all three in your video, you want to educate your audience and that can be through teaching them something, or it could be by inspiring them or giving them hope, or both. So that's educate. Phil Graham:                   Entertain means you just don't want to be boring. It doesn't mean you have to be like this super charismatic person or anything like that. You just have to have passion about what you're talking about. Or maybe if you're doing a video, you're doing it in a location that looks nice or you're using a prop. You're grabbing your phone to get their attention, something like that. Phil Graham:                   And then differentiate. You need to be different than all the other advertisers out there that are inundating your ideal audience with ads. And if you can do those three things in your content, you can do extremely well and you wrap those into, I like 30 to 60 second video ads. I think in this day and age, and in 2020, video ads are the most undervalued, best way to build your brand, make money and grow your business, by far. But it's not going to last forever. I remember when you could get like Google ad words, you could get keywords like mortgage based keywords for like five cents a click and the those same key words now, instead of five cents or click are anywhere from fifty to a hundred dollars a click. Carey Sperry:                   Wow. Phil Graham:                   So here's the crazy thing. I mean that's insane, right? I mean people would do anything to get five cents a click- Carey Sperry:                   Absolutely. Phil Graham:                   ... just about, in this day and age. But I believe that video ads on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube are still in that, that wild West price where it's super cheap and I believe that over the next couple of years where you might, we might be getting one, two, three, ten cents per targeted view right now, that probably going to go up 10x or even more. But you've got a sweet spot of time right now where you can leverage and take advantage of that before it's too late. Phil Graham:                   As more and more big companies pour money into it over the next few years, it's going to go up just like Google ads went up, but right now you have the ability to leverage undervalued attention on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube, especially video ads. And then when you do it the right way, like I've been talking about, you stand out, you can attract people to you, you'll have a system that you can scale and rely on that's not built on hope or chance, which is what most people do and that's the true win. That's the way to like Bulletproof yourself for the future and protect yourself. Carey Sperry:                   Right, and the system is a proven system that has experience behind it, whereas it's not magical where it's just pulled out of a hat, and then a couple of weeks an ads out there that seems to be good and then it doesn't work after two weeks and then, "Okay, I got to stop." Like you gave the football analogy with two plays, it takes a system and it takes also some time at times, and retargeting. Phil Graham:                   Absolutely. And retargeting, yeah. I mean, we've been working on this for many years and everything we do is actually based off of data, not guessing. So when we run ad campaigns, we look at the data, we see what works and what doesn't, and then we make adjustments. And what most people do is they just kind of go off of, "Oh I've, I think this will work." Or, "Hopefully this will work," and they don't really know how to look at the data or they don't want to. We look at the data and then we make decisions based on that data and create this framework that I've been talking about based on that. And so that gives you a great model for success when you do it that way versus most people are just not doing it at any kind of a level like that. Carey Sperry:                   So what kind of trends are you seeing currently? Can you talk a little bit about what they are and what trends you're seeing? Phil Graham:                   Yeah, great question. So a lot of trends I see are things that are not good, and that if you do these things, it's going to hurt you. So you want to make sure you avoid these things. Trend number one I would say is focusing on vanity metrics. Likes, comments, shares. There's so many people that that's the indicator of success when they see it, like if they put out content, if they get enough likes, they feel like it's successful. If they don't, then they don't. They feel like it's not successful, and that is not the measure of success. It doesn't mean put out content, it doesn't mean that at all. But what you should do is focus on something more than that and focus on helping transform your audience with great content and turn that into a sale. There's too many people ... Phil Graham:                   I'll give you a great example. The other day, actually, it was not the other day, it was about a month ago. I saw a couple of videos on YouTube. One video was from somebody who, they're going to remain nameless, but I know who they are and they make no money and they actually live in somebody's basement making no money. And they put out this video on how you can get, I can't remember the exact number, but a hundred or a thousand more followers on Instagram, and it actually had like 40,000 views. Now, same day, another video got put out by the CEO of Zoom, which is a conferencing software. He's a billionaire. He started with zero, built himself into a billionaire that had like maybe a hundred views. So that's the problem. People are like chasing after, "Ooh, how do I get 100,000 more Instagram followers?" And they're not actually focused on, here's a billionaire who started from zero, who's actually successful. Phil Graham:                   And he, he doesn't spend much time posting. But when he does, he hardly anybody was looking at it. So everybody's priorities are all messed up. I know people that make $150 million a year that if they post, I mean hardly anybody sees it and they don't care. It doesn't mean don't post. It's still important. As you know by the way, you guys Carey is phenomenal at organic social media and it's very important. So don't get me wrong that has a very important place in the success of a business. But what I'm saying is, if your primary way to get a customer is predicated on vanity metrics, you're setting yourself up for failure. You need to do a different, so that's one trend I see. Phil Graham:                   Number two, there's just too many people that use what I call templated ad. They'll find ads or templates from landing page services and they'll think, "Well, if this person did it, I'm just going to do the same kind of ad with the same kind of wording and it'll work." Well, guess what? I got news for you. That is a recipe for disaster, also. Phil Graham:                   I could tweet or do an ad or say the exact same things as somebody like Oprah, or Kanye West, or just insert any famous person's name here. I could say or do the exact same things, but am I going to get the same reaction or same results? Of course not. They're famous, right? They have this brand that literally they're ultra famous. So when you try and take a template that somebody else has done, even if it's working for somebody else, they actually have a brand behind it. There's a lot more to the success success than whatever they've just put in the ad. Phil Graham:                   And so too many people think that's all they need. I'm just going to copy company A or entrepreneur B and I'll get the same results. And it doesn't work that way. And I'm not saying don't look at what people are doing and try and get best practices, and I'm not even saying don't use templates, but what I am saying is mold them to your brand, your audience in your message. Don't just blindly copy and think you're going to succeed. Because I see people doing that all the time and it pretty much almost never works. Phil Graham:                   So those are some of the trends I see the most right now. And then also just people relying too much on hope and chance to get business. Versus if you focus on doing the right things, including paying for ads to guarantee your message gets put in front of people, then you're going to put yourself ahead of 99.9% of everyone else out there. Carey Sperry:                   Great points. I see that with the branding that people, businesses know who they are and who their customer is and how they're different, but they don't always take the time or at least circle back to it as time goes on. Because they're so busy and they're focused on so many different things, and they assume that their customers know their brand and they don't hone in on specific words and tones and things like that around their brand. And so of course when they go to try to make an ad, they're not thinking of letting that shine through. And the second thing is a lot of people just don't want to do the work with ... Yeah, it's just a lot. Phil Graham:                   That's a good one, right? Carey Sperry:                   It's a lot to learn. It's a lot. Looking at the data they might not enjoy it like you do. And so those are, those are some really important things to think about and it works. And so it's super exciting and our time has already zipped by. I knew it would go so fast. Phil Graham:                   This has been fun though, right? Yeah, it went by fast. Oh my goodness. Carey Sperry:                   It did, but what we can do is maybe talk again in a few months or something and circle back- Phil Graham:                   Yeah, for sure. Carey Sperry:                   ... and it'll be maybe 2020 by then and we can address some of the new things that are surfacing. I know you have an assessment that people can use with some of these. It allows them to kind of think through their specific what they want to sell and maybe what they want to think about through ads. Is there, is there anywhere they can find that or maybe you and I can create that and put that in the show notes and allow people to- Phil Graham:                   Yes we can definitely, sure. We can put that in the show notes. And you and I have worked together on some stuff. So I like, by the way, again I want to say this a lot, you are amazingly good at what you do. So everybody listened to this, you're in the right place. Carey Sperry:                   Thank you, Phil. Phil Graham:                   Carey knows her stuff, and it's been awesome working with you on some projects, by the way. And so I wanted to make sure and say that. If anybody wants ... so the show notes will be great. We can put some stuff in there. And then my website is philgrahamdigital.com if you ever want to get in touch. The other thing, too I want to mention is I do have a podcast on Facebook ads that I've been doing for over two and a half years. I do a weekly episode every single week and that has a lot of value. Phil Graham:                   It's just pure content every week. So it's called the Next Level Facebook Ads Podcast. You can either search for that on Google or maybe we'll put it in the show notes and it's also on my website. So if you want more Facebook ads specific stuff, there's a lot of stuff in there and there's new stuff every single week. But lastly, I do want to mention, we talked about Facebook and Instagram a lot in here. I'm also very big on YouTube ads and even Google ads as well. So I don't want to ... A big mistake is only doing Facebook stuff. You definitely want to be other places, with ads especially, as well. So make sure you guys are kind of diversifying your ad spend, and being real smart about it. Carey Sperry:                   Yes, yes. We can do another episode on YouTube ads alone. Phil Graham:                   Oh yeah, absolutely. We do a whole episode just on that because there's some really cool things that are different about YouTube ads, so that would be fun. Carey Sperry:                   Fun. Okay everybody check out Phil's podcast and website, and thank you so much. It's been wonderful talk with you as always and if you liked this episode, please give us a follow, a subscribe, and a review, and thank you so much and we'll see you next time. Phil Graham:                   Thanks everybody. Carey Sperry:                   Thanks for listening to the All Social Y'all Podcast. For free resources and materials, head over to allsocialyall.com. That's All Social Y-A-L-L dot com. Also, we'd love to hear from you, what subject areas would you like to hear about in future episodes? You can share that with us by dropping me a comment on our website or in Instagram at All Social Y'all.  

In this interview with Displayit owner, Josh Axelberd, we cover what authenticity means in social media and how authenticity should be considered in a social media strategy. A couple of things I really took away from our discussion is first – taking a look an honest look at your company and the culture and asking whether it is aligned to your mission. Only then can your brand pillars be reflected in your continual content communication with your customer.  Another thing Josh explains is how TIME plays into the role of content and how authenticity over time (being weeks, months and even years) involves unveiling a full range view of your company practices, traditions, personality, values and unique qualities.