Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

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Are you a small business owner feeling overwhelmed by AI? You're not alone. While enterprise companies throw massive budgets at custom AI solutions, you're wondering how to get started without breaking the bank or spending hours learning complex prompts.

In this episode, I sit down with Phil Pallen, author of AI for Small Business and creative branding expert, who reveals the simple framework that's helping small business owners find immediate AI wins. Phil shares his journey from studying media and entertainment business to starting his own branding agency in 2011 when his first three clients - a makeup artist, real estate agent, and jewelry designer - all needed help with social media. He also tells the fascinating story of how a client's suggestion to put his tutorial videos on YouTube led to a major publisher reaching out about writing a book on AI.

But here's what makes this conversation different: Phil isn't selling you on the latest shiny AI tool. Instead, he's sharing a practical time-tracking method that helps you identify exactly where AI can make the biggest impact in YOUR business - starting with the tasks you hate doing most.

You'll discover why custom GPTs aren't the answer for 95% of businesses, how to use AI projects to organize client conversations for better brand storytelling, and Phil's controversial take on why perfect prompts are a myth. Plus, he reveals the email automation system that saves him hours every week (hint: it's not just AI).

Whether you're just getting started with AI or feeling scattered across multiple tools, this episode will help you create a sustainable, systematic approach that makes you better at what you already do - not just faster.

Links Mentioned in This Episode

Phil Pallen's Book: AI for Small Business (Available at all major bookstores)

Time Tracking Tools:

EverHour: everhour
Rize: rize

Email Organization Tools:

SaneBox: sanebox

AI Tools Discussed:

ChatGPT Projects: chat.openai.com
Claude Projects: claude.ai
Adobe Acrobat AI: adobe.com/acrobat
Adobe Firefly: firefly.adobe.com
Adobe Express: express.adobe.com
Magai: magai.co

Connect with Phil Pallen

YouTube: YouTube.com/PhilPallen (2-3 AI videos weekly)
Instagram: @philpallen

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Most entrepreneurs are obsessing over the perfect AI prompt when they should be building systems instead. In this episode, I share the game-changing framework I taught at a workshop recently at Chapman University that helped students create compelling, targeted content in under 30 minutes. Discover why context beats prompts every time and learn the same 3-pillar system I recommend to my Fractional CMO clients.

What You'll Learn:

Why treating ChatGPT like a "vending machine" kills your content quality
The 3-pillar framework that transforms generic AI output into brand-specific content
How to build an Ideal Customer Profile that makes AI content 10x more effective
The brand voice development process that ensures consistency across all content
Why most AI content fails (and how to avoid these critical mistakes)
The "library of content" strategy for long-term SEO and authority building
How to scale one blog post into 10+ pieces of repurposed content
Real examples from student startups (safety translation software, career guidance platforms, and more)

Key Takeaways:

✅ AI isn't creative until you teach it your context

✅ Specificity in your Ideal Customer Profile is what makes AI come alive

✅ Your brand voice becomes your secret weapon for unique AI content

✅ Pain points should drive your content topics, not random keyword research

✅ Search engines need to recognize you as an authority through consistent, expert content

Perfect For:

Entrepreneurs struggling with content creation
Small business owners wanting to compete with bigger brands
Marketing professionals looking for scalable content systems
Anyone tired of generic, obvious AI-generated content
Startups needing to establish thought leadership quickly

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Are you spending hours every week creating social media content with little to show for it? You're not alone. The average business owner wastes over 3 hours weekly on social media that doesn't generate leads or sales.

In this game-changing episode, I sit down with Katie Brinkley, founder of Next Step Social and author of "The Social Shift," who reveals her proven 4-post strategy that cut her content creation time from hours to just 40 minutes per week - while dramatically increasing her results.

Katie's journey from sports reporter for the Denver Broncos to successful agency owner gives her a unique perspective on building community and fan loyalty that translates perfectly to social media marketing. You'll discover how to stop posting random content and start creating strategic posts that guide your audience through a customer journey.

What You'll Learn:

The 4-post strategy that transforms social media from time-waster to lead generator
How to create "problem aware" content that hooks your ideal customers
Why community-building beats going viral every single time
The secret to showing up authentically without looking "polished"
How to leverage short-form video even if you hate being on camera
Why most businesses fail at social media (and how to avoid their mistakes)

Whether you're a corporate marketer, entrepreneur, or small business owner, this episode will completely shift how you approach social media strategy.

Connect with Katie Brinkley:

Website: https://katiebrinkley.com
Book: The Social Shift
Agency: Next Step Social

Stop wasting time on social media that doesn't work. Start implementing Katie's proven system today.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Most marketers treat YouTube like Facebook or LinkedIn - posting content and hoping to drive traffic back to their website. This approach fails because YouTube is fundamentally different. It's a recommendation engine, not a traditional social platform.

In this episode, you'll learn why successful YouTube creators think differently than marketers, discover the research strategy that reveals what content YouTube actually promotes in your niche, and get the framework for creating videos the algorithm wants to recommend.

If you've been frustrated with YouTube or haven't started because it seems overwhelming, this episode gives you the strategic foundation to succeed in 2024.

What You'll Learn

Why thinking like a marketer kills your YouTube success
The "ghost account" research method from Derral Eves' YouTube Formula
The 3 elements that determine if someone clicks your video
Why your first 15 seconds make or break retention
How YouTube success improves your Google rankings
The 5-video format strategy for finding what works

Resources Mentioned

Derral Eves' "The YouTube Formula" book
My interview with Derral Eves
YouTube Analytics and YouTube Studio

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The YouTube Formula: How Anyone Can Unlock the Algorithm to Drive Views, Build an Audience, and Grow Revenue

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Ever wonder how someone goes from frustrated agency employee to building a trusted content empire? Derek from NapLab shares his remarkable journey of turning a terrible mattress shopping experience into a business that replaced his salary in just two months.

In this episode, you'll discover Derek's "create what you wished existed" approach to content strategy, why he started testing mattresses in a cramped one-bedroom apartment with nothing but a cell phone and lamp lighting, and how this humble beginning led to one of the most trusted review sites in the mattress industry.

Key takeaways from this conversation:

How to identify profitable content opportunities from your own consumer frustrations
Why starting imperfectly beats waiting for the right equipment or skills
The simple transparency strategy that builds more trust than any sales funnel
How to monetize content without compromising your integrity or audience trust
Derek's approach to weathering Google algorithm updates by focusing on authenticity
Why saying no to sponsored content actually increased his revenue
The North Star mindset that guides every piece of content he creates

Derek's story proves that authenticity and genuine problem-solving will always win over flashy marketing tactics. Whether you're a content creator, entrepreneur, or business owner looking to build trust with your audience, this episode offers a blueprint for turning your expertise into sustainable income while maintaining your integrity.

Connect with Derek at NapLab.com or find him on LinkedIn.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Tired of spending hours researching agencies only to end up more confused than when you started? In this episode, I reveal my solution to one of marketing's biggest time-wasters: finding the right agency partner.

After years of getting asked "Neal, who would you recommend?" for everything from SEO to video production, I decided to do something about it. I partnered with Clutch, the leading B2B service provider platform, to personally curate 12 specialized directories of agencies I actually recommend.

These aren't just random lists—each directory has been carefully vetted based on proven results, verified client feedback, and deep expertise. Whether you're a startup with a limited budget or an enterprise brand with complex needs, there's a trusted partner for you.

What You'll Learn:

Why agency selection has become such a major pain point for marketers
How my dual role as Fractional CMO shaped my approach to these directories
The 12 specialized categories and what makes each one unique
My personal curation process and selection criteria
How to use these directories to save time and reduce risk in your agency partnerships
What makes this partnership with Clutch different from typical agency lists

The 12 Curated Directories:

✅ Top Digital Marketing Agencies

✅ Best SEO Companies

✅ Leading AI Development Companies

✅ Creative Video Production Agencies

✅ Strategic Social Media Marketing Agencies

✅ Recommended Lead Generation Partners

✅ Trusted Ecommerce Development Companies

✅ Specialized WordPress Development Companies

✅ Expert Content Marketing Firms

✅ Proven Email Marketing Agencies

✅ Influential Influencer Marketing Agencies

✅ Preferred Facebook Advertising Partners

Key Takeaways:

Great agency partnerships can be transformational, but poor fits waste time and money
Starting with vetted lists dramatically improves your chances of finding the right partner
These directories include global options across different price points and specialties
The lists are living resources that I'll be updating as the industry evolves

Resources Mentioned:

Access All 12 Directories: nealschaffer.com/clutch
Learn More About Clutch: clutch.co/about-us

Individual Directory Links:

My Top Digital Marketing Agencies
My Best SEO Companies
My Leading AI Development Companies
My Creative Video Production Agencies
My Strategic Social

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Sales and marketing teams at war? You're not alone. While most companies treat these as separate functions fighting for resources, the winning businesses have cracked the code on true revenue alignment.

In this eye-opening episode, I sit down with A. Lee Judge, author of "CASH" and founder of Content Monster, who reveals the uncomfortable truth about why some companies are eliminating CMO positions entirely and replacing them with Chief Revenue Officers. But it's not what you think.

Lee, who uniquely served as both a marketer managing Salesforce and a bridge between warring departments, shares the simple meeting strategy that transformed competing teams into unified revenue machines. You'll discover the specific metrics that keep marketers employed when budget cuts come, and why learning to "speak sales language" isn't just helpful—it's survival.

Key Takeaways:

Why the traditional marketing "handoff" to sales is dead (and what replaces it)
The sports team analogy that will change how you view sales and marketing forever
How to reverse-engineer closed deals to discover what marketing actually works
The meeting hack that eliminates silos and creates alignment overnight
Specific revenue-focused KPIs that prove marketing's worth to the C-suite
Why 80% of the customer journey happens before sales gets involved

Whether you're running a team of 2 or 200, the principles Lee shares about creating feedback loops, shared metrics, and collaborative systems will transform how you think about growing your business. Perfect for marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, business owners, and anyone tired of internal battles hurting their bottom line.

Warning: This episode challenges everything most businesses believe about sales and marketing departments. Listen only if you're ready to revolutionize your revenue approach.

Guest Resources:

A. Lee Judge's book "CASH: The 4 Keys to Better Sales, Smarter Marketing, and a Supercharged Revenue Machine" - Available on Amazon
Content Monster (Lee's multimedia content agency) - contentmonsta.com
A. Lee Judge's website - aleejudge.com

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Struggling to compete with content creators for attention on social media? What if I told you that one innovative company decided to turn their entire team into creators instead of hiring expensive influencers?

In this revealing episode, I break down how Buffer revolutionized employee advocacy by moving beyond "please share our company posts" to "please build your own personal brand." The results? 90% participation, over 2.5 million total reach, and a cultural shift that's making competitors take notice.

This isn't your typical employee advocacy program - it's the future of user-generated content strategy, and it perfectly illustrates the Platform Authentic Content concepts from my book Digital Threads.

In this episode, you'll discover:

✅ Why traditional employee advocacy programs fail (and what Buffer did differently)

✅ The three-pillar system Buffer used: Slack community, resource hub, and Creator Café workshops

✅ How to shift from promotional mindset to authentic personal brand building

✅ Why empowering employees as creators beats hiring external influencers

✅ The impressive results: 4,100+ posts, 4M impressions, and measurable confidence growth

✅ How this strategy creates authentic brand advocates who understand the creator struggle

✅ Practical steps to implement this with just 3-5 employees (you don't need Buffer's resources)

Perfect for: Entrepreneurs and small business owners looking for authentic content strategies, marketers struggling with creator economy competition, and business leaders wanting to build stronger employer branding while scaling content creation.

Key Takeaway: Instead of competing with content creators, smart companies are creating their own creators from within - turning employees into authentic brand advocates while building their personal brands.

Resources Mentioned:

Digital Threads by Neal Schaffer (available on Amazon)
Buffer's Team of Creators case study

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Tired of cold emails that get ignored? What if I told you that sending gourmet cookies could be more effective than your entire digital marketing budget?

In this eye-opening episode, I sit down with Corey Quinn, former CMO at Scorpion and author of “Anyone Not Everyone,” who reveals how gift-based outreach became their company’s #1 sales channel - outperforming a $6 million marketing budget that included ads, content, and 100 annual events.

Corey shares the exact strategy that helped close seven-figure deals with brands like Lululemon, ReMax, and Hyundai, and how his team scaled this approach to send 15,000+ gifts annually while growing the company to $200 million in revenue.

In this episode, you’ll discover:

✅ Why traditional cold outreach fails (and the psychology behind gift-based marketing)

✅ The “unique, striking, impression” framework for choosing the perfect business gifts

✅ How to build a high-quality prospect list that actually converts (it’s not about volume)

✅ The 6-step follow-up system that turns gift recipients into million-dollar clients

✅ Why timing is everything (and when to call after your gift arrives)

✅ The long-term strategy of consistent gifting that beats one-off campaigns

✅ Real case studies: From overnight FedEx cookies to custom embroidered pillows

Perfect for: Entrepreneurs and small business owners struggling with lead generation, content creators looking to monetize their audience through B2B services, and anyone tired of competing in the crowded digital marketing space.

Key Takeaway: Sometimes the most effective marketing strategy isn’t digital at all - it’s deeply personal and surprisingly analog.

Guest Bio: Corey Quinn is a sales and marketing expert who spent 19 consecutive quarters as the top producer at a digital agency before becoming CMO at Scorpion, where he helped scale the company to $200 million. He’s the author of “Anyone Not Everyone” and specializes in helping businesses escape the generalist trap through deep specialization and relationship-driven marketing.

Free Resource: Listeners can get Corey’s audiobook “Anyone Not Everyone” plus workbook, videos, and templates at anyonenoteveryone.com

Subscribe to the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast for weekly insights on building and growing your business through strategic digital marketing.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Are you getting generic, robotic outputs from ChatGPT that sound like everyone else's AI-generated content? You're not alone—and you're definitely using AI wrong.

In this episode, I'm revealing my ASKNEAL™ framework, a revolutionary 7-step system I developed while revising my bestselling book "Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth." This isn't just another AI hack—it's a complete methodology for collaborating with AI tools to amplify your authentic voice across every aspect of your business.

What You'll Learn:

The 7 steps of my ASKNEAL™ framework and how to implement each one
Why most people's AI prompts fail (and how to fix them immediately)
Real-world examples of the framework in action for LinkedIn, email marketing, and business strategy
How to make AI sound like YOU, not like a robot
The universal principles that work across all AI tools and use cases
My personal story of developing this framework and the dramatic results

Special Announcements:

Details on the revised and expanded Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth (nearly double the original content!)
How current book owners can get a FREE upgrade to the new version
Implementation challenge to test the framework this week

Whether you're a solopreneur struggling with content creation, a marketer trying to scale your output, or a business owner looking to leverage AI without losing your authentic voice, this framework will transform how you work with artificial intelligence.

Stop sounding like everyone else. Start sounding like the best version of YOU—with AI as your amplifier, not your replacement.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In today’s show, we’re going deep into one of the hottest topics for any entrepreneur right now: how to really use AI to grow your brand and business. Many of us know the power of AI, but we don’t always know where to start or how to keep our work from sounding robotic. That’s why this talk with John Suarez, co-author of The Marketer’s Manual on Generative AI, is so important. You’ll hear simple ways to plug AI into your daily tasks, tips to avoid overthinking it, and why your brand still needs your human touch to stand out. If you want to compete with bigger companies, save time, and unlock new growth, you won’t want to miss this.

Guest Links

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Buy John's Book: The Marketer's Manual on Generative AI: Harness AI to Lead, Innovate, and Profit in Business

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Today we’re going to talk about something that can change the way you grow your brand — how you follow up.

So many people focus on getting new followers, but the real gold lies in the people you’ve already talked to.

It’s easy to lose track of warm leads, superfans, and partners when your messages are buried in your DMs and emails, which is why organizing your contacts and creating a system for follow up is so important.

When you have a personal CRM, you stop leaving money and relationships on the table and start to stay top of mind. You also are able to turn connections into real growth for your brand and business.

My recommended tool from this episode: Kondo

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode, I’m bringing you an eye-opening conversation with Bruce Clay, the man many call the Father of SEO.

We explore how search engine optimization has evolved over nearly three decades and how AI is changing the rules once again.

Bruce shares why SEO is more than just keywords — it’s about owning your place on the search results page, understanding intent, and working across teams to grow your traffic.

If you want your business to stay visible and keep driving results in this new era, this episode will show you how important it is to think beyond just organic search and embrace a bigger picture.

This is a must-listen for any marketer or business serious about staying ahead in digital marketing.

Guest Links

Bruce Clay's Website
Connect with Bruce on LinkedIn
PreWriter

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Welcome to a very important episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. Today I’m diving deep into one of the biggest changes happening in digital marketing right now: the silent collapse of traditional SEO. For years, search engines—especially Google—have been a major source of traffic for businesses. But with the rise of AI tools and new ways people search for information, that traffic is shrinking. This episode will help you understand what’s going on, why it matters to your business, and what you can do about it. If you care about growing your brand, staying relevant, and building trust in the age of AI, this is a must-listen.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, we’re taking a deep dive into a platform that’s often overlooked in digital marketing — YouTube. With so much talk around LinkedIn, TikTok, and even AI-driven search, it’s easy to forget that YouTube is the second largest search engine and a massive opportunity for both B2C and B2B marketers. My guest, YouTube expert Dane Golden, shares why YouTube is more than just a place to post videos — it's a powerful engine for growing trust, building relationships, and driving real business results. If you’re not using YouTube strategically yet, now’s the time to rethink how it fits into your digital marketing mix.

Guest Links

Connect with Dane on LinkedIn
Dane's Agency VidAction
Dane's YouTube Ads Podcast

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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If you’re creating content without repurposing it, you’re leaving value — and reach — on the table. In this episode, I break down my complete framework for turning a single piece of long-form “anchor content” into over 50 separate pieces of content across social, blogs, newsletters, and video platforms. Content is your most powerful digital marketing tool, but only if you treat it like the asset it truly is. This episode is for anyone who wants to grow their online brand, expand their reach, and save time by working smarter, not harder.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode, I sit down with Dr. Mary Beth McCabe, a university professor and co-author of one of the most widely used mobile marketing textbooks in the world. We dive deep into what it truly means to have a mobile-first mindset in your digital marketing. This isn't just about having an app—it's about how mobile impacts everything from messaging, email, and social to analytics and even AI. Whether you’re a small business owner or an experienced marketer, understanding mobile can help you connect faster and more directly with your customers. This is a must-listen if you want to future-proof your digital strategy and grow your brand.

Guest Links

Connect with Dr. Mary Beth McCabe on LinkedIn
Learn More about Mobile Marketing Essentials

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In today's episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I’m diving into something most people take for granted—the social media dashboard. You might still be using a tool built for posting links and photos, but today’s platforms demand more, especially with the rise of short-form video. This is a big deal, because the way you manage and share content can make or break your marketing efforts. I’ll share my personal journey of finding a better tool, and how switching dashboards helped me save time, create better posts, and get more out of my strategy. If you're serious about growing your brand and reaching people with the right kind of content, this is a must-listen.

Some Social Media Dashboards Mentioned in This Podcast (affiliate links)

Buffer
SocialBee
Vista Social
Ocoya
Sendible
Later
Sprout Social
SocialPilot

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Your website is your digital storefront — so are you tracking the right things to make sure it's actually working for your business?

In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I talk with analytics expert Philippa Gamse about what most marketers are missing when it comes to website data.

Whether it's unclear calls to action, poor form conversion, or people dropping off your videos early, your analytics hold the key to fixing these leaks.

Website analytics aren't just for tech folks — they’re essential for growing your brand, increasing conversions, and turning more visitors into real customers.

Philippa helps break it all down so any business owner can start making smart, informed changes today.

Guest Links

Connect with Philippa on LinkedIn
Websites that Win

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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If you're struggling to create enough content to grow your business, you're not alone. Even after years of podcasting and blogging, I still face this challenge. That’s why this episode is all about showing you a real-world system to scale content without breaking the bank. You'll learn how to use generative AI and trusted freelancers in a smart, repeatable way—all while staying under $1,000 a month. This is an important topic because content is at the heart of digital marketing. It brings people to your site, builds trust, and helps convert followers into customers. Without content, your digital marketing doesn’t work. So if you're looking to build a stronger system, spend less, and still grow faster, you won't want to miss this one.

Tools Mentioned (include affiliate links to help support the show!)

ChatGPT: For writing and image generation.
Elementor: For blog featured images in WordPress.
Upwork: For finding good freelance help.
Fiverr: Upwork alternative.
Trello: For managing my content process.
Loom: To explain tasks to freelancers quickly.
Frase: For SEO optimization of blog posts.
SocialBee: For scheduling social content.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I’m joined by James Hipkin, author of Journey to Success: Digital Marketing for Small Business Owners. James brings decades of experience helping businesses build smarter, more effective websites — and more importantly, explains why websites are still the most important piece of your digital marketing puzzle.

We talk about why your website is the only part of your digital marketing you truly own, how to stop treating it like just another design project, and how to start using it as a tool for real connection and trust. Whether you’re trying to improve conversions, make better use of your marketing budget, or understand where AI fits in the mix, this episode will give you the foundation you need. If you’re serious about using digital marketing to grow your business, it all starts with your website — and this episode tells you how.

Guest Links

Connect with James on LinkedIn
James' agency inn8ly

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I’m diving into one of the biggest changes to how we show up in Google search results—the AI overview box. If you’ve noticed a drop in your traffic, you’re not alone. These new AI summaries are changing how people click, what links they trust, and which brands get noticed. I went deep into the data—10 studies from the past year—to find the real patterns that help content get featured. From building stronger topic clusters to writing short, clear answers and updating your posts more often, I’ll show you what works right now. This matters because showing up in these AI results can bring the most valuable visitors to your site—people ready to learn and take action.

Links to Data Sources Used

https://www.wpbeginner.com/beginners-guide/google-ai-overviews-sge/
https://www.conductor.com/academy/search-generative-experience/
https://www.advancedwebranking.com/blog/how-to-takle-google-ai-overviews-search-generative-experience
https://www.resultfirst.com/blog/ai-seo/ai-overviews-explained-the-ultimate-guide-to-googles-search-generative-experience-sge/
https://exposureninja.com/blog/how-to-rank-ai-overview/
https://seowind.io/how-to-optimize-for-google-ai-overview/
https://seranking.com/blog/how-to-optimize-for-ai-overviews/
https://webmasters.stackexchange.com/questions/143199/how-to-optimize-a-website-for-google-search-generative-experience-sge
https://www.rocktherankings.com/how-to-rank-google-ai-overview/
https://hawksem.com/blog/google-ai-overviews/

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In today’s episode, we’re diving deep into a fresh way to look at AI—one that goes beyond writing content or summarizing documents. My guest, Stephen Lewis, a seasoned journalist and copywriter with decades of experience, shares how businesses can use AI not just as a helper, but as a full-blown strategic partner. We explore how to create synthetic personas—AI-powered customer models that give honest, detailed feedback. This isn’t just about tech. It’s about using smart tools to better understand your audience, improve your message, and grow your brand. If you’ve ever wondered how to get ahead in digital marketing with AI, this episode will show you how.

Guest Links:

Connect with Steven on LInkedIn
Steven's Copywriting Agency Taleist
Steve's AI Course

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Monetizing your personal brand isn't just about brand deals anymore. With AI, content creators, entrepreneurs, and influencers now have powerful tools to uncover fresh income streams and build deeper connections with their audience. In this episode, I share advanced strategies pulled straight from my UCLA Extension class, showing how to use AI to grow your influence, better understand your audience, and create new digital products and services. Whether you’re just starting out or already have a growing following, these tips will help you turn your personal brand into a full-on business. It’s all part of building a smarter, more profitable digital presence—and it’s something every marketer should know.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode I talk with David Sidoni, the founder of HowToBuyAHome.com. David took his passion for educating first-time homebuyers and turned it into a digital-first brand and thriving business, built almost entirely from a podcast. This episode is full of lessons on niche marketing, the power of organic content, and how to build trust through education. If you're trying to grow your brand, connect with your audience, or use content to drive your business forward, David’s story will inspire and guide you.

Guest Links

HowToBuyAHome.com
How to Buy a Home Podcast
Connect with David on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Are you spending time on the right things in your marketing? Or just doing more for the sake of it? In this episode, I’ll walk you through the simple but powerful quarterly audit I use to double down on what’s working and ditch what’s not. It’s helped me grow faster and save time—and it can do the same for you.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In today's digital world, where AI can write a blog post in seconds and content is everywhere, the one thing that still sets you apart is your ability to tell a great story. And not just any story—a strategic one. That’s why I’m excited to introduce Cathy Goodwin, a true expert in the field of strategic storytelling. Cathy has built her brand around helping entrepreneurs and small business owners tell stories that connect, convert, and grow their business. In this episode, we’ll dig into why storytelling is more than just a buzzword, how it can shape your brand, and why it's so important that your customer—not you—is the hero of the story. If you’re ready to stop telling stories that fall flat and start sharing ones that truly move your audience, this episode is for you.

Guest Links

Cathy Goodwin's Website
Connect with Cathy on Instagram
Buy Your Mess is Not Your Message: Branding Strategies for Solopreneurs on Amazon

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I dive into a surprisingly powerful but underused tool: LinkedIn newsletters. As more people focus on short-form content, newsletters offer a way to go deep and truly connect with your audience. I’ll explain how newsletters not only get more views and engagement than normal posts, but also help you grow your leads and even improve your SEO. Whether you're just getting started or looking to improve your current strategy, this episode will give you clear and simple ways to use LinkedIn newsletters to grow your business.

Also check out LinkedIn Newsletters: Why They are Worth Your Time and 6 Best Practices on How to Create Them for further information on the topic.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Digital marketing is constantly changing, but one thing remains the same: success requires more than just chasing the latest trends. In this episode, I’m joined by Corey Morris, agency owner and author of The Digital Marketing Success Plan, to talk about how businesses can build a strategic, data-driven approach to their marketing efforts. Corey shares his journey from SEO expert to agency owner, his five-step START framework for creating a winning marketing plan, and his insights on the biggest shifts shaping digital marketing today, including AI, SEO, and diversified traffic sources. Whether you're running a marketing agency, leading a team, or managing your own business, this episode will help you refine your strategy, optimize your efforts, and drive real results.

Guest Links

Connect with Corey on LinkedIn
Buy The Digital Marketing Success Plan on Amazon
Check out Corey's Agency Voltage

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Influencer marketing is no longer about just finding someone with a big following and paying them to promote your brand. It’s about building trust, leveraging content creators, and creating meaningful relationships that drive long-term brand awareness and conversions.

In this episode, I speak with Yash Chavan, founder and CEO of the influencer marketing platform Saral, about how brands can navigate the Age of Influence. We discuss the evolution of influencer marketing, the shift from follower-based influence to content-driven influence, and how businesses can harness user-generated content, affiliate partnerships, and even brand ambassador programs to scale their digital presence.

If you’re wondering how to adapt your influencer marketing strategy for 2025 and beyond, this episode is packed with actionable insights you won’t want to miss!

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Marketing isn't just about selling—it’s about purpose, meaning, and engagement. In this episode, I sit down with Minter Dial to explore how brands can align internal culture with external messaging, create meaningful customer relationships, and even incorporate play into work. We’ll also dive into the power of self-awareness and how knowing thyself can transform both business and life. This is an episode filled with inspiration and actionable insights.

Guest Links

Connect with Minter on LinkedIn
Minter's Website
Check Out Minter's Books on Amazon

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Social media has changed, and if you're still using it like a business instead of a content creator, you're falling behind. The truth is, algorithms don’t care about follower count anymore—they care about content. So what does that mean for your business? You have two choices: become a content creator or leverage user-generated content. Which path will you choose? I’m breaking it all down in this episode.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Data is everywhere in digital marketing, but are you truly using it to your advantage? In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I sit down with Brett Townsend, Senior VP of Strategy at Quester, to break down how brands can go beyond the numbers and uncover real insights that drive action.

Marketing analytics is more than just reporting results—it’s about finding the hidden patterns and consumer narratives that can shape better campaigns, stronger products, and deeper customer relationships. Brett shares his expertise from working with major global brands like Pepsi, Doritos, and Walmart, along with insights from his book, Insights on the Brink: Revitalizing the Market Research and Analytics Industry.

If you're a small business or marketer looking to turn data into meaningful strategy, this episode is packed with valuable takeaways.

Guest Links

Connect with Brett on LinkedIn
Buy Insights on the Brink: Revitalizing the Market Research and Analytics Industry on Amazon
Quester

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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If you're trying to grow your business on LinkedIn but struggling to get traction, you’re not alone.

What if I told you that LinkedIn content could be optimized just like SEO?

In this episode, we’re diving into a brand-new way of approaching LinkedIn content—using AI tools that analyze top-performing posts and provide insights to maximize your reach and engagement.

I’ll break down how these tools work, why I’m giving them my official thumbs up (even after recommending sticking to ChatGPT before), and how you can start using them to get better results.

If you want to stop guessing and start strategizing on LinkedIn, this episode is for you!

Recommended Tools List (affiliate links)

Taplio
ContentIn
SayWhat

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Brand awareness isn’t just for big companies with deep pockets—it’s a critical part of growing any business, including startups and small businesses. But many companies focus only on short-term sales and performance marketing, missing out on the long-term benefits of building a strong, recognizable brand.

In this episode, I sit down with James Hurman, the founder of Previously Unavailable, to explore the science behind advertising effectiveness. James shares why businesses struggle to grow beyond their initial customer base and how creative, evidence-based marketing strategies can help. We discuss the balance between performance marketing and brand-building, the power of storytelling in advertising, and the critical role of creativity in making campaigns more effective.

If you’ve ever wondered why some brands seem to attract loyal customers effortlessly while others fade away, this episode is for you. Get ready to rethink your marketing strategy and unlock the true potential of your brand!

Guest Links

Previously Unavailable
Connect with James on LinkedIn
James' book Future Demand on Amazon

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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This episode explores the imperative shift from a digital-first mindset to an AI-first approach in marketing, emphasizing how to incorporate AI into internal processes for enhanced efficiency and creativity. Throughout, I discuss strategic alignment, process documentation, custom AI models, training with quality data, and automation for maximum impact.

• Discussing the transition to an AI-first mindset
• Importance of aligning AI with marketing objectives
• Utilizing AI as a second opinion for marketing strategies
• Documenting processes for optimized marketing activities
• Creating custom GPTs tailored to brand needs
• Training AI with quality data for better outputs
• Scaling efficiencies through automation for marketing tasks

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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This episode dives into the pressing issue of AI's role in content marketing and its implications for search engine rankings. We discuss the risks of over-reliance on AI while emphasizing the importance of maintaining quality, originality, and a human touch in content creation.

• Exploring the balance between AI efficiency and content quality
• Google’s stance on AI content and implications for rankings
• The role of Originalityai in ensuring high-quality content
• Recent trends in AI-generated content and their consequences
• Future directions for AI in content marketing and editorial integrity

GUEST LINKS

Originality.ai [affiliate]
Connect with Jon on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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This 400th episode of this podcast revolves around insights into 7 pivotal digital marketing themes that have emerged from the top 25 episodes of my recent 100 over the last 2 years.

You will learn how to integrate essential aspects like artificial intelligence, content creation, branding, and influencer partnerships to thrive in an ever-evolving digital landscape.

• Embracing AI for enhanced marketing efficiency
• Importance of authentic content in social media
• Developing strategic influencer partnerships for brand credibility
• Psychological principles shaping effective branding
• Maximizing customer experience through marketing automation
• Fostering business growth through leadership and collaboration
• Ensuring visibility and discoverability in the digital age

Feel free to reach out to me at neal@nealschaffer.com to provide feedback or suggest themes for future episodes!

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the secrets of successful small business marketing with insights from Dave Charest, director of Small Business Success at Constant Contact. Discover how even small, impactful actions can create "wow experiences" that fuel word-of-mouth marketing and elevate your brand's digital presence without emptying your wallet. Join us as we promise a transformation in your marketing approach, leveraging email, social channels, and automation to not only engage but also build lasting relationships with your customers.

With Dave's expertise, we highlight the timeless power of word-of-mouth marketing, showing its relevance in today’s digital conversations. Learn the art of staying top-of-mind for potential customers by effectively integrating these strategies into your marketing framework and watching your small business compete with larger brands.

Our conversation is packed with practical tips, including the strategic use of tools like Instagram, email, and text messaging. We emphasize aligning marketing strategies with specific business goals, ensuring every effort is purposeful and impactful.

Whether it's setting personal benchmarks, conducting regular technology audits, or adopting a simple and focused approach to outsourcing, this episode has everything you need to enhance productivity and ensure continuous self-improvement.

Guest Links

Constant Contact
Connect with Dave on LinkedIn
Be a Marketer Podcast with Dave Charest

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Marketing is essential to growing your business, but hiring the right support can be confusing. Should you work with a marketing agency, bring in a consultant, or hire a Fractional CMO? Each option has its pros and cons, and making the wrong choice could mean wasted budget and minimal results.

In this episode, I break down the differences between agencies, consultants, and fractional CMOS—so you can decide which is best for your business. I’ll share real insights from my experience in all three roles and explain why a fractional CMO offers the best mix of strategy, execution, and ROI. If you want to get smarter about your marketing spend and grow your business with real results, this is the episode for you!

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Elevate your marketing strategy by understanding the transformative power of public relations. Michelle Garrett shares expert insights on integrating PR with marketing efforts, emphasizing collaboration, authenticity, and the importance of writing in crafting compelling narratives.

• PR as a game changer for brand visibility
• Core writing skills as foundational for PR success
• Understanding the role of AI in content creation
• The evolving importance of press releases today
• Integrating PR with social media and content marketing
• Challenges in measuring PR success
• Effective media outreach and building relationships
• The growing role of authentic influencers in PR
• Necessity for collaboration between marketing and PR teams
• Long-term commitment required for PR effectiveness

Guest Links

Buy B2B PR That Gets Results: A Guide to Simple and Targeted Public Relations Practices by Michelle Garrett
Garrett Public Relations
Connect with Michelle on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Twitter has always been a major player in social media, driving traffic and engagement for businesses. But things, as you well know, have changed. In this episode, I reveal why I believe Twitter is no longer a true social media platform and why I now classify it as "political media." Using my own data and observations, I break down how Twitter's algorithm prioritizes political content over business conversations, why engagement is dropping, and what this means for marketers. Most importantly, I share my advice on where you should be focusing your time and resources instead. If your brand still relies on Twitter for visibility and traffic, this is an episode you can’t afford to miss.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In today’s episode, we’re diving into the exciting world of e-commerce with Neil Twa, co-author of Almost Automated Income with FBA. Neil has spent over a decade helping businesses go from nothing to building scalable, profitable brands that thrive on platforms like Amazon, TikTok, and more. E-commerce is one of the fastest-growing opportunities in digital marketing, offering incredible potential for entrepreneurs who are ready to identify profitable niches, connect with their ideal customers, and leverage multiple sales channels. Whether you’re new to the game or want to scale your current business, this episode is packed with insights to help you grow your brand and even prepare for a lucrative exit. Get ready to learn how to turn your ideas into income!

Guest Links

Buy Almost-Automated Income with FBA on Amazon
Voltage (Neil's Company)
Connect with Neil on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Navigating the complex landscape of startup marketing presents unique challenges, from building brand awareness to defining audience and managing budgets. By adopting strategic approaches, startups can transform their marketing hurdles into opportunities for growth and success.

Inspired by the books I have written, including my recent Digital Threads and Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth, here is my definitive guide to startup marketing, including advice on:

• Building brand awareness through digital channels
• Defining ideal customers with data-driven decisions
• Overcoming budget constraints with resourceful spending
• Prioritizing quality leads for targeted engagement
• Competing with established brands through creativity and agility
• Strategies for scaling marketing efforts sustainably

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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AI is redefining influencer marketing by enabling brands to identify the right influencers with unparalleled precision. In this episode, we discussed the transformative role of AI in influencer discovery, personalized outreach, and campaign performance analysis.

• The continuous growth of influencer marketing and its increasing relevance
• Importance of using AI for authentic influencer identification
• Streamlining outreach processes through AI personalization
• Enhancing campaign performance analysis with AI
• Evolving landscape of influencer marketing with a focus on short video formats
• Anticipated innovations in content production driven by AI

Guest Links

HypeAuditor
Alexander Frolov on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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This episode explores effective strategies for improving discoverability in 2025, emphasizing the importance of adapting to video content and content repurposing. Marketers are encouraged to leverage their existing assets and create tailored content to engage audiences on various platforms.

• Importance of content as currency in digital marketing
• Shift towards video-first strategies for discoverability
• Understanding the need for tailored communication across platforms
• The power of content repurposing for maximizing existing resources
• Role of AI in enhancing content strategies
• Balancing content creation with audience engagement

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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What if embracing the imperfections in your brand could make it more appealing?

Nancy Harhut, a leading expert in behavioral science and author of Using Behavioral Science in Marketing, joins us to reveal how counterintuitive marketing strategies can set your brand apart in a crowded market.

Discover the unexpected power of acknowledging flaws and strategic misspellings in capturing attention and building consumer trust. Nancy's groundbreaking insights promise to transform your approach to social media, email campaigns, and the overall customer experience by leveraging the quirks of human psychology.

Learn how to harness the potential of the Prattfall effect and the door-in-the-face technique, tactics that defy conventional wisdom yet deliver impressive results. Nancy and I explore how the autonomy bias can double consumer compliance by giving them the freedom to choose, rather than directly pushing for a sale. You'll also hear about the effectiveness of follow-up communications and how subtle psychological cues, like prompts and nudges, can spur desired customer actions and elevate your marketing strategies.

Nancy's wealth of knowledge extends across various industries, offering applicable insights for everyone from marketing professionals to business owners. Behavioral science has the power to enhance your efforts in both B2B and B2C arenas. Don't miss this opportunity to rethink your marketing tactics.

Guest Links

Connect with Nancy on LinkedIn
Buy Using Behavioral Science in Marketing on Amazon
Check Out Nancy's Company HBT Marketing

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Using Behavioral Science in Marketing: Drive Customer Action and Loyalty by Prompting Instinctive Responses

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Unlock the future of digital marketing with me as I guide you through the transformative concept of the democratization of discoverability. Ever wondered how to maintain your business's visibility without constantly churning out social media content? This episode promises to reveal how long-lasting content like blogs, podcasts, and YouTube videos can be your key to enduring discoverability. We'll explore the rapidly changing landscape of search, driven by large language models and AI, and discuss how platforms such as Bing and ChatGPT are becoming pivotal in driving traffic. Learn why adapting to these shifts is essential for sustaining your business's online presence in 2025 and beyond.

Explore the evolution of search algorithms and the shift toward an audience-centric approach as AI redefines how content is discovered. Say goodbye to the days of keyword obsession and welcome a future where AI and social media reshape the discoverability landscape. As platforms like Google, YouTube, Amazon, and TikTok develop AI-driven user experiences, I'll share insights on the expanding influence of generative AI and large language models. These tools are not just changing how we find content; they're creating new pathways for discovery beyond traditional search engines.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Networking, connections, and relationships—these are the lifeblood of professional success. Yet, in a world dominated by numbers and KPIs, it’s easy to lose sight of the people behind the metrics.

Today’s episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast dives deep into how meaningful relationships—not just surface-level networking—can transform your career, your business, and your life. Joined by Jeff Lerner, fractional CMO and author of The Power of Relationships in Professional Growth, we’ll explore the art of turning contacts into champions, nurturing mentorships, and building a legacy of trust and collaboration.

GUEST LINKS

Connect with Jeff on LinkedIn
Check out Jeff's company Misnomer Marketing
The Power of Relationships in Professional Growth on Amazon

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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I recently attended Author Nation, the premier conference for self-published authors in Las Vegas. While it might seem like fiction authors and digital marketers are worlds apart, the lessons I learned prove otherwise. From innovative uses of AI to the art of leveraging "borrowed audiences" and creating content that captivates through curiosity, authors are blazing trails that marketers can follow. Join me as I share 10 game-changing insights from Author Nation that will inspire your digital marketing strategy in 2025 and beyond!

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreadsamazon
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinamazon
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/books/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the secrets to mastering clear communication in digital marketing with insights from my guest, Ben Gutmann, a former marketing agency owner and professor. Ben shares his journey from leading a successful agency to penning his book "Simply Put: Why Clear Messages Win and How to Design Them," emphasizing the profound impact of simplicity in messaging. Discover how clear and fluent messages not only resonate with audiences but also drive successful marketing campaigns.

Explore the art of crafting simple yet powerful messages, as we dissect the common traps of overcomplicating communication and the science behind why simplicity prevails. Ben and I discuss the pivotal role of focusing on benefits over features, using relatable examples like mint toothpaste to illustrate how emotional benefits can transform your marketing approach. Learn practical strategies to connect with your audience on a personal level, whether through creating customer avatars or tailoring messages across platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram. We’ll also touch on the impact of AI on messaging and the delicate balance between information and persuasion.

Whether you're crafting an advertisement, an email, or a proposal, this episode is packed with wisdom to help you communicate more effectively. So, tune in as we unravel the secrets behind clear and compelling communication with Ben Guttmann.

Guest Links

Buy Simply Put on Amazon
Connect with Ben on LinkedIn
Ben's Website

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Think LinkedIn is just a network of stiff profiles? Think again!

Treat it like a professional Instagram to boost your visibility.

Visual content is king on LinkedIn, and I'm here to guide you on harnessing its power for maximum engagement and visibility. Learn how images can outperform other post types and discover effective content patterns by analyzing your LinkedIn newsfeed. I challenge you to embrace more genuine, human-centric imagery in your LinkedIn strategy.

Tune in to learn the data-driven secrets you need to stand out!

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the potential of your business as we unveil the secrets to customer experience marketing with insights from expert Dan Gingiss. Imagine transforming dissatisfied customers into loyal advocates through memorable experiences that naturally generate positive buzz. Gain exclusive access to strategies that identify at-risk customers early, incorporating their feedback to enhance their journey and differentiate your brand through exceptional service. Whether you're a small business owner or a seasoned marketing professional, discover how impactful small gestures can rival large-scale projects when it comes to winning over your audience.

Join us as we explore the intersection of marketing and customer experience, and learn how personalized interactions at your favorite coffee shop can translate into powerful word-of-mouth marketing. With over two decades in the marketing industry, we delve into how small businesses can implement cost-effective customer experience tactics while leveraging user-generated content and brand ambassadors. Imagine your employees becoming your most passionate promoters, enriching the customer experience and amplifying brand loyalty without breaking the bank.

As we navigate the ever-evolving landscape of customer experience marketing, we delve into data-driven strategies to maximize customer retention. Discover how forward-thinking companies are using artificial intelligence to analyze customer behavior and prevent attrition, alleviating pressure on sales teams. From revolutionary sampling experiences pioneered by brands like Sipsmith Gin to the latest developments in AI, stay informed and inspired to innovate. Our personal reflections on social media trends round out this episode, offering fresh perspectives on creating authentic, shareable customer experiences that lead to organic promotion and sustainable growth.

GUEST LINKS

Dan Gingiss Website
Connect with Dan on LinkedIn
Buy The Experience Maker on Amazon

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

The Experience Maker: How to Create Remarkable Experiences That Your Customers Can’t Wait to Share

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SEO. You might think you know everything about search engine optimization, but AI is changing the game more rapidly than ever. The new search landscape isn't just about Google anymore—AI-driven tools like Chat GPT are redefining visibility and relevance. How can your business adapt and even thrive in this evolving scenario? I'm diving into the latest trends and offering practical steps to future-proof your SEO strategy. So stay tuned to this next episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the secrets to boosting your online visibility and making your brand irresistible with Google Knowledge Panels. I sat down with digital marketing expert Dennis Yu to uncover the transformative power of social media signals in search results. Learn how genuine customer engagement and user-generated content can elevate your Google-ability and cement your credibility in the digital landscape. With a focus on authentic content across platforms like YouTube, Twitter, and Instagram, Dennis provides valuable insights that will propel your brand to new heights.

Our conversation unpacks the essence of digital marketing, emphasizing the pivotal role that data and social media play in achieving marketing success. Drawing from decades of experience, Dennis highlights the nuances of algorithms used by giants like Google and TikTok, revealing how these systems interpret signals beyond mere website data. Explore strategic tactics for outpacing competition on platforms like Amazon and Netflix, and discover how embedding recognizable elements in your content can become a game-changer in the ranking race.

Dennis also sheds light on mastering Google relevance, urging businesses to focus on location-specific content to bolster their digital presence. With a thoughtful discussion on AI's role in marketing and updates from Facebook and Pinterest, Dennis provide a comprehensive look at the current trends and strategies shaping the industry. From tackling common mistakes to enhancing signal strength with authentic connections, this episode is packed with actionable advice to strengthen your online footprint without the constant pressure of being an influencer.

GUEST LINKS

Connect with Dennis on LinkedIn
Check out his company BlitzMetrics
Buy Dennis' book The Definitive Guide to TikTok Advertising

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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A lot is being said about how to best use AI in your marketing, but there is one thing that needs to be said:

ChatGPT is all about democratizing the use of AI. While understanding how to "prompt" an AI chatbot is important, what is more important is imagining the many different ways in which you can use this technology to help you work faster and/or smarter. And then implementing those ideas into reality.

That is what this episode is all about: It's all about innovating your approach to AI.

Pre-Order Digital Threads here: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads

Learn More:

Buy Digital Threads: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads
Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Today we dive deep into the world of personality-led growth and brand building with our special guest, Andy Lambert, co-founder of ContentCal and Senior Product Manager at Adobe Express. In this episode, we explore the crucial role of understanding customer pain points, especially in the realms of remote work and inside sales.

Throughout the episode, Andy highlights the evolution of social media from a sales channel to a platform for building genuine relationships, the importance of influencer and creator collaborations, and the power of employee branding in strengthening company reputations. Whether you're a marketer, entrepreneur, or simply interested in the future of digital marketing, this episode is packed with insights you won't want to miss.

So, get ready to learn how to build powerful brands through personality-led growth, understand your customers on a deeper level, and engage with influential communities for sustainable business success. Tune in now!

GUEST LINKS

Connect with Andy on LinkedIn
Buy Social 3.0 on Amazon
Check Out Adobe Express

Pre-Order Digital Threads here: https://nealschaffer.com/digitalthreads

Learn More:

Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Can rethinking your approach to social media scheduling drastically improve your engagement?

Find out as I challenge the conventional reliance on scheduling tools and advocate for a more hands-on, direct engagement strategy.

Today's episode is all about rethinking a common tool in our digital marketing toolbox: the social media scheduler. Inspired by my work on revising "Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth" and my analysis of various content types, I've come to realize that the traditional approach of scheduling link-based content just isn't cutting it anymore. Platforms continue to deprioritize this type of content, and staying ahead means diving deeper into the feed and engaging in real-time.

We'll explore why relying too heavily on scheduling tools can actually hinder your visibility and engagement, and discuss practical steps to become more nimble and present in your social media strategy. Plus, I'll share insights on which platforms and content types can still benefit from scheduling, and a method to balance scheduled posts with spontaneous engagement.

Whether you're a digital marketing pro or just starting out, this episode is packed with actionable advice to help you make a bigger impact on social media. Let's dive in!

Learn More:

Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Today I have a fascinating discussion lined up for you as I sit down with marketing expert and founder of Duct Tape Marketing, John Jantsch, to unpack the growing popularity of Fractional Chief Marketing Officers (fCMOs).

John and I explore how the pandemic and the rise of remote work have accelerated this trend, enabling Fractional CMOs to collaborate with multiple startups simultaneously and offer them critical strategic leadership. John shares insights from his recent survey on Fractional CMOs and offers a deep dive into the shifting landscape of marketing agencies. We discuss the importance of strategic thinking over mere tactics, the transformative role of AI in the industry, and the current challenges of scalability in the traditional Fractional CMO model.

You'll also hear about the advantages of a hybrid approach for businesses aiming to enhance their marketing strategies. Whether you’re a business owner considering fractional marketing leadership or a marketer interested in this career path, our conversation is packed with valuable insights. So, join us as we navigate the evolving world of marketing strategy with the expertise of John Jantsch.

GUEST LINKS

Connect with John on LinkedIn
Duct Tape Marketing Website

Learn More:

Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode we are diving into the secrets of maximizing LinkedIn for business growth. I introduces my new book, Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: A Practical Guide to Building Your Brand and Driving Results, which officially published on September 17, 2024.

Whether you're a seasoned marketer, entrepreneur, or just looking to enhance your LinkedIn game, this episode promises to provide actionable tips and expert advice to help you thrive. Tune in for a sneak peek of my new book and a wealth of knowledge on leveraging LinkedIn for your business success!

Book Links

Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth on Amazon
Directory of Retailers Selling Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth

Learn More:

Buy Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizinglinkedinforgrowth
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the secrets to mastering influencer marketing on TikTok with insights from Drew Moffitt, head of marketing at Kumospace. Discover how performance-based compensation and cutting-edge AI tools are transforming influencer campaigns, making them more effective and measurable.

We explore how TikTok and influencer marketing became instrumental in promoting Kumospace, especially when LinkedIn’s targeting capabilities fell short. Dive into the innovative strategies that propelled this B2B product forward in a rapidly evolving digital landscape, emphasizing real-time collaboration and productivity for remote teams.

This episode also delves into the mechanics of influencer marketing success. We dissect the role of performance-based payment structures, the challenges of multi-device attribution, and the synergy between brand and performance marketing. Learn how specific user targeting, like SMB owners and remote work executives, can significantly boost your campaigns. We wrap up with expert advice on scaling influencer strategies, leveraging AI for SEO, and the importance of finding the right creators whose content aligns with your brand’s vibe.

Don’t miss this chance to elevate your digital marketing game!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Today's episode dives deep into the realm of digital entrepreneurship and offers invaluable digital marketing advice for all digital entrepreneurs out there. I share insights from a conversation with a friend and consultant who published a book on entrepreneurship in Japan and is now looking to roll out a new course. This episode unpacks the fundamental steps to effectively leverage digital marketing, including the importance of having a solid product, creating and repurposing content, building an email list, and utilizing SEO and social media strategies. Tune in to learn how to build a core platform, develop a warm audience, and explore the potential of podcasting and video content to elevate your digital presence.

Whether you're a seasoned entrepreneur or just starting your journey, this episode is packed with actionable advice you won't want to miss!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In today's episode I sit down with Nicholas Bruneau, a seasoned communications consultant and author of Engage with Impact, to discuss the transformative power of digital advocacy. Nicholas shares his vast experience working with organizations like the United Nations and the World Bank, offering practical strategies for raising awareness, engaging communities, and driving fundraising efforts through digital channels. Our conversation highlights the universal applicability of these strategies, making this episode a must-listen for both nonprofit and for-profit professionals.

Embrace the power of authentic storytelling and innovation in a post-pandemic world that values raw, unscripted content. Learn from companies like Candid and initiatives like the Malala Fund’s Assembly, and discover the art of leveraging email for meaningful two-way communication. We also tackle the challenges of transitioning to short-form video content and utilizing AI responsibly, ensuring your digital initiatives are not just effective but also credible and trustworthy. Join us for an episode packed with actionable insights and real-world examples that can elevate your digital marketing strategy to new heights.

Guest Links

Connect with Nicholas on LinkedIn
Buy Engage with Impact on Amazon
Visit Nicholas' Website

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
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Curious about optimizing your Instagram game?

You'll love the insights I gained straight from an Instagram representative on maximizing growth and engagement. Learn the power of consistently posting Reels, engaging through carousels, and using the new "notify me" sticker on Stories to keep your followers hooked. I'll share tips on strategic hashtag use, crafting compelling three-second hooks, and innovatively transforming photos into Reels for better visibility. Plus, get creative with Instagram's voiceovers, text-to-speech, and sound collections to elevate your content.

Don't miss out on these actionable tips to elevate your Instagram game and grow your brand.

LINKS MENTIONED

Sign Up to My Newsletter Here
OpusClip
SocialBee
Digital Threads (Free Preview)

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Are you struggling with delegation, holding yourself back from achieving peak success in your marketing and business ventures?

In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I sit down with Dave Kerpen to unravel the secrets of mastering delegation. We'll explore how effective delegation, including outsourcing, can free up your time, reduce stress, and drive unprecedented growth in your business. In fact, it's so crucial that I have an entire chapter devoted to it in my book, Digital Threads. From overcoming emotional hurdles to leveraging the right platforms and people, we'll provide actionable strategies to help you delegate with confidence.

In our conversation, we delve into Dave's transition from Likeable Media to his new venture, Apprentice. Learn how connecting entrepreneurs with talented college students for business tasks has proven to be a game-changer. Dave shares why effective delegation is crucial for both personal and professional growth, and how it can help you scale your business while reclaiming precious time for personal passions and family. Overcoming the fears and challenges associated with delegation is also a focal point, with practical advice on taking the first steps, including using platforms like Upwork to find the right fit for your needs.

We also tackle common objections to delegation, such as budget constraints, by highlighting cost-effective solutions like Upwork and Fiverr. Explore the "share model" for delegation and learn about the five C's of empowered delegation, starting with choosing the right person carefully.

This episode is packed with actionable strategies to revolutionize your marketing and business through smart delegation, so you won't want to miss it!

Grab a copy of Digital Threads during its Kickstarter pre-sales campaign here; https://nealschaffer.com/kickstarter

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Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever wondered how to master digital-first marketing? Join me as we explore the transformative world of digital marketing in my latest episode! This week, I introduce my fifth book, Digital Threads: The Small Business and Entrepreneur Playbook for Digital-First Marketing.

I literally do a reading of the introduction and first chapter of the book to help set the stage of how the Covid-19 pandemic reshaped consumer behavior, pushing businesses to adopt a digital-first approach. I help you unlock insights on navigating the new digital landscape, with a special focus on creating genuine connections online.

Grab a free preview of my new book here: https://nealschaffer.com/free-preview-ebook-digital-threads/

and join my Kickstarter campaign for exclusive rewards here: https://nealschaffer.com/kickstarter

Stay ahead, stay digital – check it out now!

Grab a copy of Digital Threads during its Kickstarter pre-sales campaign here; https://nealschaffer.com/kickstarter

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Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the full potential of your business with ecosystem-led growth strategies, as we explore the transformative power of partnerships and secure data sharing with Bob Moore, the pioneering force behind Crossbeam. Discover how powerful collaborations can elevate both B2B and B2C companies.

In our conversation, Bob Moore takes us on a journey from his early days as a data enthusiast to his groundbreaking work dismantling data silos with Crossbeam. Gain a deeper understanding of how B2B marketing has evolved since the 90s and learn why traditional account mapping methods are no longer sufficient in today's digital age. Bob shares how Crossbeam's platform enables companies to leverage shared data, enhancing decision-making, growth, and collaboration. We'll also examine the rise of ISV partnerships driven by the API economy and the cloud, highlighting how secure, third-party data escrow solutions can offer a competitive edge.

Explore the power of ecosystem-qualified leads (EQLs) and how they can boost customer lifetime value by integrating insights from various partners. Bob and I discuss how shared market intelligence allows smaller businesses to compete with industry giants and the strategic benefits of publishing a book as part of a multi-year marketing plan. Learn how platforms like Crossbeam facilitate data-driven collaborations, showcasing the limitless possibilities for growth in a data-driven world.

Guest Links

Crossbeam
Buy Ecosystem-Led Growth on Amazon
Connect with Bob on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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On today's episode, I'm excited to announce my bold new venture: the release of my 5th book, "Digital Threads." Inspired by Albert Einstein’s famous quote about insanity, I'm breaking the mold by launching this book on Kickstarter before bringing it to Amazon.

Learn how to leverage Kickstarter to create buzz and drive engagement for your next big project. I'll share my personal journey through self-publishing and crowdfunding, highlighting the strategies and decisions that led to this launch. Discover the importance of exclusive access, special discounts, and unique services for your business.

Gain insights into the benefits and drawbacks of self-publishing versus traditional publishing, and get a sneak peek into my Kickstarter campaign's exclusive early bird specials and unique offerings. Embrace the power of experimentation in your marketing efforts and stay ahead of emerging trends.

Whether you're an entrepreneur, marketer, or simply curious about digital marketing, this episode is packed with valuable insights. Let’s get into it!

And if you're ready to back my campaign, please go to https://nealschaffer.com/kickstarter. Thank you!

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Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Meet Mellissa Green, also known as "Uniquely Abled," whose journey into content creation was fueled by her passion for podcasts and the need to stay connected during the COVID-19 pandemic. Mellissa's story is a powerful testament to resilience and the role digital platforms play in bridging gaps for those with impairments. This episode sheds light on the importance of fostering better understanding and accessibility in the digital world, emphasizing the real-life impact of inclusive practices.

We dive deep into the critical importance of digital accessibility, highlighting the ongoing challenges faced by individuals using screen readers like JAWS. Hear Mellissa's candid accounts of navigating various platforms, from the frustrations with inaccessible sites like Facebook to the praise for more accessible ones like LinkedIn and Twitter. We also explore the broader implications of creating inclusive digital spaces, emphasizing both the ethical and economic incentives for businesses to prioritize accessibility. Tune in to understand why ensuring digital content is accessible to all is not just good business but a fundamental right.

Guest Links

Uniquely Abled Podcast
Mellissa's Website
Connect with Mellissa on LinkedIn

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Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Are you ready to unlock the secrets of creating short-form videos that captivate and engage?

Today's episode is dedicated to the game-changing world of short form video editing. In this episode, I'll be sharing my hands-on experience with ten different video editing tools and revealing the standout performer—Opus Clip. We'll dive into its features, from auto framing and text editing to its AI-generated content capabilities, and how it has transformed my content strategy, allowing me to churn out high-quality videos for YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, and TikTok with minimal effort.

Links

Opus Clip

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Unlock new revenue streams and elevate your digital marketing game with my latest episode on direct-to-consumer (DTC) strategies. Promising to boost your e-commerce sales while slashing customer acquisition costs, this episode is packed with actionable insights.

Join me as I sit down with Andrew Maff from BlueTuskr, who reveals the secrets to driving more conversions with well-structured blog articles and targeting buyer-intent keywords. Learn how seven and eight-figure DTC brands optimize their blogs to not only attract organic traffic but also convert visitors into customers. Andrew shares practical tips on conducting CRO audits, adding custom banners, promoting products, and incorporating effective pop-ups and sidebars, ensuring your blog acts as a powerful conversion tool.

Navigating Google's ever-changing algorithm can be challenging, but we've got you covered. We discuss the importance of producing high-quality, well-researched content and the role of human oversight in AI-generated writing. Andrew Maff also dives into the common friction between SEO and CRO teams, offering strategies to balance these efforts for optimal results. Whether you're leveraging Shopify's features or refreshing old content, this episode is a treasure trove of actionable advice for e-commerce businesses aiming to enhance their digital marketing strategies.

Guest Links

BlueTuskr
Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Have you ever wondered how AI could revolutionize your marketing game? From my hands-on experiences with ChatGPT, discover how I turned 21 conversations with AI into actionable strategies for boosting productivity and content creation. This episode promises to arm you with practical tips on leveraging AI for your marketing, business, and even personal life.

Ever thought AI might make us lazy? Think again. Learn about Perplexity AI and other tools that are revolutionizing productivity without compromising human oversight. With major updates from tech giants Microsoft and Apple, the integration of AI into our daily workflows is inevitable. I'll explain how tools like ChatGPT can transform blog posts into engaging video scripts and refresh your online content, ensuring it stays relevant and optimized for SEO.

I will also explain in detail how Chat GPT saves me countless hours and enhances content quality. At the same time, I will also talk about my commitment to maintaining a human touch in content creation, despite the advancements in AI technology

Join me as we explore how AI can help you work smarter, not harder, freeing up time for what truly matters.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
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Unlock the secrets to mastering digital marketing in my latest episode featuring an interview with the legendary Robert Rose. Robert is the guru on all things content marketing, but our conversation did not stop there. In this episode, Robert shares his journey from the dot-com boom to becoming the CMO of a startup, leveraging content to outshine industry giants and co-founding the Content Marketing Institute with Joe Pulizzi. We also touched upon how the latest advancements in AI, including ChatGPT 4.0 and Claude AI, are revolutionizing content strategies and what these mean for businesses. We dissect Google's latest algorithm changes and explain why long-form content and a data-driven approach remain vital to staying ahead in the SEO race.

We'll explore how the landscape of content marketing has evolved, why personal branding is crucial for small businesses, and the innovative integration of AI in marketing strategies. Robert emphasizes the need for a clear content process before adopting AI, illustrating through real-world examples like the legendary weather predictions of A Plus Roofing. We'll also discuss how content marketing now focuses on holding attention and creating meaningful customer relationships, using unique stories and value propositions to differentiate in saturated niches.

Stay tuned as we unravel the secrets to a successful content marketing framework and share practical tips on aligning your strategy with the customer journey. Plus, hear about Robert's book "Content Marketing Strategy" and his insights on the rising role of content entrepreneurs.

Let's dive in and master modern marketing together!

Guest Links

Robert Rose Website
Robert on LinkedIn
Content Marketing Strategy on Amazon

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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AI. It's not just a buzzword, it's a game-changer. But are you leveraging its full potential in your marketing strategy, or are you still just scratching the surface? Today’s episode is all about making the AI shift—learning how to work faster, smarter, and scale like never before. From optimizing your processes with AI-generated content to automating repetitive tasks and beyond, we’re diving deep into practical steps you can take to stay ahead in this rapidly evolving landscape. So stay tuned to this next episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
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All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Step into the future of digital marketing where customers reign supreme, and their journey is the map to your success. Join me as I unpack the power and necessity of customer-centric strategies with a special nod to the wisdom of Debbie Levitt, author of "Customers Know You Suck." Get ready to transform your marketing with insights into customer research, actionable strategies for a devoted customer base, and the vital role of AI and ChatGPT in reshaping your approach to efficiency and paid media.

Embrace the ecosystem of your customer's world! This episode takes you beyond mere demographics to understand the psychographics that truly drive your audience's behavior. Discover how to craft experiences that resonate deeply with your customers by avoiding stereotypes and focusing on the tasks they're trying to accomplish. Learn how businesses of all sizes can—and must—deliver exceptional customer experiences. I'll also share personal perspectives to underline why understanding the individual beyond the data point is essential for your marketing strategy.

Guest Links

Customers Know You Suck (affiliate)
Debbie on LinkedIn
Delta CX

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Embark on a journey through the bustling hub of the Content Entrepreneur Expo with me, as I peel back the curtain on the latest in digital marketing wizardry. This episode is jam-packed with transformative strategies and the latest trends that are shaping the digital marketing landscape.

We’ll explore everything from the importance of understanding your audience’s psychographics to effectively leveraging TikTok for business growth. You’ll hear from experts like Abigail Pumphrey and Michael Stelzner on creating impactful digital products and the challenges of keeping up with changing algorithms. Plus, we'll discuss the critical role of AI in content creation and how it can enhance efficiency and quality.

My adventure yielded an abundance of insights—from AI's role in honing business efficiency to the subtle art of engaging your audience with digital products. You'll discover how leveraging tools like Guidde's AI for SOPs and Creator.io's smart chatbots can redefine your online engagement, and how embracing the 'no rules, just vibes' approach might be the game-changer you've been seeking.

Let's navigate the dynamic tides of TikTok together, where I unpack the secret behind Kenya Kelly's meteoric rise and lay bare the content strategies that resonate across ages and cultures. I'll walk you through TikTok Shop's success saga and share how starting small with digital products can lead to grand victories. With anecdotes from Teachable's and Thinkific's mavens to Justin Welsh's incremental approach for LinkedIn mastery, you'll learn the mantra of engaging your audience with content that promises quick wins.

As we draw the curtains on this episode, I'm left with more than just a hoarse voice—I'm buzzing with the drive to share techniques that keep you ahead of the digital marketing curve. Whether you're seeking to fine tune your strategies or dive headfirst into the digital realm, remember my virtual door is always open for your queries and epiphanies. So, until next time, keep pushing the boundaries and remember that every voice, every story, and every follower counts in the grand theater of digital marketing.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
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All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the full potential of your digital marketing strategy as I team up with Impact CEO David Yovanno to delve into the captivating world of creator partnerships. This episode promises to equip you with the wisdom to harness influencer magic and partnership alchemy, transforming how you connect with consumers and amplify your brand's authenticity. As we navigate the Partnership Economy, you'll be fascinated by the story of Ticketmaster's Michael Chua and his innovative API integrations that connect music fans with live events through platforms they love, like Spotify and YouTube.

Prepare to shift your perspective on traditional digital advertising as we pull back the curtain on its inherent shortcomings and illuminate the emergence of customer acquisition channels that truly resonate with user interests. You'll hear first-hand my critical thoughts on the evolving role of AI in content creation, underpinned by the need for expertise, authority, trustworthiness, and experience. Learn how Impact.com and other forward-thinking businesses are creating a single platform for various partnership types, turning the voices of creators and influencers into powerful tools for genuine consumer engagement.

Finally, discover why brands like Avocado are turning to niche content creators for authentic connections and the compelling reasons why transparency in these partnerships is non-negotiable. We highlight the growing trend towards hybrid compensation models, offering stability and performance incentives for a win-win scenario. By the end of our insightful conversation, you'll be inspired to forge a community of engaged customers and passionate partners, building new marketing muscles by embracing the transformative power of the partnership economy.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In today's episode, we're diving deep into the realm of pivots in digital marketing. From shifts in SEO practices to leveraging the latest in AI technology across social platforms, I share insightful updates and strategic advice to help you stay ahead of the curve. As the digital landscape evolves, so should our marketing strategies—whether it's the right approach to TikTok amidst potential bans or understanding the diminished role of backlinks in SEO. I also discuss the importance of enriching your content beyond SEO-focused writing, emphasizing quality and relevance to meet human needs rather than just algorithms. Tune in as we explore these dynamic changes and how small yet strategic pivots can significantly enhance your digital marketing effectiveness.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
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Welcome to another enlightening episode of Your Digital Marketing Coach. I'm your host, Neal Schaffer, and today we're diving into the exciting world of marketing automation to help level up your digital business. Today we have a sponsored episode with our special guest, Amanda Northcutt of Level Up Creators, brings her extensive expertise in digital recurring revenue models to demystify marketing automation and share strategies for exponential growth.

In this episode, "Marketing Automation Simplified: How to Level Up Your Digital Business," Amanda unveils the secrets behind successful email sequences, the significance of serving with a sales mindset, and the transformative power of automating customer interactions. Whether you're a small business or on the cusp of hitting seven figures, you'll learn why marketing automation is your untapped asset, operating tirelessly to connect, serve, and elevate your customer's journey.

Prepare to challenge misconceptions as we discuss the accessible future of AI in marketing automation, the strategic shift from one-to-one to one-to-many sales approaches, and the importance of building trust through each stage of that automated journey. Further, we'll delve into the critical step of mapping customer experiences and using data-driven insights to fine-tune your marketing automation efforts for maximum impact and sustainable growth.

Tune in to learn how to leverage marketing automation to not only solve your customer's most pressing problems but also to guide them lovingly through their buying journey, increasing conversions, customer lifetime value, and referrals. Let's simplify the complex and make marketing automation your powerhouse for success. Now, let's get started!

Guest Information

Level Up Creators
Amanda Northcutt on LinkedIn

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Ready to take your digital marketing to the next level? In this episode, I dive deep into the connection between content creators, entrepreneurs, and small businesses. You'll learn not only the commonalities between these groups but also the valuable insights on how they can learn from each other. From the importance of thinking and acting like a business to understanding the power of personal branding, this episode is packed with actionable advice that can transform your digital marketing strategy. If you're juggling with limited resources, my insights on amplifying your marketing strategies are precisely what you need.

AI TOOL

Frase

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In today's episode, we have an incredible guest who embodies the entrepreneurial spirit and digital savvy - Anthony Rosemond. Anthony, originally from France, took the bold step with his wife to open an online macaron shop in the US, crafting a delectable niche in the competitive world of French pastries.

Anthony will delve into their journey from farmers markets to building a robust online presence, revealing how focusing on non-branded keywords and constructing a valuable content library can elevate your SEO game. We'll uncover the tactics they used to rank for "macarons near me," the strategic use of the SEO tool SEMrush, and how they crafted authentic blog posts that responded directly to their customers' curiosities.

We'll also touch on the synergistic role of social media, especially Instagram, and how their organic growth to 100,000 followers fueled both brand legitimacy and business growth - including virtual classes that became a sensation during COVID.

Anthony also plans to share insights on transitioning their marketing efforts to target corporate events and gifting. We'll even get a sneak peek into their success with email marketing, the importance of non-discount promotions, and a fascinating shift from B2C to B2B.

So get ready to be inspired and learn how to sweeten your digital marketing strategy with the insights from Anthony Rosemond's journey from in-person sales to dominating the online French pastry market. Don't go anywhere, because this episode will be as insightful as it is flavorful!

GUEST LINKS

Pastreez Website
Pastreez on Instagram

OTHER LINKS MENTIONED

Adobe Express
SEMrush

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
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I'm your host, Neal Schaffer, and today's episode is a special one that I'm particularly excited about. In the rapidly evolving landscape of digital marketing, AI tools have become indispensable for driving efficiency, effectiveness, and accuracy in our strategies. And I'm here to pull back the curtain on the AI tools that I personally rely on.

In this episode, we'll delve into the revolutionary changes that AI has brought to content creation, from intuitive platforms like Jasper, which I use to craft blog outlines and FAQs, to the emerging AI search engine, Perplexity AI that's changing how we ask questions online. We'll talk about the generative AI SEO landscape, the importance of tools like Frase for blog post optimization, and dip our toes into the latest in social media content generation with Google Gemini.

For all the podcasters out there, tools like Buzzsprout's cohost AI and the advanced capabilities of CastMagic will be on our list, showing you how to streamline your content production. Social media mavens, get ready to maximize your influence with automated tools like SocialBee, Pin Generator, and the promising newcomer, Taplio for LinkedIn.

But that's not all. My upcoming book and its companion workbook are just around the corner. I'm excited to share the progress, insights, and how you could be part of the launch team.

As we explore these eleven AI tools, their unique features, and how they integrate into our digital strategies, remember, this episode is more than just a list—it's a look into the future of marketing, and how these tools can propel your business forward. So whether you're a seasoned digital marketer or just starting out, gear up for an episode packed with actionable insights and tips for harnessing the power of AI in your daily work.

Don't forget to check the show notes for links to all the tools we'll be discussing. Your feedback is invaluable, so feel free to reach out after the episode.

Ready to become more tech-savvy, efficient, and successful in digital marketing? Let's dive in!

AI TOOL OF THE WEEK
Get Started Using Adobe Express for Free

THE 11 AI TOOLS MENTIONED IN THIS PODCAST

Perplexity
Google Gemini
Buzzsprout
CastMagic
SocialBee
PinGenerator
Tweet Hunter
Taplio
Jasper
Frase
OpusClip

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unlock the secrets to multiplying your digital content's impact as Andrew Jenkins, who teaches at University of Toronto and has written Social Media Marketing for Business: Scaling an Integrated Social Media Strategy Across Your Organization, and I navigate the ins and outs of content repurposing in digital marketing. From revitalizing your existing digital creations to strategizing for new ones, we share insights on breathing new life into your content. If you've been pouring your heart into your work but it seems to vanish in the digital ether, you'll discover how to make your content work overtime across social media landscapes, using AI tools to revolutionize your approach.

In today’s episode, we peel back the layers of social media content strategy, especially in those tricky, tightly regulated industries. We talk about the pitfalls of a 'one and done' mentality and the magic of repurposing to extend the life and reach of your content. Get ready for an eye-opening look at how employee advocacy can amplify your message and how smart cross-promotion can make every piece of content count. I also share a slice of my journey in content development, from my upcoming book to my LinkedIn-focused venture, revealing how audience engagement can play a critical role in shaping your work.

As we round off our discussion, Andrew and I dissect the role of AI in content creation, bringing you our firsthand experiences with transformative tools that cut through the noise and polish your content for the social sharing limelight. We align the dots between AI’s efficiency and keeping the human touch at the heart of your digital strategy. Whether you’re a budding entrepreneur or a marketing maven, this episode packs a punch full of actionable strategies to revamp your content approach and make every word count. Join us as we unveil the power of AI to not only craft personalized experiences but also to dive deep into data analysis, freeing up your time to build those invaluable community connections.

GUEST LINKS

Social Media Marketing for Business: Scaling an Integrated Social Media Strategy Across Your Organization
Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn
Andrew's Digital Marketing Agency Volterra

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ready to transform your digital marketing playbook for 2024?

In this episode, which I could also name "If I Were Your Fractional CMO 2024 Edition," I take you through the essential strategic digital marketing investments to make for 2024. From search to email and social media, I offer my advice on where to focus your resources for the biggest impact.

On this episode I play the role of navigator to guide you through the ever-shifting digital landscape, as we chart the course towards maximized investment returns. In this episode, I'll guide you through the maze of search engine dynamics, showing you how to refine your content to resonate with the latest trends. It's not just about keywords; it's about crafting a textual content library that speaks directly to user behaviors.

Switching gears, we'll tackle the powerhouse that is email marketing, offering insights into lead magnets that are not just shiny but truly magnetic in attracting subscribers. As we delve into the sophisticated world of automation flows with the help of platforms like Klaviyo, you'll discover how to navigate the recent turbulence caused by email titans such as Google and Yahoo.

But wait—there's more.

We'll tie the knot between email and social media marketing, revealing how to channel the 'e-commerceization' effect through smart tactics like the 'link in bio'. This is more than just a conversation; it's a strategic session focused on the nuanced art of platform-authentic content and the indispensable value of first-party data collection in a world waving goodbye to cookies. Prepare to engage, convert, and retain your audience like never before.

I hope this episode provide you valuable insights and actionable advice to help you make informed decisions for your marketing strategies in 2024.

Whether you're a marketing professional, entrepreneur, or business owner, this episode is packed with valuable information that you won't want to miss. Tune in to gain practical tips and strategies from your digital marketing coach, Neal Schaffer, as I help you navigate the ever-evolving landscape of digital marketing.

AI TOOL OF THE WEEK

Jasper

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
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Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Hello, digital marketers, and welcome to another information-packed episode of Your Digital Marketing Coach! Today, we're thrilled to have Kathryn McCauley with us, a wizard of user-generated content—those powerful, authentic gems that brands dream of. Kathryn's insights are game-changing; imagine using photo-worthy opportunities at every turn, prompting customers to snap, tag, and rave about your business. She discusses how something as simple as a chocolatier placing flags in ice cream can ignite social media buzz.

We'll delve into success stories where UGC has propelled businesses forward and discover how hosting events with an eye for user-generated content can create social proof that lasts the whole year round. Ever thought about adopting a 90% UGC approach? Kathryn and Neal weigh the possibilities.

Together, we'll explore step-by-step strategies to encourage and leverage UGC, from encouraging pre-event hype to creating an Instagrammable ethos. Kathryn's got the tips you need to ensure your content aligns perfectly with your brand voice, whether it's through manual curation or tasteful influencer partnerships.

Stay tuned as we discuss the power of branded hashtags, engaging with your community, and the real-world benefits seen by businesses that have adopted Kathryn's approach. Be ready to revolutionize the way you think about content creation, build stronger relationships with your customers, and fuel growth through this often underutilized resource.

So get set to be inspired, take notes, and transform your digital marketing playbook—right here on Your Digital Marketing Coach!

AI TOOL LINK

CastMagic

GUEST LINKS

Follow Kathryn McCauley on Instagram
Check Out Kathryn's Website

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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I had an amazing 48 hours at Podfest, the definitive conference for podcasters, and wanted to share with you what I learned as the takeaways about AI are universal and can be applied to any marketing you do.

You’re in for a treasure chest of insights on how AI is not just a tech trend but a pivotal player in content marketing, audience engagement, and the profound connection we forge through the intimacy of voice. Imagine converting your every word into captivating show notes, automating your social media posts to resonate with your followers, and even cloning voices that sound strikingly human - all this and more, while you focus on what really matters: your listeners.

Dive into the technological marvels that are redefining content creation. AI is now a trusted co-pilot in the podcast universe, creating content that rivals the most creative of minds. In this episode, discover the plethora of AI tools that can elevate your podcasting from voice-to-text transcription to seamless editing, and how they can help you repurpose content across platforms. With resources like Perplexity for nuanced searches and Opus Clip for crafting engaging video snippets, your podcast’s potential reaches new horizons. We’ll explore how these innovations can transform your interviews into eBooks and more, proving that your content can truly be limitless.

But that’s not all. Join us as we delve into the nuts and bolts of automating podcast interviews and content creation. Learn how Google Forms and Zapier can streamline your workflow, and how ChatGPT can craft captivating content that speaks directly to your audience’s needs. Industry professionals like Mark Savant show how a simple form response can turn into a rich, SEO-friendly draft in no time.

By the end of this episode, you'll be armed with practical tips and a newfound appreciation for how AI can not only refine your podcasting journey but propel your digital business into new realms of success.

AI TOOLS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE

AudioPen
Descript [get started for free]
Podcastle
Castmagic [try for free]
Cohost AI (Buzzsprout) [$20 off]
Audiotype
Capsho
ElevenLabs [get started for free]
Stampede Social
Grouptrack CRM
Perplexity
OpusClip [get started for free]
Streamyard [get started for free]
Zapier
Pabbly

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Uncover the secrets to capturing those anonymous website visitors that seem to vanish without a trace! Joined by the insightful Roy Harmon, CMO of Leadpost, we dive into the world of digital marketing, offering you the tools and strategies necessary to transform the invisible into leads.

We'll go deep into Roy's expertise on leveraging innovative software to identify and engage with the majority of website visitors who remain enigmatic. Together, we'll guide you through the process of nurturing these potential leads with a personalized touch, equipping you with the strategies to elevate your sales opportunities.

Finally, for agencies looking to sharpen their edge, we unveil Leadpost's special offer that promises to transform the way you manage and market leads. Learn how to harness the power of technology to communicate with potential customers who visit your website and explore the potential rewards of investing in tools that could significantly boost your ROI. Whether you're a digital marketing veteran or a newcomer eager to make your mark, this episode is packed with insights set to ignite your business strategy.

GUEST LINKS

LeadPost
Roy Harmon on LinkedIn

OTHER LINKS

21 X / Twitter User Statistics for 2024 to Guide Your Marketing Strategy
SocialBee

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Embark on a journey through the digital marketing landscape as I dissect the metrics that mattered most in my business last year, setting the stage for what lies ahead. Discover the unexpected twists of social media traffic, with LinkedIn overtaking Facebook and Twitter falling behind, and why search remains king.

Transformation is at the heart of success, and this episode is a testament to that. I'll share how my YouTube channel's subscriber count skyrocketed, thanks to a potent mix of content creation and smart promotion. But there's more: the rise in email traffic, the consistent income from my roles as a fractional CMO and speaker, and the 400% surge in affiliate marketing revenue all paint a picture of a multifaceted growth strategy.

Lastly, I'll break down the conversion magic—how despite the ebb and flow of social media traffic, YouTube emerged as a powerhouse for conversions. Delving into the health of my newsletter and the stability of my digital mastermind community, you'll get a front-row seat to the thought process behind my diverse income streams. And with expanded teaching gigs at UCLA Extension, the blueprint for educational influence in digital marketing becomes clearer. So tune in, as this episode is not just a reflection but a blueprint for your own digital marketing success in 2024 and beyond.

AI TOOL OF THE WEEK: Brand24

STAT OF THE WEEK: 79% of Internet users have a YouTube account

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Embrace the power of knowledge as we unravel the complexities of influencer marketing with the astute guidance of "The Influencer Attorney" Bobby Robinson. This episode is a must-listen for anyone vested in the digital space, from influencers crafting their brand to businesses forging impactful partnerships. Learn the intricacies of FTC guidelines and why they're not just fine print but a foundation for your online endeavors.

Navigating the digital landscape, we've shifted our gaze towards the crucial mergers of content creation and legal savvy. Delving into the world of influencer agreements with Bobby, we illuminate the dos and don'ts of content ownership, the dynamics of exclusivity clauses, and the pivotal art of negotiation. Moreover, we underscore the immense value of education - not merely as a safeguard but as a tool empowering your journey through the maze of FTC compliance, ensuring transparency reigns supreme in your collaborations.

Capping off, we present a compelling narrative on why influencers should view their craft as a legitimate business, emphasizing the significance of intellectual property rights and the strategic move towards establishing an LLC. Highlighting LinkedIn's freshest 'Thought Leader' ad format, we probe into the evolving nature of endorsements and their legal implications. Join us for a comprehensive exploration that will equip you with the wisdom to harness your influence, protect your assets, and shine in the digital marketplace.

GUEST LINKS

The Influencer Attorney
Connect with Bobby on LinkedIn

AI TOOL OF THE WEEK: Tweet Hunter

STAT OF THE WEEK: 50% of Internet users view videos before making a purchase

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Happy New Year, digital marketers and go-getters! The time is ripe for a mindset revolution, and I'm here to guide you through it. Imagine embracing AI in your marketing strategy while keeping that irreplaceable human essence alive and at the forefront. That's exactly the journey we're embarking on in this latest episode of the Digital Marketing Coach podcast. From resetting our digital tactics to welcoming a fresh perspective on content creation, you're invited to explore the transformative power of AI without losing your brand's authentic voice—think 'AI on the inside, human on the outside.' Plus, I've got a special invite for those keen to join the launch team of my upcoming book.

As we leap into the new year, let's unlock the full potential of tools like Descript, our AI Tool of the Week, and adapt to the changing demands of digital culture with insights like our Stat of the Week. But it's not just about the tools; it's about the wisdom to use them without overshadowing our expertise. Remember, if you're ever in need of a digital marketing compass, the digital first group coaching membership community, alongside a vast archive of podcast content and blog posts at neilshaffer.com, stands ready to empower your journey. Let's make sure your marketing strategies resonate with precision and a touch of humanity. Join me, Neal Schaffer, and let's amplify your digital marketing game together.

AI TOOL OF THE WEEK: Descript

STAT OF THE WEEK: Instagram is the 10th Most Googled Term

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ready to discover the secret ingredient for lasting brand success? This episode, we're elbow-deep in the captivating world of brand love with our esteemed guest, Dr. Aaron Ahuvia. As one of the foremost experts on the subject, Dr. Ahuvia peels back the layers, revealing brand love as a potent emotion that you can master using psychology and neuroscience.

Forget about those tired marketing buzzwords, we're talking about strategies that can set your brand apart in a crowded field. We'll navigate the terrain of the digital world, exploring how it opens up a new frontier for cultivating brand love. We'll touch on the importance of humanizing your brand, making it an integral part of your customer's identity. We're also taking cues from successful brands like Patagonia and Airbnb, unravelling how they've mastered the art of storytelling, authenticity, and alignment with customer values to foster deep emotional connections.

Stay tuned and you'll walk away not just understanding the concept of brand love, but armed with practical tips on how to cultivate it. From discussing the potential of brand love to impact long-term success to examining the role of digital marketing in achieving it, this episode promises to be a treasure trove of insights. Plus, be sure to keep listening for an exciting opportunity that could see you nabbing a one-on-one coaching call. Join us in this journey deep into the heart of brand love, and let's transform the way you connect with your customers.

Guest Links

Buy The Things We Love: How Our Passions Connect Us and Make Us Who We Are on Amazon (affiliate)
Dr. Ahuvia's Website
Connect with Dr. Ahuvia on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever experienced a sudden drop in website traffic due to Google algorithm updates? You're not alone. I, Neal Schaffer, was right there with you, witnessing a decline in my site's traffic. Let's embark together on this episode of the Digital Marketing Coach, as we navigate the tumultuous sea of SEO changes brought about by the recent Google algorithm update. We'll venture deeper into how this has impacted user experiences, particularly concerning ads and pop-ups. Brace yourself for some philosophical pondering about your website's content, and whether search engines are here to stay or destined to fade into oblivion.

Get ready to redefine your understanding of SEO, as we unveil the seismic shifts reverberating across the industry and their implications for bloggers and businesses. Learn from my own wake-up call about the paramount importance of writing for humans above search engines, and prepare to question the ideal length for your content pieces. Discover how affiliate marketing influences rankings and why I opted to purge affiliate links from most of my posts. We'll unpack how Google's search results are evolving, with individual tools now trumping listicle posts. Join us for this enlightening discourse on the ever-changing digital landscape, and arm yourself with crucial insights to stay ahead in the game.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever wanted to know how AI is revolutionizing the ecommerce marketing landscape? Or perhaps you're curious about how a successful SEO strategy can make a world of difference to your ecommerce store? Buckle up, because ecommerce aficionado, Katrina McKinnon, is here to walk you through these intriguing topics and more!

We kick off with a whirlwind tour of AI's transformative impact on ecommerce marketing. From enhancing product images to mining product reviews for insights, Katrina shares her first-hand experiences and profound insights on the subject. However, it's not all robots and algorithms. We stress the importance of maintaining a human touch in content creation, because, in the end, we're all human, and we like to buy from other humans. Katrina takes us through the art of creating engaging content and discusses Google's new policy on misrepresentation. Plus, we touch upon the power of accessories and how selling them alongside a main product can be a game-changer.

Of course, we can't talk about ecommerce marketing without delving into the rabbit hole of SEO. Katrina highlights some key mistakes businesses often make and why it's crucial to start with the product itself. We also underline the importance of creative content and the immense potential platforms like Reddit hold for research. Wrapping up things, we give a shout-out to the power of podcasting itself (meta, isn't it?) and how it can help you reach a broader audience. So, whether you're an ecommerce newbie or a seasoned pro, this episode is packed with insightful tips and tricks that'll help you stay ahead of the curve. Tune in and don't forget to leave a review on Apple Podcasts!

Guest Links

CopySmiths
Katrina McKinnon on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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What if I told you that a 1923 publication could hold the secret to your success in modern digital marketing? Today's episode opens a time capsule, dusting off the wisdom from Claude C Hopkins' "Scientific Advertising." Here, I marvel at Hopkins' foresight in scientifically measuring the effectiveness of newspaper ads and coupons - a century ago! I draw parallels to today's digital marketing landscape and underscore the importance of relentless testing and measurement in your marketing strategies.

Next, I dive into the realm of psychology and its connection to marketing - a concept as old as advertising itself. In a world increasingly centered around personal connection, I explore the power of curiosity, the perception of price, and the role of personal branding. I also examine the importance of user-generated content, decoding the age-old understanding of human nature and its efficacy in designing marketing strategies. I'll share insights on using lead magnets effectively and the potency of giving samples to lure prospects.

Finally, I delve into the significance of data and visuals in advertising. I unravel the strategic use of data, reminding you that specific facts and numbers are more persuasive than vague promises. I also stress the visual aspects of your ads, guiding you on selecting the right images to resonate with your audience. As I navigate through these timeless principles, I emphasize a culture of continuous testing and experimentation in marketing. So, tune in, learn from history, and let's elevate your digital marketing strategies together.

Scientific Advertising on Amazon

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Set your reminders and secure your earbuds as we bring you face-to-face with the future of social media marketing! Our confab with Kate Archibald, the trailblazing CMO of Dash Hudson, takes an insightful dive into the trends shaping the social media landscape for 2024. With her fascinating transition from the beauty industry to Mar-Tec, Kate unravels her unique insights on the crossroads of customer experience and decision-making. We tap into Dash Hudson's secret sauce of success - a triad of usability, data, and customer service - and how they pioneer innovation to stay on top in the industry.

Fasten your seat belts as we shift gears in the second half, steering towards the booming world of short-form video. Kate deciphers how brands can maneuver their content strategy to harness the raw power of this new social entertainment phenomenon. We delve into the pivotal role played by platforms like TikTok, Instagram, and YouTube Shorts, and the intriguing link between engagement rates and sales. Hear straight from Kate as she shares pearls of wisdom on creating content that resonates and authentically responding to audience engagement. So gear up to turbocharge your social media game with our enlightening conversation!

Make sure you download the Dash Hudson report that we discuss during this interview here: https://dashhudson.com/podcast

GUEST LINKS

Get a 14-day free trial of Dash Hudson
Connect with Kate on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unleash your potential and soar to new heights in the world of entrepreneurship, salesmanship, and marketing, as we unravel the secret weapon - personal branding. We're not just spouting theory here; we're diving headfirst into the 15 key elements of a personal brand, running the gamut from the Four C's to the Five P's, and even the less heard of Three A's. We'll also shed light on the silent mover and shaker in any organization - internal employer branding - and its surprising connection with personal branding.

We're not stopping there. Together, we'll dissect various models of personal branding, and discover how you can make them work for you, whether you're an entrepreneur, salesperson, or marketer. Ever heard of the three A's of altruism? How about the eight laws as proposed by some of the leading experts in this field? We'll delve into all that and more, the importance of purpose, brand promise, perspective and even share our own take on what constitutes the core elements of a personal brand.

And the cherry on top? We're taking you behind the curtain of some of the biggest brands out there, like Wendy's edgy social media persona, Dove's celebration of real beauty, and Patagonia's love for the planet. We'll examine how they use their brand voice to differentiate themselves and build trust. Then, we'll turn the spotlight on you to help you build your personal brand, starting with visibility and digital presence. We'll explore various platforms and types of content you can use to engage your audience and build a community around your brand. And of course, we won't leave you hanging - we'll provide homework and resources to help you build your personal brand framework.

So gear up and let's embark on this exciting journey of personal branding together.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Prepare to be captivated as we delve into the transformative world of automated webinars with our distinguished guest, Melissa Kwan, the CEO and founder of eWebinar. We're taking you on a deep dive into the exciting realm of digital marketing, exploring how the power of webinars, both live and automated, can revolutionize your business strategy.

Ever wondered why webinars hold such a powerful sway in marketing? Our conversation with Melissa explores the psychology behind their effectiveness and unveils the game-changing potential of repurposing content to engage with diverse consumers. We talk about the art of maintaining customer-centricity even in automated webinars, and how auto-responders and chats can ensure seamless customer experiences.

From choosing the right platform to scripting for maximum engagement, we leave no stone unturned. Melissa shares insightful tips on promoting automated webinars, the dos and don'ts of creating them, and how they can be harnessed to generate leads and enhance your company's reach. Her tips on leveraging authenticity to create impactful webinars are worth their weight in gold. Brace yourselves to reimagine your digital marketing strategy and give your business the boost it needs.

Guest Links

Check Out eWebinar
Connect with Melissa on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever wondered how to level up your YouTube content and garner millions of views? This episode is your guide to mastering the YouTube game, courtesy of my report from attending the recent VidSummit 2023 - the mecca for video marketers and video content creators. Together, we'll unlock the following insights:

Popular YouTuber Preston Plays, who reveals his strategy of treating content creation as a serious business. He underscores the power of process standardization, freeing up precious time for creativity.
Another popular YouTuber, Kimbyrleigha, the pivot queen, divulges how she shifted her channel focus from PopSockets to true crime, drawing in her target avatar.
The AI revolution in video production isn't far behind, with popular YouTuber Kwebbelkop sharing a detailed roadmap of his proprietary AI video tool. This tool has the potential to make content creation 200% cheaper and 12,000% faster.
We also dive into YouTube's exciting new AI tools that promise to ease video creation, transforming the landscape for creators, from YouTube's creator liaison Rene Richie.

Finally, we unravel the secrets of marketing strategies and YouTube growth. Discover how a YouTube-based e-commerce startup hit the nail on the head with its launch strategy.

There's no missing out on our discussion of effective thumbnails and intros, and the role of AI in reshaping content creation. Learn how understanding your audience and optimizing for viewer engagement can skyrocket your channel's success.

From data and metrics to success stories, there's a treasure trove of insights waiting for you. So don't wait, tune in and elevate your YouTube journey with us.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever dreamt of having a magnetic pull on your ideal customers while at the same time artfully warding off those who aren’t a fitting match? That’s precisely what this enlightening episode is all about! We're joined by Martin Huntbach and Lyndsay Cambridge, the incredible minds behind the game-changing book and strategy entitled Content Fortress. They let us in on their remarkable journey - from web designers to content marketing strategists - and how they've used content to filter out clients who may not align with their business goals.

Martin and Lyndsay reveal their secret sauce to creating content that not just answers the hard questions, but also sets boundaries and establishes trust. Our conversation dives into the benefits of incorporating structure and process in content creation and how it can make businesses more enjoyable and trustworthy. We also uncover the advantages of educating customers through content, which can dramatically reduce time spent on sales calls while boosting conversion rates.

But that's not all! We plunge into the captivating world of AI and how it can add a unique essence to your content strategy. From its role in content creation and repurposing to its challenges in delivering original content, we leave no stone unturned! So, tune in and let Martin and Lyndsay guide you through the process of constructing a content fortress that aligns perfectly with your business vision. You're about to redefine your content marketing strategy in ways you never imagined!

Guest Links

Buy Content Fortress on Amazon
Learn More About Content Fortress
Jammy Digital

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Every company should be investing in marketing automation regardless of industry. But even if you are investing, are you really taking the fullest advantage of it?

As I proceed in writing my dedicated chapter on marketing automation for my upcoming 5th book, I wanted to share with you my thoughts on the power of marketing automation for your business and help you see it in a more strategic manner.

This episode is all about unpacking the myths surrounding marketing automation and revealing its true potential to enhance customer relationships and increase profits. I'll share insights on how to maximize its potential.

Using data from customer life cycle stages, preferences, and locations, I'll guide you in crafting personalized, targeted emails that deliver value to your customers. Discover strategies to increase revenue, meet customer expectations, and positively influence retention. Listen in to understand the power of preference and location targeting, and how to re-engage inactive subscribers.

This episode is a must-listen for marketing professionals, entrepreneurs, or business owners looking to make the most of marketing automation.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ready to unlock the mysteries of maximizing your digital marketing ROI? Strap in as we bring you an exclusive interview with Christopher Roberts, the General Manager of Cloud Control Media. Christopher lifts the curtain on the agency's proprietary technology and the remarkable role of artificial intelligence in tracking data, all designed to turbo-boost your ROI. Don't miss out on learning how to create an end-to-end tracking system and the wealth of resources Christopher shares to gain a comprehensive understanding of AI's power.

Ever asked yourself how effective your digital content, influencer, or social media marketing is? We explore this question with Christopher, who brings a treasure trove of experience from working on pioneering websites to owning and operating a call center. We venture into how tracking leads, revenues, and conversions can inform your marketing strategies and the indispensable role of technology in doing so. Get ready to discover the secrets of measuring the effectiveness of digital marketing.

We are not stopping at theories. Christopher Roberts throws the spotlight on real-life applications of AI in marketing. Hear the compelling tale of a massive team's effort to build an in-house system to measure the effectiveness of digital content, influence, and ad campaigns. Understand how AI algorithms can draw a roadmap for digital marketing, leaving room for human input to adjust and optimize the plan. Experience the thrill of creating a sales feedback loop that gives clients a competitive edge. This episode is brimming with takeaways you wouldn't want to miss!

Guest Links

Cloud Control Media
Connect with Christopher Roberts on LinkedIn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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This episode is another preview of content that will be included in my upcoming book.

Two episodes ago I requested that you rethink your social media marketing with the role of user-generated content in mind.

This episode I want you to rethink the role that email marketing can have in developing communication pathways and ultimately relationships of business value.

Ever thought about the untapped power of email marketing? Buckle up, because in this episode, we're blowing the lid off the incredible potency that rests in your inbox. That's right, email marketing isn't just alive and kicking; it's a heavy hitter, 40 times more potent in snagging you new customers than social media.

We're not just talking about mere promotional tools. We're diving into relationship-building resources. How, you ask? By focusing on consistent communication, lead magnets, content creation, and the art of nurturing the customer journey. The cherry on top? An overview of welcome emails and lead nurture sequences that will leave you awestruck: a whopping 80% open rate and 320% more revenue! But we don't just wow you with figures; we provide you with the hands-on tools to conjure up the perfect welcome email and lead nurture sequences.

But the episode doesn't stop there. We also delve into promotional emails - not just as a sales tool, but as a powerful relationship builder. From boosting brand awareness to generating demand and showcasing your products or services, we cover it all. We also discuss the role of time-bound discount and event emails, and how they can up your customer interaction game. Finally, we reveal how you can make each email experience unique for your customers by leveraging special occasions. So, gear up for a ride that takes email marketing to a whole new level. Let's hit it!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever wished you could tap into the brilliant mind of an author, successful company founder, and and senior manager at a cool company like Adobe? Meet today's guest Andy Lambert, author of Social 3.0.

I was lucky to have Andy share his experiences and insights on B2B growth with me.

Andy schooled us on how to shift our mindset to use social media for growth and the importance of consistent, positive actions in the B2B industry. He gave us an intimate look into launching a social media scheduling platform and how educational content was crucial in generating interest.

Andy didn't hold back on the secrets of his trade. He elaborated on how understanding your customer base's needs can power your business objectives and fuel your content marketing strategy. He emphasized the importance of aligning sales and marketing, and how this harmony could be the key to success for any B2B organization. We also touched on 'dark social' and its role in driving content marketing success, a concept that will have you rethinking your strategy.

In the final part of our discussion, Andy really drove home the value of educational content and how it should be prioritized in budgets. He made a compelling argument about creating demand for the majority of the market, not just the 5% actively looking to buy, and why trust is more important than awareness for conversions. Lastly, we explored the power of word-of-mouth marketing and the importance of building relationships with influencers.

Hearing about Andy's approach to B2B growth was enlightening, and I hope it will be for you too. Tune in to hear all about it.

Guest Links

Connect with Andy on LinkedIn
Buy Social 3.0 on Amazon (affiliate)
Sign Up for a Free Adobe Express Account (affiliate)

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ready to tap into the power of User-Generated Content (UGC) and revolutionize your social media marketing strategy?

I recorded this episode to flesh out content for a chapter in my upcoming book, so this will also act as a special preview as to what I have been working on.

I'll guide you through the captivating new world of UGC, where engaging TikTok influencers and the rising breed of 'Instagrammable' content creators is becoming the norm. You'll discover why everything from customer selfies to thought leader ads on LinkedIn is now part of the UGC arsenal, and why B2B brands are jumping on this bandwagon.

Ever wondered why 92% of consumers trust UGC more than traditional marketing content? The authenticity and relatability of UGC have a powerful impact on consumers, influencing their purchasing decisions and helping to build meaningful relationships. I've got intriguing statistics to share that shed light on the sway of UGC, and I'll dive into a practical example from the real estate sector to illustrate how UGC can be leveraged effectively in B2B scenarios.

Finally, I’ll share some tried-and-tested strategies to motivate your customers to create UGC, from establishing brand ambassadors to running branded hashtag campaigns. Whether you are a B2B brand or an emerging influencer ready to shine, there's something valuable for everyone in this episode. So, ready to reimagine your social media presence? Let's embark on this exciting journey together in the world of User-Generated Content. Tune in for a treasure trove of insights and actionable advice.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Are you ready to unlock the secrets of turning a passion project into a thriving business? Imagine being at a crossroads in your career, unsure of the next step, and a friend suggests starting a blog. That's how Graham Robertson, founder and CEO of Beloved Brands, began his entrepreneurial journey. Listen in as Graham unfolds his transformative transition from a corporate marketer to an independent brand strategist, leveraging the power of his blog to reach out to an audience that spans across 30 countries.

Graham's voyage of self-discovery began with a blog on WordPress, where he wrote extensively about his passion - marketing. As the blog gained traction, he figured out the importance of strategic writing, niche selection and reader feedback in shaping his content. Delve deeper into the art of identifying your areas of expertise and utilizing guest bloggers to fill your knowledge gaps, as Graham navigates his way through an intricate world of blogging that ultimately led him to a whopping 50,000 monthly visitors.

Graham didn't stop at just blogging; he used his platform to build a business empire. From leveraging SEO and keyword research to boost website traffic, to creating brand funnels, writing and publishing a book, designing templates, and launching an online course, he has done it all. In our conclusive discussion, he sheds light on his process of creating and selling digital products. Get an insider's view of his journey from translating his work from a Mac to PowerPoint, selling templates through WooCommerce, to developing an online course that mirrors his in-person training experience using Thinkific. Buckle up for a roller-coaster ride into Graham Robertson’s world of turning blogs into businesses!

Guest Links

Beloved Brands: https://beloved-brands.com/
Connect with Graham on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/grahamrobertson1/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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What do you do after you publish 2 books on LinkedIn but would rather work on new content rather than revise the older books?

You offer a free update on LinkedIn best practices.

With that thought, my free ebook, Maximizing LinkedIn for Business, was born.

Now in its 4th edition, which I am announcing with this podcast episode, this is a 55-page PDF chock full of recommendations and best practices that has become a labor of love to revise annually to make sure it is even more up-to-date than a published book, which aren't as frequently updated.

This year I decided to focus on creating two new chapters:

1️⃣ The Art of LinkedIn Content - helping you understand and create the new types of content that appear to get the most visibility in the LinkedIn feed

2️⃣ How to Leverage A.I. Specifically for LinkedIn - introducing the tools and processes that I use to inspire you to do more on LinkedIn

If you were curious the chapter I removed to make way for the new chapters is:

LinkedIn Automation: I included it because I know a lot of people to continue to use it, but I have also seen many people end up in LinkedIn Jail as a result. Why not spend the time in content creation and actually engaging with others and developing real relationships?

Download the ebook here: https://nealschaffer.com/linkedin-book-free-download/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Highlighting an industry trailblazer, I'm honored to host Jon Ferrara, the tech visionary behind Goldmine, once the largest CRM in the world, and Nimble, the pioneer of social CRMs. Buckle up as Jon takes us on a journey exploring how to turn social media into a goldmine of sales leads, stake your claim with influencers, and leverage social media to resonate with your audience.

Strap yourself in for an expedition into the world of relationships - building, scaling, and managing them effectively over time. Jon underscores the lifeblood of purpose in our ventures, and how digital platforms can be harnessed to amplify our humanity and carve out a robust brand. We delve into the promise of technology to bolster business strategies, and the crucial need to be authentic in engagements.

As we round up, Jon gifts us with his wisdom on establishing business habits and workflows, emphasizing the crucial role of customer feedback in product evolution. We explore the intersection of social selling and influencer marketing and the power they wield in scaling businesses. This episode, brimming with invaluable tips and strategies, is your key to unlocking the potential of social selling and digital marketing.

Guest Links

Nimble: https://nimble.com
Connect with Jon on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jonvferrara/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Do you feel there's a missing link in your marketing strategy? It might be time to incorporate 'Ikigai,' a Japanese concept that brings purpose and meticulous precision into the equation. I'm here to show you how focusing on the details, embracing who you are, and finding joy in the little things can contribute to your professional success.

In this intimate solo episode, we'll unlock the meaning of 'Ikigai' and explore how it's been a driving force in my life and career. Drawing from my 15 years of living and working in Japan, I'll share tales of sushi chefs striving for perfection and question how your purpose or mission manifests in your content. Whether you're a marketer, entrepreneur, or content creator, it's time to discover your Ikigai and take a new purpose-driven approach to marketing.

Are you ready to grow? Let's get started.

Links:

Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day by Ken Mogi: https://amzn.to/47kKMwA [affiliate]

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Awakening Your Ikigai: How the Japanese Wake Up to Joy and Purpose Every Day

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What happens when the lines between podcasting and YouTube start to blur? Join me as I sit down with Vyyyper - The Man About Tech, from vidIQ, as we venture into this buzzing convergence. Vyyyper, a renowned YouTube expert, generously offers his insights drawn from his transformative journey from a tech content creator to an executive social media producer at vidIQ. His story is a testament to the power of determination and the importance of sharing knowledge - a true inspiration for all content creators.

Podcasting on YouTube might seem like uncharted territory, but with Vyyyper's guidance, you'll unravel the intricacies of this exciting medium. We delve into the art of creating content that resonates, navigating through the changing landscape shaped by platforms like TikTok. Discover the true potential of authenticity in content creation, and why you don't need top-tier gear to succeed. We further explore strategies to optimize podcasts on YouTube, making them valuable for listeners and successful in the algorithm.

The conversation takes a turn towards repurposing content and understanding YouTube's algorithm, vital aspects for content creators. Vyyyper uncovers the potential of creating multiple formats from a single source, maximizing reach, and humanizing brands on YouTube. We wrap up with an introduction to vidIQ's game-changing AI Content Generator.

Join us in this enlightening journey, where Vyyyper paints a vivid picture of the future of podcasting and YouTube, loaded with a wealth of practical advice that you cannot afford to miss. Tune in to this episode - a goldmine of insights from the man who’s been there and done that.

Guest Links

Check out VidIQ here: https://nealschaffer.com/vidiq (affiliate)
Check out Vyyyper's YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/TheManAboutTech

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever feel like your digital marketing efforts are scattered all over the place? I'm here to share a groundbreaking concept called marketing containers that will revolutionize your approach to content marketing, enhancing your strategies and optimizing your resources. Encapsulating my professional experiences and insights, I'll reveal why these containers are the future of strategic marketing and how they connect with my fifth book and the SES framework I introduced to you in episode #326.

Let's shape your marketing campaigns and overall operations in a more organized, strategic way with marketing containers. I'll guide you on creating these containers and subcontainers, helping you prioritize your digital marketing activities and increase efficiency. I'll illustrate this with an example of content buckets - a unique way to create containers for each product and its associated keywords for SEO, PPC, content creation, and social media ads. And here's a fun challenge: come up with your own marketing container strategy and you might just get a shoutout in my upcoming book! Get ready to streamline, strategize, and supersize your marketing success!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ever wondered how to brew compelling content that sets you apart? Join me for a riveting conversation with Melanie Deziel, a content wizard who began her journey in journalism and went on to shape the digital marketing world. This episode is loaded with Melanie's intriguing anecdotes - from creating branded content for the Huffington Post and the New York Times to her time as the Director of Creative Strategy at Time Inc. Plus, she recounts the challenging yet triumphant book launch of Content Fuel during a global pandemic.

Melanie shares her ingenious approach to content creation, leveraging AI and chat GPT ideation to keep the content wheel spinning. She gives us a sneak peek into her latest book, Prove It, a manifesto of her belief in earning audience trust through content. We'll explore the idea of content as evidence, validating business claims and fueling digital marketing drives.

Lastly, we delve into the heart of content creation, exploring Melanie's distinct content fuel framework. She underlines the importance of 'focus' and 'format' in the content ideation process, and how the delicate interplay between the two shapes engaging content. We also discuss potential roadblocks to ideation and innovation in companies, and how leaders can catalyze creativity within their teams. Tune in for an enlightening conversation brimming with practical tips and insights. Don't miss it!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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What if you could streamline your digital, content, influencer, social media, and marketing strategies with ease?

Join me as I unravel unique frameworks and processes to make this aspect of your business more manageable.

Using insights gathered from crafting my upcoming fifth book, I want to share with you not just theories, but practical, implementable strategies to help you navigate the digital marketing maze.

Ever heard of the SES framework for digital marketing?

Or the Digital Relationships Funnel?

Let's explore how these game-changing ideas can help your business convert prospects into advocates, using the trifecta of search, email, and social media. And it doesn't end there! We'll be uncovering how organic and paid social media, along with influencer marketing and strategic website content, play pivotal roles in this conversion process. Tune in for an enlightening conversation that will revolutionize how you approach your digital marketing strategy. Be ready to take notes, you won't want to miss it!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Imagine attending a party that teaches you the ins and outs of social media marketing. That's exactly what we explore in our conversation with Jason McDonald, best-selling author of digital marketing and internet marketing workbooks. Jason shares his expertise on SEO, social media, and ads, as well as his journey from working in the embedded systems industry to helping small businesses succeed online. Plus, we dive into his fascinating experience creating a coloring book about Donald Trump.

We discuss Jason's party analogy and how it can be applied to both B2B and B2C marketing strategies. Learn how to approach social media marketing like attending a party and figure out what kind of party you should be throwing. We also break down the complex world of technical analysis, making it simple and accessible for small business owners. Discover the importance of understanding the big picture, sequencing tasks, and translating tech jargon into terms that make sense to marketers.

Finally, we chat about promoting Jason McDonald's books and how businesses can find success in digital marketing. Jason shares some valuable resources for those who may not have the means to purchase his books, and he invites you to join his Digital First group coaching membership community. Don't miss this engaging and insightful conversation with Jason McDonald that will surely spark some new ideas for your marketing strategies. Join us and get ready to party your way to social media marketing success!

Guest Links

Jason McDonald's Personal Website: https://www.jasonmcdonald.org/
Jason's SEO Agency: https://www.jm-seo.org/
Connect with Jason on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasoneg3/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Ready to unlock the full potential of LinkedIn Creator Mode and skyrocket your reach? I've got you covered with a game-changing episode that reveals how this powerful, yet underutilized feature can help you broaden your reach, grow your network, and establish thought leadership. As a business owner, entrepreneur, or content creator, you'll get a step-by-step tutorial on activating and maximizing LinkedIn Creator Mode, so you can be on your way to dominating the platform!

As I walk you through this amazing feature, we'll share tips on how to create hashtags, add custom website links, feature lead magnets and activity, and even host LinkedIn Live events. You'll discover how to leverage StreamYard for promoting live streams on LinkedIn and how to utilize the LinkedIn newsletter feature for further reach. Plus, learn how to get subscribers straight from your profile and boost your visibility. Don't miss this opportunity to learn about one of LinkedIn's best new features in years and get ready to make your mark on the platform!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Discover the power of psychological principles in marketing as we chat with Nancy Harhut, author of "Using Behavioral Science in Marketing." Uncover why C-suite executives are recognizing the immense potential of incorporating behavioral science into their strategies and how you can stay ahead of the curve.

From leveraging the magnetic middle to exploring choice architecture, we discuss practical ways to tap into the hardwired behaviors and decision-making processes of your customers. By utilizing persuasive language, you'll learn how to craft content that captures your audience's attention and drives them to engage with your brand. Plus, hear about my experience using choice architecture to boost conversions significantly.

As the future of artificial intelligence continues to intersect with behavioral science, Nancy sheds light on how AI can enhance your marketing efforts. We delve into the use of AI for crafting compelling copy while stressing the importance of human interaction in closing sales. Don't miss this enlightening conversation with expert Nancy Harhut and elevate your marketing game by harnessing the power of behavioral science.

Guest Links

Nancy's Company HBT Marketing: https://www.hbtmktg.com/
BuyUsing Behavioral Science in Marketing on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4617E3n [affiliate]
Connect with Nancy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancyharhut

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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What if AI could be the game-changer you need to revolutionize your digital marketing strategy? In this captivating episode, I unlock the power of AI and its potential to transform the way businesses and individuals operate. Listen closely to learn how a new generation of doing things stacks up against traditional marketing methods. I also dive into the world of AI-powered virtual assistants, where your imagination is the only limit to what you can achieve.

As we continue to explore the wonders of AI, I examine its role in content creation. Discover how generative AI can be used to not only improve existing content but also generate fresh ideas and build content outlines. Say goodbye to writer's block and learn how AI can speed up content generation, optimize your content for SEO, and even create custom images. Plus, I'll discuss the importance of establishing an AI policy and how to seamlessly integrate AI into your content creation process.

But why stop there? In the final segment of this episode, I delve into the limitless potential of AI in marketing tools. Learn how AI can forecast outcomes, enhance customer service, and personalize marketing efforts based on purchase history. I even touch on AI's role in pay-per-click ad management, dynamic pricing, marketing automation, image recognition, social listening, and sentiment analysis. With invaluable advice on how to best harness the power of AI to grow your business, this episode is an absolute must-listen for digital marketers and entrepreneurs alike.

A.I. tools mentioned in this video: (yes, affiliate links, but click through for special offers!)

Jasper.ai (for general A.I. content creation) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/jasper
Frase.io (for SEO) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/frase
TubeBuddy (for YouTube) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/tubebuddy
VidIQ (for YouTube) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/vidiq
Descript (for audio and video editing) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/descript
TweetHunter (for Twitter) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/tweethunter
PinGenerator (for Pinterest) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/pingenerator
ContentIn (for LinkedIn) ▶ https://nealschaffer.com/contentin

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Imagine building an army of irrationally loyal fans for your brand, fans who keep coming back for more and help your business thrive in today's competitive marketplace. In our captivating conversation with branding expert and author Deb Gabor, we discuss just that - the secrets to turning customers into devoted followers and her latest book, 'Person-Ality Cultivate Your Human Authority to Ignite Irrational Brand Loyalty'.

Deb's journey from working at AT&T Bell Labs and other technology startups to becoming an accidental entrepreneur is both fascinating and inspiring. We dive deep into the concept of irrational loyalty, the Brand Values Pyramid, and the four-point formula for creating a winning brand strategy. Deb also shares her passion for working with unsexy brands in unsexy categories, and the importance of branding in the B2B world for building strong connections with clients.

We even explore the potential of AI in marketing and branding, and whether it could ever replace the human touch when it comes to creating content that resonates with customers. So, tune in and discover how to elevate your brand strategy, hack Maslow's hierarchy, and create a loyal fan base eager to stand by your brand!

Guest Links

Buy Person-ality on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3MxkJIR (affiliate)
Deb's Website: https://debgabor.com/
Connect with Deb on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dgabor/

Register for the 10 Ways to Use Data to Transform Your Digital Marketing and Drive Business Growth webinar on May 30 here: https://nealschaffer.com/digivizer-webinar

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Discover the top 10 AI marketing tools that I personally use and love!

In this episode, I'll reveal my favorite tools and give you a demo of each one, so you can see how they can help you grow your business.

From content creation to SEO optimization, these AI-powered tools are game-changers for startups, business owners, and entrepreneurs.

Don't miss out on these incredible resources!

▶️ Catch the livestream here: https://youtube.com/live/-1pSRJRddCk

▶️ Grab my free marketing tools ebook here: https://nealschaffer.com/best-digital-marketing-tools-guide/

▶️ Links to the AI marketing tools covered in this video for free trials and discounts below!

1️⃣ Google Bard https://bard.google.com
2️⃣ Frase.io https://nealschaffer.com/frase
3️⃣ SocialBee https://nealschaffer.com/socialbee
4️⃣ TweetHunter https://nealschaffer.com/tweethunter
5️⃣ PinGenerator https://nealschaffer.com/pingenerator
6️⃣ PodSqueeze https://nealschaffer.com/podsqueeze
7️⃣ Jasper https://nealschaffer.com/jasper
8️⃣ Tailwind https://nealschaffer.com/tailwind
9️⃣ TubeBuddy https://nealschaffer.com/tubebuddy
🔟 VidIQ https://nealschaffer.com/vidiq

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Has your marketing data been feeling a little flat?

Are you looking for ways to increase your ROI?

Look no further!

In this interview with the digital marketing analytics and ROI dashboard Digivizer CEO and co-founder, Emma Lo Russo, we'll show you 3 actionable strategies to help you analyze your marketing data and maximize your return on investment.

Learn how to:

attract quality web traffic to your site, improve your website ranking and optimize your SEO.
boost paid advertising performance and maximize your ROAS.
optimize your SEO position by harnessing the search terms your customers are using.

So don't delay - tune in to learn how to better maximize your marketing data today!

Guest Links:

Try Digivizer for Free Here: https://nealschaffer.com/digivizer [affiliate]
Connect with Emma on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/emmalorusso/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I'm diving deep into the world of podcasting and exploring the true value it can bring to your business!

Podcasting isn't just about monetizing your content; it's about building relationships, growing your audience, and establishing yourself as an authority in your niche.

I'll discuss the various ways you can measure the ROI of your podcast, from increased brand awareness to networking opportunities and more. Plus, I'll share some insider tips on how to maximize your podcast's potential for success.

Don't miss this insightful conversation that will change the way you think about podcasting and its impact on your business.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode I interview Andrew Schulkind, the author of "Marketing for Small B2B Businesses: How Content Creates Marketing Muscle and Powers Traditional and Digital Marketing."

The episode focuses on building a sustainable marketing machine for small businesses, with a particular emphasis on B2B businesses.

Andrew shares his expertise in working with small businesses and provides actionable advice for creating effective content marketing strategies.

The conversation covers topics such as the importance of audience-centric content and the role of AI in content creation.

Guest Links

Andrew's company Andigo: https://www.andigo.com/
Andrew's book Marketing for Small B2B Businesses: How Content Creates Marketing Muscle and Powers Traditional and Digital Marketing on Amazon: https://amzn.to/449WEQj [affiliate]
Connect with Andrew on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewschulkind/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this podcast episode, I discuss the importance of investing in marketing and not being too frugal with marketing budgets.

I share personal examples of how investing money in the right areas can lead to significant returns in terms of lead generation and business growth.

I emphasize the importance of not being a "cheapskate" in marketing and instead doing smart marketing.

This episode highlights the mindset of how we spend our money and the need to reconstruct a marketing budget on a year-to-year basis.

TIMESTAMPS
Investing in Marketing [00:01:14] I share personal examples of how investing a little more money in marketing tools and webinars can lead to significant returns in terms of lead generation and business growth.

Importance of AI in Marketing [00:04:09] I emphasize the importance of investing in marketing tools that incorporate AI, as almost every marketing tool is including some form of AI into their tool.

Influencer Marketing [00:06:44] I discusses the importance of investing in influencer marketing and not being too stingy with compensation for influencers. I suggest that companies should offer influencers something of value, such as free use of their tool, in exchange for promoting their product.

Investing in Marketing Tools [00:10:22] I emphasize the importance of investing in marketing tools and AI to help scale and grow a business.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast, I interview Chris Smith, author of The Conversion Code, about implementing a sales-focused marketing strategy.

We discuss the science behind the convergence of sales and marketing and provide real step-by-step advice for success.

Chris emphasizes the importance of having a well-organized website and landing pages, lead follow-up, and inside sales.

He also stresses the significance of technology in scaling marketing strategies and encourages executives to support their employees in conducting experiments and taking risks.

Guest Links:

Curaytor: https://www.curaytor.com/
The Conversion Code Website: https://www.theconversioncode.com/
The Conversion Code: Stop Chasing Leads and Start Attracting Clients by Chris Smith: https://amzn.to/41yuTyy (affiliate)
Chris on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/chris_smth/

Time Stamps
Chris Smith's Background [00:04:30]
Chris Smith talks about his background in sales and marketing, starting in the boiler room doing phone sales for telemarketing companies.

The Early Days of Social Media [00:08:38]
Chris Smith talks about how he became influential in the real estate industry through social media and how the Wall Street Journal offered him $5000 a month to advertise on his blog.

The Importance of Listening in Content Marketing [00:09:37]
I discuss with Chris Smith the importance of listening more than speaking in content marketing and he shares a story about how asking questions can lead to success.

The Importance of Digital Marketing Fundamentals [00:16:25]
Chris Smith and I discuss the importance of having digital marketing fundamentals in place before implementing more advanced strategies, and how many companies still struggle with the basics.

The Importance of Website and Sales Process [00:16:44]
Chris Smith emphasizes the importance of having a clean website and a well-structured sales process before investing in marketing.

The Science of Marketing and Sales [00:18:03]
Chris Smith talks about his personal approach to marketing and sales, which involves experimenting and testing different strategies to see what works.

Challenges of Large Companies [00:23:33]
Chris Smith and I discuss the challenges that large companies face when it comes to implementing new marketing and sales strategies, and the importance of having a supportive executive team.

Lead Follow Up [00:25:06]
Chris Smith discusses the importance of lead follow up and shares tips on how to improve lead conversion rates, including speed to lead and personalization.

Inside Sales [00:29:58]
Chris Smith defines inside sales as a call center that focuses on outbound calling to inbound leads and shares how it differs from outside sales. He also emphasizes the importance of scripts, questions, and tone in inside sales.

Importance of Lead Conversion [00:29:33]
Chris Smith shares a quick stat that 95% o

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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The creator economy has unleashed a new generation of creators who seek to become niche experts.

While have niche expertise in an industry can be helpful to your business if you want to market in that industry, does hiring a niche expert to help with your marketing make sense?

On the other hand, what is the holistic marketing concept, and how does working with a holistic marketing expert differ from working with a niche expert?

These are the questions I will answer based on my own experience in helping companies and transitioning from one to the other - you'll find out all about it by listening to the end!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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One might argue that influencer marketing should be an even more important marketing channel for B2B brands, but most simply misunderstand what is potentially the most powerful marketing channel for them.

From leveraging employees as internal influencers to properly collaborating with external influencers, influencer marketing can have a profound impact on B2B businesses when done right.

So how do you best DO B2B influencer marketing?

I can't think of anyone in the world to more knowledgable about B2B influencer marketing than Tim Williams, CEO of Onalytica.

Together we will discuss the following:

ROI of B2B Influencer Marketing
Best ways to activate B2B Creators
What B2B Creators are looking for when partnering with brands
How to connect your Employee Advocacy & Influencer Marketing programs
How to measure influencer marketing success

I hope you can join us for what should be a profoundly educational and invaluable use of your time!

Register for the Harnessing the Power of A.I. to Transform Your Small Business Marketing webinar on April 19 here: https://nealschaffer.com/tailwindai

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Are you looking to breathe some new air into your digital marketing?

Want to create content that can truly be leveraged across EVERY social media and evergreen content platform?

Do you want to have more FUN with your content and create a community revolving around it and your content experience?

A LOT has been said about live streaming, but I don't think it has ever been described in the way that I have experienced and learned over the last few weeks...

Register for the Harnessing the Power of A.I. to Transform Your Small Business Marketing webinar on April 19 here: https://nealschaffer.com/tailwindai

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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If you have an interest in content marketing, you might know who Joe Pulizzi is and his absolute authority on the subject.

But just in case, Joe is considered the legitimate Godfather of Content Marketing because he is the:

Founder of Content Marketing Institute
Founder of Content Marketing World
Author of several content marketing books, including the recently revised Epic Content Marketing
He also recently founded the Creator Economy Expo

But Joe is not going to give you the content marketing advice that you already know. On the contrary, Joe is going to teach you some unconventional ways of thinking about content marketing.

Intrigued?

You should be!

GUEST LINKS

Creator Economy Expo: https://nealschaffer.com/cex [affiliate]
Epic Content Marketing on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3JJ96NE [affiliate]
The Tilt: https://thetilt.com

Register for the Harnessing the Power of A.I. to Transform Your Small Business Marketing webinar on April 19 here: https://nealschaffer.com/tailwindai

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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You've heard it a million times: you need to do marketing campaigns if you want your business to grow.

But what if I told you that's not actually true?

That focusing on something else instead could lead to even better results?

Listen to this episode to find out what that "something else" is.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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67 percent of B2B buyers no longer prefer to interact with sales representatives when making purchasing decisions. Gathering information online is now the hallmark of the buying process.

This is great background for today's interview with Steven Mark Kahan, author of High Velocity Digital Marketing, who has successfully helped grow seven startup companies from early stage to going public or being sold, resulting in $5 billion in shareholder value. Based on his recent $1.4 billion dollar exit with cybersecurity firm, Thycotic, he will share the inside secrets of how to build a sales and marketing strategy that delivers breakthrough revenue growth –in brutally competitive markets, including:

•The modern digital marketing strategies he recommends to his clients - that any company can replicate
•Easy-to-implement strategies for getting found online, providing the most critical information, and getting buyers to purchase—fast.

While the interview is focused on B2B, the advice is equally applicable to B2C, so make sure you tune in!

Key Highlights

[02:02] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Steven Mark Kahan

[04:03] Steven's Journey to Digital Marketing

[05:11] Why Steven Wrote High-Velocity Digital Marketing

[07:08] The Importance of the Foundations of Digital Marketing

[10:01] Ask the Right Questions!

[14:06] Strengthening Your Digital Marketing Foundation

[18:03] 3 Ways Steven Convince Brands to Invest in Content that Fill In Gaps

[22:27] The Analogy of How People Buy Today

[24:43] High-Velocity Tips from Steven

[28:32] Think About Velocity!

[31:36] Final Thoughts

[32:42] Connect With Steven

Notable Quotes

Certainly the way in which people buy today is they buy based on the research they do online. So if you're going to market today, digital is the way you have to go.
Beyond just not talking to customers enough, it's really defining who your ideal target buyer is in detail, such that you're able to effectively target your digital programs to them. And then, of course, it's understanding the full context of their world.
What are these buyers that you're targeting digitally, they're not looking really for how creative or clever your marketing department is, what they're looking for, is to work with companies that understand them, that empathize with them.
A lot of it then comes to how you utilize that information to create your value proposition to ensure that it is differentiated, that you're able to communicate that unique value perfectly to that target buyer.
It was really how you use that information to incorporate it within your messaging, and then how you also use that information in the content that you create across the buyers journey.
You got to be great online, if you want to consistently grow revenue for sure. And Google is key.

Guest Links

High Velocity Digital Marketing on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3mDSSgC [affiliate]
Connect with Steve on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevekahan/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Following up on my report from the Generative AI conference, today's guest has transformed a social media dashboard into becoming an AI ghostwriter for digital and social media marketing.

Meet Greg Starling, Head of the Innovation Labs at Tailwind, who is helping to create a new generative AI product there.

Using AI to brainstorm ideas
Using AI to streamline marketing processes
When & how to partner with AI for maximum effectiveness

Take a deep dive into A.I. and how you can better leverage it for your business.

Key Highlights

[03:53] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Greg Starling

[07:51] How Greg Got Into the AI Industry

[10:30] Pushing AI Into Create Tools

[12:41] Getting the Right Queries and Prompts

[18:46] Areas Where Tailwind Has Implemented AI

[22:39] Transition from Social Media Dashboard to AI Marketing Tool

[23:48] Leveraging the AI Engine

[28:54] Streamling AI Into the Marketing Process

[33:19] Greg's Quick Tip on Writing Summary

[34:37] Where to Start the Process of Using AI?

[40:01] Where GPT Technology Is Going?

[45:08] Connect With Greg

Notable Quotes

People just think chat GPT is only chat GPT When, at the end of the day, you're gonna get something very generic from it, as you said, compared to other tools that are that are putting, you know, secret sauces on top of it.
Anywhere where you're writing content that you want to that you're using to try to market yourself market your brand, we probably have some AI assistance there that could that can move you along quicker.
We're trying to do things where we can give you a full on marketing plan, but then help you execute that plan with AI.
There's this concept that people romanticize a blank page, people say, Oh, well, there's endless possibilities. But the truth is, a blank page stops people from doing what they need to do.
We're trying to get you off of that blank page, and onto the next step and actually moving forwards, in your kind of marketing process.
I think people who get really good at this will actually replace people who who ignore it or fearful of it, I know a lot of people aren't I get it, but it's not going to you being fearful of it is not going to stop happening. So I think everybody's got to figure out how they can fit in and, and take advantage of it.
Start finding a platform that you like that you trust, that you think has your best interests in mind, and figure out how you can start implementing those into your product.
You need an AI strategy. Even a company like tailwind, had an AI strategy implemented it and you can see what's happened. So every one of us needs to think.

Guest Links:

Greg Starling on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gregstarling/
Try Out Tailwind Here: https://nealschaffer.com/tailwind (affiliate)

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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The use of AI in marketing and business in general is evolving much quicker than you might think. I had a chance to attend Jasper's Generative AI conference in San Francisco this month and wanted to share with you how far things are progressing and the impact it is already having on marketing and business.

Tune in and I trust that you will also come to the same understanding that the future of A.I. is now and that is not a question of experimentation but of serious strategizing and implementation.

Try out Jasper here: https:https://nealschaffer.com/jasper [affiliate link]

Key Highlights

[04:52] The First Successful AI Program

[06:00] Turning Points that Defined Modern Business

[06:52] Generative AI Defined

[08:26] Generative AI for Content Creation

[10:08] Jasper AI Features and Evolution

[14:32] AI for Marketing

[21:06] Possible Decline of Search Engine Traffic

[25:25] The Creativity AI Can Foster

[29:52] AI's Impact on the Business World

[33:09] AI for Co-development

[35:16] How AI Makes Content Marketing Accessible

[40:42] How to Future Proof

[45:25] AI Literacy and AI Hallucinations

[49:47] Why You Should Continue Using Jasper
Notable Quotes

The only thing that has ever held our ideas back has been an inability to convey them. Thus, from AI, creating that content, the hours reclaimed that we can invest into thinking, expanding and refining ideas, and creating even better content is innumerable.
Today, baseline AI is a baseline part of most technology. But in the future, your brand's unique AI, will become that critical turning point of really personalized AI that really can represent your brand voice.
Too often, marketers see new technology and rush to the lowest bar of its creation. Just because the barriers have dropped with AI, doesn't mean our standards should.
So instead of always creating new content, why don't we take our old content and treat them as assets, and further improve upon them.
It's not about the quality, it's about the quantity, and good content, truly good content requires ideation.
Create to inspire something to think about. And one of the big messages from this conference was humans collaborating with technology, right? It's all about the creativity that AI can help unleash, not just robotic text.
Instead of trying to learn it all yourself, take advantage of the fact that the AI can do a lot of it for you, and work on higher-level issues, similar to how marketers should work on higher-level issues like ideas, and distribution. And this power of ideation is critical for business.
Future-proofing ourselves means using AI to enhance our humanity, not erase it remember, ideation become more creative. Let AI be AI, and humans be humans.
AI can help you get to where you want to go. But it can't tell you the right direction to go.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Social media is not an option for generating organic traffic back to your website anymore.

It is time to use social media what it was intended for, and to reap the benefits and gain a competitive advantage compared to those who are still using social media as if it was 2010.

This is time to embrace authentically social content. Short form video is one example of this type of content, but there is another text-based type that can be effective on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Listen in for the full definitions and detailed advice!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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TikTok is becoming more critical of a channel to tap into a new generation and new trends. But there are many things that we can apply from our legacy social media marketing into understanding and leveraging this newest of social media platforms for our business.

Today's guest, Cassie Petrey, co-founder of the digital marketing company Crowd Surf, has helped some of the most iconic musicians such as Backstreet Boys and Camila Cabello use social media to connect with their audience. That same advice can be used for your business regardless of industry. Listen in for the details!

Key Highlights

[04:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Cassie Petrey

[07:26] Cassie Journey to Social Media Marketing Industry

[18:13 Cassie's First Thought on TikTok

[20:10] Best Practices on Launching TikTok Account

[23:55] Growing TikTok Account Over Time

[26:35] The Importance of Engaging Within Social Community

[28:25] Defining High Quality TikTok Content

[31:00] How Musicians Approach Influencer Collaborations on TikTok

[34:41] Different Avenues in Finding Collaborative Relationship

[38:25] Connect With Cassie

[39:08] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

And if you think about it, computers aren't really that, you know, as fun without the internet without being able to connect with people. So I think this sort of like tool existing, to be able to normal person have a computer at home and be able to connect and do things on the internet was it really changed a lot of things in pop culture at that time.
I would say the most important thing is, before you even get on there, sort of have a vision of what your video content is going to be. The worst thing I think I see people do is they basically like copy videos from other people try to make it them themselves.
I think when you get out of your head about what everyone else is doing, and is think about what a tool is, at its core, that's when a lot of people sort of find the freedom to come up with the best ideas on what they can create to that represents their brand.
I feel like people start creating the content that's not good for them is when you start chasing when you either are making content because you are afraid or you feel guilty. Or because you think something you're making something because you think it's gonna get good numbers. And not because you think it's fun, or because you think it's good for your brand.
Spend time not being about themselves. Dedicate time to be a part of a social community, not just to post and hope that people come to you like you have to, you have to be out there giving the engagement to other people that you want to be receiving.
Always think about how do you want your brand to make people feel and in your video content, your social media content is an extension of that.
I'm all about simplifying this stuff. Because I think when people make it too complicated is when people sort of throw their hands up, and they're like, this is scary and too complicated.

Guest Links

Cassie Petrey on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/cassiepetrey/
Cassie Petrey on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.co

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Yes, there is a lot of buzz about ChatGPT, but what exactly does it mean for your business and what should your next steps be? Listen to my perspective and advice, and learn how to apply ChatGPT to your specific business and marketing needs.

Key Highlights

[03:18] Experimenting with Chat GPT

[06:00] Generative Artificial Intelligence Conference

[08:05] How Does Chat GPT Works?

[10:01] The Search Engine Aspect of AI Tools

[11:58] How Far AI Has Come with Brainstorming Ideation

[19:09] AI Tools As The Evolution of Technology

[22:03] Using AI for Research and Content Ideation

[23:50] Where It Gets Tricky

[24:39] Start Experimenting AI Tools Now!

Notable Quotes

So open AI is sort of considered the leaders in this technology and chat. GPT is just another iteration, another evolution, the improvement of this technology.
The way these AI tools work is you're giving them an input, and it's giving you an output, and the output is defined by information that's available on the internet.
That's why really good content writers, it doesn't matter what content you have them write for you, if they are really good at research. And they get a little experience in your topic in your company and your products and your industry. That content can represent you and your brand.
Technology evolves. And this is the evolution of the Internet now that it has become this powerful brain, leveraging artificial intelligence technology, instead of just the information is always there on the internet in an inconvenient way. AI is going to make it extremely convenient to us extremely quick.
But imagine, if you're writing a completely AI generated article, it is only based on what is out there on the internet. So if it's news, and other people have already published news about something, then yes, that actually makes sense. It's gonna save you time. But at the end of the day, why would I want to read the news from CNET, when I can read it from other people that are the source of the news, rather than through an AI bot?
If you're not using it, my recommendation, the takeaway from today is to begin experimenting ASAP.
So the message for today is, don't get left behind. Now's the time to really get up to speed. If you have men begin experimenting.

Links Mentioned:

Episode 260
Copyscape
Jasper AI

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Looking to improve your Instagram Reels? Today's special guest, Travis Brown (@travisbrown on Instagram) will teach you the tips and tricks to get the most out of your Instagram videos, including:

How to research high-impact topics and hooks
How to only post content that works
How to make videos 5 times faster

Key Highlights

[04:02] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Travis Brown

[06:24] Travis's Journey to Podcasting

[07:59] Why Instagram Reels?

[11:27] How Travis Started With Short-Form Videos

[14:33] Balancing Work and Fun

[20:58] 3 Steps to Having Viral Short-Form Videos

[22:45] The Importance of Hooks and Topics

[26:16] How to Know What Content Is Working

[31:15] How Often Should You Post Reels?

[37:50] Travis's Advice on Making Short-Form Videos Fast

[42:14] 10x Video Challenge by Travis

[42:46] Connect With Travis

Notable Quotes

And now I'm actually geared more towards helping people go full time as a creator. So creating opportunities in the digital landscape, that they now have the tools to reach all kinds of people to be able to grow an audience, build a community, and then monetize it so that they could live a lifestyle that they enjoy.
What you resist the most is probably what's going to push you the farthest.
Short form video is not going anywhere. It's not the future. It's the present. And so If podcasters, or businesses or personal brands aren't leveraging it, then they're missing out on a big opportunity to reach lots and lots of people.
In order to reach a massive audience, you need to speak to broad and big topics. If your niche too far, you need to connect your niche to a broader topic.
I challenge people to not compare themselves to the current state of another creator. What you do is you go back all the way to the beginning of their journey, and you compare yourself to that. And if you can make something better than that right now, then you're already ahead of the game. And that's the whole name of the game.
That's the whole goal of marketing is to transform somebody's mindset about a thing, or a product, or help them make a transformation through your message.
We want to only be posting things that we think are going to have a good chance. And you know, the key to this is that people make videos viral, an algorithm doesn't make things viral.
When your video stops resonating with people is when they stop showing it to people.

Guest Links:

PodDecks: https://poddecks.com/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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I recommend my clients always do an audit of their marketing technology stack on an annual basis, so here I am sharing my own stack in hopes of inspiring you to do the same and also to help you learn about some cool new tools that you might want to check out!

Below are links to each of the tools - and note that many of them are affiliate links, but the price to you is the same - it just helps fuel the creator economy ;-)

WEB

WordPress
Shopify

SEARCH

SEMrush
Ahrefs
Moz
Frase
Jasper
Surfer SEO

EMAIL

ConvertKit
Active Campaign
Constant Contact

SOCIAL

SocialBee
Sprout Social
Agorapulse
Sendible
Social Pilot
SocialDog
Tailwind
ContentIn

ANALYTICS

SocialInsider.io
Digivizer

VISUAL & VIDEO

Adobe Express
Canva
Zoom
Riverside.fm
StreamYard
XSplit Vcam
Camtasia
Rev
Lu.ma

PODCASTING

Buzzsprout
PodcastPage.io
Otter.ai
Chartable
Listen Notes

DIGITAL COURSES AND MEMBERSHIPS

Podia
Slack
ChargeKeep
Maven
MiloTree Cart

PEOPLE

Upwork

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Networking and fostering meaningful conversations to engage and move people are core skills that every marketing professional, entrepreneur, and business owner should have.

To help us hone in on these skills to begin the new year, I am honored to have my friend and someone who I have a great deal of respect for, Minter Dial, on this episode.

Minter is an elevating professional speaker and consultant on branding, leadership and transformation.

As he prepares to finish writing his new book, Dialogos, Minter shares with us:

Tools to facilitate conversation
Ways to meet new people (and network)
Ways to develop your empathic listening skills

As the pandemic slowly dwindles down and we go back out to working with and meeting more people in real life, this is the perfect episode to ensure we have the right mindset to take advantage of any and every potential networking situation.

Key Highlights

[01:54] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Minter Dial

[05:53] Minter As An Elevator

[07:12] How Minter Started His Speaking and Corporate Leadership Career

[11:58] Minter's Books

[13:51] Minter's Secret to Writing Content

[18:03] Books On Substack

[21:56] Recommended Tools in Facilitating A Conversation Approach to Business

[23:49] The Empathy Circle

[27:16] Helping People Find New People

[31:44] Ways to Develop Empathic Listening Skills

[34:36] The Reformulation Piece

[39:47] Connect With Minter

Notable Quotes

In the notion of elevation that's important to me, is finding more meaningfulness in whatever we do, whoever you are, in some kind of way.
The point that I was getting to, especially since I started working on digital, was how much the brand should be represented by the human beings, the employees that are working within the company. And so branding gets personal was really my mantra.
The first idea is it's really self-awareness, to notice when you're being triggered to notice when you are being overly excited. And in that impulsion, perhaps cutting off people not knowing to listen.
The second part of it is learning how to listen without judgment. And that means putting aside your own ego, and really trying to understand what the other person is saying. And the goodwill tool here is reformulation.
I have always thought that I am as strong as my network. But having a strong network doesn't mean having a lot of people. It means having a set of people who can have your back, have complementary skills, and add to your position, if you will not just like minded people, this is what I consider a strong network.
It's not about having quantity, it's about enjoying the process, listening to stories and not having an agenda.

Guest Links:

Read Minter's Dialogos, Fostering More Meaningful Conversations via Substack https://minter.substack.com
Minter Dial's Website: https://www.minterdial.com/
Discover Minter's Books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3kh59X8 [affiliate]
Conn

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Welcome to episode 300! As part of an annual tradition, today I report to you on how my marketing channels and business did in 2022. I want to not only provide you the data to let you know why I recommend what I do, but also inspire you by providing you some benchmarks for your own digital marketing.

Key Highlights

[02:25] My Annual Look On How My Channels Performed

[03:07] Where I Recommend You Begin With

[04:14] My Website Traffic

[06:28] Looking At My Direct Traffic

[08:44] You need to Reset Your Approach to Social Media

[10:13] Digging Deeper Inside Website Traffic

[14:15] My Two Takeaways

[18:23] My Digital Marketing Podcast Data

[19:14] Looking At My YouTube Channel Numbers

[22:25] Connect The Dots

[23:28] Ways I'm Looking At Monetizing

Notable Quotes

I always tell my clients direct traffic is really a result of your brand awareness. If people know about you, they're going to directly enter your name and the URL, your website name, they're going to bookmark your site and what have you. So that number to me is very positive.
But that's why, you know, social media was never made for website traffic generation. And we're going back to the early days of what social media was about just exposure, brand awareness. And the social platforms are more and more built for that, you know, short form video is about keeping people on the platform longer, and not having clickable content.
I know that email is the key to getting a business and building a deeper relationship with my community.
Inbound marketing truly works. It's not just creating content for website traffic sake. It's creating targeted content that drives targeted conversions.
When you look at your numbers like this, it becomes pretty clear that directs that you need to go. And I'm hoping that that serves as a or these numbers, you know, without giving you too specific numbers, serve as a Northstar, and maybe help clarify or help you better understand the numbers that you're seeing.
At some point, you need to connect the audience that you have, with the products and services that you sell, with the actual money that you earn. We're not doing digital marketing for the sake of doing digital marketing. We're not in college, doing a research project on how to generate more website traffic. This is our livelihood.
I think people really want to, well, they really want to go at their own pace. So it'll be interesting to see it's another experiment, but if you don't experiment you never know.

Links Mentioned

Episode 298
Episode 299

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Not every company is on board the TikTok train yet, but after listening to this episode, you will see TikTok in an entirely new way.

Meet Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler, a doctor who specializes in a rare disease of the eye called keratoconus who started posting on TikTok during covid and now has become a bonafide TikTok influencer with more than 3 million followers!

Why did he start posting on TikTok?

And what did he start posting on TikTok?

And what is his advice for you?

You'll have to listen in for the details!

Key Highlights

[02:08] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dr. Brian Boxer Wachler

[06:58] From Being Surgeon's Surgeons to Social Media Influencer

[11:43] The Process of Offering Advice and Inspirations

[14:18] What Made Dr. Brian Write Book About Social Media

[16:35] Dr. Brian's Recommendation on Posting for Maximum Impact

[20:51] Thought Process on Publishing Content

[25:01] Pitfalls to Avoid in Social Media

[29:14] Final Thoughts

[29:48] Connect With Dr. Brian

Notable Quotes

That was really what became my mission to help people. But what I guess led to my videos doing so well is that there's a huge need for accurate information. And that's why my account and everything kind of took off from there.
I had so much information between what I've learned and what I shared, and the other 15 influencers that I interviewed, that were really gracious to open up and share what they've learned, the good and the bad, and the school of hard knocks to get to where they were. And that chapter is really a key one for people who do want to embrace social media and understand how to grow their platform, and especially how to grow it in a responsible way.
I think you have to look at each platform individually, because they have their own algorithms.
Being able to balance it and not, you know, get too hooked in and lose track of the important things in life, which are relationships with other people, friends and family, you know, your jobs, you know, being able to achieve what you want to achieve and not start spending so much time on the platforms.
So for parents, it becomes even more critical to be involved in how to be involved to help your kids stay safe, and not go off that deep end, which they're the most likely and most vulnerable to a whole chapter called Living with social media that's actually giving, you know, adults and parents and also teenagers, you know, that read the book, the benefits, but without the downsides.
Social media is like fire, it could be used for illumination, or you could badly burn yourself.

Guest Links:

Follow Dr. Wachler on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@brianboxerwachlermd
Buy Influenced: The Impact of Social Media on Our Perception on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3VOqHro (affiliate)

Links Mentioned:

My Cohort Based Courses

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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TikTok. Instagram Reels. YouTube Shorts. You've heard the buzz around them, and you know that is where social media users are spending the most time consuming content today.

Short form video has transformed from its earliest days of just being about trending dances on TikTok to being a place where people go looking for information. If you have children or know any GenZ youth, ask them what they have learned from being on TikTok. You might be surprised as to the center of information discovery that short form video platform has become.

So as we embark on 2023 the question is not whether you should or shouldn't do short form video, but more as to when and how to get started.

I just got started myself, and I hope this episode inspires you to do the same!

Key Highlights

[04:31] Where The Trend of Short Form Began

[06:13] TikTok As A Search Engine

[07:46] Data Points

[09:44] Why You Should Have A TikTok Centric Perspective

[10:20] Find Role Models

[12:08] What I Have Learned So Far

[19:44] Phases of TikTok

[20:47] My Recommendations

Notable Quotes

Now everybody's on Instagram, and we are starting to see the shift on Tik Tok, there is more I would say, millennial based content or content for a little bit older of a crowd than Gen Z. And this really excites me because this content is more on the educational side. And in fact, if you've been reading the news,you would know that tick tock is fast becoming a search engine.
And when social media becomes a search engine, it becomes important for businesses and marketers to begin to reconsider the value of those platforms.
One of the concepts I teach is find a role model, find someone that you can emulate, you can be inspired by find someone that looks like is serving a similar audience to you, and is getting engagement is getting followers. And that will prove that your audience is there.
TikTok is where the trends are happening. TikTok is becoming more educational in nature. It's becoming more like a search engine. And now I think you see the opportunities are opening up.
Find role models do searches, you don't have to do hashtag searches, do searches for relevant topics, I think you're going to find what we would call talking head videos.
Editing is one really, really important part. The other important part is to understand that every short form video must have one idea. If this is entertaining. It's another story. If you're going for the educational, you still need to be entertaining.

Episodes Mentioned

Episode 267
Episode 282
Episode 293

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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One of the core tools that most marketers use to measure their ROI, Google Analytics, is undergoing its first major revision in more than a decade.

From beginners to experts, learn what these changes mean to you and how you can best prepare for them in this interview with Google Analytics expert Chris Cheetham-West.

Key Highlights

[06:28] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Chris Cheetham-West

[08:28] Chris's Marketing Journey

[11:02] How to Utilize Google Analytics 4

[15:58] Universal Analytics vs Google Analytics 4

[18:47] New Definition of Engaged Rate and Engaged Viewer

[22:09] Google Analytics 4 Integration for E-commerce

[25:04] Chris's Advice on How to Save Time Inside Google Analytics 4

[27:57] Making Better Decisions with Data

[30:39] Final Advice on Google Analytics 4

[32:10] Connect with Chris

Notable Quotes

Google probably realized that, hey, people are using goals are not using it effectively enough. But everybody that has a website most likely have a goal. So now that's going to be more of a central part of Google to explore versus just like a small piece, it was in Universal Analytics.
And it's one of those things where, after a few months, we're gonna realize that this is a better tool to use. And I'm getting to know my customer a little bit more.
The message I want to say is like, there's always a faster way to get to the data that you're trying to find.
Be intentional about looking at what's going on and making those changes. So make those decisions on a monthly basis, maybe even a weekly basis to optimize. So don't forget to optimize, not just look at the data, but optimize and see how you can get better.
So those are all things that you want to consistently do weekly or monthly basis to make sure you're really getting the most out of the data? Because it gives you so much information. All you got to do is look at it and then take action.
Right now is the time to play around with GA 4 so right now is like, look into events, if you're not able to use the advanced, you've ever used goals before looking to it, but the old analytics get used to these things that are going to change.
In that case, just make sure you are playing around with it, spend an hour a week on it hour a day even just to get ready, and just to understand it, so that way, you can be ready for the change.

Guest Links:

Chris' Website: https://chrisnwest.com/
Connect with Chris on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/speakerchrisnwest/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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One of the most impactful marketing concepts that I know and teach is this one: Your community is always a subset.

While originally geared towards explaining influencer marketing, it actually should be used to better understand our entire approach to digital marketing and help equip us with a growth mindset.

Key Highlights

[02:57] Community As A Subset of Your Potential

[03:27] Examples of Having Community As Subset of Your Potential

[06:59] Go Outside Your Current Community

[08:37] Learning Items from Launching My Second Digital Product

[09:54] Building A Bigger, Organic Community

[10:27] The ROI of Organic

[12:35] Get Your People On Your Email List!

[13:16] Keep Everything in Balance

Notable Quotes

Your community is always a subset is something that I talked about in the age of influence. It's a concept that I think really illustrates the value of influencer marketing.
They have a huge community. But it's always a subset of its potential. And when you work with influencers, you come in with a voice of trust that introduces you to this audience that trusts and respects the person talking about the brand, which is the influencer.
In order to grow your business, yes, you can tap into your current customers and try to upsell them. But for many companies, you can only get so far, and growth goals usually mean that they exceed those. So what this means is you got to go outside of your current community. And it's more than just influencer marketing.
No matter how big my community is, my community is always as a subset as well as to who else is out there.
You begin to see this not only funnel approach of bringing people into your community, but also the fact that you need multiple touches in order to at the end of the day, build like no interest and close the deal.
No matter how much we're creating Instagram reels or Tik Tok videos or blog posts, or whatever social media we do. We should not be happy with the community we build knowing that it's always a subset even for bigger brands, building that organic community is part of what we do. But we also equally have to go outside of that to always be building a bigger community.
We need to keep it all it's the Yin Yang, right, we need to keep it all in balance. And we can't be complacent with one of the three because we need to do all the three. But we always need to be building those multiple touches, knowing that at the end of the day, that is going to be what's going to convert.

Links Mentioned

Episode 295

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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While we have covered a lot about influencer marketing on this podcast, there is one facet that we haven't looked at: The cost-effectiveness of influencer marketing.

As we head towards a potential recession in 2023 and marketing budgets are tight, this becomes even more important. That's why on this episode we will focus on why influencer marketing is such a great marketing investment when budgets are tight.

Topics we will cover include:

Why Influencer Marketing is the most flexible form of marketing investment through payment, product gifting, mentions, and more
The value of more authentic and relatable content to spend on vs. advertising push done directly by you
The fact that during a recession, people turn toward trusted voices
Influencers as affiliates = Measurable ROI + Massive Reach

Key Highlights

[02:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Nisarg Shah

[04:30] How Nisarg Got Into Influencer Marketing

[06:22] The Gaps Nisarg Found In Influencer Marketing in 2017

[09:08] Influencer Marketing's Flexibility

[13:25] How Influencer Marketing Can Help Brands Into Recession

[19:22] Affiliate Marketing in Affable.ai Tool

[22:35] The Hybrid Structure of Influencers and Affiliates

[26:35] Reasons Why Third-Party Platforms Still Add Value

[29:33] Best Practices in Influencer Marketing Industry

[31:46] Connect with Nisarg

[32:21] Affable.ai Price Point

Notable Quotes

The value you get from a creator is much more. And in this in these uncertain times. Brands are definitely kind of going back to the creators they trust and the creators they have a long-standing relationship with.
People typically tend to trust other people. And that's just our nature, that's word of mouth. I trust you because you talk about something. Entity pushing me a product. So just marketing works, because we trust people who are creating this content. And in these times, influencer, marketing works even better, because now, users are careful about who they trust, and they turn towards trusted advisors.
I think who we trust online has really evolved. at the end of the day, this raw and real content and the people behind it, those seem to be the ones that we trust more right? Than those shiny looking, whether they're an ad or they're like a shiny looking mega celebrity influencer.
Influencers are amazing affiliates because they give you both gives you an ability to reach massive, massive scale, even if people don't die, but at the same time, they give you an ability to convert.
If you are a brand, and you're listening to this and planning to work with influencers, certain guidelines, but let them come up with the content, because they know what resonates with their followers, the best, and different influencers would have a different tone and message that they know works best.

Guest Links:

Affable.ai: https://www.affable.ai/
Connect with Nisarg on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nisarg259/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Unplugging for a week being sick gave me a chance to reimagine my own social media marketing for the new year. The truth is, when it comes to social media, many businesses continue to do the same old same old even as content consumption tastes change. Social media content creation also requires the resources of time and money, so here is how I recommend you get the biggest bang for your social media marketing buck in the new year.

Key Highlights

[03:41] Changes That I Am Going to Take in Social Media

[04:15] The Concept of Content Curation

[06:29] The Analysis That I Did

[09:33] What Kind of Pins Work Best?

[13:58] Reducing the Volume of Content, But Increasing the Quality

[17:04] You Don't Need to Go Overboard

[17:33] Reasons Why You Need to Use YouTube Shorts More

[18:38] The Quality of An Instagram Reel

[19:09] My Strategy on TikTok That I Recommend

Notable Quotes

Less is more. Aim for impact with every piece of content. If your content is not impactful, don't worry about it. You don't have to share it even.
Social media is not just about traffic, it's still where we need to be to be found to be seen to build community.
Pinterest, scaled down the static pin creation, just there's not that big of a need for it, scale up the idea pin.
I don't need to publish 24 hours on Twitter only publish when my audience most of my audience is online. That is another step I'm taking to reduce the volume of content but increase the quality by it my own perspective.
I think you're going to be seen more often in the feed so that when you do publish a link posts, maybe one in every three posts is linked, and one is a selfie, and one is a video, that might be a great a really great way to really shake up that content. But make it impactful, make it your own voice, your own perspective.
I believe that trending audios this could be music, these could be voices or sounds. This is the SEO of tick tock that when there's trending audio, if you create something with that trending audio, you have, on average a better chance of being seen by more people than just recording your own voice.
Focus more on the quality, your unique perspective, and less on that frequency.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Find out more about my influencer marketing strategy cohort course here: https://nealschaffer.com/maven1

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Are you giving your content the attention it deserves? Do you create a video, podcast, or blog post, and then forget about it after its done. Meet Amy Woods, the queen of content repurposing, who is going to help you get MORE from ALL of your content than you might have thought possible!

In this episode you will learn:

Repurposing video is easy(er). What are the best practices in repurposing blog content?
The trend towards vertical video repurposing, even in B2B virtual events
How to best repurpose short-form video across different channels
Why tapping into memes is so important for repurposing short-form content

Key Highlights

[03:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Amy Woods

[06:44] How Amy Got Into Content Repurposing

[13:14] Best Practices in Repurposing Videos

[20:58] Less Is More Approach

[21:41] Latest Trends in Repurposing Content

[27:02] Amy's Thoughts on YouTube Shorts

[30:33] Repurposing Is Not Just About Reposting

[37:42] Should You Post the Same Content On All Your Social Platforms?

[42:15] Tapping Into Memes

[46:22] Focusing On Relatability

Notable Quotes

When we look at what is repurposing so I always define it, as it's finding these different ways to communicate the message within a core piece of content in different formats. And for different online platforms to reach and connect with a broader range of your audience.
It's all about, you know, a less is more approach.
So think with it being a search engine, first and foremost, it is a search engine. But when you add that it becomes a bit more of a kind of hybrid of more social, more searched, a bit like Twitter, really, for the younger generation, well for all generations, really, but just how things are changing.
Repurposing isn't just reposting. It's not just cutting and pasting, you can't just create one thing for all the platforms, you've got to be respectful of the platforms, and why people are there and create platform specific content.
It really comes down to really understanding your audience. Understanding them as best you can get in there and speak to them like the most engaged members of your audience.
I think whatever you commit to it's not a commitment it's always a testing, an experiment, it's not a long-term commitment to give things a go and just give them enough time to actually get real data and see if it was a good move or not

Guest Links:

Content10X: https://content10x.com
Content 10X Podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-content-10x-podcast/id1294442001
Connect with Amy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amywoods2/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Find out more about my influencer marketing strategy cohort course here: https://nealschaffer.com/maven1

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I’ve talked a lot about influencer marketing over the past several years, both on this podcast and in my book, “The Age of Influence.”

The practice of influencer marketing has changed since 2019 and 2020, when I wrote that book. For that reason, we need to look at the current influencer marketing trends if our campaigns and techniques are to remain successful. Let’s take a look at why influencer marketing is effective and what trends we can expect to develop over the next year.

Key Highlights

[08:01] True Long-Term Influencer Partnerships

[09:27] Authenticity Over Perfection

[11:10] Think Video First

[11:47] Emergence of Live Shopping

[12:43] Nano Micro-Influencers As Forefront

[14:10] The Growth of Influencer Marketplace

[15:50] The Concept of Frist Party Data

[18:54] Affiliate Marketing As A Critical Part of Influencer Marketing

[20:38] Employees As New Influencers

Notable Quotes

The more you hear people talking about the Creator economy, the more that you should understand influencer marketing is relevant. Because the more we value creators, the more we value influencers, because at the heart of it, most creators either are or become influencers.
For something like collaborating with influencers and content creators, there should not be an on off switch, it should be long term.
You should try to understand the way the influencer feels it would be best done it would be most authentic, because invariably that is going to get you the best results.
It's not about how many followers you have necessarily, it's about how good your content is. And the algorithm is pushing the content.
If you plan on investing 5, 10% of your marketing there, you want to acquire a lot of first party data. Only way to do that is to do more and more work with influencers and properly measure it right and then reflect on that measurement and optimize over time.

Links Mentioned

My Digital Course
Episode 251
Episode 241
Episode 289
Episode 265
Nano-Influencers

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Find out more about my influencer marketing strategy cohort course here: https://nealschaffer.com/maven1

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While not as popular as blogging, YouTube, or social media, podcasting still continues to grow and has tremendous value for those that get it and use it right. Whether you are a current podcaster or are thinking of launching a new podcast, this episode is a virtual masterclass of best practices in:

why you might consider starting your own podcast
what is the minimal equipment you need to get started
how to technically get started
do you need a special "launch" plan for your podcast or not
how to promote your podcast once its launched

Key Highlights

[02:30] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Tom from Podcastpage.io

[05:54] How Tom Start Getting Into Podcasting

[08:30] Why Should You Start A Podcast

[14:14] Steps You Need To Do In Starting Podcast

[26:58] The Other Things You Should Be Aware of For A Successful Podcast Launch

[29:14] Quality Over Quantity

[31:17] Best Practices in Promoting Podcast

[38:31] Key Features of Podcastpage.io That Will Help You Promote Your Podcast

[47:32] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

The best in my opinion, is just to kind of like and enjoy the process. That's the the best part of of your decision to start a podcast. So at the end of the day, there are many, many different things you can kind of get from it, whether that was the initial goal or not, but you can meet a lot of different people through networking.
If you don't know where to start with content, I almost think that you start with a podcast.
At the beginning, we said that consistency is key to pretty much business marketing, podcasting, and sports, almost everything. So just keep going and don't kind of leave it after two or three episodes.
If you are to start one, you know, just by continuing, you're gonna find success. We talk in marketing a lot about being consistent, I think, with podcasts, and it really does make a difference.
A podcast is a great way if you're looking to create content.
And to me, I guess the the most important thing here is to to produce quality content. You don't need to have this massive subject that doesn't doesn't give the listeners enough value. Just make sure you have the the right content and put all your efforts into it.
There are a lot of different things you could use to actually bring a better experience and a better you know, just improve your listeners experience, that's the probably the bottom line. And then you also have a direct channel with them.
Keep releasing quality content and be consistent. And that's probably the bread and butter of you know, podcasting.

Guest Links:

PodcastPage.io: https://podcastpage.io

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Monetizing your knowledge by creating and selling digital products is not as easy as the experts make it out to be. I want to share with you my own experiences and how I view setbacks as a painful but necessary step to find success in order to inspire you to continue your digital entrepreneurial journey as I am continuing mine.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Go here to complete my survey for my upcoming influencer marketing cohort and receive a 10% discount!

https://nealschaffer.com/mavenim1survey

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The heart of influencer marketing is collaboration. And at the heart of collaboration are content creators. A slight change in how you see influencer marketing can have a significantly positive effect on how you can collaborate to help build your brand.

In this episode you will learn:

Yash's 6-step-system for influencer marketing success
InfluenceR vs. Influence "no R" marketing - how to actually influence your buyers
A more holistic approach to creator-driven growth - how to leverage "influencers" beyond just social media posts.

Guest Links:

Saral App: https://www.getsaral.com/
Connect with Yash on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/yctheman/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

Go here to complete my survey for my upcoming influencer marketing cohort and receive a 10% discount!

https://nealschaffer.com/mavenim1survey

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I attended VidSummit, the largest conference for YouTube marketing and influencers, recently, and I was blown away by what I learned. I was so blown away that I felt compelled to share ALL of my takeaways with you. And because I learned a lot, this episode is my longest ever. However, if you are trying to upgrade your YouTube marketing or get started with YouTube Shorts, THIS is the episode for you!

Key Highlights

[05:15] Different Ways to Monetize Youtube

[12:35] What Makes Good YouTube Shorts?

[17:10] Good Shorts Analytics

[20:17] Creating YouTube Strategy Based on Psychographics

[22:44] The 4 C's

[26:14] Innovating Your Content

[31:13] AI Integration and Tools

[37:14] Creating Systems for Content Planning, Production, and Analysis

[40:58] 4 Types of Videos That You Need

[42:48] 3 Stages to YouTube Growth

[51:22] 2 P's of Scalability

[54:59] New YouTube Partner Program

[57:19] Creating Your Flywheel

[01:05:52] 3 Key Tools for Creator Economy

[01:06:41] Specific Strategies to Influence Viewers

[01:13:23] Content, Globalization, and Trend Watching

Notable Quotes

YouTube really is about are people actually consuming your video, how much of your video are they consuming? YouTube is a completely different beast. But there is plenty of opportunity for all of us to take advantage of it.
Start really small, start with something live, and then repurpose that into a course I actually went to an event once it was a event for speakers on how to tap into speaking opportunities at professional associations.
Your superpower is your weird factor. So lean into that when creating video content really create a deep relationship with your viewers.
Create a better mousetrap. You don't need to create something new. Just create something better.
You need to hook your audience at the very beginning.
The story should be greater than the production value, it doesn't have to be fancy. Give the audience a why take them on a journey.
Look at your data, but also consume other content.
Don't think about your competition, your competition is yourself.
Do not care about competitors do not care about your current performance other than trying to increase your performance. But stay with goals and systems and processes are what helps you avoiding getting derailed.
Perfect is boring. Being the authentic human being yourself is the most important thing to do.
YouTube only succeeds when its users succeeds.

Links Mentioned

Episode 286
Episode 281
TubeBuddy
vidIQ

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Search engine discoverability is as important today as it has always been. SEO requires you to have resourceful and helpful content as we all know from Google's recent updates, but assuming we already have lots of great content, how can we move up the search engine rankings?

While there are lots of things you can do, generating relevant backlinks to your website might be the most powerful option.

In this special interview with digital marketing expert Sam Dunning, we discuss 5 different ways for which you can begin to start getting free backlinks for your website TODAY!

Guest Links:

Sam Dunning on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/samdunning/
Web Choice: https://www.webdesignchoice.co.uk/
Sam's Business Growth Show Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/business-growth-show-b2b-marketing-demand-generation/id1496516404

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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I was honored to be able to speak - and thus attend - Content Marketing World for the first time this year. There were a TON of golden nuggets dropped at this event that I wanted to share with you, so these are the 11 takeaways I got from all of the amazing sessions I saw that I think you should know about.

Key Highlights

[13:17] Developing Your Own Unique Brand Voice

[15:32] The Upside Down Pyramid of Personality

[22:18] Why Your Content Workflow Should Start With Live Video

[25:13] 3 Recommended Tools for Live Streaming

[27:20] Using Survey to Generate Multiple Content

[30:51] Piloting AI for Content Marketers

[38:20] Recommended Tools for AI Content

[41:34] How to Drive Revenue With Podcast and Networking

[43:00] Creating A Sales Strategy for YouTube That Doesn't Kill Your Channel

[45:01] 3 Buckets of Content for YouTube Strategy

[48:04] Designing Your Sales Funnel for the Visual Generation

[51:03] How to Reverse Engineer Your Competitors' Social Media Strategy

[52:12] Effectively Work With Journalists to Gain Increased Visibility for Your Content

[56:12] Tools for Your Press Release

[56:56] Google Analytics for Future Data

[1:00:28] Content Repurposing

[1:03:45] Create Content With Repurposing in Mind

Notable Quotes

Don't compare yourself to your leading competitors. Compare yourself with yourself.
I really put value in going deep with a number of people, the more people the better get to know them better. And that's, you know, equal to the sessions that I attend. That's what gives me a lot of value in going to these events, the in-person networking, that can happen.
Branding -- some of it we try to control with intent, but at the end of the day, it's how people consider us that is going to define our brand.
Each of us is capable of a memorable, relatable voice. So don't sound like everybody else on social media, do your own thing. But it's okay to be inspired. And it's okay to mimic.
Look for questions from your other competitors.
AI technology is not there to replace you, but to assist you. So the message is, to learn it early, be ahead of the curve, and reap the benefits.
Content repurposing is finding creative ways to communicate your message in different formats, and in different locations so that you can reach and connect with more people.
Different people have different appetites when it comes to content. Different people consume different content differently. And therefore we need to have everything in our buffet in order to satisfy as many people as possible.

Links Mentioned

Episode 271
Episode 218
Episode 281

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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What just might be the ultimate lead magnet? An online course. And it doesn't have to be complex to create either.

Join me for this interview with Alyssa Marshall, co-founder of Owwlish. After 10 years of studying to become and becoming a dentist, Alyssa created her own online course for dentists and then used that custom technology in co-founding Owwlish as a way to help other course creators win at courses.

But her technology is not only for course creators. It's for any business.

As Alyssa explains in this interview, you're missing out if you don't have an online course freebie for your business. We discuss the why of this, but also:

Why online courses will increase your opt-in rate - as a freebie on your website or you can run ads directly to them
How to make your online course quickly
How to use the course to fuel the rest of your business

After listening to this interview you'll never think of online courses as being just for content creators again!

Key Highlights

[03:16] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Alyssa Marshall

[05:53] How Alyssa Got Into Online Course Platform Industry

[11:42] How Did Alyssa Go About Launching Her First Courses

[13:53] Online Courses In A Lead Magnet Perspective

[22:59] The Easiest and Fastest Way to Get An Opt-in Gift for Free

[25:21] How to Use Course to Fuel Your Business

[28:19] How Alyssa Structured Her Platform

[35:49] Learning More About Owwlish

[38:37] How to Get Started in Owwlish

[39:59] Final Advice

[41:21] Connect with Alyssa

Notable Quotes

The advantage of a video course is that you get all of that, in one, it doesn't even have to be that complicated.
But the value you get as a business owner by having an online course opt in, like over like, after a week versus after three months, because you're complicated it your business is going to be at a at a much, much better place.
Show up and do your thing.
It's super helpful to just gain that likability factor and trust and you have a captive audience that is not distracted with all these other videos on the site or pops up at the end of the video thing. This audience is with you and gaining a quick win while they're with you. And you can lead them to the next logical step, which is to join your coaching program or to purchase your course or whatever it is.
Make sure that you lead into selling, your course is not just going to be about teaching, but the last part should at least introduce selling.
The idea of owlish is that you should be able to have a beautiful looking course, even if you can't code on any page of your website that you say it should live on.
So really good easy rule of thumb to think about in terms of that is the what is free, the how is paid. So tell them what to do.
So don't complicate this, just give them the watts, it's okay. That way they know you know what you're talking about. And they start to really trust you and think you're a credible source of information.

Guest Links:

Owwlish: https://owwlish.com/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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As we market our brands on social media, we might get asked by some of our colleagues if somehow we can promote their job openings on our channels.

With the continued tight labor market, social media actually gives marketers a golden opportunity to implement inbound marketing not just for your own brand, but for your employer brand as well.

Learn all about this concept of employer branding and why it is critical for marketers to understand.

Key Highlights

[02:47] Looking At Employer Branding

[04:46] Four Types of Media

[05:47] The Idea of Employee Advocacy

[07:33] Case Studies

[11:19] My Thoughts On Branding

[13:02] How Much Can Brands Control Their Branding?

[13:28] The Heart of Employer Branding

[16:20] Employer Branding Statistics

[18:36] The Value of Employer Branding

[20:42] How Social Media Can Help in Strengthening Employer Branding

[22:15] Ways to Leverage Employees As Influences for Your Employer Brand

Notable Quotes

Every time we engage with a customer, every employee is in essence advocating for us, right? They're a brand ambassador.
A brand is a name, term designed symbol, or any other feature that identifies one seller's goods or service, as distinct from those of other sellers.
The goal with branding is to make sure that perception is the one, you want people to have a view.
It's up to you to shape how you want people to feel you always have to be proactive about your branding, to always be sculpting in a way that you want people to consider your brand.
At the end of the day, when people share experiences about your product on social media, that is often going to define our perception of your brand.
Your company also has a second brand related to its primary brand about how you're viewed as an employer. This is your employer brand and it lives and breathes in the minds and hearts of your former current and future employees.
Without an employer brand, and many of you may not even have one, if you've never invested in it, it becomes difficult and costly, to hire and retain the best employees and you need, you need the best employees to advance your company.
So the employer brand, which is it really should talk about your reputation as well, is a living and breathing entity that you need to continually invest into both hire and retain.
But the same with marketing your product, it's all about how you want to be perceived in the marketplace, and using targeted messages to attract the customers you want.

Links Mentioned:

Episode 215: The Unique Relationship between Employer Branding, Employee Advocacy, Personal Branding
Episode 169: How to Leverage Your Employees as Influencers

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Now that we are slowly coming out of the pandemic, it's time to get back to doing more things in person. Networking is one of them, and while there are still a plethora of opportunities to engage online, the same can be said for in-person events. Learn all about how to grow your business through networking from master networker and communicator Dave Delaney.

Key Highlights

[01:22] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dave Delaney

[05:35] How Dave Got Into Networking

[08:15] What Prompted Dave to Write A Book

[10:46] Three Ups of Networking Nicely

[12:08] How to Find Networking Events

[14:48] How Events Can Help Grow Businesses

[18:00] Start By Setting A Goal

[20:44] How to Connect Your Business to the Event Without Being Salesly

[25:27] Get Out of Your Comfort Zone

[31:36] The Nice Method

[38:53] Celebrating Life Outside Walls

[44:13] Connect With Dave and How to Get A Copy of His Book

Notable Quotes

Networking is a critical thing, not always easy to do. But there's this, there's this idea that if we do it and we do it, well, it's going to lead the business.
Find an association or a group. So do a Google search or whatever for the association related to your industry specifically, and then attend their event.
When you're there, you need to speak to people, so you need to meet people. And a good way to do that is just simply to ask people, you know, what brings them to that event. As you're speaking to someone, the goal is to be as quiet as possible, so that you can get to know them, and ask them follow up questions.
Just showing genuine interest in other people is always going to be a positive thing.
It all comes down to people don't do business with businesses, typically, they do business with humans, right? It's about building relationships first.
With networking, I do believe that it really is a matter of planting seeds.
So hearing your team is a big part of providing feedback, but also recognition and recognizing your team members, a lot of people quit their jobs because they don't get any recognition.
It's about the reputation of your organization. And if your team members, especially leadership, are doing a poor job leading and upsetting their your team members, they quit.

Guest Links:

Dave Delaney (Website): https://www.davedelaney.me/
Dave Delaney (LinkedIn): https://www.linkedin.com/in/davedelaney/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Hi! My name is Neal Schaffer and I am Your Digital Marketing Coach! If you haven't subscribed yet, please listen to my trailer to find out more about what this podcast is about! You can also learn more about me here by clicking any of these links:

Website
Podcast Website
Amazon
LinkedIn
Twitter
Facebook
Instagram
YouTube
Pinterest

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I had an awesome time at the world's largest event dedicated to podcasters and podcasting for business: Podcast Movement 2022 in Dallas, Texas.

Since you are listening to this podcast, you already know how compelling a medium podcasting can be. But what are the newest trends and technology you should be aware of if you are a content creator or looking into tapping into podcasting for your business?

Look no further - just listen to my report and you'll feel as if you attended the event yourself!

Key Highlights

[02:23] Upcoming Marketing Conferences

[04:07] What I Learned At Podcast Movement 2022

[06:07] Success Is About Consistency

[06:51] Podcast Statistics

[08:38] 2 Best Ways to Promote Podcast

[14:11] It's All About Video

[16:14] Tiktok Takeaway

[18:15] What Do Successful Podcasters Do?

[19:21] Use Email With Your Podcast

[21:35] An Interesting Shift in Podcasting

[23:32] What Is Patreon?

[25:32] Another Trend in Podcasting

[28:29] Podcasting Is Special

[30:18] How to Contact Me For Podcasting Advice

Notable Quotes

In podcasting, success is really about consistency.
There's always this aspect that we need to be consistent for a period of time until we see the results. And podcasting is no different. But what I think it means for all of you if you've been thinking about a podcast, there's always never a better time. But you're never too late because most people just quit. So if you have ideas, and I urge you to map out your ideas for 10, 20, 30 episodes, and if you're going to interview people, who are those people are going to be map it out and implement.
And I think going forward, you're going to hear a lot more of these ads on podcasts as more micro and nano influencer podcasters like myself, get into the action for whatever reason, but it was a reminder that advertising is really alive and well in podcasting.
It might be a great way if you're thinking of doing podcasting, but also want to increase the benefits of doing so is to think video from the start not as an afterthought. And I think that'll help you actually create better videos.
Leveraging your community as well, which might be the third different way to help get reviews shared on social media, whatever that specific call to action is. And whatever way you can creatively bring it up. So that it will really encourage, if not incentivize people to do that.
Do you need to be everywhere? No. If you're able to be in multiple places, you can leverage that especially if you are a content creator.
I started podcasting as a content marketing initiative. But it has led me to develop a really, really personal relationship with you. Even though we've never met in person.
Podcasting is a unique, human-centric, medium, unparalleled with any other medium out there in terms of marketing, to allow you to connect with people over the broadest category of things.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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YouTube can be a powerful force in digital marketing when leveraged correctly. Many businesses just use YouTube as a place to upload their videos, but when used strategically, YouTube can generate video views in the thousands (if not millions) that can lead to massive business for those that get it.

Joining me today is the person that I can honestly call the world's expert on YouTube marketing, author of The YouTube Formula, Derral Eves. Listening to this very special episode will give you all you need to start leveraging YouTube as a strategic marketing channel.

Guest Links:

Derral Eves: https://derraleves.com/
The YouTube Formula on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/YouTube-Formula-Algorithm-Audience-Revenue/dp/1119716020

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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Regardless of whether we personally like Facebook or not, it is still one of the biggest players in social media and its presence cannot be ignored.

While this episode gives you some organic Facebook marketing advice as well, most businesses use Facebook as a pay-to-play platform and reap the benefits of doing so.

You're probably already running campaigns on Facebook, but I am hoping that you can find a few things to focus on from this episode.

Key Highlights

[02:30] Facebook Statistics

[04:12] Don't Give Up On Facebook

[04:55] Ways Savvy Businesses Are Using Facebook

[07:30] Why Facebook Is Still the Preferred Place for Marketers to Run Paid Ads

[10:44] 3 Main Campaigns Most My Clients Use for Different Purposes

[12:22] Different Ways of Leveraging Audiences

[16:22] Narrowing Target Audience

[17:31] Leveraging Custom Audiences

[18:49] Facebook Ad Library

[20:59] Think Mobile First

[21:59] Speak to Pain Points and Emotions

[23:11] Consider Coupons

[24:44] Leverage User-Generated & Influencer-Generated Content

[26:04] Test Different Ad Formats

[27:44] Create Ad Funnels

[29:28] Always Perform AB Testing
Notable Quotes

You don't know until you have the data. And the algorithm is always changing. So I would definitely not give up on Facebook and really, going into next year really do a reset on your content strategy there.
But Facebook groups are a great way to develop deeper relationships with all these people that count to your business. And that's something I just wanted to make sure that you're considering as well, if you haven't done that already, for one or multiple types of these categories of people that are important to your business.
Facebook ads are there's nothing social about Facebook ads, and they don't incite word of mouth. But when done right, they obviously can bring people back to your website, you can retarget them, you can generate leads, and ultimately you can generate business from them.
So lean into big data, lean into Facebook data, lead into their algorithm and start targeting purchasers are including it as another filter in the audience targeting that you're doing.
Be aware of that in your ad copy and make it look like the targeting is as natural as possible. Otherwise, that campaign may just backfire against you.
You create attachment through emotion. You know, when you speak to pain points, you're also trying to get people to remember that they have a need for your product as well.
But we need to think of customer lifetime value. We're not thinking about the single purchase. But when we have new customers, how many times they end up purchasing from us.
Optimize ad campaigns for people wherever they are in your funnel with the intention of bringing them to the next step. And always remember to turn your existing customers into brand advocates

Links Mentioned:

Top 16 Facebook Ads Tools
New Blog Posts

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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We have been hearing more and more a out Web3 and the so-called Ownership Economy, but what does it mean and how can it concretely be applied to marketing our product?

Enter Ovi Negrean, Co-Founder of the social media management tool SocialBee, who has recently launched a new product, ACE Meetings, which has integrated Web3 as a core component of its product.

Learn all about this fascinating case study and see how you can put the power of Web3 to use for marketing your business!

Key Highlights

[02:19] Introduction to Podcast Guest, Ovi Negrean

[05:40] How Ovi Got Into Software and Entrepreneurship

[10:12] Launching New Product

[13:02] What is Web3 Space?

[17:54] The Process and Tools of Integrating A Product Into Web3

[20:39] The Value of Getting Into NFT Space

[24:38] Group Ownership With Ovi's Product

[28:44] Co-founding Decision

[30:05] Group Decision Influence

[35:06] Managing The Community

[37:58] What is Discord

[41:06] Connect With ovi

Notable Quotes

Social media is just like one part of the whole marketing toolkit. And it's actually maybe depending on your profile, not even the most important part.
We want to take the same approach that we did with with social be where we are offering our own flavor of something which maybe is existing, but nevertheless, we try to make it a bit better, have good customer support and good price. And try to innovate around the edges.
At the end of the day as any tools, some people will use it for good and some some for bad, but I think is a tool that will definitely change the world in the upcoming years.
But offering some sort of ownership to a startup will really incentivize the early adopters.
I think for the community, and for that ownership and getting people more active and passionate about your product. That's really the key thing.
I think the community part is, even though it's now it's web three, it's still the same type of community building. Sure, maybe the tools have changed a bit, maybe it's not Facebook groups anymore, but it's discord or telegram channels and so on. But it's still interacting with other human beings and trying to, to see what are the shared values and the shared visions that you have, why you bought or all of you came together in this, this specific community, and how you can support each other.

Guest Links:

SocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbee (affiliate link)
Ace Meetings: https://useace.com/meetings/
Ovi Negrean on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ovidiunegrean/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
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With the growing importance of influencer marketing, I still often get asked: Neal, how exactly do we go about finding influencers for our brand?

While there are tools that can definitely help you, hear me out as I explain how to search for influencers yourself using the social networks themselves.

This episode is actually a snippet from a new class I am teaching at UCLA Extension on influencer marketing. Hope you enjoy it!

Key Highlights

[02:08] How I Teach Influencer Marketing

[03:29] How to Find Influencers

[05:55] Where to Begin Your Influencer Search

[07:33] Performing A Search In Facebook

[08:48] Finding Different Niches Within the Same Niche

[11:35] Performing A Search in LinkedIn

[12:29] Influencer Search in Pinterest

[14:08] The Core of Influencer Marketing

[14:58] 99-1 Rule

Notable Quotes

In other words, if we're looking at a week's worth of Hawaii travel tips, or maybe the last 20 posts, maybe there's two or three accounts that are getting 70% of the engagement. Those are the people obviously that have a majority share a voice. And those are the people we might want to consider for influencer marketing campaign.
So maybe as part of our campaign, we want to go deep with some of the Hawaii travel people. But also we want to leverage some of the general travel people. These are the things that as influencer marketers we begin to think about when we create campaigns and we begin to decide who are the influencers we want to work with.
So we might want to consider partnering with them as well, if we think the podcast audience is relevant to our target demographic, so lots of different ways to find influencers, there's not one right or wrong way. But this gives you a collection of tools that you can use to begin to discover who are the people talking about a certain subject, and therefore who are the people that we might want to partner with or collaborate with, because they have the ear or the eyes of all these people or you know, watching videos, listening to podcast, watching reels, social media posts, they have their attention.
And that is really the core of influencer marketing of leveraging these people that have other people's attention so that those other people can learn more about our brand and products.
Well, there are when you get to a certain subjects, there aren't that many people that are creating content around those subjects. And therefore, you really want to treat them as influencer royalty, even if they don't have a million followers, because there just aren't that many people that are talking about that subject online.
But the core fact is that people are influenced by people because they follow them for a reason. And often that follow begins with a search. So take advantage of that.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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I always talk about how social media can and should be used by businesses for more than just mere "promotion" or advertisement - there's nothing social about an ad, even if it is appearing on a feed in a social network.

While I tend to talk about social media as being a place to collaborate with influencers, it is equally a critical arena that gives you the ability to deepen relationships with your own customers.

Customer experience marketing expert Stacy Sherman joins me for this interview where she goes into the different ways brands can leverage social media to deepen customer relationships.

Guest Links:

Doing CX Right: https://doingcxright.com/
Doing CX Right Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/doing-cx-right-podcast/id1573754741
Stacy Sherman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stacysherman/

Links Mentioned:

Customer Experience Marketing: Why You Must Embrace It to Stand Out as a Business [Dan Gingiss Interview]: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com/138-customer-experience-marketing-why-you-must/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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The title of this podcast episode should not have surprised you. The question is, are you still doing social media marketing the same way you have been doing it for years?

It's time to change.

I had the opportunity to attend the recent Meta Boost Small Business Studios event in Detroit, Michigan, and it was an excellent reminder both of the need to adjust and adapt our social media marketing strategy as well as an indication as to how Meta promotes its social networks (Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp) to small business owners.

Listen in for my recap, and hopefully you will begin the walk on the road of adjustment today.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Search engine optimization is still a golden opportunity for most companies, but many are still making the same mistake of ignoring a critical piece of the puzzle: Keyword research.

In this episode, we are going to go deep on SEO - and keyword research - with special guest Hilary Angrove, Director of Growth and Operations at Make Your Mark Today. She will help us all understand:

The intent of the search determines how you should rank for the keyword. 'Money' keywords are terms your audience is actually using (not necessarily industry words) with high volume and high intent
Do not start a blog if you find money keywords - > make evergreen pages
If you don't have money keywords --> you may want to start a blog or you may to put your resources into other forms of marketing and not SEO

I think you will enjoy this holistic view on SEO as much as I did!

Key Highlights

[01:23] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Hilary Angrove

[03:42] Hilary's Journey to Digital Marketing

[09:48] Keyword Research As An SEO Pillar

[12:05] Search Intent

[12:54] Warming Up the Buying Journey

[17:58] How Hilary Determine Keyword Difficulty

[20:30] Things to Consider in Keyword Research and Intent

[28:47] Non-Seo Form of Marketing You Can Invest To

Notable Quotes

What I loved about SEO was just the analytical part of it. And it is a puzzle, the whole thing is a puzzle. And if you can figure out that puzzle, then you can make your client a lot of money, which is great.
Google is the judge. But you also got to stay true to yourself. And that is, don't do everything for the judge. They'll see through it, you got to be true to yourself.
SEO just mimics real life, your website, your web pages, they're your storefront. And so you just need to operate your store in a way that's like clean, organized, informational, useful, and people are gonna love it.
So first thing that I do whenever I'm working with a client, is I build a customer persona. So who is their ideal client, whether that be and you want to look at who's the current client, I mean, a lot of people have already done this for all types of marketing.
Go deep on that keyword research, and really look at that intent.
You really want to bring it as close to your it's a keyword that matters to you. It's a money keyword, you want it to be as close to your homepage as possible, because you're essentially flagging to Google, hey, this is super important.

Guest Links:

Learn More about Make Your Mark Today: https://www.makeyourmarktoday.ca/
Grab Your Free Personalized Google Ranking Mini-Guide: https://www.makeyourmarktoday.ca/
Connect with Hilary on LinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/hilaryangrove

Links Mentioned:

Influencer Marketing for SEO

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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Have you ever heard your child, or a child that you know, say they want to become an influencer? A YouTuber? A TikToker?

You'd be surprised as to how often I hear this.

How should you respond?

While a knee-jerk reaction might be to shield your child from anything and everything social media, I recommend you look at the whole picture.

Here are my thoughts on the subject - and even if you don't have a kid I think you'll find this short and sweet episode interesting!

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.neal

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Have you thought about how little control we have over the consumer or buyer these days?

With so many sources of information, a distaste for ads, and the popularity of social media, how does a company try to control the buyer's journey and buying cycle?

You can't. But if you embrace that fact, you'll find a whole world of possibility in marketing to a new generation of millennial buyers and influencers as well as transforming prospects and customers into your own sales team.

This fascinating interview with the author of The Revenue Zone: The Ultimate Playbook for The Next Generation of B2B Sales, Marketing and Predictable Revenue Growth, Tom Burton, will have you building our own yellow brick road in no time - and finding success in the digital and social media marketing of today.

Key Highlights

[01:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Tom Burton

[07:53] The Revenue Zone Defined

[14:09] The Three Rules on Engagement With Younger Audience

[16:21] Managing Expectations and Budget

[18:07] The Yellow Brick Road

[20:10] Building Library of Content

[21:25] Filling In Your Potholes

[30:29] Tom's Message for Small Business Owners

[32:25] Lead Smart Tool

[38:21] Connect With Tom

Notable Quotes

And we can be in control, but we have to be in control in a much different way than we have done in the past and how we control things, right.
You have to change your mindset to embrace the fact that the millennial or the buyer is in control of their own journey.
Enable the buyer to facilitate their own journey, don't keep putting up gates, don't keep putting up things that then you know, that get you back into control.
So we have to look at our KPIs differently. And again, but we're all going back to that same goal of having people in the revenue zone, right, we wanted people in the revenue zone before we start that. We don't want people in their prospects on the revenue zone.
But whether you're an SDR and AE or whatever your role is, as a salesperson, you're, you're still very valuable. In fact, you're more valuable than ever, but you need to be valuable as a guide, and a trusted adviser versus a salesperson.
We have to control the process differently. And we have to control that depth process by understanding where the buyer is in their journey. And then helping them and facilitating them based on where they are in that journey.

Guest Links:

Learn More about The Revenue Zone: https://www.therevenuezone.com/
LEADsmart Technologies CRM: https://www.leadsmarttech.com/
Connect with Tom Burton on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tburton5350/
The Revenue Zone on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Revenue-Zone-Generation-Marketing-Predictable/dp/B09ZD2TQ3T/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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I recently did a 1/2 day training for a client that uncovered a plethora of unique opportunities which I want to share with you in this episode.

A product-centric approach to social media marketing can yield effective results at many levels.

When taking a product marketing perspective on how an organization can best promote their products, you will uncover new opportunities to leverage personal branding, content, and yield more influence than you might have found possible.

Listen in for the details and how all of these aspects of digital and social media marketing can work together in harmony.

Key Highlights

[03:22] How Do We Get the Word Out of Your Product?

[03:57] Talk About your Product!

[04:36] The Different Elements You Need to be Successful in Social Media

[05:33] The Concept of Influence

[06:00] Valuing Employee Influencers

[07:30] Help Your Employees Create Personal Brands Aligned with their Expertise

[08:04] Resources that Will Help You Optimize Your Profile

[09:22] Brainstorming Excercise I Created

[10:30] The Concept of Publishing Content for Influence and Thought Leadership

[10:59] What is Thought Leadership?

[11:28] How Does Publishing Your Perspective Create Influence?

[14:32] How Often Should You Publish Content?

[15:02] Types of Content You Can Publish on a Daily Basis
Notable Quotes

And on a website, sure, you're going to have your dedicated resources and content for your product. When it comes to social media, you're fighting with all the other products for attention.
Too often we think of ourselves as a company, when we should think of ourselves as a product, people are not buying the company, they're buying the product. So everything that we do, ideally, should be talking about.
And once we understand the importance of social media, we understand the importance of content in social media. It is the currency of not just social media, but digital media in general.
There is a very distinct relationship between influence content, and social media, you establish a presence in social media, you begin to publish content, and share your views or talk about a product around a certain niche, so to speak, and over time, that helps you build influence on that topic.
So if you're thinking, Yeah, we have people in our business, that should be more in the spotlight, they should be more active and social, they should be just more naturally talking about what they're an expert in, because it's going to help our business.
And the thought leadership content shows your subject matter expertise, it ideally promote your company, it speaks to potential customers, and industry partners. And indirectly, it should sell your product, the engagement type of content, shows your human side promotes your personal brand, it speaks to your broader network and connections, who might not necessarily be interested in your product. It sells you that your company, and it gets broader engagement.

Links Mentioned:

Episode 258

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.neal

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Artificial intelligence is forecasted to have trillions of dollars of impact on businesses and the economy.

Yet many marketers struggle to understand what it is and how to apply it in their marketing efforts.

The truth is, AI possesses the power to change everything.

If you're in marketing, you need to invest in better understanding AI. Begin with this interview with Paul Roetzer, author of Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business.

Key Highlights

[02:17] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Paul Roetzer

[03:50] How Paul Start Getting Interested in AI and Marketing

[06:10] What is Quantum Computing

[08:05] Individual Use Case for AI

[11:53] What You Can Do to Leverage AI

[14:02] AI Tools in Marketing, Sales, and Influencer Marketing

[16:57] Leveraging Anonymous Data Across Clients

[19:57] 3 Areas That You Should Start Focusing

[23:47] The Pitfalls of Marketers With AI Technology

[28:36] Final Advice

[29:40] Connect with Paul

Notable Quotes

I mean, yeah, AI is language. It is vision technology, like dolly to was a big thing in April open release dolly to which could generate images, it's deepfake videos, it's like all these things you hear about. But at its core, machine learning is the primary subset of AI. And what machine learning does is it takes data in inputs, and it makes predictions generates outputs.
Everything we do is trying to predict behavior outcomes, and then you actually start to realize all the potential that AI has to transform what we do every day.
Data is an essential element of making AI work for you as a marketer. But it is not necessarily an obstacle.
You don't need AI, you need smarter tech that saves you time and money and makes you better at your job. It just so happens AI is what makes that possible.
We always says all AI is not created equal, just because you look at three platforms that do content intelligence, which is basically helping you figure out the right by using AI tools. They're not all created equal. And you're gonna have to be able to drill in and ask some different questions.
And I think if you go into AI thinking about it that way, that is an assistant, it is there to help you and recommend things to you and, and develop drafts of social shares and ads and copy like not write the thing for you, then you can have an amazing experience with AI.
You just gotta be curious, like, find the thread within AI that is interesting to you.

Guest Links:

Marketing Artificial Intelligence Institute: https://www.marketingaiinstitute.com/
Connect with Paul Roetzer on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulroetzer/
Marketing Artificial Intelligence: AI, Marketing, and the Future of Business on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3xkUopA [Affiliate]

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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A lot of us in digital and social media marketing seem to get lost in the universe of content and engagement.

What gets lost in the conversation is the fundamental role and importance that marketing data SHOULD play in your marketing strategy.

It's simple: The more data you have, the more effective your marketing will be.

If you don't have enough data, it is worth investing in acquiring it.

This is a short and sweet episode but I wanted to inspire you to put emphasis on data in your marketing.

Key Highlights

[02:49] Why Everything You Do Should Be Data-Driven As Possible

[03:43] My First Experience With Understanding How Powerful Data Can Be

[05:04] You Need to Experiment More

[07:48] Be Aggressive in Getting the Data

[08:44] How Data Can Help You Make Informed Decisions

[09:15] I Encourage You to Spend A Little Money in Terms You Can Get More Data

Notable Quotes

But we talk about in marketing a data driven strategy, I believe that everything we do should be as data driven as possible. Obviously, it's hard to do almost everything data driven. But there's a lot of things that we can do.
They could relatively predict as to how a given campaign will perform. That is extremely powerful, because we want to know where to invest our money as business owners, entrepreneurs and marketers, and what is going to be Return on assets. And then we can compare and contrast.
It's not always clear cut, but the more data we have, then the more we can predict these things.
The more you do this, across different social networks, different follower size counts, you begin to understand the market price for working with influencers.
It all comes down to this data, this first party data, the more we know, the more informed our decisions can be, the more things become predictable, the bigger impact we can have with the same marketing budget, because now we can pick and choose what are going to be the avenues that have the best chance of success.
So I wanted to throw it out there and encourage you, it's okay to spend a little money or, you know, to engage with influencers to publish a little more content, whatever it is, if you're looking to get that data to use going forward in a lot of different ways, especially if you're trying to compare and contrast different channels -- that's going to be really, really important to get as much data and to really leverage that data as part of a data driven approach to digital content, influencer, social media marketing, whatever brand of marketing that you choose to do today.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Email marketing has been shown time and time again to have the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel, yet many businesses and entrepreneurs do not prioritize it as much as they should.

And there are those that do email marketing just to go through the motion without doing it in a strategic way and then wondering why there is no ROI or how to measure it.

If you are in either of these boats, you will get A LOT out of this interview with Bobby Klinck, author of Email Marketing That Doesn't Suck, who will school you on everything you wanted to know about email marketing in this episode!

Key Highlights

[02:12] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Bobby Klinck

[05:50] How Bobby Began Using Email Marketing

[11:05] Shifting from Legal Industry to Marketing

[17:13] How Bobby Finds Stories to Tell

[17:58] Why Stories Are Powerful

[22:00] How to Know If the Email is Impacting the Business In A Positive Way?

[29:31] Why Email Is Stil the Best Platform

[33:12] The CATCH Framework

[39:15] Nurturer to Welcome

[40:26] What Made Bobby Decide to Write A Book

[47:37] Final Advice

[51:17] Connect with Bobby

Notable Quotes

I think just a lot of stuff is recycled down once a thought becomes mainstream, everybody just sort of clings to it. I think it's always, you know, important that we have fresh ideas.
But really, what I tell people is their stories everywhere.
The key is to get in the practice of finding them. And you don't start with a story, your email start with what is the message or lesson that I want to get across?
For most people, what I suggest is you're going to have a few different themes you're going to use over and over again, in your business and your message, whatever it is that you're talking about. Keep story journals about those things, and you don't write the whole story out.
It's hard in this online marketing world where everyone wants quantifiable. Prove to me that this works right now. And this and I'm like, you can't necessarily do that. Because this is true marketing of building brand equity, building that type of thing. So that over time, you will ultimately have a brand where people just buy from you. And that's what you're shooting for.
A really great framework to think about the email as an extension of a relationship as if it was in person. It's not an email address. It's an actual person on the other side of the email address. And how would you engage with them if you were in the same room with them?
It is the only channel where you can really curate The messages like when it comes time to sell the messages you want people to receive in the particular order you want them to receive.
That's what email and marketing are about, establishing that relationship.
Understand that when you make the shift and start thinking about marketing the right way, like selling is just natural.

Guest Links:

Bobby Klinck's Website: https://www.bobbyklinck.com/
Email Marketing That Doesn't Suck on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3wXK0oT [Affiliate]

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffe

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In digital marketing, the importance of Search Engine Optimization (SEO) cannot be understated.

One of the most powerful methods of climbing up the search engine rankings is the acquisition of backlinks.

But how does one get backlinks? And are the more links the merrier?

I believe that the SEO industry - or at least many companies offering SEO services - assume that the more the better, and they base the value of a link on the "domain authority" of the website. This is similar to valuing influencers just by the number of followers.

Are many companies flat out doing SEO wrong? Here's my take - would love to hear what you think.

Key Highlights

[02:11] My New Mission Statement

[05:20] Why SEO Is Important?

[06:05] How Does Library of Content Help Your Business?

[07:33] Off-page SEO

[08:49] Will Content Alone Get You Ranked?

[10:05] Critical Things to SEO

[11:36] How Does Google Know Authority On Sites?

[13:11] SEO Backlinks

[13:26] Ways to Build Backlinks

[18:48] Importance of Relevance

[20:07] Only Get Backlinks and Guest Blogs From Where You Have Authority

[24:24] My First Good Search Engine Ranking

[25:22] The Power of Relevant and Authoritative Links

[26:52] External Links VS Internal Links

[28:42] How to Know if A Site Is Relevant or Not to My Site?

Notable Quotes

But once your content is indexed, Google always wants to serve the best content, the most relevant content, the most relevant and best content to everybody's unique search query.
But the fact that you are able to guest blog on a platform, especially if that platform has a lot of authority is a good thing. And you can see how search engines will reward you and that will help you over time, build up more authority.
I think relevance is really, really important. And I think if you're going to go out of your way to guest blog, or somehow generate backlinks, there are many ways to do it right.
I think search engines are really smart, especially to people Google. They're using AI and machine learning. And I think that any unnatural link or any collect unnatural links over time are not going to serve you well.
You only want to try to get backlinks and guest blog, or perhaps accept guest bloggers, it's got to be related to where you are in authority because if it is, and the other site also has authority in that subject, I believe that that link might be worth 10 200 times more valuable than just a backlink from some random website.
The beautiful thing about all this is once you jump up the search engine rankings, assuming your content is good, then obviously, you can continue there.

Links Mentioned:

Guest Blogging Guide Ebook
Frase
SEMRush
Definitive SEMRush Tutorial

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaf

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If you've ever been curious about Pinterest, or are looking for ways to diversify your social media marketing, this episode is for you.

Kate Ahl is the undisputed Queen of Pinterest marketing. In this episode she shares with us everything you need to know about the why and how of Pinterest marketing.

Key Highlights

[03:09] Introduction to Podcast Guest, Kate Ahl

[05:33] How Kate Started on Pinterest

[07:12] Special Characteristic of an Average Pinner

[09:33] Companies That Would Best be Served by Pinterest

[13:11] Understanding Pinterest Analytics

[14:14] The First Steps You Should Do With Pinterest

[15:33] Pinterest Guided Search

[16:09] Pinterest Lens

[18:28] What Makes Some Pinterest Accounts More Successful than Others?

[22:51] Pinterest Image Trick

[24:16] Pin Formats

[29:33] My Pinterest Data

[32:05] Why You Should Advertise on Pinterest

[35:13] What to Look Out for on Pinterest in the Upcoming Months

[42:12] Connect with Kate

Notable Quotes

Pinterest is a great informer of purchases.
But oftentimes, what people fail to realize is that if you're already creating content, or you're writing articles, with Pinterest, it's just a simple switch of an image.
What we tell people, if you're going to think about approaching the platform right away, is to get your profile set up, get a business account, get your profile set up, and think of it as how can I showcase who I am and what I do in this very top of the profile piece so people know right away.
Images really need to be where your branding shines.
But I think that people the power of sharing amongst the people is real. So people want to see it, they're gonna see it.
one of the things that you and I had talked about before is Pinterest still drives so much traffic, compared to all the other platforms that have really shut it off, for the sake of the pay-to-play. Pinterest still is an environment where you can just do organic marketing, you don't have to necessarily go into the pay to play.
Our goal is to make Pinterest marketing accessible for everybody in a way that does not confuse them in a way that does not overwhelm them but gets them straight to the heart of what they need to know, as well as keeps them informed.

Guest Links:

Simple Pin Media: https://www.simplepinmedia.com/
Connect with Kate on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simplepinmedia/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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Welcome to Web3!

I had an amazing time at Joe Pulizzi's Creator Economy Expo, and I want to share with you what I learned specifically about Web 3.0 and how blockchain, cryptocurrencies and NFTs are all related.

In all honesty, I avoided these subjects for sometime as I found the NFT space to be full of people investing in them as if they were the .com startups in the tech bubble. However, wanting to learn about them knowing that Joe Pulizzi, the founder of Content Marketing World and Godfather of content marketing, is so invested in educating others around them, and after hearing Jeremiah Owyang's keynote speech, I now see things in a new light, and I think it is important enough that you do to.

No, I am not investing in any NFTs, but I do see how brands (and content creators) can and will be leveraging Web3 technologies in the not-so-distant future.

So, I am by no means an expert, and am very much a newbie, but I want to begin by sharing with you what I have learned and my perspective on this to help you all better understand the space.

I am still very much in the R&D phase of learning about this latest trend, but if this is something you want me to talk more about on my podcast, please let me know!
Key Highlights

[03:50] Democratization of Content

[05:56] What is Web 3.0?

[06:09] The Sharing Economy

[07:10] What is Blockchain

[08:20] Where Blockchain Started to be Implemented

[10:08] Sharing of Digital Ownership

[14:14] Why Would I Want Creators to Invest in Their Communities?

[18:12] Utilitarian Example of Monetizing Personal Brand

[22:23] What to Do Now?

[28:50] What is NFT?
Notable Quotes

Blockchain is the technology that will allow this to happen. And blockchain is a technology that allows us it's basically I guess, for lack of a better word, it is an accounting record, a ledger, which records every single transaction, and it can limit the number of iterations or the amount of ownership.
I talked about the democratization of digital ownership. All of this is decentralized. There's not a person or an entity that owns it. It's decentralized by the framework of the technology itself, by the blockchain.
So right now, I think a lot of people are focused on the craters when it comes to NFT, the artists what have you. But it's equally important for brands to really understand this, because it is a growing economy. The economy of NF T's and cryptocurrency is already greater than influencer marketing.
With the democratization of digital ownership, the democratization of financial transactions. It's almost like the democratization of community.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Of all of the marketing channels that exist, partnership marketing is one of the most under-utilized yet high potential opportunities that exist for businesses today.

Best represented by affiliate marketing, when done right, affiliate marketing provides you with an army of incentivized influencers that are selling on your behalf and only paid when a sale is made on a 24/7 basis.

Furthermore, there are a plethora of other "halo effect" benefits from this type of partnership marketing.

Intrigued? Learn all about partnership from co-author, Matt Wool, who wrote the book on partnership marketing, Moving to Outcomes, and is also the CEO of the leading partnership marketing firm Acceleration Partners.

Key Highlights

[02:21] Introduction to the Podcast Guest, Matt Wool

[03:42] How Matt Got Into Marketing and Writing Book

[06:48] The Issues Matt Found With Affiliate Marketing

[10:47] The Emergence of Influencer and Creator Economy

[14:30] Affiliations on NFTs and Cryptocurrencies

[16:57] What Prompted Matt to Write the Book

[20:39] What is Partnership Marketing?

[21:49] How to Scale This Type of Relationship?

[23:25] How to Get Started

[26:30] Recommended Platforms for Startups

[27:03] Main Areas to be Aware Of

Notable Quotes

And you know, our, our philosophy has long been it's not necessarily should you work with someone, it's more how you worked with someone.
What I think we really see is that this is going to have a significant impact on the overall partnership marketing landscape and One of the things that I think it is going to do is it is going to, in a lot of ways decentralize affiliate and influencer marketing.
There's this potential for these kinds of limitless numbers have like many affiliate programs that are enabled by certain smart contracts over time, which will be available to individual creators and that way, so it's a little bit of a different place that we're playing in, because we're working more with enterprise clients, but I think it's fascinating, and there's a lot that's going to happen there.
The main crux of this book is that we see too many marketers and too many companies with a hugely disproportionate amount of their eggs in one or two baskets, from a marketing budget perspective, right, they are shoveling money into Google, they are shoveling money into meta, whether it's Instagram, or you know, the regular platform, maybe they've got a few other things going in a couple of other channels.
But one thing I think a lot of people forget is affiliate marketing is also good for us.
So having those tiers and really understanding how you are presenting yourself to those publishers, are the keys to scaling the program and effective way.

Guest Links:

Acceleration Partners: https://accelerationpartners.com
Moving to Outcomes on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3l43uSb [affiliate]
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthew-wool-67a3aa5/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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Can you summarize your current marketing program in a 30-second elevator pitch?

And if you could what would it include?

This episode is inspired by a shark tank competition for high schoolers that my children competed in and looking at your marketing in fresh eyes through the perspective of teenagers!

You are guaranteed to look at your marketing in a different way after listening to this episode...

Key Highlights

[01:54] What is a High School Shark Tank Competition

[04:38] The Gaps Between Digital Marketing Resources and Materials

[05:32] The Approach to Determining a Product to Sell

[06:30] Some Compelling Presentations and Projects in the Competition

[07:35] The Stages of Funnel

[08:16] Stages of Funnel That Were Common From All Pitches

[10:01] How Should We Do Influencer Marketing?

[10:36] Leveraging UGC To Gain Credibility

[10:47] Where Influence Becomes Important

[11:58] The Biggest No-Brainer For Marketing Today

[12:54] An Example of Simple Lead Magnet Equation

[15:01] Do Your Own Shark Tank

[15:36] The Component that Helps Me Build People Relationship

[16:52] How Can You Start to Better Leverage Influencers?
Notable Quotes

Sometimes we really need to dumb down what we are doing.
When I was in high school and thinking about business, it was really about what were my needs? What were the needs of high school friends, and what can I sell to them, right. And I think that these high schoolers had really the same approach just based on their own experiences as to what sort of product that they could sell.
If you think about it in the funnel, in terms of brand awareness, search is a great way to get brand awareness.
it's such a no brainer in 2022 that it still shocks me that a lot of brands still ask, well, what's the ROI? Why do we need to do influencer marketing and it really brings me back to the early days of social media marketing, where people We're asking the same thing. The question isn't, do we need to do influencer marketing? The question is, well, how do we do it?
But at the end of the day, it's going to become more pay to play until you actually have customers where you can republish their content.So until you get to that point, it's really, really hard to break through the noise, starting from zero followers and get that brand awareness that we all want to get on social media. And that's where the influence has become even more important, especially at the beginning, when you don't have brand awareness.
And to me, it was sort of a pat on the back that riding the age of influence, and evangelizing influencer marketing is the wave of the future.
It comes down to a combination of all these. Yu can't have one without the other.
But really, it's the email component that allows me to build that deeper relationship and ultimately convert people, as my data has shown.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Content is the currency of digital and social media, but it can actually even be more strategic than being a mere currency.

Content marketing can not only help build your business, but it can play an instrumental role in building out a category that you own and deliver long-term digital benefits for your company.

Think Hubspot - they "own" the term for inbound marketing.

If you want to achieve similar results for your company, you'll want to listen in to this interview.

Key Highlights

[01:24] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mark Raffan

[03:00] How Mark Got Into Content Marketing

[08:04] What Does Establishing Your Own Category Means?

[13:30] Importance of Content Marketing in Establishing Own Category

[14:36] Create Quality Content

[17:00] Timeline and Strategies for Establishing Category

[21:01] Don't Forget About the Traditional Pieces

[22:38] Difference between Content Marketing Agency from an SEO Agency

[24:32] How to Structure Overall Strategy and Choosing the Platform to Post Content On

Notable Quotes

What's interesting about negotiation, that a lot of marketers don't understand is that negotiation and marketing are very, very similar, because they're both built on the same foundational elements. They're both built on persuasion, they're both built on influence. And when you think of those foundational elements, there's a lot of overlap between those two.
It's one thing to rank and it's another thing entirely to maintain, as a low bounce rate so that people actually read your stuff and engage with it and consume it on a regular basis. And that's what you have to create sort of long term. And also the same thing applies when it goes to social when it goes to video. It's got to be stuff that people actually want to consume.
Don't create a category unless you can afford to. And what I mean by that is, if you, if you don't have any decent funding, whether it's seed or series funding, this is a task best left to those who do.
It all starts with the strategy, get the strategy down first, try and think about who you're going to reach out to, and whether or not this category that you're creating is going to stick within that target group. And then dedicate yourself to building enough content that sort of an upswell gets created.
You don't have to do everything all at once you can start off in phases. But if you're just starting out in the Content Marketing World, just look at it through those lenses. Is it interesting? Is it educational? Is it informative? Everything will come from there.

Guest Links:

Content Callout: https://www.contentcallout.com/
Content Callout Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/b2b-content-marketing-the-content-callout-podcast/id1526894022
Connect with Mark on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/markraffan/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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Guest blogging is something that has been around for awhile but misunderstood by many. What is the benefit of blogging on someone else's site or inviting someone to blog on yours? And does Google approve of this?

Listen in as I give you my own perspective on the topic, and why you'll want to think a little more strategically about guest blogging going forward.

The resource that I mention in the episode, my newest free book, The Definitive Guide to Guest Blogging: The Most Effective Link Building Strategy, can be downloaded here:

https://nealschaffer.com/guest-blogging-guide/
Key Highlights

[03:07] My First Guest Blogger

[05:54] The Power of Guest Blogging

[06:33] Why Relevance is Important

[07:30] Guest Blogging Survey Statistics

[08:27] My Newest Ebook: The Definitive Guide to Guest Blogging

[09:20] Relationship Building With Those that Have Influence

[10:35] Example of an Influence

[12:51] Influence of Blogs or Blogging

[14:36] How Guest Blogging Can Nurture Positive Relationship

[15:37] Best Practice for Linking Out

Notable Quotes

Guest Blogging is the single most important way to build links, and getting links to your content or to your website is one of the most important things you can do to improve the SEO of your website.
For me, relevance is the ultimate. And when I bring on a guest blog, or when I guess, blog myself, that is the number one thing I look for, they don't have to necessarily have the highest domain authority or authority in Google's eyes. But if they're extremely relevant to my audience, and the content is extremely relevant to my website, that's when there is a match made in heaven.
So guest blogging is often misunderstood or gets a bad rap for a variety of reasons, as I talked about, I want you to understand the value of guest blogging, so that you can decide if and how to make it work for your business.
Influence is not defined by how many followers you have on Instagram. Influence is equally defined by how many followers you have on YouTube, or what is the domain authority of your website, or how many podcast downloads you get per episode. It is everywhere across digital media.
Social media does not work that way. Organic clicks are the hardest things to get.
Blogs or bloggers have tremendous influence, especially when we talk about clickability. But it's for brand awareness as well.
So if I'm going to link out, because it's the best practice, and with every link, I want to educate my audience more about that anchor text, whatever it is, I'd rather link out to someone that I like know, and trust, right. And that's where the relationship building the influence and marketing aspect really kicks in, and can be really, really powerful.
But I do believe that for content creation. If you publish things too frequently, in general, there is a tendency for the quality to not be at its optimal. It doesn't happen all the time. But it can happen because we're human.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Have you ever wanted to pick the brain of an SEO expert and get the real scoop on what makes for good - and bad - search engine optimization and even understand for what situations SEO might not be the best investment of your marketing budget?

If so you are going to love this interview with Eli Schwarz, author of Product-Led SEO. I guarantee you after listening to this episode you will see SEO in a brand new insightful light!

Key Highlights

[02:19] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Eli Schwartz

[03:38] How Eli Got Into SEO

[06:45] Going Beyond Keywords

[10:10] How to Identify SEO Opportunities

[14:23] Types of B2B Companies that Best Fit SEO

[19:03] Eli's Definition of Investing

[22:17] Productled SEO

[24:19] Example of Succesful Businesses

[28:27] Programmility and Scalability

[29:56] Things People Overlook SEO

[34:12] Smarter AI in SEO]

[35:26] Final Advice

[37:43] Connect with Eli

Notable Quotes

I think the idea is in the idea for all marketing, social media, SEO, paid media, brand media is users, you want to sell something, even if you're not selling an actual product, you're selling eyeballs, you're selling your media, you're selling retention, you're selling on brain authority.
I want to bring SEO back to that which is search is just a medium for people to find us.
So I think if you think about search as a medium and search as a concept, then you're focusing on the user, which is how do I create the best content, the best material for the users that are going to be using searches immediately, not how am I going to understand Google's algorithm of today and improve upon that so I show up as high as possible.
Know where you are in the funnel and build the effort around that.
So that's all I'm saying is do the basics, but don't make it an investment. If it's not a channel, don't spend money on advertising if you're not going to get users from it.
When I say product lead SEO, I mean that your understanding that there is a user out there on search that is looking for something that you can sell, and you build an entire product around it.
So educational content, again, if if it doesn't scale, then you're limited by how much content you can create.
90% of websites don't do SEO. That's a fact. I think it's probably 99% of websites in the world don't do SEO. So all the rules that Google has, has to work for the 100%, not just the 90%
If you can't justify your spend on SEO, if you don't see how the amount of money you're spending on SEO will ever repaid back, you can't put it in a spreadsheet.

Guest Links:

Eli's Website: https://www.elischwartz.co/
Product-Led SEO on Amazon: https://amzn.to/379RJGe [affiliate]
Connect with Eli on LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in.schwartze

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

Product-Led SEO: The Why Behind Building Your Organic Growth Strategy

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We've been hearing for some time that Artificial Intelligence (AI) will change not only the way we do business but society as well.

The truth is, marketers have already started to use AI, many time without knowing it. This is because many tools are already including AI algorithms in their analytics, such as the social media analytics tool Social Insider.

Lately there has been a lot of buzz around using AI to actually create content. How far have these platforms come? Listen in as I literally tell you what AI-generated content sounds like so you can come to your own conclusion as to if and how you decide to leverage the technology for yourself.

AI Tools Mentioned: (affiliate links)

Jasper: https://nealschaffer.com/jasper
Frase: https://nealschaffer.com/frase

Key Highlights

[02:38] What AI Can Do for Us

[02:54] Frase Tool

[03:34] AI Tools for SEO and Content Marketing

[05:06] The Potentials When Leveraging Tools

[05:47] Explain It to a Child Template

[07:26] Content Improver Tool

[10:59] Blog Post Intro Paragraph

[11:53] Copyscape Tool

[12:58] Paragraph Template

[14:40] Choosing Tone of the Voice

[19:36] How to Get Jasper

Notable Quotes

What I feel are the most compelling use case scenario for these tools, which are ads, Facebook ad headline, Facebook, ad primary text, you want to have some variations of different ad copy, will, this can actually shoot out a lot of different variations very, very quickly,
I recommend and I enjoy the fact that there are multiple outputs for this. But you get a sense that with some correction, we can actually leverage this and it sort of spices up our language.
I think the best content is content that triggers on people's emotions, that has your own unique perspective that has more of a human element to it.
But anyway, I just wanted to plant a seed in your head that, whether it's email copy, whether it's blog post or ad copy, I don't think that these tools are going to replace human beings. But I do believe that as a helper, to help you do research, help you make sure you're covering your bases in terms of content, because if the AI can find content that they think you should include in your blog post that you're not including, then maybe you don't have all your bases covered, right?
I think now is the time to start embracing these tools not to replace human beings. But as helpers, to help you make better content in less time.
And writing is an art. And I would never publish anything without running it by human editors, or my own human eyes and making my own human corrections. But I do believe when you're just your creativity, well is running dry, when you have nothing to say, using one of these tools is going to give you a lot to say.
I think if you are a marketer, you owe it to yourself to really try to start leveraging one of these tools.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Are you looking for creative angles to your Instagram marketing?

Today's guest, Author of Blogging on Instagram, Terri Nakamura, will introduce you to a refreshingly unique way of looking at the platform that will spark some new creative ideas for your own Instagram marketing.

You don't have to start a blog to be successful on Instagram, but following Terri's advice will undoubtedly help improve your Twitter marketing game!

Key Highlights

[02:44] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Terri Nakamura

[06:36] Who is Terri?

[11:21] Why and How Terri Started Blogging on Instagram

[12:17] Courses Terri Took in Digital Marketing

[14:48] Why Terri Wrote a Book

[17:57] How Terri Found Her Publisher

[25:04] The Value of Publisher

[27:07] The Route Terri Took

[33:06] Evolving Blogging for Instagram to Book

[36:52] Terri's Advice to Those Who Take Advantage of Instagram as a Blogging Platform

[39:17] "Make EveryEmail a Love Letter"

[40:16] Impact of Instagram on Developing Relationships

[42:27] How to get the most of Instagram

[44:11] Connect with Terri

Notable Quotes

I think some people just feel like social media is there to be an advertising platform and they don't deliver any value.
Understanding the value in education and the other things that you deliver to your audience are the things that draw them to you.
I think blogging [on Instagram] is a really great place to experiment for people who want to write and have and engage with the audience.
You don't make money off the book, you make money off people who read the book, who reach out and want to hire you.
If you have a visual way of representing what you do, or you have a visual product or service, it's even better for that platform. You can't be everywhere. You don't need to be everywhere.
You have to prioritize and know where your time is going to be the most valuable.
You can collect other kinds of data that will indicate whether or not you're on the right track and what kinds of things resonate, and how many times you get on to the Explore page and stuff like that.
And it's really important to build an audience and awareness, so you get other benefits.
So you can imagine that if you treat social media and Instagram in that way, and you are putting your attention creating a blog post and every post you publish there, it can be really impactful because it really is a personal platform. And you can personally connect with people and engage with people in that way.

Guest Links:

Blogging on Instagram on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qPRYNj [affiliate]
Connect with Terri on Twitter: https://twitter.com/terrinakamura
Connect with Terri on Instagram: https://instagram.com/terrinakamura

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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Working with corporate clients I have developed my own 100-point LinkedIn profile audit score that looks at 20 different areas of a LinkedIn profile. And, year in and year out, most professionals underperform in these 10 areas.

Listen in for some tangible and actionable LinkedIn profile advice!

Key Highlights

[02:23] LinkedIn Profile Completeness

[03:30] Social Selling Index

[04:09] What Social Selling Index Does?

[05:21] My 100 Point System

[07:26] Searching for People

[08:00] Top 10 Areas Where Majority of Professionals Underperform

[08:55] Personalized URL

[11:15] Creator Mode

[15:10] Featured Section

[16:31] Past Company Experience

[20:29] Concept of Waiting

[21:44] Volunteering/Organizations

[24:03] 5 First Priority Areas

[24:16] Professional Summary

[26:20] Write Your Professional Summary in First Person

[28:31] Publish More Content on Linkedin!

[31:09] Current Company Experience

[31:59] Gain Recommendations

[33:27] Summary

Notable Quotes

I'm finding that a majority of employees, and these are generally primarily sales-focused people, they are falling short, in pretty much the same 10 areas, year in and year out every time I do this.
This proprietary methodology that I think really brings your LinkedIn profile into alignment with the high performers in your industry. And as you all know, all roads on LinkedIn lead to your profile. That's why it's so critical that you get it right.
The LinkedIn profile is almost like your second website. In fact, if you do not have a website, your LinkedIn profile pretty much is your own website. And that's why you want to make sure that your profile is up to par.
I always say claim your personal URL before someone with a similar name does.
I would bet that LinkedIn by limiting you to high five hashtags, it's really saying that you specialize. You're an expert in these areas, and therefore, when you publish content around those areas, it would make sense that maybe it gets a little bit more priority than people that don't have those hashtags that are publishing content with those hashtags.
LinkedIn is an inbound marketing tool, the more data you give it, the more places that you said you worked, the more keywords you can add in those places, the broader the connections you can make with other people.
It was my wife who said, you know, all those past relationships that you have, add up to who you are today. They've made you who you are today, they are a part of you. There's nothing to be embarrassed about. I would say about all your past experiences, add up to who you are. And you never know when that past experience is going to come in handy.
By putting volunteering/organizations in your profile, you're not only building that potential data point that helps connect with someone. But it's this point of relatability.
Introduce yourself, like you would, as if you were speaking with someone. And that will make your LinkedIn profile, all the more impactful.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Content Marketing. Blogging. Search Engine Optimization (SEO). Email Marketing. How do these all fit together seamlessly and strategically to help generate new leads and business?

This is the broad topic that I speak with Jeff Baker, CMO of the leading content marketing agency Brafton, about.

By the end of this conversation you will:

Understand B2B leads: from the buyer persona to the user intent.
Learn how to create a cohesive content marketing strategy that drives leads.
Learn the differences amongst the top 5 strategies: Lead magnet, Free tools, Original research, Case studies, Newsletter.

Key Highlights

[01:37] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jeff Baker

[02:43] Jeff's Journey to Digital Marketing

[05:32] What is SEO?

[09:30] Should I Create Content Using AI?

[15:10] Looking At Search Intent and Buyer Persona

[19:13] The Importance of Adding Value to Your Audience

[19:35] Why Blogs Exist?

[20:07] Selling by Teaching

[22:51] What is a Lead Magnet?

[23:00] Five Strategies to Lead Magnet

[27:02] One of the Best Lead Magnets

[28:55] Tool that Jeff Recommends for Lead Magnets

[31:01] Creating Original Research

[35:57] Writing Case Studies

[39:02] How to be Successful on Newsletter

[45:25] Connect with Jeff

Notable Quotes

The new SEO strategist is going to be a content strategist.
The soul and really caring about the topic, and showing the unique perspective is what really is going to differentiate that content and which is going to help not just in search engine rankings, but generate leads as well.
Most of the time, when I see people getting this wrong with lead generation, it's they're mismatching the intent of their users with the goal that they're trying to accomplish.
So for me, my best recommendation is to follow the intent all the way through to the end. So understand that my intent for this particular topic, this search is information, I'm just looking to learn and don't break that pathway and offer me something that adds value to my current mindset.
When creating the strategy, the informational, and just understanding those intersection points, and really trying to knowing that some of that content is going to more directly generate the leads, and the remainder is really going to indirectly.
Same point with the lead magnets. It doesn't need to be an earth shattering, lead magnet or tool that nobody's created, or nobody's ever thought about. It just needs to add some value, you know. And the good point is that, we always assume we need to provide a lot more than the user does.
Start with the assumption that nobody wants to read it. And what that's going to do is it's going to force you to create something way out of the box with your subject line and with the content that you put in there.

Guest Links:.

Brafton: https://www.brafton.com/
Connect with Jeff Baker on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bakerseo/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
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I just came back from speaking at Berkshire Hathaway Homeservices, the leading real estate company in the United States and the World, annual convention. Working with realtors I have realized 2 truths:

They are entrepreneurs and need to build their own business like any other business owner
Like most entrepreneurs, a lot of them simply don't have the time and/or resource to consistently show up on social media

While there are some EXTREMELY savvy real estate pros when it comes to social media, from a numbers perspective, my experience is that an overwhelming majority are still looking for the magic bullet to help them gain value from social media, where they know they need to be more often.

Whether or not you are in social media, I am hoping this message resonates with you as well!

With that in mind, in this episode I share with you a simple formula to give you some boundaries yet concrete guidance to make the most of social media marketing in the smallest amount of time necessary.

I hope this inspires YOU to ACTION!

Key Highlights

[03:50] What I Noticed On Successful Real Estate Agents And Salespeople

[05:36] Reimagining Content for More Impactful Social Media Marketing

[07:43] People Want To Engage With People, Not Objects

[08:4] It's All About Action

[09:35] Include Yourself More In Your Content

[10:15] Visualize Everything That You Do

[11:42] Stick With Big 3 Platforms

[15:00] When To Customize Content For Every Platform

[15:47] Things to Remember If You Want to Publish Same Content Across Platform

[20:00] It's Okay to Include Yourself In Your Content

Notable Quotes

I find that a lot of real estate agents, a lot of salespeople, and a lot of businesses are self promotional in their content and social media, which tells me, they don't look at social media as this golden arena where we can develop relationships of value with all sorts of entities, all sorts of people.
But more than often, people want to see you they want to engage with you, they engage more with people than they do with logos or inanimate objects. It is just the general rule of human beings and, and how and why we engage with people. And this is what social media is all about.
I want to challenge you to be 100% visual, with your content. This is what social networks want. This is what people engage with more. And at the end of the day, this is going to get you the most eyeballs.
this is what I want you to think about when it comes to your social media marketing. It should be a process, it should be a system because I want you to save time for the actual engagement for the proactive engagement of finding new people reaching out to new people and the reactive engagement of obviously being there when people engage with you.
And once again, save your creative juices for the engagement and for the content.
There's always room to let people know what makes you tick, what you enjoy doing, what you're passionate about so that people get to know you better. And not only does that build up your personal brand in their eyes, but it makes a deeper emotional attachment.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Yes, there are big changes underway in the world of Facebook and Google Ads, in case you hadn't heard. Beginning with GDPR, the trends are slowly moving in the favor of consumers, and advertisers are being challenged in accessing the same amount of rich data they used to be able to more easily obtain effective digital marketing advertising results.

What should your business do to measure your digital marketing ads ROI in a non-trackable world?

This is the topic of an informative interview I had with Elijah Kirsch, CEO and Founder of Zonder Marketing and also one of the leading consultants at Mayple Marketing Solutions.

Some of the things we discussed include:

How to understand the current digital and social media advertising situation and further push for privacy and its impact on your advertising
Learn how to measure ROI through a variety of A/B testing methods
Discover "hidden" ROI measurements in your data

Key Highlights

[02:42] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Elijah Kirsch

[04:42] Elijah's Journey to Digital Marketing

[06:27] The Evolution of Digital Marketing

[10:32] Look Alikes and Remarketing

[12:10] Changes in Social Media Platforms

[13:03] Changes in Paid Digital Marketing

[15:00] Things That Businesses Should Be Doing Now

[19:44] Attribution On Multiple Touchpoints

[23:12] Elijah's Favorite AV Testing Methods

[26:42] Hidden ROI Measurements

[30:57] How Mayple Helps Businesses

[34:15] What To Look Foward In The Next Years

[36:30] Connect With Elijah

Notable Quotes

And one thing that I believe in is when you're taking over a client that already exists, and they already have campaigns, don't just run your own. I've seen that happens so many times where agencies consultants are like, hey, I've got a better idea.
While this year is tough, just because you have that year over year comparison, I think going forwards with these, you're going to see much smarter implementations much, much more cohesive stories doing putting more effort into those areas than I think what often got done in the past.
And so I think what the businesses are going to start to do is really understand what that incrementality is.
I think we as marketers need to be much more integrated, no longer can we just look at return on adspend and call it a day, another client of working with doing Google Shopping, I've reset up all their campaigns based on their actual margin.
You can completely change how a company works and operates by understanding that data, it takes a lot more effort, it takes time, and it takes understanding. But I find it extremely helpful.
You can't have mediocre creatives anymore. They have to be on point. You have to be working with people and be integrated into that brand team.

Guest Links:

Mayple: https://www.mayple.com/
Zonder Marketing: https://www.zonder.io/
Connect with Elijah Kirsch on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elijahkirsch/

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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Twitter is an often forgotten about but potentially extremely powerful option for your social media marketing.

What impact can Twitter have on your marketing? What businesses should utilize it? And how to go about best using it?

Find out all you want to know about Twitter marketing on this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast!

Key Highlights

[05:13] Why I Invest Time and Energy On Twitter

[07:08] Twitter as A Great Discovery Tool for News

[07:48] The Magic of Twitter

[08:33] The Value of Twitter

[09:08] Importance of Twitter Ads

[10:23] Connecting and Engaging Is Easy On Twitter

[11:52] Twitter's Content

[13:48] Share Natively!

[16:04] Hidden Engagement

[16:32] Things You Can Do To Start A Conversation

[17:23] Why It Is Easier Develop Relationships On Twitter

[19:04] Summary

Notable Quotes

Now, a lot of us marketers publish a lot to Twitter. And we tend to use tools to do that. And when you use a tool on a platform, you sort of lose touch with the reality of the platform. And I definitely realize that with Twitter, really as a place to monitor the news, Twitter does a good job of pointing out news that's going on from reputable sources.
Once again, that happens on Twitter, it's because it's where the news breaks. And it's where the media is. And if you're a business, or if you're a solopreneur. entrepreneur, you want to get covered by the media.
The life span of a tweet is very short. It's the repetitive gesture of checking it on Twitter, if you're doing it organically, several times a day, if you're tweeting a few times a day is going to be the cadence that you need, I believe in order to make impact there because it is so noisy.
And there's very few platforms today that we can say that about, but compared to a tick tock, or any other platform, Twitter really is the easiest platform to connect and engage with others on to have conversations.
So if you want to go a little bit further with Twitter, assuming that you're already publishing content on LinkedIn, on a Facebook, or on an Instagram, or even on a tick tock, you can take that exact same content and publish it on Twitter, that would be my number one recommendation for you.
The magic starts when you engage with others, when you engage with influencers with thought leaders with your followers. And the more you tweet, and the more you engage, and that engagement should also include proactively following, the more things tend to happen over time, like anything else in social media, it has a tumbleweed effect.
And part of me is like when everybody talks about going to LinkedIn or a tick tock or an Instagram, there's always value in all these other social networks that a lot of people have forgotten about. They're all equally important.
And I think that those that are successful are those that have a very, very holistic perspective on digital and social media marketing, and know where everything fits into place and what strategic levers to best pull for whatever state you're in, in your digital and social media marketing.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Instagram has always been the King of influencer marketing, i.e. where a majority of influencer marketing budgets have been going, but with the emergence of TikTok, which is the best place to engage with and activate influencers?

Joining me today is influencer marketing expert, and Founder and CEO of one of the leading companies in the influencer marketing space, Markerly. We go deep into what makes TikTok such an appealing venue for influencer marketing, including:

Why TikTok is the place to be for young people.
Why it's more engaging than any of the incumbents.
The amazing value you can get working with TikTokers and how competitive their ad platform is for brands.

Key Highlights

[02:07] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Justin Kline

[05:03] How Justin Get Into Influencer Marketing

[07:26] Transitioning From Social Network to Influencer Marketing

[10:26] The Growth of Tiktok Over The Last Years

[13:10] Changes in Tiktok Demographics

[14:53] The Rise of Tiktok During Pandemic

[18:00] What Makes Tiktok Special?

[20:03] The Role of Influencers

[22:00] The Differences of Going Into Influencer Marketplace

[25:16] Tiktok Ads

[27:07] Tapping Into Creative Force of Influencers

[28:40] Branded Partnership in Tiktok

[29:57] Knowing the Demographics to Invest Into

[33:46] Connect with Justin

Notable Quotes

It's just crazy how, how much the pandemic has changed things. It's really fascinating. And yeah, and I look at Tiktok is very much an entertainment platform.
I think it's just this never ending stream of stuff that they're predicting, you're going to like, and the more you, you know, the more you use the app, the better it gets at, at suggesting content to you.
Influencers are keeping people interested in making content that, you know, is going to capture people's attention. And, you know, that's a hard job.
Tapping into this creative force, that enables you to think of ideas and to come up with content that you wouldn't have been able to come up with on your own. That is more likely to engage people because they on a daily basis, they're putting out content, and they're getting instant feedback as to how effective that content is, and how much that content resonates with their followers.
That's sort of a unique type of entertainment that just didn't exist in social media until Tik Tok. Right. So an example of raising the bar now other people are probably trying to do the same thing. And now we're going to see new things. So it just continues to evolve at a very, very quick pace. So I think that's one of the reasons why, you know, working with influences become so critical.

Guest Links:

Markerly: https://markerly.com/
Connect with Justin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/klinejustin

Learn More:

Check Out All of My Podcast Episodes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download All of My Free EBooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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How powerful can LinkedIn be for your marketing?

And what might you be missing out on that is relevant for LinkedIn in 2022?

I have written 2 books on LinkedIn, and more recently have written a free ebook, Maximizing LinkedIn for Business, that I try to update every year according to the latest trends of LinkedIn and features it offers.

I just came out with my latest version of the free ebook, Maximizing LinkedIn for Business, which is now available for immediate download here:

https://nealschaffer.com/maximizing-linkedin-for-business/

Learn what the latest LinkedIn features that I recommend you focus on are in this episode of the Your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Key Highlights

[00:16] My Definitive Guide to Email Marketing Ebook

[07:17] LinkedIn Can Deliver Results

[10:08] My LinkedIn Data Points

[14:30] Main Newest Features of LinkedIn

[14:46] Freebies On My Website!

[15:24] First Thing I Would Prioritize Now On LinkedIn

[16:22] Generating Emotional Connection

[18:24] Featured Section

[20:44] Visuals Attract!

[22:14] Creator Mode

[24:00] Benefits You Will Get On Creator Mode

[26:05] Speculations on LinkedIn

[26:37] Newsletter Feature

[28:15] How To Turn On Creator Mode

[29:55] LinkedIn Automation Tools

[32:11] How To Get Massive Exposure On LinkedIn

[34:42] Summary

Notable Quotes

LinkedIn is delivering 13x more traffic to my YouTube channel, then Facebook is at a pretty comparable follower size, which goes to show you that organic content published on LinkedIn can perform really well.
You want to share information that's going to generate leads. But the other side of it is your human side. The ability to generate an emotional connection with people that together with brand awareness does lead to that content that you want to convert on being seen by more people.
LinkedIn is still not Twitter. And it's not Facebook. But you can get more personal. You can share more personal stories, and more personal things about yourself that are inspirational.
So think a little bit differently with your content, continue what you've been doing, but try to mix in more of that personal content. And I think you're going to get more engagement and with that, all of your other content afterwards is going to get more visibility.
So my recommendation is it can only benefit you turn it on and at a minimum just put those hashtags that are relevant to you and or your brand up on your profile.
If you want to get massive exposure on LinkedIn, and you want to start building out a big network.
So I'm not going to say LinkedIn automation tools don't exist, because they do, I'm not going to say they can't be efficient, because they can be efficient. I'm also not going to say they don't come with a risk, because they do come with a risk. And you never know when LinkedIn is going to come in and shut down your account.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

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I talked about my perspective on the Creator Economy with its relationship to influencer marketing on episode 241 literally 10 episodes ago, but seeing how it is a trending buzzword these days, I wanted to invite on an old friend to give us his perspective, as he is literally launching the first event around the Creator Economy called the Creator Economy Expo (go here for a $150 discount: https://nealschaffer.com/cex)

And this guest, Joe Pulizzi, founder of Content Marketing World, knows something both about content marketing and launching and running successful events.

Listen in to learn Joe's perspective on where things have gone with content marketing and where they are heading with the Creator Economy. We covered a LOT of ground on this podcast, even touching upon the metaverse / Web 3.0 and NFTs.

If you want to understand the future of social media marketing, you'll want to listen to the end!

Key Highlights

[01:29] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Joe Pulizzi

[04:19] Evolution From Content Marketing to Creator Economy

[08:27] What is Creator Economy Expo?

[09:42] Why Content Creators Shouldn't Be So Focused on Social Platforms

[12:11] What is a Content Creator?

[13:45] Why Creator Economy Expo Was Created

[15:16] The Ultimate of Creator Economy

[18:47] You Need to Build Audience First!

[20:04] The Best Way to Generate Revenue

[22:54] Focus On One Platform and Master It

[25:50] Tilt Niching Vs Tilt Differentiation

[29:17] The Mission Of Creator Economy

Notable Quotes

And really, when it comes down to my take may be versus a lot of different people is I don't like what's going on with content creators being so focused on social platforms, when those social platforms then make the changes as they always do.
What I found over COVID was what was old is new again.
The core really is to be content entrepreneur.
You had a lot of great things that are happening. And I don't want people to miss that. So my recommendation is let's experiment. Let's see. But this is really something new that can move content creators from being totally dependent on social platforms.
Look at the ones that aren't, the ones that are successful, already have an audience and get this, they usually have a pretty good email list.L
Let's get rid of some of this stuff. Let's focus on being great at one or two things instead of just throwing your content all over everywhere.
What are the two biggest problems with companies that try to build an audience, one is they don't have a content till they don't have a true differentiation area. And the second is they don't deliver consistently over a long period of time.

Guest Links:

The Tilt: https://www.thetilt.com/
Connect with Joe on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joepulizzi/
Creator Economy Expo: https://nealschaffer..com/cex

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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If you are not building out an email list, you are leaving money on the table.

And if you have an email list but are not regularly engaging with your email subscribers, you are leaving money on the table.

Listen to this episode to learn why email marketing is so important, has the highest ROI of any digital marketing channel, and a preview of my new free ebook to help you understand best practices in how to "do" email marketing right.

Download my free ebook, The Definitive Guide to Email Marketing, here:

https://nealschaffer.com/email-marketing-guide/

Key Highlights

[01:54] Introduction to My Newsletter

[03:04] What I Realized About Influencer Marketing

[04:34] My First Ebook On Email Marketing

[05:18] How Email Marketing Benefit Your Business

[05:25] Choosing the Right Email Marketing Software

[07:17] Why You Have To Build An Email List

[07:46] Email Marketing ROI Example

[09:11] Another Data Point

[09:35] How To Know the ROI of What You're Doing

[12:06] Podcast Data Points

[12:42] How to Engage and Build Relationship With People?

[14:46] How to Build Email List

[16:08] How to Leverage Sequences

[16:38] Keeping It Human

[17:31] Make Every Email A Love Letter

Notable Quotes

Based on their business objectives, I realized that influencer marketing wasn't the only way in which they could reach their goals. And in fact, in some cases, it might even be the best choice.
And at the end of the day, everything else you do is on rented land, social media is rented land. If you're trying to get better search engine rankings, it's rented to YouTube, Apple podcasts, it's all rented land, we don't own it, the only thing we own our own websites, more importantly, our own email lists, right, which give us direct communication.
And we could say the same thing on a podcast and YouTube as well. This is content, it's gonna live forever in the search engines. It's out of your control, but you're building asset.
They continue to develop a deeper relationship with their customers, their customers continue to open their emails, and they continue to act upon what those calls to action are.
Because once again, they may see us on social media, they may not they may see us in search engines, they may not they may come to our website, they may not. But the email, we know that we can get in front of people, right. And when we get in front of people, we need to be strategic about how we do it. But if we are given the privilege to directly communicate with people, that gives us an opportunity to deepen the relationship on our timeline, rather than the timeline of an arbitrary algorithm.
I realized there was a gap in the market marketers were being misled on what influencer marketing was, they were missing out on an extremely impactful way of developing business of developing influential relationships of developing community.
We sort of sometimes take for granted the actual verbiage that we use in our messaging, and it's critical. So you need to find a way to keep a human.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Every year we come out saying that this is the year of video.

Seems that way doesn't it?

Even if you know you SHOULD be doing more video as part of your marketing, it can be challenging if you don't know exactly what you SHOULD do.

I also face this challenge, which is why I'm excited to present to you this interview I had with Scott Miller, content marketing expert and Founder and CEO of Centerpost Media.

We discussed:

Understanding the power that video can have for your marketing.

Did you know, for instance, that 64% of internet users are more likely to buy a product after watching a video?

How to create the perfect video.If budget allows, hire a professional to help you with videos, but if you are going to produce the videos yourself, there's a LOT to consider.

How to best use your videos on social mediaand more!

Needless to say if you are trying to play catch up with video, this episode is for you!

Key Highlights

[01:35] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Scott Miller

[06:48] Why We Need To Focus On Video Today?

[09:25] How To Create A Perfect Video?

[12:28] Balancing Professionality With Authenticity

[14:22] Tips And Tricks On Preparing Recorded Videos

[16:00] Scott's Suggestions On How To Come Up With Ideas For The Video

[16:37] Expert Marketing

[18:00] How To Best Use Videos On Social Media

[20:53] Balancing Videos With Other Content Type

[23:32] Connect With Scott

Notable Quotes

I think it goes back to one of the trends we're seeing in marketing is being authentic. And so more and more consumers want to know, what does the CEO stand for? How are they treating their employees? Video allows you to convey who you are and tell your story. And I think that's the reason why it's so powerful.
I think for me, it always starts with what are you trying to accomplish? I think that's that's step one. When we talk about creating video, you do not have to have video on every single platform.
It doesn't have to be huge, you know, it doesn't have to be complicated Neil, it just has to be something that if I'm watching your video, am I getting your message? Is that coming clear? Are you communicating that? And certainly the video does it. But I think having a closed captioning and having the text helps with that as well.
80% of the content needs to be free advice. So think to yourself, what are some things I can offer for free, and that scares business owners, right? If you give me something for free, and I try it, and it works, and I want a deeper level, who am I going to go to? This is really about you know, you call it expert marketing, it's about you are already expert in your field.
Stop worrying about following the social media trends that do not bring you additional business.

Guest Links:

Centerpost Media: https://cenpostmedia.com/
Connect with Scott on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottmillermedia/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Content creators are able to generate engagement and influence because they are not always using their content to promote a product or service, but they are using their content to connect with their community and provide value.

Just as businesses are at a disadvantage in social media, with the growth of the creator economy, I would argue that the tables are turning against businesses in all of digital media.

I want to share with you what I have learned over the last two years of post-COVID digital marketing and why the creator economy will continue to eat into the mindshare that businesses have had in digital marketing.

Once you understand this, even if you are a business there is still a way to gain mindshare and compete with content creators.

The secret is the one thing that this episode is all about, and you'll have to listen in to find out what it is and the various examples I use to help you see the light!

Key Highlights

[01:26] Why I Keep Going

[03:03] My Library of Content Around Influencer Marketing

[03:51] Content Marketing 101

[05:00] Who Are We Creating Content For?

[06:07] My Blogging and Author Journey

[06:57] Revising My LinkedIn For Business Ebook

[08:17] Why I Select My Podcast Guest Carefully

[10:32] Be Part Of The Process

[11:09] Why You Should Not Outsource Critical Tasks To Your Brand

[11:36] What Drives Me?

[13:18] See Whatever You Do In Digital Social Differently

[16:01] Why Email Is Still The Best Way To Engage With People

[18:26] Infuse Concept Of Caring For Other Others In Your Content

Notable Quotes

I always say content is the currency of digital media content is the currency of social media.
But the important thing is, when we're creating this content, is it all about us? Or is it all about them? Are we creating it to have a one sided transaction so that we are the ones profiting? Or do we truly care about that other person?
But the important thing is, I've always wanted to give out my best content, and have always wanted to not hide anything and give what I thought was the best advice, whether or not it made me money. Because I know that this is the information that my community needs.
But the central part is I care about I select these people that want to be on my podcast very, very carefully. I am very, very careful as to who I accept, because the whole lens is will this person provide you valuable information?
There's nothing wrong with having writers as part of your team. But at the end of the day, you need to be part of that process, you need to be an integral part of that process.
What drives me, ladies and gentlemen, is that I want to leave the earth a better place than it was without me. That's what drives me is leaving whatever legacy I can.
We all have the ability to influence others through our content. And in doing so, this I believe, as marketers, as entrepreneurs as business owners, this is how we make our own contributions

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Today I have a special guest who is also an influencer marketing expert discussing the past and future trends of influencer marketing. P.J. Leimgruber is the founder of one of the leading influencer marketing platforms, NeoReach, and he most recently founded the Clash App.

He developed this new app because he feels that the existing brand deal system that is prominent in influencer marketing is broken. That's why PJ recently joined forces with former Vine sensation, Brendon McNerney, to launch Clash, a short-form video app with built-in creator monetization tools, to solve the problem, and provide the infrastructure necessary to create a more sustainable brand-deal ecosystem.

Some of the things we discussed include:

How social media user behavior is changing going into 2022, and why that's a good thing (creating more authentic interactions, building off of connections to niche audiences and devoted fanbases)
How brands can leverage "microtransactions" and tools like Clash drops to connect with target audiences
What changes we will see in 2022 in influencer marketing trends

Key Highlights

[02:08] Introduction of Podcast Guest, P.J. Leimgruber

[04:28] P.J's Journey To Founding Neoreach and Digital Marketing

[07:49] Using Influencers Instead Of Traditional Ads

[10:28] The Difference of Social Media Now Compared Before

[12:49] Creating More Authentic Interactions

[13:53] Why Brand-Deal Relationships Are Broken Today

[15:49] The Problem With How Influencers Are Treated

[16:51] What Are Microtransactions And How Brands Can Leverage Them

[19:07] What Clash App Does

[25:25] The Shift For Influencer Marketing Next Year

[28:48] Connect With PJ

Notable Quotes

It doesn't necessarily need to be in the sense of scale, in terms of millions of followers, you know, we're seeing these small micro creators have had great success doing what they love. And that's encouraging to see.
I think that creators now more than before, really understanding that distinction, and really think about how do they cultivate those relationships with those top fans.
I encourage the folks that are on the brand side, to really rethink their influencer strategy and that lens and think less about the performance metrics and the views and the numbers and really think about the creation of the fostering a connection between the brand and the creator, the same way that the craters foster that connection with their fans.
What we want to start thinking is not what the creators think about is how do I break away from needing to fit the mold of what the brands are looking for, into saying that I just want to be me, and I want to build relationships with my fans, I want to build my digital community, I want to connect with my ride or die fans.

Guest Links:

Neoreach: https://neoreach.com/
Clash App: https://clashapp.co/
Connect with P.J. on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/pj-leimgruber/

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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With all of the changes that society, technology, and social media undergoes at a frenzied pace, have you taken a step back to analyze your results from the previous year and use that insight to pivot your digital marketing strategy?

This podcast provides you a living example of how I balance my own digital marketing channels, what I learn from the data, and how I plan on applying it to all of my digital marketing this year.

I hope this episode both inspires you and provides you with a concrete example to help you truly Maximize Your Digital (and Social, of course!)

Key Highlights

[02:34] A Little Personal Story

[08:06] How to Pivot Your Digital Marketing Strategy For 2022

[10:04] Looking At The Output in 2021

[11:26] Blogging As Part of R&D

[12:33] My YouTube Output

[13:44] My Podcast Output

[14:52] Rebranding My Podcast

[15:45] My Email Marketing Output

[17:05] The Big Three Areas of Digital Marketing

[17:53] Initial Results for my Blogging

[19:40] Initial Results for my YouTube

[20:07] Initial Results for my Podcast

[21:21] Initial Results for my Email Marketing

[22:26] Conversions On My Website

[25:11] My Fractional CMO Services

[25:34] My Mastermind Community

[26:12] Plans for 2022

[28:15] Outlines

[29:31] Giving Social Media Algorithm What They Want

[30:50] Summary

Notable Quotes

But for me, this is the output I needed, I'm not going to go overboard and say I'm going to blog twice a day, I think blogging four times a week, over the course of a year, says that in my library of content, I have 200 pieces of content. And for most companies that that is enough, you don't even need to blog four times a week. That's just me.
And you know, the goal for 2022 is to stay consistent.
For me, it's really about building that strategy. And making sure that the content has impact. There's a lot of different directions I can go.
As I learned early on in my career, part of a strategy is also deciding what not to do. You really need to stay focused.
What I want to do this year is really be more strategic, and raise the quality of both my own content, and those guests that I invite to be on the podcast.
I like to keep things really, really simple. I like to provide you clarity, but clarity with impact.
To me, it's all about conversions. It's all about getting people on my email list, so that I can communicate with them a little bit more frequently, and promote what I'm doing a little bit more frequently as well.
And it really mimics the advice that I've been giving you on this podcast is to focus on non-social evergreen content outlets, my blog, my podcast, and YouTube.
But it's also about giving social media algorithms what they want, and they want video.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/cmo
Download The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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One of the benefits of content marketing is in generating thought leadership, but how exactly does it work?

This episode will go deep into content marketing, content syndication, traditional media, and how all of it can be leveraged to yield thought leadership. Specifically we will focus in on these 3 points:

1. Thought leadership requires a deliberate strategy Associations and nonprofits are authorities on the industries, professions and issues/causes they represent. Association and nonprofit leaders naturally have deep expertise to share. But thought leadership doesn’t just “happen.” This should be supported by a thought leadership strategy - to media, policymakers, members, prospects, donors, etc.

2. Thought leadership involves multiple tactics - but brings many benefits:
There is no one way to do thought leadership. Some campaigns are directed more towards policymakers, others towards consumer media, others towards donors. Thought leadership spans speaking engagements, blogging, video, social media, by-lined articles and more. It is not a one-time thing: rather establishing thought leadership requires regularly communicating knowledge, intelligence, and insights. It is a long game, not a short burst, but has huge benefits of building credibility, trust, visibility and recognition.

3. Leverage visibility opportunities by give media what they can use:
Thought leadership campaigns can be standalone, though are generally part of a larger PR/visibility campaign for an organization and/or an issue. For any visibility campaign, make sure your “owned media “ (social media channels, blog, Linked In, etc.) is robust. Then make it easy for media to cover. Submit by-lined articles or columns that outlets can run with. Regularly share not just data trends, surveys, and forecasts, but also stories of impact. Associations and nonprofits have so much knowledge but generally share it only with members or donors, etc. That expertise can go so much broader by figuring out the best way of capturing and communicating it.

Key Highlights

[02:20] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Rick Smith
[12:34] Why Deliberate Strategy Is Critical
[13:46] The Real Challenge To Content Marketers
[16:09] Ways To Build Up Your Credibility
[19:41] Multiple Tactics For Thought Leaders
[23:50] How To Leverage Opportunities Aligned In What Media Can Use
[27:50] Connect With Rick

Notable Quotes

The challenge people face is, you start off by wanting to build that credibility or be that expert.
You have to sit and think, what is it that makes you unique? What is it that you have to offer? You've got to craft your message.
People should be doing utilizing every channel they have.
If you got to think of it this way, the media is concerned about their audience, they want their audience to have interesting articles and interesting things that they will read. And that they want to read. So the key to doing that is to give them what they want.

Guest Links:

NewsUSA: https://newsusa.com

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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As we enter 2022, are you looking for some new inspiration for your digital marketing? If so, this is the episode for you!

Join me as I give you my suggestions on which 10 channels you should consider launching, or if you are already active but not getting the results you need, relaunching in 2022.

Specifically, these 10 things that I discuss in detail on this podcast are:

TikTok
ShortForm Video
YouTube Channel
Podcast
Pinterest
Blog
Email List
Membership Community
Workshop
Course

Key Highlights

[03:22] First Area I Recommend To Invest: TikTok

[04:33] How To Launch TikTok Channel

[06:07] Looking At The Patterns And Formats

[07:10] Type Of Content To Launch In 2022

[07:43] The Importance Of Storytelling

[10:07] The Third Channel To Launch Or Relaunch

[11:00] Type Of Content To Create For YouTube

[12:10] Developing Your Own Podcast

[13:51] How You Should Think Of Your Podcast

[16:00] Fifth Channel To Invest To Pinterest

[18:07] Why You Should Be Blogging

[19:08] Number 7: Email Marketing

[20:44] Develop A Membership Community

[21:36] My Community Membership

[22:30] Develop A Workshop

[26:12] Creating Course For Your Business

Notable Quotes

Begin to like not things that you personally like, but begin to like those things that you think your ideal customer would like.
Think the only way to understand this in all honesty is you got to be on the platform, you got to be consuming.
Consume process, reengineer and you need to find your own pattern, your own process that works for your company, to be able to do visual storytelling.
If you start with the objective of I want to develop relationships, I want to deepen relationships with customers. Or I just want to understand how people that have a passion for something think, or you know, whatever it is, that objective will keep you going will keep your podcast going, I think it's going to be easy to achieve.
If you're not sure, do some searches. See if your competitors are on there. See if there are content creators on there already creating content about your market. And if you see enough of it, go for it. If you don't see enough of it, I would still keep an eye on it and consider experimenting with.
Really think of email marketing in a way to how can I best develop relationships not only with website visitors to have them opt into my email list, but once they're on my email list, how can I generally develop a better relationship with them that is going to pay higher dividends for my business in the future.
It could be a very, very easygoing, low investment of time and resources way of allowing people to access you, but I think from your perspective, it's less about monetizing this and more about deepening the relationships and then getting the feedback for what you need to develop next.
If I want to create a course, I'm not going to put all my eggs in one basket, or try to figure out what people want.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Welcome to 2022!

After reading all of those blog posts about social media and digital marketing trends for 2022, how are you going to invest your marketing budget this year?

This episode is focused on helping you find ROI from under-invested but important aspects of digital marketing in 2022, especially in consideration of recent trends.

Specifically, these 10 things that I discuss in detail on this podcast are:

Blog Content / SEO
Long-Form Lead Generation Content
Email Marketing / Marketing Automation
Long-Form Video Content
Short-Form Video Content
Influencer Collaborations
Employee Advocacy
Customers and Customer Experience
People
Education

Key Highlights

[02:55] First Thing To Invest Your Marketing Budget In 2022
[04:24] Ways To Be Resourceful On Your Blog
[05:08] Why Search Intent Is Critical
[06:13] Second Thing To Invest To
[07:45] Third Area: Email Marketing/Automation
[09:42] Email Marketing Tools
[10:11] Fourth Things To Invest Your Marketing Budget
[12:10] Should You Invest On Tiktok?
[14:27] The Benefit Of Collaborating With Content Creators
[16:29] Seventh Area: Employee Advocacy
[17:56] Investing On Customer Experience
[19:15] Ninth Item To Invest To
[20:13] Invest In Your Own Education
[21:55] Ways To Recreate Educational Experience
[22:16] Summary

Notable Quotes

It's time to regroup, ton to figure out how to best invest I'm all about every year, or even every quarter, sort of pushing that reset button just so that we're always in alignment. And we always understand the value of every dollar or yen or pound or euro, or whatever currency you spend is in your marketing.
Be the source of information by offering them something of value. It could be an eBook, a white paper, a webinar, a pre-recorded demo, but exchange that value for a lead, ie giving them some sort of information in a live or recorded format, to help with your demand gen efforts.
Make every email a love letter. And if you can have that philosophy with your emails, I do believe over time, they will get open more they will get read more, you'll build a deeper relationship, and it'll lead to more business for you.
There is value in influencer collaborations at the least, of learning how to better do this type of content by actually collaborating with influencers, having them do it for you, having them post to their social networks, but also in the contract, make sure you do this, but get access to the content so that you can utilize it for your own social profiles or website or social ads.
And through the art of doing this, you are going to have a natural fan base that won't just amplify and support your own content. But they will talk about you naturally, as well.
Invest in yourself, to really keep abreast of what is happening out there to understand the leaders in your industry, how they're handling the current environment, how they manage all these different channels, how they create content, whatever it might be. And obviously, that is something that will reap dividends.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More About This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In The Age of Influence, I talk about how leveraging influencers is the best way to incite word of mouth in social media if you don't have a large fanbase.

What Mike Baddeley did for his brand Passchier is a case study that you can learn from as to how to go about doing this.

We're not talking about randomly paying random influencers with large followings to talk about you. We're talking about strategically building relationships with those that will probably be interested in your product or service and gifting them product to kickstart things.

It is an approach that many startups use with success, so listen in to how Mike has used this strategy to literally help build his business.

Key Highlights

[03:38] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mike Baddeley

[06:26] How Mike Started Passchier

[08:52] How Mike Promoted His Products

[12:08] The Marketing Technique Mike Did To Spread The Word About Handlebars

[13:10] How Mike Find Influencers

[14:51] The Problem Of Finding Relevant Influencers

[16:24] Sustainability Angle

[18:25] How To Maintain Relationships and Expand At The Same Time

[21:44] Potential TikTok Marketing

[22:39] Mike's Advice On Leveraging The Power Of Gifting

[24:46] Connect With Mike

Notable Quotes

The spread the word key audience is his bike tourists and commuters. Just contacting these influencers on Instagram, or on their websites, and just approaching all these people.
You've got to get them in people's hands. And you know, you can't sell a secret member, someone saying that it's such an obvious thing to say, but you've got to get out there. And you've got to get people talking.
The journey now is some of the influences we've targeted and had dialogue in there reviewed the product, we need, you know, maintain that relationship. So managing that relationship is a critical part of that journey.
They've got an audience in the audience wants to hear information. And so if we can be proactive in providing that and providing product for their customers to to sample as well. So we're giving giveaways to their customer base as well, their member base as well.
What people forget is that creators need not just creativity and an audience, but they need content, they need things to get content around, right.
And it's a really good reminder that really what it comes down to is the content but also you being able to provide that and those do that have product have the ability to provide.
It might be a little bit harder to get people excited about wanting to try your product, but the higher value offer and the more relevant it is for the people you reach out to obviously, the better results you're going to get.

Connect with Mike Baddeley

Passchier: https://www.passchier.co.nz/
Mike Baddeley on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-baddeley-513b2113/

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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While many still cringe at the term "influencer marketing," something that has surpassed that buzzword of late is the "creator economy."

So what exactly is the creator economy, its relationship to influencer marketing, and how it can be leveraged by both business and, of course, creators?

Listen in to understand the historical perspective of the creator economy, and how the pendulum is swinging more in the favor of creators in this Age of Influence.

Key Highlights

[05:16] The Creator Economy And Its Relationship To Influencer Marketing

[07:19] The Golden Era Of Influencer Marketing

[10:19] How Content Creators Leverage Advertisements As Main Revenue Sources

[10:34] Other Revenue Sources That Content Creators Have

[11:34] Social Media Networks As Potential Revenue Source

[13:55] What Does Creator Economy Mean For Influencer Marketers?

[15:20] How Creator Economy Brings Transparency and Authenticity In Influencer Marketing

[16:37] Start Creating Content Now!

[17:46] Summary

Notable Quotes

You cannot become an online influencer without publishing online content, they go hand in hand. So being a content creator has always been a necessity to yielding influence online. But not all content creators necessarily become influencers.
For the first time social networks are actually paying creators to create content, knowing that it is the content and the influence is creating that content that users trust that keeps people coming back to the site.
I would argue that we're seeing an even greater democratization of online influence. And simply put, there are more content creators influencing more people than ever before.
For the first time social networks are actually paying creators to create content, knowing that it is the content and the influence is creating that content that users trust that keeps people coming back to the site.
Content creators prove that they are the only ones who can truly set the trend for what social media users, ie all of us, end up consuming.
The most successful relationships are going to be long term, collaborative, and mutual Win-Win.
With the democratization of online influence and digital content creation, we can say with certainty that the Creator economy is here to stay. And as a byproduct, it actually will only strengthen the role of influencer marketing, with additional options for marketers, and access to content that continues to build trust and generate results.

Learn More: * Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ * Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/ * The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview * Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer * Learn More about This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Paid Social is a mainstream form of social media marketing, and while many focus on fine-tuning targeting, have you thought about the impact that different ad formats can have on your cost and ultimate ROI?

This episode features an interview with Lauren Schwartz, founder of the Creative Marketing Agency The Loft 325. Lauren is a design professional with over 15 years of experience, including 8 years working in digital marketing.

More importantly for us, her special power is in creating profitable creative strategies and creatives for e-commerce brands. and she is especially passionate about creating top-performing ad campaigns and creatives.

Listen in for her advice on:

Understanding the different ad formats and advantages and disadvantages of each
Why video ads are the best
Tips and tricks to create them and optimize them for maximum conversion

Key Highlights

[00:01] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Lauren Schwartz

[02:58] Changes In Paid Social Over The Years

[04:41] Lauren's Journey To Paid Social Marketing

[07:09] How To Make Creative Branding And Creativity Organic And Authentic?

[09:57] Is Paid Social Beneficial For Businesses?

[11:18] Focus On Your Audience First

[11:59] Different Ad Formats

[14:55] The Trends In Different Story Formats

[16:19] Why Video Ads Perform The Best

[17:32] Navigating Video ROI

[20:25] TikTok Ads

[23:02] TikTok Ad Platform vs Facebook/Pinterest Ad

[23:38] Ad Targeting and Guidelines

[26:26] Tips And Tricks In Creating Ads

[30:19] Connect With Lauren

Notable Quotes

I think the biggest thing is really trying to focus in on creators who just genuinely do give really good testimonials, and really do kind of show that authentic side.
I'm making sure that the creators that we choose that if they do shoot content, that it doesn't seem sales, pitchy like I don't want them to seem like they're selling you something, I want them to talk to you I want them to make it seem like like they are really reviewing this product and talking about it.
I think really just making sure that you have audiences to even talk to is probably the biggest thing that I would say that you need to focus on first.
Now I kind of feel like more people are moving towards just different platforms really, like I don't necessarily think it's I mean, there's, there's so many trends and all the platforms. But I think the biggest thing is just, you know, making sure that it looks very organic.
The biggest thing with creating the creative is, you don't have to have like a super high end production. Like you really just have your iPhone and shoot the content. And again, just make it very organic, make it very conversational.

Connect with Lauren Schwartz

The Loft 325: https://theloft325.com/
Lauren Schwartz on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/theloft325/

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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The other day I was helping my high schooler daughter apply to a summer program, where in addition to her transcript and essays, they asked for her LinkedIn profile URL.

Yes, her LinkedIn profile!!!

For those avid listeners of my podcast, I also covered a similar topic 2 1/2 years ago in 139: LinkedIn for Students: What Do I Put in My LinkedIn Profile if I am a College Student?

If an overwhelming majority of college students, how many high schoolers have a LinkedIn profile in addition to their TikTok, Instagram, and, yes, Snapchat profiles?

VERY few.

So why am I even talking about this on my podcast?

Because if you can picture yourself as a high schooler, who has little to no professional experience, and be able to complete a LinkedIn profile, you will see new ways not only to optimize your own LinkedIn profile, but also your personal branding and content you publish throughout social media.

Don't believe me? Listen in, and then let me know what you think!

By the way, the free ebook I mention in this episode can be downloaded here: Maximizing LinkedIn for Business

Key Highlights

[02:47] The Notion of LinkedIn Profile for Students

[06:21] Which Social Network You Should Nail?

[07:31] Strategic Value of Having a LinkedIn Profile

[09:24] What Personal Branding Is About

[10:01] The Common Application

[12:57] Where Does LinkedIn Profile Start?

[14:34] What Do I Need For A Background Photo?

[16:35] The Professional Headline

[17:27] Items You Need To Add To Your Summary or Headline

[18:48] What Is The Feature Section?

[19:54] How to Rock About Section?

[21:36] What Can You Put In Experience Section?

Notable Quotes

Yes, we brand ourselves through our content. But if there's any social network, where our bio is deep, and people will go through it, looking and readiness, and for whatever reason, whether they want to do business with us, whether they want to hire us whatever it is, or in this case, whether they want to consider you as an applicant to their university, they are looking at your LinkedIn profile.
If there's any profile on any social network you really got to nail, it is LinkedIn.
And I think the big thing here is if you want to brand yourself, and differentiate yourself, and create those emotional attachments, and really showcase who you are as a person, it's really going to come down to those activities.
It really begins with that top visual headline, right? When I talk about personal branding, we need to get more and more visual.
I think this is really where we look into those strengths that you have, what are those things that you want people to come to your profile to remember about you. And that's what we have here.
I highly recommend that you do add this sort of imagery, it could be an image, it could be a video, but it should be something like an award, something that celebrates something that you've done.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More about This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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I have always thought that businesses can learn a lot from successful nonprofit marketing. The idea is that if a nonprofit that is strapped for resources can connect with their community, you should be able to connect with your own.

This episode is all about nonprofit digital marketing, but in a similar vein, the advice here is applicable for all.

It is an honor to have my Digital First Mastermind Community member, and someone that I can now call a friend, Beth Hammock on today's episode. Beth is CEO of Hammock Communications and is an expert in both Nonprofit and Higher Education marketing, and I think you will genuinely enjoy her advice as well as our conversation.

Some of the digital marketing "magic" advice that Beth has includes:

Illusions: Social media strategy - influencers, awareness, acknowledgement, appeals
Sleight of hand: Google ad grants - getting them and using them. How tos and examples of success.
Magician's choice: Video storytelling - how to accomplish this on a nonprofit budget

Key Highlights

[02:00] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Beth Hammock

[05:54] How Beth Got Into Nonprofits

[06:55] The Difference Between Educational Institution and Nonprofit

[08:15] The Core of Digital Marketing for Nonprofits

[14:30] Increasing Brand Awareness and Appeals

[15:52] How to Create Perfect Facebook Ads for Nonprofits?

[16:38] Are Social Media Platforms Effective for Nonprofits?

[18:51] The Ideal Google Ad for Nonprofits

[20:55] Successful Campaigns Stories from Google Ads

[21:44] The Concept of Nonprofit Membership

[23:00] Nonprofits Incentives and Businesses

[24:39] Leveraging Resources In Your Community

[28:00] Beth's Magicians Choice

[28:49] Accomplishing Video Storytelling for Nonprofits

[30:40] Services Offered By Beth

[31:45] Connect With Beth

Notable Quotes

So nonprofits, rely on grants, community business support, events, a lot of them, that's where they get their funding, but really, in the United States, a majority of funding comes from individuals. And if they can just get connected, that's the marketing piece, build brand awareness, engage people to start building those relationships.
I think you start with the core principles of marketing, which storytelling is the core. And you can tell stories if you don't have a lot of money.
So development communications, you want to show the impact of giving. To illustrate that has a little bit of content and a call to action of giving now.
I think that nonprofits can really improve though on their exclusivity is, especially the way that they message it, if you just would say one benefit, and shout it and it's something really good.

Connect with Beth Hammock

Hammock Communications: https://hammockcommunications.com/
Beth Hammock on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bethhammock1/

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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If you were to look at my LinkedIn profile headline or the main menu on my website, you might see a title that you don't recognize:

Fractional CMO

A lot of people ask me exactly what a Fractional CMO is and what I do as one, while others, after learning about it, want to follow in my footsteps.

So what exactly is a Fractional CMO? And why might you want to hire one to help you with your digital marketing?

Listen in as I reveal all!

Key Highlights

[02:31] How My Journey Into Becoming A Fractional CMO Began

[04:13] What Got Me Into Fractional CMO

[06:30] The Reason I Wrote The Age of Influence Book

[07:22] What Are the Requirements to Become A Fractional CMO?

[08:48] The Concept Of A CMO

[09:23] Ways of Working With Fractional CMO

[10:19] The Bad Side of Being Fractional CMO

[13:10] The Key Benefit of A Fractional CMO

[13:23] Fractional CMO vs External Consultant

[14:16] My Role As A Fractional CMO

[17:18] Summary

Notable Quotes

It's the reason why I'm writing my next book on general digital marketing. Because so many companies wanted help with their influencer marketing, yet, there were so many other things they needed help with.
This requires obviously, to have a certain amount of experience that you could create and implement a digital and social media marketing strategy for any business.
Social media changes over time, you know how well you perform on the different digital marketing channels changes over time. So the needs are always evolving.
In other words, you may want to work with a fractional CMO, they may not have the capacity, the bandwidth to work with you. But I believe it is great because it allows you to work with different companies. It allows you to gain experience working with different companies in different industries.
In other words, if you're not quite ready to hire a full-time CMO, but don't want to outsource your marketing leads to an agency or a general project-based consultant, a fraction of the CMO brings experienced leadership to help accelerate your strategic objectives, and reach the next level growth and profitability.
The role that a fractional CMO will play will come down to a combination of the needs of the company hiring them, and the skills and experience that the marketing professional brings to the table.
If we can find the right person, I hope this really opens your eyes to the potential because look, digital marketing, can be done anywhere in the world, but it requires a lot of different skill sets. And there aren't a lot of really, really experienced people out there.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More about This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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A lot of us in digital marketing tend to treat content marketing like a digital machine. Create this content and expect these results. Unfortunately, this leads to creating a lot of very average content that everyone else is publishing on the Internet, adding to the noise and not driving any impactful outcome for your business.

Georgios Chasiotis, Managing Director of the B2B SaaS content marketing agency Minuttia, wants to change that. By looking at the current trends in content marketing based on his expansive client work, he wants to give you his advice on:

Why "copycat content" isn't going to get you the results that you need
What type of content you need to create based on your company's lifecycle stage
Why you need to focus on creating a library instead of a publication and how to do that

Ready to significantly improve your content marketing for 2022 and beyond? Then listen in!!!

Key Highlights

[01:20] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Georgios Chasiotis
[04:03] When and Why Clients Come to Minuttia?
[06:48] Is Content Marketing Equivalent to Blogging and Blog Content?
[09:09] How to Avoid Copycat Content
[11:03] Things to Consider When Creating Copycat Content
[13:44] Minuttia's Process On Keyword Research
[18:22] Keyword Strategy for Middle Stage Companies
[20:03] How to Build Topical Authority
[23:05] Guidelines on Library Content
[28:42] When to Expect Traffic Results
[32:12] Content Promotion
[33:34] Connect with Georgios
[34:05] Summary

Notable Quotes

Don't limit yourself, experiment with different content from us, find the ones that work best for you and for your audience at the same time, and focus on them.
I think that the way keyword research and topic ideation, or the way we described earlier, people are going to open a keyword data provider and they are going to try to find a keyword. I think this is wrong. Because decisions that most companies make are heavily influenced by metrics such as for example, keyword difficulty, okay? But all these metrics have weaknesses, and you cannot allow these metrics to form your decisions.
At that early stage, we would advise the company to publish content that demonstrates the value of the product, or we would advise them to look for guest posting opportunities in an effort to leverage the audience of another website, okay, or arrange co-marketing activities are very heavily focused on content.
I would say that when you have very strong indications of product-market fit, and you are like, You know what, we are ready to start growing. This is when you can start investing into content marketing, content creation, SEO and so on.
The more firsthand experience you have, the more you understand, for instance, the market price, that influences will charge you

Connect with Georgios Chasiotis

Minuttia: https://minuttia.com/
Georgios Chasiotis on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/georgioschasiotis/

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Leapfrogging (pun intended as you will see shortly) off of my previous episode #234 speaking about the virtues of being a marketing generalist, here is a case in point: If you want to become a marketing leader, you need to have all of your digital marketing bases covered.

What bases need to be covered? And what does a comprehensive digital marketing program look like?

I am honored to have my friend and Digital First Mastermind Community Andrew Smith on as my guest today offering us an x-ray view of the digital marketing program that he is running as the Senior Marketing Manager for Leap, the leading all-in-one home improvement contractor sales software.

Leap sells to other businesses so the program being described is a B2B digital marketing program, a treat for you B2B marketers. But even if you are a B2C or nonprofit marketer, the lessons learned from Andrew's experience are 100% applicable to your situation.

Key Highlights

[00:57] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Andrew Smith

[03:55] Andrew's B2B Digital Marketing Background

[04:44] What is Leap And What Does It Do?

[07:27] Where To Begin Digital Marketing Strategy?

[10:14] Deciding on How Much to Invest In Each AR Activities

[13:32] Criteria To Look At When Deciding About Changes In Budget

[15:18] Targets Set For Marketing By The Management

[17:31] Verticals Based On Data

[24:44] Andrew's Advice For Marketers In Marketing Technology

[29:22] Upcoming Leap Features

[32:44] Connect with Andrew

Notable Quotes

It's being at least in front of those people and keeping them at least engaged to the degree that they don't tell you to go away that then when they're ready to pull that trigger, you're still front of mind enough that they are aware of you to do that.
Being able, to know that what you do is going to produce a certain amount is a good place to be rather than sort of doing something and not knowing what's going to happen.
It's more about the quality of that content, rather, the budget to reach those people since we have that covered. So there's really no category that we're not in, but it's creating the content for the vertical that's more important, I think.
Start out small, prove a little prove a proof of concept, right? If you're doing you know, advertising or content marketing, or email or any of the channels that you're not currently in that you need some budget for that and try something you know, small or free.
The other flip side of being in a company where the culture is very collaborative and productive, so that you know, what you need in marketing, from the product or from sales or from customer success, you have those people in those relationships that are willing to help you achieve what you want to do, as well as for the benefit of the company.

Connect with Andrew Smith

Leap: https://leaptodigital.com
Andrew Smith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrewsmith1443/

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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"The riches are in the niches."

"You gotta niche down."

You've heard these over the years, including on this podcast. And I don't disagree with the advice if you want to gain visibility in a noisy market.

However, if you are a marketer or a marketing entrepreneur, just owning one niche might not be the ideal solution to your strategy and most likely not for your customers.

Listen in as I share my own experience and advice and make the case for becoming more of a digital and social media marketing generalist.

Key Highlights

[02:27] Why It's Dangerous To Stick To A Niche?

[02:50] How I Began Blogging

[05:51] Wanting to Be A "Doctor of Social Media"

[06:57] Offering Additional Value Beyond Niche

[9:10] The Time I Went Generalist

[10:34] Launching My Fractional CMO Service

[12:29] Going Back to the Role of Generalist

[13:06] Why You Need to Have a Broader Knowledge

[15:31] My Work As A Fractional CMO

[18:15] Summary

Notable Quotes

In other words, if you go to a doctor, you don't tell the doctor what you have, you tell the doctor your symptoms, and they propose something for it, that you might have this, you might have that, let's take some X rays, let's hear some medicine.
If I want to pursue best practices, in my job, in my work in my career in my life, I have to provide the best thing that businesses need.
Social networks don't exist in a vacuum. Social media does not exist in a vacuum. It's all part of digital marketing, which is all part of marketing.
if your business obviously has something that is competitive in one specific niche area, it makes sense to go for it.
Customers don't just use the tool to use a tool, they use a tool to solve a problem. Businesses don't look for people who seek out people with a niche, because they have a need for that niche. They have a problem that they want to solve.
Niche gives you visibility. But it doesn't always solve all the problems that people that have an interest in a niche have.
In order to become a generalist, you need to have niche knowledge. But it's not just one niche at the end of the day. It's a combination of niches.
This really defines the current work that I do as a fractional CMO. Because it goes beyond just one niche, one category, it goes down to the problems that companies have, and the potential solutions for them. Using the entire toolkit of tools and channels that Digital Marketing provides.
I do believe if you're not known for anything, the niche, without a doubt gives you that visibility. But as you niche, I want you to be thinking about the broader picture of the role of the generalists. And I don't want you to be afraid to go outside of your niche to gain other expertise, which I believe you will need, regardless of what niche you decide for what industry.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn More about This Podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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What does the term "affiliate marketing" conjure up in your mind?

For those of you who have read The Age of Influence, you should remember that I believe that affiliate marketing is one of the earliest forms of influencer marketing.

Not only does affiliate marketing provide many of the benefits that you can receive from influencer marketing, but it can also directly impact your sales, SEO, word-of-mouth, and other digital marketing metrics.

To clarify what exactly affiliate marketing is and what are the best practices for utilizing it in your business, I am honored to have Kyle Kostechka as my special guest. Kyle is Business Development Director for the oldest and leading affiliate marketing company, Clickbank, and spends his days consulting with both brands and affiliates.

I hope this episode is an eye-opening one that helps you take advantage of what affiliate marketing can do for your company.

Key Highlights

[02:47] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Kyle Kostechka

[06:31] Who Is Clickbank?

[15:50] ClickBank's Features

[16:57] How Much Does ClickBank Costs?

[21:22] How Does ClickBank Get Traction and Get Affiliate Sign Up?

[22:52] The Mistakes People Do in Affiliate Marketing

[27:30] Tip from Kyle

[30:33] ClickBank Success Stories

[33:57] The Best Practice to Follow to Be Successful

[37:10] One Mistake That Companies Make With Affiliate Marketing

[41:54] Connect With Kyle
Notable Quotes

You have to be really cognizant about in speak a language that's going to be attractive to them and make sense of them.
That's how a lot of these deals start is you just have to go out, be bold, and say hi to somebody.
One of the biggest things to remember with affiliates, especially when you're in a b2b, it's the trust is what you're paying for with those commissions.
So if you find some and they are affiliates, that is an immensely valuable way of getting into that very niche conversation that otherwise would be very difficult to do. Remember that relationships are key.
What I mean by that is a lot of affiliate marketing, the deal just doesn't always happen perfectly the first time, it takes some time to massage and get to where it needs to go.
So even if it takes time, and that patience, if you build the relationships along the way, you know, it almost becomes a switch that you could flip on for traffic and revenue.
Don't lose sight of the importance of those relationships in this community because it will pay dividends not only in the short term but definitely in the long term.

Connect with Kyle Kostechka

Affiliated: Clickbank's Official Affiliate Marketing Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/affiliated-clickbank-s-official-affiliate-marketing/id1547482335
Clickbank: https://clickbank.com

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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A lot has been said about blogging, both good and bad. Is it dying? Isn't social media more important? All of these arguments miss the point: In a Digital First world, being visible in search engines should be of utmost importance to every business, and, when done right, blogging holds the keys to success.

Learn from my own success in blogging and why I continue to double - triple - quadruple down on it and the concrete steps that your business can take to do the same in this episode of my podcast.

Key Highlights

[01:31] When Did I Start The Process of Doubling Down On My Blogging

[02:07] What Can I Do To Get The Word Out About My Book?

[03:33] Seach and Social on Social Media

[04:19] YouTube and Google Search Engine Strategy

[06:23] The Things That Dominate Search Engine Results

[07:33] What You Need to Do If You Find Bad Content On Your Website

[09:27] Why I Create My Own Library of Content

[12:42] The Statistics I Get After Creating Library of Content

Notable Quotes

So list building strategies, and then leveraging technology that allows you to utilize marketing automation, to improve your chances of converting people on your list.
You need to share your perspective, you need to help people you need to help them make or help other businesses make the right decision, and they are not being served by the current search results.
Blogging is about building equity. It's about creating assets.
I'm building up my library, and I'm seeing that the strategy is working because I'm genuinely creating useful content for people without trying to sell them a tool.
I am going to start treating all this content not as a one and done, but as assets that have long term shelf life, and I'm going to start a process of revising them.
If you're not creating that content that is truly useful and resourceful that would normally be in the format of a blog because you are missing out on the search aspect of this. In fact, everybody's searching is going to your competitor, or they're going to irrelevant or bad content.
It begins with the mindset that the search engine rankings are exposing bad incompletes old or irrelevant content and my company or me, I can do better. I am the best I am the expert, our company's the expert, we need to get this content out there. And when you have that mindset and when you have that passion, you can achieve exactly what I did.

Learn More: * Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ * Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/ * The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview * Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer * Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Influence marketing will continue to be a critical part of digital marketing and only increase in importance as brands' organic social media reach continues to decline while newer form of short-form video that are the staple of many social media sites make it challenging for businesses to create and compete with the creativity of the global social media user base.

That's why I'm especially excited to interview Sanna Ödmark, Head of Marketing for the Swedish influencer marketing agency Cure Media. You see, more companies are investing more money into influencer marketing, but they aren't necessarily doing it in an effective way.

In fact, only 30% of CMO's in a survey that Cure Media conducted answered they know how to collect accurate ROI data from the channel, which is far behind other digital channels, such as website (55%) and SocialMedia (54%).

That is why our topic that we discuss, how to measure success in influencer marketing, is of critical importance.

Key Highlights

[04:43] What is Cure Media?

[06:32] Sanna's Research About Influencer Marketing

[09:04] How to Measure Effect of Influencer Marketing

[14:41] Mistakes that Marketers Do When Measuring Influence and Marketing

[21:31] Ways to Best Measure the Full Effect of Influencer Marketing

[26:02] Why Long-term Approach to Influencer Marketing Is Important

[29:27] Connect with Sanna and Cure Media

Notable Quotes

Without the correct ROI data, it's impossible to measure whether the activity has been successful, or to debt and which channels drive the most sales.
One of the mistakes that many brands do today is that they work with influencers in sales marketing in a silo not using it, as you say, as an integrated part of the digital marketing infrastructure. Everything needs to go and be measured hand in hand.
The strength of the channel is the ability to create these brand ambassadors that can talk to your audience in a way that they trust relate to, and rely on. And this is the relationship that you need to take time to build.
If you haven't done any major changes in those channels like if the bodies/tactics are the same, you can quite easily attribute those changes or improvements to influence marketing. And if you do this over time to do a very concentrated period of punishments among influencers, you can, over time see trends and patterns. And it will eventually become easier to draw conclusions to learn based on these insights and data.
I think what brands really need to remember is that this short term attitude towards influence marketing, this campaign based approach is in direct conflict, where the primary strength of the channel, which is relationship building, authenticity, credibility, and just like in real life, it takes time to build trust and relationships. And taking a short-term approach to influence marketing is not the best way to go as this ignores the actual goal and value of the channel.

Connect with Sanna Odmark

Cure Media: https://www.curemedia.com/

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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We are all using digital marketing to grow our business, and in doing so we are creating brand equity along the way. Brand equity is a powerful concept that doesn't appear in your income statement but indirectly helps you grow your business in tandem with your digital and social media marketing.

When it comes to brand equity, there are some legal aspects that are important to understand so that what you grow in your business becomes rightfully and legally yours. This is especially true if your dream is to sell your company to a larger entity or receive funding from venture capitalists.

For that reason, we have a unique interview with someone today, Bao Tran, an IP attorney who is launching a new startup to help democratize the patent application process. In this interview you will learn:

1) Why brandings are a significant part of company valuation
2) Different innovative ways brands can be protected with Trademarks
3) Different ways brands can be protected with Copyrights

After listening to this episode you will be able to navigate the legal system from a branding perspective and understand what next steps you might want to take.

Key Highlights

[02:54] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Bao Tran

[07:29] Company Valuation

[10:00] The Ways Companies Can Protect Their Brand and Valuation

[12:53] Things That You Can Get Trademarked

[14:58] Ways You Can Distinguish Your Product

[17:03] Why Trademark Clearance Search Is Important?

[17:26] Trademark Search Options

[20:00] What Are Copyrights?

[21:35] Best Practices for Copyrights

[24:16] The Third Element in Trademark Context

[26:17] How Can I Protect NFT?

[27:37] Connect with Bao

Notable Quotes

In our present world that most of the value is in the consumer recognition of your brand and that's why your work and you know, and your co-workers work in marketing is super critical to the value of a company.
The point here is it's under your control. If you don't want anybody else to come in, you can do that, if you want to allow people coming in, in exchange for a royalty you can do that is under your control.
But you know, when you're doing that for a very for a year, if you're stretching out to a year period, the risk is increasing that possibly somebody could enter your business ahead of you, and then block you from using that name.
It’s what we call a specimen. So you just upload that to the copyright, very inexpensive, and, you know, you can do it yourself and get that protection, easy protection.
If you think that somebody is going to reuse that, then you want to control that by having a copyright registration. Copyright registration allows you to then go and pursue the party that you know, you think is misusing your copyright.

Connect with Bao Tran

Bao Tran on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/hugeidea/
Email Bao at btran@patentpc.com
Bao's New Software Product: https://www.powerpatent.com/

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.co

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If you're doing your social media for business or yourself the same as you have for the last few years, your time is up. All of the trends in social media show us that we truly need to think visual first in so many ways in order to gain visibility within social media news feeds.

In this episode I analyze all of the changes that have occurred in social media over the years, putting even niche platforms like Tsu and Ello (remember those?!?) into perspective. From this I believe the future of social media and thus social media marketing becomes clear, and I finish this episode with my advice on the ideal trifecta for your social media marketing going forward into 2022 and beyond...

Key Highlights

[01:33] Introduction

[02:40] The History of Social Media

[05:15] The Emergence of New Social Media Platforms

[07:55] Dynamic and Emergence of Reels

[10:28] Pinterest Dynamic

[12:06] What Are Video Pins?

[12:28] How To Get More Impressions from Different Social Media Platforms

[14:13] The Effects of the Changes in Social Media

[15:26] Tools You Can Do For Livestreaming

[17:13] The Use of Video Content

[17:59] Easy Ways of Repurposing Video Content

[19:39] Why All Social Networks Now Want Content Creators

[20:53] Get Paid for Sharing New Reels

[21:31] The Other Important Type of Content

[21:41] What Are Idea Pins?

[23:00] Why Carousel Images Perform Better

[25:12] Where Does Influencer Marketing Come to Play in Content Creatio?

[27:18] Summary

Notable Quotes

Where we start with everything is we need to have a digital presence and the digital presence, the digital gateway becomes our website.
If you want to get more impressions on Instagram, you do reels. If you want to get more impressions on Pinterest, you do video pins. More impressions mean above the funnel visibility and brand awareness does it add to more clicks or not, is a whole other story.
It's about showing yourself showing up doing real-time content. You can't do reels you do videos igtv. But if you can do something longer, and cut it up into something as engaging as real, it's a new skill set that we sort of all has to learn.
If you want to get the most visibility for your content, almost everywhere, video is going to be the key.
The reels is all about entertainment. The carousel, the idea pins, and carousel images are more about education. And what's really interesting is that your results are going to vary.
If you can't create the content, there is a ton of people out there that can't create the content are creating the content that you need to figure out ways to collaborate with. That's the heart of what I wrote about in the age of influence.
People completely misunderstand, misinterpret influencer marketing, it's tapping into the influence of others in social media, whether they have 100 followers, or have 1000 followers.
People that have influenced people that are able to build followers are a great content creator.

Learn More:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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In all of the social media platforms that exists and the various marketing tools that businesses can use to support your presence there, there is one social network for which there is one tool that rules them all.

That social network is Pinterest, and the dominating tool is Tailwind.

Learn from Senior Community Manager of Tailwind, Melissa Megginson all about their tool and comprehensive best practices not just for Pinterest, but also for Instagram and Facebook, which Tailwind supports.

Key Highlights

[04:09] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Melissa Megginson

[06:14] What is Tailwind and How Melissa Started

[08:39] Pinterest's Evolution

[11:28] What Type of Pins Should I Be Posting?

[15:30] Melissa's Advice When Creating Idea Pins

[17:37] Best Format and Practices for Video Pins

[18:03] Does Repurposing from Other Platforms Work?

[21:51] What is Tailwind Create?

[24:38] Tailwind Communities

[29:53] Best Practices and Recommendations for Pinterest Ads

[31:52] How to Do Keyword Research on Pinterest

[33:24] What Makes Tailwind Different from Other Platforms?

[36:48] How Should I Approach Instagram Through Tailwind?

[39:30] Melissa's Advice on Facebook Marketing Strategy

[43:38] Final Advice

[44:31] Connect with Melissa and Tailwind Team

[45:05] Summary

[47:17] Outro

Notable Quotes

I would definitely think about it as a way to reach a broader audience. So, you don't want to be giving away everything that you have on your website and an idea pen because you still want to drive people to your website.
It's just super simple to get that really top of funnel, introduce yourself to the Pinterest audience to new potential buyers and pull them in so that once they're following you, you can hit them with those video pins that people can click through on or the static pins that people can click through on.
So, building up your, your website, your email list, all of that is really important, but you need people to land there first.
Start with the organic content that's performing for you. I think that's a really good way to just sort of juice what's already happening and getting bad content that's already performing well in front of the right people.
In social media marketing in general, we talked about the need to be consistent.
I think when creating any kind of social media posts, you need to think about the story that you're telling rather than the individual posts that you're creating.
Use the platforms. Don't just go in as a marketer. Use the platforms yourself. Get to know them, get to know what you like, get to know what is performing well, and you'll do a lot better as a mark Get her.

Find Our More about Tailwind:

Click here to start for free and get a $30 credit for a future subscription – only for my community! (affiliate link)

More Info on Neal Schaffer and This Podcast:

Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Digital and social media are the field of dreams for every business. The problem is that you first need a roadmap to get started, but even with that roadmap you will have your successes and failures, new discoveries, and learn a lot both about your target audience as well as your product and branding.

This is why a mindset of never-ending experimentation is critical for success in digital and social media marketing as well as if you have a digital product or service. But its not just experimentation that is important: Equally important is understanding when you need to pivot and then actually making that alignment.

To me digital marketing is art, which is why the creative aspect excites me on a daily basis. I sincerely hope that you find some inspiration in this episode.

Key Highlights

[01:54] How Neal Created His Membership Community
The story of how Neal's membership community started and why it was now called the "mastermind of business leaders".

[05:29] Why I Like Setting Up Quarterly Flags

[06:55] When To Do Reassessment?

[08:57] The Importance of Building Library of Content
What does the library of content do in my business?

[11:53] What Did I Do To Promote My Book?

[13:27] What Do I Need To Do To Start Generating Results?

[14:00] Why You Need To Experiment NOW!

[16:14] The Critical Items On Influencer Marketing

[17:02] Read The Signals And Act On It!
Now that you know how to read the signals, what is the next step? Act on them!

[19:43] Experiment and Get the Data

[21:26] Conclusion

Notable Quotes

It's always you're only as good as your current quarter sales, not even your previous quarter sales.
When we launch a business, or we're working on behalf of an employer, or an entrepreneur, we want to make an impact. And I do too, in everything that I do. So if I see something not making the impact that I thought it would make, then it's time to reassess.
With digital, anything is possible. And you don't know what is possible until you have your tentacles out there.
A little tweak is sometimes all you need. with digital to start generating results.
But the key thing here is that number one, you got to be experimenting. That's obvious. Number two, you got to be listening for the signals.
Digital marketing is more about an analog way of thinking than a digital way of thinking
You want to excel in social media marketing, you need to be an active consumer of social media first.
Relationships are critical. You know this from those that read the age of influence, and my views on influencer marketing. But it also means to have critical thinking analytical skills, to be able to piece things together for me to go have that aha moment.

Learn More: * Join My Digital First Mastermind: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ * Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/ * The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview * Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer * Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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The world of advertisement has truly changed. Consumers are now savvy and smart – they know if the advertiser is genuine or not. In addition, the channels in which you can connect to your customers are continuously expanding. As a product-based business owner, you may wonder, how can I make my business a success?

Well, worry no more because, in this episode, we have the experts and the combined force behind The Product Boss Podcast -- Minna Khounlo-Sithep and Jacqueline Snyder, who will help you make your dreams come true! Join me as we learn everything you need to build a successful product-based business - and the importance that you need to always place on relationships.

Key Highlights

[01:28] Introduction of Podcast Guest, The Product Boss -- Minna Khounlo-Sithep and Jacqueline Snyder

[02:26] Who Are The Product Boss?

[03:42] How "The Product Boss" Started

[05:42] How Marketing Products Changed in the Age of Social Media

[08:46] The Most Effective Way of Connecting with Your Customer

[10:13] Will Product-Based Business Work on a Team?

[14:15] Curating the Right People to Talk About Your Brand

[17:49] Most Successful Ways to Grow a Product-Based Business Today

[21:12] The Things I Should Pay Attention as A Product-Based Business Owner

[22:46] Mistakes to Avoid When Running a Product-Based Business

[25:03] The Product Boss' Advice

[29:03] Connect with Jacqueline and Mina

Notable Quotes

What we've seen is people buy from people. So no matter what you're doing, if you're building a business right now, it really is about that relationship.
It's really about getting customers to be obsessed with you. And it's harder for them to be obsessed with you trust you feel like they're part of your life or that you resonate, or they resonate with your part of life, when it's a product that's forward facing versus a person that's telling you why the product matters to you, and why it matters to them.
Whenever we coach people to hire on for their team, it's values based. So you hire for values before you hire for skill, because you can always teach skill.
The influencer has to be able to develop their own story how they speak how they talk. That's why their audience engage with them. And so it really is about the story and how it's told by the influencer.
We're digital marketers, we could come up with 100 different ideas of courses, and coaching programs, and masterminds and all the things but we try and stay sort of within our niche and make sure that we're kind of honing in and focusing on what our customers need.

Guest Links:

Jacqueline and Mina's Podcast: The Product Boss: https://www.theproductboss.com/podcast
Website: https://theproductboss.com
Signature Course: https://multistreammachine.com
Shop1in5: https://shop1in5.com

Learn More about Neal Schaffer:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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SEO ranking is critical for most business because it is the key to increase the brand’s visibility and attract potential customers where people search for information – especially now that we truly living Digital First.

When we think of SEO, the first word that quickly comes to our mind is keyword. But if we dig deep into it, you’ll realize that SEO is not only about using relevant keywords. Come and join with me in this discussion with the CEO of bubblidigital, Neil Sheth, on how to figure out the other ways you can create content that will rank high on search engines and the real value that SEO offers.

Key Highlights

[02:53] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Neil Sheth

[05:21] How Neil Got into SEO and Content Creation

[08:44] What does an SEO agency do for their clients?

Neil shared what an SEO agency do for their clients and why clients should hire one.

[11:24] The Process of Creating Customized Plan for Each Customer

Not all plans are alike. Customers get customized plans for each of them based on where they're at, their goals, and the results they get.

[12:49] SEO Compass

[13:05] How to Implement SEO?

Learn the four areas when implementing SEO.

[13:22] Technical SEO Optimization

[16:39] How to Find the Right and Relevant Topics That Increase Brand Visibility

[17:50] Content Analysis

[21:16] Content Formats

What are the different content formats that can help me maximize my eyeballs?

[23:42] Why Should I Look at Google's First Page Results?

[24:24] Neil's Tips to Rank Your Site Better

[27:24] How to Get Quicker Results Using Less Competitive Keywords

[30:05] Connect with Neil

Notable Quotes:

SEO is a learning game.
I know more than they do about the subject, why aren't I speaking, and it but it comes down to the learning and the reps that you put in, right. And those experiences, sometimes money losing experiences, but it all adds up.
SEO is always the I see as the bonus, whether it ranks or not, is there should be enough benefit before it even ranks.
We talk about the benefit and the value, and the time that you're going to save, and most importantly, how your brand just going to look epic on the back of it.
I'm not gonna write about all these things, or when I'm with a client, but what is relevant to your business, and most importantly, to your customers, or prospective customers
If you want to rank for those keywords that are critical to your business, you need to be seen as an authority in Google's eyes. And a way that you're seen as an authority is that you have a lot of content on that subject.
If you're expecting to rank for a keyword, then your contents going to be worthy of ranking. So, analyze the content, are you ranking today? Are you being indexed?

Guest Links

Neil's SEO Agency: https://bubblidigital.com
Neil’s Content On Demand Company: https://writeful.ly

Learn More about Neal Schaffer:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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Do you ever feel that sometimes your content or branding just isn't correctly aligned with your business? Or that your message doesn't leave the viewer or listener wanting to learn more about you or do business with you? Perhaps you or your business have pivoted, but your content or branding has not?

These were the questions I have been struggling with, and a series of events, including my recently attending Podcast Movement, let me on a journey to rebrand this podcast, changing it from Maximize Your Social Influence to Your Digital Marketing Coach. Learn all of the reasons why I did so and what takeaways it might have for you and your brand and content in this first episode of Your Digital Marketing Coach.

Key Highlights

[0:53] Introduction to Your Digital Marketing Coach Podcast

[03:05] Why Should I Consume the Content I Am Publishing?

[5:34] Moving from Social Business Unplugged to Maximize Your Social Influence

[07:05] Why Do I Need to Do Something Different to Stand Out?

[08:51] Your Content Has To Be Aligned With Your Business

[09:33] When Did I Realized that My Content Was Not Directly Serving my Business?

[11:04] Rebranding My Podcast

[11:07] Your Digital Marketing Coach

[13:07] Why I Took The "Your Digital Marketing Coach" Branding

[13:20] Do Something That Sparks Joy in You

[16:04] What's Important in Deciding A Strategy?

[17:28] Why You Should Align Your Content With Your Business Now

Notable Quotes

In digital marketing and the words of John Lee Dumas, you need to do your reps in order to get better. And it begins by actually consuming the content or the type of content that you're publishing.
But because it is so competitive now, you know, when people do a search for a certain keyword, you need to be doing something different. You need to stand out with a fluffy name.
And even in content creation, in marketing, if doing what you're doing in your business of doing what you're doing does not spark joy. If you're not excited about every time you press the record button for a video for a podcast, or when you start writing for a blog, if that does not excite you, and something's wrong. Maybe you should be doing something else. Maybe you should be delegating it to someone else who is passionate about it. Because that is what sparks business. That's what sparks growth. That's what sparks creativity.
If there's something holding you back, if you're ready, you need to go. There is nothing to be afraid of. Especially if what you're doing is your branding, whatever it is, if it doesn't, if it doesn't spark joy, right?
If in alignment in terms of content in terms of branding, in terms of launching something new, if it makes sense, you owe it to yourself to do it now, rather than wait, I am one who likes to live life without any regrets.

Learn More:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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The world of marketing is continuously changing, especially during this time of the pandemic. Virtual summits are now becoming popular and the most effective digital lead generation tools today.

If you are to start your first summit – or even thinking of creating one, this episode will surely help you understand the basics and elements you need for your own virtual summit. So come and listen as we learn “Virtual Summit 101” with the CEO of Hey Summit, Rob Gelb.

Key Highlights

[1:37] What is Hey Summit?

[4:35] How Rob Started Hey Summit

[10:44] Hey Summit Case Studies Success Story

[12:28] Different Types of Events

[16:50] Should I Go for A Broad Topic or Niche Subject?
Choosing a subject or topic to discuss in a virtual summit can be challenging. Should I go for a broad topic or a niche subject?

[21:05] Categorizing Subject and Topics

[25:21] How to Create a Summit
Learn the steps and important elements when creating a summit.

[28:10] Rob's Advice to Companies Doing Webinars/Virtual Summit

[31:21] Mistakes to Avoid When Launching Your First Virtual Summit

[33:23] The Importance of Creating Attendee Persona
Why is the process of understanding my target audience critical? How can it help me give value to them?

[35:08] Final Tips from Rob

Notable Quotes:

One is, thinking about what it is that your objective, what is your objective with writing an event.
The second thing is that like, getting back to the why, like, why are you doing this in the first place is super important.
And we say to everyone, build your attendee persona first, just anything else that you're doing with digital marketing? Who are you selling to? who aren't you selling to? If you can't answer who you're not selling to, that means you're trying to make something for everybody. And that means you'll end up serving nobody.
So, I think that when you're thinking about virtual events, no virtual fences are no two ones are the same, nor should they be. But you also should be understanding like, what is it that you think when it comes to engagement? Like, why are you doing this?
Don't assume that you have to be everywhere to all people makes you that authority. Adding your very specific bit to the conversation as a starting point. It's a step. It's not a winner-take-all-in-one event type thing.
I think you do, what you do need to do is make sure that if you're creating, are you thinking about creating a summit, that it's work that it works for your webinar strategy, and that your webinar strategy works for the summit
Not worrying too much about trying to be everything to all people at one, you know, at the same time. Also, being clear about the speakers that you're bringing on about the expectations.

**Links & Resources

Free Trial and 15% Lifetime Discount for HeySummit: https://nealschaffer.com/heysummit (affiliate)**

Learn More:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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As I’ve been doing social media marketing for quite some time, people often ask me, how do I become more influential on social media? How do I monetize my influence? How do I monetize social media?

But the thing is, should you really make social media platforms your business?

In today’s episode, I share with you the difference between running a business and leveraging social media platforms to promote your business. And what’s more valuable than monetizing your social media presence.

Key Highlights

[1:16] Monetizing Social Media

[1:38] My Social Media Marketing Journey

[5:31] The Importance of Having a Product When Monetizing Social Media Influence

When monetizing social media, you need to understand the difference between running a business and leveraging platforms. You need to have a product or business first, then use social media platforms to promote them, not making these platforms your business.

[07:08] Determining Your Content Medium

[08:38] What Platform Should I Create Based on My Content Medium?

[10:40] Creating a Platform While Leveraging it to Build Relationships

How can you create a platform and use your influence to build relationships with your potential customers and network?

[12:57] Which Social Media Platform Should I Spend More Time On?

[14:06] The New Digital First LinkedIn Group

[15:39] Content Creation Being a Team Effort

[18:05] Understand Social Media

[18:41] Building Relationships With Products and Services

Where and how can I get a return of investment from the relationship I have built?

Notable Quotes

You need to understand the difference between business and platform. Social media is not a business.
What I mean by platform is, if you really want to have impact in social media, you can't be everywhere at once, you got to pick your battles.
It's about business. And it's why I build a team outsourcing many tasks. It's why I talked about content creation being a team effort. Because you should not be working in your business, you should be working on your business.
Build a very nimble team of hiring experts around the world that are really good at what they're good at. You can create some scale, and build a platform, which allows you to focus on your business. And that is how you leverage all this for your business.
Don't build social media influence, build business. Build influence, to build your business.
But that to me, and the money you can make from being able to sell more products and services, has way more value than you trying to monetize your own presence.

Links Mentioned

Digital First LinkedIn Group: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/2321400/

Learn More:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com

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The power of podcasting is becoming more evident today as big companies and entrepreneurs are now using it in several ways to scale their businesses.

In this episode, I'm joined by Luis Ryan Diaz, Founder and Chief Growth Strategist of Podcast Domination. Podcast Domination is a company that helps podcasters with podcast management, right from launching to growing and monetizing your podcast. He joins me to share everything on how to launch your podcast and use it to grow your business.

Key Highlights

[4:30] Why podcast is now being preferred as a business tool
[7:50] Strategic ways of leveraging your podcast
[12:25] Using podcast for expert interviews
[14:41] Using your podcast to build relationships and connections
[16:49] Interviewing influencers in your podcast
[19:18] All about Podcast Domination
[20:20] How to grow and monetize your podcast
[21:43] Podcasting trends you should be aware of
[24:26] Podcasting for SEO purposes
[26:27] Connect with Luis
[27:08] Final thoughts

Notable Quotes

It’s the relationship that you can build with somebody not only if you are just interviewing them, but also just through how they listen and how they consume podcasts.
I think there’s a lot of hesitation around doing it right and also the hesitation in people’s minds whether anyone will care to listen. But I do see bigger companies and brands using it.
The podcast, when done right, can show inherent value.
You don’t need a very big podcast. You need a podcast that solves problems for your audio customers.

**Links & Resources

Connect with Luis**

Website https://www.podcastdomination.co/
Email luis@podcastdomination.co

Mentioned Resources

Podcast Domination Show
The School Of Influence Podcast

Podcast Hosting Tools

Captivate https://www.captivate.fm
Buzzsprout https://nealschaffer.com/buzzsprout (affiliate)

Learn More:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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We all know how important personal branding is today. That’s why we need to invest more in it. Despite the need, have you already transformed your personal branding to fit the digital age of today?

In fact, let's take this thought one step further: Have you digitally transformed yourself?

In today’s episode, Khaled ElAhmad joins us to talk about how you can digitally transform your personal branding. Khaled is a “guide” based out of Jordan that helps business professionals with not just personal branding but also in Social Media Marketing in general. He has worked with the Jordan government and Zain telecommunications network before opening his own consultancy on the same. Tune in to listen to the interview as he shares his journey, and how you can transform your own personal brand.

Key Highlights

[02:57] About Khaled ElAhmad

[04:07] Where it all started with personal branding and digital marketing

[07:28] Shifting from content creation to creating own content

[07:54] The three types of content

[09:22] Moving to Jordan and grabbing the opportunities.

[13:11] Creating a digital first impression

[17:05] Offering value after building digital first impression

[21:03] Polishing your digital skills

[25:15] Advice for people on their next personal branding journey

[27:30] Building a digital community

[29:27] Connect with Khaled

Notable Quotes

● You don’t have to be an expert. You can be a guide and guide people to the right way when it comes to certain topics like digital media and personal branding.

● The first thing with the digital presence: my profile, username, cover photo, and bio are my digital first impression.

● All these little skills must be digitized. You must learn how to do that.

● I would advise everyone who’s into personal branding to reinvent themselves and reevaluate their digital presence because the algorithms are changing.

Connect with Khaled

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/shusmo/
LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/Shusmo
Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Shusmo
Twitter https://twitter.com/Shusmo

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn More About My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/fractional-cmo-services-by-neal-schaffer/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Download My Marketing Tools Guidebook (50 Tools Recommended): https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-tools-guide
Learn More About This Podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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Stop trying to do everything yourself when it comes to content creation. You can still be 100% authentic with your content while involving others in your production. Let me explain the why and how.

It should go without saying that uou have a greater chance of succeeding faster with all aspects of your digital marketing, including content creation, when you involve a team. Working together builds success in its own unique way. The same concept applies in creating and leveraging content to build a successful business.

In today’s episode, I share with you how you can take advantage of the opportunities available and maximize your ROI by having a team help you with your content creation efforts. Whether you’re seeking to create content for your websites, social media, or YouTube, this episode explores why having a team can really be crucial in maximizing your potential.

Notable Quotes

● I believe that there’s not enough good content in the top search results. If you can create great content that represents the product or service you’re selling, I believe you can rank high.

● Content creation is all about teamwork. Nobody can do it all alone with expertise.

● Hire the team and get it done. If you really want to ramp up your content creation, this is going to be the shortcut.

● The more you work with team members, the greater the quality will be and the quicker and more efficient you will be with turnaround.

“You can go to as many conferences as you want. Listen to as many podcasts as you want. Read as many blog posts as you want. But if you don’t have the team, IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN.”

Mentioned Resources

School Of Influence Podcast Interview with Roger Wakefield: How To Build A YouTube Following For Your Business

Websites to hire freelancers for your team

Writer Access https://www.writeraccess.com/
Upwork https://www.upwork.com/
Fiverr https://nealschaffer.com/fiverr

Audio creation and Editing Tools

Garageband https://www.apple.com/mac/garageband/
Audacity https://www.audacityteam.org/

Learn More:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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Ranking in google searches requires much effort and skills that can be time-consuming. From learning the Google algorithms, doing keyword research, working on links, and on-page optimization, you surely have a lot to do. But with the help of AI tools such as Frase, you can make your work faster, easier, and ultimately better.

In this episode, Neal Schaffer speaks with Bill King, the Director of Marketing at Frase, an end-to-end SEO content creation that helps you “go from content ideas to SEO results faster and easier.” Bill has also worked with HubSpot as the Senior Inbound Marketing Consultant, and as the Acquisition Marketing Manager with Drift. Tune in and listen to Bill sharing about Frase and trends in content and SEO that you need to know in 2021.

Notable Quotes

● The process of going from an idea to an article that gets traffic from google, the easiest thing you can do is keyword research.

● We’re not trying to just give you tools to do stuff faster, better, and cheaper. That’s already helpful. We’re saying how do you make sure that if you write this content, then it will be the best?

● Most of the value you’ll get in content and SEO will be on transferring clear expected outcomes of what you’re looking for and understanding what the recipe is to be successful in search.

● At the end of the day, we want people to go faster, better, and more efficiently.

● The only way to really quantify what great content means is to understand how you can actually wrap your head around what it actually means to be great content.

● One of the first things people think about when they hear the word automation or AI is they think that it’s gonna replace hard work and expertise. That’s clearly not the case.

● Google in the backend is trying to understand who are the credible sources for specific topics and which are the best.

● If you have the tools in place to know I’m speaking to this topic in a deep, authoritative way, you’re already setting yourself for success.

Mentioned Resources and Tools

Frase
HubSpot
SEMRush
Yoast

Episode 216: How To Use Influencers For Your Business

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn More About My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/fractional-cmo-services-by-neal-schaffer/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Download My Marketing Tools Guidebook (50 Tools Recommended): https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-tools-guide
Learn More About This Podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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There are two main ways to grow your influence in social media: Organically through your own social media content or by spending money to advertise on the various social media sites. Influencer marketing, of course, can fall in both categories, depending on the collaboration.

This episode will take a deep look at paid social media advertising on sites like Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Pinterest and give you a solid framework for planning and measuring the increased influence you can obtain from Paid Social.

Learn More:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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Influencer marketing should be a natural extension of your own marketing, and perhaps there is no better place for it than in B2B companies.

Listen in to my interview with The Influencer Marketer Tom Augenthaler as we discuss the nuts and bolts of influencer marketing and how to begin implementing it for your business today.

Tom Augenthaler Links

Tom Augenthaler's Website: https://theinfluencemarketer.com/

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn More About My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/fractional-cmo-services-by-neal-schaffer/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Download My Marketing Tools Guidebook (50 Tools Recommended): https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-tools-guide
Learn More About This Podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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The Age of Influence is on the horizon, and the entrepreneurial perspective starts to shift from traditional marketing to digital marketing. How do you apply a people-centric strategy to leverage the power of word of mouth at little to no cost? In this episode, I share my insights about employer branding, employee advocacy, personal branding, as well as digital and social media marketing in general.

Employer Branding

[02:43]

Employer branding is a crucial concept to understand if you work in human resources or a corporate executive. It is about branding your company as a place where people would love to work. With the economy starting to open up, the labor market will be as intense as before the pandemic began.

[04:56]

You can say all the great things about your products and services, but when someone else has an opinion about you, as a company, that begins to have an impact. Companies like Google and Facebook already have tremendous brand equity where they don’t even need employer branding.

[05:25]

To implement employer branding, I suggest having your employees tell stories about working at your company. That’s why LinkedIn company pages have their employees talk about the company in their career section. However, the videos looked lifeless.

[06:32]

I advise to leverage influencer marketing to amplify your employer branding and social media. Social media was made for people, not for business. Therefore, you can infer from it that you need a people-centric approach to social media and marketing for people to relate to your brand.

[07:52]

It’s about how you can get positive word of mouth about your brand. Whether you hire people or build trust with your community, it all comes down to the people being able to talk about you. Listen more to this part as I share in-depth on how my real estate client manifested employer branding!

Influencer Marketing

[10:11]

If you are a startup and nobody knows about you, it’s time for you to proactively collaborate and engage with influencers. I share how a member of my Digital First Group Coaching Membership Community sends bicycle parts to an influencer for them to try. Because the influencer was interested in the product, they showcased it to their audience. And then the product now gets into the limelight, without paying anything! That’s how far influencer marketing can take you if you provide value that people actually wanted.

[12:25]

When you find the right influencers for your product, it becomes a no-brainer for them to naturally take an interest in it because you did your research and your product provides value for the influencer and their audience. This is a mindset shift that allows you to see marketing from a people-centric perspective.

Social Media Ads

[13:41]

I share how my chiropractor leveraged paid media through Facebook ads to target veterans telling them about a free chiropractic service. They could have used influencers, but they found out that it is easier to target a niche nobody else targets through Facebook ads. They try to make friends with these veterans through the free service, and in turn, they can get great word of mouth from them.

Conclusion

[15:59]

Instead of investing in Google, Facebook, or other media platforms, why not invest in people. Whether it’s for employer branding, employee advocacy, or influence, train and teach them if you want them to become more active. Help them make better content.

[16:27]

You should strive to have a community inclusive to all, not just for influencers but also for your customers, employees, and everyone else. It’s a small price to pay for word of mouth that is challenging to get organically. Start realigning your ad and marketing spend with t

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Looking to make a splash in your industry? Virtual summits might just be the best way to do so toady. Perhaps you have registered for such a summit which had one or two dozen speakers, or maybe you have spoken at one.

If you have done webinar marketing before, a virtual summit can help provide exponential value to attendees and benefits to your business.

If you are intrigued by the potential or running a virtual summit or event for your business, this episode is for you. I interview one of the thought leaders in the space, Liam Austin, where we discussed:

which virtual event is right for you
how to sell more of your signature offer from your event
how to get recurring revenue on autopilot

This interview actually influenced me to begin preparing my own virtual summit which I hope to unveil in the near future! If you are interested in launching your own virtual summit, in addition to reaching out to Liam, make sure you check out HeySummit [affiliate]!

Also, if you are a fan of the podcast and want to join my free monthly group coaching session, send your screenshot to neal@nealschaffer.com Thanks!

Key Highlights[4:21] Introduction of guest speaker, Liam Austin

[7:09] Evolution of Virtual Events

[8:22] How Liam Austin Started Doing Virtual Events

[9:03] Liam Austin's First Virtual Event
Liam's first virtual summit was the LinkedIn Success Summit where he discussed how to generate leads and prospects from LinkedIn. The event was a success and it helped him get authority over the audience.

[13:52] How to Find Influential Speakers for Virtual Events?

[15:01] Ideal Opt-in Rate for Summit Events
What strategies can help an event get a high opt-in rate? How to make your attendees think about the benefit they will get from attending the event?

[18:03] Steps on Setting-Up Your First Virtual Event
Liam shared the important steps to do if you are to start your first virtual event. He highlighted the importance of doing research, setting goals and expectations, and strategies on how you can convince attendees to go to your event.

[21:22] How to Negotiate with Event Speakers

[23:00] Determining Type and Size of Your Virtual Event
Are smaller events will be more ideal than bigger events in today's situation? Determining the type and size of your virtual event will depend on your client's needs and goals and where you are more comfortable doing it.

[25:21] Repurposing Live Content
How can you use your content from Virtual Event and repurpose it as future content?

[30:52] Ways on Generating Revenue from Virtual Event Content
Liam shares recommendations on getting and giving value to your audience during and after the virtual event.

[33:55] Liam's Advice on How to Get Recurring Revenue from Doing Virtual Events

[35:05] Importance of Turning Live Video Content into Evergreen Content

[38:42] Why Considering Event Topics and Product Is Critical

[40:56] All about Liam Austin's company and How He Helps People and Businesses

[46:08] Liam's Advice to Everybody

Notable Quotes:

Go out there and just test it, try it. But word of warning. It's addictive.
It's about providing value and helping people just realize like, yes, this is for me, yes, I need help on this. And I want you know, more of this.
With the influx of virtual events, now we need to stand out, we need to do something different. We can't just be, you know, another cow in the field, we want to be that purple cow.

Connect with Liam:
EntrepreneursHQ: https://entrepreneurshq.com/
Liam's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liamaustin/

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If you're listening to this podcast, you're doing so in hopes of implementing my advice or that from my guests in your company or own business.

As a content creator, the greatest respect you can pay me is in implementing what I teach.

In launching my group coaching membership community Digital First, I realize that many people get stuck with their digital marketing and simply don't execute. You can listen to as many podcasts and read as many blog posts and watch as many YouTube videos as you like - the information you need is all there, but if you don't begin on the journey of execution you can't be on your way to business success.

Yes, this is a topic you've probably heard before, but I wanted to send you all a reminder based on recent conversations and executions I have seen in my own community. You don't have to join my community to become successful at digital marketing, but if you don't have a network of "doers" to surround yourself with and be inspired by, go find one - TODAY!

Key Highlights

[2:20] Neal's Group Coaching, Digital First
A community of mentors that provides education about Digital Marketing through training videos.

[3:43] Importance of Taking Action

[6:43] You Learn by Taking Action and Doing It

[8:05] How Neal Launched His Podcast From Scratch
Neal created a 26-minute video where he shared how he started his podcast from scratch. He aims to inspire beginners to do it and try something new. There is no excuse in starting and creating content whether it be a podcast, blog, YouTube, or an Instagram channel.

[12:11] Leveraging Relationships, Internet, and Social Media When Creating a Business
There's so much information you can get from the internet, social media, and your network that can actually help you build your business from scratch

[14:08] Leveraging Digital and Social Media in Various Ways

[16:48] Skyrocket Your Business By Having The Right Tools and Mindset

Notable Quotes

I'm trying to motivate people to pursue whatever they want to do to help them utilize digital marketing as their engine of growth.
If you've been thinking about it, stop thinking about it, stop reading the blog post, do it.
Doer's win. You're not going to succeed every time, especially in digital and social media marketing. But with every piece of content that you publish, with every product that you promote, you get closer to figuring out a lot of things because it's digital. We can get the data, and we can learn from the data. And we can continue to build and build and build assets through these experiences.
With the Internet, and with digital and social media, anything is possible. You can create a business from scratch, and get it up there tomorrow. And there's just so much information out there.
Today, there is a service for everything. There is help for everything you want to achieve. So if you don't have time to do it, there are others who can help you do it.
Stop waiting, start implementing. Stop researching, start executing.

Learn More:

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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You've probably heard the term "data-driven content strategy," but what does that mean exactly? And how can it be applied to our social media content?

Enter James Creech, Co-Founder & CEO of Measure Studio, whose motto is "It's a pleasure to measure." In our interview we uncover a lot of great tips vis a vis how to properly measure social media content and what insights for our social media strategy we can find from doing so.

Some of the things we talked about in this episode include:

Finding an effective social content strategy is hard. It's a blend of art and science that requires constant experimentation and refinement. To do so effectively, you need strong tools at your disposal that go beyond the limited analytics available natively from social platforms.
The first 24 - 72 hours are critical for assessing content performance. You want to establish a strong early trajectory for your content to rank highly in search and boost organic discovery.
Benchmarking content performance allows you to understand what's working and what's not working, so you can focus on making incremental improvements over time. This is particularly valuable given how often social platforms' algorithms change.

Key Highlights
[1:15] Introduction of podcast guest, James Creech

[3:50] How James Got Involved with Influencer Marketing

[6:20] What James' Business Offers
How does Measure Studio differ from other content measurement tools?

[9:22] Measure Studio's Price Point

[15:30] How to Create Brand Impact
When creating a content strategy you need to think of the elements. Ask yourself, who is your ideal customer? Where do you want to reach them?

[19:31]Benchmark Number of Hours Per Platform

[21:49] Important Metrics to Benchmark

[25:25] Where Measure Studio Focuses On

[29:56] James' Role in Biden Harrison Campaign

[31:57] James' Final Advice to the Listeners

[32:21] Ways to Be More Effective With Your Social Media Content

Notable Quotes:

Influencers are people, as much as they have distribution. They are also creative that storytellers have this really meaningful connection with their fans. And the only way to truly do that effectively is to organically get a tap into that authenticity in that audience.
We want creatives to be able to express themselves. We want brand marketers to be able to communicate the awesome things that they're doing and what their product stands for. But in order to do that, you have to understand how it lands with your audience who enable the best forms of creativity.
It doesn't mean you need to be on every social platform, you need to pick and choose which are the most important, then from there, understand the native content experience, the audience, an experience that is unique to each platform.

James Creech Links

Measure Studio: https://measure.studio

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn More About My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/fractional-cmo-services-by-neal-schaffer/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Download My Marketing Tools Guidebook (50 Tools Recommended): https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-tools-guide
Learn More About This Podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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I don't pretend to be a YouTube expert by any means, but if you are new to the platform like I am, how successful you can be there is all about the details.

Strategically creating, editing, and uploading my first YouTube video ever made me feel like I "finally" started taking podcasting seriously back in 2019, 6 years after my launch!

Similarly, I have had a YouTube channel for some time, but it is only very recently where I have decided to be a little more strategic and intentional about the videos I post.

I am still very early in my journey, but these are the 13 actionable tips for YouTube that I wish someone had taught me, and they are tips that I don't see in the blogosphere.

Hope you'll join my on my YouTube journey here: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

Key Highlights
[3:17] How to Strategically Approach YouTube

[7:33] First Tip to Maximize YouTube Influencer

[9:03] Second Tip: Finding Role Models
The importance of finding role models in your niche.

[11:13] Third Actionable Tip in Approaching YouTube
The ideal length of YouTube video to post.

[14:26] How Do I Make People Stay Long In My YouTube Videos?

[16:40] What Type of Video Content Should I Create?
Finding a format that fits your niche and product.

[18:42] Doing A Keyword Strategy

[21:04] Tip #7: Create An Enticing Title

[22:13] Why I Like Putting Teaser at the Beginning of My Video
Place a short 10-15 seconds teaser to let the viewers know what they're going to get out of the video and entice them to stay to the end.

[24:08] Introducing Elements In Your YouTube Video

[26:55] Tip #11: Have A Professionally Designed Thumbnails

[29:30] Leverage Video Descriptions

[31:17] Cards and End Screens

[32:27] Summary

Notable Quotes:

When I talk about YouTube video, I'm talking about this form of content that allows you to build a platform, it allows you to build a platform because number one, the content gets indexed by search engine. And number two, therefore it has a long shelf life.
If you want to do better at YouTube, you got to consume more YouTube.
Find accounts in your niche that are already doing this, that you can not emulate but be inspired. Because you need to do it in your own way to be successful, you can't just copy and be successful.
So whatever format fits your niche fits your product fits your branding, find a format.
Let them know what they're going to get out of it. Entice them to stay to the end. And then go through the motions of creating the video and really delivering on that promise.
What you can do is you can have a great title, which is also going to be depicted in your thumbnail, which hopefully will entice people to click through, and the title is going to be aligned and includes your keyword.
You don't have to go too far to be successful on YouTube, it helps without a doubt but I don't want that to stop you. You don't need any more excuses not to do this.

Learn More:

Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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Look at your social media analytics, and you will probably notice that those posts that were or included a video component probably performed the best. This should be no surprise as video is perhaps the most powerful form of content that helps to create trust and connections unlike any other content medium.

There is no better person to guide us on how to leverage videos in our social media TODAY than Kate Skavish, co-founder of the video marketing platform Wave.video. Listen in as Kate teaches us how to be relevant by including videos in our marketing content mix and helping us stand out by providing tips on how to make better videos consistently.

Key Highlights
[1:12] The Power of Video

[3:36] Introduction of the guest, Kate Skavish

[5:01] How Kate Started with Video Marketing

[6:43] Leveraging Video Content to Create Trust and Connection to Your Audience
In what way video can help create trust and communicate feelings to your audience?

[11:11] The First Step to Including Video In Your Marketing Strategy
The different approaches on how you can create videos and use them as part of your content strategy.

[14:52] SEO Driven Approach For Videos

[22:41] Wave.video New Features

[27:54] How Can I Make Better Videos Consistently

[30:15] The Best Way To Get Your Audience Hooked In Your Videos

[33:57] Best Practices for YouTube Videos
Kate shared some advice and best practices to apply when doing YouTube videos.

[38:19] The Future for Wave.video

[40:00] Connect with Kate Skavish

Notable Quotes

Video conveys so much more than just what you say. With video, you are able to communicate your passion, your feelings, and that what tended to create this connection between people, which also creates trust.
Well, my advice is to start explaining and think about strategy. First, what you want to convey and how you will do it over time, you're not going to end up doing something once and then forgetting about it. Because that doesn't bring results.
Research your keywords, create content, see what actually trends on YouTube because training is something that where you can utilize your efforts on and then probably see, if you already have written articles, just repurpose them in the form of video
You have to streamline your video creation process. And that makes it easier for you to produce it on a regular basis.
Whatever your goal is, for this particular video, you need to tell your viewers directly what you want.
Under commit and over deliver.

Kate Skavish Links

Website: https://wave.video

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn More About My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/fractional-cmo-services-by-neal-schaffer/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Download My Marketing Tools Guidebook (50 Tools Recommended): https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-tools-guide
Learn More About This Podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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Instead of always trying to figure out what to write your next blog post on or wonder why you aren't ranking for strategic keywords, take my advice and learn how to plan out and build one year's worth of blog content which will become your strategic library of content.

This content will not only help you rank higher for SEO but also give you a social "voice" and allow you to engage with both prospects and clients in social media as well as your email subscribers.

I will show you the exact steps I have taken to outrank formidable competitors in building my own Library of Content in this episode.

Key Highlights:

[02:07] Library of content
How can I strategically create a library of content in one year?

[7:22] How Am I Going to Get Discovered on Google?

[09:46] Targeting Relevant Keywords
The library of content starts with understanding what are the relevant keywords to target

[12:24] Importance of Curating the Right Keywords

[13:33] Creating a Content Schedule

[15:12] What is Search Intent?

[17:19] Planning Out Library Content in Terms of Keywords
I have planned out my library content, now, how do I implement it?

[18:01] Leveraging Artificial Intelligence to Rank

[22:08] Calculate Your Content Marketing
How do I calculate my ROI? How do I track my social engagement of the blog posts I published?

[23:07] Search Visibility

[25:42] E.A.T Methodology
How does EAT Methodology help get you a higher ranking on search engines?

Notable Quotes:

If you have the best product in the market, if you have the smartest service, the least expensive, sir, I don't care what it is, you're out there you have a business because you provide something valuable if there are keywords related to your business that you need to be found for you should be found for. And if you don't attack this strategically, you're never going to be found for it, or you're going to be paying a lot for advertising in order to be found for it.
It takes time to build authority.
Not every keyword is relevant.
Think of it this way, you only need to curate those keywords that will lead potential customers to you.
It's really all about serving search engines what they want to see if this is what they think values the reader, they'll want to serve the same thing that you have, you do not want to republish though, it's got to be original content.
When you build authority in one subject, it does raise all of your boats in other subjects.

Related Tools:

SEMrush: https://nealschaffer.com/semrush
Frase: https://nealschaffer.com/frase

Learn More:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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For B2B brands, your internal influencers are often your salespeople. They are facing your customer and often are the most active on social media because they can monetize their influence in the form of additional commissions.

That's why every employee influencer / advocacy program for B2B brands becomes successful when there is alignment between sales and marketing.

If this is a need your company has, you are in for a special treat. B2B marketing thought leader and best-selling author Pam Didner joins us today to give us some creative ways to set up your B2B sales team for success, including:

Identify how you can help sales via different sales stages
Map marketing content to a sales cycle
Understand the collaboration process between sales and marketing

Key Highlights

[01:02] Introduction of podcast guest, Pam Didner
[04:44] Pam Didner's Book
[4:57] What is Sales Enablement?
[7:08] Different Sales Stages
[10:30] Best Content Strategy Practice
[13:07] The Importance of Building Relationship With Your Sales People
[16:03] Ways to Collaborate and Work With Sales Team
[19:04] The Critical Role of Quality Data
[21:08] Leveraging Tools and Processes In Sales and Marketing Alignment
[26:08] The Role of AIs
[30:16] Basic Questions You Should Ask Your Vendor
[31:06] Connect with Pam
[31:39] Final Conclusion

Notable Quotes:

In addition, to build brain awareness and drive demands, a portion of our job is also supporting sales. And the one major functions of doing that is to provide content that salespeople can use. So not just educating themselves, they can also use it to share with your clients or the prospect.
Salespeople are very relationship-driven. And that's how to they build their accounts, or do the customer is a lot to do with relationship. It's still very much a relationship-based type of approach when you want to close any kind of sales.
Find a way to provide value and then build that relationship over a period of time. What I have come to realize is that supporting sales is very similar to why salespeople try to build a relationship with the prospects and the potential customers, you need to take a similar approach to build that relationship with your salespeople.
In every single marketing element that you have in your sleeves, if you apply on the sales side and be very targeted and accounts specific, it's basically sales enablement to some extent.
Technology often gets over and the process gets overlooked. And the technology does not create the process, you need to have the process. And then find the technology that helps enable it right.

Pam Didner Links

Website: https://pamdidner.com/
B2B Marketing and More with Pam Didner Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/b2b-marketing-and-more-with-pam-didner/id1250138104
Effective Sales Enablement: https://amzn.to/2PuHR10 (affiliate)

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Learn More About My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/fractional-cmo-services-by-neal-schaffer/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Learn More About This Podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

Effective Sales Enablement: Achieve sales growth through collaborative sales and marketing

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If you want your organization to yield more influence in social media, or if you are looking for your employees to become more active in social media to raise your company's digital profile, this episode is for you.

Listen to all of my advice that you as a leader can do to push the ball forward on leveraging influence that can impact your entire organization.

Key Highlights

[03:31] Why and How Every Business Should Become More Influential

[04:24] Become The Influencer
You, as the leader of the company or brand, should be the influencer. Leverage your title and be more active in social media because you are indirectly representing your company or employee.

[06:22] Setting Yourself As A Role Model To Your Employees

[08:12] Leverage Others Content
Use your employee's success stories and use their content as part of your social media profile and make them a hero.

[10:37] The Importance of Having an Internal Training System

[11:42] Invest and Empower Your Employees
If you want your employees to do better and shine in social media, empower and invest in them.

[11:52] Ways You Can Empower Your Employees

[14:52] Investing in Tools, Technology and Other Programs
Find some tools or technology that can help your employees work and perform better on social media. You can also enroll them in some programs or additional training.

[17:21] Summary

Notable Quotes

The first one as I hinted that every brand should try to become more influential is to become the influencer.
Use your social media presence, don't rely on others, to become influencers for your company, don't rely on all your employee influences you should become one of them.
If you really want to become that role model, carve the path for others to follow.
Make your employees the heroes of your stories.
If we can leverage other people's content, it allows us to be able to engage through content, and engage with people that engage with our content, it actually gives us more time to engage with people.
Considering investing in tools and technology to complement what your company already has to help your employees perform better on social media.
It's all about empowering them and taking it one step further.

Learn More: * Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/ * Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/ * The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview * Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

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If you want to learn how to apply the concepts of SEO to social media, you are in for a treat. Today's guest is one of the most recognized SEO experts, Stephan Spencer who is co-author of The Art of SEO, co-author of Social eCommerce, and author of Google Power Search, all published by O’Reilly.

In this episode we talk about something that you might not have considered before: The SEO value of your social media. Specifically we discussed:

SEO applied to your YouTube channel and videos
Getting SEO value from social media posts
Content marketing strategies: coming up with hooks, getting links not just social shares, etc.

This is a longer than average episode as I got a TON of value from this interview - I am confident that you will as well!

Key Highlights

[2:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Stephan Spencer

[4:43] Who is Stephan?

[8:03] The Value You Can Get from SEO

[11:09] Stephan's Advice on Getting Started at YouTube for SEO

[16:13] The Best Tactic in Embedding YouTube Videos in Your Blog

[18:44] Ninja Technique

[22:58] SEO Advice to Apply to Your YouTube Channel and Videos

[25:19] Should I Use Tags on YouTube?

[28:44] Keyword Research for YouTube

[34:35] Stephan's Advice on Getting SEO Punch from Social Media

[39:23] Content Diamond

[43:05] Should I Create Content from My Podcast Episode?

[46:04] Stephan's Advice to Content Creators

[52:28] Importance of Scaling Yout Content Team

[53:19] Connect with Stephan

Notable Quotes

It's very important that your videos on YouTube start out strong and a lot of the YouTubers teach this.
The first thing that people look at, and that kind of the big decision point for them is what the thumbnail looks like, and not the title of the video.
Don't go with your gut, always do the research and see if your gut is right or not, that's the right way to do it. And having some tools that give you YouTube-specific data is just invaluable.
Everything that you create should have a hook to it. Having that hook is invaluable.
Look what other people are doing. And like I said, you're not emulating them it's purely for inspiration but the magic is in making it your own and owning it and applying it to your brand your content so that it works.
If you're still doing all those small things, you're not going to scale. So you need to scale your brand, you need to scale your content team. And now's a great time to do it.

Stephan Spencer Links

Website: https://www.stephanspencer.com/
Marketing Speak Podcast: https://www.marketingspeak.com/podcasts/
The Art of SEO: https://amzn.to/3ealztR (affiliate)

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Art of SEO: Mastering Search Engine Optimization

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"It's all about your funnel." "You gotta have a funnel in place." "This tool will help serve all of your funnels." A lot of people say a lot of different things about funnels, so let's take a step back and look at what exactly marketing funnels and why they are fundamental to your business.

More importantly, learn why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the subject and how you need to be creative in designing funnels that truly serve and deepen relationships with both your prospective and present customers.

Key Highlights

[03:07] What Are Funnels?

[04:40] How Do Funnels Works?

[06:55] The Process of Looking at Funnels

[09:41] Other Definitions of Funnels
Aside from the traditional definition of funnels, what are the other definitions that apply to funnels?

[12:15] Why Retargeting Is Effective?

[13:09] How to Build Relationship With People
Building relationships with people and your target audience is critical if you are trying to offer products and services to them. How do I do that?

[14:44] Converting General Public to Your Customers
How can I convert a general person into my customers? What are the ways I can convince him/her to buy my product?

[15:43] The Advocate Stage

[17:40] Ways of Building Funnels

[20:26] Summary

Notable Quotes

You want all of your targeted, relevant potential customers, to find you to follow you. And the way that happens digitally, today is that there are only two different ways that happen, they're either gonna find you through a search engine, normally Google, or they're gonna find you on social media.
We need to build a relationship with them, we need to build like no interest.
It really comes down to your products and services. What value are you going to add? where and who? and constructing everything you do with your marketing?
That's the top of the funnel, traditionally speaking, then we want to get people that are interested in doing business with us. And then there has to be this desire, that there's an interest, but is theirs are they actually going to buy from us?
Whatever product or service you have, you really want to think this through. What are the different touchpoints? What are the different ways, especially with paid media?
What are the different ways in which we can retarget people that have a brand affinity for us, that's really the way we want to think about it?

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Serial author and content marketing expert Christoph Trappe joins me for this episode dedicated to livestreaming and why it matters. We all know that video is the most powerful to express our brands or our ourselves, but why aren't we doing more of it?

Christoph will help you better understand and utilize livestreaming with his advice on:

The evolution of livestreaming as a differentiator
How to integrate livestreaming into your strategy
Tools and tricks of the trade

Key Highlights

[01:21] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Christoph Trappe

[03:13] Christoph's Journey of Content Marketing and Storytelling

[05:50] Why Do I Need to Always Tell A Story?

[08:20] Rules on Paragraphs

[10:02] Tools for Content Writing

[14:34] Why Livestreaming Is A Strong Strategic Differentiator in Content Marketing

[21:56] Integrating Live Streams into Marketing Strategy

[23:47] Content Repurposing

[24:26] Christoph's Recommendations on Content Repurposing

[26:51] NPR Approach

[27:48] Tools and Tricks You Can Use for Live Streaming

[33:32] Christoph's Book

[36:50] Connect with Christoph

Notable Quotes

Always try to tell stories. It's the stories that people remember.
Integrated into everything else you're doing, find a way to maximize what you're doing on the live stream, use it on other places, whether it's an article, whether it's social, whether it's different things, and then kind of see what takes off, you know, maybe it's the light, maybe you need to focus more time on the live stream and less time on blogging.
Be very strategic over what you want to update what you want to produce after the fact.
There's always a way to repurpose, and sometimes it's as simple as taking the new podcast or the new live stream, and embedding it into an old article, In the end, you're done.
So my biggest advice is, stop the excuses that you don't have the right equipment.
There are 47 dominoes that have to fall. Something doesn't work on a live stream. Don't sweat it, you know, just do what you can. And if it doesn't work, try it again later, or just do a podcast, you know, and use the podcast.

Christoph Trappe Links

Going live: Livestream your podcast to reach more people Book: https://amzn.to/3cMccBj (affiliate)
Website: https://authenticstorytelling.net/

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

Going live: Livestream your podcast to reach more people

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Instead of always trying to tap into the influence of others, why isn't your brand trying to take a strategic approach to increase your own digital influence? The benefits of doing so are plentiful, and influencers have already perfected the formula of what you need to do.

So what are you waiting for? Listen to this episode and build your own influence as a company or brand!

Key Highlights

[03:15] Employee Advocacy

[03:56] How Can I Make My Business More Influential?

[04:26] Building Influence

[06:36] Other Approaches Where You Can Yield Influence

[09:30] Things People Look At When Collaborating

[10:43] Why Building A Large Following Is Better Than Small Following?

[11:28] The Funnel of Social Media Relationships

[14:36] How You Can Build Better Influence Than Your Competitor

[15:27] Leveraging Social Platforms

[16:49] Micro-targeting Options

[17:44] The Things You Should Be Looking At When Setting Up Social Media Dashboards

[19:25] Why Do You Need To Delineate Marketing From Your Social Media?

[19:59] Things You Can Do To Get Influencers Work With You

Notable Quotes

Building more influence, a lot of it is tapping into other influencers and influencer marketing.
If your business wants to become more influential, you need to build your influence on it.
It is recommended that you build a larger rather than smaller following.
So look around in your industry and look at your competitors, look at their follower count, see where you rank, and consider a paid campaign to get you to rank a little bit better.
What I am talking about is leveraging the micro-targeting capabilities of these paid social platforms to handpick those ideal people that you think if they were exposed to you, they would not only be interested in following you, but they would also be interested in becoming your customer.
You got to be like an influence, you got to be tapped in your community, you got to be publishing content there that is truly resourceful, relevant, and you have to be proactively engaging with others
Social media is less about your promotion, and more about developing relationships, developing relationships with influencers, among others.
And when you begin to look at your social channels, not as promotion channels, but as channels that truly provide that valuable resourceful content, curating content from others, photos, videos, you know, interactive, engaging content, live streaming, this is the content that people want on social media.
But if you take this approach to use social media as an influencer would, and you take a similar approach, which is we want to build our influence in social media, it's going to make all this other stuff a lot easier to do.

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Why are some entrepreneurs successful while many others fail?

Since creating one of the most popular business podcasts of all time, Entrepreneurs on Fire, John Lee Dumas has interviewed more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and taken the time to decipher what has made them successful, culminating in the publication of his first book "The Common Path to Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment".

John shares some of his findings with us and teaches us the steps we need to take to find whatever uncommon success we are looking for.

Key Highlights

[01:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, John Lee Dumas

[05:47] What is Entrepreneur on Fire?

[08:17] Why Some Entrepreneurs Succeed And Some Fail?

[11:50] The Importance of Niching Down

[14:15] The Next Steps To Being A Successful Entrepreneur

[16:16] 17 Chronological Steps Roadmap to Financial Payments

[19:14] John's Favorite Step to Financial Payments

[22:05] The End Goal

[27:16] What Is The Common Path?

[29:25] How John Lee Came About Writing His Book

[35:59] Connect With John Lee

Notable Quotes

One thing they've all had in common is they have been able to provide the best solution to a real problem that exists in this world, all the entrepreneurs that I've seen, fail struggle never quite have it click or the number two solution to a real problem, or the number 10 solution to a real problem, or the number one solution to not that big of a deal of a problem. And that's why they're failing.
And so if you are not willing to identify a big idea that you can have in this world, and then take the next step, which is the critical step, which is to discover the niche, uncover the void to find the problem that's not being solved within that big idea, or this being solved very poorly that you can immediately solve better and become the best solution to that problem. You are going to struggle.
Look around. And often you'll get inspired by things around you and new ideas. And some of those ideas may help your current business, some of them may propel a new business.
You have to know who your perfect customer is. Your perfect avatar is from day one, even pre-launch.
At the core of who we are as human beings, we truly want three things. We want to be able to wake up every morning and do what we want to do when we want to do it with whom we want to do it. If you are honestly waking up in the morning, and you're able to say I'm doing what I want to do today, where I want to do it, with whom I want to do it with what else what else is there? I mean, that is what you want to be doing where you want to be doing with whom you want to be doing it with like that is massive success. That is freedom.
And that's when I realized that building the career was not the end goal here, right? It was happiness with the people I loved. But it was also being able to make the choice to spend time watching my kids grow up. And that is what has fueled me.

John Lee Dumas Links * Book: https://uncommonsuccessbook.com/ * Entrepreneurs on Fire: http://eofire.com/

Neal Schaffer Links

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence

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Jason Falls is one of those guys in digital marketing I have had a ton of respect for many years. Imagine how surprised he was - and then how I was - that we both found out we were writing books on influencer marketing at the same time!

I beat Jason to the punch, but for anyone who read The Age of Influence, Jason's new book, Winfluence, is a must-read. We discuss the background for his book as well as Jason's uniquely holistic perspective on the value of influencer marketing.

Key Highlights

[01:39] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jason Falls

[05:55] Who is Jason and What He Does?

[08:43] How Jason Introduce Influencer Marketing to His Clients

[12:21] The Story Behind "Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand"

[15:02] What Jason's Book Covers?

[20:46] How Does Jason Measure Success Of The Metrics?

[22:07] The Process of Content Creation

[24:17] Jason's Recommendation on Creating Influencer Marketing Campaigns

[26:32] Why Finding the Right Influencer Matters

[31:52] You Need to Get Different Perspectives In Whatever You Do!

[33:53] Connect with Jason Falls

[26:39] Jason's Last Advice

Notable Quotes

If you want to use influence marketing, rather than influencer marketing, just a subtle change in how you say things, what you're doing is you're ultimately saying, Okay, what is the audience we're trying to reach and what do we know about them?
It all goes back to what's your goal? What are you trying to accomplish and once you know that, Who's your audience? What do you want them to do? When you identify the audience really well, then you're able to ask the question, okay, who or what influences them? How do they make buying decisions? How do they make decisions on changing their mind on certain issues? Is it they have conversations with family and friends, which it probably is that to a degree but do they also go online to look for information about the products or services that we sell and so it's really kind of identifying Okay, Who or what channels do they look to, for that type of information?
So anybody can do this if you identify the right person who impacts the audience you're trying to persuade? And if you find that one influencer and you just reach out and start a relationship, and make friends with them, and say, Okay, what value can I provide to them, so that I might get value back from them and their audience in return?
The more you invest in the relationship, obviously, the higher the return.
This is not complicated. And people who have influence are probably thirsty to work with you. It's just finding the right one to approach to say, hey, what can we do together?

Reference Links for Jason Falls:

Winfluence on Amazon: https://amzn.to/3qGKskW [affiliate]
Winfluence Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/winfluence-the-influence-marketing-podcast/id1469090224
Jason Falls Website: https://jasonfalls.com/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Join My Group Coaching Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/
Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand

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Whether you are a brand or a person, the ultimate sign that you have influence is when people are singing your praises when you are not in the room, whether online in social media or offline.

What if you can bring all of your fans together in an environment so that they can talk about you while also getting direct access to you or your brand?

This is what brands are doing by investing in Facebook Groups for their customers, and in doing so, they are investing in a community that can scale their influence.

Many digital entrepreneurs are doing the same for their customers of their digital programs.

I have decided that the next step to scale my own influence is in the creation of such a community. Listen in for my thoughts and plans for my new Group Coaching Membership Community, Digital First - and learn how you can become one of my founding members!

Key Highlights

[02:59] My Journey to Scaling Through Community

[03:59] The Story Behind My First and Second Book

[06:08] How Being A Consumer Yourself Helps You Understand Your Purpose

[08:52] How Content Creators Build Their Influence?

[10:02] How Does Community Help You Scale?

[11:53] The Story Of How I Developed My First B2C Product

[13:08] What Communities Can Do

[14:36] Digital Economy

[16:35] My First Digital Membership Community

[18:17] How Will My Membership Community Provide Value to the Members?

[19:31] What The Community Will Be

[20:24] How to Join the Community

Notable Quotes

Any type of content creation online, on an edge over time, builds influence. But somewhere along the line, you don't build influence over anyone and everyone you build influence over a specific community.
For one to excel at social media marketing, one needs to be an active consumer of social media first.
What I've realized over the years is that those content creators that do have their own courses, actually build influence for the fact that they have a course.
And that's how the community helps you scale, you have a lot of newbies coming in, they don't know if they should buy the tool or not. Or maybe they're on the free trial, they join the community, they see everybody else talking about what they do with the tool, how great it is. And they end up buying it right.
That's exactly what I see communities can do, they can make it bigger than you. Because everybody talks about you.
There's an economy of people that consume digital products out there that I was not part of that I did not know anything about. yet. It was huge, right? And that's what fuels all these new programs that we see out there, these new courses. And that's why there are people generating seven figures from this, right?
The whole idea was that big enterprises have these centers of excellence that they can tap into for guidance on anything social media, or anything digital marketing.
So read on blog posts, take all the courses book come to the community to get that applied answer to what you are looking for, to drive your business forward, get to the next stage, grow your business through innovative marketing.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer: * Become a Founding Member of My Digital First Membership Community: https://nealschaffer.com/membership * Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/ * Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/ * The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-pre

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How does one go about building influence in a crowded market?

I often go back to my own background in B2B sales and look at habits, partnerships, and focus.

That's why it was so refreshing to be joined by a special guest who serves the market that I used to work on who has very similar advice.

Today I am joined today with the co-founder of the simple yet powerful CRM for small businesses selling B2B, Jeroen Corthout of Salesflare.

In this interview we discuss:

Focus on habits rather than goals: consistently deliver value in focus areas, rather than focusing everything on goal metrics
Expand outside your own influence by leveraging the influence of others: partner up in every possible way with people who reach the same audience
Real expertise is hard to find and extremely valuable, so focus on attaining the highest possible quality (e.g. don't have copywriters write your content; pick your expertise niche; etc.)

Key Highlights

[01:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jeroen Corthout

[03:15] Who is Jeroen and what is SalesFlare?

[04:55] SalesFlare in Concept of Growing Influence

[08:30] How SalesFlare Put Out Content

[12:02] Tips in Ensuring Content Quality

[16:07] Repurposing Content

[17:34] The Approach on Hiring Experts

[21:33] What Kind of Experts or Influencers Should I Interview?

[22:53] The Process of Finding Podcasts

[28:27] Jeroen's Webinar Strategy

[31:19] Defining KPIs

[33:47] What Am I Missing Out By Not Using CRM Tool Like SalesFlare?

[38:55] Connect with Jeroen Corthout and SalesFlare

[40:05] Summary and Introduction to Future Podcast Guests & Topics

Notable Quotes

The way we go about this is first of all when we put out content of all types on our own channels, we focus very much on quality. And we focus very much on imagining whether if you see our posts in Google, why would you see our posts in Google, and what's the first thing you're gonna want to read and then build from there?
Keep delivering value consistently to people and keep building an audience outside of the people we already know.
So it these posts, it's not because you once published them that they're not valuable anymore, you can repost them, update them, bring them to people again, and make make sure that they deliver that value again.
It actually works much better if you focus on delivering that value and, and don't start selling too much.
It's just a matter of always keeping that that habit like we call it or that cadence like you call it, you will get to whatever it is you want to achieve.
We used to be very focused on reaching certain numeric goals. But then we started figuring that what helped us most if we would put consistent effort behind things, and this is not just when it comes to influencer marketing is all across the company. It's also the way we build the product.

Reference Links for Jeroen Corthout:

Jeroen's Company Salesflare: https://salesflare.com/
Jeroen on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jeroencorthout/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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New to Clubhouse? Trying to figure out how to get started and exactly what to do now that you have received that invite and joined the newest rage in social media?

Continuing on from my introduction to Clubhouse on episode 196, this episode will provide you with detailed hand-holding to help you navigate around the app and create a focused strategy that will help you Maximize Your Social Influence, even on Clubhouse.

If you're looking for an invite to the app, make sure you sign up to receive marketing communications from me on my website https://nealschaffer.com to get a chance to be invited when I get new invites to share!
Key Highlights

[00:40] Introduction

[03:46] The Basics of Clubhouse

[04:35] Clubhouse Number of Users

[07:05] How Can I Download and Get Into Clubhouse?
Where can I download the app and how can I create a profile to get into it?

[09:53] How Clubhouse Works

[11:02] Who Should I Follow on Clubhouse?
Is Clubhouse the same as other social media networks where I should just follow random people?

[12:28] The Notion of Follower-Following Ratio

[13:52] Other Aspects of Clubhouse

[15:21] What is a Club?

[15:55] How to Find People and Clubs in My Niche

[17:43] Accessing Your Clubhouse Profile
Learning more about the app's user interface.

[19:00] How to Go into Settings

[19:49] What is Clubhouse Frequency?

[20:40] Trending Rooms

[22:04] Cool Things About Clubhouse

[22:58] What is the "Upcoming For You" Feature?

[24:13] The Activity Feature

[25:20] How to Add People to Rooms and Ping Them

[26:03] How Can I Start My Own Room?

[27:17] The Viral Nature of Clubhouse

[34:51] Summary

Notable Quotes

So I recommend that you start small and here's the thing, like any other network, the earlier you get on and the more active you are, the more followers you will organically get over time.
Keep your followers small. And remember, follow those that you either know, or that you want to learn from.
You'll probably want to start following people and clubs based on your professional objective.
You'll want to make sure that everything you want people to find out about you and all those keywords that you want to be found for obviously are in your profile.
I would tend to want to invite more influential people than less influential people and people that would really appreciate it.
I found clubhouse is a great way to get back in touch with old friends that we haven't talked to especially because of Coronavirus.
The more active you are, the more followers, the more people that join your rooms, the more that this just gets spread.
So we're always in the give first mode. And when we give information, naturally, it's going to attract customers.
I highly recommend once you get your confidence to raise your hand and be as active as possible.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer: * Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/ * Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/ * The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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Have you ever wondered about how you can build influence by writing a book?

Have you ever thought about writing a book but the process seems to be overwhelming and you simply don't have enough time in the day?

This episode is for you!

I am joined today by best-selling author of The 100-Page Book, Mike Capuzzi, a prolific author who also helps business owners and entrepreneurs write and market their books.

In this interview we discuss:

The power of helping before selling and why books enable you to market and sell at a more sophisticated level.
The unique advantages of short, helpful books (shooks) and why often a short book is a smarter strategy than a traditional book.
The essential ingredients to authoring an effective shook.

Key Highlights

[03:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mike Capuzzi

[07:25] How Mike's Journey to Using Books to Increase His Influence Started

[12:03] Concept of Using Books in Increasing Influence
What is the idea of using books to increase my influence? How can books give me authority in the industry that I work in?

[13:33] What is a Book Centric Marketing Strategy

[14:53] Direct Response Book

[15:23] Is It Better to Have a Physical Book?

[17:06] Stories of Success

[25:51] Unique Advantages of Writing Short, But Helpful Books
Why writing shorter but helpful books is better than longer ones?

[29:06] The Essential Ingredients to Authorize an Effective, Smart, and Helpful Book

[32:27] Connect with Mike

[34:20] Summary

Notable Quotes

The power of being able to offer a book, a free book, specifically, is a strategy that is, you know, time tested
You promote the book as the solution to finding out more about how to solve that problem or to gain that advantage.
I always share that example sort of as an example of that local influence by tapping into other people's customers and rings of influence.
The book almost becomes part of this campaign, once it's published. It's something you can talk about, on your social channels, it's content, you can repurpose for your blog, it gives you an excuse to reach out to people.
And this is really a mistake a lot of authors make, they write a great book, they help the reader, but they don't give the reader what I call the next step. If someone is really into what you're sharing, they're naturally probably going to want more information from you, then they're going to want to know what the next step is.
So it's really it's about speed, design, focus, and really taking the reader to what I call the next step.
Just the process of writing a book allows you to sort of database and catalog your experiences and your expertise to put a framework behind it.

Reference Links for Mike Capuzzi:

Mike's Website: https://mikecapuzzi.com/
The 100-Page Book: https://amzn.to/3qWCOU9 [affiliate]

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

The 100-Page Book: The Business Owner’s Guide to Self-Publishing a Short Customer Attraction Book

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Have you heard of the latest rage in social media Clubhouse? Have you received an invite on your smartphone and unsure as to whether or not you should join? Are you on Clubhouse and still trying to figure out how to glean value from it? Let me share with you my own experiences with Clubhouse, describe its functionality in further details, and provide you with my advice on how to best maximize your social influence on Clubhouse.

Episodes Mentioned:

110: How to Generate Leads from Facebook with TabSite [Mike Gingerich Interview]
81: Ello? What's all this talk about ELLO?
48: How to Maximize Your Facebook Marketing [Interview with Mike Gingerich from TabSite]

Key Highlights

[01:30] How I Got Into Clubhouse

[03:51] Clubhouse in the Analogy of Google Plus

[06:35] How Can I Keep My Clubhouse Connection Back to My Network

[08:26] How Invites Work

[08:55] The Utilitarian Use of Social Media Network

[11:42] Creating Room in Clubhouse

[12:43] The Viral and Discoverability Aspect of Clubhouse

[13:03] What is a Club?

[14:20] Why People Like Clubhouse

[16:11] How and Who to Follow On Clubhouse?

[17:03] Radio Approach

[18:08] The Cor of Clubhouse

[19:53] What Happens When I Join A Room

[21:25] The Approach to Clubhouse from A Marketing Perspective

[22:06] How to Generate Income from Social Media Network

Notable Quotes

So if you're a new social media player, you need to do things a little bit differently.
When deciding whether to join a social network doesn't have enough momentum that it's going to be sticking around.
The second point is well, what is the utilitarian use for the social network.
Start to use it personally before you think about the marketing aspects of it. nd I think once you begin to look at it personally, you will discover the aspects that can help you maximize your social influence.
This platform definitely allows you to be discovered. People can do searches for people. And you can do searches for groups, or I should say clubs.
I recommend you join the clubhouse is that you begin as a way to tap into other people's thoughts and ideas.
I highly recommend you don't do that. only follow the people that you know that you really want to listen to.
Try to find people and follow people that add value. Try to follow clubs that you think might add value.
But if you take the approach that this is my personal ROI, of learning on a specific subject and or tapping, being able to listen in an intimate setting, and perhaps ask questions in an intimate setting of experts that I would love to tap into.
I believe the more people that follow you, like any other social network, the more people that follow you, and the more of these groups that you join and raise your hand on, the greater the ability for you to build out a little bit of influence in the network to build out a little bit of branding a name for yourself.
There are ways of generating income, but it has to come from adding value. And it has to come from building and developing relationships, just like with any other social media.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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This week I am the one being interviewed, and by no other than real estate visionary and CEO of the leading real estate network BerkshireHathaway Home Services, Chris Stuart. I have had a chance to work together with Chris and his company, and I have found that the real estate industry is especially ripe for innovation regarding their marketing communication. Keep your eye on BerkshireHathaway Home Services as they represent what the future holds for the industry!

Even if you are not involved in real estate, I highly recommend you listen to this episode as it gives you my best practices in using social media as part of your personal or business brand whether you are in sales, marketing, a business owner or an entrepreneur. I believe that real estate agents and brokers make up the largest number of salespeople in the United States, and considering that each one also is their own business owner, they need to be savvy at both sales and marketing. They also cannot meet their customers physically, so there is also a need for them, like yourself, to better digitally engage with their current customer base and prospective clients.

I'm confident by the end of the episode you will have found a few new ways to Maximize Your Social Influence regardless of industry.

Key Highlights

[05:57] Internet and Social Media's Roles on the Opportunity of Being Influential

[11:26] Bedrock Elements of Social Media and Influence

[15:35] The Concept of Marketing of Targeting Personas

[17:43] Content As The Currency of Social and Digital Media

[18:23] What is the Best Format of Content for Starters?

[22:50] Funnel of Relationships

[25:26] Best Practices on Collaboration

[29:33] Being Known Vs Being Influential

[32:02] The Line Between Yielding Influence and Manipulating

[34:45] Companies That Have Done a Great Job if Influencing or Being Influential

[39:34] Social Media Is Made for People

[41:45] The Journey of Establishing Trust and Influence

[44:19] Critical Areas of Focus on Establishing Influence Offline

[47:12] My Final Advice

Notable Quotes

So if you want to yield more influence on a certain topic, you need to talk about that topic. I think also knowing the end game, what are you trying to achieve with your influence.
The whole idea is that every single unique engagement is a unique opportunity to deepen that relationship and drive people even further down.
You need to have a digital gateway for your company and that is through the website.
I think being known is sort of the first step in becoming because of influence. Yes, they know you but there's also a sense of trust. They also sense some credibility.
It's not just having content that's focused, but really align with that target audience so that it helps you better reach your goals.

Reference Links for Chris Stuart:

Chris's Good to Know - All Things Real Estate Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/chris-stuart-good-to-know/id1510834471
Chris's Personal Website: https://stuspropertyviews.com/
BerkshireHathaway Home Services: https://www.bhhs.com/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-in

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What are my predictions for 2021? Instead of trying to predict the future, which I don't think anyone can do accurately, I'd like to offer you my advice as your virtual CMO. Focusing on those key areas that I am focusing on in writing my next book, here is where I would invest my marketing budget across Search, Email, and Social to help you reach your business goals and improve the digital and social media marketing for your organization or brand.

Episodes Mentioned:

192: My Marketing Technology Toolstack for 2021
191: The Technology and Tools You Need for Your Marketing Infrastructure (Part 1: WordPress Plugins)
185: Why You Need to Invest in Content Longevity and Discoverability Going Forward
183: Influencer Marketing for Search Engine Optimization: Building Backlinks for SEO
178: WHY You Need to and HOW to RESET Your Marketing TODAY [Jay Baer Interview]
138: Customer Experience Marketing: Why You Must Embrace It to Stand Out as a Business [Dan Gingiss Interview]

Key Highlights

[03:39] Evolution of Social Media

[05:28] Why You Need to Have Digital Presence

[07:29] The Digital Gateway

[08:20] Three Main Ways In Which You Touch People

[09:04] What Is Library of Content?

[10:04] The Importance of Keywords

[11:23] The Role of Backlinks

[14:29] Optimizing Your Paid Campaigns

[17:26] 4 Main Types of Content

[20:12] Why Email Marketing Is Still Effective

[22:09] The Aspect of Customer Education

[24:19] Final Part: Social

[25:23] Why You Need An Employee Influencer Program

[27:12] Leveraging User Generated Content

[28:31] Should I Go With Paid Social?

[31:47] Summary

Notable Quotes

Where we start with everything is we need to have a digital presence and the digital presence, the digital gateway becomes our website.
Do searches for keywords that are important to your company, and start to create lists, look at the keywords that are relevant to your company. Look at the search volumes, look at the Keyword Difficulty which sem rush and many others provide you. And then look at search intent, create a list, and then fill in the gaps.
If you have a lead magnet, that's where this type of content would come into play as a reason for them to provide their email address. This is where you can now begin to develop a relationship. It's all about like no one trust, beginning with your website, your digital discovery.
Email gives us the ability to really architect a series of messages, a type of engagement over a period of time, that will increase the chances of us being able to build, like knowing trust. Email is the area where you do not need to invest a lot of people, you need to have the right tool, and you need to architect the right marketing, automation, messages, and sequences.
You need to be continually building that list, continually communicating with current customers and prospects. And to do so, you're probably over time going to be creating more and more lead magnets
Every company should have an influence a program that includes your employees, that includes your partners, that includes your customers, your fans, it should be all-inclusive, that anybody who loves your brand, can play a role can share in the experience.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influenc

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Amanda Russell, author of The Influencer Code and Professor of Influencer Marketing at the University of Texas, Austin, joins me for a special interview about building influence in today's digital world. Amanda has an amazing life story of competing at a global level and then starting over from scratch, but her trained skills combined with intuition in seeking relationships with influencers and capitalizing on the opportunities that they brought her has led her to a successful career that my listeners can learn a great deal about influence from.

Our New Podcast!
* The School of Influence Podcast with Amanda Russell and Neal Schaffer: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/school-influence-podcast-amanda-russell-neal-schaffer/id1544198952

Key Highlights
[02:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Amanda Russell

[04:40] Who is Amanda?

[09:27] Transitioning from Athlete to Being An Influencer

[12:58] How Amanda Got Into Marketing and Advertising

[16:44] Amanda's Youtube Journey

[19:14] The Starting Point for Amanda for Social Media and Influencer Marketing

[23:01] Amanda's Frist Producer Film Editing

[26:31] Why Amanda Started Teaching at University

[32:31] The Story Behind "The Influencer Code"

[34:16] Amanda's Different Perspective In the Influencer Code

[37:01] How Amanda and I's Collaborative Relationship Started

[39:12] My Podcast with Amanda

[42:02] Our Podcast Launch

[42:45] Connect with Amanda

Notable Quotes

I think there's a difference between following your passion and being passionate about what you do. And sometimes, in order to get where you want, you have to do a lot of things you don't want to do. And sometimes you have to take steps to the side or what looks on paper like going backward.
People build the relationship, they build it with you. And so if you start swapping out people, you lose.
We forget that anytime you want to make a sale, if you want to get income, you have to work with people.
It begins with a sort of re-educating everything you know about influencer marketing because marketers and businesses have been misled.
Do you want to be known for what do you want to be known for, then that needs to be, and whether you like it or not, if you don't have a presence, then people are just going to develop for you.
Influencers, whatever it is, opportunities are so much easier to achieve. If we go up too often, we think that opportunities are so far out there.
We don't realize how easy things are to get if you can just figure out who are the influential forces. The things that we can achieve and the big brands or the big like pie in the sky ideas are so achievable if we just go after them.

Amanda Russell Links:
* The Influencer Code: https://amzn.to/3rEufyI (affiliate) * Amanda's Website: https://amandarussell.co/ * Amanda on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandarussellfss/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
* Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/ * Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/ * The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-in

The Influencer Code: How to Unlock the Power of Influencer Marketing

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This is part 2 (see Ep. 191 for part 1) of an introduction to my recommended marketing technology tools and apps for 2021, including a detailed breakdown of what tools I use and recommend for search engine optimization (SEO), content creation, writer marketplaces and tools, blogger outreach tools, backlink monitoring tools, website analytics, email marketing software, email verification, lead magnet promotion, social media dashboards, video marketing tools, and podcasting tools.

Tools Mentioned in the Episode

SEO Tools

SEMrush https://nealschaffer.com/semrush (affiliate)
Ahrefs https://ahrefs.com
Moz https://moz.com

Content Creation Tools

Frase https://frase.io
Clearscope https://clearscope.io

Writer Marketplaces & Tools

Upwork https://upwork.com
WriterAccess https://writeraccess.com
Copyscape https://copyscape.com

Blogger Outreach Tools

Respona https://respona.com
Postaga https://postaga.com/
Apollo https://apollo.io

Backlink Monitor Tools

Linkody https://www.linkody.com/
Linkio https://linkio.com
LinkMiner https://linkminer.com
Monitor Backlinks https://monitorbacklinks.com/
Backlink SEO https://backlinkseo.com

Website Analytics

Google Analytics https://analytics.google.com/
Wyzant https://www.wyzant.com/

Email Marketing Software

MailChimp https://mailchimp.com
MailerLite https://nealschaffer.com/mailerlite (affiliate)
ConvertKit https://convertkit.com
ActiveCampaign https://nealschaffer.com/activecampaign (affiliate)

Email Verification Tools

VoilaNorbert https://voilanorbert.com

Lead Magnet Tools

OptinMonster http://nealschaffer.com/optinmonster (affiliate)
LeadPages https://nealschaffer.com/leadpages (affiliate)
GetSiteControl http://nealschaffer.com/getsitecontrol (affiliate)

Social Media Dashboards

AgoraPulse https://nealschaffer.com/agorapulse (affiliate)
Sendible https://nealschaffer.com/sendible (affiliate)
SocialBee https://nealschaffer.com/socialbee (affiliate)
Tailwind https://nealschaffer.com/tailwind (affiliate)

Video Marketing Tools

VidIQ https://vidiq.com/
Zubtitle https://zubtitle.com/
Wave.Video https://wave.video/

Podcasting Tools

Buzzsprout https://nealschaffer.com/buzzsprout (affiliate)

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As we approach the end of the year, it's time to do an audit of our digital and social presence. One of the audits that I recommend you do on an annual basis is for all of the technology you use to support your marketing infrastructure to help you Maximize Your Social Influence. I intended this episode to be more comprehensive, but there are so many tools and apps that I would recommend, after going through Content Management Systems and WordPress plugins, I decided to divide this into a two-part series.

Even if you are not using WordPress or you think you have all of the plugins you need, I highly recommend you give this episode a listen so that you can hear about some functionality that your current website might not have!

Links for Select Tools Mentioned in the Episode:

Ad Inserter: https://wordpress.org/plugins/ad-inserter/
CoSchedule: https://nealschaffer.com/coschedule [affiliate link]
Fanciest Author Box: https://fanciestauthorbox.com/
Featured Images in RSS for Mailchimp & More: https://wordpress.org/plugins/featured-images-for-rss-feeds/
Link Whisper: https://nealschaffer.com/linkwhisper [affiliate link - use code neal15 for a 15$ discount]
LuckyWP Table of Contents: https://wordpress.org/plugins/luckywp-table-of-contents/
Monarch Plugin: https://www.elegantthemes.com/plugins/monarch/
OneSignal Push Notifications: https://wordpress.org/plugins/onesignal-free-web-push-notifications/
PublishPress Revisions: https://wordpress.org/plugins/revisionary/
Q2W3 Fixed Widget: https://wordpress.org/plugins/q2w3-fixed-widget/
ShortPixel Image Optimizer: https://wordpress.org/plugins/shortpixel-image-optimiser/
URL Shortener Pro by MyThemeShop: https://mythemeshop.com/plugins/url-shortener-pro/
WP Meta and Date Remover: https://wordpress.org/plugins/wp-meta-and-date-remover/
WP Rocket: https://nealschaffer.com/wprocket [affiliate link]
Yoast SEO Premium: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/

Previous Episodes Mentioned:

187: What If I Told You You Already Had Enough Content to be Successful?
91: Announcing the Social Tools Summit
71: Neal's Fave Social Media Productivity Tips & Tools
28: How to Audit Your Social Media Presence

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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Is there something holding you or your brand back from digital success? Could it be that you might be a little on the shy side when it comes to a social network, or content medium, or just in general? If so, this is the episode for you! Fellow digital marketing expert is going to help you understand:

How to move from shy introvert to showing up online
Why the idea that some people might not like you is a good thing.
How to best navigate all of the marketing advice and choices you have online into your own context.

This episode will dive into the psychology of how to become a better entrepreneur and marketer online.

Key Highlights

[01:27] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Bob Gentle

[06:17] How to Begin the Process from Being Shy to Showing Up Online

[12:45] Why You Need To Show Up

[15:40] Should You Worry About Negative Reactions?

[18:18] Be Yourself!

[19:52] How To Put Context Of Your Own

[20:34] What is a Content Portfolio?

[20:53] The Differences Between Short-term, Medium-term, and Long-term Investments

[25:03] Why Having Investment Portfolio Is Important?

[27:46] Bob's Advice And Recommendations On Where Should Clients Focus More Into 2021

[30:37] The Importance of Building Emotional Connection With Your Audience

[32:07] Connect With Bob

Notable Quotes

You can't necessarily do your best work because you're not reaching the right people. And the easiest way to do that is by building your profile online, building your personal brand, and building your influence. So I came to the point where I realized No, you just have to do this.
At some point, in a business, there's gonna be a crisis, whether it's self-inflicted, or from competition. It's just not easy. And you constantly have to pivot and deal with these crisis situations. And I almost think that showing up, if you're not able to do that, as a business owner, as an entrepreneur, you're not going to be able to deal with actually more critically important crises to your business.
And the recommendation by all experts, including my own about consistency, right, is that if you show up consistently, the algorithm recognizes that you have a greater chance of showing up in the feeds of your potential customers consistently.
And everything you should, everything you do online should really be for that third of people that are just going to connect with it, they're going to like it. And you have to embrace that the other two-thirds of people don't really matter to you, they're not your audience, there will be a small proportion who won't like it. But you can't have success online. without accepting that two-thirds of people are not for you.
If you worry about those that don't like you, you fail to serve those that do like you.
If you want to be successful in business, you need to be a critical thinker.
I realized that the more you show of yourself your raw humaneness, the more and deeper you can connect with others.

Guest Links

Bob's Digital Marketing Agency: https://amplifyme.agency/
Bob's "The Digital Marketing Entrepreneur Show" podcast: https://amplifyme.agency/podcast/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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Since publishing The Age of Influence, my thoughts on influencer marketing and social media marketing in general continue to evolve. As I prepare for the writing of my next book, I wanted to share with you my latest views on how you and your business can best leverage social media for marketing in 2021 and beyond: By looking at social media as a marketplace for collaboration and strategically moving social media users through your funnel of Social Media Relationships.

Key Highlights

[02:55] The Concept of Social Media Relationships

[04:29] Why Are You Not Getting More From Social Media?

[05:17] Social Media Is About Collaboration

[07:36] The Funnel of Social Media Relationships

[08:05] Getting Your Audience In The Tier of Followers and Engagers

[09:28] Social Share of Voice

[12:25] Why You Should Not Ignore Engagements From Your Followers

[17:28] The ROI of Deepening Relationships With People

[18:18] Why You Need to Incite Word of Mouth Marketing

[21:06] Working With Influencers

[23:53] What Can You Get from Collaborating with Influencers?

[26:10] Invest In People Instead of Paid Advertising

Notable Quotes

The algorithms favor people's content over businesses content because businesses tend to post promotional content.
Social media should not be about marketing, but about collaboration.
Just by sort of retooling how we think about social media, I believe, you begin to measure the right activities.
If you listen, it gives you infinite source of data regarding consumer demographics and buying trends. It helps you gauge consumers interests, how they interact with competitors, and content. And it helps measure the aggregate interaction between a brand and the public.
Every engagement that you get on social media is an opportunity to deepen that relationship.
Instead of thinking of social media as how many clicks that I get still important, but maybe it's how many people that I engage in conversation today.
Social media when when it was born, it was all about word of mouth marketing, that just does not happen organically any more. We need to incite word of mouth marketing.
We Truly treasure, not just the relatability, but also the authenticity and the realness that people bring that it's just hard for businesses to replicate.
The biggest ROI of you know, going above and beyond advocacy is the byproduct of influencer relationships, which is content, the content that you can co-create, or you can have created for you can be a big boon for all of your digital marketing.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about My Fractional CMO Consulting Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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A lot of businesses don't realize that, like blogs, podcasts are not just a personal content medium but can also be used by businesses. To explain the various benefits of podcasting for businesses, I am joined by Robert Loewenthal, Founder and CEO of Whooshkaa, Australia's leading podcast hosting solution who have been successfully expanding globally as we speak.

Robert will help enlighten you on:

How some companies are using targeted podcasts as part of their outbound sales and marketing.
What is a branded podcast?
How can podcasts help bridge the communication gap during covid?

Episodes mentioned in the show:
179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting
175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts

Key Highlights

[02:52] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Robert Loewenthal

[05:11] Who is Robert and Whooshkaa?

[06:45] How Robert Come Up with the Name Whooshka

[11:49] Using Podcast As Part of Outbound Sales and Marketing

[15:52] How Podcasting Work Traditionally

[17:16] Private Podcast

[20:07] Is It Easier to Create Audio Content Than Video Content?

[22:09] What Are Branded Podcasts?

[23:44] An Example of Creative Storytelling from A Brand

[24:54] Ways of Leveraging Podcast

[26:38] Podcast AS A Tool of Bridging Communication Gap

[27:30] Why Internal Communication Strategy Is Important

[31:00] The Supply and Demand of Podcasting

[32:48] Additional Podcast Statistics

[34:21] Connect with Rob and Whooshkaa

[35:13] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

If you want to yield influence as a person or as a business, you need to publish content.
You've got a one-on-one relationship with a potential prospect. And you're positioning yourself as a subject matter expert, and they're listening to you.
Podcast can also be just a purely means for communication.
The trick with good branded content is actually just telling a great story, and making sure the listeners know that you're associated with it, so that they walk away thinking, that's a forward-thinking brand.
An advantage of audio is its mobility.
But audio once again, use it as a strategy to complement those other messages and get your message out there.
As a CEO, you've got to be thick and deep in the weeds when it comes to product and marketing. So you've got to keep showing up every day.
It doesn't hurt to make your content work harder, and have an audio strategy. There are two recommendations. Obviously, they're very self serving. But we see clients all the time customers podcast is doing this successfully. And it's not just a fad. This is a definite trend that will continue for the next 1020 years.
Once you feel like you have your library of content on your website, that's where you want to look to expand, and maybe just maybe podcast, he may be right for you, or for your business.

Guest Links

Whooshkaa: https://www.whooshkaa.com/
Robert Lowenthal on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rob-loewenthal-8a66804/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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We are told that, in order to yield more digital influence and be more successful in digital marketing, that we need to create more and more content, and the more content the better.

But is that really the case?

I will tackle this myth using my own real-life experience and instead help you transition off that hamster wheel of content to something that requires a fraction of the resources and will help you become more successful!

Episodes mentioned in the show:

186: Content Marketing: Why It is Now a Business Strategy [Mariah MacInnes Interview]
185: Why You Need to Invest in Content Longevity and Discoverability Going Forward
183: Influencer Marketing for Search Engine Optimization: Building Backlinks for SEO
137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition
129: How Fresh is Your Content? A "Fresh" Look at Content Marketing

Key Highlights

[01:34] Content As The Currency of Social Media

[04:26] Old Content Still Bring Value

[05:31] The Supply and Demand of Content Medium

[06:27] Longevity of Content

[08:25] Keyword Cannibalization

[09:16] Why You Need to Refresh Your Old Content

[11:04] Do You Really Need Too Much Content?

[12:21] The Power of Backlinks

[14:00] Tools For Determining 404 Website Errors

[14:35] Why You Need to Clean Up 404 Errors

[16:22] Avoid Competing Blog Posts That Compete for the Same Keywords

[20:30] The Importance of Targeting the Right Keywords

[21:48] Do A Regular Audit of Your Content

[22:26] Library of Content

[23:04] My Process of Targeting Customers At Every Stage of Funnel

[27:42] Performing Search Intent

[32:06] The Hamster Wheel of Content Revision

Notable Quotes

But if you think about it, you know, every influencer is a content creator, not every content creator becomes an influencer. But content is sort of the currency of digital and social media.
Number one, they're always revising it. And number two, they're realizing they don't need to create new content for it. They are revising old content and republishing it as new content.
So the more old content you have, the more you feel compelled to generate backlinks in order to get those content to appear higher in search engine rankings. And therefore the more work right, it once becomes a logistical nightmare.
Because the more content you have, the larger the database, the more resources in terms of memory storage that the web host server requires.
I want whenever Google indexes my content, I want them to be assured that it's going to stay evergreen, if it's not, it's going to be revised or it's going to be forwarded. But every single piece of content is index worthy, and it is link worthy and what have you.
Library of content that will help potential customers not only find you, but educate them on their buying journey so that they end up buying from you and you alone.
You need to understand what is your target customer at every stage of the funnel, what type of content might they be searching for on Google, do some keyword analysis and then create the content.
I think you need to have a mindset shift that says revise, refresh, and republish.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

Contact Me about Fractional CMO Services:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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Join me in this interview with "Content Queen" Mariah MacInnes as we go deep into the value that content has for your business. Among other things, Mariah provides a refreshing perspective on:

the four pillars you can implement into your content strategy so you never run out of content ideas
how to be more consistent with content creation without it consuming your time
the actions you need to take to ensure you get more engagement with your content online.

Key Highlights

[00:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mariah MacInnes

[04:41] How Mariah Got Into Content Marketing

[08:55] Implementing Content Strategy with Four Different Pillars

[12:40] Educating Through Storytelling

[13:25] The Importance of Listening to Your Audience

[14:49] Why You Need to Share

[17:25] How 4 Pillars Work Differently

[22:22] How to Be Consistent in Content Creation

[23:20] Repurposing Content

[24:38] Create Content Strategy Based On Your Personality

[29:52] Actions To Do To Ensure Engagement from Content

[31:00] Look At Your Statistics!

[31:38] Why Two-Way Communication Matters

[37:22] Connect With Mariah

[38:16] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

Marketing is not just content marketing. It is now a business strategy of its own.
A really key driver to one of those pillars you mentioned was, which is the website, our main objective, from our content, especially as a business is to get people to our website so that we can, you know, convert.
So to inform is to promote, to educate is to of course educate, to engage, is to have that two-way communication, and really bring your audience into your content through questions through storytelling.
Continue to share because even if you're not directly saying, hey, buy this, you know, do this do that you're actually building up these fans rather than just followers.
It comes down to being really honest with yourself and not having those really high expectations.
I think the one thing we forget about consistency with content is you know your topic.
I always recommend I don't think people do enough at it is look at what the stats are telling you.
It's all about, you know, really harnessing on that social part of social media, or even with content, it is a very social thing. And as humans, we are designed for connection.
It's not a matter of having more content, it's a matter of having the right content.
When it comes to content creation, you really do have to love it.

Guest Links:

Mariah's Website: https://www.contentqueenmariah.com/
Mariah's Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/contentqueen_mariah/
Mariah's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariahmacinnes/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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As we close out a year and enter a new one, it's time to holistically look at our digital and social media marketing strategy.

If content is the currency of digital and social media, where should we be investing our content creation efforts going forward?

Here's my advice, where I really juxtapose social media with all other content in terms of longevity and discoverability to give you a clear picture as to where to get the biggest bang for your marketing buck going forward.

Episodes mentioned in the show:
179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting

Key Highlights

[01:19] Where Should We Be Making Strategic Investments Moving Forward?

[02:50] The Problem With Social Media

[05:55] How Social Media Should Be Displaced

[06:39] The Lifespan of Content in Social Media

[07:39] Content Mediums

[10:14] You Need to Be Everywhere!

[11:00] Which Medium Should I Strategically Focus On?

[12:06] Going All In

[12:55] Redefining Social Media Strategy

[13:28] Content Discoverability and Longevity

[14:22] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

It's really time to take a step back combined with obviously the pandemic that we continue to exist in. And the realization that we need to get better at creating relationships digitally, with consumers and with buyers.
If you're going to be on the content, hamster wheel, don't you want to be on a hamster wheel that has more impact, where it has more longevity, as well as discoverability.
And here's the thing, you can't just have all your eggs in one basket, you need to be everywhere.
So you need to be everywhere. And you can't be everywhere. So you need to choose your priorities.
But there's a lot of people that are looking for podcasts. And once they get engaged in the podcast, it is a very, very special relationship that you build with people.
And I think if you go all in, you can really make an impact.
And I think that the Coronavirus, forced us those that weren't as invested in digital as we should have been, to really do that I do believe this decline in social media reach should be pushing us more to do more collaborations with influencers.
They were able to create their kingdoms on these other platforms where there's more longevity more discoverability, and then translate that into a large social media presence, which continues that brand awareness.
You don't necessarily have to be posting content every day. You don't even have to post your own content every day. But it frees you up to truly engage with others and find your customers find your fans. Find your collaboration partners. And I think that is going to be the best time invested in social media.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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Today's special guest is Mitchell Levy, global authority on credibility and the author of the brand new book Credibility Nation. In this episode Mitchell breaks down why understanding your customer's pain point is the key to success in digital and social media, specifically:

Why whatever you do in digital and social media, your messaging should be focused on your audience and not yourself
How to create an audience-centric mindset
How to revise your digital and social media marketing strategy with your audience in mind

Key Highlights

[02:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mitchell Levy

[04:58] Who is Mitchell?

[06:46] Understanding the Area of Audience Pain Point

[10:17] Value Proposition

[11:46] Examples of Brands that Articulates Their CPOP

[15:54] How to Put Your Mission Statement Into Your Branding

[17:22] What is CPOP?

[18:25] The Three-Step Process to CPOP

[22:53] How Mitchell Recommends His Listeners to Foster An Audience Centric Mindset

[26:21] The Process of Creating An Audience-Centric Mindset

[27:56] Mitchell's Recommendation on Revising Your Marketing Strategy to Align to Customer-Centric View

[31:36] How Does the Audience-Centric View Apply to Your Brand's Credibility?

[33:19] The Credibility Nation Book

[36:40] Connect with Mitchell

Notable Quotes

Credibility is not a word, it is a way of being. And if you're not credible, you're dubious. And so the question you always want to ask yourself is do people perceive you as credible or dubious credibility.
If you can't come across as somebody who wants to serve others, if you can't come across as somebody who truly understands what it is your client base your prospects base is looking for, and it doesn't come across from an authority perspective, somebody else will.
In today's world, so much of our business comes from us from word of mouth marketing. And if somebody your who knows you and remembers your see pop, when they went across one of their friends, they want to be supportive.
This is not getting my audience to say, Tell me more. And at the end of the day, your job a good see Pop is a magnet.
The process of creating an audience-centric mindset begins with defining that customer point of pain and really continuing to internalize it, share it, optimize it, bounce it off other people.
Credibility is being known, being likable, and being trustworthy. And by being known, it's not that I know of you, it's that I know your intent, your commitment, your desire to serve others, your integrity.
Position yourself better before the competitors come along and take things away because what they're going to do is they want to hear they actually want to hear from your true clients what their pain point was and what you helped solve.

Reference Links for Mitchell Levy:

Mitchell Levy's Website: https://mitchelllevy.com/

Credibility Nation on Amazon: https://amzn.to/37FMegx [affiliate]

Credibility Nation Memberships: https://lifelonglearning.credibilitynation.com/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
Contact me here if you're interested in my Fractional CMO service: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-i

Credibility Nation: For Professionals Who Want to Be Seen as Credible

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You're blogging - check. You're doing your keyword research and focusing on competitive keywords - check. You're optimizing all of your blog posts for SEO - check.

You're probably doing all of the above, but you're still not ranking in Google - why?

That is exactly the situation I was in until I embarked on doing some research. And from that research, I have come to some conclusions.

The final frontier of SEO and ranking in search engines is in generating backlinks. And if you want to generate backlinks you need to be proactive in doing so.

This episode will hopefully be an eye-opener for you as I introduce my own research and methodology so that you can maximize your own social influence.

Episodes Mentioned in the Show:

181: How to Optimize Your Content Publishing on Your Blog and Social Media
177: The 11 Blogging Mistakes Your Business _Might_ Be Making
160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]
137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition

Key Highlights

[02:46] The Three Pillars of Digital Marketing That Every Company Needs

[03:24] Site Usability and Interface

[04:52] Three Areas I Recommend To Rank for Your Blog Posts

[06:00] Understanding Keyword Research

[07:34] The Primary Purpose of Blogging

[10:12] All About Backlinking

[12:47] How to Do A Backlink and Domain Authority Analysis

[13:29] Ways to Get Backlinks

[14:52] Three Different Areas Where High Domain Sites Get Backlinks

[17:51] What Does Linking Out Do?

[18:30] Blogging Outreach

[23:45] What Is A Link Swap?

[25:26] Why You Need to Focus On Your Site's Influence

[29:25] Paid Approach

Notable Quotes

The first thing before even writing blog content is to understand the keyword research. It starts with the keyword research for your website.
When people are linking to you, it means that they're listening, and they're paying attention. And as more and more people pay attention to what you say, you get more links back to your property. And Google sees you have a lot of authority.
So when done, right, guest blogging is extremely impactful, and can really help the SEO of your own blog posts that you link to.
Do this backlink analysis, find a lot of websites that are linking back to your competitor, not to you, if they are blog content, pay attention to the writers.
If it's done in a natural, organic way you're serving, at the end of the day, the reader looking for information, and hopefully, your information is better than your competitors. And this increases the chance that they find your information.
When your site has more influence, it becomes easier to guess a blog.

Reference Links:

My Instagram: https://instagram.com/nealschaffer
SEMrush: https://nealschaffer.com/semrush (affiliate)
Brandon Gailie's The Blogging Millionaire Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blogging-millionaire/id1072931592
Neil Patel: https://neilpatel.com

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-prev

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Join me for this insightful interview with branding guru, fellow podcaster, and YouTube influencer Philip VanDusen. We talk all about the power of networking and the impact it can have on your business, especially as we are in the midst of this coronarvirus pandemic. Some of the things we discussed include:

How the pandemic has effected our decision-making power
The power of mastermind groups
How "natural networking" - in a new way - can help you scale your business quickly

Key Highlights

[03:28] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Philip VanDusen

[07:22] The Effects of Pandemic in Networking

[08:39] Things About Social Media that Influencers Need to Pay More Attention

[11:13] Why People Need Confidence and Affirmations

[14:51] Imposter Syndrome

[16:24] Why You Need to Reach Out

[19:13] What People Are Missing Out Because of COVID?

[20:49] The Guild Effect

[23:58] What Made Philip Decide In The Mastermind

[27:11] How To Go About Finding Mastermind?

[36:03] Difference Between Mastermind And Group Coaching

[38:18] Connect With Philip

Notable Quotes

People need affirmation. And I think that people were getting those sorts of affirmations or kind of support of their decisions and their movements, without even realizing it, when we were in those office situations or studio situation.
If you take the same kind of perspective, with networking, then, and reaching out on social media and that more one to one way, it becomes a lot less than intimidating, and it's a little less scary in terms of feeling rejected or ignored.
And I think you know, one of the things that hold people back from doing this is that you know that insecurity the imposter syndrome rejection feeling of possibility of being rejected.
And I think that with Coronavirus, because we are disconnected, that whole learning process of that comes from networking, right? Because it is a give and take, but just the things you learn from people, it just is so invaluable.
It is not just self serving as a content producer, it is amplifying your message to a broader audience and, you know, creating a geometric progression of the value that you're putting out into the world.
Businesses need people, they need people to buy for them, their products and services, but people don't buy from brands, people buy from people, people want to do business with people, the more you can humanize what you do, and to downscale what you do from brand to person, the better off you're going to be in terms of making connection.

Guest LinksPhilip VanDusen on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCd2J-PizcFDxWHBBfRkp38Q

Philip's Website: https://philipvandusen.com/

The Brand Design Masters Podcast: https://philipvandusen.com/bdmpodcast

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
Contact Me About My Fractional CMO Services: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/

Be the First to Know About My 90-Day Group Coaching Program: https://nealschaffer.com/membership/

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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As you publish more blog posts and content throughout social media on a wide variety of subjects that are relevant to your business, how do you know which content is performing better or worse? How can you take that engagement data and feed it back into your publishing infrastructure to create more or less content about what types of content that are relevant to your company, and in doing so generating higher and higher ROI for whatever metric you are tracking?

In this episode I introduce a quarterly content audit which I just started doing which gives you specific instructions of how to do this with your own content using my own blog as a case study. You'll learn about the concept of content buckets that I introduced back in 2013 in my Maximize Your Social book and how to apply that in PDCA style with a data-driven approach which allows you to further optimize your marketing with every (quarterly) iteration!

Episodes mentioned in the show:

137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition

Key Highlights

[01:06] The Notion of Regular

[04:20] Why You Need to Categorize Your Content

[05:58] My Process of Categorizing and Analyzing the Performance of My Content

[08:34] Guest Blogger Application

[09:03] The Process of Audit

[12:08] Performing Keyword Search

[15:17] Google Analytics

[15:42] My Formula of Analyzing My Content Performance

[16:10] The Metrics I Am Looking At When Auditing

[21:00] How the Process of Audit Helped Me

[24:17] Summary

Notable Quotes

It really comes down to no matter what business you are, you have various products or services, you have various demographics, various needs various solutions. And you can organize your content into these different buckets, these different categories of content.
And what happens when you begin with this process is over the course of time, if you go back, you're going to realize that some categories performed better on some networks than others.
On YouTube, it's a lot easier for content creators to compete with brands, because so few brands, get it and do it. But a blog is something that brands can become more influential, they just have more resources to pour into buying content, buying SEO services, and what have you.
It's about quality, not quantity.
It gives you a really, really good feel as to what content you should be publishing more of less of how you should pivot, you only get here until you have a minimum number of content.
So when you have that mindset, when you have the process when you do the audit, and obviously you have to have the content and be active on social media for this to work, you can begin to craft a really, really great data driven system to optimize your content for whatever metrics you want to follow.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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If you want to yield influence in digital and social media you need to become a content creator. Not all content has the same longevity or impact, but if you wanted to make the biggest bang for your buck and create the most impactful content that can help drive your business, a book is the answer. You'll find out why in this interview with published author, speaker, and entrepreneur Josh Steimle who will share with you the why as well as how to get started, how to keep going and not burn out, and how to leverage your book to grow your business.

Episodes mentioned in the show and related spisodes:
179: The What, Why, and How of Podcasting

175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts

149: How to Become a Published Author [Lee Constantine from Publishizer Interview]

Key Highlights

[03:31] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Josh Steimle

[05:06] How Josh Started Marketing and His Writing Career

[07:10] Why Books Are the Best Way to Influence Business Audience and Leaders

[09:10] The Process of Writing Josh's First Book

[12:00] Getting Access to CMOs

[13:33] The Networking Power in Content Creation Process

[14:34] How Can You Get Started in Writing A Book?

[16:43] How to Find People to Work With Your Book?

[19:41] The Process of Putting Pen to Paper

[20:30] Ways You Can Get Content Out Other Than Writing

[22:06] Should You Hire A Ghostwriter?

[24:51] Josh's Advice on How to Avoid Getting Burned Out Midway Through Writing Process

[27:31] Can I Blog My Book?

[29:28] Self Publishing VS Publishers

[34:13] How to Leverage Book to Grow Your Business

[35:07] Ways You Can Market Your Book

[39:55] Connect with Josh and Know More About His Program

Notable Quotes

Social media, it's great. It's got its place. But it's temporary. Whereas a book, it's kind of forever.
For those people listening, hopefully, you see the power of having a book and the very even if you don't sell many copies, there's so much value in not only in writing it and what can happen, but in the process itself.
The first step is to look at your identity, who you are, what your role is, what you're trying to accomplish and create some sort of vision from that.
Getting very clear on what that vision is, and the purpose or the why behind your book is really the first step because that dictates everything that you do after that.
Everybody's got a book in them, but not everybody necessarily should write that book themselves.
One of the key tools to combat burnout or writer's block when you're writing a book is to have an outline that you created the beginning a clear outline, Josh Bernoff calls it a fat outline an outline with a lot of detail in it.
Having that strong purpose. Having that why is another way to keep from burnout.
It's like they say a book is a business card on steroids. And you don't have to have a best seller to make it worth it for you.

Contact Josh Steimle

Published Author Program: https://www.publishedauthor.com/

Meltwater Social Media FestivalRegister for free here:https://nealschaffer.com/meltwater

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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If you are a marketer, entrepreneur, or business owner and you are listening to this podcast, why aren't you creating your own?

Podcasts are easier to create than you might think.

They are also one of the most powerful forms of influencer marketing, as I will explain to you in this episode.

If you've been on the sidelines, this episode will hopefully push you over the edge into launching your own podcast!

Episodes mentioned in the show:
175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts

Links mentioned in the show: (affiliate)

External Microphones for Podcast Recording:

Samson Q2U: https://amzn.to/32WJJn9
Audio Technica ATR2100: https://amzn.to/3j3LOna
Blue Yeti: https://amzn.to/32TWoqW
RODE Podcaster: https://amzn.to/3iSKW4u

Podcast Hosts:

Buzzsprout: https://nealschaffer.com/buzzsprout
Libsyn
Anchor.fm
Captivate
Whooshkaa

Outsourcing Help:

Fiverr: https://nealschaffer.com/fiverr
Upwork

Podcast Audio Recording Software

Squadcast: https://nealschaffer.com/squadcast
Zencaster
Zoom
Skype
Google Meet

Key Highlights

[06:35] The Most Misunderstood Form of Marketing

[09:04] Why It Is Powerful To Have a Podcast

[09:44] Influencer Marketing in Podcasting

[10:40] Four Main Types of Content Mediums

[11:28] Podcast Statistics

[12:18] The Average Hours Podcast Listeners Spend On Listening to Podcasts Every Week

[12:44] How Podcast Generates Relationships

[12:33] The Currency of Digital Marketing

[13:45] How to Repurpose Podcast

[14:42] 7 Points You Need To Get Started in Podcasting

[16:51] 5 Choices of Platform to Create and Upload Your Podcast

[18:12] Conclusion

Notable Quotes

Not only can you ask other people to be on your podcast when I'm talking about other people, but I'm also talking about influencers in your industry, other content creators, you can now access their audience by appearing on their podcast as a guest.
Every influencer is a content creator.
That is a significant time that they are investing in your content more than any other network really more than any other type of content medium or social media. That is a unique thing that podcasting has going for it.
Another great thing about podcasts is they generate content, you need content for everything that you do in digital and social media. It is the currency of digital marketing.
Podcasting is the ultimate media in which you can repurpose.
But I want to end this really short and sweet episode by seeding you with what I wish everybody had taught me when I started podcasting, you don't need to overthink this.
There's no extra advice needed. You're all set. Don't overthink it, do it implement action, execute.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

Audio-Technica ATR2100x-USB Cardioid Dynamic Microphone (ATR Series)

Samson Technologies Q2U USB/XLR Dynamic Microphone Recording and Podcasting Pack (Includes Mic Clip, Desktop Stand, Windscreen and Cables), silver

Blue Yeti USB Mic for Recording and Streaming on PC and Mac, Blue VO!CE effects, 4 Pickup Patterns, Headphone Output and Volume Control, Mic Gain Control, Adjustable Stand, Plug and Play – Blackout

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The digital first mindset that your business needs to survive today is only part of the story. My special guest for today, the legendary marketing author and speaker Jay Baer, argues that the circumstances that we live in today require every business to function as a startup and create an entirely new relationship with your customers and potential clients.

Listen in as Jay gives some specific advice as to how to do this - hint: "FAQ" is a strategic keyword here - as well as also provides some strategic wisdom around the customer experience marketing gap that he sees and why it is critical to close it to remain relevant today.

Key Highlights

[03:07] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jay Baer

[05:20] Who Is Jay and His Books

[09:05] Jay's Advice To Other Businesses On Resetting Marketing Strategy

[10:58] The Power of FAQs

[13:41] Jay's Advice on Post-Coronavirus Customer Experience

[17:36] Three Things Customer Care About

[19:16] Why You Need To Be Quick?

[23:40] Making Your FAQ Better

[29:58] Where Should You Focus If You Want To Acquire New Customers?

[32:21] Pivot Needs To Be Part of Your Business DNA

[33:58] Connect With Jay

[34:21] Final Advice

Notable Quotes

Today, in the strange kind of COVID times, it doesn't really matter whether you've been in business for five years or 25 years or 75 years or 115 years. Every business today has to function essentially like a startup. Because you have to fundamentally rewire the relationships between your business and your customers, and prospective customers. You can't take any customer knowledge for granted.
Customer experience is a term of art that was invented to describe what is in reality, a collection of hundreds of individual intersection points, between any business and any customer. The customer experiences the totality of every decision you make about your business.
Especially right now, where everybody has that uncertainty that that confusion in their head, that dissonance that on us, the faster you can eliminate that the more people will appreciate it.
Whatever the situation might be in your organization, making the relationship between your business and the customers transcend the transaction.
Everything about the pandemic sucks. We're all on the same page. But trust me when I tell you, you will never have this opportunity again. So you can either go under a tortoise shell and bemoan the fact that everything sucks, or you can continue to be unhappy about that, but recognize that from a business standpoint, this opportunity is unlikely to reoccur, and you can completely re-engineer your business for the better if you choose to do so.

Jay Baer Links:

Convince & Convert: https://www.convinceandconvert.com/

Jay Baer: https://www.jaybaer.com/

Social Pros Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/social-pros-podcast/id499844469

Episodes Mentioned in the Show:

138: Customer Experience Marketing: Why You Must Embrace It to Stand Out as a Business [Dan Gingiss Interview]

35: Youtility: Jay Baer Shares Insights on Mobile, Content Marketing, and Social Media

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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I have been blogging since 2008, and to be honest with you I really didn't think strategically about blogging since fairly recently when I started talking about the freshness of content on episode 129 almost two years ago. Since then I have come to realize the mistakes of my own blog as well as those that I have helped in a variety of capacities over the years. Since Google is the biggest digital influencer of them all, I wanted to share with you the 11 blogging mistakes that I see businesses make yet very few podcasters or people in the blogosphere talk about. I hope after listening to this episode you will have a much more strategic look at blogging and how impactful it can be for your business.

For those of you interested in my fractional / outsourced CMO service, please contact me here: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/

Episodes mentioned in the show:
160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]
137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition
129: How Fresh is Your Content?

Key Highlights

[04:57] Three Areas of Digital and Social Media Marketing
[08:23] The Base of Digital Influence
[11:10] How to Perform Keyword Research
[13:51] How to Perform Search Intent
[15:35] Why Blogging One Topic is Better than Random Things
[21:03] Mistake #4: Being Found for Branded Keywords
[22:41] Mistake #5 Being Outranked for Branded Keywords
[24:08] Mistake #6: Targeting Low Volume Keywords
[26:44] Keyword Stuffing
[29:22] My Keyword Rule
[31:43] Why You Need to Find Strategic Keyword

Notable Quotes

We're just seeing an acceleration of this digital transformation that people have always been digital-first. And now businesses are forced to be digital-first. So when we think about digital, right, how do we engage with our customers? How do we find new clients? It comes down to digital and social media is actually part of that digital
When we talk about digital and social media influence, there was no one more influential than Google.
The reason I like to pick one topic, like influencer marketing, is you want to build authority in that topic in Google's eyes, you want that to outweigh other content on your blog on your website.
You need to have non-branded content. And this goes into, you know, the whole idea of a blog is it's giving your company a social voice, it's allowing you to build influence with Google, by blogging on content that people are actually searching for.

Links mentioned in the show:

SEMrush: https://nealschaffer.com/semrush [affiliate link]
The Blogging Millionaire on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blogging-millionaire/id1072931592
Ahrefs study on blog traffic: https://ahrefs.com/blog/search-traffic-study/
The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/
Yoast SEO Plugin: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence

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Today the Godfather of content marketing, Joe Pulizzi, joins me as a special guest to help you find opportunity in the midst of the coronavirus. Our episode on "Corona Marketing" led us to talk about a wide variety of things your company can be doing _today_to grow your business despite the times that we live in. These include:

How marketers can cut through clutter with their content.
Strategies on how to build an audience in a recessionary environment.
What subscriber channels make the most sense to drive revenue.

Key Highlights

[06:05] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Joe Pulizzi

[8:00] Where to Start Resetting Content Strategy After the Pandemic

[12:10] Content Energy

[14:57] Creating Emotional Connection Using Digital Tools

[23:36] Understanding Who's Engaging in Your Content And Who's Not

[31:10] Instilling Passionate Influencers Into Content Marketing

[33:57] Strategies and How to Build Audience In A Recessionary Environment

[40:38] Different Subscriber Channels That Drive Revenue

[43:06] Joe's Take on Virtual Events

Notable Quotes

This is the opportunity now where you can really focus on building an audience focusing on the relationship with that audience and start saying no to things.
You only have so much energy for content creation and distribution, there are only so many things you can do to the audience that you focus on.
Now is the time to reset, ask yourself the tough questions. What really, who am I really trying to target? What is the story I'm trying to tell? How is that story truly differentiated? Because to your point, if it's not truly differentiated, you're never gonna cut through all this clutter? You really have to have something special. It's hard to have something special when your attention is all over the place.
Perhaps because of the Coronavirus and so many companies are trying to think more digital-first realizing this is the only way to really engage. Maybe they are seeing how they can create more than emotional connection and really serve.
What this is honestly, what I would like to see it not everybody has to have a content marketing strategy. You could still traditional market your way to some success. But I would like people to choose, I like either to do it and do it really, really well. Or don't do it at all.
What do we in this whole ballgame for our job in marketing is to maintain or change the behavior of our customers and our audience? And if you're not doing that with something that you're from a content standpoint, then it's probably time to stop it.
I think we'd agree that what's happening with the pandemic is going to forever change a lot of things about how we communicate about a lot of different things. So really, now is the best time to figure that out.
The most important thing that I see is I want you to move from your followers and your fans and your subscribers on social platforms and move and convert those to email as quickly as you can.

Joe Pulizzi Links:
Joe Pulizzi's Website: https://www.joepulizzi.com/

Joe Pulizzi's books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Z3LMUl

Corona Marketing [Free Ebook]: https://www.joepulizzi.com/corona-marketing/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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I got really serious about podcasting in 2020 142 episodes after I began this podcast. I got even more serious with the publication of The Age of Influence, utilizing this podcast to build a community that listens to podcasts. Utilizing podcasting as a form of influencer marketing to help incite word-of-mouth marketing about my book has taken my understanding of the significance that podcasting can have for any business or entrepreneur to a completely different level.

By teaching you what I have experienced and learned, I believe you will not look at podcasting the same just as The Age of Influence and this podcast have hopefully helped you look at influencers and influencer marketing in a completely different way.

Key Highlights

[05:00] Why Podcasts Are Great Medium

[05:55] Why I Got More Into Podcasting

[06:50] The Reason I Become Passionate About Getting Onto Other People's Podcasts

[08:28] How To Get Bloggers Talk About You

[10:33] Benefits Of Interviewing Other People In Your Podcast

[13:55] Building Relationships With Other Influencers

[15:28] What I Learned From Guesting On Other Podcasts

[16:38] Finding Your Own Voice Through Guesting

[18:15] Benefits Of Collaboration

[19:11] Podcasting Helps In Yielding Influence

[21:21] 2 Things To Remember

[24:50] Conclusion

Notable Quotes

Number one, it definitely helps in terms of content creation, I can tap into the minds of great people and have some great podcast episodes, I really wanted a more diverse podcast, I wanted to have more people's ideas included.
If you want to get found, there's no better content medium that will accept interviewing you should you pass the vetting process that each podcaster has than podcast and podcasters are influencers.
So whenever you engage with an influencer, yes, they're content creators. But in the case of podcasting, chances are they're also business owners. So it opens up a lot of potential for collaboration.
If you want to become a better speaker, you need to speak more. And if you wanted to launch your own podcast, you need to know what it's all about, you need to know what to expect what you're going to say.
It really gives you a way to not only better find your own voice as a speaker or future podcaster. But it also helps you better deeply understand your subject cuz you're going to get asked a lot of questions, and it's in those questions, you better understand what's on the tips of people's minds, that allows you to develop better and better content.
But once you understand the value of building those relationships, you'd obviously want to do that and it gives you more content, the results of all this.
But the more research you do, and the more personalized outreach you do, obviously, the greater that conversion should be.

Episodes Mentioned in the Show:
166: The Many Ways to Become an Influencer Today [John Lee Dumas Interview]

13: Got Good Social Media Marketing Apps? [Ian Cleary of Razor Social Interview] (my first interview!)

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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Description:

What sets successful businesses and professionals apart? One might argue it is all about being able to innovate. Fortunately for our podcast listeners we have a very special guest, Carla Johnson, who has written a few compelling marketing books and will soon release her newest book, RE:Think Innovation. This podcast will be a sneak preview of that book, in which you will learn why:

People think innovation is only about the products and services they sell, and why they're wrong and missing a huge growth opportunity.
There are things that iconic companies with big budgets do that you can learn from and apply right away for your business...if you know how.
You too can learn how to innovate through a simple, repeatable, scalable formula for how to take inspiration from any brand, experience or situation you have, and turn it into extraordinary outcomes for their business - startups, established Fortune 100 brands, and any organization in between.

Key Highlights

[01:45] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Carla Johnson
[06:34] What Is Innovation?
[10:00] The Most Important Aspect To Look At Innovation
[13:57] Is Innovation Always Tied to Looking Around the World for Ideas?
[15:00] What You Need to Do to Be Truly Innovative?
[18:29] Subscription Model
[19:31] Leveraging Innovations of Big Brands
[22:25] The Mistake That A Lot of Marketers Make
[25:42] The Process and Steps to Innovation
[27:39] Pitching Your Ideas
[30:18] Examples of Taking Inspiration of Innovation from Other Brands
[35:38] Great Way to Start Innovation
[38:24] Connect With Carla

Notable Quotes

Innovation is about consistently coming up with new, great and reliable ideas. When you look at the companies that you consider as true innovators, one of their characteristics is that they're able to be innovative for a sustained period of time.
An important aspect of innovation is that it does impact the business at the end of the day. Now, that doesn't mean it has to result in a new product or new service, it just has to have an impact. And in order to do these things, you need to start out with innovation by clearly identifying what problem is it that you're going to solve?
And one of the things in the book that I've written, I talk about a process about how you actually take inspiration for the world around you understand what made that successful, and then transplant that idea into your own work in a way that relates to the work that you do.
I've talked about this a little bit like starting to disconnect from all of our digital devices. And really paying attention to the world around us is the foundation of extraordinary innovation, that you can get impatient with a little AI if all you did was continue to look inside your industry and things like that. But all you're doing is rehashing things that are already there.
And to truly be innovative, I believe that's what you have to do is you, you have to look at what's going on in the world around you and I talked about like you, you collect all of these dots from the experiences that you have.

Links mentioned in the show:
Carla Johnson's Website: https://www.carlajohnson.co/
RE:Think Innovation by Carla Johnson: https://www.carlajohnson.co/author/

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Social networks come (TikTok) and go (Google Plus), and some merely borrow the best features of other social networks to continue innovating (Instagram). The one thing about social media that has NOT changed since I began my career in social media marketing is that LinkedIn continues to be the best place for professional networking and B2B social media marketing.

Every year or two "newbie" marketers wake up to the potential that LinkedIn has for your marketing, but since I wrote two books on the subject in 2009 and 2011, I would argue that the potential has always been there. Similar to influencer marketing, marketers have tended to dismiss LinkedIn when they talk about social media marketing options. As part of my role as an educator, I have been creating a free ebook for sometime with best practices for using LinkedIn, and I'm psyched to announce that my newest version is now available for download. Listen to the full episode for an introduction and details on how to get your free copy!

This episode is being sponsored by Freshbooks and SocialBee, who have a special campaign for listeners of this podcast. You can see their special offerings by clicking here:

Freshbooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbookswin

SocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbeewin

For those that want to win a copy of The Age of Influence, please make sure you send me a screenshot of your chosen review to neal@nealschaffer.com along with your mailing address.

Key Highlights

[02:37] What is Freshbooks and Their Services
[05:15] How I Started My Career With LinkedIn
[07:04] Why LinkedIn Is Powerful
[11:05] LinkedIn Users Statistics
[12:39] Demographics of LinkedIn Users
[14:48] How Professionals Are Using LinkedIn Today
[16:38] Why LinkedIn Is Preferred By Professionals
[17:43] Major Ways Businesses and Professionals Can Leverage LinkedIn
[19:35] Few Ways Marketers Use LinkedIn

Notable Quotes.

LinkedIn is the only platform that continues to be focused on business and professional networking. It's where professionals go to showcase their personal brand, promote their companies, and in general, do business.
While LinkedIn originally grew, without a doubt, as a place to connect with hiring managers, and be found for that dream job, it has become much more than that, and attracts the engagement of professionals looking for an outlet for professional networking.
Every employee representing your company that is on LinkedIn increases the chances that your company will indirectly be found. And the more connected your employees are to others, including each other, the easier it will be for those wanting to contact any of your company employees to do so through the LinkedIn profile.
And LinkedIn was the number one network for making professional connections for improving the effectiveness of my referral network for building my brand identity for cultivating client prospects for expanding professional knowledge for enhancing current client relationships, for establishing thought leadership in your field.

Links mentioned in the show:
Maximizing LinkedIn for Business: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizing-linkedin-for-business

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While the current coronavirus pandemic has provided us some urgency in which we need to tweak our marketing, the fact of the matter is that anyone in charge of marketing their business always need to pivot amidst the constant change that existed before we first heard the term "COVID-19." I can't think of anyone better to help guide us through this change than Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, who provides:

an insight into how c-19 is bringing even more change to marketing
some perspective on marketer's fear of becoming irrelevant
what are the skillsets marketers need in the near future

This episode is being sponsored by Freshbooks and SocialBee, who have a special campaign for listeners of this podcast. You can see their special offerings by clicking here:

Freshbooks: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbookswin

SocialBee: https://nealschaffer.com/socialbeewin

For those that want to win a copy of The Age of Influence, please make sure you send me a screenshot of your chosen review to neal@nealschaffer.com along with your mailing address.

Key Highlights

[03:49] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ken Fitzpatrick

[07:11] Who is Ken and Digital Marketing Institute

[08:18] The Changes That COVID19 Brought To Marketing Industry

[13:33] Marketing Budget Cut

[18:12] The Important Role of Content

[19:08] The Biggest Challenge for Marketers

[21:13] Investing in Upskillinh and Rescaling

[21:37] 5 Top Areas Marketers Should Look At

[22:42] The Impact of COVID19 In Customer Experience

[25:00] How Digital Marketing Institute Tap Customer Touch Points

[29:45] Going Back to the Basics

[31:04] The Key Areas Marketers Should Focus On

[35:14] Connect With Ken

Notable Quotes

For many businesses, who are physically present, a website is the only window that they have to the world now.
I should say, the advice I can give you my clients is, there may be a time where you need to sort of stop, for instance, you know, advertising spend that there are some marketing expenses that I realized are being what we would call rationalized.
Staying ahead of the game or staying up to date that's really important than in remember research.
If you're constantly moving just to the next thing that looks kind of cool and interesting, you're actually gonna end up wasting a lot of time and effort.
I would actually say they are just again, given the current climate, then they're getting that broad across social across analytics across SEO, across PPC, the typical sort of traditional things, and influencer marketing. That's the best way to approach it right now. And don't pigeonhole yourself into an area until you feel actions
I think people are busy enough getting their head around how to run their business and keep their customers happy in a pure online world, but there is a little bit of back-to-basics going on at the moment deal in terms of revisiting my web. And I think that was the message I was hearing from other people

Links mentioned in the show:Digital Marketing Institute: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer:
My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-inf

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I often get asked by marketers in transition or recent graduates how they should navigate the job market as a digital marketer. Whether you are looking for more ways to make yourself more marketable (pun intended!), gain more experience, or yield more influence in digital and social media, I believe the solution is one and the same, and the answer to the problem is often staring you right in the face!

Links mentioned in the show:

The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/

Key Highlights

[03:21] My Advice to Fresh Graduates Who Want to Enter the Business

[04:33] How to Gain Experience?

[06:14] How to Build Core Skills

[07:38] The Other Way to Build Track Record

[09:16] Reaching Out To Local Marketing Agency

[10:41] My Instagram Giveaway

[11:18] Summary

Notable Quotes

I think social media marketing, digital media, influencer marketing a little bit different, but it's easier to be seen, so long as you are trying to build more influence yourself.
And what I say to that is there is no better experience than experience right? And what I mean by that is, you need to be able to practice what you learned.
You can build case studies, you can take data, and that data you can use when you go into an interview, or if you're trying to pitch a new client. So always starting with your own brand with your own business.
But there's nothing like putting this into action. There's nothing like OJT on the job training. You're nothing until you do this. And you have your unique experiences, your unique perspectives, you build your own unique processes. That's when you develop expertise that other companies would want to pay for.
That's when you go into an interview. And even though you might not have that work experience that others have, you have a tremendous amount of experience that you can speak to that I guarantee you anyone hiring would be very interested in.
So there's a lot of things you can be doing. And when you get those experiences, that's what helps you in fact, if you were to start working for an organization or an agency and they really like what you do, there's a chance that they're going to want to keep working with you.

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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In crisis there is opportunity, and for those who understand how media consumption has changed during this coronavirus pandemic, there are distinct opportunities for your business to appear on the radar of more people organically earned media. Learn all about this opportunity straight from the PR expert and thought leader Valerie Christopherson, Founder and CEO of the PR agency Global Results Communications, headquartered right here in my beloved Orange County, California.

Our conversation went above and beyond the topic of the current pandemic as we discussed other issues upon us and how we can respond to them, including my sharing my own story of how I was called out on social media and how I will be responding. It is a good reminder that if digital influencers are the new media, with that comes responsibility.

Key Highlights

[00:39] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Valerie Christopherson
[01:05] Who Are Global Results Communications?
[03:47] Changes In Earned Media
[06:36] The Most In-Demand Type of Media Right Now
[08:58] Valerie's Recommendation on the Vehicles Which Companies Can Be Hears
[13:41] The True Purpose of Press Release
[14:35] Why Press Release Is Still Important?
[16:09] Valerie's Advice on Corporate Communications
[19:17] What Businesses Can Do To Leverage Pandemic
[22:59] The Effects of Black Lives Matter Campaign
[27:01] Content In Diversity And Inclusion
[30:42] Final Advice
[31:01] Connect With Valerie

Notable Quotes

As PR professionals, we've gotten back to providing facts and reporters, especially in technology, and in health care to report the facts, what are we seeing? What are we doing? And we saw companies band together, and wanting to tell the story from a factual standpoint, and not from the storybook point of view.
It's really important that you think through the different mechanisms because people are on the go so make sure that you have some actionable item to a press release on social media.
But right now being realistic. If if you can't read it in three minutes, I'm not sure it's getting read in its entirety, which is why I go back to that key takeaway. There should be an active even if the action item is simply let me think about that.
I would use the press release for what it was meant and designed to be in that would be for news. And news being hard news.
And the best thing to do in a moment like that, communicates consistently, calmly, and collectively, on an hour-by-hour basis.
So my recommendation is we're living in a virtual world today, now is the perfect opportunity to go find it.

Links mentioned in the show:

Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Free Ebook: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizing-linkedin-for-business
Neal Schaffer on Instagram: https://instagram.com/nealschaffer
Global Results Communications: https://www.globalresultspr.com/
Global Results Communications on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globalresults/

Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:

145: Free PR: How to Leverage the Media to Amplify Your Brand Exposure and Increase Credibility without Spending Money [Adrian Salamunovic Interview]

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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According to my brand affinity model for influencer marketing, your employees are those that naturally have the most brand affinity for your company because they are an organic part of it. How, though, do you activate your employees as influencers? How does this relate to the concept of employee advocacy? How would this work in regulated industries? And are there any analogies to leveraging employees as influencers that you see in influencer marketing today?

Key Highlights
[02:48] Engaging Employees As Influencers
[03:31] How Influencers Are Categorized?
[05:44] Entities That Have Most Brand Affinity
[06:43] The Way of Looking At Employee Influence
[09:49] The Problem With Employee Advocacy
[13:26] Why You Should Treat Your Employees Better
[15:25] How To Convert Employees Into Influencers
[16:33] Legal Issues That May Be Related To Employee Advocacy
[17:26] An FTC Case About Employee Advocacy
[21:19] The Importance of Employee Influence Training
[23:14] Things That Go Into Employee Influencer Training Program
[26:49] Leveraging Employees As Part of Content Creation Process

Notable Quotes

They found that how you treat your employees directly impacts job satisfaction, organizational commitment, employee empowerment, supporting your supervisor, and organizational innovation.
These what we call employee advocacy programs have turned more into employee engagement programs. In other words, you don't have to share our content. But we want you to engage with it.
Because just like influencer marketing, we don't want to treat people like they're programmable ad units. We don't want to treat our employees as if they're automatically going to post anything and everything we share with them to their personal networks on social media.
And by providing training, that is putting some skin in the game that if you have employees that love social media, they want to be more active, and by you helping them they'll help you, you can imagine how you're going to get a lot more attention for this program than you were if it's like, hey, share our content.

Links mentioned in the show:Exploring the impacts of employee advocacy on job satisfaction and organizational commitment: Case of Taiwanese airlines: http://www.isihome.ir/freearticle/ISIHome.ir-21028.pdf
FTC calls out Sony -- and Deutsch L.A. -- for deceptive advertising: https://adage.com/article/news/ftc-sony-deutsch-la-deceived-consumers/296004
The Age of Influence: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence

Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:165: Influencer Marketing During COVID-19: Still Worth the Investment?
123: Enterprise-Wide Employee Advocacy is a Natural Outcome of Social Business [Sociabble Interview]
121: Everything You Wanted to Know about Employee Advocacy [PostBeyond Interview]
115: How Cathay Pacific Built a Global Employee Advocacy Program
107: Creating Employee Advocates with GaggleAMP
94: Employee Advocacy, Social Selling, and The Missing Alignment Between Sales and Marketing
82: How to Take Your Employee Advocacy to the Next Level: An Interview with GaggleAMP
69: The Definitive Guide to Employee Advocacy

Reference Links for Neal SchafferMy Website: https://nealschaffer.com/
Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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Instagram has become a critical piece of the puzzle for most businesses because of its popularity and high engagement, but not everybody succeeds on the platform. There's a lot of noise about what you should and shouldn't do on Instagram, and some of that advice is either outdated or might lead your account to getting banned.

Let's change that. From the importance of niche branding on Instagram to the critical role that influencers play on Instagram to the unique way in which you should use Instagram for personal branding, Instagram specialists Viv and Tash from Ace the Gram will teach you a thing or two new about the platform that can help improve your Instagram TODAY!

Key Highlights
[02:11] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Viv Conway, and Tasha Meys
[05:57] How Viv and Tash Help Businesses In Acing Instagram and How They Started
[08:38] The Things Viv and Tash Would Do Differently Today Than They Might Have Done Five/Six Years Ago
[10:57] The Way Viv and Tash See Instagram Algorithm Today
[12:41] The Role of Interests in Algorithm
[16:42] Instagram As Personal Magazine and Business
[19:14] The Top 3 Things People Should Focus Efforts On
[21:40] When Do Brands Should Start Using Instagram Influencers?
[22:30] Discoverability Technique
[28:33] The Power of Personal Branding
[29:12] The Mistake Personal Brands Makes
[30:21] How To Get Started In Instagram Marketing?
[32:10] Types of Content You Can Easily Implement
[34:12] The Challenge People Have With Instagram
[37:01] Final Thoughts
[39:41] Connect With Viv and Tasha

Notable Quotes

The algorithm Instagram has now is value-based. Instagram does have niches that it puts you into. So the more that you can nail your niche and be really specific and provide value to a specific audience, the more Instagram is going to know who you are, who you want to be shown to. And they'll do that for you. So you do have to be more niche these days.
Your niche doesn't have to just be food or fitness, it can be the location you live in, what your target audience is interested in. So you don't have to laser focus on yoga, but you can figure out your niche.
I think the first thing is obviously designing your intention. So why you're on Instagram, what you want to get out of it, and then your content strategy will come from that.
Don't think of influencers just for content amplification, think of them as superior content creators.
Anyone who invests and the personal brand and whatever kick career they earn you become a hidden shoulder above the rest of your industry. And just because you are investing in there and getting your own audience and you do then become you get that freedom and flexibility and autonomy to be in charge of your own career.
But at the end of the day, like, if you just remember, okay, why am I here? And what do I want to achieve? And then just take action, because action trumps everything.

Links mentioned in the show:Ace the Gram Website: https://acethegram.com
Ace the Gram Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ace-the-gram/id1351123456
10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/

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How do you know what impact everything that you do in digital and social media marketing has on your business? The secret comes down to what I call the PDCA approach to marketing that my agency is named for, but more importantly, it comes down to visualizing your marketing funnel and aligning everything you do with a part of that funnel. After that it comes down to measurement and truly geeking out on the numbers in the reporting that I recommend you do.

Listen in for the full details as to how to effectively do this spending little time but having maximum impact on your business!

Key Highlights

[02:53] The Methodology On Measuring ROI

[03:21] The Importance of Having A Report

[04:51] PDCA Approach

[06:22] All About Funnel

[08:04] Next Step of the Funnel: Website

[08:51] Email Marketing/Marketing Automation

[09:29] Conversion Territory

[09:45] Why Email Marketing Is Critical

[11:48] Building Benchmarks

[12:01] The Easiest Social Media Platform For Organic Growth

Notable Quotes

It bears reminding plan, do check action, it's how you manage experiments. It's how you know what you're going to do, how you do it, you're gonna know what to measure when you do it. And then you know what to optimize. And the measurement goes into report.
But generally speaking, you need to be able to rationalize all of your activities. And the first way you do that is if we're going to use social media, we want to build a community. And not only is the size of that community important, and the influences of what we do in social is important as well.
Influences can help you at every stage here. They can help you expand your community and social they can help you bring more website traffic. And if you include them in your content marketing, they can help you with generating more email signups.
Email marketing is still critical and when you need to get multiple touches with someone because people buy from only companies or they do business only with companies that they know like and trust.
You need to be able to get them on your list because that gives you multiple touches, because social media doesn't guarantee your touches, and you can't expect them to come back to your website every day.
But hopefully, by listening to this podcast, you'll get a better idea as to what to look for, what to measure, and how to display it both organic and paid, aligning with the funnel, all of your digital and social media marketing activities.
But at the end of the day, I really want you to think holistically and to be able to do it yourself and only use a tool when it fits everything you're talking about when all these pieces you can plug in and create the perfect report.

Links mentioned in the show:

The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/

Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:

161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence - my episode on lead magnets and email marketing

110: How to Generate Leads from Facebook with TabSite [Mike Gingerich Interview]

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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John Lee Dumas is one of the most influential rockstar entrepreneurs out there, and it was an honor to interview him for my podcast. You will learn a lot in this episode on John's story as to how he became an influencer through podcasting but also his recommendation for you if he were to do it all over today.

Key Highlights

[02:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, John Lee Dumas

[05:49] Why John Started Podcast

[08:11] Should You Podcast If You Want To Build Influence?

[13:27] The Demand Aspect of Podcasting

[14:22] The Steps John Took To Become Successful

[15:10] Creating Solutions For Your Audience's Struggles

[17:33] How To Get Started on Podcasting

[18:27] Connect With John

Notable Quotes

I was podcasting four days per month, and doing just a weekly show, which everybody else was doing, it would have taken me forever, if ever to get good, but I was doing it every single day I put in the reps. And I did 2000 episodes in 2000 days, like I bought the work. And you know, it slowly caught on, I stayed consistent. I stayed true to my vision.
It is absolutely not too late to start your podcast to build your platform. Because podcasting to me is this, it will always hold a special place in people's days in lives.
One of my other favorite things about podcasting, too, is I like to say, podcasts are powerful, because they're free, they're on demand, and they're targeted.
I had no products, no services, nothing to offer. When I started. All I said was you know what, I'm going to deliver free, valuable and consistent content. And there's nothing more valuable or free or consistent than a daily podcast that's just as consistent as you can be.
Podcast is a great way to build up organic free traffic that knows likes and trusts you this then you know, potentially going to consume your product or your service or invest in that. But if you don't already have a product or a service, do not create one before you start a podcast because you don't know what the heck you're going to create.
If you want to get started on podcasting, or just on building your overall brand, you do need to choose a platform like you need to choose a platform where you're going to be sharing free, valuable and consistent content, because that's how you're going to build that audience that knows likes and trust you that you can then ask them what their struggle is, and then create that solution for them.

Links mentioned in the show:

John Lee Dumas' Website: https://www.eofire.com/

My being interviewed on Michael Stelzner's Social Media Marketing Podcast: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-strategy-with-neal-schaffer/

My being interviewed on John Lee Dumas' Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast: https://entrepreneuronfire.libsyn.com/615-neal-schaffer-maximize-your-social

Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:

164: How to Skyrocket Your Qualified Organic Traffic [Farzad Rashidi Interview]

140: Want to Excel at Social Media Marketing? You Need to be an Active Consumer of Social Media First

Reference Links for Neal Schaffer

My Website: https://nealschaffer.com/

Learn more about this podcast: https://nealschaffer.com/maximize-your-social-influence-podcast/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

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You might be wondering what impact COVID-19 might be having on influencer marketing. After all, you can't fly freely around the world to take pictures of product in exotic locations. But, as you know, travel influencers only represent a small portion of the influencer marketing pie. Here is my advice for businesses trying to navigate the current uncertainty to figure out what role, if any, influencer marketing should have in your marketing strategy.

Once again, today's episode, like Episode 161 before it, is based off of a webinar I provided for the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland about marketing in the age of coronavirus.

Key Highlights

[01:00] Free FreshBooks Conference

[05:30] My Take On COVID19 Effect On Influencer Marketing

[06:53] Why Influencer Marketing Is Important In Businesses

[07:22] The ROI For Influencer Marketing

[08:27] Where Media Gets Wrong

[10:18] Why I Doubled Down On Content and Relationship

[11:20] Another Aspect Of Influencer Relationships

[13:39] Influencers As Focus Group

[14:34] Where To Find Influencer

[16:30] Why You Need To Hire People With Brand Affinity

[20:52] Summary

Notable Quotes

The fact of the matter is that Digital Influence is everywhere. And in fact, we are spending even more time in social media.
I think that Coronavirus in some ways is only accelerated more and more people, you know, publishing and consuming more and more content on social media. And the heart of why influencer marketing is important for businesses is all about inciting word of mouth.
If you want people to talk about you on social media, and ad is not going to cut it. You really need to incite that word of mouth. And the best way to do that is with other people.
Spend that time to foster relationships, because some influencers are also losing money losing business, and you might find that it might be a lot more effective when they're getting fewer and fewer people, contacting them that you will really stick out. And you'll have a chance to build that relationship.
So if you're afraid to do advertisements, if you're afraid of saying anything in social media, because of what's going on, that's where you can leverage influencers, who can talk for you through their content.
Using tools to find people that are talking about your brand, your customers, your email database, your followers, you know, now's the time to append the data with social media profiles, go digging through and try to find people that are already know like and trust you that are already in your sphere of influence

Links mentioned in the show:

Freshbooks #IMakeaLiving Micro-Conference: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbooks

Jon Rettinger's YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR0AnNR7sViH3TWMJl5jyxw

Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview

Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:

161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence (the other content from the similar webinar I presented on)

156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus Pandemic

155: Why Your Business Needs to be More Human Than Ever During the Coronavirus Pandemic [Mark Schaefer Interview]

154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus Pandemic

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For many businesses, their primary source of digital influence doesn't necessarily come from their social media presence but from their website. How to increase the digital influence of your website in the eyes of Google and generate more qualified organic traffic leading to more business through "free" advertising is what every business owner wants.

Today I interview Farzad Rashidi, co-founder of Respona, who is going to give his advice on how to exactly do that. Some of the topics we discussed include:

Organic traffic 101: Why it's important for hockey-stick level growth
How to properly research and create quality content and landing pages
How to get your content ranked for your target keywords

Key Highlights

[10:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Farzad Rashidi
[12:11] Farzad's Views On Organic Traffic and Growth And Why It's Important
[20:38] What You Should Be Doing To Promote Your Content On The Internet
[22:49] Farzad's Advice About Creating Quality Content
[23:50] Opportunity Score
[27:26] Reverse Skyscraper Technique
[29:44] Two Other Campaigns Farzad Do For Blog Posts
[35:31] The Process After Blog Post Gets Published
[36:17] Things That Bloggers Don't Take Into Account
[39:08] Connect With Farzad

Notable Quotes

It's all pieces of the puzzle. You need to have your keyword research, finding opportunities, and writing content that people are actually looking for, and it's somewhat relevant to what you do. And you write a very high-quality piece of content, and put it on your website, promote on social, send it to your newsletter, do all that good stuff, but to actually set it up on a kind of evergreen type of machine that keeps bringing traffic to our site and to that specific blog post, what we call an 80/20 rule.
I always talk about how this isn't about a campaign. It's a commitment. And influencer marketing is the same. It's not about a campaign, but it is something that you do as part of your normal process. It's a line item in your marketing.
All of that trickles down to getting quality backlinks for individual blog posts. That's what a lot of bloggers actually don't take into account that even though you have a high domain authority, or domain rating, what really determines the success or basically the failure of your of your content is actually your page authority.
If you want to rank, you got to publish the content targeted for those keywords.
If you don't have a process, you don't know anything.
What I'm trying to say is that you don't need to have a large team to actually get started. You can start small and scale from there.

Episodes and Links mentioned in the show:

Ep. 160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]
Ep. 156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Ep. 154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/
Age of Influence on Amazon: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence
Visme: https://www.visme.co/
Respona: https://respona.com/
Marketing Strategies We Used to Bootstrap Visme to 4 Million Users [Free Ebook]: https://www.visme.co/marketing-strategy/
The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/
HARO (Help a Reporter Out): https://www.helpareporter.

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One of the goals of influencer marketing is to incite the word of mouth marketing that organic social alone can't, but there are times that we will still pay to play and employ Paid Social as part of our marketing. How might we be able to use Paid Social as part of our influencer outreach? This is a case study from my own influencer marketing program for the launch of my new book, The Age of Influence, and how I am leveraging one of the unique and most cost-effective forms of Paid Social that many don't know exist or haven't utilized properly: LinkedIn Message Ads.

Key Highlights

[02:16] Why I Am Passionate About Influencer Marketing

[04:04] Paid Social

[04:45] How I Leverage Paid Social

[07:34] Ad Product On LinkedIn

[09:42] How To Create Ad Product On LinkedIn

[13:24] My Approach On Making LinkedIn Message Ads

[15:27] How I Set Up My LinkedIn Campaign

[16:27] My 2 Approaches On Marketing My Book

[21:39] Hyper-targeting

[25:05] Alternative Outside Facebook Messenger

[26:22] Conclusion

Notable Quotes

Whenever you want to reach a goal. You reach in a paid social, you spend a little money. And inevitably, whatever KPI, whatever metric, whatever outcome you want, it's going to help you reach it.
By tapping into these influencers and by having something bigger than my own, it creates something that's more compelling. This is an example of leveraging influencers in terms of this ko content creation.
Influencers is not just about paying someone to say something for you. influences. Also, if I get my product in the hands of these people would incite word-of-mouth marketing.
The first thing is, if you are going to develop a relationship with someone on LinkedIn, knowing the power that it has, wouldn't you want to give something of value to begin that relationship?
So if you want to make these LinkedIn message ads work for you, you need to think of the person receiving it as an influencer. And you need to find a way to add value to them without being able to ask them how you can add value to them.
And that's where LinkedIn has its value in all this is that if we're looking for people with titles, that is the premier place to look. And if you think that advertising on LinkedIn has to be expensive, you need to understand how this model of LinkedIn messaging works.

Links mentioned in the show:

My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/

The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/

The Age of Influence on Amazon: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence

Episodes mentioned in the show:

157: Influencer Marketing before the Internet: A Personal Case Study to Help Guide You Towards Success Today

147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look (AJ Wilcox Interview)

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You've probably heard the advice that if you want to become an influencer, you need to niche down. This podcast is going to be all about why the riches are in the inches and what you can do to take advantage of that. I interview the CEO and Founder of MiloTree, Jillian Tohber Leslie, and we discuss:

Why drilling down in your niche can help you explode your business
Why using Instagram and Facebook Groups is GOLD for selling to your audience
The importance of teaching your audience to buy from you

Key Highlights

[00:58] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jillian Tohber Leslie

[05:45] What Is Milo Tree App?

[07:20] High-Quality Follower Vs Low-Quality Follower

[10:50] What Are Niche and Niching Down?

[21:58] Jillian's Advice On How To Be Successful On Facebook And Instagram

[28:35] DM Me Vs Linking

[33:11] Connect With Jillian

[34:51] Final Advice

[36:16] Summary

Notable Quotes

We think that it's an awesome way to get people to stay to get to know you to build that relationship.
The guests that are the most successful, that I interview are the ones that have figured out what their niche is, who their audience is, and how best to serve them.
And if you can create a relationship with that person and know what their problems are, know what they're struggling with, know what they're thinking about. That's the way to serve them. And that's the way to sell to them, whether it be a product or a service.
So I would keep your stories related to your content, but a little more raw, a little more with a little more personality, not as stylized, like, let people in in your stories.
If you don't have a passion for what you do, it's not going to last period. The niches are only relevant when it's a niche that's meaningful to you.
People want to be led. I think it's an evolutionary thing. And therefore people want to and it sounds weird, be told what to do.
It is a slow build It is all about showing up and being consistent, and it will slowly grow. it's not an overnight thing. It's about patience. And it's about doing the work. And I wish there were a magic bullet. But the truth is, there isn't. It's really you and your, your commitment to building your business.
No shortcuts here, people, it takes time to build relationships with people, right. And especially when it's online, it may even take more time. But by showing up and being consistent, you can actually shorten that.

Links mentioned in the show:

Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/

My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/

MiloTree: https://milotree.com/

Catch My Party: https://www.catchmyparty.com/

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1 of the 6 pillars of digital marketing is email marketing, but it's often the one easy to forget as most talk about more trendy topics such as social media marketing, content marketing, or influence marketing (I'm partly to blame!). Based off of webinars I provided for both the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland as well as the email marketing software company GetResponse, learn all you wanted to know to get you inspired to do more with email marketing and lead magnets.

Key Highlights

[03:54] The 6 Things You Can Do In Digital Marketing

[07:36] The Value of Email Marketing

[09:36] How To get Repeated Touches

[11:05] Active Email Account Statistics

[12:18] Email Marketing ROI

[13:18] Statistics On Number of Email Users, Conversion Rate, and Open-Click Through Engagement Rate

[15:12] How To Grow Email List?

[16:47] Essential Components of A Lead Magnet

[17:35] Mistake Brand Do In Email Marketing

[18:11] My Main Lead Magnet

[19:29] Other Ideas For Lead Magnets

[23:10] Different Approaches To Grow Your Email List

Notable Quotes

The value of email marketing today, it is borrowed land, we don't own it. And at the end of the day, we want people on our island, our websites. That's where the magic happens. That's where we communicate with people the way we want, any way we want with our branding. And that's where we literally sell.
Email provides the best way to repeatedly touch, it also helps you control the research phase of the buying process. if you are sending them emails on a regular basis that they're engaging with, you are influencing their purchasing decision through those emails.
We have lots of people on social media, we want to get them to our website when they come to our website, we want to continue that relationship when they leave the website. And the only way to do that it's going to be through email. That's why I have this concept of a weekly newsletter, but also knowing dependent on how people opted in how much they like know and trust me, I keep that monthly option for those that might not know me as deeply as those like leads that I might get from partners versus leads die directly again, if that makes sense.
The problem is not everybody is ready to buy. So you don't want to overly spam people. And that's where this marketing automation really becomes an art in many ways.
In fact, email marketing may be the cheapest, most effective way to scale your Digital Influence when you think of it that way.

Links mentioned in the show:

My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/

Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/

Email Marketing Statistics: https://nealschaffer.com/email-marketing-statistics/

Recommended Email Marketing Software: https://nealschaffer.com/email-marketing-tools/

GetResponse: https://nealschaffer.com/getresponse

Episodes mentioned in the show:

160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview] - for more advice on SEO

159: An Introduction to The Age of Influence and Resetting Your Perspective on Digital Influence - where I read through the introduction of The Age of Influence

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What is the connection, and even the similarities, that marketers who want to improve at both SEO as well as social media need to have? Join me in this interview with one of the world's leading experts, Cyrus Shepard, SEO Advisor for MOZ, as we discuss:

Why SEOs and Social Marketers both need to have a wide breadth of skills for writing across social pages, metadata and more
The way in which aligning SEO and Social skills can lead to more backlinks, improved engagement signals, and more owned SERP real estate for branded queries
How enhanced social media efforts can lead to higher search demand

Digital influence isn't just about influence on social networks. It includes influence you hold in the search engines! That's why this conversation was so exciting and stimulating for me, so I'm sure it will be worth your time.

In case you are new to the podcast, my new book The Age of Influence can be bought at any major bookseller worldwide. Here's a link to the Amazon USA page for it: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence

Thanks for listening and sharing this podcast with your friends, checking out my Age of Influence book, and subscribing and reviewing on whichever app you use to listen to this podcast! If you are interested in appearing on this show, please feel free to email me: neal at nealschaffer dot com. Thanks!

Key Highlights

[01:41] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Cyprus Shepard

[06:29] What Are The Skills We Should Focus On In This Age of Coronavirus

[08:26] Cyprus Advice On Social Signals

[11:07] Cyprus Recommendation On Repurposing Content

[12:28] How to Find and to Write With Keywords

[15:33] Aligning SEO To Enhance Social Media Efforts and Higher Search Demand

[17:56] What is EAT?

[20:31] External Linking Out Strategy

[22:10] Why You Need To Be Cautious Of The Anchor Text

[23:31] How To Balance Putting External Links And Keeping Readers On The Page Longer

[25:30] Moz Beginners Guide To SEO

[27:51] Connect With Cyprus

[28:07] Final Advice

Notable Quotes

I can tell you that social signals are one of the highest correlated signals that we see with high ranking content. So we don't know if it's a direct factor. But what I can tell you is there is a relationship.
My advice to people is that you find the keywords that people are searching for. My recommendation is that you include those in your title tag for your content. But when you're when you're writing your social media posts, the headlines, there can be your call to actions can be something different, something exciting, something to get people to share the content, as long as it's in the title of your actual page.
Simply generating more brand awareness is an indirect way of increasing your rankings overall.
I encourage people to really look at their internal linking strategy first, and heavily interlink with varying anchor text, and advanced IP, when you're when you do your keyword research that I mentioned earlier, look at all the keyword variations that people are using to search and vary your anchor text a lot, because if you're a small medium site, if you just link with the same anchor text over and over again to yourself, Google is going to see that as over optimization, and you can kill your ranking.
The links that are higher in your page, count more than links that are lower on your page. So when you do, I would highly prioritize the links higher in your content to yourself, because you're going to pass more link equity.
You can try try out the tools and laws but mostly show up post those things. Look and see see how you're showing up in Google search results when you search for your brand. And always think about how can I through social media?

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Why does influencer marketing and collaborating with influencers regardless of industry have such incredible promise for businesses now and well into the future, even during this coronavirus pandemic? This episodes focuses on why I wrote my recent book, The Age of Influence, by reading you the actual Introduction from the published copy. By hearing my perspective through this episode, the way you look at digital influencer will forever be changed - for the better!

The Age of Influence can be bought at any major bookseller worldwide. There is a link to the Amazon USA page for it: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence

Thanks for listening and sharing this podcast with your friends, checking out my Age of Influence book, and subscribing and reviewing on whichever app you use to listen to this podcast!

Key Highlights

[00:58] The History Of The Books I Have Written

[03:00] Introduction To The Age Of Influence Book

[03:40] Why I Wrote The Age Of Influence

[04:02] Mistakes Often Made By Brands

[06:37] How The Ways Of Communication Have Changed

[08:11] Leveraging Other Social Media Users

[09:07] The Importance of Engaging and Creating Relationships

[11:06] How To Incite Word-Of-Mouth Marketing

[12:00] 2 Myths About What Brands Think Consumers Want

[14:22] Harnessing True People Power

[16:48] Age Of Influence Table Of Content

[18:30] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

The constantly changing landscape of social media means that despite all the money poured into platforms for advertising, campaigns are finding increasingly less traction in organic ways.
Influencer Marketing is not about paying someone else to take selfies and put them online. It is fundamentally about engagement and communication. It is about building relationships.
Humans are social creatures, we learn from each other. Individually, we learn from our greater society.
My voice here is on engaging the voices of influencers, leveraging the other as I call it, to spread your message. It's investing what power you have to move outside and insight word of mouth marketing, so that other voices will talk about your business.
Social media represents the convergence of information and communication.
All social media voices are equal, but some are more equal than others. Engaging with those whose voices are being heard is essential to spreading your message online. Rising above the digital noise and creating meaningful relationships.
When launching a startup, sidestepping those gatekeepers, and connecting directly with your consumers has a much stronger benefit. Many businesses started out with word-of-mouth marketing without really knowing it. happy and successful customers told their friends who told their friends and so on.
When done right harnessing employees ideas for content creation, and encouraging them to be more active on social media as part of an employer advocacy program, which treats them truly as influencers can be powerful.
Influencer marketing is a shift in communicating and interacting with your customers and audience. It's also able to deliver results far beyond those of traditional returns.

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This episode features an interview with Kate Bradley Chernis, Co-Founder and CEO of the content marketing tool Lately, which helps you automatically turn your content into dozens of social media posts in one click. Some of the topics we cover include:

Why writing is the most important skill in your toolkit as a marketer or a salesperson
How any marketing person or tool can't help you if you start out with crap: "you can't polish a turd"
How AI can help your content creation process
How humans and Artificial Intelligence can work together

Thanks for listening, checking out my Age of Influence book, and subscribing and reviewing on whichever app you use to listen to this podcast!
Key Highlights

[01:43] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Kate Bradley Chernis

[06:56] What Is LatelyAI?

[08:44] What LatelyAI Does

[10:52] Why Writing Is The Most Important Toolkit?

[16:29] One Of The Problems People Have In Writing Marketing And Sales

[19:43] How AI Help Fix Potential Writing Issues

[23:59] You Need To Tweet Like A DJ

[25:40] How AI Content Creation Is Time To Throw THe Lead Generation Playbook

[28:36] 2 Best Examples Of How TO Better Access To Your Customers

[33:04] How AIs Can Make Our Jobs Easier

[37:49] Connect With Kate

[38:53] Final Thoughts
Notable Quotes

Really just taking a second to think about what you're writing, and then understand who you're writing it to.
That's what storytelling is really about. It's about like making sure that somebody cares at all what you're saying. And the way to get them to care is to be human, and to inject that personality and persona in it. And a great way to do that is to think about how things look on the page.
If you really want to resonate with your audience, that that tone of voice is critical. But just making sure that your writing is is powerful, in a way that conveys the message, the way that you want it to be conveyed is something that you really can't take for granted.
Your network is always your most important thing.
So with marketing, especially marketing is a human affair. It's very emotional, you you buy something from me, because you like me, or you like my product, you have this emotional reaction to it, right? And robots can't replicate that.
People remember you when you make that personal connection and often that's based on mutual personal experiences and if you don't bring those things out in your content, this is something that AI cannot teach you right?
So leverage as much as you can about you as a person or about the people inside your brand. and you're going to be much better for that.

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Today is a very special episode dedicated to a very special personal, my father, who recently passed away at the age of 93. By sharing his life story, not only will you better understand my DNA as an educator and entrepreneur, but you will learn how to take the same holistic approach like I do to influencer marketing so that you can find influential collaborators and distributors that can help you scale your business to the next level.

Key Highlights

[01:30] The Concept of Influencer Marketing Before The Internet

[02:52] My Father's Life

[03:52] My Father's Teaching Career

[05:05] How Frank Schaffer Was Launched

[07:33] We All Develop Differently

[08:32] Creating Products That Serves Needs

Notable Quotes

So I know that a lot of you have gone through hard times as well. My message for you is really before I move on to my educational piece for this podcast, is to hug your loved ones, FaceTime your parents think positive thoughts, and take advantage of every day we have on this earth.

Reminds me of whether it's social media marketing or digital marketing or influencer marketing. You know, we as professionals, as businesses, as entrepreneurs, as small business owners, we all develop differently based on our experience, those that are, have been doing this for a while, develop quicker, those that are new readers, or that are new, are going to develop slower. But the fact of the matter is that you're all going to develop.

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This is the 3rd in a series of episodes helping you make sense of what the coronavirus pandemic means to your business. This episode will be focused on the marketing aspect of your business. Is it OK to publish content on social media now? Is it OK to advertise? What should I be posting about? What marketing activities should and shouldn't we be doing? These questions will all be addressed in hopes of inciting you to action to show up and help your own community by pivoting your marketing in these continued uncertain times.

As mentioned in the podcast, take a screenshot of your online review for The Age of Influence and send it to neal@nealschaffer.com to schedule your 15-minute consultation.

Stay at home and stay safe everyone!

Key Highlights

[02:33] TalkWalker Webinar

[05:30] How Can Your Business Do To Help People

[07:15] Corporate Social Responsibility

[08:23] Second Way Your Business Can Help People

[09:19] Digitzing Your Product And Service

[09:45] What If You Don't Have A Digital Product Or Service?

[12:01] Another Way of Leveraging Influencers In Time Of COVID19

[12:46] Time To Optimize Your Marketing Infrastructure

[13:41] Deepening Relationship With Influencers

Notable Qoutes

What is it that your company can do to help and maybe if you can't do that, you can help people in your community, you can contact a local hospital, and see how you can help or people that need food, how you might be able to help them, there is help that any one of us can provide.
People remember the good and the bad, and people will remember those that helped them during this pandemic, become one of those entities. So your community needs you more than ever, and we are truly all in this together.
Part of Corporate Social Responsibility is tapping into your responsibility as an enterprise to help others. And if you haven't done this before, this is really a great time to start.
But part of what they're doing in that engagement is not just the entertainment and being together with them, and providing them that human touch. So that they are remembered, obviously, but also, they're providing them customer education.
If you're looking at beginning influencer marketing, or doing more influencer marketing, now is the time to spend more time with influencer identification, whether it's you're doing it for the first time, or you want to find new influencers, as well as it's great time to deepen relationships with influencers.
Use this time wisely. Especially not just that market infrastructure, but in developing relationships, relationships with the public, around you, your community, your customers, and with those influencers that you plan on investing more in once we get out of this pandemic.

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Today's episode is a special interview I had with a special friend, Mark Schaefer. Mark is one the true few thought leaders in the marketing space, whose most recent book Marketing Rebellion talks about how the most human companies will win in the marketing of tomorrow. While we planned to talk about a lot of issues, as you can imagine the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic weighed over our conversation. However, this current pandemic only served as a poignant reminder for Mark's message, which now has more urgency to it because of the situation we are in today. You can find at Mark at BusinessesGrow and also on social media on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. After listening to the podcast, I do hope you'll reach out to him.

On another note, as mentioned in the podcast, take a screenshot of your online review for The Age of Influence and send it to neal@nealschaffer.com to schedule your 15-minute consultation.

Stay at home and stay safe everyone!

Key Highlights

[02:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Mark Schaefer

[07:26] Pivoting Marketing To Nurture People's Hierarchy Of Needs

[16:46] The Ways Companies Approach Being Human Today

[18:34] How Big Companies Have Pivoted Under Circumstances Like Pandemic

[23:06] Now Is The Best Opportunity To Enable Strong Loyaly

[25:25] The Importance Of Paying Attention

[27:08] The Three Things An Entrepreneur Can Learn From The Pandemic

[30:22] Connect With Mark

Notable Quotes

I think a lot of our messages need to go to the bottom of the pyramid, right, we need to connect with people where they are in this moment, and they're afraid, and they might be panicky, they might have lost a job. They're grieving, they're experiencing loss.
One of the lessons that we're learning is, is we always need to be serving and helping and asking those questions. And maybe, for a lot of marketers who have never done that it's going to be I'm not going to say a positive thing, because we're in a crisis. But these are good skills to learn if people haven't done them, and that should remain with them for the rest of their life.
And a lot of that goes on with our marketing today, where we say we're being human. But it's a formula, or it's legally approved. There's no compassion. There's no vulnerability, there's no human voice.
If you haven't read on your website, in the last five years, you've been wanting to do it, this is a great time, right? There's this infrastructure, but it's also developing and working on relationships.
This is an opportunity to work on your infrastructure and all those things that you've you know, that you've been, you've been, you know, leaving to another time, but it's also an opportunity to help others to help your customers and your partners, get to the other side, that's the goal right now, conserve cash pivot, do what you need to do to be relevant, and fight and get to the other side. Because we will get to the other side, it's going to be different, but you know, it's gonna come back.
So we just need to be aware of the people that we live with the people that we work with, the people that we care about, just pay attention, and just show grace, show compassion, be understanding, you know, we need to be infinitely patient right now.
Don't judge, you know, just just try to believe in people and, and, you know, just know that everybody's suffering and grieving right now.
Life is about choices. What choice are you going to make and with everything you do, you're making a choice. So make the right choices.

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Today's episode is a special edition broadcast because so many clients and others have asked what our businesses should do in the midst of the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. I want to offer my own perspectives not because I am an expert per se in managing pandemics (I don't know of any marketers who are!), but because you need to listen to a lot of different perspectives to navigate the best path forward, and I want to be one of the voices that you tune into. It is this same concept that I bring up as advice in this episode. Stay positive and stay safe!

As mentioned in the podcast, take a screenshot of your online review for The Age of Influence and send it to neal@nealschaffer.com to schedule your 15-minute consultation.

Key Highlights

[02:07] My Advice On How COVID19 Affect Marketing

[04:17] Stay Positive

[04:50] Pivot After A Crisis

[06:40] Now Is The Best Time To Induce Digital Products and Services

[07:56] Marketing Always Needs Pivoting

[09:44] Bids For Ads

[10:22] Strengthening Marketing Infrastructure

Notable Quotes

The most important advice I can give you is that nobody is an expert on this and nobody knows. This is brand new.
I do think that if we want to control this, that is really the only thing we can control. And understand that whenever we go outside and interact with someone or get close to someone, we are just increasing the risk that we or our loved ones are going to get that disease with every social instance.
We can control our positivity. And when we're positive, we see opportunities that we're not going to see if we're negative. So that being said, when we get through this, things will be different.
So if you don't have a digital product or service, now is a great time to create one, your revenue may be going way down, get that digital product or service up as soon as possible.
It's another pivot that you need to do. But you need to look for opportunities to serve your audience and help them.
If you can ship product or if you do have digital products and services, this might be an opportunity so long as you can tap into the needs and serve your audience and what they're going through right now.
You need to continue to show up for your audience.
There's no easy way forward, we cannot control what we cannot control, we can control what we can control.

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Instagram requires a very different strategy compared to other social networks in order to be successful. I had the pleasure of interviewing Christy Laurence, CEO and Founder of the leading Instagram scheduling app Plann, to discuss all things Instagram and how you can best create and implement an Instagram strategy to grow your brand.

Some of the things we discussed include:

Instagram content strategy
the importance of the grid
hashtags
posting frequency
the value of Instagram analytics
and more!

Key Highlights

[01:59] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Christy Laurence

[04:14] How Plann Started

[09:18] What Is Plann?

[10:16] Color Palette Analysis

[11:49] Other Killer Features of Plann

[16:18] Best Time Of The Day To Post On Instagram

[18:16] Hashtag Functionality

[21:14] The Concept Of Grid

[25:26] Are Preset Filters Needed To Be Successful On Instagram?

[27:12] Long Caption VS Short Caption

[28:03] Swipe Up In Instagram Story Or Dm Me For Link?

[29:59] Where Should You Put Hashtags?

[32:51] Christy's Advice On Posting Consistency and Frequency

[34:34] Connect With Christy

Notable Quotes

I really understood the need of the platform. And that's why I developed something that I knew would really help people understanding why they're on the platform and the purpose and having being informed about why they're making decisions.
My whole purpose is to help more people be successful. And if I can show them what's not working and is working, then I can direct more people in the right way.
If you can, inside plan, you can learn when your audience is most online, and most engaged. So therefore, you can make better decisions about when to get in front of them, instead of having to post hundreds of content and just hoping that works.
Having that data and doing reporting and checking it out is super crucial to understanding how to optimize and get better.
But Instagram is not Snapchat. So if you're posting, you know, too much of your cat or too much of your food, then they go actually, this isn't for me anymore. So again, it's it's an extension of your brand extension of your story and extension on your business. So we have to be intentional.
For me, it comes down to knowing your audience.
And Instagrams, it's always changing. There's no reason you can't either, but it's about understanding your people reading your analytics and making really educated decisions.

Additional links:

The Age of Influence - my new book
Maximize Your Social Influence community on Facebook
Plann
Email address for book reviews: neal at nealschaffer dot com

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Today I want to share with you a real-life example of how I am rationalizing my client's marketing spend and the different options we are considering for B2B influencer marketing. If you are looking to create fans for your business, why wouldn't you reach out to influencers in your industry and try to recruit them through the spirit of collaboration like I teach in The Age of Influence? This episode will help you understand how to find B2B influencers and all of the different ways in which you could collaborate with them.

Additional links:

The Age of Influence - my new book
Respona - blogger outreach platform
GroupHigh - blogger outreach platform
Superfans - book by Pat Flynn
Maximize Your Social Influence community on Facebook

Key Highlights

[03:34] How To Get More People Sign Up To Your Product?

[04:03] Customers Becoming Influencers

[05:20] The Essential Need For Lead Magnet

[07:10] Why Social Media Channels Are Important For B2B

[09:14] How To Find Influencers For Your B2B Company

[11:39] How To Engage With Influencers?

[13:23] Approaching Influencers Individually

[14:40] How TO Include Influencers In Creating Lead Magnets

[15:29] Influx Of Virtual Summits

[17:47] Playing Around With Different Content Mediums

[19:20] What Is The Greatest Way To Expand Your Podcast?

[23:55] My Facebook Community Group

Notable Quotes

In marketing, we talk about the essential need for lead magnets. And the reason why as people are not going to sign up to your email list, because they love getting emails, right, they're going to sign up. And because they are receiving something in exchange for signing up, and if your emails, communications are good, and not too spammy, they may hang on and receive your marketing communication through an email medium.
It's not just about the influence of people, or those who want to become or are influencers, but also about how businesses can really through becoming more influential digitally and socially, yield more business.
Creating something that people might be able to read or engage with, that would generate further demand and interest in their product and build that know, like trust factor.
And I argued that public relations professionals should be translating their skills to influencer relations, because it's not a spray and pray one of many approach with influencer marketing, it is a one to one approach.
What I've learned from podfest is one of the greatest ways in which to expand your podcast audience is to go on other podcasts.
That's another way of grabbing the market before your competitor, but also using it as a way to reach out to influencers and say, Hey, here's another option, we also have a podcast, just a 30 minute interview.

Superfans: The Easy Way to Stand Out, Grow Your Tribe, and Build a Successful Business

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Are you looking to do more with video in social media? Join me for this interview with video marketing expert Jayson Duncan as we discuss how can businesses get into a groove of creating video on a regular basis, how to get people to watch your videos on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, how to create successful video ads, and more! Learn more about Jayson and his company Miller Farm Media here: https://millerfarmmedia.com/

If you want more information on the Age of Influence pre-order campaign - which expires March 16, 2020 at 11:59 P.M. Pacific time, please go to https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/

Finally, please join our "new" community on Facebook: Maximize Your Social Influence Facebook Group

Key Highlights

[01:21] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jayson Duncan

[07:30] Aligning Video With Sales

[12:20] How To Get Into The Groove Of Creating Videos

[18:12] Why Content Batching Is Powerful

[20:13] One Of The Steps That Brands Forget

[23:54] How To Get People to Watch Your Videos?

[25:22] Different Types Of Content Work On Different Platforms

[26:23] The Importance Of Captions

[27:51] The Sweet Spot In Video Length

[32:34] Jayson's Insights On Video Ads

[39:16] How To Create Successful Video Ad?

[41:37] Measuring ROI For Video Ad

[43:11] Jayson's Final Advice

[46:16] Connect With Jayson

[48:32] Summary

Notable Quotes

Everyone's in business because they provide a service that is valuable to the marketplace. And if you don't provide a service that's value the marketplace, you soon go out of business.
So to get weekly video, the first thing to do is be human. That's the element we all have some people get lost in.
So knowing your brand, knowing your budget and knowing the style of it, you get to create to be authentic within those platforms, and then use what you have.
I don't care who you work with, but find a video marketer, and have a monthly phone call with him or whatever you need for your campaign, make sure that you're doing the things that are really going to work and they can help guide your team.
Look for that on YouTube. Building influencers internally and you talked about connecting this to your sales, your sales team, make those salespeople your influencer. So start with with a face that people can recognize and in a location they can recognize.
It all goes back to your funnel. So knowing where your buyer is in the in the journey, knowing your audiences in a journey with you as a content creator, as a brand.
It's the same thing with social, the longer you stay and consume content on that platform, right, not clicking a link going somewhere else. But the longer you're there, the more valuable you are.
So making it unstoppable. That's the first step if you can't get them to stop. From there, you got three seconds. So you gotta you gotta you really make that moment important for them so you can get another five to 10 seconds or whatever that number is.

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As you try to build more digital influence, you might start wondering when and how to begin monetizing your efforts. This episode provides you a number of different scenarios for both the different triggers which might indicate why you should begin to ask for compensation as well as calculating what sort of remuneration you should begin to ask for. This episode also includes advice for marketers who want to build better relationships with influencers.

Find out more about my upcoming book and the pre-order campaign here: https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/

Key Highlights

[03:36] When To Monetize Your Influence?

[07:21] Recognizing When You Have Begun Yielding Influence

[08:32] Signals On When The Time You Should Start Monetizing Your Influence

[11:51] Where To Begin

[12:45] Figuring Out Good Hourly Rate

[14:37] Making Sure You Get Something Back

[15:54] The Only Way To Scale In Monetizing Influence

Notable Quotes

When you begin to get asked things from people, from companies from organizations, what happens is someone sees value in your expertise, your experience, your knowledge, and they contact you.
However, small amount of money you begin with, you need to be it provides you the greatest effort to really monetize your influence, that's really the easiest way to put it.
Well, what is the value of that? What is the value of your time? And what is the value of publishing a piece of content on your website, or for your opinion.
But whatever it is, make sure you are getting in kind value for that.
But I don't want to be doing anything that's less than that, because it's just not worth my time. And this is something that you're going to have to figure out.
When we talk about monetizing influence, we're basically asking something in return for something.
And I want you to get in the habit of whenever someone hasn't asked for you, as someone who has used an influence, you haven't asked for them. And that is going to help you best monetize your influence.
Think about ways in which you can better monetize what you're doing. And I think those of us that have been doing this a while already have this mindset, if you don't have the mindset, now is the time to get the mindset.

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Did you know that my new book on influencer marketing, The Age of Influence, began as a test market on a crowdsourcing platform for authors called Publishizer? It's true! You can even see my original proposal page here: https://publishizer.com/the-business-of-influence/. Today's podcast is looking at the personal side of influence for those that want to yield more influence by becoming a published author. If it wasn't for Lee, my new book wouldn't have been written, so I hope today's episode inspires YOU!

For those interested in my pre-order campaign for The Age of Influence, make sure you buy a copy of the book from this link and then send a copy of your receipt to neal@nealschaffer before 11:59 P.M. Pacific on March 16. You can find out more about the book and pre-order campaign here: https://nealschaffer.com/influencer-marketing-age-of-influence/

The Age of Influence page on Amazon is here: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence

Key Highlights

[01:08] Introduction Of Podcast Guest, Lee Constantine

[05:57] What Is Publishizer?

[07:19] Reasons Why A Professional Should Write A Book

[11:42] How Authors Yield Influence Through Books

[14:42] Example of How Books Can Make You Yield Influence

[18:31] The Biggest Things To Remember When Writing A Book

[27:00] Marketing Your Book

[29:40] Importance Of Platform

[31:19] The 2 Most Important Pieces Outside Social

[36:56] How To Navigate Publication Process

[38:13] How Publishizer Fit Into Publication Process

[40:13] Reasons Why Typical Traditional Agent Reject Books

[41:40] The Average Amount Of Books Sold By Self-Published Authors

[42:54] Different Types Of Publishing Options

[48:15] Final Thoughts

[49:46] Why You Should Have A Website

[54:38] Connect With Lee

Notable Quotes

A book really helps you spread your message. I mean, as a professional that wants to become an experts, or you're becoming an experts, experts typically have unique methodologies and formulas are really unique insights that allow them and others to achieve success. So putting this in book form, is really credible medium to spread that message further.
I really do think it's an amazing Vehicle, obviously, at the end of the day, you'll have an achievement, which is a published book, which is going to stay with your professional brand forever.
I think the biggest thing is, it's choosing something that you want to be an expert on. Because if the book is successful, that is what you're gonna be known for.
All this stuff is important because it's indicators or indicators, when referring to a book, it's indicators that you can talk to consumers and your followers in a way that gets them to engage with you and possibly sell your book later on.
For every aspiring author, you need to really go out there and engage and build that community become an influencer in your industry.
But social media isn't always the strongest platform to tell you. But it's just an indicator that you can develop relationships to sell that book to in another format, like maybe an email or through a personal message.
Don't discount any type of publishing deal. Anytime you can get someone to support your book, partner with you get this thing out there in a way that you necessarily can't do on your own. It's really big added value in there.
Writing a book is muscle memory, building that part from that community's muscle memory requires a daily commitment, you need to put together a playbook.

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Whether you work at a company with staff or you are an entrepreneur, you need to scale so that you can focus on your business and have other experts around you do what they are good at. This includes your digital and social media marketing work. If digital influence is yielded from content creation, you need to stay focused on your content and IP and let others help you do things that are not primary business drivers. I want to share with you what I have done to help scale my own marketing operations and my advice for you.

This podcast episode is a preview of one of the two free webinars I will be doing for those that pre-order my new book The Age of Influence on Amazon. For instructions on how to apply to access, please listen to Episode 144 or read my blog post here.

Key Highlights

[03:28] The Only Way To Scale

[04:12] Integral Part Of Your Marketing Infrastructure

[06:22] How To Find Experts

[08:20] Be A Better Scaler

[08:41] The Things You Can Outsource

[11:03] Summary

Notable Quotes

As an entrepreneur, as a small business owner, as a marketer, you need to stay focused on your key tasks, on your key expertise on your key, what you would call an expert zone.
The only way for us to scale is to delegate is to have other people do work on our behalf, there really is no other way. Obviously, you can look at everything you're doing. Pick the top three things, stop doing the other things.
You can't do everything. You're, you're basically the sum of everybody around you. And you want to hire people that are smarter than you if you want your business to grow.
You need to focus on the right things if you want to drive the right revenue. And in order to do that you need to scale and often with marketing, specifically digital and social media marketing, we need to find people that can do these things for you.

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Everybody talks about Facebook and Instagram Ads, but what about LinkedIn Ads? If you are targeting a lucrative demographic or are a B2B company, LinkedIn should be one of the focus points of your marketing. Join me in this interview with one of the world's foremost experts on LinkedIn Ads, AJ Wilcox, as he teaches you all of the different options you have and how to make the most of them for effective advertising on LinkedIn.

For those of you interested in my Amazon pre-order campaign for The Age of Influence, please purchase a paperback copy here and then send me an email of your receipt to neal@nealschaffer.com to be invited to my two exclusive live webinars. Listen to episode 144 for further details!

Key Highlights

[00:38] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Aj Wilcox

[03:07] How AJ Started Doing LinkedIn Ads

[05:15] Aj's Advice For Beginners

[09:37] The Ideal Threshold For Impressions

[10:32] The Concept of Lifetime Batting Average With LinkedIn Ads

[12:31] Unique LinkedIn Ads Features

[14:33] Different LinkedIn Ad Products

[17:13] What Is A Sponsored Content?

[17:52] Lead Gen Form VS AV Testing

[20:07] LinkedIn Ads Best Practices

[23:31] The Visual Aspect Of LinkedIn Ads

[25:40] Connect With Aj

[26:37] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

If you're going to be paying that much for traffic, it means you've got to make sure that your funnel is pretty tight, your sales processes are good, and you know how to follow up with them. And you have a high enough lifetime value after a deal closes, that you can basically pay for those expensive clicks along the way.
If you have a single campaign you've been investing in over time, when you launch a new ad, even if it sucks, LinkedIn will give you the benefit of the doubt saying we assume this ad is going to be good, it'll launch at a good price, it'll get good impressions.
Build that strong history into your campaigns, don't just run one campaign for a month, and pause it and then start a new one, because you won't be building up history that will work in your favor in the future.
If your goal is to, is to generate conversations with highly valuable people, send them to a landing page where you're going to make the strongest impression and get to know them. But if all you want is to get as many email addresses as possible from a target market, so that they can go into your database and be nurtured then lead gen forms make a lot of sense.
My recommendation is to target pretty tightly, you're going to be paying a lot of money for these clicks. So definitely make sure it's exactly the right people that you would want in your funnel in your sales process.
Be really smart about how you're tiptoeing into the platform, don't take Lincoln's recommended bids, don't don't leave the box checked for audience expansion, what you want to do flip to maximum cost per click bidding, and bid low and just see what happens.
When you're on LinkedIn, you have a mission in mind, you are going to do something. And so if you do the thing that you do on Facebook, which is like, all right, big, long posts and tell a story, that stuff just does not work on LinkedIn, you need to be really short and concise. So for that textual component, make sure you get right to the point, you're telling someone, this is what you need.

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I have published 3 other episodes about Pinterest marketing, but because Pinterest continues to deliver results for me, I wanted to share you with my latest thoughts on the platform for those that have yet to take Pinterest seriously. Pinterest is a very different social network, but for those business and influencers that are content creators, Pinterest just might be the gold mine you have been searching for in social media.

For those of you interested in my Amazon pre-order campaign for The Age of Influence, please purchase a paperback copy here and then send me an email of your receipt to neal@nealschaffer.com to be invited to my two exclusive webinars. Listen to episode 144 for further details!

Key Highlights

[02:08] Why Pinterest Is A Very Special Place In Social Media

[04:14] Why Choose Pinterest?

[06:06] DM Me Vs Swipe Up

[07:00] Pinterest Statistics

[08:32] Why Pinterest Is Great For B2C E-commerce

[09:53] Moving From maximizesocialbusiness.com to nealschaffer.com

[11:03] Pinterest Vs Other Social Platforms In Terms Of Traffic

[12:05] What Are Rich Pins?

[12:28] Maximizing Pinterest Search Tool

[13:40] What Type Of Content Works On Pinterest?

[16:13] The Concept Of Content Buckets

[17:17] How Pinterest Board Works

[19:59] The Recommended Pin Size

[20:50] Be Consistent In Pinterest

[21:09] Curating Content

[22:39] Best Tool For Pinterest

[23:32] Pinterest Smart Queue Functionality

[25:58] Summary

Notable Quotes

Every social network is very different.
Pinterest is a built in audience of people that are used to clicking on images and going places and looking for inspiration for things to buy.
I think that if you haven't been on Pinterest as a discovery engine, this is where you need to start, create an account, create a business account. And there's there are reasons to have a business account. But the first thing is, it gets your account verified. And you get access to something called Rich pins, which is sort of structured markup on your site.
I don't mean to pin anything, I want you to just simply go out there and look at what's out there.
I do believe that your name is your best brand. It stays with you forever. And as an influencer, it may be more memorable than something generic debatable as to what influences what to do if they want to have a brand.
If you want to be successful on Pinterest, you need to be looking at what's working. And you're going to find a few things.
You don't have to put all your content there. But you need to have content. More importantly, you need content because every pin is a bookmark.
That is the simplest thing you can do when you pin it, you want to make sure the title the description, actually match the board, which matches your description. And you ideally want to do this a few times a day.
Pinterest can be extremely powerful whether you want to reach out to influencers that are already generating a lot of traffic that might be able to generate traffic for your brand. Or if you're an influencer brands always want to see not just the likes and the comments, but they want to see the actual clicks. And Pinterest I think is a great supplement for any lifestyle influencer really any influencer out there.

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Join me for an interview with Adrian Salamunovic, Founder of Earned.co and Author of FREE PR, where we discuss all of the free things you can do to get media exposure. This includes learning how to differentiate yourself, identifying the right media targets and channels, and how to amplify and leverage the media you get after it's published by using social media and paid social. If you want to take advantage of the pre-publishing campaign for my book The Age of Influence on Amazon, make sure you buy the book here and then send me a receipt of your pre-purchase before March 17 to neal@nealschaffer.com Thanks!

Key Highlights

[02:26] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Adrian Salamunovic

[06:38] Book To Read To Learn About Differentiating Yourself

[07:28] What Earned.co Does

[09:49] Taking Pitch And Translating It Into Online ACtivities

[12:08] Working On The Channels And Content

[16:20] Why Personalization Is Important

[21:41] Adrian's Advice On Sending Messages Through Instagram And Twitter

[23:07] Timeliness Is Everything

[26:27] The Concept Of Adding Value

[28:40] What To Do If You Don't Know Your Ideal Targets

[29:34] Performing Micro Surveys

[31:30] Leveraging Google Analytics

[32:47] Recommendation On Amplifying And Leveraging The Media Received

[34:35] Hack On How To Organically Get Hits

[38:19] When To Hire Agency?

[39:08] The Deal Of Hiring PR Agencies

[45:13] Three Tiers On Paid Media

[48:01] Stepping Stone To Becoming Regular Contributors

[50:06] Adrian's Book

[53:09] Connect With Adrian

Notable Quotes

I think that having a unique value proposition is probably the most important foundational thing you can do as a business founder, right from the start.
There's riches in niches as the saying goes. And we really like businesses that have niches. And I think one of the most powerful things about having a niche is you're not trying to boil the ocean, right? You know exactly who you're going after.
What I tell people to do is to think that we work for the media, not the other way around. y job is to be available to them when they need me to be available to help bring value to their audience to help them create a great story or narrative. And if you go in with that attitude of servitude, you're going to get so much more from the media over and over again.
I think that that concept of adding value and being their friend is is just more and more important, as more and more businesses have have realized what they need to do to get their media coverage.
The best way to stand out is by almost, again, trying to be empathetic, I think being having empathy is really key, understanding people getting hundreds of emails, or hundreds of messages, standing out by offering value first, by being different with your value by being generous with your value and sort of having, let's say, the most important thing, an attitude of servitude.
Just taking the extra mile and making it easy, and really adding that value.
At the end of the day, PR earned media is a sales process as much as anything, right going out there, you're making friends, you're building relationships are getting told no a lot.
You know your product better than anyone, you know how to converse with these people better than anyone, you're you should be more natural at it, why not keep it in house and just hire those people and train them?

Free PR: How to Get Chased By The Press Without Hiring a PR Firm

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There is an incredible amount of misinformation out there about influencer marketing. Fake followers, phony engagement, people that come out of nowhere and get paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars for posting a single photo on Instagram. Is this influencer marketing bubble about to burst? These are some of the ways influencer marketing is portrayed, but they miss out on a holistic definition of digital influence, which existed way before Instagrammers or YouTubers, and also ignore other trends in digital marketing that will push more and more brands to creating collaborations with influencers. Learn about how to do influencer marketing the right way by listening to this podcast - and if you are interested in The Age of Influence pre-order campaign, simply pre-order the paperback version from Amazon (https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence) and send me the receipt to neal@nealschaffer.com. You will then get access to my invite-only upcoming two webinars ... pre-order 3 copies, and you'll also get free access to my upcoming Business of Influencer Mastermind Group Coaching Program!

Key Highlights

[01:35] Why Influencer Marketing Is Something Most Marketers Have Not Defined Well

[02:44] The Core Of Influencer Marketing

[05:10] What Digital Influence Includes

[05:54] Who Yields Influence?

[06:29] Types Of Influencers Based On Number Of Followers

[07:57] Influence Defined

[08:46] Other Ways Of looking At Influence

[09:17] Why Some Brand Advocacy Programs Aren't Doing Well

[10:20] Things To Remember When Reaching Out To External Influencers

[11:09] Why Influencer Marketing Is The Next Evolution Of Marketing

[11:42] What Social Media Was Made For

[13:21] The First Misnomer About Influencer Marketing

[14:43] People Rule The Algorithms

[16:57] The Age Of Influence Pre-Order

[18:48] The Importance Of Building A Team And Scaling Down

[20:51] Summary

Notable Quotes

At the core, influencer marketing is about relationship building.
Digital Influence includes, but is not limited to social media. It includes a website and the authority that your website has. It includes email marketing, and the size and engagement of your list. And obviously, it includes social media as well.
The more of these that you can do, the more Digital Influence, you end up yielding, that's only going to benefit your business.
We're finding with smaller networks, it's more niche, but it's also tighter, the content creator has more influence, and it's actually more authentic. So this leads to influence and influencers being a lot more people.
I think the more influence you can yield beforehand before you reach out to them. And the more brand affinity you can build through social signals, this is going to help you become so much more efficient and more effective with your influencer marketing.
The message here is, let's get back to what social media was made for, because it was made for people, not for businesses.
The best way to get heard today is through those entities that have influence on these platforms and its people and guess what, people relate more to people than they ever will to a brand.
If you don't collaborate with other social media users, which is that have some sort of Digital Influence, which is my definition of influencer marketing, if you don't, if you're a famous brand, sure, you're going to get a lot of word of mouth marketing, just because you're famous. But if you're not famous, you're just going to be a hidden entity, someone that just doesn't exist, because no one is talking about you, your company, your products on social media, and I want to make sure that doesn't happen.

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Join me for an insightful interview with the bestselling marketing author David Meerman Scott, who's The New Rules of Marketing and PR has sold more than 400,000 copies worldwide. David joined me for an interview where he revealed the background and a preview of his new book: Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans. While the theme of "fans" has been something covered by others, David offers a unique approach backed by case studies and neuroscience which I believe you will find quite insightful. Once you hear the scientific background behind Fanocracy, you might join me in believing that it really might be the next evolution in marketing - for those forward-looking companies who empower their marketing and customer experience teams to push forward on a "fanocracy" initiative. For my listeners, even if you are not a large enterprise, the same concepts that David discusses can be leveraged by any entrepreneur, small business owner, or marketer. You can purchase your own copy of Fanocracy here.

Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans

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If you think influencer marketing is just about famous consumer brands spending lots of money to have YouTubers and Instagrammers talk about them, you are far from the truth! Discover how any business in any industry can and should leverage influencers in this episode #142. Learn more about my upcoming book on influencer marketing, The Age of Influence, at https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence.

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If you are a marketer, especially a digital or social media marketer, it really gets more and more difficult with each passing day to keep track of all of the changes going on in the world of marketing as well as all of the excellent and insightful blog content that are being published. From following social media feeds to subscribing to RSS feeds and newsletters, all of us marketers have our own system that we have created to try to cope, but this approach may not be ideal, especially for the subject matter that we are less familiar with.

This episode #141 features an interview with Yam Regev, CEO and Founder of Zest.is. We discuss all of the changes in marketing that marketers need to be concerned about, how can marketers consume all of the blog content that is being published on a daily basis, as well as how a combination of Community + Content + AI utilizing the free Zest.is app can help support today's marketer. You can access Zest at https://zest.is

As mentioned in the intro, I do host livestream shows with some of the top thought leaders in marketing infrequently, so if you are interested, please make sure you subscribe to my newsletter so that I can let you know the next time I record one. You can do so by going to my website and entering you email address on the sidebar widget or the one at the bottom of each page: https://nealschaffer.com

Key Highlights

[02:57] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Yam Regev

[03:48] What Is Zest?

[08:32] The Heart and Core Of Zest

[14:00] Ways Yam Prevent And Control Bad Content In The Community

[17:15] The Learning Management Aspect Of Zest

[18:49] User's Feature Fit

[20:11] Our Email Feature

[23:10] Does Zest Offer Certification Programs?

[26:55] New Emerging Topics That Are Critical For Marketers

[27:59] The Reality Of Marketing Industry

[30:35] What Zest Provides

[31:13] 2 Key Areas Marketers Need To Be Top Of The Game

[32:35] How Can Marketers Consume Blog Content That Are Published Daily

[35:59] Built-in Feedback Process

[39:40] Most Searched Tags

Notable Quotes

We feel that we live in a huge global shift, right in the way that we consume content. And it seems that the way that we expect content to be to be it needs to be more personalized, and on demand.
The cheaper it is to create content, the accessible the internet gets the more content and information that will be.
But when we want the content, when we have 15 minutes, because we're on a train, or whatever it might be, we want to be able to consume it in depth then, and therefore that makes sense to your platform obviously serves those people better.
So long as you have really smart people at Google, trying to improve things and change things, things are always changing.
The content creators themselves are creating a lot of content, but they're not necessarily updating the old content, which Google I get gives really, really good authority to If that old content was able to generate a lot of backlinks and engagement.
I think that's the core issue with Google is that even if you find a great piece of content, we tried to be relevant and even knowledge building for you, you know, some maybe someone worked quite hard to get these results, and to target us specifically.
The way that you consume a knowledge or the way that you prioritize what content you want to consume, should be we can call it social, socially based, based on a lot of parameters, but also about who you are, well, what is your surroundings? What are the kinds of people that you want to be like?
What we understood is that if the community is so integrated within the solution, and also spreading the world, for this, it can be bad.

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For whatever social media channel you want to become proficient at, STOP listening to this podcast and START becoming a user of the channel! As marketers, we sometimes look for new social networks or content mediums to utilize for marketing, but instead of reading blogs or listening to what advice others give us, becoming actual users and consumers of the content on those platforms or of those mediums is probably the single most important thing you can do at the beginning to get better at them.

This episode #140 was inspired by my own podcast and the confession that I personally wasn't a consumer of podcasts yet was a podcast creator. While the positive thing is that I might not have been influenced by other podcasters and thus my podcast might be unique, it also means that I failed to grasp the importance of certain things about my podcast or the needs of podcast audiences.

As mentioned in the intro, if you haven't subscribed to my newsletter, please do so by going to my website and entering you email address on the sidebar widget or the one at the bottom of each page: https://nealschaffer.com

Key Highlights

[03:51] Batching And Repurposing Content

[06:28] The Thing About Podcasting

[07:16] Media Consumption Difference With Every Generation

[09:14] How Long Can You Keep Your Audience Engaged With Podcasts?

[10:12] Blogs As Part Of SEO

[10:49] Top 3 Areas I Generate Traffic To My Website

[13:10] An Ineffective Way Of Using Social Media

[14:11] Why People Are In Social Media?

[14:23] The Approach Other Business Have On Social Media Marketing

[16:55] The Power Of Podcasting That I Realized

[17:51] What Podcasting Gives Me

[19:26] Writing Content And Developing Products Should Be Targeted To Your Audience

[19:40] Be part Of The Network You Want To Monetize

[20:02] How To Go Deep Into A Platform

Notable Quotes

If you want to benefit from it, you gotta use it. And you got to become proficient at batching content.
Blogs, from my perspective, be part of its brandy. But part of its SEO, right. It's like posting a bad photo on Instagram, and it's going to kill your engagement. Bad blog content is going to kill your relationship with Google as well.
You got to be in the platform to know what works, that we repeat that you have to be an active user, you have to want to use the social network and use it on a daily basis and engage in a daily basis and become part of the community if you want it to work for your business.
So you got to be part of the network. And once you're part of the network, and you're actually engaging with people, like you care, you don't see them as $1 sign, because you truly want to help them. Because you know, you can help them better than anyone else, you know that by investing in you, and you're investing in them, they're gonna get tremendous ROI.
For me, the podcast gives me the opportunity to learn from them to get to know them better to be influenced by those I want to be influenced by. And now I'm getting back to thinking you know, all those people who just interview other people, that's why they're doing it, there's nothing wrong with that they're learning from them. They're using it as a vehicle to develop relationships.
You got to be part of the network you want to monetize. And by becoming part of it, you begin to build and yield influence there.
But trust me, the more you hone your content for that network, the more effective you're going to be. But it all starts with being part of the network you want to monetize.
And if you don't know how to go deep into a platform, you know, I always say social media was made for people, not for businesses. It's not rocket science, spend five minutes a day, spend 10 minutes a day

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How do you advertise your profile amongst so many professionals while you are still only a college student? And what might professionals learn about their own LinkedIn profile optimization from my advice to college students? Listen on for the details!

Key Highlights

[01:10] What is LinkedIn?

[02:37] LinkedIn Vs Other Social Media Platform

[03:30] Why LinkedIn Profile Is Important

[04:50] Deciding On A Path That You Will Represent On LinkedIn

[05:40] What To Put On Your LinkedIn Profile

[07:06] Navigating LinkedIn

[09:50] What Profile Photo To Use

[11:31] Professional Headline Summary

[13:16] Doing Searches For Other Professionals/Students In LinkedIn

[13:30] LinkedIn Groups

[14:20] About Section

[16:19] Summary Section

[19:36] Work Experience Section

[21:04] Adding Volunteer Experience, Certifications, and Lincenses

[22:08] Recommendation Requests

[23:50] What To Put In Industry

[24:22] Why You Need To Include Your Location

[25:16] Summary

Notable Quotes

LinkedIn is where decision makers are right? People that are executives in businesses that are leaders in their field, professionals in general, I think that LinkedIn says that three quarters of all working professionals are on LinkedIn, and older people, haha, compared to Gen Z, older people treat LinkedIn differently as well.
LinkedIn gives you the ability to enter an incredible amount of information about yourself. And it is really, really important that even as a college student who may not have a lot of professional information, you need to completely fill it out the best you can.
The important thing here is that if you're in college, you need to decide on a path that is going to best represent you on LinkedIn.
I highly recommend you use something because that is going to be when people come to your profile, the number one thing that they see below that now we have your own image, your own photo, this should be as professional as possible.
You definitely want to make a great first impression on LinkedIn like everywhere else. And that first impression is going to come out through that photo of you in addition to that cover photo.
If you're ever wondering about, you know, what is the best way to do this, there's no one wrong or right answer. It's all sort of a gray zone that really comes down to you and your personal branding and the unique people that you're trying to attract.
Part of branding, is talking about your strengths and your experiences. The other part is how you are differentiated than other people.
So once again, those things that especially tie into what you want to do, even if it was a few weeks sort of internship, I highly recommend you put it in here, it's going to gain you more visibility in LinkedIn, it's also going to give you more credibility, and paint a fuller picture of who you are.

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Customer experience marketing. It's a buzzword that a lot of people throw out, but what exactly does it mean, how important is it to you business today, and what are the first steps you can take to implementing customer experience marketing the right way?

I could not think of a better person than friend and customer experience marketing expert Dan Gingiss to have on my podcast to answer these questions and more for my listeners.

As Dan explains, customer experience marketing is a vital aspect to both your online and offline business. It also could be the one defining thing that can differentiate your brand from your competitors.

Dan takes us through the correct way to implement customer experience marketing. Listen in and read the show notes below to learn more.

Key Highlights

[00:44] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Dan Gingiss

[04:09] What Dan Realized About Social Marketing

[08:03] Defining Customer Experience

[08:44] 2 Keys of Customer Support

[10:57] Why Customer Experience Is Getting A Buzz Just Now?

[13:00] Customer Experience As The True Differentiator For Brands

[13:21] You Need To Compete With Experience

[13:39] Example Of A Company That Provides Great Customer Experience

[16:33] Creating Emotional Attachment With Your Customers

[17:16] Customer Experience Audit

[22:21] Dan's Advice To Companies

[25:01] Connect With Dan

Notable Quotes

I think that's a really good thing because it has brought brands closer to their customer, so that they understand their customer better, and can create products and experiences based on that understanding.
By spending time focusing on providing remarkable experiences, you can get more people talking positively about your brand and start drowning out some of that negativity.
The way that I define customer experience is that it is how people feel about every single interaction they have with a brand.
One of the things that I love to say is that I believe today, there's no such thing as an offline customer experience. Because even things that we used to consider being offline, like say, being on an airplane, well, the guy that was dragged off the airplane, showed us that not everything on an airplane is offline anymore, right? Because it can come online in an instant.
I believe that customer experience is going to become the last true differentiator for brands.
When companies treat their customers well, customers don't mind as much, they don't pay as much attention to a sale down the road that you know, is going to get them a 10% discount to what you're charging them, because they know that you're going to take better care of them.
Creating that emotional attachment is, is probably going to be a great way to generate a positive customer experience.
I'm talking about actually becoming a customer and actually going through the process of whatever it is that your company offers to customers.
The harder thing is creating unique, remarkable new experiences. Differentiation, that is gonna make people talk about your brand versus another one's, that's tough, that takes a long time, and usually many years to establish. But getting rid of existing pain points is easy.

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Getting to the front page in the search rankings is a battlefield - you're fighting a war! The struggle to stay relevant and compete with an ever growing number of competitors requires the right tools and the right approach to revitalizing existing blog content and strategically creating new content.

If you are approaching content from a social media marketing perspective, or from a blogging perspective, today's podcast is going to really resonate with you because I want to give you a hopefully new and really holistic way of thinking about search engine optimization and therefore the content that either you already have on your site or new content that you are going to blog in the future as part of your content marketing and social media marketing efforts

Key Highlights

[03:39] What drives traffic?

[03:47] Why Search Engines Are Relevant And Powerful

[04:46] The Concept Of Freshness

[05:36] Data-driven Approach

[06:19] Why Some Content Outperform And Some Underperform?

[06:57] Minimum Number Of Words for Blog Posts

Notable Quotes

At the end of the day search engines is what drives traffic.
I still think at the end of the day, you know, people read emails, people read blogs, but people do a heck of a lot of searches.
Search engines are still there and are still as powerful and as relevant as ever. And therefore, when we think about content, we should be thinking about search engines.
Why does some content outperform and some underperform? Well, what I've found some of the underperforming content is actually competing with good performing content on your websites.
If you blogged about the same thing over and over again, Google is just going to try to find the best one if you're trying to target the same keyword.

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Social media keeps changing. It seems that every few weeks you hear that Facebook has some new algorithm that messes up all the energy you’ve been putting into it. Then a new feature appears and everyone tells you how amazing it is for branding and marketing. And then it turns out that it’s not as amazing as everyone says (remember Periscope?). How do we keep track of the social media marketing trends? How do we adapt? How do make sure to stay atop of the ever-flowing changes but at the same time never waste too much energy on them either? Today I interview an expert to help you answer all those questions about social media marketing trends. During my recent trip around the world, I was able to go to the Falcon.io "Spark" conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where I finally had a chance to meet up with someone I've known and respected in social media for quite some time: Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and former social media director for the The Next Web as well as consultant to organizations such as the United Nations and BBC. In this interview I talk with Matt about what has happened to social media in the past 12 months and what’s next for the future with regards to social media marketing trends. Should businesses continue experimenting with Facebook? How can brands make use of both Instagram and Facebook Stories? What is the next big thing? Listen to find out!

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16 days. 6 countries. 2 continents. After a business trip around the world, I pondered what role businesses should play in social media. And then it dawned on me: Social media marketing has been going on for ten years, but brands on average still suck at it. Should businesses keep trying to do the same thing? Or is it time for a next generation, new approach to social media marketing that takes into account the fact that we are now entering our second decade of implementing organic social? Listen on for the conclusion that I have and the advice for you to completely blow up and reconstruct your social media marketing efforts to be more effective in 2019 and beyond.

Key Highlights

[00:49] It's Time For Second Generation Strategies

[03:41] Why Influencer Marketing Is Ahead In Southeast Asia And China

[04:42] How Influential Influencers Are In China And Southeast Asia

[06:03] Brands Moving More Into Paid Social

[06:40] Do Consumers Want To Talk To Brands On Social Media?

[08:28] Influencers Are The Best Content Creators

[10:44] How Most Businesses Started Out

[11:53] Inciting Word Of Mouth

[12:47] Marketers Are Miseducated On Influencer Marketing

[13:38] Redefining Influencer Marketing

[17:07] Invest In Relationship With People

Notable Quotes

I think that businesses really understand the influence that these people have in that part of the world.
And as they said, you know, if we want to get the word out about our, about our company, about our brand, where else will be go, but to work with influencers? And I thought about it right, you know, it made a lot of sense. Because, yeah, I mean, if you already have legacy, it's one thing, but we look at these case studies of startups on Instagram, that just shift, they just bypass those traditional marketing channels.
We've been doing social media marketing for a decade now. And I think we need to come to the realization, and I keep saying it, but it bears reminding that social media was made for people, not for businesses, right? Businesses really shouldn't be in social media. But I don't think that people want to have conversations with brands in social media, unless they're gonna complain, perhaps if they have a question.
That's what social media is about, is about building relationships with people.
Many businesses started out word of mouth, happy customers, successful customers, they told their friends, and so on. But what's important here is that I applaud falcon.io Because one of the keywords in Spark, that digital marketing conference I spoke at was how going forward? Do we incite conversations that connect? And I think that's what it's about, right? It's about leveraging our customers who 10 years ago, we're not on social media, but they're on social media. Now, it's about spreading word of mouth through social media.
So if business is about word of mouth marketing, and social media should have been about word of mouth marketing, the only way to incite word of mouth marketing is not from the declining reach of your organic posts, nor is it about your advertisements. It's about leveraging people.
What's important is that we need to redefine and the business of influence is going to be all about redefining it. And I think that employee advocacy is a great way to begin that thought process of redefining influencer marketing when you consider your employees influencers.
instead of going after people that have no brand affinity with you, build from your fans.
It's people, people rule, social media, people will always rule social media.

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I recently keynoted social media enterprise platform company Falcon.io's Spark conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on the topic of influencer marketing. I had a chance to meet with their founder and CEO, Ulrik Bo Larsen, at the event and get his perspective on all things social media marketing. Listen in for his advice.

Key Highlights

[00:48] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ulrik Bo Larsen

[02:27] Successful Things Jay See That Brands Do In Social and Digital These Days

[05:03] Falcon.io's Core Message of Marketing

[05:46] The Areas Where Marketers Need To Improve On

[09:01] Big Things That Marketers Miss Out Of

[11:13] Bringing The Content Team Together

[11:46] How Can Japanese North American Brands Best Engage?

[16:26] The Focal Points Marketers Should Focus On

[17:28] Three Centers Of Gravity

Notable Quotes

A lot of these great things that people want to achieve on these channels, which is often starts with a marketing message, you want to want to get a specific message out, you want to set on specific product, you want to create a rareness around a brand, a lot of those things are now especially in I would say in the mid market and some of the more innovative enterprise companies, people are starting to realize that a lot of those things are very intertwined.
I think the great marketing author, Seth Gordon, he once talked about the lizard brain that there is something in our brains that says we want to do repeatable things, because they make us feel good, I think we find that with social media marketers, we finally have an editorial calendar down, we have our mix down, we'll just you know, repeat this whole process and the content becomes stale becomes out of date, and the consumers moved on and the way we utilize these technologies has evolved.
I think that a lot of things are moving towards you know, visual content. And it obviously you know, sometimes changes the need for kind of the you know, the expertise you need internally to produce that is different than just writing copy but but it's all those things are coming together.
So I think you need to engage with perhaps a new set of agencies to help you out produce some of that content and you need to staff your own your own teams in ways so that you can maneuver what is you know, the changing landscape of what constant formats are working and it's video it's visual video now it's portrait instead of landscape and all those things are constantly happening right and you write us need to be Ready for for that and embrace it as you know, an exciting line of work rather than oh my god, I thought I had it down, because that's never gonna happen.
You may have some, some some difference of, of, you know, personality, and there are differences throughout the states of America for sure. But it is, you know, it's my new compared to the differences in culture over here. So I think that that's important. So you often get into a more more refined set up with, with regional and local markers, local activation, where you take some of those some of the content pieces and really want, you need to localize them to these to these markets over here.
What you want to do, you want to bootstrap them with some tooling, and some platforms, and something to kind of hold on to create longevity, on all the, you know, customer interactions, all the profiles, you build up all those things you want to create, you know, you want to build up repositories of those types of things. And we think as a tool vendor, as a product company, having that mindset is really important.

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Influencer Marketing is about way more than just Instagram influencers with millions of followers. This episode is a preview of Neal's new book on influencer marketing, The Business of Influence, and aims to change your mindset to understand that influence is literally everywhere, on every social network and content medium, and those who influence include your followers, customers, partners, and even employees.

Key Highlights

[01:49] Why Influencer Marketing Is Today's Hot Topic

[02:16] Compelling Reasons To Be Utilizing Influencer Marketing

[03:29] Books About Influence

[05:27] The Definition and Concept of Influencer Marketing

[07:55] Influence Is Everywhere

[09:15] Early Form of Influencer Marketing

[10:11] Longes Life Span Of Social Posts

[11:02] What Is Affiliate Marketing

[11:07] How To Become An Affiliate

[11:55] Other Types Of Influencer Marketing

[12:03] Brand Advocacy

[13:15] More Types of Influences

[14:51] People Always Outperform Businesses

[16:16] Expanding Mindset About Influencer Marketing

[17:34] Using Events To Expand Influences

Notable Quotes

I believe that influencer marketing should be a fundamental part of a company's marketing. And this is not just for consumer brands that are targeting Millennials or tweens for any brand, including b2b brands, including nonprofits and government organizations.
When you begin to think about all this holistically, you begin to see that influence does not depend on social network influence really is everywhere.
So we can't forget when we talk about influencer marketing, the power of working with bloggers because, you know, the lifetime of a tweet is very short.
Here's the thing, an influencer doesn't have to be that 10 million follower, Instagram celebrity. And influencer might only have 5000 followers, but they have a very, very highly engaged community in something that is relevant to the products and services that you offer. Now you begin to see how broad of a definition influencer marketing should be.
There's plenty of stats out there that show that by investing in relationships with your customers, you will end up getting more business than investing in advertising outside of your customers. In other words, not only through loyalty, will your customers purchase more from you, but they will also refer you to others that will end up being your customers as well.
And I think the whole idea about working with influencers is ideally at the end of the day, you want to try to convert them into becoming brand advocates, right?
The whole idea is that social media was made for people, not for businesses, right.
Therefore, all of these different types of influencers that I'm talking about are all people. And that is the unifying substance here. It's not that you have to have X number of followers. It's that you're a person, you're active in social media, and you have a community that engages with your content, ideally, and specifically around a certain type of subject matter or content that is important to your business for wanting to engage with that influencer.
But if you use the creation of around a blog post, as a way to hopefully get them to share your posts, or at a minimum, it helps you establish a relationship with the influencer for the future.
So events are a powerful, powerful form of marketing. And when you include influencers as part of them, it is a great way to yield ROI and to strengthen those relationships. And you get to meet these influencers in person where you can really deepen that relationship.

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Roundup posts are a powerful form of influencer marketing when strategically planned and implemented correctly, especially but not limited to B2B businesses. Learn how to create your own roundup posts with this interview with Codrut Turcanu, one of the global leaders in producing expert roundup blog posts.

Key Highlights

[00:32] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Codrut Turcanu

[02:38] How To Define A Roundup Blog Post?

[04:40] How Did Codrut Started The Concept Of Having Experts Chime In Your Blog

[07:05] Pain Points Businesses Will Face The First Time They Do Influencer Outreach

[09:55] Why And How Roundup Blog Posts Benefits Businesses

[11:58] Success Stories

[15:48] Case Study Example

[19:05] Ballpark Number For Roundup Posts

[21:47] Codrut's Final Advice

Notable Quotes

This is where you or someone from your team, or maybe your source of the process, you gather a list of influence marketers, specialists in your industry, people who are experts at their craft, and we ask them a specific question. And what you end up with is a full blown blog post where they feature their answer.
The quick, the quick, or the fast solution would be to think about what is the end result?
Once you know the goal, or the main achievement, then you can start and create or compile your experts list or your influence in classes list.
What I recommend my clients do, first of all, before they set on the goal, before they decide what they really want to achieve with their first test Roundup, then I suggest that they create a list with people whom they already connected with, these might go back to previous clients, doing Venture Partners, and so forth.
Definitely worth about because you connect with people who are already influential in their marketplace in the industry, actually, when you associate with people who already have an audience, already have access to people who work or want to access, like, for example, leads clients, social media ordinances, and so forth.
It also puts you on the radar of these influencers, because now you're starting to build a relationship with them through this engagement through this tactic of inviting them to have their opinion voice.
And with the right promotion with the right strategy, you may be able to collaborate with them so that they can promote your blog post, then you can also use your newsletter and social media accounts, to drive traffic to your back to your blog post as well to your expert.
This is why I recommend my parameters to my clients, because they open the door to a long term relationship and the links the social shares, the visitors leads and clients will follow quickly afterwards, it will come as a natural effect.
Now, one remark I want to make this, this concept of excellent that can be just and implemented in any niche, no matter how large or small in any industry. That's why I suggest to my clients to go to connect with those on the middle levels, who have a sizable and significant audience, but they are so respond to emails or to their social media accounts personally.
Always focus on quality content, and quality experts. And this goes back to listening to your audience, because your audience actually will dictate how you adjust your strategy whom you connect with, and what type of content they they want to read or listen to.

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On this podcast I first compare the concept of an Instagram follower policy with that of other social networks and then focus on detailing my experience on Instagram to help you create a policy that will help you grow both Instagram followers and engagement.

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What are the biggest issues facing the influencer marketing industry today? And how can marketers best navigate the influencer landscape? Join me for an exclusive insider's look at the influencer marketing industry in this interview with Eric Dahan, CEO of the leading influencer marketing technology company OpenInfluence.

Key Highlights

[00:24] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Eric Dahan

[01:31] How Powerful Is Influencer Marketing?

[05:16] The Types Of Influencers Brands Should Be Working With

[10:00] Things That Brands Need To Improve Upon Working With Influencers

[10:32] The Common Mistakes Brands Do In Influencer Marketing

[15:03] Influencer Marketplace Model

[15:41] The Issues With Influencer Marketplace

[21:22] Friction Of Supply And Demand

[25:01] Influencer Pricing

[27:23] Connect With Eric And Open Influence

Notable Quotes

I think, you know, the reasons why influencer marketing is so successful, is pretty straightforward. You know, there's so much information out there, there's so many ads out there.
And so it makes sense that when you have an influencer, that you're already following, you're already consuming the content they create, when they integrate a piece of branded content with their normal content stream. It just resonates a lot better, right?
At the end of the day, you know, there's no one size fits all strategy, right? For a very simple level,, you have three components, right? You have the message, the messenger, and the audience, and all those three things have to be aligned, to have something really resonate and be effective.
And so you know, believe me when I say, we love nothing more than dynamic marketplaces, and being able to extract deficiencies with transparency.
I think the right approach is identifying the right influencers, and then shopping from those influencers, having them compete against one another, for opportunities. And that's a really good forcing function for driving, you know, cost down in value up.
But in today's world, with the emergence of social media, with the emergence of mobile, native social platforms, you opened the door to, you know, from a handful of celebrities, to now hundreds of 1000s and millions of people becoming, you know, influencers.
And so there are all these different variables that really affect and influences price, because influencers are people and for them, they don't really have a high cost structure, right, they've recovered, essentially their living expenses, but they don't have any cost of goods sold associated with what they're selling.

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How fresh is your content? Content is the currency of social and digital media, yet what type of content in what content medium do you publish in what outlet or social media website? Join Neal for an insightful look into why content has an expiration date and what you can do to get the best ROI from your content.

Key Highlights

[03:47] Content As Currency of Social Media

[05:40] Content Marketing Bridges Gap

[08:11] It's About Engaging

[10:18] Engagement Content

[11:54] Written Content

[13:04] How I Began My Blog

[16:47] Figuring Out Your Best Brand

[17:30] Moving To NealSchaffer.com

[19:22] What I Do With My Old Blog Posts

[20:17] Ways Of Devaluing Your Site

[21:56] Ideal Content Types

[23:49] News Value On Twitter And LinkedIn

[24:11] SEO Audit Tools

Notable Quotes

Content is the currency of digital media. Without content, you really have no presence on the Internet.
And the idea about content marketing is you're trying to bridge that gap between the content that you want to publish to promote your own products and services, and the content that your prospective clients want access to.
So those engagement type of content are really specific to social media. A lot of it is visual and they really help both humanize your Brand and help you deepen relationships with those that might have a similar interest. And that's always going to come to your favor.
And the whole reason why and really, at the end of the day, especially when you think about the way that algorithms work, and the way that people associate or have greater affinity with other people than with brands, that my best brand is my name, Neal schaffer.com.
Whatever industry, you're in technology changes over time.
If engagement content is fleeting, as it should be because the life of a post in social media is very short. I will say though, with hashtags on Instagram, and Pinterest, these are areas where the content lives a little bit longer.
But no matter how much you try to make it evergreen, like those LinkedIn posts, like the cloud posts, or the Foursquare posts, it changes. So something can never be evergreen.
But guess what, you're never going to be able to compete with the big boys. Because they just have they already have greater domain authority and search engines, they already have a larger following than you do. There really is little value in trying to publish news that everybody is going to read somewhere else anyways.
And that's why even a blog post, no matter what type of blog post, no matter what type of company, it has an expiration date, nothing in this world, unfortunately, it's going to last forever.

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Today Neal is mixing it up with an interview as he gets ready to hit the road again in the next couple of months. He’s talking to someone he’ll be meeting at the upcoming Social Tools Summit in Boston, Jay Shemenski, who is the Digital Manager of the Harvard Medical School. Listen in to hear him talk about how he got to Harvard Medical School, what his goals are in managing their social, and what he’s looking forward to talking to at the Social Tools Summit.

Key Highlights

[01:09] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jay Shemenski

[01:36] Jay's Journey To Social Media Marketing

[05:18] Getting Experience In Google AdWords, PPC, and SEO

[07:16] Jay's Advice For Social Media Practitioners

[09:43] The Use Of Harvard Medical School In Social Media

[11:26] Who Are Jay's Target Audiences?

[12:03] Elements To Look At To Decide Iff A Program Is Possible

[13:52] Social Tool Summit Session That Jay Wanted To Be On

[16:22] Tips On Developing Visual Content

[18:50] Connect With Jay

Notable Quotes

I mean, even now looking at social media, and looking at how you can start to work with native ads and paid ads, and targeting to certain audiences. It's really the same principles. It's really just, you know, how much you know about particular users and how you can engage with them and increase that engagement.
I think it's, you know, everything that you work with, you're going to pick up bits and pieces that enhance that singular focus.
So I think getting that broad base is very important, because nothing happens in a vacuum. And you're going to need to know how all the different pieces work together, in order for you to be able to demonstrate the ROI of social and the impact that social is having, and how it influences all the other pieces.
With us, we take more of a competitive analysis look and say, what's our share of voice? What's our share of engagement? You know, are we driving more attention than our competitors within the field? And then even kind of keeping an eye outside just the medical education field, and really just science media as a whole?
What I'm really keyed into and excited about is, is visual, social, and how people in organizations can be using images, video to really tell their story in a much more emotional way, in a much more connected way.
But I think one thing that was really lacking within our field is visually connecting the stories and the change that institutions organizations are driving through scientific discovery and through medicine. And that was an area where we could really develop a differentiated story about what we're doing here and you potentially connect to audiences in a deeper way, and also reach some new audiences.
So I think, really, the first step is taking a step back and assessing where you are in the field that you're working within, and where you can create value. And like I said, before, a differentiated story from your competitors, through images.

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Today I'm talking about something that I haven't talked about before: growth hacking. Growth hacking is basically how to quickly create a robust social presence on a newly launched effort in a short amount of time. I have had a few companies reach out to me for advice on this subject, and was recently asked what my first steps to start building a big presence would be. The ten tips I'm talking about today are great not only for social media newbies, but also for folks who maybe need to take a step back and make sure they haven’t missed these important steps.

Key Highlights

[02:51] 10 Steps Approach Improve Your Social Media Growth

[03:13] Creating Social Media Strategy Based On Your Business Objectives

[04:06] Determine Your Target Audience

[05:36] Determine Your Primary Content

[08:34] Leveraging Hashtags

[11:00] Prepare An Editorial Calendar

[11:59] Create A Branded Voice And Image

[13:03] Prepare A Week's Worth Of Content

[13:33] Start to Engage!

[15:27] Curate Content From Your Targeted Users

[16:20] Create Social Media Workflow

[16:55] Do a sprint

[17:42] Do PDCA

[18:07] Tweet Your Content

[19:00] Summary

Notable Quotes

Not everybody uses social media equally.
So you really need to understand the unique demographics of these platforms. And you need to be able to understand which are the platforms where your target audiences. So as part of the social media strategy, you need to have a channel strategy and has to be determined by who your target audience is.
But needless to say, you need to understand where your target audience is. And well why they use social media in the first place. Because if you can't answer that, no matter what you do, no matter what engagement you create, it could just go for waste, if it's the wrong target market.
It's gonna come down to your company, your products and services and the way that you think you can cut through the noise. And actually be heard, be seen, be engaged with.
Start to engage with other targeted users on the selected social networks through a combination of following follow back sharing their content and or commenting on their posts.
Obviously, you have this power of introductions, if you connect with them, and they can connect you with the decision maker. You can ask them for an introduction, but if they're not going to respond to your introduction request it really makes no difference.
There's a lot of different social media content out there, I try to find good content, from my followers first, from those that support me first.
Look at the data that you've been measuring to make sure whether or not you hit your objectives. And understand ascertain what effects your social media have on your business.

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Today’s show is about something I'm very passionate about both for my clients and for my own brand: taking social media seriously. Social is becoming a bigger part for businesses large and small, and they are spending more and more resources on it, but it’s important to take it seriously and look at what you’re getting out of it. Putting processes in place can help you streamline your social media program and examine what is the best strategy for your business, which will in turn provide more ROI.

Key Highlights

[01:25] Take Social Media Seriously

[03:36] Think About Your Processes And Protect Them

[05:19] Find The Right Time For You

[05:32] Re-read Maximize Your Social

[07:14] Improving Your SEO

[07:58] Re-doing Your Approach To Email

[08:35] 2 Ways Of Looking At The Actual Social Networks

[09:31] Look At Your Role Models

[11:09] Look At Your Facebook Insights

[11:47] Working on Pinterest

[14:29] My Snapchat Presence

[14:51] Own Your Hashtag

[15:11] Loom At The Resource Part

[15:50] 4 Ways To Scale

[16:22] Leverage Your People In The Right Way

[16:43] When To Outsource Task

[19:39] Define Your Process

Notable Quotes

When I talk about getting series, that means really taking a step back. It's really about putting processes into your social media program.
It's about the operations of social media, about making sure you're doing the right things, you're measuring the right things, and therefore you're delivering on what you need to do in order to make your social media program sustainable for whatever objective you're measuring it for.
What I mean by this is really what is the objective, if you are trying to generate more leads, or you're trying to get more website traffic, which is often an objective, look at where your leads have been coming from over the last 12 months. And you might be surprised that this often surprises people.
There's so much market to get out there. And it's going to come down to relationships and your audience and your community.
You really need to balance everything because social complements, everything replaces nothing, maybe you need to take another look at that right?
Whatever communities that you're involved in, okay, how much time you put into it, what are you getting out of it? And what are you posting and what's the frequency you're posting for things want you to look out.
I am now actually trying to focus more on the quality and less than the frequency.
I want you to bridge that gap by refocusing what you're doing. And you can use different techniques to do that.
You can't outsource everything. But you can have the right people do the right jobs.
You need to be in the right places with the right content, the content has to be powerful, valuable, resourceful. But more and more, it's coming down to the one to one relationships that you have with people that you meet or engage with over social.

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Not long ago, Neal was on an “Ask Me Anything” on Product Hunt, a website that showcases new products, apps, and startups. Today he’s sharing some of the questions he answered during that session because he thought maybe if one person is asking this, other people are having these same questions. Listen in to hear Neal talk about everything from the best platforms to be on, tools to be using, advice for startups, and tips for fundraising for your new social business.

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Happy new year and welcome to the first solo episode of 2016. I've been thinking a lot about skills of the best social media marketers, and what I should be focusing on this year. The answer is focus: social media marketers wear lots of hats, and the only way to maintain a strategic approach is the ability to focus and keep on track. Listen in to hear how I keep focused, and why focusing on your business objective is crucial to your success.

Key Highlights

[02:19] Focus, Focus, Focus!

[03:41] Create More Vidoe Content

[04:10] The Way I Focus

[05:22] "Big Content"

[05:57] "Other Content"

[06:18] Optimizing My Tools

[06:54] Idea Of Monetizing

[09:03] You Need A Product Or Service

[09:53] Becoming An Influencer Or Brand Advocate

[11:55] Influencer Platforms Examples

[13:29] Launch New Brand

[15:36] Social Media Is About Having An Objective

[16:46] Performing Audits On Your Social Media

Notable Quotes

As social media marketer, we wear a lot of hats, right? Whether it's content creation, engagement, listening, campaign planning, or analyzing the best social media marketers need to wear many hats across many social networks. And the only way to maintain a strategical approach amongst this whirlwind of never ending activity, that is social media, is the ability to focus and keep on track, ensuring that tactical objectives are implemented, and social media activities are strategically aligned. It's one habit, which truly separates the best from the rest.
Social media replaces nothing, but compliments everything.
Just getting lots of followers like a vanity metric, right? It has no business value.
Just because someone likes your company doesn't mean that they have opted into your email or even considering buying from you. They can like you for a lot of different reasons, right? But without a product, there's no business there's influence but it has no power.
The followers give you the credibility, but you need to be able to deliver on the cliques. And if you're on a social network, where you're just unsure as to what sort of clicks you're getting. That's a black hole.
But really, you need to have a product, you need to have a service, the beautiful thing is, okay, once you get a large following, in social, as a business or a brand.
So the bigger the community, the morbidity, you have to cross promote, and therefore the more ability you have to launch new brands, or new offerings from scratch, and I think that's really the exciting thing here is if you can find a product or a service that you can either create or partner with But someone that has a lot of business value to your community, probably in there, you might be able to find another niche or something complementary, where you can branch off.
At the end of the day, right, social media is about having an objective, and it has to be a business objective, and therefore you have to have a business. So that's only a question you can answer.
ut the key thing is, you got to have focus, you got to have clarity, you got to be clear about your business objectives. And everything you do in social media, either directly or indirectly, has to be all about those business objectives.

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Today Neal is sharing an interview he did with Marylin Montoya of Sociabble. Sociabble, one of the sponsors of the 2015 Social Tools Summits, is an employee advocacy platform that uses content marketing and social media networks to connect relevant content to employees in order to showcase their company’s brand. Marylin is sharing her insider perspective and offering valuable information and advice based on lots of experience helping large clients plan and implement employee advocacy programs. Listen in to hear her talk about the value of employee advocacy, why your employees are your best assets, and why enterprise-wide employee advocacy is a natural progression of social business.

Key Highlights

[00:35] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Marilyn Montoya

[02:48] What is Sociabble?

[05:17] Why Employees Are The Company's Best Assets?

[09:21] Ways Employee Advocacy Benefit Company

[11:50] Evolution of Employee Advocacy Internally

[15:16] How Sociabble Helps With Training The Company Set Up Employee Advocacy Program

[17:00] Employee Advocacy In Europe Vs North America

[20:28] Connect With Marilyn

Notable Quotes

It's a technology that uses content marketing, and social media networks, to connect relevant content to employees in order to showcase their company's brand.
The main reasons are to obviously, amplify the message of the brand through the voice of the employees, and also, to allow those employees to engage in personal branding, with social networks, That means kind of develop a thought leadership through the content that the company is helping provide those employees and then, you know, also have them understand what it means to build your brand on social media.
Business is done between people, not between company and people. So, the idea is, you know, let's, let's allow employees to engage with audiences on social media network through the help of tool.
The reality is that, you know, companies must now be on social media, you know, almost everybody has a LinkedIn company page or an official Twitter handle. And then it's just a natural evolution and natural progression of that of that logic that, okay, well, actually, it's really important to be active on social media.
I think the idea is that your employees are your best asset, you know, they're the people that understand your company, understand your brand. And they're also the people that engage with, you know, prospects and clients in real life.
For the most part, you know, unless you have a very disgruntled employee, which does happen, most people want to showcase what they're doing, what they're working on, in their company, what role they're playing, you know, what projects they're working on. So the idea is, okay, let's allow people to share that, and to position themselves that as somebody that is an expert in something.
I think it's not a negative thing to allow employees to showcase themselves and, and the contributions that they're making to their company. And by way of that, you know, making a good impression on behalf of the company.

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The Social Tools Summit was a couple of months ago now, but I am still sharing some great conversations I had around the event. On today’s podcast, I'm talking to Chad Abbott, the CEO of Abbson Live, the company that provided all of the live streaming for the Social Tools Summit. Listen in as I go a little deeper with Chad, discussing how and why live video is an essential part of content marketing.

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Today on the podcast, Neal is sharing an interview he did at the Social Tools Summit in San Francisco with Chad McCaffrey and Daniel Hebert of PostBeyond. Listen in as they talk all about employee advocacy. This episode is full of great reminders for any company thinking about establishing an employee advocacy program, reasons to start one, and tips to help convince your team or executives internally as to why it’s time to try it.Key Highlights

[00:44] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Chad McCaffrey and Daniel Hebert

[01:45] How SHould Company View Employee Advocacy Now?

[02:43] What To Do Next After Launching Employee Advocacy Program

[05:23] Relevance of Content in Employee Advocacy Program

[07:16] Internal Involvement Needed For Successful Employee Advocacy Campaigns

[09:13] Engagement With HR Professionals

[11:05] What To Teach Employees To Think About Employee Advocacy

[12:35] Use Content To Fuel Relationships

[14:58] The Business Value of Employee Advocacy

[20:06] Final Thoughts

[20:45] Connect With Post Beyond

Notable Quotes

I think was really important today, to note that, you know, what is the training? What is the setup to actually even think about doing this? And so, I think we focus a lot on that, and I certainly haven't talked about in his session, but like, the planning the training, what actually has to go in ahead of time before technology gets involved is really important.
And one of the most important things to remember when employee advocacy is that it is an ongoing effort, it's not a one-off campaign.
It is one of the things that I think it's a mindset for most enterprises to start adopting, an always-on marketing strategy, versus a campaign-based marketing strategy.
I think when it comes to the con everything, the relevance is interesting across different areas. So people care about certain things, they're trying to hit their own goals. And so content certainly in social in general, it's very obvious that it feeds sort of everyone from the executive suite down to people on the on the ground level, if you think about it that way.
I think, you know, you have to tie it to marketing still, because that's where the communication is getting stirred up, and really stemming from the strategy. But if you build a partnership between them, I think with anyone that's doing this successfully right now and the maturity of what's going on, it's, it's tying those two together nicely.
It's sort of a marketing person, but the employer brand, yeah, their focus. They're sitting kind of between the two, they're that bridge. And I think that's the key and you start to think about these things. Ultimately, it's the people it's culture, it's what's going to drive more people to business.
I think is the most beneficial to teach the employees to kind of sell this program to employees is that a program like this is really developed for building their personal brand.
So I think that's one important thing to think about, and how these conversations are truly created in a trusted way. And the reputations build one to one word of mouth is huge, and hugely important part, to starting that.

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Here's my advice on how to reach out to bloggers, influencers, and anyone else you want to talk about your company. It’s important to remember that bloggers and influencers are busy people being pinged by lots of other brands, so if you’re asking them to take time to use your product, and maybe even post a photo or blog about it - time isn’t free! Listen in to learn how to build a connection, what you can and should offer them, and how to make the relationship last by involving them in your content and programs.

Key Highlights

[03:44] How to Reach Out to Bloggers and Social Media Influencers

[06:05] Time Is Not Free

[06:30] Step One In Reaching Out To Influencers

[07:04] Step #2

[08:12] How You Should Start A Pitch

[08:58] Step #3

[09:54] Get Feedback!

[10:17] Christopher Columbus Approach

[11:49] The Fifth Phase

[13:07] The Common Sense Of 2015

[13:43] Summary
Notable Quotes

Social media gives you the ability to listen and engage with anybody that's on social media, whether they're influencers or average people and I guess anybody can be an influencer, depending on your industry, right? But here's the thing. Don't just find an email, just connect on LinkedIn and go for the kill.
Whether it's to tweet something out, or to write a blog post on something that requires time, time is not free, people are busy.
For any influencer that you want to reach out to, connect with them on social media, follow them go to their profiles follow in like every single social media profile they have, and engage with their content.
So it's not only following and engaging, but also looking for deep connections that make it easy for you to engage with that person.
Too much expected something on the return, let them use your tool and expect nothing in return. Okay? And if they don't use your tool, they weren't relevant to begin with. Right? If they use your tool, then there's certain relevance.
I recommend, take the Christopher Columbus approach, if you want to make friends. Bloggers don't have a lot of money don't have a lot of time, if you're a company, you have an asset, which is your product, send it over.
It's not a one night stand, it's a long term relationship, figure out a way to derive value out of that relationship over a longer term, by letting that person test out new beta products that you might have

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Neal recently visited South Africa and was interviewed on South Africa FM. Last week, you heard the first half of that interview. This week, listen in to hear a continuation of the conversation about social media for business, and what it might be like if we could start over with social media. What would we do differently? Would we change our priorities? You’ll also hear more about Neal’s story and how he got to where he is, as well as an entertaining countdown of questions.

Key Highlights

[01:59] Changes In Social Media Platforms

[03:06] Can I Use All Platforms At The Same Time And Effectively?

[04:23] Spray and Pray

[05:02] What Did Mark Zuckerberg Do To Outperform MySpace?

[07:22] What I Do To Help Businesses

[08:32] How I Got Into Digital Marketing

[11:00] The Story Of How I Wrote My First Book

[12:07] Acknowledgements I Have Received

[12:57] South African Digital Market

[14:04] Beat The Clock Questions

Notable Quotes

They need to make sure that you want to stick to it, the information you find is new, it's interesting. And they're really devoted to making sure that happens. So when you leave Facebook to go home, they still kept the Sun Microsystems sign that you actually have to see as you go home to as a reminder, we do not want to become the dinosaur. We always want to be fresh. But the problem is, the demographics are changing.
Every network is different.
I try to help businesses, and it's all about best practices. So we have companies that have succeeded, we have companies that have failed. The problem is that most companies start with a disadvantage.
So there's, there's some cleanup work that's often involved, but it's really about, you know, how do we perfect what we do in social? How do we get how do we do best practices? How do we constantly improve?
But you know, social media is, is an experiment, because the people that use it, how we use it, and the functionality being provided, is always changing. And therefore, we need to manage it like an experiment. So we need to have controls in place. And we need to make sure we need to be measuring and making sure that we're always doing our best.
And that's why don't wait until you're in transition for that you should be building that on a daily basis, and really dig your well before you're thirsty.
I have a very practical way. It's no fluff, practical, rational way of looking at social, which I think a lot of people find refreshing.
I think the businesses have have really become one, they've really found a community in social media, they've served that community, whether it's through unique photos, or videos or content, they've allowed the community to decide on what products that they end up making.
Brands in the past, they created this big wall between consumers and the company. And social media is really about breaking down those walls, and letting your customers become one with the brand. And it's a very, very new way of thinking, but I think those smaller businesses that get that are going to be the most successful one.

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Neal is back! You’ve heard him talk about keeping it real in your social and your content, and he wants to keep it real. Neal’s goal is always to do this podcast regularly, but everyone’s busy! Since the last podcast, he’s traveled a lot, successfully launched the second Social Tools Summit in San Francisco in October, and spoken at a conference in South Africa. This episode is part one of a radio interview he did while he was there, and focuses on the value of social media and taking a step back and looking at the big picture.

Key Highlights

[04:44] Introduction

[05:26] Why Business To Be Made From Going Social

[06:27] How I Help Businesses

[07:18] How Small Businesses Can Use Social To Grow Their Businesses

[08:07] The Essence of Social Media

[08:32] How to Start Using Social Media for Business

[10:39] Social Media As A New Channel

[12:38] How To Balance Social Media With Voice of the Company

[13:17] The Advent of Employee Advocacy

[14:06] Tomorrow's Talk

[15:27] How Much Time Should You Allocate To Social Media?

[17:56] Coming Down To Your Objectives

Notable Quotes

Social media has become a major communication channel. But now social media, you have a website and digital, you have TV, radio, and you have social companies investing a lot more in it, because it is the public voice, you have the ability to reach out on a one to many scale that you just couldn't do until now.
Social is not for business, it's for people.
Everybody that's online, is basically using social media. And there are ways for us to engage with them on a one on one basis.
Well, it starts with, like I said, understanding who your customer is, are they even using social media.
And that's really where you start at the basic you need to be, you know, everybody knows the media, you need to be publishing content, because that's how you engage in social media. But you also want to be reaching out to people.
And I like to say social media replaces nothing but compliments everything, right? So it's, it's a new tool, but the old rules of business are still in place.
But now social media is a new channel, and more and more people are using it. So it's going to be important to keep an eye on and understand how you can use it and to help complement whatever else you do.
Companies need to humanize the brand they need to talk like regular people do. And if they're not offering some sort of resource, some sort of utility, some sort of information that's useful to others, people will tune them out.
Social is not, you know, it's a channel you do not want to sell on, it's the channel you want to have a conversation on and engage with others and really build community from
This is where it comes down to your objective, your objective is going to be different than that small business owner, small business owner wants to sell, maybe they already have a monopoly in the market, they just want to, you know, keep mind share with their community, whatever it is.

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Today Neal is coming to you from Clearwater, Florida, where he actually did this podcast episode as a Periscope broadcast. And while he does talk a little bit about Periscope in this episode, what he’s mostly discussing is his new ebook which just came out on Kindle. It’s called Maximize LinkedIn for Business, and it came about from his visit to the LinkedIn Headquarters over a year and a half ago. Listen in to today’s episode for a rundown of what you can find in the ebook, and where you can get access to it.

Key Highlights
[01:17] What Is Maximize LinkedIn for Business Is About

[03:10] Table Of Contents

[03:17] How LinkedIn Is Being Used By Corporations and Professionals Today

[04:49] Two Important Things You Need to Know

[05:44] The Importance of Connections

[05:56] Tactical and SEO Benefit of Having Connections

[08:34] The Value of Network

[09:05] Establishing Credibility

[09:25] What Are Recommendations

[10:20] Understanding Skills and Endorsements

[10:57] How to Make LinkedIn Profile Private

[12:44] Pulse Feature

[14:02] Chapter 8

[15:56] LinkedIn Groups

[16:44] Chapter 10

Notable Quotes

One of the big mistakes or I should say one of the big things that people don't understand about LinkedIn is it's just for job search.
So really, every professional and it's not just for job search, like I said, it's for your personal brand for your professional brand. And now more and more as an employee, you really need to have a certain aptitude of LinkedIn, you need to know how it works, and how you can make it work for you.
Number one is really the mindset right, just understanding the value and the things that you're going to be need to do on LinkedIn.
The second thing is The LinkedIn profile. So whatever you do on LinkedIn, it leads people to your profile, right. And I think people take it for granted.
It's a matter of, you know, sending them invites, as a matter of after you meet someone at a meeting of actually doing a follow up and saying, Hey, would you like to connect on LinkedIn, it's printing your LinkedIn URL and your business card, so that it makes it easy for others putting in your email signature, right, I use wise stamp as a way to do that, wisely.
The value of your network is in keeping in daily touch. So you're Top of Mind
And whenever you want to contact someone, or whenever you post something on LinkedIn, or you send out a connection request, people go to your profile, one of the first things they look for, believe it or not, is recommendations.
If you want to be successful on LinkedIn, and you're going to be a lot more successful with the more credibility you have.
Obviously, the whole value of LinkedIn is that it's a public database, right. But understand that there are things you want to keep private about.
You know, a lot of people say that LinkedIn is not an engaging platform, well, it's probably cuz they're not involved in LinkedIn groups, and LinkedIn groups are far the most engaging aspect of LinkedIn.

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Neal has been in Japan these last few weeks, and he’s been thinking a lot about the power of mobile. This week Neal is talking about the social network that you can only engage in from mobile: Instagram. It’s important for businesses to find their visual voice and be original and organic on this platform. The beautiful thing about Instagram is it’s power to connect with people. So remember, don’t go for the hard sale on Instagram - instead, focus on personality, engagement, and authenticity.

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This week Neal is coming to you from Japan, and he’s talking to Dennis Owen, from Cathay Pacific. The two are talking about Cathay Pacific’s extremely successful employee advocacy program, which Dennis launched simultaneously with their brand campaign “Life Well Traveled.” Dennis explains how he got the higher ups behind him, the platform they use, what kind of content is successful, and the rewards they give for engaging in the program. This is a great episode to listen to if you’ve been trying to figure out how to factor an employee advocacy program into your business plan.

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When Neal first started speaking and blogging about social media, he focused on LinkedIn. But the platform has changed so much since the beginning, and of course the interactions and recommended use of it have evolved too. Today, Neal is talking about editing your LinkedIn connections. Not only is it important to comb through your current connections to edit out people who may not be relevant for you, but it’s also good to have some guidelines for accepting new requests. You want your LinkedIn to be curated so it’s productive, fun, and adds value to your life and business.

Key Highlights

[012:03] My Upcoming Free Ebook On LinkedIn

[02:27] What Should You Do On Random Connection Requests?

[03:02] LinkedIn Lions Defined

[03:54] The LinkedIn Connection Policy

[04:31] Why I Am No Longer A LinkedIn Lion

[05:47] Time To Prune Your LinkedIn Connections!

[06:15] Instances When You Can Accept Connection Requests From Strangers

[07:20] Biggest Power of LinkedIn

[08:34] What To Do If You Are Unsure About A Connection Request

[09:07] Using New LinkedIn Requests to Prune Current LinkedIn Connections

[10:34] Key Distinguishers

[10:53] "Guilty By Association"

[12:17] The People You Should Prune

[14:46] Conclusion

Notable Quotes

There's value to be had in meeting with people, and engaging with people that you've never met before in the physical world.
But if there's a few people in your target industry, in your target geography, whatever it might be, that you can connect with that can really help gain new visibility, and potentially connectability, for lack of a better word into your target market or target company, very tactical advice.
If you want to engage with them, do what I recommend, you know, social selling best practices, engage with their updates, right, follow them engage with their updates, go to the groups that they're a member of, see, if they've, you know, posted anything, get an introduction for a friend, if you really want to connect with them.
But the real tangible value is if you were to request an introduction from them, are they going to step up to the plate for you? That's the key thing.
And what this does is, it gives credibility to the fake profiles to the internet, slash social media marketers, and sort of the rotten eggs of LinkedIn that you probably don't want to be associated with, unless you, you know, want to sell to those people. But it gives them credibility, because it looks like you have a lot of mutual connection.
And I'm going to recommend when you prune your LinkedIn connections, these are the people you want to prune. You want to prune those people that stay connected with the fake profiles, because they're giving you a false sense of social proof of all the other fake LinkedIn profiles out there.
If I have 10 or fewer mutual connections, I will go into each one of those 10 profiles, I will look and see if they have added any value to me over the last seven years on LinkedIn, or if they have any potential future value. And if they don't, or even if that potential future value is just very slight or marginal, I will just connect with them. And it makes me feel good knowing that I am well, for lack of better words, getting rid of people that are sort of just connecting with everybody and propagating something that we really shouldn't be propagating on LinkedIn. I

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This week on the podcast, Neal is sharing a new project with you. In his social media consulting business, he gets very broad and occasionally vague requests all the time, and there’s just no way he can help every person that reaches out. So Neal has decided to repackage the content he creates for trainings and make it available to more people. The first version of this is a 9-day online video workshop, complete with videos, worksheets, and a forum where you can chat with Neal. In this week’s episode you can learn more about why he’s starting this project, what this first version will be all about, and how you can join the party.Key Highlights

[02:58] Role of Social Media

[03:36] Questions You Need to Answer If You Want to Reach Foreign Audience

[04:41] Always Have A Process In Place

[05:18] The Social Media Center of Excellence

[05:56] Why I Chose The Topic of Content Marketing for the Workshop

[06:45] Understanding the Role of Content in Social Media

[07:03] Content is the Game Changer

[07:28] Different Types of Content

[08:32] The Importance of Visual Content

[09:00] The Role of Content Curation

[09:32] Tools to Trade

[09:57] Choosing the Social Network to Invest Your Time In

[10:08] Paid Social

[11:25] Social Media Is More Than Answering Questions

Notable Quotes

Because at the end of it, and I hate to repeat myself, but social media replaces nothing complements everything. Without social media in the equation. How are you getting leads? How are you promoting your business? Do you even sell to foreign markets?
And what I've learned over time, is that you need to have a process in place in order to test and measure and optimize what you do.
I do want to go through the methodology because I think it can really help you. And it really begins with understanding the role of content in social media, I talk about the convergence of information and communication.
Content is the game changer is the way that companies can level the playing field by offering unique, resourceful educational with entertainment value content. And that's why whenever we talk about what you're going to do on social media, whether it's that company looking to do outreach, or what have you, it's going to come down to the content, the content that they share the content that they use to engage in conversations.
So you really got to decide what is going to be the easiest for you what makes the most sense for your product, and go through on that. And then we get to how we actually once we've decided on the different types of content, how to create content that's going to drive our social media program forward.
It needs to be developed in a way that understands that social media was made for people, not for businesses. And businesses need to understand that and create compelling content that will be engaging in social media. Otherwise, your messages just look like spam to the average social media user, right.
You need to pick the right tools of the trade that are going to help you not only in creating better content, but also in managing your social media and measuring your social media more effectively.
It comes down to social media is more than just answering a simple question. There's a whole process involved. That involves a lot of different concepts.

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Neal is at the Corporate Social Media Summit this week, speaking and leading panels on all things social media and content creation. In this episode, he chats with Saul Leal, the Director of the Family Share Network, a group of Facebook pages, websites, and other social media accounts. They discuss how to create engaging content, how to monetize social media content and drive traffic to a website, and why publishing is more of a dialogue now than a monologue as it used to be.

Key Highlights

[01:07] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Sal Liao

[01:41] Who is CompTIA

[03:17] Sal's Business Model

[04:33] The Concept of Alignment

[07:45] How to Create Content that Feeds Special Moments

[08:12] Concept of Passion Pages

[09:04] Importance of Having Content that Resonates Audience

[10:30] Connect with Sal

Notable Quotes

But the first thing is understanding the passion, the passion of our team, the passion and the vision of the organization, and ultimately, the passion of the consumer. And once we understand that passion, it's we provide engagement, and that engagement needs a purpose. And in our case, the purpose for social is driving traffic to our website.
But I think that in the ecosystem of industries and the relationship of those industries, one actually succeeds on the internet one is really good at one thing.
It's all about that loyalty. And the challenge has been publishers, they, they still think that publishing is a monologue. And what social media has brought it here was not it's not a monologue anymore, it's a dialogue.
And anyone can can can do this passion pages is basically understanding what is the competitive advantage, what is the aggregated value that your brand brings, brings your users in our case, we will provide content for families, so anyone that loves their families should be green or content. And that's what we call pages.
And it's really all about being from the computer in front of the analytics tool. And understanding why is the content that resonates with the audience, of course, and also taking consideration your own POV your own point of view in your strategy.
You want people to share that content, to feel proud of that content and to feel that that content is so good in such a great way that a little bit of that content, it's part of them or they're part of that content in that way they share it. And for us. That's our objective.

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After talking with people all over the world about social media, today Neal is talking about content. Yes, content is important, but with an oversaturated market, it’s important that the content you are creating and sharing is legendary! So why not leverage successful content you’ve already created and used in the past? This week is all about why you shouldn’t be scared to repurpose old content, and how to best go about using what you’ve already got.

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This week, I am coming to you from Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada where I keynoted Social Media Camp. At the event, I ran into my friend Mike Gingerich of TabSite. TabSite is a great tool that helps you run contests and capture leads, mostly on Facebook, but also on the web. It integrates with tons of common platforms like MailChimp, Infusionsoft, Canva, and Hootsuite, and it’s so easy to use. It’s a great way to grow your following, get shared on social networks, and engage with people. Learn more in this episode!

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Coming to you from the Women’s Business Symposium, sponsored by Comerica Bank, and benefitting Girls, Inc., this week Neal is discussing when to listen to advice, and when to ignore it. Last week, he held the event that he’s been talking about for months, the Social Tools Summit. It got him thinking about why it’s important to be unique in the world of business and social media. When planning the summit, Neal got lots of advice from his peers about how to run the event. Yes, it’s good to listen to advice from peers and role models, but it’s also good to know that you don’t always have to take that advice.

Key Highlights

[02:02] Creating the Idea for Social Tools Summit

[02:41] Ignore Everyone Else

[03:06] Why I Think the Social Tool Summit Was A Success

[03:22] My Approach to Business and Social Media

[04:42] Social Media Replaces Nothing But Compliments Everything

[05:36] Data-Driven Approach

[05:47] Leveraging Social Media As A Tool

[06:36] You Need to Do Something Different

[07:27] Lead Through Innovation

[09:02] Social Media Center of Excellence

Notable Quotes

With social media to say you got to do this, you got to do that. I don't think people are ill-intentioned when they give us this advice. But at the end of the day, you have to stick with what's right for you.
Because if you're doing what everyone else has already done, you're not going to be successful, you have to do something different. And if you're true to your brand, and to your business, into your experience, into your capabilities into your limited resources, you will be able to do that. But it's not going to come from a copy and paste effort. It's going to take some soul searching, it's going to take some experimentation.
And everyone said it was unique, but I think they meant it in a good way, hopefully. But we did something different. Because I had a vision. And I felt there was a need in the market for this type of information, and executed on that vision. And I did not let anybody get in the way. I was a man on a mission. And that's actually always been my approach to business. And it's my approach to social media. And it's my approach to social media consulting.
But at the end of the day, I want to do what's right. And that's the approach I want you to have for social media.
The first one is social media replaces nothing but compliments everything.
Social media is new tools, old rules, doesn't matter how late you are out of the game, doesn't matter how old you are. When you use social media as a business tool, those that have more business experience will tend to leverage social media as a tool more effectively.
You may not want to be innovative. But to be successful, you need to do something different. And it's so important in social media, because we know how noisy it is, and almost any tactic that you can find by doing a Google blog search, you know, I'm sure any given businesses implemented, some may be more fitting for you than others.
Once again, whatever you do has to be true to your brand and to yourself. And I want every one of you listening to this podcast, to become a leader. Lead, through innovation, through doing something different.
Use the tools to help leverage what you want to do. So it can help you do it more effectively.

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Today Neal is talking with Pawan Deshpande, the CEO and Founder of Curata. They discuss Curata on the eve of the Social Tools Summit in Boston. Curata provides tools that help marketers curate content and publish it many channels, as well as provide analytics, best practices, and machine learning to make content curation and creation easier and more effective. Curata can schedule content, build posts from relevant metadata, and even suggest images. Pawan also discusses the company’s history, the value of content curation, and the future of content curation and creation convergence.

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Neal talks with Glenn Gaudet, the CEO and Founder of GaggleAMP. This tool helps companies and social media manager create employee advocates within their companies, and makes it easy for employees to share company-created social posts. They discuss how employee advocacy has grown, and how you can get started doing employee advocacy if you haven’t tried it yet. Glenn will be present at the Social Tools Summit in just a few weeks and also hosts AMPlify, the employee advocacy conference, directly after the Social Tools Summit in Boston.

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Neal discusses an amazing tool that is used by serious social media marketers everywhere, Simply Measured. He’s talking to Ron Schott, the Director of the Professional Services Team at Simply Measured. This tool helps big brands and small companies alike reap the benefits of social media by understanding their analytics and planning future social media campaigns based on the measuring and reporting that Simply Measured provides. The tool also has the ability to track competitors and market sectors, plus so much more. These are the kinds of tools Neal is excited to introduce you to and conversations they’ll be having at the Social Tools Summit in just a few weeks.
Key Highlights

[01:23] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Ron Schott

[01:59] Who is Ron?

[03:10] What is Simply Measured?

[04:12] How Simply Measured Handles Data

[05:03] Competitive Data from Simply Measured

[0:41] Other Outside Data Simply Measured Brings in for Customized Reporting

[06:13] Case Studies

[07:50] The Latest Social Networks Simply Measured

[09:00] Simply Measured's Ability to Measure Facebook Presence Globally

[09:48] Paid Social Market

[11:08] The Best Way to Get Started with Simply Measured

[12:24] Connet with Ron

Notable Quotes

We're kind of edging out in those cases where people are looking more business solutions are looking more business goals, rather than specifically social goals. And so for us to tie those things back to, you know, end action, basket size, things like that, that's ultimately where we want to be getting to.
But I can say we have, we have a number of our larger publishing clients, many that you probably visit every day, that are using our tools to then figure out you know, not only what type of stories are driving the most online interactions, and pageviews, and things like that, but what type of social content is better driving people to those stories?
When you integrate that with conversion funnels, and what have you, you have complete visibility, right. And you know, what you need to do more of, and I think that's sort of the holy grail that companies tried to get out through piecing together, you know, different tools, and it takes a lot of time and it you know, I don't think they're able to see that complete picture like that you could do is simply measured.
The most important takeaway is that simply measure continues to lead the field and continues to expand on what they do to provide more value to their customers, but thinking about not only using data for measuring and for ROI, or what have you, but feeding that back into the planning process.

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Today Neal is introducing you to another social media tool that can help you reap the benefits of the wide world of social: Likeable Local. He’s talking Nicole Kroese, the Director of Marketing and Partnerships, about all the things Likeable Local can do and how it’s growing and changing. Likeable Local’s mission is to help businesses, especially small businesses, grow with social media. How? It makes it easy to create content with post templates and timely content at your fingertips. It also has metrics, so you can track your likes, looks, and leads generated by your social efforts. These are the kinds of tools Neal will introduce you to and conversations they’ll be having at the Social Tools Summit in just a few weeks.

Key Highlights

[00:38] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Nicole Cruz

[01:29] Likeable Local's Mission

[04:47] Lead Generation Part of Likeable Local

[07:00] Measuring and Reporting

[08:21] Business Criteria That Likeable Local Will Be A Good Fit For

[09:57] Opportunities for Large Brands and Franchises

[10:45] Where to Access Free Tool

[11:45] Issues That Businesses Have With Social Media That Likeable Local is Working on Solving

13:01] Final Thoughts

Notable Quotes

And most of all, it's the idea that, you know, I think most small business owners know that social media is something you need to be doing, you know, they're bought into that idea. But you know, what they still think is that it's hard, it's going to be challenging, it's going to be expensive, it's going to be really time consuming.
But you know, what they still think is that it's hard, it's going to be challenging, it's going to be expensive, it's going to be really time consuming. And what we're striving to do is to give them the tool that has the gives them the access to make it easy to make it not so hard, and to make it effective without having to spend countless hours all the time.
I think those two key things, you mentioned that the content creation, curation is probably the most resource intensive thing you need to do in social, but also the amplification, whether it is you know, through organic through the repeating of things at optimal times or through paid advertising.
And the idea here is that you can drive people straight from social and email them really seamlessly there. And you know, a referral is really one of the best gifts a customer can give you, you know, it's the best gift.
They need something that is a little bit easier and kind of, you know, done for them. So simple. And that's what we want to deliver.
I think that that's always going to be the challenge is seeing that ROI from social media directly. So you know, creating really, really smart reporting, content suggestions based on their their internet activity and their preferences.

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This week, Neal Schaffer interviews Chad Abbot of Abbson Live. Chad will be joining the Social Tools Summit next month, and Neal wanted to talk to him about the powers of video. We know that video is an incredibly powerful marketing tool, and we know that live streaming can be helpful for events, but Chad shared some other ways that live video can be used in your marketing strategy. Use of video across platforms is growing, and now is the time to jump in and try it for yourself!

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This week Neal Schaffer introduces you to Oktopost and the man behind it, CEO and Founder Daniel Kushner. Oktopost is another great social media management tool that specializes in B2B services, tracking relationships and helping you target your marketing. They’ll soon be launching an employee advocacy program as well, helping companies simplify the advocacy process. Learn more about Oktopost, and where Daniel sees social media being used in the sales process in this week’s episode.

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At the Social Media Marketing World event in San Diego last week, Neal Schaffer met all kinds of great people, one of them being Emeric Ernoult. Emeric is the CEO and Co-Founder of Agora Pulse, an engagement dashboard tool for Facebook and Twitter. Agora Pulse allows you to track the most important fans and interactions on social, gathering data unlike any other tool. Luckily, Emeric is going to be joining the Social Tools Summit in Boston in May. Listen to learn more about this great tool, what inspired its creation, and other tools that Emeric loves.

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This episode brings you into the atmosphere of the CeBIT Global Conference, where Neal Schaffer met Steven Zielke, who helped found the Rock the Blog event. But that’s not the only thing he’s founded: enter Blappsta, a new app that can turn your blog into its own native app. Neal is very excited about this app, and even more excited to share it with you. Blappsta provides yet another medium to access your readers in this increasingly mobile world, holding your hand through the registration, allowing you send push notifications, and above all, becoming the provider of your own app.

Key Highlights

[02:13] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Steven Zielke

[02:25] What is Rock the Blog

[04:25] The Issue Steven Found and How He Developed the Tool

[06:45] Feedback on Blappsta

[09:12] Steven's Vision

[10:21] Blappsta Cost

[10:54] What Makes Blappsta Interesting

[11:39] Companies Steven Are Working With

[12:27] Becoming a Mobile Society

Notable Quotes

And it's for you, it's something really nice because you have that direct communication to your loyal readers, you can push out to them and you instantly can can generate their reading onto your content. And for you, it doesn't matter is an app is a website, it shouldn't matter. It's your content that's relevant. So all we do is really giving another medium.
Well, you've mentioned the most important part, that's notifications. And first of all, you have the notification on the on your fingertip. It's not us it's not the system or anything you can decide, I want to send a push notification.
I mean, really, it's the the app world is, is changing in that respect. And then Google has laid a benchmark, again, trying indexing apps, and really tells us that they are interesting, interested in looking into the app and make it a part of their Google world. And that's, it's not about the technology app, it's about the content that lies in the app.
But I think the potential of when you have mobile visitors of having the mobile visitors say with there's an app available, would you like to download it and have been able to send out notifications. This is what every every company wants is its were becoming a notification economy. And I think that's a really, really powerful aspect about this as well.
If there's something that you need to get the word out to your employees. How do you do it? Well, there's nothing better than a notification on smartphone because we know everyone's eyeballing that.

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This week is a special episode, recorded at the CeBIT Global Conference (CGC) in Hannover, Germany. Neal Schaffer spoke and participated in this great event, and had such a good time sitting down to speak with Ingo Stoll about the role information technology can play in social media. This episode takes a step back from the usual more applicable advice and looks at the bigger picture, including the current state of social media, and the future of the industry.

Key Highlights

[00:25] Introduction to the Interview with CGC Radio

[04:24] The Future of Social Media is Now

[05:36] Evolution of Social Business

[05:58] Social Media is a Two-way Conversation

[09:09] Disruptive Technology

[11:40] The Importance of Keeping Your Employees Happy

[16:05] Change Agent

[18:09] Lessening the Gap Between Consumer and Brand

Notable Quotes

So it's less about speaking and getting 1000 questions or about people tweeting you out, but it's more about the audience is extremely influential.
So instead of thinking about the future, it's there, it's now people are using these platforms. And if you're not engaging with people there, then maybe your competitors aren't right. And the big social data, it's there to be tapped into.
It's less about thinking about the future and really getting busy and hunkering down and creating a strategy and looking at all the potential and figuring out what makes sense for your company to do.
Social business is a place where you know, social media, like the internet, it just sort of overlaps everything your company does, and every department, and companies need to be thinking about that. When you create a social media strategy, it's critical that you include every department in that strategy, and that every department has a say, and in the future, you know, more and more departments are going to be using social media in more and more different ways.
Social is the public media, it is the ultimate media that represents who we are. And people are not only your customers, but they're your employees, right? So it becomes sort of a, you know, a natural central focus.
Social media is bringing departments together, it's breaking down silos, and with employee advocacy, and we'll talk about this tonight at your event, obviously, but it's tapping into who we are as a company, what is our brand?
Change is not enough anymore, we need transformation. And that brings it to the point that the changes we see are so substantial, that just adopting things is not enough anymore. It's really disruptive. What happens and it puts great pressure, great chances on the one hand, but great pressure on the leaders, and the managers of the organizations of today.
So when you put it all together, it becomes a great representation. And it changes the organism of a company to a collection of people that work together for a common purpose, which is how it should have been in the first place.

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Many companies invest in using a customer relationship management tool, or CRM, such as Salesforce. But there’s a free tool at your fingertips that you need to take advantage of: LinkedIn. LinkedIn has plenty of functions like searching and tagging that allow you to keep track of and maintain your professional relationships, sometimes better than CRM tools that are already out there. After collecting boxes of business cards for many years, Neal Schaffer decided it was time to take the plunge and use LinkedIn as his CRM. In this week’s episode, he explains why you should do the same.

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Some people say that guest blogging is dead, but Neal Schaffer disagrees. Content curation is a great way to have enough content to share, and it’s beneficial for both business and the content creators. How? This week, Neal talks about the importance of building those relationships between brands and influencers: how organizations can strategically partner with bloggers, and work with them to create a mutually beneficial relationship that leverages each of their networks.

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I get a lot of requests from various businesses saying, “We’re behind on our social media, and we need help.” A lot of these calls for help are coming from people with small businesses, so today I want to discuss some of the options that are available for you, such as working with consultants, agencies, and virtual assistants. We know that social media requires its own set of skills, so it’s important to be willing to dedicate the time to educate and the money to get you access to resources that can help take your business to the next level.

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Neal has talked a lot about the benefits of social selling and some of you are farther down the road of creating a successful social selling program than others. Social allows you to create connections faster and contact prospects you otherwise might not have been able to. If you haven’t started your social selling journey yet, this week Neal wants to help you begin. It can seem overwhelming, but Neal breaks it down, starting by creating the infrastructure and leveraging LinkedIn profiles, connections, recommendations and groups.

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You’ve heard about Neal Schaffer’s Social Tools Summit that he’s launching this May in Boston, but maybe you haven’t heard why he’s creating this event. Aiming to educate organizations about the social tools that are available, the goal of this event is to close the gap between customer understanding and company potential. By bringing vendors, CEOs, and potential clients into the same room, everyone can gain insight into the value of these tools and how to leverage them. In this episode, delve into the importance of in-person interaction, sharing stories, and showcasing your subject matter expertise.

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What is the relationship between social selling and employee advocacy? Neal goes deep into describing the evolution of social business and how it is bringing sales and marketing together with the emergence of these new trends, together with practical advice on how to align your sales and marketing departments for social selling success.

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Where should you focus your social media efforts and budget in 2015? In this episode, Neal Schaffer encourages you to start the year by analyzing your content and process. This means helping you find more places to share your content, explaining the importance of internal education and ownership, and advocating for systems that help you amplify your strategies, like paid social and automation.

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Is your social media strategy stuck in "2011 social media?" Let Neal help guide you through how to re-measure your social media ROI and reallocate your precious resources for your social media program in 2015.

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Neal introduces the how, what, and why of the first social media event in which he will be curating and co-producing to serve the social media industry: The Social Tools Summit in Boston in May, 2015.

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Now that you see the value in publishing on LinkedIn, should you simply republish your blog's content on LinkedIn? Or ... ? Neal responds to the question point blank with advice to help you better understand, leverage, and maximize your LinkedIn content marketing.

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Neal gives a preview of his upcoming one day workshop in Bucharest, Romania by focusing in on those advanced social media marketing concepts that you need to dive into to help you raise your social media to the next level.

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Neal shares best practices with social media campaigns by showcasing Passion Planner's Kickstarter campaign and what can be learned from it.

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This episode goes into depth on what a pre-sales social media consulting call would look like, and with that six ideas to improve your social media that go above and beyond social media.

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Neal talks about the launch of his new Social Media Center of Excellence Facebook Group and what he has learned building a new community in social media - and how you can leverage Neal's experience.

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As your company's social media presence grows and you begin to yield "influence" in social media, you will be faced with those who copy your content as well as attack you. Neal shares his own experience as to how he deals with these issues to help prepare you and your business for what may lie ahead for you.

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Have you had a bad experience on a social network and refused to venture back into it? That's not good business sense. Perhaps it has happened to you by being opted-in to several Facebook Groups without your permission. Now is time to join Neal in rediscovering the potential business value of Facebook Groups.

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As Instagram continues to gain in popularity, many haven't started to leverage the opportunities that Instagram provides businesses. Neal introduces his own story of the why and how he is transitioning to use Instagram as a more integral part of his social media marketing - and why you should as well.

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Neal interviews Glenn Gaudet, CEO and founder of GaggleAMP, and talks about the history of employee advocacy and the challenges that face companies that try to launch such a program internally.

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A first look at the newest social network Ello. Should you sign up? Spend much time there? Use it for your business? Listen to Neal's advice and gain some rational perspective on what value Ello might be able to provide you and your business.

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How should small businesses approach an investment in social media? Learn how a social media consultant views how small business should consider what business value they should derive from social - and how to better manage their expectations vis a vis budget spend on social.

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If you're looking to better leverage social media for marketing, this is the one question that you need to answer to help guide you towards implementing the right social media strategy.

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Building a brand in social does not happen overnight. Learn about just how important consistency in your social media efforts are and how to use paid social to help accelerate it.

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How can a B2B company find success in a social network like Pinterest? Find out how and learn some new tips, tricks, and concepts to help you Maximize Your Social in this episode.

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Neal takes a deep dive into LinkedIn Pulse and reveals a "hidden" back door to help you get your content featured into LinkedIn Pulse.

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LinkedIn is not about the connections but the engagements and relationships you can build with other professionals and businesses. This episode will change your perspective on LinkedIn for the better.

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Neal introduces the concept of an anchor network and how to leverage big data through tools that analyze your own social presence to better optimize your social.

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When looking at optimizing your social media program, are you asking the right questions? Neal will provide examples of a holistic mindset to help you ask the right questions that will truly help you Maximize Your Social.

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Neal reveals his "aha!" moment from his recent blog post on LinkedIn and offers advice on better understanding the unique demographic that is viewing your blog posts on LinkedIn.

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Spending too much time in social and achieving too few business results? Let me share with you my favorite social media productivity tips - and a plethora of tools to help you and your business improve your social media productivity by leaps and bounds.

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A look at why unplugging from social media is a critical component to a social media strategy as well important to understanding the ROI of social from a business and personal perspective.

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Neal announces his new free ebook, created together with the employee advocacy platform PeopleLinx, on how to create, manage, and measure an employee advocacy program regardless of the size of your business.

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Neal shares the four things companies need to launch a successful social media program based on time he recently spent in rural Japan helping farmers get social media savvy.

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Join Neal in a candid conversation over a pint from London as he introduces three of his social media friends who help provide fresh (but sometimes "old school") insight into leveraging social media for your business.

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Pinterest Community Boards have a unique role in the world of social media. Find out why you should be leveraging them as part of your social media strategy.

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LinkedIn recently upped the ante of becoming a paid member with the new "Spotlight" account. Is it worth the upgrade? Listen on for Neal's detailed advice on the new features and why you may (or may not) be interested in them.

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If you're not finding success as a member of any given social network, chances are you simply aren't spending enough time there and becoming a true community member. From Twitter to Pinterest to SlideShare, Neal shares the secrets behind social media success.

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A look into the different ways social media users use Instagram as well as other social networks - and my recommendations for being the most effective on each singular social network with your social media marketing.

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Neal interviews crowdfund marketing expert Peter Trapasso at Cisco Live and gets to the gist of how to use crowdfunding as a marketing vehicle.

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Neal continues providing his advice that he recently gave LinkedIn on career change and learning to adapt to – and thrive on – the constant change that is part of our everyday life.

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Neal provides his advice that he recently gave LinkedIn on career change and learning to adapt to - and thrive on - the constant change that is part of our everyday life.

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A blog post recently published on TechCrunch claims that Google Plus is dying. Neal Schaffer analyzes the facts behind the article, the evolution of social media, and yields some insight on the least understood social network today: Google Plus.

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Are you providing true value and building a relationship with your email subscribers? If not, it's time to do a hard reset with this advice from Neal Schaffer.

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Neal provides advice to hotels - which is equally applicable to any brick-and-mortar establishment - on creating photographable memories to help your customers promote your presence in social media.

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I had the pleasure of interviewing social media marketing professor Niklas Myhr, who teaches at Chapman University here in Orange County, California, about his social media classes and advice for both professional MBA students as well as undergrads.

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Is your business changing? Offering new products or services or maybe concentrating strategically on one or two products instead of ten? Your content strategy needs to change as well. Learn what you need to do - and what to expect as a result - from this podcast.

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How to properly build a sales funnel that flows from social media to your website. Where does the funnel building process start?

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Are you having a problem aligning business goals with your social media activities? Whether you are a large or small business, solopreneur, non-profit, NGO, or religious organization, here are some ideas to help you begin Maximizing Your Social.

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As companies create more content, more of that content will be illegally copied on the Internet. Find out what you can do to protect your content and fight those who steal it.

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My firsthand experience of blogging on LinkedIn - and why and how you can leverage the power of the LinkedIn publishing platform.

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Your comprehensive guide to finding bloggers, auditing them, building relationships with them, and then inviting them to be part of your blogger outreach campaign.

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Neal interviews Internal Communications expert Rachel Miller while in London about the role of internal communications, internal communications versus public relations, and internal communications best practices.

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Neal interviews Mike Gingerich from TabSite on best practices in maximizing your Facebook marketing for your business regardless of size.

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Many businesses see the potential value in Google Plus but few are investing the time they need to results. Join Neal as he interviews Google Plus superstar Amanda Blain and fellow social media marketer Charise Strandberg to learn tips and tricks on how to cross the chasm and derive benefits from a Google Plus presence.

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I am honored in this episode to interview the one and only Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, as he talks about the upcoming 2nd Social Media Marketing World in San Diego, California in late March, 2014. Learn what differentiates his social media conference from others.

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Social media is beginning to be taught in universities as a core skill that students will need in the business world. Neal Schaffer interviews two professors at NOVA Southeastern University, Jim Barry and John Gironda, on how they got started with their program, what they teach, and the challenges that they and their students face.

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If you're accountable for your social media program, you're accountable for your social media ROI. Do you have a strategy in hand?

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I recently had a chat with fellow social media marketing professionals Debbie Miller and Albert Qian, both of whom want to get started podcasting. Listen to my advice, given while enjoying a bowl of ramen in the food court of a local Japanese supermarket!

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What social media trends should businesses pay attention to in the new year? I explain the major trends that will help your business continue your social media success into the new year.

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Have you ever shared a Circle on Google Plus or seen others sharing one? Learn about their hidden powers and how to leverage what most businesses have yet to figure out!

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Many find their biggest social media challenge to be an internal one: How to convince your executive team of your social media investment. Here's some advice on how to explain your social media team internally, build consensus, and receive more recognition (and budget) for your activities.

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While in Toronto speaking, Neal interviews @ValTorontoGal from Charming Media and @MegButton from Star Content Studios for advice that a Public Relations as well as Content Marketing Agency can offer your business.

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A real-life analogy to help you understand how social selling is all about using social media to find information relevant to selling as well as choose the most effective communication channel to help engage with the prospective buyer.

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A look into how information technology and project managers can proactively use social media and add value in a social business world.

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Neal provides a great resource to allow you to benchmark how well you are Maximizing Your Social, SEO and mobile aspects of your own website.

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Jay Baer, the author of Youtility, shares the background to his book as well as his perspectives on mobile, content marketing, social media, and business.

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An interview with Jayson Duncan of Miller Farm Media talking about the convergence of the art of video and social media.

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What are the three things that CEOs should be worried about concerning their social media programs?

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The launch of the rebranded Maximize Your Social podcast (formerly Social Business Unplugged) goes into creating the importance of special moments with your social media followers as well as leveraging the ever-changing visual social networks and visual components within social media channels.

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An interview with Tammy Kahn Fennell, founder and CEO of MarketMeSuite, on the evolution of social media dashboards and social productivity.

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WordPress is free, but if you want to get the most out of your CMS for inbound marketing, here are 10 recommended paid services that you should look into.

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Are you overlooking the potential power of video to help promote your brand? Read on about why Neal Schaffer chose to create a book trailer for Maximize Your Social - and why you should invest in video, too.

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The background for and importance of auditing your social media, with a concrete example comparing the Facebook presence of two hotels.

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Engagement, relevance and relationships are as important in social media marketing as they are in email marketing.

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The truth about Facebook's recent changes: Nothing changed. You still need a data-driven approach to Facebook - and social media - marketing.

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Neal Schaffer details how his social media accounts recently got hacked - and provides six points of advice to help you avoid the same fate.

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Learn about Neal Schaffer's Pinterest experiment - and the data which backs up why you shouldn't be ignoring Pinterest anymore.

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What does it mean to be an influencer in social media? Why is it important to businesses? And how can people become influencers?

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Before you hire an intern or call up a social media consultant, first ask yourself these 5 critical questions to give your social media for business plans a reality check.

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If you're on LinkedIn for sales, business development, or marketing, you need to realize that everything you do on LinkedIn leads back to your profile. Here's advice on how to improve upon it.

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What is the value of guest blog posts on your website? Learn about the history of Windmill Networking along with advice on what type of content you should try to source for your website blog.

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A holistic and realistic perspective on the role social media marketing can play at your business.

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More companies are sharing more content in social media, but when a social media user has a conversation with your business, does your voice branding back up your content - and is it "human" enough to deepen online relationships?

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A deep analysis of Social Media Examiner's 5th annual Social Media Marketing Industry Report. Learn where the social media marketing market is today and what trends are in store for its future.

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Neal Schaffer reveals the secret fact that businesses should know in order to leverage the potential that is Google Plus.

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The importance of focus in everything you do in social media marketing: Platforms, content, and objectives.

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Join me as I share my own usage of and reviews of popular social media dashboards while also recommending some new ones for you to explore.

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Ian Clearly of Razor Social joins us for a look at the best social media marketing apps for social media management, monitoring, and automation.

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A look at Empire Avenue from a social media marketing perspective. Does it make sense for your brand to have a presence there?

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Through an experimental post, you will quickly discover the differences between the major 4 platforms and discover value in Google Plus that you might not have seen before.

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Now that you have a robust social media marketing program running in your own country, what about the rest of the world?

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What is the best away to avoid a social media crisis? Listen to Neal Schaffer's advice and, instead of dwelling on the negative, focus on the positive by generating goodwill and brand advocates through growing a social media following.

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What makes a BAD social media strategy? Here I outline 5 key components that you should avoid in planning your own social media marketing strategy.

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Move beyond the semantic differences of content marketing and inbound marketing and learn about the central role that content will play in your social media marketing.

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Is there a need for a social media marketing MBA? Let me describe to you my conceptual approach to social media education - and why there is an ever-growing need for a social media marketing or even socal business MBA.

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Stop outsourcing your social media to consultants and agencies who put a black box around your social media. Instead, start thinking of ways to own your social media strategy and insource your social media activities.

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Google Plus is a critical social network that every business should be on, but many discount it. Why? Find out why - and how you can help your company better leverage G+.

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Social Business: A New Definition. Let me explain my perspective on the evolution from social media as an independent form of media to how it might impact your business, and thus what social business means to your company.

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Does Facebook Graph Search matter to your business in the here and now? A look at the importance of sticking to present technology in your social media strategy.

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Welcome to the first episode of my podcast! This will tell you why I launched my podcast, which at the inception was called the Social Business Unplugged podcast. I also want to share with you how a podcast can feed into an inbound marketing strategy.

Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer: Recent Episodes

Neal Schaffer