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
Guest Links:
Learn More:
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
Guest Links:
Learn More:
Why is Joe Pulizzi the godfather of content marketing, founder of the Content Marketing Institute and Content Marketing World Why is he so excited about the Creator economy so excited that he is launching an event, actually the first event about the crater economy? Well, you'll just have to tune into this next episode of The your digital marketing coach podcast to find out digital social media content influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick tocking, LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, who there's a lot to cover, whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, welcome to episode number 251 of the your digital marketing coach podcast. I am Neal Schaffer, your digital marketing coach. And as always, thank you for joining me for today's conversation. Today is a very special interview with an old friend, one of those Well, absolute thought leaders, but also one of the nicest people that you will meet in marketing or anywhere. Joe Pulizzi. Joe has an amazing past and we're gonna actually talk about it at depth in our interview. But we also talk about what is this thing called the crater economy. We also talk a little bit about the relationship the overlap with influencer marketing that I covered on a previous podcast episode, but then we go into sort of the future and maybe the future. The crater economy is also the future of social media marketing. We do talk about things like the metaverse, web 3.0 and NF T's, things that I don't normally talk about things that I have started to formulate ideas about, but I really like the way that Joe looks at them. And I think it's gonna be really, really educational for all of us. So without further ado, let's get to the interview with Joe Polizzi. Your list listening to your digital marketing coach, this is Neal Schaffer. Job letsie. Welcome to the digital marketing coach podcast.
Joe Pulizzi:Neil, it is great to see you again. How you been?
Neal Schaffer:It's been crazy, hasn't it? You know, this episode is really all about you and your evolution. And just to give the listener if you go back to right when Coronavirus started. Joe is on the show, talking about Corona marketing. Now, those of you that know Joe, a lot of people like myself talk about him being the godfather of content marketing, founder of Content Marketing World author of a lot of great books. And recently he did a republication of content, Inc. and the last time I talked to you is actually with Amanda Russell on the school of influence. And we were talking about that term content entrepreneur, and how you really wanted to ride that term and be known for it and after I started using that term in my own circles, a lot of people not and like yeah, we are content entrepreneurs. And then fast forward to about a month ago so one of my mastermind group Angela long will give her a shout out goes yeah, Neil Have you heard a crater economy experts put on my geopolitically only 500 People you know I got my ticket ego and I'm like hell yeah. So I didn't even know what I was getting myself into. I go to the page I see an epic collection of people have always wanted to see speak. Roberta blank Jeremiah Leon I mean an old people not old people, you know, people that I see a lot of but I would always love to see more of like an hammy obviously yourself just a great collection of people all centered around what is now called the crater economy which is still very new to a lot of people and we talked about it beforehand there's like an overlap with influencer marketing I talked about this in the age of influence but Joe this tremendous evolution you could say my podcast as well was evolved into your digital marketing coach from maximize your social maximize your social influence, but obviously you had a similar evolution tell me about this evolution from from content marketing to Corona marketing to content entrepreneur and now creator
Joe Pulizzi:thank you yeah, you know, you know some of the story I mean, I you know, founded Content Marketing Institute, and, you know, did that for almost a decade, had a very successful exit. We sold mostly because of Content Marketing World became a very large significant event still is, we sold to a company called UBM, who's an events company and then I stayed on at CMI until 2017. And then I took a sabbatical year in 18. And I was done with marketing Neil, you know, you know the story. I'm like, good. I'm going to
Neal Schaffer:best selling fiction author as well, right?
Joe Pulizzi:It's funny. I mean, it's sort of funny, I guess if you have a significant other like this, but I always wanted my wife to read something I ever wrote six books in the past all on marketing. And my wife never read any of those books outside of the acknowledgments. And I said, What do I have to do for me to write something that you'll actually read saying this to my wife? And she said, Write something interesting. I'm like, Oh, geez. So So I said, Okay, I know you like mysteries and thrillers, I'm going to write one. And by the way, probably one of the hardest things I've ever done. Writing a fiction novel is much different than writing nonfiction, which is very second nature to me. So I figured that out, came out with a wilted I started launching an audio in 19. And then launch the actual launch party for the wilted I was March 8 of 2020. I'll just let that sit with everybody from a timetable standpoint. And because I was going to just write novels for you know, the rest of my career, I'm like, Okay, this is my second career. This is what I want to do. I didn't think you were coming back to marketing my friend at that. I was not, I was not. I was I was done. I was like, This is it. I had my exit. I've affected people and positively in that way, and I'm going to try something else. And then over the world with your dad as well. The Oh, yeah. I mean, this. Yeah, you know about that, you know, did the sabbatical year. And when I and I took a trip to Sicily, with my father, it's one of those once in a lifetime things we spent two years over there. We met 60 members of our family we'd never met before. Wow, it was just one of those things that I'm so happy that we did it at that moment. And by the way, just just to say this, for for anyone out there. If you're thinking about taking a trip with your parents, or with your aunts, or uncles or whatever do it now. Like don't wait, you never know what's going to happen. I'm so glad in 2018, I took that trip with my father. So yeah, and I was not I was along that path with was saying, Okay, I'm going to do something new. And then Corona. Marketing comes I did Corona marketing in in response to COVID-19. And the only reason I did that when Neil and you know, the story is I started to get emails as you did write emails. Teksu. Yeah, like, what do I do? I just lost my job, or I'm going into a new job, or I quit my job or whatever. And they basically all everything was around. Joe, does that content Inc. Model you wrote in 15? Is that still a thing? Does it still work? And I said, okay, yeah. And I'm reaching out. And then I actually checked my book sales. And my book sales were up. This is a 2015 book, my book sale should not be up. They just sell at a consistent level. And it's an older book. And I'm like, okay, that's weird. And then I went to look at my podcast stats, my podcast content, Inc, which I stopped producing in 2017. Podcast listens for up, I said, that's no way something's wrong. Like it's somebody doing a promotion that I don't know about. And really, it was there was a renewed interest in this idea of how do we build an audience, using all the things that we know because everyone was staying home at that time, a lot of people did lose their jobs. And I said, Okay, maybe there's an opportunity for me to help people a little bit more than what I was doing writing mysteries and thrillers. And then as you know, Neil, I jumped back into it, decided no got back in, you know, launched our own social token into web three big time launched our own social token to coin that was in March of 21, launched the tilt, a two time a week newsletter for content entrepreneurs, content creators who want to be content entrepreneurs. And then I just said, might as well do the whole big, let's launch the event as well as the so Creator Academy Expo March or May 2 before coming up here. 2022. And, and wanted it to be, you know, we don't know what's Coronavirus, going to be like at that time, what's COVID going to be like? So we said let's limit it to 500 people will do it in Arizona where we can do a lot of things outside. So I'm back in, they just keep pulling me back in. I don't know what to tell you.
Neal Schaffer:So I won't say Coronavirus has been good to you. Because it's not been good to anybody. But it did bring you back in and give you a renewed focus, I should say energy to do
Joe Pulizzi:this. Yeah. And basically, and I spent 20 years working with marketers, mostly at very large companies, and I'm trying to figure out their content marketing. Now I'm working with people that are just like me, they're they're trying to build an audience. They're just consistently delivering a blog or a podcast, or YouTube or Twitch or whatever they do. And then they're trying to monetize that there is a model. I mean, the model two is, you know, take you know, take three years, six, four years, six, five years, there's an exit plan. And I basically that's why I rewrote content Inc. came out in 21. You know, doing the whole thing trying to help this group of people. 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. We call it rented land. You don't have much of a business model. So we're getting Trying to help teach people, no, nothing wrong with using social media. I'm all for it. But you have to have a secondary strategy to move off email. That's why I love web three so much. There's a lot of opportunities there. We don't know what all those are yet. We're learning but but there's something there. So I'm sort of on the, you know, I'm the guy saying, Don't build your content house on rented land. I'm the guy saying, Well, how about you email list? How about your website? You know, those types of things so that you can build a business that ultimately if you want to, you can have a successful exit with Sunday?
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, it's funny. I mean, I first saw you speak at Adobe summit in Las Vegas, like, I don't know, many years ago, you were talking about things like email marketing, and exactly what you're talking about now. And that's what I found over COVID was what was old is new again, these fundamental things, you know, people chasing marketers chasing the shiny new objects of Tik Tok and Instagram and quote unquote, influencers when they have their own digital house in order. And it's interesting, because when I wrote the age of influence, you know, influence a lot of people yield an influence from social media, but what about podcasters? What about bloggers? What about YouTubers? Right? It wasn't just from those temporary places where you're on that hamster wheel of content, although we could say YouTubers, bloggers, podcasters are as well, but not to the extent I think, and that that notion, you're on rented land, there's just a lot out of your control. And maybe that's where the difference of you know, the way we look at social media influencers and content entrepreneurs, content creators, maybe that's one of the big differences. I wanted to dig a little bit deeper into that, because we've heard a lot about this term. And I think I recorded an episode A little while ago about you know, influencer marketing, its relationship to the recruiter economy. I wanted to get your take, you went from talking about content entrepreneur to talking about content creator, I guess let's start with how would you define that? What is like, you know, the mission of this greater economy Expo, who are you serving? And how are you serving them?
Joe Pulizzi:And by the way, that the core really is to be content entrepreneur, I believe that is the term it's a new term, I think it'll catch on at some point, I'm going to continue to use it. But if I look at, so we just went through three terms. There are three three phrases there is if you if you say okay, well, we've got content entrepreneurs, we are content creators, and we've got the Creator economy. So Creator Academy is the big thing. The Creator Academy is the entire industry that includes all the platforms, all the creators, everything go all the tech providers, everything that's going on at one time, the content creator, is the engine behind that. But if I say content creator, I don't know what that means deal, that that could be my mom, my mom's on Facebook, she's a content creator. So what's the difference between her and what you and I do? Well, we're doing it full time we do it as part of a business. We're trying to build an audience and monetize an audience. Not all content creators do that. And then if you're getting into influencer marketing, the same thing, you could be an influencer, and not be a regular content creator, you and this, this is the issue. And you've been in influencer marketing forever, you know this better than I do. That's where I get concerned with people just focus on influencer marketing. Because at the end of the day, when you look at the business assets behind an influencer, they're always tied to a bigger platform, for the most part. So when I look at, if I'm doing an audit of somebody's business, a content creators business I want to look at, okay, let's look at your website. Let's look at where you're ranking for search. Let's look at your email list. Let's look at your OPT in email is how is that going? And then we have something that we can work with. So for example, let's say the New York Times ended up selling, they wouldn't say, Okay, how many pieces of content does the New York Times have? And let's monetize that per content and we've got a number, you know, what they look at? They look at how much revenue is coming from that email list? Sure, because that's really the driver behind everything that they do. And that's basically what a media company does. I'm trying to do something with creator economy that hasn't been that's why we went out and said, Okay, creator, economy Expo, because when people are looking for the right now, they're looking at crater Academy, I think the first thought is the platform's. Yeah. And I think that's wrong. I think the first thought should be these content entrepreneurs. So okay, we're trying to scooch in here, maybe in a place that we don't belong. But I'd rather do that because if you look, as you mentioned, all the people speaking and the people that are attending crater Academy Expo, these are people that want to do this full time and are doing it full time and are building their own audiences in their all their little media companies. We don't have we don't have influencers. Now, could a content creator be an influencer? Absolutely could influence or be a content creator, but immediately that says something specific. If you look at some of the media companies out there that cover the Creator Academy space, just look at the content, what are they covering? They're covering Facebook, meta, they're covering Youtube, Instagram, Tik Tok, and there's nothing wrong with that. But that's not who's driving everything. That's web two. That's everything have gone to these platforms. And we've got to move into web three, and put more focus on the content creators,
Neal Schaffer:would you say? So you don't want to think of web three A meta and fts. Is that is web three and this person I'm talking about on this podcast. Sure. Is that solely like the Creator economy, I guess you're you're creating something out of nothing. And people are paying for it. Is that just the ultimate of the Creator economy? The ultimate that the end goal or
Joe Pulizzi:I think it's part of it. I don't know if it's the ultimate yet what I know. So if you look at web, what we would call web to web to all the the power and all the money went to these big social platforms and the users, the creators, the users basically lifted them up and gave them all that power. Yeah, I'm not saying that's right or wrong. I'm just saying that's what happened. So as we move into web three, we've got this thing called the token, a token on a blockchain that that's publicly viewable verifiable. And you're like, Okay, what, what could a creator do with the token? Now we see the tech right now we see social tokens, like we have our own social token until coin, you see the non fungible tokens and FTS where people think of overpriced JPEGs. You've got a lot of things going on there. But I think what we're missing and this is all about experimental, I'm really and that's why we have a whole track on it at CX, I'm trying to figure out, could this be the next big business model for content creators, you're seeing things I'll give you an example like, our AC, our AC is a musician, our AC, pretty popular musician, I think, in the last year, got over 3 million streams on Spotify, our AC made more off of selling five NF T's, to benefactors to five different people, then to making money off of those 3 million streams. So I just want you to think about that we're talking about not even Kevin Kelly's 1000 true fans, we may be into what Legion calls 100 true fans or less. So what I love with the token is the opportunity for a business model that doesn't need a million followers, like you have to have on YouTube or Tik Tok to make a living, you can make a living off off 100 people, super fans. And now the token makes that possible for people that want to invest in you. And I also like the opportunity where if I'm building a community, that community can have a piece of ownership of something that I'm doing as well as a creator. I think that's magical. Now, there's a lot of bad stuff going I'm not saying there's there isn't bad stuff going on with NF T's there's rug poles, there's a lot of a lot of funny business going on, because there's a lot of money to be made, and so great. But just like what happened with the web in 2000 2001, you had a lot of bad stuff going on. But you also had Amazon, you also had eBay, 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.
Neal Schaffer:Well, I So my take is, if you look at the different ways that you can monetize your IP, there's many different things you could do, right? You could, you know, have a blog, so advertising and affiliate marketing, you could sell books, you get hired to be a, you know, Speaker consultant, what have you, I suppose NFT is one part of that, right? It is something else that you could offer, and it's tradable exchangeable. go up in price could go down in price, right? I think that it's really interesting. I have a daughter and a son, my son is a freshman in high school, and he wants to be an entrepreneur, right? So he's planning this, like, entrepreneurial contest planning with his friend. And I'm like, Well, you know, how you gonna make money phrase, oh, you know, we'll just get money from NF T's. So it's funny how the younger generation sees it. It's not like money that just hanging on trees, the technology's there, right to be able to help you create these, but then who's going to buy him? How are they going to value you? And what do they get for it outside of something they can put in a digital wallet if there is something else? Right?
Joe Pulizzi:Well, that's a great point. The point you're making is, is that I think you have to build the audience in the community first, still,
Neal Schaffer:that's the thing to do. Because everybody comes to me, I get a lot of content, entrepreneurs will use the term coming to me, and they want to sell a book, they want to sell a course, but don't have an audience how you going to sell it if you don't have an audience? Paid media, right? I mean, you got to build an audience. So I think the concept is the same. And I think what's really interesting, Joe, maybe you already know this. I'm sure you do. But the content entrepreneur, and the way that businesses need to operate in digital social media is the same. Absolutely right. Companies monetize their products and services by building that following the same way that a content creator would, in fact, every business needs to become a content creator.
Joe Pulizzi:Exactly. This is marketing today, right? Yes, you you can if you are a content creator, you want to be a content entrepreneur you built, you generally build that audience first. And then you monetize through mostly direct ways. Like you said, I can speak I can consult, I can I can create a web event, I can create a real event advertising whatever the difference with a traditional brand or a marketer, they don't use direct ways. They use indirect ways. Oh, I'm going to build an audience and then I'm going to sell products or services or I'm going to do for loyalty or better yield for my customers. Those are content marketing, ROI initiatives, if you will, but it's all the same. Like once you build that loyal audience, you have 10 different ways that you can generate revenue. And then you can choose which of those ways I think the best way to do it is to not launch a product. First is to actually build the audience first listen to your audience, and then they will tell you what they're going to buy, or they will be open to what you're you're going to buy. I think that probably the reason why our social to your point about building a community first, our social token was probably successful, because of the fact that I already had an audience. If I didn't already have an audience, of course, I can't. I mean, you can see, look, I mean, we're part of the rally.io. Community, look at all the, you know, a lot of the people that have tokens, look at the ones that are successful. And 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. So it's interesting how this works together. And it all it really is, it's the difference is when you put in web three over the 10, different things, you can integrate your token into everything else that you do, because you could decide I'm going all in with web three, and I'm going to take you can pay for it. Nf T's are tokens with sponsorship events, everything else that you would normally do, you can do with the token, you're going to see a lot of hybrid models to start with, where they're gonna say I have an NF T project over here. That's what you're going to see right now until people fully buy in and say, oh, there's a full business model here around web three,
Neal Schaffer:buy a token, get a free book, right? Yeah, exactly.
Joe Pulizzi:Simple. Yeah, that's, and that's what you're seeing or a buyer or buy 20 tokens, and I'll give you an hour consulting, you're doing this, it's sort of, we don't exactly know what the model is yet. We're sort of in the you know, we're moving from television to a mobile device. We don't exactly know what television is anymore.
Neal Schaffer:Well, thank you. Because there's I just see, it's really interesting. I see a lot of people that we know in this space are all of a sudden talking all about NF T's as if they know all the answers when we don't know the answers, right. And I think it's good to keep saying here, although I will say that back Thanksgiving time, there was a large consumer brand that reached out to me as part of an influencer marketing campaign for their NF T's. So brands are definitely getting into it as well. And you know, that will definitely help fuel the market. So something we should all have a radar and well, I mean, crater economy Expo is a great way to see it. And, and I suppose the interesting thing is that if you're a business listening this podcast, you know, creators trying to monetize their following you try to monetize your customers as a business, right? So it's, it's the same thing. And I think even if you're a business, you shouldn't be shy about coming and putting out a greater count. Because think it's only going to be beneficial for your business. We're all
Joe Pulizzi:ant point. And no matter what size business you are, you're creating content, that you have some people that are monetizing it and showing return. And you have most people that aren't most people, most businesses, as you know, are creating a lot of different content in a lot of different places. They have no real core strategy for what they're doing. And it's just a clutter. That's why it's so hard for really good content creators to break through because there's so much horrible clutter out there. So, you know, my advice on that would be, let's get rid of some of this stuff. Let's focus on being great. And we talked about this in the last podcast, focus on being great at one or two things instead of just throwing your content all over everywhere, because we, because we can do it, we should. And that's the biggest thing that's wrong with going on with content creation right now. It's just content run amok. And then what's what's successful are the individuals that are focusing on really one platform become like mastering that platform, mastering what we call a content tilt a differentiation area. They're building an audience, and then they're monetizing. And then they're diversifying later.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, you know, just two episodes ago, I recorded an episode on the one biggest thing you could do to have impact with your content, I said, it's actually giving a shot. It's caring. Because the businesses that are doing a lot creating a lot like they don't care, they're hiring writers who do research, they just want to sell a product, the perspective is just about to sell the product. And it's interesting, if you look at YouTube search results. It's mainly owned by creators, right for a lot of things. We don't see that in search engines for web content yet. But I see that day coming as well, when more and more of us are creating better and better content. I was on I've been on a mission over the last two years to take on the mediocre content that's out there and beat them in search engine rankings. And I'm very proud to say I beat them for a lot of different keywords. I've seen my rankings go up. So I know it's possible, but it's because I care with every piece of content. And that's what that's what if you really want to be successful in the Creator economy. It's you got to have that heart and soul right? Well, you
Joe Pulizzi:care and you you care. And because you care, you differentiate. Yes. And like, let's let's take another subject. We're companies that we don't have relationships with. So if we look at if we look at great companies, by the way, don't get me wrong. Oh, good. Yeah, we look at something like cloud computing. Sure. Like Like literally anybody wants to do this look, type in cloud computing, and see the companies that come up IBM, Salesforce, Amazon, like down the list. You you tell me if you can discern a difference between the content with any of those companies. They're all the same. I could take content from Amazon's and throw it on Salesforce and nobody would know the difference. There's no tilt, there's no differentiation, that is a problem. Like somebody said, check the box, we got to have a cloud computing post, let's put a ton of money behind it. So it's found that, to your point, I think is a temporary phenomenon, I think you're going to start seeing creators that really have something interesting to say, you're going to see those bump up in the next two to five years. And by the way, Google is still using very old. Yeah, algorithm for I mean, they're, they're the ones I mean, when Tik Tok has this amazing algorithm, Google still leans toward content that's been around for a long, long time. So that's, that's another reason.
Neal Schaffer:This is true. But I would, I would argue, and I would urge those and I say, if you go to the search engine rankings, and you see something that's just completely out of date, or wrong, or very old, that's that I believe, is awesome opportunity. Right? Yes, absolutely. Great, great, kind of get drinks. So the tilt niching, the tilt, tilt differentiation prospective niche. I assume there's some overlap there. How would you sort of differentiate between the two?
Joe Pulizzi:Um, you mean, just talking about the content tilt itself, or the tilt our company,
Neal Schaffer:the tilt the name of your company? And you know, having a perspective versus having a niche?
Joe Pulizzi:Yeah. They can go hand in hand, it really depends. So if you said, so if I say, 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. Those are the two things. I mean, it's a marathon, not a sprint. So we know about the consistency, we come back to the differentiation area, you've got to say, our x, and that's where the tilde comes from. It's so important, like, what is your hook? That's really what we're saying, what's, what's the must see TV for your audience, that should be you. Because I want you to be the leading informational expert over your particular niche that you're going after, you can do that a lot of different ways. You could do that, oh, I'm going to focus on a different audience. I'm going to focus on a different content area, I'm going to focus on a different platform, you might say, Oh, wait, there's there's nobody, there's no digital marketing coaches on Twitch, I'm going to be the one that streams might be an opportunity. We were talking about YouTube short shorts before the show, maybe there's something on YouTube shorts, there's nobody there. So those types of things, there's always something and it takes sometimes months, to really find it, you really have to set those listing posts with your customers and figure out what is the area what's, what's that pain point that you can solve that nobody else can. This is why it's it takes time. Media is tough. Keep creating content. And building an audience is not easy. Because you can't just say what you want to say. You have to focus on the needs of your audience. And really, and that's I mean, it is the the perfect example of customer support. That's all that's what you're doing. You're really trying to solve your customers problems, except not with your product with information.
Neal Schaffer:Well put. So I guess, yeah, I was I was thinking of a different way. But it's really the content tell. It's that unique way in which what you talk about how you talk about it?
Joe Pulizzi:Yeah. Why? Yeah. And along with your, your purpose and your mission and all the things you're like, why are we doing this in the first place? Yeah, like we're doing it because we're trying to help a group of people live a better life, or get a better job? How are we going to do that? And then you go to the What the What's later. Now let's talk about the why everybody gets the why wrong? Like, why are we doing this in the first place? If you're saying, Oh, we want to sell more widgets, you're in trouble. Like, you're already not going to do it. Like really, when you say oh, man, I really care about those group of people. And I really want to help them. And I want to help them do this. Great. You've got yourself like a content mission of some type. And then you say, how am I going to do that? How am I going to tell those stories that secondary?
Neal Schaffer:Got to So fast forward? As we come to the close of the podcast, I want to make sure we talk a little bit about crater economy Expo. So obviously, it's coming up in May. And I'm going to be there. Obviously, you're going to be there. I hope that all the listeners can join us. Tell me how did you decide to choose the people that you chose to speak there? It's it's an eclectic group of people. They're all amazing people, but I'm just very curious. Like Jeremiah Leon, I saw I saw speak in Silicon Valley, like a decade ago. I really haven't seen him speak since and in about like the for instance, right, Roberto Blake, I think like the YouTuber. Yeah, I've never seen him speak really excited to see him because I've heard him on podcast. He's incredible. What was sort of the what was your mission in in bringing together this executive group of people?
Joe Pulizzi:Well, to be honest with you, so I, as you know, I've been in the event industry for like, 15 years, a long time, I've learned a lot. And we had an opportunity to create this brand new event. And I said, Okay, if we're gonna do this, I want to get the leading experts in the world. I absolutely. Like, who can talk about crater economy and YouTube better than anyone else in the word world? That's Roberto Blake, who can talk about the business of podcasting better than anyone else in the world. Jordan Harbinger. Perfect. He's fantastic. Who could talk about writing as your superpower better than anyone else in the world? You know the answer and hand handling, right? Who's going to talk about how you can take All your your content, build up an enterprise and then ultimately sell that Brian Clark has done that better than anyone else, you know, I've done that I'm gonna do talking about that as well, since we had a successful exit, you know, Kaylee Moore, who set up amazing content teams, she's done that, you know, that we've I've just looked at, we're going to cover this answer to this question. And we went out and made a list and said, Who can do that. And the only reason we don't have you there is because we don't have one on influencer marketing. If we did, you would be speaking,
Neal Schaffer:I'm just a humble little guy, I'm just excited to you know, I'm just excited because of the people that are speaking. And I know, it's going to attract people that I want to hang with. And I want to network with and engage with and learn from. So I'm just really excited about the community that's gonna evolve from there. For all of you listening, if you go to, this is my little plug, little affiliate link in full disclosure, but Joe has hooked me up to hook you up. If you go to Neal schaffer.com/cee. X, you can actually save $150 on attending. And you know, it all adds up. So that's $150, you could be spending on, you know, a microphone for your podcasting, a ring light for your video, whatever it is. So even if you don't click the link or obviously typing the link, I do hope you can make it and if you're in the Phoenix area, you can't make it let's hang out. So Oh, and there, Joe, anything else we should know about? What's in the pipeline? After crater economy Expo, what's what's happening in the second half of 2022?
Joe Pulizzi:You know, I'm honestly with the tilt and everything else we're doing. I'm totally dedicated to helping content creators become content entrepreneurs, that's my business mission. That's what we focus on. I've got a lot of like orange effect foundation and speech therapy, we do all those I do a lot of other things as well. Really releasing Epic Content Marketing my book, they'll come out in 23. So just, you know, Neil, I know that I'm not writing fiction books anymore. I'm back in the game. And I'm back in 100%. So here we are, we're just trying to be as helpful as we can. So I'm just really looking forward to seeing you in a couple months, and you're
Neal Schaffer:republishing one of the least understood most powerful types of content marketing, right? Repurposing, republishing, I love it, something that I want to do more of as well. So thank you for leading the way there. No, thank you. I appreciate it. Alright, Joe. Well, we'll see in Phoenix, and thanks again. Alright, I hope you enjoyed the interview. As much as I did, he's really a pleasure to speak with. And with every conversation, I learned more and more. So definitely a guest I look forward to having on regularly. This is already his second time appearing on the podcast, as I mentioned before, but hopefully provides a lot of value to all of you. And we discussed a lot of these buzzwords that we hear a lot about. And there is no authority on the subject, the subject is still sort of being formed as we go. So I hope that if any of that interested you whether you are a entrepreneur, a marketer, maybe someone that's trying to become more influential in your space, I think that the Creator Academy Expo is going to be a great show for that. Or if you're a business that wants to learn how to tap into the crater economy, I think it's going to be a great event as well make sure you go to Neal Schaffer comm slash c e x to get your$150 discount, I will be there. I'm going to give another shout out to Angela long from the digital first mastermind community know she's going to be there. And we'd love to see you there as well. Well, that's it for another episode, I want to thank you all for your reviews on Apple podcasts and the other platforms. Please make sure that if you haven't, maybe you found this episode through a search that you hit that subscribe button so that you don't miss further episodes, I really hope that this becomes sort of this no fluff, digital and social media marketing podcast that I know a lot of you you don't have a lot of time, investing in listening to a podcast is a major investment in your time. And I realized that and I don't want to waste your time and I only want to provide real value packed episode. So if you're appreciative of that, I'd really appreciate your subscription. And you know, if you want a place where you can talk about these things we understand at a conversational level with other marketers, entrepreneurs, business owners how to leverage all this for your own business, please consider joining my digital first mastermind. If you haven't been to my website recently, if you go to Neal schaffer.com/membership, you'll see the homepage. It is now an easy process to use to have to be an application now you can basically subscribe and join straight from the website. It's a well very, very low monthly fee. And well we'll be able to chat, you know weekly on these zoom calls that we do as well as the private Slack community so that you get answers to your digital and social media marketing questions. I'll stop there you buddy. As always, this is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing out. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes. at Neal schaffer.com to tap in to the 400 plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand, see you next time on your digital marketing coach.