Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer

11 Essential Takeaways from the Content Entrepreneur Expo

• Neal Schaffer • Episode 362

Share episode

Embark on a journey through the bustling hub of the Content Entrepreneur Expo with me, as I peel back the curtain on the latest in digital marketing wizardry.  This episode is jam-packed with transformative strategies and the latest trends that are shaping the digital marketing landscape.

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

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

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

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

Learn More:

Speaker 1:

I just came back from two days at the Content Entrepreneur Expo, formerly called the Creator Economy Expo, put on by Joe Pulizzi, the founder of Content Marketing World Content Marketing Institute. It was an amazing two days, Learned a lot about AI, about social media, about digital products and a lot more, and I want to share all of that with you on this next episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast.

Speaker 2:

Digital social media content, influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, vlogging, tiktoking, linkedin, twitter, facebook, instagram, youtube, seo, sem, ppc, email marketing 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 Neil Schafer is your digital 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 Neil Schaefer.

Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, this is Neil Schaefer, your Digital Marketing Coach, and welcome to episode number 362 of this podcast. That is right. I just came back from two days in Cleveland, ohio, and I wanted to share with you what I learned. I love not only going to these conferences, but also just going through my notes and all the screenshots that I take and all of the pamphlets and other you know swag that I get, and just going through and codifying that's right, I'm going to talk a little bit about that term in this podcast, but codifying what I learned in the form of a podcast and hopefully it serves you, but it also selfishly serves me. I can always come back to this and really catalog what I learned in order to implement it later.

Speaker 1:

Well before we get into my recap of the Content Entrepreneur Expo, just wanted to share with you, obviously, the latest news. I think that we are still covering this whole TikTok above and beyond marketing. There's obviously a lot more news out there, but just want to share with you sort of where I have my finger on the pulse of, obviously, the TikTok ban. I think that a lot 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 on TikTok mentioned this as well we do not think that there is a time in the very near future where you are not going to be able to use TikTok. I would just come out with that straight on. I am not slowing down to any of my plans. I don't see anybody that I talk to slowing down as well. So I think it is, you know, full speed ahead and we'll see what happens and we'll deal with it at that time. But TikTok is just too huge of a platform right now to ignore, as I will talk a little bit more in this episode. Also very interesting to see Instagram threads and Instagram saying hey, you know, we're going to offer cross posting between Instagram and threads worldwide.

Speaker 1:

Now I do know that the social media dashboard that I use, social B, go to neilschafercom slash social B-E-E to make sure you get the best deal, using my affiliate link, obviously. But I know that they have started offering, you know, posting to all sorts of networks, including threads, if you do it over their app. So you know, I am still waiting for threads for us to be able to use a dashboard to schedule and be able to log into, but what SocialBee has figured out, and it really came about through Facebook groups and not being able to post to Facebook groups anymore. Pretty much, if you schedule something in advance and you open the SocialBee app and it prompts you to open the other app, like Threads or Facebook groups, you can just copy and paste what you put in SocialBee and therefore create a post, and I think that's really the idea behind where SocialBee is going and perhaps where other social media is going to go, so that you can post to other networks, such as Threads. If you remember, this was the original way that we posted to Instagram way back in the day, before they had an API, and I think that we are going to be seeing that happen again. So, according to SocialBee, they call it universal posting with Facebook groups, threads, whatsapp, telegram, mastodon, quora and any other network where you want to publish to where there is no direct API integration. In other words, they are doing this indirectly. So that's really interesting and I think, once Threads is further opened up, or maybe you try this universal posting something that I should do as well, because another of the news that I want to report to you is just the real downfall of the social network formerly known as Twitter.

Speaker 1:

I cover my social media metrics on a month-to-month basis as part of my monthly tasks and, since it's already the beginning of May, I went through April and April was the first time where Twitter if you've been listening to this podcast, you know that I generate a lot of traffic from Twitter it used to be number one. It fell to number two man in April it actually fell to number four, even below Facebook. That bad with 220 something thousand followers. So I have totally de-emphasized X for now and I'm thinking that maybe a lot of the people that I had conversations with over on X and there's still some great people there I'm thinking that a lot of them might have migrated over to threads. Obviously, above and beyond that, the topic of video is still central to all of my digital first weekly Zoom call meetings and everyone else. I talk to Video, video, video. In the era of generative AI competing with SEO and recent changes in Google algorithms what have you and loss of traffic, I think more and more people are looking to video as sort of the final frontier. I'll talk a little bit more about video in my recap, but that's sort of you know. Every week. I want to present to you what news I'm looking at and what I have my finger on the pulse of in terms of where I am going to be pivoting my own business.

Speaker 1:

Outside of that, just a personal update that, yes, my book is still coming. I did finally get approval from a major brand to include their case study, which I'm a part of, in my book, and I was sort of waiting on that. There were some other case studies, people that I interviewed that have just been ghosting me and they don't want to be part of the book for whatever reason. So I do have to rewrite a pretty major section of one chapter, which is sort of delaying me now. But now it's just focused on that and in parallel I am working on this workbook. I am in the final, final proofread. Hopefully I'll finish that in the next 24 hours and that will be ready. Next 24 hours and that will be ready and I'm hoping by next week I will be able to start sending out the advanced reader copies to influencers and other authors and those that have supported me in the past. So it is coming and actually going to this content entrepreneur expo just further just lit my fire of why I need to do this and why I want to do an ASAP. So let's take a step back. Content Entrepreneur Expo.

Speaker 1:

Now I have had Joe Polizzi on my podcast and I'm just going back. He's actually been on my podcast three times Episodes number 176 in 2020, 251 in 2022, and 311 in 2023. And I believe it was that episode in 2022 where he was already talking about the content entrepreneur. Now he sold content marketing world and ended up creating the creator economy expo, which he sold as well to Lulu. Last year. I went to the very first creator economy expo for those that remember, back in 20. Yeah, I think it was 2022. It was right around when I interviewed Joe and I believe this is the third iteration of it this year back in Cleveland, ohio. The first time he did it it was in Phoenix, arizona, and he, like I said, was talking about content entrepreneur. It was this idea of this creator economy.

Speaker 1:

Yet people were leveraging content right, and if you think about it, you know we talk about, like, short-form video and video content. There's audio content, there's textual content, but every content creator should be an entrepreneur. Every content creator should be building a business out of their content. That's the content entrepreneur and I think a lot of us that have been around with books, with podcasts, with blogs we're also all part of this. The question is do you want to build a business out of what you're doing, or is it just a side gig, a side hustle, or something that you're just doing because of a personal passion?

Speaker 1:

So this content entrepreneur keyword really resonated with me and I think, the audience as well, and I'm really happy that Joe decided to codify it, using that word again, and really grab that term and say this is what it's been about. This really summarizes what this movement is about Creator economy plus content marketing, plus building a business, plus being an entrepreneur all this rolled together content entrepreneur. So you can imagine a very focused conference, but really awesome speakers, awesome guests, awesome community, all right. So that's sort of takeaway. Number one is this emergence of content creators that are really thinking seriously about their business, about different revenue streams, what have you? I consider myself part of that movement as well. So obviously all of this really resonated with me. So the second takeaway is just a reminder of the role of AI.

Speaker 1:

So in my upcoming book I have a chapter on AI, but it's almost near the end of the book and, just like one of the speakers I believe it was Jordache Johnson, and I want to name speakers who I saw that really resonated with me because I want you to look them up as well. But Jordache was saying look, you know, ai comes last. Right, you have everything else going on. What can you do to speed up, make better, do cheaper? That's where you want to start thinking about the role of AI, because it can play a role in almost anything that you do. And in fact I think it was Jordache, you. You mentioned.

Speaker 1:

Think of AI. There've been a lot of analogies here. Right, think of AI like as a co-pilot, as an assistant. I liked his definition. Think of it as your employee. Why are you hiring it? What is their exact role and what are the instructions you give it? So it's not just a matter of finding a cool tool and playing around with it, but it's really taking it on as an employee. I think is really a great analogy, especially from a business perspective, and I don't care if you're a content creator, an entrepreneur or a larger business. I think it plays the same role.

Speaker 1:

Now, another one of my favorite speakers was Roberto Blake, and you've heard me talk about him on this podcast. Someday I'm going to get him on the podcast. I have reached out to him. We'd just love to interview him, one of the smartest guys out there he talks about whenever he uses and he is a real geek about chat GPT. It's always about role, task, goal. What is the role that the AI is playing? What is the exact task and what is the goal that you're trying to achieve with the task? Just a great framework for prompting any sort of open-ended chat GPT type of AI that you use.

Speaker 1:

But another thing that Roberto talked about AI that really resonated with me, that got me really thinking hard, was this idea that AI is about speed and scale, and what Roberto was talking about was AI helps them create 10 times more content at three times the speed, at 10% of the cost. Now, if you're doing video, I believe this is where AI can have the biggest impact Video editing, video repurposing, taking long form, making it short form, et cetera, et cetera. I think you see the picture. But this idea of speed and scale is our business moving fast enough? Are we scaling faster and broader enough, and how can AI play a role in that? So that is going to be my North star, as I will re-look at the AI that's out there, the AI that I'm using and seeing.

Speaker 1:

Is there something I'm missing? And as I forgot who the speaker was and mentioned it, look, if you don't have time to play around with AI, you can hire people that are already playing around with AI. Right, once again, upwork what have you. So you know AI has a role. That role is only going to become bigger. It is being embedded in more and more tools, so you don't necessarily need to have a PhD in prompt engineering to figure out how to use it. So you don't necessarily need to have a PhD in prompt engineering to figure out how to use it. But I think we just need to be looking out there as to what is possible with it at all times, and there's new tools that are popping up here, and I'm going to talk about some of those tools.

Speaker 1:

But this is why, if you go to my blog, I mean, like every Monday, I am basically blogging about AI. I'm trying to build up, as you know, I have this concept of library of content and I'm trying to build up my own knowledge base about AI, and a lot of this comes down to a lot of the different tools that are out there that I want you to know about, and I'm just going to go through some of these. So this week I blogged about AI watermark remover tools. A lot of people they publish on TikTok and want to remove the TikTok watermark, but it could be used elsewhere as well. Ai Instagram post generators not just captions, but obviously images as well. How to make AI videos the definitive guide.

Speaker 1:

15 exceptional WordPress AI plugins to grow your business. Ai versus machine learning why the difference in meaning matters for marketers? Ai content assistance 13 tools the difference in meaning matters for marketers AI content assistance. 13 tools to assist in your content creation. 15 powerful ways to use AI in email marketing. 13 script to video AI video generators for instant video creation. Anyway, and that's just a sample of over the last few weeks of what I've been blogging about, make sure you go to neilschafercom to check all those out. But the problem isn't will AI help you or not, it's how you are going to leverage it. So that's my challenge I want to throw out to you After listening to this episode go into my blog, check out some of those posts and really think about all of your processes, especially your content creation workflow and see where, even if you don't think you have a need for it, think about how can it help you improve things is maybe a great way to start Now also.

Speaker 1:

Takeaway number three is some new AI tools to check out. Not all of these are new, but it's the way you can think about using them. And this is Jordas Johnson, who mentioned a lot of these. Roberto Blake as well, but Jordas started out with Feedly. Now Feedly, as an RSS reader, has been around for a while, but Feedly now has some new AI research capabilities where it's leveraging AI to research topics, and Jordache was saying you know he can now leverage this, whether he's writing content, you know, doing things for a newsletter, preparing speeches that it's become this really powerful tool. He also which I did not know and this is not related to AI, but Feedly also has the ability to read newsletters. You can, I believe you get a Feedly email address and you sign up for the newsletter with that email address and you can read all these newsletters within Feedly instead of them all coming to your inbox, which I thought was fricking brilliant. So a lot of what Jordache was talking about is how do you make these central databases to make your work more efficient, so Feedly becomes the central database of where the news is.

Speaker 1:

Now, those of you that are in my digital first mastermind I've talked about a lot. I use a tool called InnoReader I-N-O-R-E-A-D-E-R. I use that because I can generate an RSS feed. I use that because I can generate an RSS feed, which then I can feed into a social media dashboard like Socialbee to help me sort of automate the queuing up of content of curated content that I might want to share. Obviously, feedly is integrated with a lot of social media platforms I believe they're integrated with Socialbee as well and you can do the same thing Like something on Feedly and then have an IFTTT or IFFT Always forget that and it will tee it up on a social media platform. Just some things to think about right Of these old tools that have added new AI functionality that we can leverage.

Speaker 1:

Another one that is often tossed around when we talk about AI tools is a company called Eleven Labs, and they have a tool called VoiceLab, which allows you to basically create a voice that is really, really similar to your own. I have not tried it yet. I plan on trying it, but this is a tool that Jordache was saying look, you can create private podcasts with it. You can create audio versions of your blog posts. You can create audio versions of your newsletter. This is a plus alpha value add that you can easily provide. So 11 Labs Voice Lab definitely check that out. Hopefully the wheels are spinning in your head.

Speaker 1:

Another one that's been around for a while is otterai. So I use a free tool called phantomai when I do Zoom meetings. But you can use otterai, you can use firefliesai. Otterai has been around for a while. It is very well established. I believe it also has like an iPhone app where you can record your voice saying things. And what Jordache was saying is like, look, use Otterai as like a digital brand, like bring everything in it to build an AI training database of your voice, but also, obviously, meeting notes and everything else. Have it all in one place. Client calls if you do everything over Zoom and you integrate with autoai, you can just automate the collection of that and then when you have a thought and you want to say something, you can basically log into autoai and say it. You can I know that auditai you can also. You know I used to create podcast transcripts through it. So you can easily, you know, integrate and make sure that it grabs all your podcast recordings, et cetera, et cetera. So I think you get the picture Once again, it's building a central place where all of your voice information is for lack of a better way of saying it.

Speaker 1:

He also mentioned a tool which I hadn't heard of as well, not really related to marketing directly, but indirectly. We all want to create SOPs or standard operating procedures, and it's an app called Guide G-U-I-D-D-E. Basically, what it does is it's like Loom right when you're on Loom, you often do a screen share, and 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 doing, and that is exactly what Guide is doing, and the whole idea is it's going to create a video with instructions that's going to help you codify your work into a standard operating procedure. So if you're going to teach a virtual assistant or someone on your team how to do something, use this app to do it and then codify that so that if you ever have new people coming on board, you can leverage that. So I think you can do it in other ways, but this tool sounds like it makes it a lot easier to use.

Speaker 1:

Two more tools to go. One is creatorio. This is actually put up by Kajabi, and Kajabi are one of these all-in-one tools that allow you to create a website, have email, create courses, et cetera, et cetera. I've known about it man for a decade, but they're actually headquartered right here in Irvine, california. I pass by their office pretty frequently, but creatorio is the smart chatbot that apparently Kajabi is going to be integrating with all of their apps or website tools over the course of the next week or two. This is one that Roberto Blake brought up. He is a big Kajabi fan.

Speaker 1:

And creatorio. You don't need Kajabi to run on right now. I don't know if that's going to change or not, but it's one of these smart chatbots that can funnel chatbot conversations on your website into lead magnets, into offers, et cetera, et cetera. Very, very targeted type of chatbot. I have experimented with chatbots in the past, like before COVID Interesting results, but I haven't experimented with them since ChatGPT. And if you feed, once again, it's all about creating your own little mini GPTs, right, your mini learning libraries If you feed it the content from your website.

Speaker 1:

You can create something that's pretty compelling, right. So definitely check that out. And you can create something that's pretty compelling, right. So definitely check that out. And then the last one I believe Roberto mentioned that Daryl Eves created this company, and Daryl Eves I've had on this podcast, the author of the YouTube Formula. He also is the co-founder of VidSummit, one of my favorite conferences all about YouTube. But he has a tool called Ditto which creates voice clones, and the idea is you create voice clones in different languages, so you can take your YouTube video in English and use the same video, but just create a voice clone in Spanish that sounds like you, but it's automatically translated in the language. I experimented with this, I believe, right after VidSummit, in Japanese. It wasn't that natural. Now, if it was like Spanish or French or German, it might be a little bit more natural, but this is sort of one of the futures of using AI is being able to tap into different languages, and that's something that I'm definitely looking into doing in future books, future podcasts, future YouTube videos. So definitely check out that tool called Ditto, and in fact it is. Dittodubcom is where you want to go if you are interested in that, all right.

Speaker 1:

We then and I want to bring up a few of the presentation I went to not all of them, but there were a few that some good takeaways. So number four is latasha, james, and latasha talked about audience building and her whole thing, and I'm gonna quote her, quote her no rules, just vibes, you know, go according to. Obviously, you know she pivoted from talking about more lifestyle things to more business things, but it wasn't about creating rules about what she was going to talk about. It was really the vibes of what she was doing, of the social platform of her audience at the time that she kept as her North Star. And I think that, you know, if we really want to be human, you know vibes become really important. Right, like I'm smiling right now. You may not see that I'm smiling, you may not see that I'm happy to be podcasting, but having vibes, you know, maybe like a type of intuition, can be a really fabulous guide. But, more importantly than that, talk about audience building, and this is nothing new, but just a reminder. She was saying all these people complain I only have X number of followers. But she said if you have 30 followers, you're like a teacher in a classroom. If you have 5,000 people, you can fill a concert hall. If you have 20,000 followers, that's a Madison Square Garden, right? So always keep that in mind and I will add on to that right.

Speaker 1:

I've mentioned taking a little hit from Google recently with their latest algorithm changes, for whatever reason, but I'm not mad at Google. I'm still thankful for every visitor, right, every person reached is a potential opportunity. So be thankful for what you have. No matter how few people you're reaching, you're reaching someone and with every person there's a potential, and that was a really great reminder. It's not about the numbers. Even 30 people is basically the classroom that I teach at UCLA Extension. Right, every person matters, all right.

Speaker 1:

Speaking about audience building, I want to cover two takeaways that talked about this importance of directly asking your audience what they want. So takeaway number five this is Sundara Barasubramani Hopefully I'm pronouncing that correctly. She wrote a book called Unshackled. She's from India. I mean. That book is about helping immigrants, I think, get visas, if not jobs, here in the United States. But she was like directly ask your audience what they want and then deliver. And it's funny because we often create products or we assume things without directly asking our audience and this is just another great reminder. We hear these all the time and she actually showed the email which sparked everything that she ended up doing. So the subject and I'm going to share it with you because it inspired me and I took a screenshot a book on immigration to help people like you. So she was already determined to write the book, but she wanted people to become part of it and wanted to make sure that she was covering information that people would find relevant. So, hi name, happy Friday.

Speaker 1:

I'm Sundaya Balasparamani. I'm beginning to write a short, practical book on US immigration. I'm partnering with one of the leading immigration attorneys in the country. Our vision really is to help people like you who are immigrants in the US get creative freedom and find alternatives to the traditional H-1B pathway. For that I need your input. What are the top three questions you want this book to answer? Hit, reply and let me know. Okay, so that obviously leads into conversations, it leads into intel. And then, guess what? She comes out with a Kickstarter and she ended up generating $48,000 and more than 600 backers for that Kickstarter, and I'm assuming a lot of them came from this email exchange. Funny fact, I'm actually going to be launching a Kickstarter for my book, so stay tuned for that.

Speaker 1:

But just a reminder of directly asking your audience what they want and then delivering. It sounds really simple because it is, but a lot of businesses and content creators ignore the advice. So you know, always be thinking about that is all I can say. And another one, justin Moore. Justin Moore, really smart guy. He gave a presentation about audience first offers and before I get an audience first offers, he started with the same thing Ask your audience what they want.

Speaker 1:

And I'm not sure if this is an auto responder that he sent, but he showed us the email. Hey, I want to learn more about you. I'm planning out my next series of and then fill in videos, blog posts, podcasts, books, et cetera, and I want to make sure they serve you. It'd mean a lot to me if you took a second to answer a few questions on this survey here. You could have a Google form, a survey monkey and the questions and he put them on the screen. What type of job do you have? Do you have a partner? Do you have kids? This is part of understanding the psychographics of your well, demographics as well.

Speaker 1:

Right, how and when do you typically consume my content? Is it in line at the coffee shop for two minutes or do you sit down every weekend and catch up on my most recent video blog post podcast book? What problems do you have? What keeps you up at night? Is there any type of product that you wish I offered that I don't, and why? Okay, really interesting. It gets more interesting. What types of brands, products, services are you using or interested in right now and why? And I'm going to get to why he asked this. And then, are there other people that you'd like to see me collaborate with and why are there other people that you'd like to see me collaborate with, and why? Right, so if you can do that, you know a lot about your audience right there. And basically what he was saying is from that create audience first. Offers, in other words, think of your audience first. He divided them into three different things Products, sponsors and alliances. Products, obviously, he asked about that. What problems do you have that keep you up at night? Is there any type of product you wish to offer? I don't know why. Products coming down to courses, digital products, books, coaching, events and maybe a SaaS product and then what types of brands, products, services are you using or interested in right now and why? And if he knows that he has 100 people that are using a certain product or interested in another product, he can then go to a potential sponsor and say, look, my audience already uses you. Do you want to sponsor a podcast episode? Right, so he's really big on helping content creators get sponsorships. But sponsor brands' events, brands' services, brands' products, brands' SaaS products. Then the alliances thought this was really interesting. So with the sponsors, there's sponsorships. There might be affiliate revenue as well. Obviously the alliances I think a lot of it is affiliate Other creators, products, services, saas events, courses, books, coaching. Are there any other people you can JV with? I thought that was a really, really interesting question I had never thought of before and something I hope to do more of as well, and maybe I'll be sending out a survey of this on my own pretty soon. But I thought it was a great way of looking at being very targeted and then not just thinking of your own products, but also of alliances with other companies or entities or influencers and then, obviously, sponsorship opportunities. So really fantastic presentation. All right, these always end up being really long podcast episodes, my apologies.

Speaker 1:

We're going to move on now to number seven, which is Pamela Slim, and Pamela talks about IP, and this is where we talk about codification. Now, those of you that know me know that one of my favorite podcasters recently is Joanna Penn, the creative pen with two ends, and she is all about helping authors write both fiction and nonfiction, and she talks about the IP of your content. Right, if you're going to publish a book, own the IP so that you can do whatever you want with it. And Pamela was talking about IP similarly, but she used the term codification, which I really like as well. It's codifying what you know into something that can be sold. It can be a system, it could be a framework, it could be a course, it could be a book and this is really what's pushing me to do a lot of writing is the codification of my thoughts into an IP that can then be sold, be repurposed. What have you? Codification? Think about that. All right, we're in the homestretch here. Takeaway number eight Kenya Kelly did a fantastic presentation on TikTok and she, I believe, is in her 40s, so she's not like a 20-something, she's like I didn't.

Speaker 1:

It's not about doing dances. It was COVID and she did what's called a reaction video. And was COVID and she did what's called a reaction video and I think the official name is like a duet where you are basically reacting to someone else's published video. So their published video shows up on the right, you show up on the left and you react in some way to it. And for those of you that remember, if you go back to episode number 299, I had Dr Brian Boxer-Wackler. Episode number 299, I had Dr Brian Boxer-Wackler, who is a doctor who has, at the time, over 2 million followers on TikTok and his whole strategy was the reaction video. But yeah, so Kenya did this reaction video, gained 14,000 followers in a week from her first video and that really launched everything else.

Speaker 1:

She does Not guaranteeing you that you're going to see the same thing, but it just shows you the potential that TikTok has that very few other social networks have. She also mentioned that now, with TikTok stories which work the way the Instagram stories do, you can now have conversations with people who engage with your TikTok stories. She was mentioning and I'm not a big expert on TikTok by any means, but she was mentioning before it was harder to be able to begin conversations on DMs with other people or brands, like you can do with Instagram stories, but now you could do that with TikTok stories. That's another great reason why you might want to consider spending a little bit more time on TikTok, and I love this quote and it's something that I talk a lot about as well, and I'm having a dedicated chapter in my new book about really leveraging every platform for the unique culture that it represents. And what Kenya said about TikTok is look you just and I'm going to quote her here you just have to learn the culture of the platform and then start creating content for your target consumer. So there's a culture, there's a style, there's a vibe, and then leverage that to think of your target consumer, what content they want to consume there, and create the content.

Speaker 1:

What's really interesting and what really drove me to want to do more is there was a wide range of ages in the audience. I'd say millennial, gen X, even baby boomers were the overwhelming majority. And she said hey, if you have a TikTok account, raise your hand. And so pretty much everyone raised their hand and this is like I don't know 50 people. And then she said if you post regularly, like I think her definition was daily, but maybe a few times a week, you know, keep your hand raised, and the 40 or 50 people went down to two or three, and that, I think, sums up TikTok A lot of demand, very few creators, and that's why people can get massive views. So something to think about. I know that people have different opinions about TikTok, but I am still really bullish on it and want to invest more of my time in it as well.

Speaker 1:

She also talked about the content styles that work and, once again, if you and I'm going to, you know, give you instructions on how to do this in my book but if you create basically a fake account, you create a second account that you use just to consume the content that your target audience might be consuming, you will hopefully begin to see the content styles that work. She basically summarized them as number one, reaction videos, and I just told you what that was, using the duet feature, where you can just react to other people that are talking about things that you're an expert at and agreeing or disagreeing with them, or adding more context or more advice, right? Number two is storytelling always does well in social media, and then how to tutorials still do really well, obviously in the in the beauty and fashion and makeup areas. Uh, recipes, you know cooking, we see a lot of that, but it could be other things as well. Finally, kenya was really bullish as am I, as are a lot of other brands on the TikTok shop of you know being able to just generate business directly from TikTok and I know that there's Facebook shop and Instagram shop, but TikTok seems to have really gotten it going and it seems like people are actually buying from TikTok shop like a lot, and I have anecdotal evidence about this as well from companies I know that are about to launch TikTok shops because they understand how well their competitors are doing there. So lots of opportunity on TikTok still still potential. Hopefully, after listening to this, you'll take it a little bit more seriously as well. All right, number nine we are on to digital products. So this is a content entrepreneur expo, creator economy.

Speaker 1:

Obviously, a lot of talk about digital products. Don't know how many of you listening are interested in digital products. I definitely am looking to do more with digital products, but you know a few little bits of advice here. Number one, michael Stelzner, and I'm going to finish with Michael Stelzner, founder of Social Media Examiner, social Media Marketing World, one of the greatest guys and most intelligent guys you'll see out there. You know he's all about. He has a social media marketing society, which social media marketing world has. He's like look, give people a dollar trial, right, figure out your customer lifetime value. If people stay on a few months, you give away you know something for a dollar. But start doing it that way to expand the number of people that make it easy to have transactions with you. For, interestingly enough, a lot of the advice around digital products was not about creating the $2,000 signature course, but more about creating smaller amount items. I think it was Abigail Pumphrey who said this and I believe that she also had a first course that was like a $35 course on how to use Trello for business that I think she generated I don't know $8,000 in the first week or so. But she looks at it this way get quick wins with digital products to build trust. It's not about building some expansive 10-hour course and selling it for a few thousand dollars. It's about selling something for $35. Get a quick win and the way that she puts it is the ideal.

Speaker 1:

Digital product sparks curiosity, allowing someone to explore a topic without the commitment of following through. I thought it was really interesting. A topic without the commitment of following through. I thought it was really interesting and she gave this great example a 30-day yoga challenge versus 15 poses to reduce stress in 15 minutes or less. I think a lot of us are going to go for that 15 poses to reduce stress in 15 minutes or less. We will explore the topic. It sparks our curiosity. We may not even follow through, but we're happy we bought it and I think we see a lot of that and I think that really encapsulates a really great way of thinking about it. Dumb it down, give people quick wins and we talk about doing this with lead magnets, but we haven't or at least I haven't thought about doing that with digital products. I also talk a lot with the people from Teachable. Both Teachable and Thinkific were sponsors, but Teachable was really up to hey, let's spend some time together to brainstorm some courses for your audience. So hey, stay tuned. It's on the roadmap.

Speaker 1:

Also, some of you from LinkedIn may know Justin Welsh. He's done really, really well on LinkedIn. He once again started with like a $49 course. He's generated a lot of money. For those that know him, I think it was called the LinkedIn Playbook and he added more content and then it became $149 course. But his whole thing and it's all done through daily posting on LinkedIn is convince people that you are the right and relevant person to learn from. That's really what it's about Building trust day in, day out, consistently publishing great content and sharing.

Speaker 1:

And just one final bit of advice on digital products and course creation. I forgot who was it said it, but think of course creation. Just like you're an author, right? You write books, you write blog posts, why don't you create a course? And once again, this has been what's holding me back is we seem to think differently about courses, but it's time to really dumb it down and just do it right. If you have a few blog posts, you can create a course. Will people buy it or not, that's another story, but the ability to create a course has not been any easier and, yeah, I'm looking forward to diving deeper into it. Obviously, I'll have some books to write first, but anyway, takeaway number 10, bj Novak, who plays the character of Ryan on the Office, for those that remember, was the final interview with Anne Handley, no less, and Anne is one of the most intelligent people out there who's also a great interviewer.

Speaker 1:

She was really funny and what I love about what BJ was saying because BJ is also a writer he published a really popular children's book. This book has no pictures. Sounds really funny, but he's done really well with that book. He says he has followed the advice of his father and the advice of his father when he started becoming a stand-up comedian. I mean, the guy went to Harvard University really smart, but his dad said say what you think is funny, keep what they think is funny. And that's really really compelling quote because it forces you to focus on the audience.

Speaker 1:

If there's any one big takeaway from everything I've talked about is focusing on the audience, of building the audience, of treating the audience well, of understanding what your audience wants and then delivering. He also said and this is a little bit related on character development, specifically talking about the Office that 95% of character is giving people what they want, but surprise people 5% of the time. He mentioned that Oscar for those of you that watch the Office is a character that always had these surprising moments, which makes it more addicting, gives depth to the character as well. Makes it more addicting, gives depth to the character as well. So just something to think about.

Speaker 1:

I know you're not writing fiction per se or writing screenplay, but you can be doing the same thing with your own work, but the most important thing is give people what they want. He also gave really great advice on because he's inspired and he always carries around a notebook with a pencil and he showed us he like pulled it out of his suit pocket. But separate inspiration from execution. Don't get lost in the notes of inspiration. Be inspired when it comes to execute, be in execution mode, and he says that's one thing that's really helped him in his career and I thought that was a great way of putting it.

Speaker 1:

All right, we are down to the final 11 takeaway from Content Entrepreneur Expo 2023. And no other than Michael Stelzner. The final 11 takeaway from Content Entrepreneur Expo 2023. And no other than Michael Stelzner. I want to go a little bit deeper into what he was talking about and I guess you know the first thing he talked about was algorithms. So you know he says look, and for those of you who know, social Media Examiner is one of the best websites about social media marketing out there. But in addition to Social Media Examiner, you know Michael Stelzner has four different podcasts One's called Social Media Marketing, one's called Social Media Marketing Talk Show, one's called Marketing Agency Show and launching soon AI Explored Very much looking forward to that. He has a newsletter. They have 242,000 subs. He shared this, which is why I'm able to share it with you. They send out three emails a week Monday, wednesday, friday. A YouTube channel with 310,000 subs, 1.1 million followers across Facebook and Twitter alone.

Speaker 1:

But what he said was it is just getting harder and harder to reach our target audience, whether it's a newsletter with new email algorithms or new email laws, social media algorithms always changing. Seo, google algorithms always changing, even in podcasts. And changing SEO, google algorithms always changing, even in podcasts, and I did not know this, but apparently Apple podcasts stopped downloading new episodes from podcasts that you follow if you haven't listened to an episode in the last six months, so apparently a lot of podcasters had their numbers drop pretty radically overnight. So you know, in light of that, he's like you know, and just a lot of wisdom from doing what he's been doing for like 15 years is it's always going to be a fight against the algorithm, no matter what medium that you use, and therefore you really need to differentiate what you do so that when someone does find you, they become loyal to you, and it's the loyal audience that you're able to monetize. And this is not about AI or anything as well. This is just very basic thoughts, but I love the example here. This is something I have not had.

Speaker 1:

But he said, hey, you need to come up with a creed. Okay, like, why are you doing what you're doing? And I guess you know what's the difference in a creed and a mission. You know, I'm not going to go into those definitions here, but let me give you the examples because I think that this will paint the picture for you. So the creed for Social Media Examiner is we believe smart marketing helps any business compete with the largest players in their industry. That is their creed, then the mission we help small business marketers right their target audience is small business marketers navigate the constantly changing marketing jungle. And they do that. I guess the creed is the why of the mission, because we believe smart marketing helps any business compete with the largest players in their industry. And then do you have a slogan, right, and the slogan is right there in the Social Media Examiner logo your Guide to the Marketing Jungle.

Speaker 1:

And if you go to their About page, this all comes together and you know he's like well, why even have these? He said it's important to send a very, very clear signal. Who are you for? Why should they pay attention? What can they discover? And he believes that is the foundation of monetization. And I would have to agree. And you know it prompted me to be to do my own soul searching, and these are things that I really have not had. I've had various ones, but anyway, this is a homework item for me and maybe for you as well, and this isn't just for content creators. This is for businesses to differentiate yourselves amongst your competition as well. Right, so I hope you enjoyed listening to my takeaways from Content Entrepreneur Expo. I'm not going to be attending another conference for a little while, but yeah.

Speaker 1:

I do enjoy giving you these recaps. Hopefully they offer value to you. I know they offer value to me. So, yeah, great event, and hopefully I will see you there at Content Entrepreneur Expo 2025, which I'm assuming will also be in Cleveland, ohio. All right, well, that is it for another episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. Hey, are you on my newsletter? I would love to keep in touch with you If you want to find out everything that I'm doing. Get caught up with my blog posts, youtube videos, things outside of this podcast, as well as when I offer free webinars and when I have exciting announcements about my books that will be coming up very soon. Go over to neilschafercom slash newsletter and you'll be able to sign up right there and see some samples of my former or previous newsletters. All right, well, that's it for another. Hopefully, you found I mean I know I found I'm sort of losing my voice here at the end exciting episode of the your Digital Marketing Coach podcast. This is your digital marketing coach, neil Schafer, signing off.

Speaker 2:

You've been listening to your Digital Marketing Coach. Questions, comments, requests, links go to podcastneilschafercom. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes at neilschafercom to tap into 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.