Today’s episode of the podcast is a throwback to an incredible interview with Mike Stelzner, the creator of Social Media Examiner and Social Media Marketing World.
I had a great time chatting with Mike about out how he uses his platform to stand out in a busy industry – so much of which is still relevant now!
KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST
- You don’t have to be on every single social media platform. Instead, you need to ensure you’re putting your energy into the spaces where your customers are.
- Social media is great when it comes to tracking your results. If you’re struggling to track your results, however, you need to ensure you’re making goals to ‘stop’ things as well.
- If you want to stand out in a noisy industry you need to understand exactly who you are trying to reach and what they struggle with.
- Once you know who you’re trying to reach, you need to ensure you’re creating content for that person. This could be a podcast, written word, video or live and in person. Think about what you’re best at.
- If you don’t know what your customers want, ask them. Once you have asked your audience, you need to see if their actions are matching their statements.
- We should all be doing stuff that makes it easier for people to remember who we are.
- The best way to make an impact on someone in person is to meet them in person.
THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE
One of the most important things you can do when it comes to social media is to be yourself. Successful people are authentic.
HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS
- The Elevation Principle that outlines the 3 things you need to be successful.
- If you’re not putting information out there, someone else is. You want to be the resource that people come to every single time they need information.
- Social media is called social media for a reason. If you’re not a nice person, you won’t survive.
LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY’S EPISODE
TRANSCRIPT
Hello, and welcome to the last in my summer series of replays. So this summer we've been doing a few replays because I have done a lot of episodes. In fact, on the last episode, I actually said that I would check when I started my podcast and I did. It was the 5th of February, 2018.
Like what? That is crazy. I can't believe it's been going that long. Like, yeah, that I just can't, it's crazy. But I love it. And I get to interview the most amazing humans and hear the most wonderful stories and get the most amazing advice. So that's why I'm doing this replay for you. I'm picking my most favorite and the best episodes that I've done.
And I'm sharing them again with you because even if you've listened to them the first time, these are so good to listen back. I dunno about you, but I've been listening back to lots of books that I've listened to previously and podcast episodes, because often when we're in it and we're listening to, we're like, yeah, yeah, that's brilliant.
That's brilliant. And then you kind of move away from it and your focus changes. So it's really good to revisit some of these things. Now this interview today, is the one I did with Mike Stelzner. And the reason I picked this interview to come up in these replays is because it's actually one of my most popular episodes from download point of view.
So if it's obviously one that really attracts people and people really wanna listen to. So I wanted to include it in this, and again, like the others I've gone back and rewatch the podcast. And what's lovely about the fact that I get to watch it is Mike and I have so much fun doing this and like we're both smiling all the way through the podcast, which is brilliant. It, and it was great.
And he gives some great advice and we'd tell some great stories. I really enjoyed chatting with him. And I remember being a little bit nervous to chat to him cuz it was Mike Stelzner and he heads up social media marketing world. And at the time, not at the time of the interview, actually previous to the interview, I really wanted to speak there as it is.
I now realize why I could never have spoken them because I'm not a specialist and they have specialists. So, you know, I'd need to be an all out Instagram expert or an all out Facebook ads expert. And obviously I am, I was gonna say a Jack of all trades, but that would, you know, lead me to say master of none.
And, and I think I do all right. I think I'd know a lot of stuff. So anyway, so wanted to include Mike's episode. It's a really good one, lots of good practical advice. And like I said, some really cool stories. Here is the last in the replay season. We are back next week for a solo with me, but I hope you enjoy. Here's Mike.
It gives me so much pleasure to welcome today. The variable, medieval and wonderful Mike Stelzner. Mike, welcome to the podcast.
Mike: Teresa. Thank you so much for having me. I'm very excited to be joining you today.
Teresa: I am super excited. So Mike, I've already done an intro about you, but let me just reiterate and explain that social media marketing world was the one thing I had on my kind of vision board when I started the business. So I had I'd started my own marketing consultancy. I'd worked in marketing for like 15 years and I started my own consultancy, was doing social media and I saw this event and I watched the video and I was like, I've gotta go there.
But it was in San Diego. It's like five and a half thousand miles away from where I am. And I remember thinking one day, one day, I'm gonna go there. One day I'm gonna be sat in that room with all those amazing people and all those amazing speakers. And I remember seeing it for the first year and the, the next year it came out and I just booked my ticket and I had no idea.
In the early days of running my business, how I was gonna afford the flights, how I was actually gonna manage, go to San Diego, cuz I hadn't done anything like that on my own before and how it was all gonna work out. But I just knew I had to be there. I just knew I had to be in that room with everybody else.
And for me, especially in the UK, I had to raise myself above everybody else and go look, this is how serious I'm taking it. I'm going all the way to San Diego to sit in a room with these amazing experts. And it blew me away. It was honestly, and still to this day, one of the best events I've ever been to, and to be in that room and meet those people was just phenomenal. So thank you.
Mike: Thank you. Thank you for making the investment. That is so cool.
Teresa: And honestly, for me, it was like, how do I stand out? That's how I stand out. I go and sit in a room with those people. So, and you are like there which is great. But anyway, I've jumped straight into that. So if my audience haven't heard from you which I'm absolutely adamant they have, because I share a lot of social media examiner stuff.
I talk about social marketing world, but just let my audience know who you are and how you got to do what you're doing today.
Mike: Well, first of all, I'm a marketer. And secondly, we just turned 10 years old, literally about two weeks ago. Well, actually, no about a month ago after this recording and I started social media examiner back in October of 2009, and it was an experiment as all great things often start as right. And I didn't know what it would become. It was a blog and I figured, oh, this social media thing maybe has a shelf life for three years. So let's just get on that train, starting to get out of the station. And man was I wrong? I mean, that thing just exploded. And you know, as we started in the early days, just writing article.
It turns out that that was the kind of stuff that the social that went viral on social. So little, did I know back then, you could write something about how to do social media on social media and it would, it would get shared thousands of times on Twitter. It would go crazy viral on Facebook. And these were the easy days for things to spread.
This is when Facebook only had, I don't know, maybe 300 million people, which still sounds like a lot, but it was really small back then. And, uh, things grew. I eventually started a podcast and eventually started getting into video. And now we, we have two podcasts. We have a live show, we publish articles almost every day. We have our videos on our YouTube channel that we're publishing multiple times a week. And millions of people are consuming our stuff every year. It's pretty crazy.
Teresa: I mean, that is crazy. And for me, you are the, the pinnacle of it. You are the, if, if I ever speak to anybody or train anybody back to social media, and I say, this is the direction you need to go in on, this is the site you need to look at, it's your site.
And, and it is amazing. And how you maintain that, you know, in this crazy busy, huge world that we're in now, how you still maintain that today is amazing.
Mike: Thank you. Is that a question or statement?
Teresa: Those really. You don't answer it. That's fine.
Mike: Yeah. No. How do I maintain it? Is the question. Right? So first of all, it's it's being aware of the challenges that are faced by our core audience, which is marketers, right? So the, the main audience that we're attracting is a marketer, typically, whose job is marketing in a small business, typically less than a hundred employees. Some of them are solopreneurs or own agencies, but the vast majority of them struggle with the job of marketing.
And social's a key part of what they do. It's not all that they do. The reality for us is we're keeping up on the news. So we have to kinda watch what Zuckerberg changes with Facebook. What's happening with up and coming platforms like TikTok. And then of course, we also have to really be aware of our core audience to what their challenges are, which means we have to survey them every year. We have to really understand the customers that belong to the various. Like we have a professional organization called the social media marketing society, which thousands of marketers belong to. And there's a Facebook group and we kind of study, what do they complaining about?
What are their struggles? What are their challenges? And we kind of look at all of that. And then of course, I interview people on my podcast every week who I think are doing it right. They tell me things. So all that data comes in and then we kind of make projections and, and hypotheses about what we think our audience is going to need for the next couple of months.
And then we go ahead and develop the content, recruit the people to be on the show. And, and we just kind of are always if you will, we're like a ship out to sea looking at the weather patterns and when the weather pattern changes, then we need to change kind of what we are, the direction we're going.
Teresa: Yeah. And I think you hit on a couple of things there. That one, the speed in which it moves is just, you know, and in fact, and, and I'd sent you a DM and you replied to my DM once when I did a TEDx talk and I quoted you in my TEDx talk, because you said at one of the events I've been to that we're in one of the fastest moving industries in the world. And we are, it doesn't stop.
And I think that is a challenge itself. And secondly, for all these marketers that you're dealing with the overwhelm in this industry is just immense. I mean, do you ever see it ever changing, you know, or ever slowing down or ever feeling a little bit calmer?
Mike: I will say that over the last two years, it's slowed down a little bit only because Facebook has been so distracted with lawsuits. All over the world and government inquiries that they have not innovated as much. And as a result of the largest social media platform, not innovated as much the competitors slow down their innovation. It's only, now that we're starting to see a lot of new stuff coming from Facebook's fastest growing platform, which is Instagram.
And that's going to begin the competitive wars. If you will, across the social platforms. As, as other platforms are beginning to like, say, all right, I'm gonna add this or I'm gonna do this. Just like, you know, Facebook does it. But yeah, I, I always say internally that as long as social is changing. We have a very solid business model.
Because the moment it stops changing is the moment when pretty much we're not in a good spot. Right.
Teresa: Got nothing to say.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But, but it's slowing down for sure. And I think that. I think that as a result of it slowing down, there's a little bit going back to basics with a lot of marketing right now. Like, rather than just going here because it's new. Now, the deeper questions are being asked like, well, what is this doing for the business? What's the actual trackable ROI for something like this. And I think a lot of marketers right now are using this slightly slowing season to kind of make smart decisions about where to stop. So they can start something new.
Teresa: And I, I totally agree. I think sometimes what happens with the social space is that everybody thinks I've gotta be on everything. I've gotta do everything. You mentioned TikTok, you know, That comes out. Everyone's like, oh God, I, should I be doing that? Should I be on it?
Should we, you know, and actually sometimes for me, and, and when I speak to my audience, it's more about doing what you do with consideration and being consistent at it and being where your audience are and focusing on that platform and doing what you can manage. Because otherwise you will completely overwhelm yourself with all these platforms and try and do all these things and keep up with all these changes.
And I think all the platforms have got so many amazing things that they can do. And probably, I mean, you might agree, disagree, you know, lots of businesses are just scratching the surface of it.
Mike: I would agree. Most marketers are doing social wrong or bad. And that might mean they're doing just Facebook ads, for example, and it's kind of working, or it might mean that they're going live on LinkedIn or using LinkedIn video. And, but they don't really know if anyone's watching. So, but yes, I don't even remember what the original question was. What was the question?
Teresa: Just the fact do you know, I've forgotten as well. Yeah, the answer it's gone.
Mike: Yeah. It's the reality. The reality is we are in a changing world, but I think what I think, what, what, what a lot of us need to do is step back and answer the question why first, right?
Like why, why go do this? Right? Why, why continue to do this? Like, one of the things we've done at social media examiner over the last years is we've stopped some things like we decided no longer on Pinterest because in our particular demographic, it, it wasn't serving our business objective. We've also scaled back some of our use of live video.
Um, and instead we're producing podcasts, you know, and we're doing live tapings if you will. And it just really comes down to cost benefit analysis, right? Like we have a team of X number of people in the company. And I think there's five people in, in our marketing department, which is a decent sized marketing department. But they're all overworked and overwhelmed and it's like, There are a lot of things we would love to do more of YouTube being one of them.
And we just haven't been able to do it because we've been distracted doing what we've always done. So one of the things that I keep preaching to people is like, if, when I ask you why you say it's, because that's the way we've always done it, that's a legitimate reason to stop. Because it means you don't really know why.
Hardest thing in the world for a lot of people to do is to stop something, just cuz they've always done it. You almost feel like you're compelled. You must do it. And, and I say, you, you actually must consider whether or not that's a complete waste utter waste of your time. Because you will never be free for the next big thing when it does approach.
Teresa: And the other thing, sorry.
Mike: No, go ahead.
Teresa: So the other thing I was gonna say, that's really interesting when you have been in marketing a long time. When I, you know, I did my degree 15 years ago and well, one marketing then and marketing today looks nothing the same, but we couldn't prove this stuff.
We couldn't prove whether, you know, I used to head up corporate marketing for Land Rover in the UK and, you know, we would, our budgets were massive and we would then go in and do an advert in a paper that cost hundreds of thousands or whatever it would cost and they'd go, “How many cars did we sell?” And we'd be like, “No, I dunno.”
You know, because we couldn't track it. Whereas now we can. And that's kind of the frustration that it's like, when you say, you know, why you didn't, well, this is what we've done. And oh, I, I wouldn't wanna stop that just in case. Well, you don't know what you're getting from it. So what do you think's gonna happen if you stop it?
So I think like you said, you know, the fact is we're in a world now where we can see all these things. That we're, it's ludicrous if we do not take advantage of those various different things and actually prove to ourselves that this is actually working and not working. So.
Mike: I advocate that people come up with a stop in list. And I advocate that you come up with a stop in list maybe once every six months. And make a goal. Just like you make a goal to start something, make a goal to stop something. You know, we're at the end, as of this recording of 2000. What is it? 19. And we should come up with a stop. My goal is to stop this and you don't need to know what you're gonna start next.
You just need to know what you need to stop because when you stop something that new found time could be put back into something, you know, for a fact is working. And this is what I think a lot of people get wrong. Let's just say email is working. Okay. Or let's say Facebook ads are working. So you decide you're gonna go off and explore something brand new.
Instead, why don't you say, how can we make email work better? How can we make Facebook ads work better? Like there's so much room for improvement. I mean, you could run more split tests, you could do more analysis, you could try more things. And I think instead we say to ourselves, we fool ourselves.
I've done all I can do with X. Now I must find something new in order to be successful. And I'm here to tell you that as a complete and utter lie, it is never true. There's always more that can be done. And that's where I think so many marketers get it wrong is they don't strive for the next level because the reality is you could double, triple or quadruple the output of one thing. If you spent more time on it.
Teresa: Yeah, absolutely agree. I think we are all in a world where it's that shiny object syndrome that we are like, oh, this is the next thing we must be on this and we must be doing this and we must be doing that. And it's like, if, and funny enough, I've, I've been talking a lot about this recently, if you double down on that one thing, if you really put all the effort in, and when I started the podcast, my assistant said to me, how long are you gonna do it for, until you work out, whether it's gonna be any good or whether it works for you as a tool.
And, and I said, 12 months, I'm gonna do it for 12 months because I wanna be consistent at it. And I absolutely gave it my all. And at month nine, it suddenly like I've been tracking along pretty nicely, and then month nine. It was like a hockey stick.
It literally flew up in the air, which was amazing, you know? And suddenly then it got all the traction. But like I said, I focused all my attention there. I didn't do a podcast and YouTube and live video and something else. I put all my efforts in that one place and just went for it and went I'm gonna do this and do I think I've got it sussed, not in a million years.
You know, in fact today I was just reading how weirdly I was reading some notes about social media marketing world and Pat from my first year and Pat Flynn was there and he was talking about ways in which he could boost his podcast. And it was all these different things, like do a special episode, do a roundup episode.
And, and I just happened to stumble across it while looking for something else. And I was like, oh yeah, these are good ideas. And you know, so again, even on episode. I think the episode that's just come out now is 90 or 91 and you know, there's still so much to learn and yet someone else might look at that and think, oh, now you got it.
What's next, you know, move on to the next thing. And it's just not the case. So, so, okay. We are in the most noisiest space ever. You know, social media is huge and there are so many people doing this. And you are really at, at the top of it, you know, you are at the top of the tree in terms of who knows what and who is connected to, and, you know, your event is, you know, in my eyes and lots of other eyes.
And I'm sure, pretty sure that this is true anyway. The world's leading social media event. You know, social media examiner is probably the world's leading social media website. How on earth do you stand out in that noise? Because, and how do you become that leader? How do you set that precedent so that you could pretty much knock on any door or pick up the phone to any amazing person in this industry and they will come and speak to you and speak on your stage and do that. How on earth do you get to that point?
Mike: So great question. I'm gonna answer it so that it doesn't matter whether you are a plumber or whether you're a consultant or whether you are an ADHD specialist that you could, you could get exactly what I have. The key to the entire thing first and foremost is to understand exactly who you're trying to reach.
And you have to picture in your mind, like, I don't wanna reach everyone. I wanna reach somebody. And who is that somebody? You really have to like build a really clear picture of, of what that person looks like, what kind of job that person has, what kind of struggles that person has. And you wanna remind yourself every day, whenever you're thinking about creating anything that this is who you're creating it for.
The second thing is you need to create content for free for that person. Okay. So that content could be in my mind, one of four different types of content. The first one is a podcast, which we're listening to right now. Second one is the written word, right? Which is obviously in its truest form of blog post.
The third one is gonna be a video. And obviously the biggest platform for that is YouTube, but it doesn't have to be YouTube. It could be Instagram and then the last one is live and in person speaking in your hometown at conferences or whatever, right. So are you a good writer? Are you a good talker?
Are you a good on camera? Are you good in person? So first and foremost, decide where you're gonna focus. And right now you have put your focus Teresa on the podcast. And crushing it. But you know, you have your site set beyond the podcast. You absolutely do. So once you get to the point where you decide on your medium and you decided in your audience. Then the next thing is you gotta ask a lot of questions of this ideal audience.
You need to ask them, what are your struggles? What are your pain points in relationship to this? So you can ask those questions by simply saying it out loud on a podcast by posting it on Facebook. By putting a question post up on an Instagram story, whatever it takes, ask the question and make sure that you're ignoring the answer.
You're, you're ignoring the questions from the people that fall outside of that audience that you're trying to reach. Right. So the, the way you do that in, in an ideal world is you put a survey together. Okay. And you do something like survey monkey and you ask these questions and then you also ask some demographic questions.
Those questions might be, how long have you worked? Like, what is your job? You know, I think I ask is social media marketing important for your, your, your career? You know? Yes or no, they say no, then I discount them. Right.
Teresa: That's not for them.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Are you a marketer? You know, and I ask all these questions. I ask about gender, age, what part of the world they're in. And then what I, and even if they've been our customers, right. And then what I can do is I can filter down to the specific audience that I'm trying to reach. So if I know that I'm trying to reach women who are in marketing, who are between the ages of 35 and 50. You know, I can just look and who are also interested in marketing.
I can look at how they answered the questions differently than everyone else. And I can see, oh, fascinating. Instagram is really high on their list. Oh, YouTube video is really high on their list. Oh, analytics is high on their list. Now I know exactly what content to create. So then I go out there and I start creating that content and then I measure it.
So I ask myself, “Alright, they've said, they're interested in this. Let's see whether or not the, the action meets the statement.” And the way you do that in a podcast is you look at downloads or you log into apple podcast connect and you look at average listen duration, or you go into Spotify and do the same thing.
And you just look to see whether or not they're listening a little bit longer to these episodes and it'll show you like a, like a YouTube retention graph. And then, you know, like the stuff that everybody cares about is the stuff that should have a longer listen time. Or have more reads on your blog or whatever. Right. And then you just continue to create more and more of that content. You also watch for signals, just like if you're out in the wild and you see a smoke signal, the smoke signals that you're looking for are going to be private messages on Instagram from people saying you fricking crush that episode.
Or emails from people saying, “Oh my gosh, that was so awesome.” Or comments on your blog post saying “More of this, please.” You know, you take those signals and that's like your affirmation that you're heading in the right direction. What I mean, I see you're shaking your head a lot.
Teresa: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I'm literally just sat here going. Yes, yes, yes. Yes. Because it's everything you've said, like you said, if you don't know who you're talking to, then how on earth are you gonna create anything for them? I love the fact that the bit that you've said that actually. I probably don't spend enough time doing is the bit with the signals. So I survey the audience, I give them the content they want.
We, we look at all those things. However, perhaps when we get to the signals bit, I think sometimes, especially when you start, because people aren't, you know, they're not sending you messages, they're not replying to stuff. And then when they start to do it, I think you're just so like, oh, that's amazing that maybe I've not taken the time to go actually on that episode now I know, which was my highest ever episode on the podcast.
And interestingly enough, I say, interestingly, not for any good or bad reason, because I've had some flipping amazing people on, but Jasmine Star absolutely blew everyone out the water. Like she was a
Mike: Rock star.
Teresa: Phenominal. Oh, she is like.
Mike: She is keynote in socially American world. I don't know if you're aware of that.
Teresa: Oh my goodness. No, I, you know what, I, I dunno how I didn't see that, but I didn't know. She honestly is one of the best speakers I've ever seen. And it was, it's really funny when I talk, I get told I talk too fast, you know? Well, I don't get told, but when I did my TEDx, they told me to slow down. And my one thing is every talk I ever give.
You know, I'm I know I'm very casey. So now I say I talk fast and it just is what it is. And Jasmine, one of the first times I ever saw her actually said, “I don't talk fast. You listen slow.” And I just thought that was the best ever, because she is completely. And one of the things I love about her as a speaker and that I would like to emulate and hopefully do, because I'm not the most, like when I look at Pat as a speaker, he is so polished.
He's so slick. And I.
Mike: He practice like crazy.
Teresa: Yeah. And he is amazing. And I remember him telling me that he'd had coaching on it and all this various thing, and he takes its so seriously and, and perfects it brilliantly. And then you've got someone like Jasmine, who is like, she just gets up there and she just blows you outta the water and is 100% herself.
And I love that. I love that she's so unapologetically. Well, this is who I am and just gets up there and does it. So she is just, yeah, amazing. Anyway.
Mike: A couple quick things, first of all. You have to ask for the signals in order to get the signals. So it's really important that you do something in your podcast from now on, if you're not, which is at the very beginning and say, tag me on Instagram or email me.
Teresa: Yeah.
Mike: And just say that every single week and eventually that the signal will be received that and say, I would love to hear your feedback. You have to ask for it. This is marketing 101, right?
Teresa: Yeah.
Mike: You have to ask for it or they won't give it because think about it. Most people who listen to our podcasts and we both have, you know, I have a lot of people listen to my podcast.
They're not in a spot where they would ever think to give it to you when they're, when they're listening. They might be dogging. They might be driving, but if you ask for it, some day, they're gonna pull over and they're gonna, they're gonna give you feedback. And it sounds crazy, but if you do not ask for it, you likely won't get it.
And the second thing is being yourself is so important. Yeah. So many people feel like they need to be someone else. They pick somebody and they say, “In order for me to be successful. I have to be like Jasmine.” With these little isms, right. Jasmine gets up there and she's got these crazy figures of speech that are just hilarious. Right?
And, and she's full of energy and super charismatic and pretty, and it's like, you might say, well, I don't have those things, so I can never be like that. And it's like, no, instead what you wanna do is you wanna look at why Jasmine is successful is because she's authentic. She's who she is. She's imperfect and that's, and she's okay with that. And as long as you can be okay with that, then you can also create content for whoever your tribe is and not everyone's gonna relate to it, but that's okay. Not everyone is supposed to be in your tribe.
Teresa: Yeah. And again, I completely agree with that. And I think, I think that takes time and confidence. And maybe in like, I've, I've had my business for five years and, and maybe in the beginning, I didn't feel like that. But strangely enough, I was giving I was being interviewed this morning for a magazine. And she was saying to me, you know, don't you get concerned about other marketers? When I said that I deal, you know, I have lots of marketers and I have marketers and social media people in my academy.
And she's like, don't you get concerned about having them in there and sharing your knowledge. And I was like, not in the slightest, you know, in fact, I am more than happy to help anybody along the way, because the only thing that I have got different from everybody else is me. And like you said, if people love it, Great. Amazing. If I'm not for them, then there are loads of other people that they can get this from. And that's cool. Go and, you know, go get it from them. But I think, I think in every industry, we, we automatically look to someone and go, oh, they're amazing. I want a life or a business like them. And like you said, but we have to sit in our own.
This is who we are rather than trying to emulate them and try and look like them. And like you said, if I stood up on stage, it came out with some of the stuff that Jasmine says or said, “Ya'll” people would laugh me offstage. Because it's the most inauthentic thing ever I could say.
Mike: Right.
Teresa: So, yeah, totally, totally. But the.
Mike: Real quick, if I could, if I could comment on something that, that woman who was interviewing, you said, aren't you concerned. Sounds like she was implying or you concerned you're kind of giving your secrets away. And I think it's really important for everyone who's listening right now to understand that is what separates, successful people from unsuccessful people.
The most, the people that you think about that you most respect are the ones that have empowered you with knowledge and wisdom. That you did not find on your own necessarily you found from someone else. And those are the people that you hold up. Those are the people you evangelize. Those are the people that you love.
That is the smartest marketing in the world, which is to give everything away for free, no matter what, because there's no one like you in the world and no one is ever gonna do it your way. And the reality is that there's a lot more where that came from. And a lot of us think that if we just share that one tip, then someone's gonna steal that tip. And instead you're gonna empower lots of other people and they're gonna credit you for it.
Teresa: Yeah. And, and that's the thing. And you are the epitome of that because every single day content comes out and you are literally, you know, there is no end of content on, on the social media examiner website. Literally nothing you couldn't wanna know is on there. And that's the thing, though, if you are not giving it them, someone else is. You know, so if you weren't putting that out there, they'd find it somewhere else. Cuz we live in this world where you literally can Google anything. So the best scenario that you can have is that they Google something and you come at the top of their list. Isn't it?
Mike: Yes, cuz you wanna be the one that they come back to. You wanna be the well, the resource that they come to every single day or whenever they have a challenge, because then eventually some of those people will find such value in you that they're gonna say I wanna buy whatever it is the company has to sell.
Teresa: Yeah, absolutely.
Mike: Best market in the world.
Teresa: The other thing I was gonna comment on actually is, you know, when people do do the engaging and they do comment and they do reply and they do come back to you often, I find it's on the surprising stuff. It's either on like, so I send that an email every Wednesday to my list and the way I write my email is that it's very personal.
I write it. It's not written by one of the team. I, I joke that I am not the best writer hence why I speak and have a podcast, cause I much prefer to do that. And I send this email out and I see it as a different bit of content. So I normally talk about something that I haven't put on the podcast or, you know, that might have just come up that week or something to do with running a business or marketing or whatever.
And sometimes I will send something out. And I will, like the other week I wrote about jet lag, cuz I was really suffering coming back from California and suddenly it's like ping, ping, ping, bang. All these emails are coming in and they're like, oh yeah, I know what you mean. And I know this. And it's like, sometimes those connections aren't necessarily on the stuff that you think, but it's just the fact that they've had the, the willingness and the want to kind of reply and have that conversation with you, which is just amazing.
Mike: Yeah. You can do this today with Instagram stories. I mean, this is the easiest thing in the world to do in seconds with Instagram stories. I mean, I was just, you know, I mean, I've been experimenting a lot with this lately. Just, you know, like I was walking to my car and I just, we have a job opening for a director of operations.
And I said, I said, you know, just something casually on the way to the car. And over the weekend, I asked the question and it's like, you know, there, that is such an easy platform to experiment with talking about things that you would not normally talk about. But you'd be surprised how many people are interested in the backstory. They're interested in getting to know who you are. And that doesn't normally seem interesting to us until people start interacting with us. Right.
Teresa: Yeah. And, and also.
Mike: And then all of a sudden they love us because we're interacting with them. Right.
Teresa: Yeah. And like you said, it's the unusual stuff. It's the, for me, I like, I remember when I interviewed Rick Mulready, I was talking to him about the fact of, he's always walking to whole foods, which I'm very jealous about, cuz we don't have whole foods here and it's like, you know, and I, but I know that detail.
I know those things. Because they're the stuff we remember. Those are the things that, you know, the kind of small details that we can relate with. And the reason I related to that is cuz I've been in whole foods when I'm over there and I love it, you know? So it's all these kind of little details that we can, and by doing something like Instagram stories, it's weird, that's Instagram and Instagram stories is, is the place I'm most personable I think is the right, you know, to, to say it that way. Yeah. That I will share the most about me.
Mike: Yeah. I'll be honest. I, I don't do enough of it probably because I've got a pretty decent team and, I just haven't figured out how to, how to work my personal brand into the corporate brand that we've got here at social media examiner. But I know when I do do it, people find it very interesting.
And. And it is. And, and Pat Flynn has been doing this for a long time. I mean, like he shares these random factoids at the beginning of his podcast every week. And it's just kind of one of those kind of things that people remember. And in a world, as you started earlier, where it's very competitive, man, we should all be doing stuff that's makes it easier for people to remember us and who we are. And maybe just maybe sharing more of this real kind of random factoids about our life just might be the key to, to, to really connecting.
Teresa: And when I think about Pat, I literally can tell you his son's name, you know, that's how much I've seen stuff and it sticks in your head. It's like, I know his son's name and I, I can't, I'm just trying to think of what his daughter it's Keon. He's his, can't what thought his name, but anyway.
Mike: Now how you're now you're seriously putting me, I'm been a mastermind with him and I should know the names of his kids. Uh.
Teresa: You could tell him.
Mike: Yeah. Um, I'm drawing a mental blank right now, but yeah.
Teresa: But honestly, these things do stick in your head. Don't they? So the, the next thing I wanna ask you is how much is the importance of relationship in all this? Because in this industry, there is definitely a group of, or there are groups of people. And I don't mind sharing that one of the ways. And I get asked this all the time, actually I was on being interviewed the other day and someone asked me, how did I get Pat Flynn and Amy Poterfield back to back for my first two interviews, they granted, they weren't my, they weren't episode one and two I'd been doing like 20 something episodes. And I said, and people think I'm joking and I'm not. I invited them for a coffee and then said, and I'm gonna fly five and a half thousand miles to come and take you for a coffee.
And that's exactly what I did. I flew to San Diego and met them both. And they both very gracefully met me, which I am very honored that they gave me the time. I went to Pat's studio. I was very lucky Pat and I had spoke on the same stage and he was on before me once for Converted for lead pages. And so I had met Pat and I said to him, I'd said to myself.
I'm gonna go and meet them. And if it goes really well, which I suspected and hoped it would, but if it does, I'm gonna then get back to the UK and then I'm gonna ask if they'll come on the podcast. I didn't want them to think I just did that to get 'em on the podcast. So anyway, met them for coffee separately over a couple of days.
And. Without even asking, they both offered straight off the, the bat, which I was just.
Mike: That was Pat, Pat. And who was the other person?
Teresa: Amy Porterfield.
Mike: Oh yeah. Yeah. Cool. Big time.
Teresa: I was just like blown away. So then what I did is I looked at their network and there is definite networks of who's connected to who. So let's take Jasmine and Rick Mulready for instance, you know, Jasmine's friends with Amy, Rick Mulready is in Pat's thing and is friends with Amy and was on her, her podcast. And, you know, so how important for me, I felt like it was worth that effort to go over and have that conversation. And to the point now where I can see Amy and she knows who I am and we chat and she'll text me and you know, that sort of thing.
How important do you think that is in order to, to put yourself up there as an industry expert and get in front of those key people?
Mike: I think it's absolutely the key to success. In my second book launch, I had this formula called the elevation principle, which is great content plus other people minus marketing messages, equal growth.
Great content. You know what that is. Plus other people, right. Somehow they're involved minus marketing message. No pitch, right? Whenever you pitch all of a sudden, it's like the flaps on airplane, you slow down. So I think it's absolutely essential. And what I did when I started social media examiner was I took a camera crew to a conference. And I was friends with someone who, from my prior life who said, these are the people you wanna interview.
So I went up to those people and interviewed them. And they were people like Chris Brogan and Scott Monty, who were really big wigs in our space back in the back in the day. And made, made, I was very professional. You know, I made content starring them. And I went outta my way to make sure that I was providing value to that period. End of story.
Never asking for anything in return and you know, it's, it's the key to everything. John Lee Duma, who you may know, who's got entrepreneur on fire. He was trying to get into my network. And in the beginning, when he first started this show, I was like one of the first, like four or five people he interviewed.
And it was because of someone I knew and trusted that I accepted that interview, right? So it was Cliff Ravenscraft who said “John Lee Dumas is one of my students. I strongly recommend you consider him. He's a good guy.” So that network is really important. And leveraging that network. For example, you could ask Pat a or Amy right now to put in a good word for you because you've already built that kind of relational equity with them and they could help you get someone like Michael Hyatt.
Right easily on your podcast, cuz Michael's hard to get to. So that's kind of the key to everything is to be really strategic and provide a lot of value. But back to John Lee Dumas, I got him on the podcast and I forgot about him. And then what he ended up doing is he recorded a private video with some feedback on how I could improve my podcast by making a couple of changes to it.
Teresa: My God. Oh, that's awesome and it's stressful.
Mike: And I did it and I did it and I, and he never asked for anything. And I just remembered that, you know. And I've done this with Seth Gordon for example, where I emailed him and I said, “Hey, you need those social share buttons on your blog, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.” You know, now, and now I, I, I wouldn't say Seth is a friend, but he's been on my show like five times.
And you know, it's just how can you provide value to somebody in a way that they'll remember who you are? And that's kind of how it starts and, and really the best way to make an impact as you know, is to meet them in person. And the best way economically to do that is to go to the events where they're all gonna be.
And I'm not saying this just cuz I happen to have that kind of event, but that's how I started my thing. I went to an event that's no longer around. And they were all there and I met them and that was the beginning of relationships and partnerships. And these people eventually end up speaking at my event and that's how it all, all works.
Teresa: But you're exactly right. You know, and I, and I don't want it to say like a pitch because we're not pitching, but you know, I'd say it from all honesty. The first time I saw Pat and Amy and Jasmine and all the other amazing people that have been on the podcast is through social media marketing world is sitting front and center at their sessions.
You know, making sure I go and speak to them, making sure I connect with them, making sure that, like you said, you don't ask them for anything. And you know what.
Mike: Ask 'em for a selfie though, because you're gonna wanna email that selfie, right?
Teresa: Always. And luckily, you know, if you are in the UK and listening to this and thinking, should I make the effort? One of the great things about going over is you do stand out because I'm British and we sound a little bit different and therefore, Jasmine. You know, will joke that I'm her favorite British person and that sort of thing, you know, and she'll know who I am from, you know, because obviously I have a differentiator cuz of my voice and cuz I I'm British, but you know, that's the whole point.
And the thing is it is more economical to do that. It is more economical to go and be really strategic about whose rooms do I wanna be in? Who do I wanna get in front of. You know. Just like I said, and don't go with, or I didn't go with any agenda the first couple of years, it wasn't like, I didn't know that I was gonna have a podcast.
So it wasn't like I'm gonna do this to get this thing. It was just because this is gonna sound the saddest thing in the world, but it was like, I wanna be there friends. Like I want, I think I could sit down for a coffee with Amy and we could just talk. And we did, and we sat for two hours chatting, like old friends. She met my husband. He came up, she was invited us to drinks with Hobi and, you know, and it was awesome. But you know, it had to be face to face as much as I love social media and I do love it. And it's great for getting that initial connection. There's nothing more powerful than, than then following it up with stood in front of someone or having that conversation or making that effort to be in front of them is that?
Mike: There isn't but I, I also think it's really important that a lot of people look at this, like they're planting seeds that might take years to germinate, you know?
Teresa: Yes. For sure.
Mike: Because not everyone is going to be able to do what they're not gonna all have the result that you had. You know, and also don't overlook the people sitting around you when you're at these events too.
Teresa: No, never.
Mike: Because you might be sitting next to the next Jas in the front row, because just like you and they're there with a purpose, and you'd be surprised at the caliber and level of individuals that go to these kinds of events. You might just find your next business partner. You might just find your next boss, or you might find your next client.
And that's where it gets really fascinating is. Because I've been in it this for a long time. And just to see some of the people that were just total rookies back in the day are now like absolutely crushing it. And the key really is just to develop those relationships, provide as much value to everyone around you, knowing that not all those seats are gonna grow, but some of them will. And all you need is a couple of them to grow and you can be very, very successful.
Teresa: And I, I couldn't agree more. And I think often in an online space and an online industry, we think this is a quick win. We think we're gonna send out a tweet, do a Facebook ad. Put a bomb blog post, and suddenly we're the next Seth Gordon. And that isn't the case. These, like you said, everything I did, I did with the I'm taking a step forward. I'm taking a step forward. Even now every stage I speak on every interview I do. Every person I have on my podcast. Every month I have a list of, you must ask to go on three podcasts. You must ask to get on three stages.
You must do this to test myself, to make sure every time I'm moving forward and making those steps. Because like you said, this isn't a short term thing, but, and, and also look at the people and you must have seen this way more than I have the people that have come and go. And the people that are just like still.
Mike: Still here. Yes.
Teresa: Amazing. And people still love them because maybe they were the ones who took the longest to get there. But when they were there, they're in.
Mike: Well, it's not just that they continue to do the work. And the people that are still on stages today that have been on stages like five years ago, are the people that, that have changed with the times or understand how they need to change. Right? Jasmine was the wedding photographer, you know? And obviously she shifted. I mean, she had to shift, right. And she got into Instagram and went all in and then started doing a lot with live video on Instagram and went all in. And the, the future of Jasmine I'm sure is totally different than it's going to be today.
Right. And, and the key is to just be. I don't know how to say this, but I find that the people that are the most humble and willing to help others are the ones that go the furthest in this industry. And the ones that are the most primadonna, jerk, you know, to use the guy language. They don't last very long, you know, they might be like magnesium and get really bright for a little while, but then that flame burns out and they're left wondering what the heck happened. Yeah. Cause in the end, this is called social media for a reason. There's a social component. And I like to say that the world of social media has a pretty long memory and you know, if you're not a nice person, you will not survive in this world. Go find a different career.
Teresa: Yeah. And the Jasmine keeps getting shouts out but I must mention one more thing before we move on about this. She was the last social marketing world I was at. She was speaking, she had a jam packed room. She'd given a talk, someone got up to ask a question and they said, and this kind of made me laugh a bit.
They, they said how many followers they had on Instagram? I think it was a, a business account and it wasn't as many as Jasmine. And they said, “We get loads of DMs and I dunno how to deal with them. And should I just get a VA to deal with them?” And she's like, “How important is it that you deal with them?”
It's like, “Well I should, but.” and she's like, “So you respond.” “Yeah. But how do I get time?” She's like “You just respond.” And when Jasmine has sat there going, “I respond to all my DMs because that's the most important thing for me to do. And I outsource something that isn't important for me to do. That's how you deal with that.”
And this woman just wasn't having any of it. She was like, “Yeah. But I'm really busy. And I get all these DMs.” and Jasmine's like, “So do I. Just respond?” And I was like, you know, that's perfect because she's at the point she is now where, like you said, she's scaled huge. You know, she's probably getting loads of messages in and then I DMed her a few weeks back and she immediately DMed me back and, you know, and she.
But she still does it. She still puts in the work. She still cares. She's still giving, she's still, you know, kind of on the call face if you like. And, and it shows and it pays and, you know, I'm a huge fan because of that. So she's just phenomenal. So obviously when you started 10 years ago, and this just proves head time takes.
What, what was your vision? I mean, what did you imagine that you were turning this into, you know, what was the, and I wanna then ask you, what do you want, you know, what's the vision for the next 10 years?
Mike: Uh, the vision was just a three year experiment. Well, I didn't even know if it was gonna last for three years. I mean, the, the vision was just to create a blog, a better blog than what I had previously had. That was it. There was no idea to do a podcast. There was no video. None of that kind of stuff mattered. All that mattered was just writing really good content. So the goal was to have a really big business block and we achieved that vision.
Now, obviously it's so much more, as I mentioned at the start of the interview 10 years from now, I have no idea. I mean, to be honest, I don't really look out more than about a year. And the reason I don't is because it's so hard in this industry. To make any plans. Like, I don't wanna be so silly to say that there couldn't be another major social platform in the next year that we've never heard of before.
And, and, and it could blow up literally overnight. Right? So for example, if Amazon or Microsoft who owns LinkedIn or Salesforce, or one of these multi-billion dollar companies decides to put the right kind of money behind something, all of a sudden the whole world could be talking about that.
Could be something we've never even fathom before. So. One thing I do wanna do is I definitely wanna continue the podcast. I definitely wanna grow up our YouTube channel. That's like my short term next two year strategy. And we're investing heavily in creating really, really great content on our YouTube channel.
Two days a week we're publishing like video tutorials directly from a lot of the people that we've mentioned in this podcast, like. And some others that we haven't, but like Jen Herman, who's an Instagram expert. Rick Mulready who's a Facebook expert. Francois Lavaste who's Facebook groups, Dennis Yu who's a Facebook ads expert.
Amanda Bon flew in from Toronto to film a bunch of stuff. So we're doing a lot of really good direct to camera, YouTube tutorials that are right now live on our channel. And I'm gonna be doing a lot more content on the channel, dealing with some of the issues we've spoken about today. So for example, how do you stand out.
How do you become the person that the whole world thinks about when they think about your industry? I really wanna focus in on impact and I really wanna focus in on like influence, not influencer, but influence and how to yield it. Because I've seen so many stars rise and I've been involved behind the scenes with so many of these stars rising that I said to myself, I think I'm gonna come and teach a little bit here, you know?
So watch for that coming from me lessons on a lot of the kind of things like, oh my gosh. Like some of the stuff I've got written down is, um, even from today's interview, how to analyze the success signals, you know? I'm gonna do a video on that. You know. How to get better at stopping. How to know the world's ready for my message.
How do I talk about myself without bragging? How do I deal with resistance? Resistance is a concept that is in a book called the, The War Of Art by Steven Pressfield and it's that little voice in our head that says you're not good enough. How do we deal with that? So these are all the, the concepts I'm toying with. You hit me up at the early stage of this, but uh, in about a week, I'm gonna start filming and I'm really excited to bring some of this content to my community through YouTube video.
Teresa: I that's just great. That's such good con and I love those titles. I love the one about the confidence thing, cuz that was a big one for me having the guts to actually do these things and to be like who, who cares?
I asked Seth Gordon come on the podcast. And he said, no, very politely. And very quickly. He said he was busy and you know what? Like a year ago I wouldn't have even asked him. I would've been like, oh, he probably won't come on. I was from no point asking him. And instead of being, I wasn't at all upset or concern that he said, no, in fact, I was ready for it, but it was a case of, do you know what? He now knows who I existed, that I exist and I might.
Mike: Next time he has a book come out. I guarantee you he'll say yes if you ask him.
Teresa: And I was a little bit late for the last one.
Mike: Yeah. Yeah. Just so you know about authors, you know, you wanna hit him up when they're in their cycle, right. So, so once he's in his next cycle, you hit him up and there's a high likelihood he'll say yes, just.
Teresa: He'll be coming on.
Mike: Do not let the rejection stop you.
Teresa: No, and I think that's a big thing. Cause I think that stops loads of people. And then the other one, which you said, which is perfect and especially for a British audience, because we are a little bit more reserved with how we talk about ourselves is saying, I am actually really good at this without feeling like “Check me out. I'm amazing.” Yeah. Yeah. That's a really difficult thing to do. Isn't this? I think those subject titles are perfect.
Mike: Yeah. So those are the things that I'm gonna, I mean, I'm gonna test and we're gonna see if people resonate with those and if they will, then I'll talk more maybe on my podcast about some of those kind of things. So that's what I'm kind of excited about. That's, you know, I'm. I'm excited to actually, instead of just bringing experts to my tribe, to bring a little bit of me to my tribe, because for the longest time it's been other people and I'm finally gonna come on. I have something to add to the world and let's see if anyone who wants to pay attention.
Teresa: And I'm absolutely positive. They will. Mike, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on podcast. I've I've really, really enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much for giving your time. I know it's very valuable and I really, really appreciate you coming on. So thank you.
Mike: It's been my pleasure.
Teresa: There you have it. There was the lovely Mike. I hope you enjoyed the episode as much as I did. Next week I have something very exciting to tell you. I say it's very exciting. I find it very exciting. No, I think it is gonna be very exciting for you. I'm doing something different and new, not specifically with the podcast to do with the membership. And I'm excited to tell you what is coming up. So I will see you next week for a solo episode. Until then have a wonderful week.
