0:01

I just came back from two days at the Content

0:03

Entrepreneur Expo , formerly

0:05

called the Creator Economy Expo , put

0:07

on by Joe Pulizzi , the founder of

0:09

Content Marketing World Content Marketing Institute

0:12

. It was an amazing two days , Learned

0:14

a lot about AI , about

0:17

social media , about digital

0:19

products and a lot more , and I want

0:21

to share all of that with you on this

0:23

next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach

0:25

podcast .

0:28

Digital social media content , influencer

0:31

marketing , blogging , podcasting , vlogging

0:33

, tiktoking , linkedin , twitter , facebook

0:35

, instagram , youtube , seo

0:38

, sem , ppc , email marketing

0:40

there's

0:43

a lot to cover . Whether you're a marketing

0:45

professional , entrepreneur or business

0:48

owner , you need someone you can rely on

0:50

for expert advice . Good

0:53

thing you've got Neil on your side

0:55

, because Neil Schafer

0:57

is your digital

1:00

marketing coach

1:03

, helping you grow your business

1:05

with digital-first marketing , one

1:07

episode at a time . This

1:10

is your Digital Marketing Coach

1:12

, and this is Neil Schaefer

1:14

.

1:16

Hey everybody , this is Neil Schaefer , your Digital

1:18

Marketing Coach , and welcome to episode

1:21

number 362

1:23

of this podcast . That

1:26

is right . I just came back from two days in

1:28

Cleveland , ohio , and I wanted

1:30

to share with you what I learned . I

1:32

love not only going to these conferences

1:34

, but also just going through my notes

1:37

and all the screenshots that I take and

1:39

all of the pamphlets and other

1:41

you know swag that I get , and just

1:43

going through and codifying

1:46

that's right , I'm going to talk a little bit about that

1:48

term in this podcast , but codifying what I

1:50

learned in the form of a podcast

1:52

and hopefully it serves you , but

1:54

it also selfishly serves me . I

1:57

can always come back to this and really catalog

1:59

what I learned in order to implement

2:01

it later . Well before we get

2:03

into my recap of the

2:05

Content Entrepreneur Expo , just wanted to

2:07

share with you , obviously , the latest news . I

2:10

think that we are still covering this

2:12

whole TikTok above and

2:14

beyond marketing . There's obviously a lot more news

2:16

out there , but just want to share with you sort

2:19

of where I have my finger on the pulse of , obviously

2:21

, the TikTok ban . I think that a lot

2:24

of us and one of the presenters of , obviously , the TikTok ban , I think that a lot of us and one of the presenters who spoke

2:26

on TikTok mentioned this as well we

2:28

do not think that there is a time

2:30

in the very near future where

2:32

you are not going to be able to use TikTok . I

2:35

would just come out with that straight on . I

2:37

am not slowing down to any of my plans . I

2:39

don't see anybody that I talk to slowing down

2:41

as well . So I think it

2:44

is , you know , full speed ahead and we'll

2:46

see what happens and we'll deal with it at that time

2:48

. But TikTok is just too huge of a platform

2:50

right now to ignore , as I will talk

2:53

a little bit more in this episode . Also

2:55

very interesting to see Instagram

2:57

threads and Instagram

2:59

saying hey , you know , we're going to offer

3:01

cross posting between

3:03

Instagram and threads worldwide . Now I

3:06

do know that the social media dashboard that I

3:08

use , social B , go to neilschafercom

3:10

slash social B-E-E to make sure you get

3:12

the best deal , using my affiliate link , obviously

3:15

. But I know that they have started

3:17

offering , you know , posting

3:19

to all sorts of networks , including

3:22

threads , if you do

3:24

it over their app . So you

3:26

know , I am still waiting for threads

3:28

for us to be able to use a dashboard

3:31

to schedule and be able to log into , but what

3:33

SocialBee has figured out , and it really came about

3:35

through Facebook groups and

3:37

not being able to post to Facebook groups anymore . Pretty

3:40

much , if you schedule

3:42

something in advance and you open the

3:44

SocialBee app and it prompts

3:47

you to open the other app , like

3:49

Threads or Facebook groups , you can

3:51

just copy and paste what you put in SocialBee

3:53

and therefore create a post , and

3:55

I think that's really the idea behind

3:57

where SocialBee is going and

4:00

perhaps where other social media is going to go

4:02

, so that you can post to other

4:04

networks , such as Threads . If you remember

4:06

, this was the original way that we posted

4:08

to Instagram way back in the day , before

4:10

they had an API , and I

4:12

think that we are going to be

4:15

seeing that happen again . So , according

4:17

to SocialBee , they call it universal posting

4:19

with Facebook groups , threads , whatsapp

4:21

, telegram , mastodon , quora

4:24

and any other network where you want to publish

4:26

to where there is no direct API

4:28

integration . In other words , they are doing this indirectly

4:31

. So that's really interesting and I think , once

4:33

Threads is further opened up , or maybe

4:36

you try this universal posting something

4:38

that I should do as well , because another

4:40

of the news that I want to report to you

4:43

is just the real downfall

4:45

of the social network formerly

4:47

known as Twitter . I

4:49

cover my social media metrics on

4:52

a month-to-month basis as part of

4:54

my monthly tasks and , since it's already

4:56

the beginning of May , I went through April and

4:58

April was the first time where Twitter if

5:00

you've been listening to this podcast , you know that I generate a

5:03

lot of traffic from Twitter it used to be number

5:05

one . It fell to number two man in April

5:07

it actually fell to number four , even

5:09

below Facebook . That bad with

5:11

220 something thousand followers

5:13

. So I have totally de-emphasized

5:16

X for now and I'm thinking

5:18

that maybe a lot of the people that I had conversations

5:20

with over on X and there's still some great people there

5:22

I'm thinking that a lot of them might have

5:24

migrated over to threads . Obviously

5:27

, above and beyond that , the topic

5:29

of video is still central to

5:31

all of my digital first weekly

5:33

Zoom call meetings and everyone

5:35

else . I talk to Video , video , video

5:37

. In the era of generative

5:40

AI competing with SEO and

5:42

recent changes in Google

5:44

algorithms what have you and loss of traffic , I

5:47

think more and more people are looking to video

5:49

as sort of the final frontier . I'll talk

5:51

a little bit more about video in my recap

5:53

, but that's sort of you know

5:56

. Every week . I want to present to you what

5:58

news I'm looking at and what

6:00

I have my finger on the pulse of in

6:03

terms of where I am going to be pivoting

6:05

my own business . Outside

6:07

of that , just a personal update

6:09

that , yes , my book is still coming

6:12

. I did finally get approval

6:14

from a major brand to include

6:16

their case study , which I'm a part of , in my book , and

6:18

I was sort of waiting on that . There were

6:20

some other case studies , people that I interviewed

6:22

that have just been ghosting me and they don't want

6:24

to be part of the book for whatever reason . So

6:26

I do have to rewrite

6:28

a pretty major section of one chapter , which

6:31

is sort of delaying me now . But now

6:33

it's just focused on that and

6:35

in parallel I am working on this workbook . I

6:37

am in the final , final proofread . Hopefully

6:39

I'll finish that in the next 24 hours and that will

6:41

be ready . Next

6:45

24 hours and that will be ready and I'm hoping by next week I will be able to start sending

6:47

out the advanced reader copies to influencers and other authors and those that

6:49

have supported me in the past . So it is coming

6:52

and actually going to this content

6:54

entrepreneur expo just further just

6:56

lit my fire of why

6:58

I need to do this and why I want to do an ASAP . So

7:01

let's take a step back . Content

7:03

Entrepreneur Expo . Now

7:05

I have had Joe Polizzi

7:07

on my podcast

7:09

and I'm just going back . He's actually been on my podcast

7:12

three times Episodes number 176

7:14

in 2020 , 251

7:17

in 2022 , and 311

7:20

in 2023 . And I believe

7:22

it was that episode in 2022

7:24

where he was already talking about the content

7:27

entrepreneur . Now he

7:29

sold content marketing world and

7:31

ended up creating the creator economy expo

7:33

, which he sold as well to Lulu

7:36

. Last year . I went to the very first

7:38

creator economy expo for those that remember

7:40

, back in 20 . Yeah

7:43

, I think it was 2022 . It was right around

7:45

when I interviewed Joe and

7:47

I believe this is the third iteration

7:49

of it this year back in Cleveland

7:52

, ohio . The first time he did it it was in Phoenix

7:54

, arizona , and he

7:56

, like I said , was talking about content entrepreneur . It was

7:58

this idea of this creator economy . Yet

8:01

people were leveraging content right

8:03

, and if you think about it , you know we talk

8:05

about , like , short-form video and video content

8:08

. There's audio content , there's textual content

8:10

, but every content creator should

8:12

be an entrepreneur . Every content creator should

8:15

be building a business out

8:17

of their content . That's the content entrepreneur

8:19

and I think a lot of us that have been around with

8:22

books , with podcasts , with blogs we're also

8:24

all part of this . The question is do you

8:26

want to build a business out of what you're doing , or

8:28

is it just a side

8:31

gig , a side hustle , or something

8:33

that you're just doing because of a personal passion ? So

8:35

this content entrepreneur keyword really resonated

8:38

with me and I think , the audience as well , and

8:40

I'm really happy that Joe decided

8:42

to codify it , using that

8:44

word again , and really grab

8:46

that term and say this is what it's been about

8:48

. This really summarizes

8:51

what this movement is about Creator

8:53

economy plus content marketing

8:56

, plus building a business , plus being an entrepreneur

8:58

all this rolled together content entrepreneur . So

9:00

you can imagine a very focused conference , but really

9:02

awesome speakers , awesome guests

9:05

, awesome community , all right . So

9:07

that's sort of takeaway . Number one

9:09

is this emergence of

9:11

content creators that are really

9:13

thinking seriously about their business , about

9:16

different revenue streams , what have you ? I consider

9:18

myself part of that movement as well . So obviously

9:20

all of this really resonated with me . So

9:23

the second takeaway is just a reminder

9:25

of the role of AI

9:28

. So in my upcoming book I

9:30

have a chapter on AI , but it's almost near the

9:32

end of the book and , just

9:34

like one of the speakers I believe it was

9:36

Jordache Johnson , and

9:39

I want to name speakers who I saw that

9:41

really resonated with me because I want you to look

9:43

them up as well . But Jordache was saying

9:45

look , you know , ai comes last . Right

9:47

, you have everything else going on . What

9:49

can you do to speed up

9:52

, make better , do

9:54

cheaper ? That's where you want to

9:56

start thinking about the role of AI , because

9:58

it can play a role in almost

10:00

anything that you do . And in fact I

10:02

think it was Jordache , you . You mentioned . Think

10:04

of AI . There've been a lot of analogies here . Right

10:07

, think of AI like as a co-pilot , as an assistant

10:09

. I liked his definition . Think of

10:11

it as your employee . Why

10:13

are you hiring it ? What is their

10:15

exact role and what are the

10:17

instructions you give it ? So it's

10:19

not just a matter of finding a cool tool and playing

10:22

around with it , but it's really

10:24

taking it on as an employee

10:26

. I think is really a great analogy , especially from

10:29

a business perspective , and I don't care if you're a

10:31

content creator , an entrepreneur or a larger business

10:33

. I think it plays the same role

10:35

. Now , another one of my favorite speakers

10:37

was Roberto Blake , and you've heard me talk

10:40

about him on this podcast . Someday I'm going to get him on the podcast

10:42

. I

10:48

have reached out to him . We'd just love to interview him , one of the smartest

10:50

guys out there he talks about whenever he uses and he is a

10:52

real geek about chat GPT . It's always about role , task

10:54

, goal . What is the role that

10:56

the AI is playing ? What is

10:58

the exact task and what is the goal that you're trying

11:00

to achieve with the task ? Just a

11:03

great framework for prompting any

11:05

sort of open-ended chat GPT

11:08

type of AI that you use . But

11:10

another thing that Roberto talked

11:13

about AI that really resonated with me , that

11:15

got me really thinking hard , was

11:18

this idea that AI is about speed

11:20

and scale , and

11:23

what Roberto was talking about was AI

11:25

helps them create 10 times more content at

11:27

three times the speed , at 10% of the

11:29

cost . Now , if you're doing video

11:32

, I believe this is where AI can have the

11:34

biggest impact Video editing

11:36

, video repurposing

11:38

, taking long form , making it short form , et

11:40

cetera , et cetera . I think you see the

11:42

picture . But this idea of speed and scale is

11:45

our business moving fast enough ? Are we scaling

11:47

faster and broader enough

11:49

, and how can AI play a role

11:51

in that ? So that is going

11:54

to be my North star , as I will

11:57

re-look at the AI that's out there , the AI

11:59

that I'm using and seeing . Is there something I'm

12:01

missing ? And as I

12:03

forgot who the speaker was and mentioned it , look

12:05

, if you don't have time to play

12:07

around with AI , you can hire people that are already playing

12:09

around with AI . Right , once again , upwork

12:12

what have you . So you

12:14

know AI has a role . That role

12:16

is only going to become bigger . It is

12:18

being embedded in more and more tools , so you don't necessarily

12:21

need to have a PhD in prompt engineering to

12:23

figure out how to use it . So you

12:25

don't necessarily need to have a PhD in prompt engineering to figure out

12:27

how to use it . But I think we just need to be looking out there as to what is possible with it

12:29

at all times , and there's new tools that

12:31

are popping up here , and I'm going to talk about some of those tools

12:33

. But this is why , if you go to

12:36

my blog , I mean , like every Monday

12:38

, I am basically blogging

12:40

about AI . I'm trying to build up , as

12:42

you know , I have this concept of library of content and

12:45

I'm trying to build up my own knowledge

12:47

base about AI , and a lot

12:49

of this comes down to a lot of the

12:51

different tools that are out there that

12:53

I want you to know about , and I'm just going

12:55

to go through some of these . So

12:58

this week I blogged

13:00

about AI watermark remover tools

13:02

. A lot of people they publish on TikTok

13:04

and want to remove the TikTok watermark , but it could

13:06

be used elsewhere as well . Ai

13:08

Instagram post generators not just captions

13:11

, but obviously images as well . How

13:14

to make AI videos the definitive guide . 15

13:16

exceptional WordPress AI

13:18

plugins to grow your business . Ai

13:21

versus machine learning why the difference in meaning matters

13:23

for marketers ? Ai content assistance

13:25

13 tools the difference in meaning matters for marketers AI content assistance . 13 tools to assist in your

13:27

content creation . 15

13:29

powerful ways to use AI in email marketing

13:32

. 13 script to

13:34

video AI video generators for instant

13:36

video creation . Anyway , and

13:38

that's just a sample of over the last

13:41

few weeks of what I've been blogging about , make sure you go to

13:43

neilschafercom to check

13:45

all those out . But

13:47

the problem isn't will

13:49

AI help you or not , it's

13:51

how you are going to leverage it . So that's

13:54

my challenge I want to throw out to you

13:56

After listening to this episode go

13:58

into my blog , check out some of those posts

14:01

and really think about all

14:03

of your processes

14:05

, especially your content creation workflow and

14:08

see where , even if you don't

14:10

think you have a need for it , think

14:12

about how can it help you improve things is

14:14

maybe a great way to start Now also . Takeaway

14:17

number three is some new AI tools

14:19

to check out . Not all of these are new , but

14:21

it's the way you can think about using them . And

14:24

this is Jordas Johnson , who mentioned

14:27

a lot of these . Roberto Blake as well , but Jordas started

14:29

out with Feedly . Now Feedly , as

14:31

an RSS reader , has been around

14:33

for a while , but Feedly

14:35

now has some new AI

14:38

research capabilities where

14:40

it's leveraging AI to research topics

14:42

, and Jordache was saying you

14:44

know he can now leverage this , whether he's

14:47

writing content , you know , doing

14:49

things for a newsletter , preparing speeches that

14:51

it's become this really powerful tool . He also

14:53

which I did not know and this is not related to AI , but

14:56

Feedly also has the ability to

14:58

read newsletters . You can , I

15:00

believe you get a Feedly email address and

15:03

you sign up for the newsletter with

15:05

that email address and you can read all these newsletters

15:07

within Feedly instead of them all coming to your

15:09

inbox , which I thought was

15:12

fricking brilliant . So a

15:14

lot of what Jordache was talking about is how

15:16

do you make these central databases to

15:18

make your work more efficient , so

15:20

Feedly becomes the central

15:23

database of where the news is . Now , those

15:25

of you that are in my digital first mastermind

15:27

I've talked about a lot . I use a tool called

15:30

InnoReader I-N-O-R-E-A-D-E-R . I use that because I can generate

15:32

an RSS feed . I use that because I can generate

15:34

an RSS feed , which then I can feed into

15:36

a social media dashboard like Socialbee

15:39

to help me sort of automate

15:41

the queuing up of content of curated

15:44

content that I might want to share . Obviously , feedly

15:46

is integrated with a lot of social media platforms I

15:48

believe they're integrated with Socialbee as well

15:50

and you can do the same thing Like something

15:52

on Feedly and then have an IFTTT

15:54

or IFFT Always forget that and

16:02

it will tee it up on a social media platform . Just some things to think about right Of

16:04

these old tools that have added new AI functionality that we can leverage

16:06

. Another one that is often tossed

16:08

around when we talk about AI tools

16:10

is a company called Eleven Labs , and

16:13

they have a tool called VoiceLab , which allows

16:15

you to basically create a voice that

16:17

is really , really similar to your own . I have not tried

16:20

it yet . I plan on trying it , but

16:22

this is a tool that

16:24

Jordache was saying look , you can create private

16:27

podcasts with it . You can create audio

16:29

versions of your blog posts . You can create audio versions

16:31

of your newsletter . This is a plus alpha

16:33

value add that you can

16:35

easily provide . So

16:38

11 Labs Voice Lab definitely

16:41

check that out . Hopefully the wheels are spinning in

16:43

your head . Another one that's been around for

16:45

a while is otterai . So

16:48

I use a free tool called phantomai

16:51

when I do Zoom meetings . But you

16:53

can use otterai , you can use firefliesai

16:56

. Otterai has been around for a while

16:58

. It is very well established . I believe

17:00

it also has like an iPhone app where you can record

17:02

your voice saying things . And

17:04

what Jordache was saying is like , look , use

17:06

Otterai as like a digital brand , like bring

17:09

everything in it to

17:12

build an AI training

17:14

database of your voice

17:16

, but also , obviously , meeting

17:20

notes and everything else . Have it all in one

17:22

place . Client calls

17:24

if you do everything over Zoom and

17:27

you integrate with autoai , you can just

17:29

automate the collection of that and then

17:31

when you have a thought and you want

17:33

to say something , you can basically

17:36

log into autoai and say it . You can I

17:38

know that auditai you can also . You

17:40

know I used to create podcast transcripts through

17:42

it . So you can easily , you know , integrate

17:44

and make sure that it grabs all your podcast

17:47

recordings , et cetera , et cetera . So I think

17:49

you get the picture Once again , it's building a central place

17:51

where all of your voice information

17:54

is for lack of a better way of saying it . He

17:57

also mentioned a tool which I hadn't heard of as well , not

17:59

really related to marketing directly , but

18:04

indirectly . We all want to create SOPs or standard operating procedures , and

18:06

it's an app called Guide G-U-I-D-D-E

18:09

. Basically , what it does is

18:11

it's like Loom right when you're

18:13

on Loom , you often do a screen share , and

18:17

recently Loom , right when you're on Loom , you often do a screen share , and recently Loom has added this AI that is describing what you're

18:19

doing , and that is exactly what Guide is doing , and

18:21

the whole idea is it's going to create a video with

18:24

instructions that's going to help you codify your

18:26

work into a standard operating procedure . So

18:28

if you're going to teach a virtual assistant or

18:30

someone on your team how to do something , use

18:41

this app to do it and then codify that so that if you ever have new people coming

18:43

on board , you can leverage that . So I think you can do it in other ways , but this tool

18:46

sounds like it makes it a lot easier to use . Two more tools to go . One is

18:48

creatorio . This is actually put up by Kajabi , and

18:50

Kajabi are one of these all-in-one tools

18:53

that allow you to create a website

18:55

, have email , create courses , et cetera , et cetera . I've

18:57

known about it man for a decade , but they're

18:59

actually headquartered right here in Irvine , california . I pass

19:02

by their office pretty frequently , but

19:04

creatorio is the smart chatbot

19:06

that apparently Kajabi

19:08

is going to be integrating with all of their

19:11

apps or website tools

19:13

over the course of the next week or two . This is

19:15

one that Roberto Blake brought up . He is a big

19:17

Kajabi fan . And creatorio

19:19

. You don't need Kajabi to run on right

19:21

now . I don't know if that's going to change or not , but

19:23

it's one of these smart chatbots that

19:25

can funnel chatbot conversations

19:28

on your website into lead magnets , into

19:30

offers , et cetera , et cetera . Very , very targeted

19:33

type of chatbot . I have experimented

19:35

with chatbots in the past , like before COVID Interesting

19:37

results , but I haven't experimented

19:40

with them since ChatGPT . And

19:44

if you feed , once again , it's all about creating your own little mini GPTs

19:46

, right , your mini learning libraries If

19:48

you feed it the content from your website

19:50

. You can create something that's pretty compelling

19:52

, right . So definitely check that out

19:55

. And you can create something that's pretty compelling , right . So definitely

19:57

check that out . And then the last one I believe Roberto mentioned that Daryl Eves created

19:59

this company , and Daryl Eves I've had on this podcast

20:01

, the author of the YouTube Formula . He

20:03

also is the co-founder

20:06

of VidSummit , one of my favorite conferences

20:08

all about YouTube . But he has

20:10

a tool called Ditto which creates

20:13

voice clones , and the idea

20:15

is you create voice clones in different languages

20:17

, so

20:23

you can take your YouTube video in English and use the same video , but just create a voice clone in

20:25

Spanish that sounds like you , but it's automatically translated in

20:27

the language . I experimented with this , I

20:29

believe , right after VidSummit , in Japanese . It

20:32

wasn't that natural . Now , if it was like

20:34

Spanish or French or German , it might be a little bit more

20:36

natural , but this is sort of one

20:38

of the futures of using AI is being able to

20:40

tap into different languages , and

20:42

that's something that I'm definitely looking

20:44

into doing in future books , future podcasts

20:47

, future YouTube videos . So definitely check

20:49

out that tool called Ditto , and in fact

20:51

it is . Dittodubcom

20:54

is where you want to go if you are interested in that

20:56

, all

20:58

right . We then and I want to bring up a few of the presentation I went

21:00

to not all of them , but there were a few that some

21:03

good takeaways . So number four

21:05

is latasha , james , and latasha

21:08

talked about audience building

21:10

and her whole thing , and I'm

21:12

gonna quote her , quote her no rules

21:15

, just vibes , you

21:17

know , go according to . Obviously

21:20

, you know she pivoted

21:22

from talking about more lifestyle things

21:24

to more business things , but it wasn't

21:26

about creating rules about what she was going to talk

21:28

about . It was really the vibes of

21:30

what she was doing , of the social platform

21:33

of her audience at the time that she

21:35

kept as her North Star . And I

21:37

think that , you know , if we

21:39

really want to be human , you

21:41

know vibes become really important . Right , like

21:44

I'm smiling right now . You may not see that I'm smiling

21:46

, you may not see that I'm happy to be podcasting

21:48

, but having vibes

21:51

, you know , maybe like a type of

21:53

intuition , can be a really fabulous

21:56

guide . But , more importantly than that , talk

21:58

about audience building , and this is nothing new , but just

22:01

a reminder . She was

22:03

saying all these people complain I only have X number

22:05

of followers . But she said if

22:07

you have 30 followers , you're like a teacher in a classroom

22:09

. If you have 5,000 people , you can fill

22:11

a concert hall . If you have 20,000 followers

22:14

, that's a Madison Square Garden , right ? So always

22:16

keep that in mind and

22:19

I will add on to that right . I've mentioned

22:21

taking a little hit from Google recently with their

22:23

latest algorithm changes , for whatever reason

22:25

, but I'm not mad

22:28

at Google . I'm still thankful for every visitor

22:30

, right , every person reached

22:32

is a potential opportunity . So be thankful

22:35

for what you have . No matter how

22:37

few people you're reaching , you're

22:39

reaching someone and with every person there's

22:41

a potential , and that was a really great reminder . It's

22:44

not about the numbers . Even 30 people

22:46

is basically the

22:48

classroom that I teach at UCLA Extension . Right

22:50

, every person matters , all

22:52

right . Speaking

22:58

about audience building , I want to cover two takeaways that talked

23:00

about this importance of directly asking your audience what they want . So

23:03

takeaway number five this is Sundara

23:05

Barasubramani Hopefully

23:07

I'm pronouncing that correctly . She wrote a book

23:09

called Unshackled . She's from India . I mean

23:12

. That book is about helping immigrants , I

23:14

think , get visas , if not jobs , here in the

23:16

United States . But she was like directly

23:19

ask your audience what they want and then

23:21

deliver . And it's funny because we often

23:23

create products or we

23:25

assume things without directly asking

23:28

our audience and this is just another great reminder . We

23:30

hear these all the time and she

23:32

actually showed the email which

23:34

sparked everything that she ended

23:36

up doing . So the subject

23:38

and I'm going to share it with you because it inspired

23:41

me and I took a screenshot a book on immigration

23:43

to help people like you . So she

23:45

was already determined to write the book

23:47

, but she wanted people

23:49

to become part of it and wanted to make sure that she was covering

23:52

information that people would find

23:54

relevant . So , hi name

23:56

, happy Friday . I'm Sundaya Balasparamani

23:59

. I'm beginning to write a short , practical book

24:01

on US immigration . I'm partnering with one

24:03

of the leading immigration attorneys in the country . Our

24:05

vision really is to help people like you who are immigrants

24:08

in the US get creative freedom

24:10

and find alternatives to the traditional

24:12

H-1B pathway . For that

24:15

I need your input . What are the top three

24:17

questions you want this book to answer ? Hit

24:19

, reply and let me know . Okay

24:22

, so that obviously leads into

24:24

conversations , it leads into intel

24:26

. And then , guess what ? She comes

24:29

out with a Kickstarter and she ended up generating

24:32

$48,000 and more

24:34

than 600 backers for that Kickstarter , and

24:36

I'm assuming a lot of them came from this

24:38

email exchange . Funny

24:40

fact , I'm actually going to be launching a Kickstarter

24:42

for my book , so stay tuned for that . But

24:45

just a reminder of directly

24:47

asking your audience what they want

24:49

and then delivering . It

24:51

sounds really simple because it is , but

24:54

a lot of businesses and content creators

24:56

ignore the advice . So you

24:59

know , always be thinking about that is all I can

25:01

say . And another one , justin Moore . Justin

25:03

Moore , really smart guy . He

25:06

gave a presentation about audience

25:08

first offers and before

25:10

I get an audience first offers , he started with

25:12

the same thing Ask your audience what

25:14

they want . And I'm not sure if this is an

25:16

auto responder that he sent , but he showed

25:18

us the email . Hey , I want

25:20

to learn more about you . I'm planning out my

25:22

next series of and then fill

25:24

in videos , blog posts , podcasts , books , et cetera

25:27

, and I want to make sure they serve you . It'd mean

25:29

a lot to me if you took a second to

25:31

answer a few questions on this survey

25:33

here . You could have a Google form , a survey monkey

25:35

and the questions and he put

25:37

them on the screen . What type of job do you have ? Do you

25:39

have a partner ? Do you have kids ? This is part of

25:41

understanding the psychographics of your

25:43

well , demographics as well . Right , how

25:46

and when do you typically consume my content

25:48

? Is it in line at the coffee shop for two minutes or

25:50

do you sit down every weekend and catch up on my most

25:52

recent video blog post podcast

25:54

book ? What problems do you have ? What keeps you up at

25:57

night ? Is there any type of product that you wish I

25:59

offered that I don't , and why ? Okay

26:01

, really interesting . It gets more interesting . What

26:04

types of brands , products , services are

26:06

you using or interested in right now and

26:08

why ? And I'm going to get to why

26:10

he asked this . And then , are there other people that

26:12

you'd like to see me collaborate with and why are there other

26:14

people that you'd like to see me collaborate with , and why ? Right , so if you can

26:16

do that , you

26:19

know a lot about your audience right there . And

26:21

basically what he was saying is from that

26:24

create audience first

26:26

. Offers , in other words , think of your audience

26:28

first . He divided them into three different things Products

26:31

, sponsors and alliances

26:34

. Products , obviously , he asked about that . What

26:36

problems do you have that keep you up at night ? Is there

26:38

any type of product you wish to offer ? I don't know why

26:40

. Products coming down to courses

26:42

, digital products , books , coaching , events

26:45

and maybe a SaaS product and

26:47

then what types of brands , products , services

26:49

are you using or interested in right now and why

26:51

? And if he

26:53

knows that he has 100 people

26:55

that are using a certain product or interested

26:57

in another product , he can then go to a potential

27:00

sponsor and say , look , my

27:02

audience already uses you . Do you want to sponsor

27:04

a podcast episode ? Right , so he's really big on

27:06

helping content creators get sponsorships . But

27:09

sponsor brands' events , brands' services

27:12

, brands' products , brands' SaaS products

27:14

. Then the alliances thought

27:16

this was really interesting . So with the sponsors , there's

27:18

sponsorships . There might be affiliate

27:20

revenue as well . Obviously the alliances

27:23

I think a lot of it is affiliate Other

27:25

creators , products , services , saas events

27:27

, courses , books , coaching . Are there

27:29

any other people you can JV with ? I thought

27:32

that was a really , really interesting question I had never thought

27:34

of before and something I hope

27:36

to do more of as well , and maybe I'll

27:38

be sending out a survey of this on my own

27:40

pretty soon . But

27:47

I thought it was a great way of looking at being very targeted and then not just thinking

27:49

of your own products , but also of alliances with other companies or entities

27:51

or influencers and then , obviously

27:53

, sponsorship opportunities . So really

27:55

fantastic presentation . All right , these

27:58

always end up being really long podcast episodes , my

28:00

apologies . We're going to move on now to number seven

28:02

, which is Pamela Slim , and

28:04

Pamela talks about IP

28:06

, and this is where we talk about

28:08

codification . Now , those of you

28:10

that know me know that one of my favorite podcasters recently

28:13

is Joanna Penn , the creative

28:15

pen with two ends , and she is all

28:17

about helping authors write both fiction

28:19

and nonfiction , and she talks about the IP

28:22

of your content . Right , if

28:24

you're going to publish a book , own the IP

28:26

so that you can do whatever you want with it . And

28:29

Pamela was talking about IP similarly

28:31

, but she used the term codification

28:33

, which I really like as well . It's

28:35

codifying what you know into

28:38

something that can be sold . It

28:40

can be a system , it could be a framework , it

28:43

could be a course , it could be a book and

28:45

this is really what's pushing me to

28:47

do a lot of writing is the codification of my

28:49

thoughts into an

28:51

IP that can then be sold , be

28:54

repurposed . What have you ? Codification

28:56

? Think about that . All right

28:58

, we're in the homestretch here . Takeaway

29:00

number eight Kenya Kelly did

29:03

a fantastic presentation on TikTok and

29:06

she , I believe , is in her 40s , so she's not like a

29:08

20-something , she's like I didn't . It's not about

29:10

doing dances . It was COVID and

29:13

she did what's called a reaction video

29:15

. And

29:17

was COVID and she did what's called a reaction video and I think the official name

29:19

is like a duet where you are basically reacting to someone else's

29:21

published video . So their published

29:23

video shows up on the right , you show up on the left

29:25

and you react in some way to it . And

29:28

for those of you that remember , if

29:30

you go back to episode number 299

29:33

, I had Dr Brian Boxer-Wackler . Episode number 299 , I had Dr

29:35

Brian Boxer-Wackler , who is

29:37

a doctor who has

29:39

, at the time , over 2 million followers

29:41

on TikTok and his whole strategy was

29:44

the reaction video . But

29:46

yeah , so Kenya did this reaction

29:48

video , gained 14,000 followers in a week

29:50

from her first video and

29:54

that really launched everything else . She does Not guaranteeing you that you're going to see the

29:56

same thing , but it just shows you the potential

29:58

that TikTok has that very few other

30:00

social networks have . She also

30:02

mentioned that now

30:04

, with TikTok stories which work the

30:06

way the Instagram stories do , you can

30:08

now have conversations with people who engage

30:11

with your TikTok stories . She was mentioning and

30:13

I'm not a big expert on TikTok by any

30:15

means , but she was mentioning before it

30:17

was harder to be able to begin

30:20

conversations on DMs with other

30:22

people or brands , like you can do with Instagram

30:24

stories , but now you could do that with TikTok

30:26

stories . That's another great reason

30:28

why you might want to consider spending a

30:31

little bit more time on TikTok , and I

30:33

love this quote and it's something that I talk a lot

30:35

about as well , and I'm having a dedicated

30:37

chapter in my new book about really leveraging

30:39

every platform for the unique culture

30:42

that it represents . And what Kenya

30:45

said about TikTok is look you just and I'm

30:47

going to quote her here you just have to learn the culture

30:49

of the platform and then start creating

30:51

content for your target consumer . So

30:53

there's a culture , there's a style , there's a vibe

30:56

, and

31:01

then leverage that to think of your target consumer , what content they want to consume there , and

31:03

create the content . What's really interesting and what really drove me

31:05

to want to do more is

31:08

there was a wide range

31:10

of ages in the audience . I'd say millennial

31:12

, gen X , even baby boomers were the overwhelming

31:14

majority . And she said hey , if you have a TikTok

31:17

account , raise your hand . And so pretty much everyone

31:19

raised their hand and this is like I don't know 50 people

31:21

. And then she said if you post

31:23

regularly , like I

31:25

think her definition was daily , but maybe a few times

31:28

a week , you know , keep your hand raised , and

31:30

the 40 or 50 people went down to two or three , and

31:32

that , I think , sums up TikTok A

31:35

lot of demand , very few creators , and that's

31:37

why people can get massive views . So

31:40

something to think about . I know that people

31:42

have different opinions about TikTok , but I am still really bullish

31:44

on it and want to invest more of my time

31:46

in it as well . She also talked about

31:49

the content styles that work and

31:51

, once again , if you and I'm

31:53

going to , you know , give you instructions

31:56

on how to do this in my book but

31:58

if you create basically a

32:00

fake account , you create a second account that

32:02

you use just to consume the content that

32:04

your target audience might be consuming

32:06

, you will hopefully begin to

32:08

see the content styles that work . She

32:14

basically summarized them as number one , reaction videos , and I just told you what that was , using the

32:16

duet feature , where you can just react to other people that

32:18

are talking about things that you're an expert at

32:20

and agreeing or disagreeing with them , or adding

32:23

more context or more advice , right ? Number

32:25

two is storytelling always does

32:27

well in social media , and then how to

32:29

tutorials still do really well , obviously in the

32:31

in the beauty and fashion and makeup areas

32:34

. Uh , recipes , you know cooking , we see a lot of

32:36

that , but it could be other things as well

32:38

. Finally , kenya was

32:40

really bullish as am I , as

32:43

are a lot of other brands on the TikTok

32:45

shop of you

32:47

know being able to just generate business

32:49

directly from TikTok and I know that there's Facebook

32:51

shop and Instagram shop , but TikTok seems

32:53

to have really gotten it going

32:55

and it seems like people are actually buying

32:58

from TikTok shop like a lot , and

33:00

I have anecdotal evidence about this as

33:02

well from companies I know that are about

33:04

to launch TikTok shops because they

33:07

understand how well their competitors are doing there

33:09

. So lots of opportunity on TikTok

33:11

still still potential . Hopefully

33:13

, after listening to this , you'll take it a little bit more

33:15

seriously as well . All right

33:18

, number nine we are on to digital

33:20

products . So this is a content entrepreneur

33:23

expo , creator economy . Obviously , a lot

33:25

of talk about digital products . Don't know

33:27

how many of you listening are interested in digital products

33:29

. I definitely am looking to do more with

33:31

digital products , but you know a few little

33:34

bits of advice here . Number one , michael

33:36

Stelzner , and I'm going to finish with Michael Stelzner

33:38

, founder of Social Media Examiner , social Media Marketing

33:40

World , one of the greatest guys and most

33:42

intelligent guys you'll see out there . You

33:45

know he's all about . He has a social

33:47

media marketing society , which social media marketing

33:49

world has . He's like look , give people

33:51

a dollar trial , right , figure

33:53

out your customer lifetime value . If people

33:55

stay on a few months , you give away

33:57

you know something for a dollar . But start doing

33:59

it that way to expand the number of people

34:02

that make it easy to have transactions with you . For , interestingly

34:17

enough , a lot of the advice around digital products was

34:19

not about creating the $2,000 signature

34:22

course , but more about creating smaller

34:25

amount items . I think it

34:27

was Abigail Pumphrey who

34:29

said this and I believe that she

34:31

also had a

34:33

first course that was like a $35

34:35

course on how to use Trello for business

34:38

that I think she generated I don't know $8,000

34:40

in the first week or so . But she

34:42

looks at it this way get

34:45

quick wins with digital

34:47

products to build trust . It's not about building

34:49

some expansive 10-hour

34:51

course and selling it for a few thousand

34:53

dollars . It's about selling something for $35

34:56

. Get a quick win and the way that

34:58

she puts it is the ideal . Digital

35:01

product sparks curiosity , allowing

35:04

someone to explore a topic without

35:06

the commitment of following through . I thought it was really

35:08

interesting . A topic without the commitment of following through

35:10

. I thought it was really interesting and

35:15

she gave this great example a 30-day yoga challenge versus 15 poses to reduce stress in 15

35:18

minutes or less . I think a lot of us are going to go for that 15 poses to reduce stress in

35:20

15 minutes or less . We will explore

35:22

the topic . It sparks our curiosity . We may

35:24

not even follow through , but we're happy

35:26

we bought it and I think we see a lot of that and I

35:28

think that really encapsulates a really

35:30

great way of thinking about it . Dumb it down

35:32

, give people quick wins and we

35:35

talk about doing this with lead magnets , but

35:37

we haven't or at least I haven't thought

35:39

about doing that with digital products . I also

35:42

talk a lot with the people from Teachable

35:44

. Both Teachable and Thinkific were sponsors

35:46

, but Teachable was really up to hey

35:48

, let's spend some time together to brainstorm

35:50

some courses for your audience

35:52

. So hey , stay tuned . It's on

35:55

the roadmap . Also , some of you

35:57

from LinkedIn may know Justin Welsh . He's

35:59

done really , really well on LinkedIn . He

36:02

once again started with like a $49 course

36:04

. He's generated a lot of money

36:06

. For those that know him , I think it was called the LinkedIn

36:08

Playbook and

36:16

he added more content and then it became $149 course . But his

36:18

whole thing and it's all done through daily posting on LinkedIn is convince people that

36:20

you are the right and relevant person to learn from . That's

36:22

really what it's about Building trust

36:24

day in , day out , consistently

36:26

publishing great content and

36:28

sharing . And just one final

36:31

bit of advice on digital products and course

36:33

creation . I forgot who was it

36:35

said it , but think of course creation

36:37

. Just like you're an author , right ? You

36:39

write books , you write blog posts , why don't you

36:41

create a course ? And

36:47

once again , this has been what's holding me back is we seem to think

36:49

differently about courses , but it's time to really dumb it down and just do it right . If you

36:51

have a few blog posts , you can create a course . Will

36:54

people buy it or not , that's another story , but

36:56

the ability to create a course has not

36:58

been any easier and , yeah

37:00

, I'm looking forward to diving deeper

37:02

into it . Obviously , I'll have some books to write first , but anyway

37:04

, takeaway number 10 , bj

37:07

Novak , who plays the character of Ryan

37:09

on the Office , for those that remember , was

37:12

the final interview

37:14

with Anne Handley , no less , and Anne is

37:16

one of the most intelligent people out there

37:18

who's also a great interviewer . She was really funny and

37:21

what I love about what BJ was saying

37:23

because BJ is also a writer he published

37:26

a really popular children's book . This

37:28

book has no pictures . Sounds really funny

37:30

, but he's done really well with that book . He

37:32

says he has followed the advice

37:35

of his father and the advice of his father

37:37

when he started becoming a stand-up comedian . I mean , the

37:39

guy went to Harvard University really smart , but

37:42

his dad said say what you think is

37:44

funny , keep what they think is

37:46

funny . And that's really

37:48

really compelling quote because

37:50

it forces you to focus on the audience . If

37:53

there's any one big takeaway from everything

37:55

I've talked about is focusing on the audience

37:57

, of building the audience , of

37:59

treating the audience well , of

38:02

understanding what your audience wants

38:04

and then delivering . He

38:06

also said and this is a little bit related on

38:08

character development , specifically

38:18

talking about the Office that 95% of character is giving people what they

38:20

want , but surprise people 5% of the time . He mentioned that Oscar for those of you

38:22

that watch the Office is a character that always had these surprising moments , which makes

38:25

it more addicting , gives depth

38:27

to the character as well . Makes

38:29

it more addicting , gives depth to the character as well . So just something to think

38:31

about . I know you're not writing fiction per se or writing screenplay

38:33

, but you can be doing the same thing with your own work

38:35

, but the most important thing is give people

38:38

what they want . He also gave really great

38:40

advice on because

38:42

he's inspired and he always carries around a notebook

38:44

with a pencil and he showed

38:46

us he like pulled it out of his suit pocket . But

38:48

separate inspiration from execution

38:51

. Don't get lost in

38:53

the notes of inspiration . Be

38:55

inspired when it comes to execute , be in execution

38:58

mode , and he says that's one thing that's really

39:00

helped him in his career and I thought that was a great way of

39:02

putting it . All right , we are down

39:04

to the final 11

39:06

takeaway from Content Entrepreneur

39:08

Expo 2023 . And no other than

39:10

Michael Stelzner . The final 11 takeaway from Content Entrepreneur Expo 2023

39:13

. And no other than Michael Stelzner . I want to go a little bit deeper

39:15

into what he was talking about and I guess

39:17

you know the first thing he talked about was algorithms . So you know he

39:19

says look , and for those of you who know , social

39:21

Media Examiner is one of the best websites

39:24

about social media marketing out there . But

39:26

in addition to Social Media Examiner , you

39:28

know Michael

39:31

Stelzner has four different podcasts One's called Social Media Marketing

39:33

, one's called Social Media Marketing Talk Show , one's called Marketing

39:35

Agency Show and launching

39:37

soon AI Explored Very much looking forward

39:39

to that . He has a newsletter . They have

39:41

242,000 subs . He shared

39:44

this , which is why I'm able to share it with you . They

39:46

send out three emails a week Monday , wednesday , friday . A

39:48

YouTube channel with 310,000 subs , 1.1

39:51

million followers across Facebook

39:53

and Twitter alone . But

39:55

what he said was it is

39:57

just getting harder and harder to reach

39:59

our target audience , whether it's a

40:01

newsletter with new email

40:03

algorithms or new email laws , social

40:06

media algorithms always changing . Seo

40:09

, google algorithms always changing , even in podcasts . And changing SEO , google algorithms

40:11

always changing , even in podcasts , and I did not know

40:13

this , but apparently Apple podcasts stopped

40:15

downloading new episodes from podcasts

40:18

that you follow if you haven't listened to an episode

40:20

in the last six months , so apparently a lot of podcasters

40:23

had their numbers drop pretty

40:25

radically overnight . So

40:27

you know , in light of that , he's

40:30

like you know , and just a lot

40:32

of wisdom from doing what he's been doing for like

40:35

15 years is it's always

40:37

going to be a fight against the algorithm , no

40:39

matter what medium that you use

40:41

, and therefore you really

40:44

need to differentiate what

40:46

you do so that when someone does

40:48

find you , they become loyal

40:50

to you , and it's the loyal audience that

40:52

you're able to monetize . And

40:54

this is not about AI or anything

40:56

as well . This is just very basic thoughts

40:59

, but I love the example here . This is something I have not

41:01

had . But he said , hey , you need to come

41:03

up with a creed . Okay , like

41:06

, why are you doing what you're doing ? And

41:08

I guess you know what's the difference in a creed and a mission

41:11

. You know , I'm not going to go into those definitions

41:13

here , but let me give you the examples because I think

41:15

that this will paint the picture for you . So

41:17

the creed for Social Media Examiner

41:20

is we believe smart marketing

41:22

helps any business compete with the

41:24

largest players in their industry

41:26

. That is their creed , then

41:29

the mission we help small business

41:32

marketers right their

41:34

target audience is small business marketers

41:36

navigate the constantly changing

41:39

marketing jungle . And

41:41

they do that . I guess the creed is the why of the mission

41:43

, because we believe smart marketing helps any

41:45

business compete with the largest players in their industry . And

41:48

then do you have a slogan , right , and

41:50

the slogan is right there in the Social Media

41:52

Examiner logo your Guide to the Marketing

41:54

Jungle . And if you go to their About page

41:56

, this all comes together and

41:59

you know he's like well , why

42:01

even have these ? He said it's important

42:03

to send a very , very clear signal . Who

42:05

are you for ? Why should they pay

42:07

attention ? What can they discover

42:09

? And he believes that is the foundation

42:12

of monetization . And I would have to agree

42:14

. And you know it prompted

42:16

me to be to do my own soul searching , and

42:18

these are things that I really have not had

42:20

. I've had various ones , but anyway

42:23

, this is a homework item for me and maybe for you

42:25

as well , and this isn't just for content

42:27

creators . This is for businesses to differentiate yourselves

42:29

amongst your competition as well . Right , so

42:32

I hope you enjoyed listening to my

42:34

takeaways from Content Entrepreneur Expo . I'm

42:36

not going to be attending another conference for a little

42:38

while , but yeah . I do enjoy giving

42:42

you these recaps . Hopefully they offer value to you

42:44

. I know they offer value to me . So , yeah

42:46

, great event , and hopefully I

42:48

will see you there at Content

42:50

Entrepreneur Expo 2025 , which I'm assuming

42:53

will also be in Cleveland , ohio . All

42:55

right , well , that is it for another episode

42:58

of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast . Hey

43:00

, are you on my newsletter ? I

43:02

would love to keep in touch with you If you want to find out

43:04

everything that I'm doing . Get

43:07

caught up with my blog posts , youtube

43:09

videos , things outside of this podcast

43:11

, as well as when I offer free webinars and

43:14

when I have exciting announcements

43:16

about my books that will be coming up

43:18

very soon . Go over to neilschafercom

43:20

slash newsletter and you'll be able to

43:22

sign up right there and see some samples of my

43:25

former or previous newsletters . All

43:27

right , well , that's it for another . Hopefully , you

43:29

found I mean I know I found I'm sort of losing my voice

43:31

here at the end exciting episode of the

43:34

your Digital Marketing Coach podcast . This is your digital

43:36

marketing coach , neil Schafer , signing off

43:38

.

43:39

You've been listening to your Digital

43:41

Marketing Coach . Questions , comments

43:44

, requests , links go

43:46

to podcastneilschafercom

43:49

. Get the show notes to this and 200

43:51

plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom

43:55

to tap into the 400

43:57

plus blog posts that Neil has published

43:59

to support your business . While

44:01

you're there , check out Neil's digital

44:04

first group coaching membership community if

44:06

you or your business needs a little helping

44:08

hand . See you next time on

44:10

your Digital Marketing Coach .