How to Get More Out of Your Content with Live Streaming

And that's the key all results getting results, he has worked in a variety of verticals, and with a mix of businesses, including startups, and established companies. And his experience spans the full spectrum of digital strategy and implementation, including social media, SEO, UX collaborations, content strategies and production. Again, that drives results. Today, he is a global top 14 content marketer, top 40, b2b marketer, top 100 cx thought leaders and top 20 for digital marketers. That's amazing. his blog has been listed as a valuable resource in the marketing industry. He's a top 5% podcaster. His fourth book covers the topic of going live to get more out of your podcast and content strategy. So Christoph, welcome to the show today. I'm excited. Thanks for having me, really good to see you. Awesome. Before we jump in and start talking about your whole superpower, which really is like digital marketing, and live streaming, and you just have such incredible, just eight different angles of the way that you look at creating content. But before we hop into that, can you share with all our listeners and viewers a little bit about what got you so interested in digital marketing and a little bit more about your entrepreneur ship journey? What got me to interesting Well, it's a little bit of you know, the necessity, we have to learn new things to stay relevant. But I grew up as a journalist, you know, learn how to tell stories, connect with audiences, and, and also writing still matters, you know, and you certainly learned that as a journalist, a little bit of a different style than what I write today for the most part. But But writing matters, whether it's live streaming, whether it's podcasting, you still at the very least have to write good headlines, and a good description, you know, and even good calls to action, quite frankly. But so I've made them switch from journalism to marketing. And then at some point, we started calling it content marketing, of course, digital marketing. I'm a little bit more on the content side than the the paid side, even though I've run paid campaigns. But you know, I'm very interested in how do we keep brands relevant? How do we stay in front of people? How do we share things that are valuable? Angela, there's so much crap out there. I don't know if you know, but crap is an acronym stands for content really annoying to people. We don't want to create that we want to create good stuff. We want to create stuff people want to consume and we don't need to be so stuffy. I don't care if you're b2b or b2c, or whatever acronym we're going to make up next. You know, like, let's tell good stories. And that's, that's what I've done in my career. I always find new channels or I don't find them. I identify new channels that are worth pursuing for brands and, and personal, personal people too.
Well, and one thing you're saying is like the I'll never forget a few years ago when I really got more into understanding the whole e commerce how to make money online, how to write sales funnels, how to nurture how to
Write it like, I am not a good writer, I will do video and I will talk your ear off all day long, and I'll answer questions. But when it comes to actually sitting down and writing, I was not you can't be good at everything. It's like I'm really good at a few things. But I was not good in English. And I have people sometimes even in our presentations, they're like that word was misspelled. Or you probably you need to put a comma in there. And I've even had people say, do you know there's this thing called Grammarly. And I'm like, we're gonna outsource all of our writing and all of our copy because I'm not good at it. And that's okay. But what I have learned is having a back and forth conversation with people is really important. And you said something key is like, get rid of the stuff Enos quit trying to be perfect. It's like, my content isn't perfect, especially when it comes to the copy. But if it can help someone, or give them a few tips on how to do something better in their business, I'm hoping that's what people take away from it. But I remember a few years ago, someone said to me, when I said copy, they said, you need me to go make a copy of something. And I'm like, No, no, no, I mean, like the text and there's different types. There's like creative copy. And then there's, I think they call it consultative copy, like copy that's going to convert. And so there's all this, there's all of these different techniques of like writing styles, and our last intern that just wrapped up, she's like, I didn't know that you could get paid and have a job just writing words. And I'm like, Oh, yeah, girl, it's a big thing, especially in content marketing, because people want to have a conversation. But it's so so important. That but it's awesome that you have like the journalism piece. And then you really brought that over into like the whole content piece. But do you find that often that people that you work with, like, they don't really understand what copy is?
Oh, my goodness, don't even get me started. But first of all, you will get me started. I know, we'll get we'll get there. But really quickly. First of all, even though not everybody can be really good at everything. You were fantastic on the podcast. And they're very easy to listen to. I always learn something when I when I tune in. But I bet you that if you just change your mind shift a little bit your mindset, you can be a better writer, right? So if you keep telling yourself, I'm not a good writer, I'm not a good writer. That's like me saying, Oh, I'm not a good podcast, I'm not a good podcast, I guess. Well, whatever we wish for becomes the truth, right? So I just tell myself, whatever, I just play a live stream on the internet or podcast, or I'm just talking, you know, and some people love it. And some people don't. So I'm not gonna say you're going to become the next, you know, Joe pulizzi, or whatever. But But you but but I bet you, you can level up your writing, just like we're going to talk about live streaming. And people can level up their live streaming, just by getting over the fear of, you know, doing anything, but copy still matters. And here's the thing, by the way, it's kind of a joke. We don't want to just copy stuff, we want to create unique content. And, you know, seriously, people just, we gurjit tating crap that's already out there. If you're going to write an article, and you're gonna think you're going to rank on SEO, you need to do your own research, or you need to get the quotes from the experts, you can just link to everybody else, and talk about the crap other people have already talked about. So you got to find a new angle. So I'll give you an example. very relevant to what we're talking about today. 2 million podcasts are out there, 2 million. And then folks told me you know, with folks marketing, that
whatever percentage, I remember the percentage, but a higher percentage hasn't been active. So of course, journalists to me goes, What's active and he says, last 90 days, I'm like that last 90 days, I get hives if I don't publish a podcast every seven days, at least, you know, or
so. Like, that's not active 90 days. That's that's crazy talk. But my point is a lot of companies are not doing them regularly. Right? So you got to get into the rhythm. You got to get out there. And do them. No, I don't remember how I even started this, but but at the end of the day is this consistency, you have to start and you have to keep going and you have to stay in front of people, you know, and copy matters content, oh, uniqueness, you have to be unique. You know, even if so I'll give you an example. I've done like 30 podcasts since the book came out. And what's interesting is, every podcast is completely different. Because you asked different questions in the last person. They asked different questions in the person before that, and everybody has their own spin on things, right. So So everybody kind of gets their own unique podcast episode, even though we're talking about
roughly the same thing. And the same is true when it comes to your content. If you're in healthcare, and we do not promise, I promise you this, we do not need another article on the five signs of a heart attack, or the six science that's still not unique enough, seriously, like everybody's writing about that. So you got to find a unique angle, you got to find some personality. Yes, every person has personality, why not? Show it off a little bit. Yeah, and just be yourself.
Let yourself be yourself. What? So what really? When did you start live streaming and like what really prompted you to say, I'm just gonna like y'all before we started recording, he's like, I just, I was live streaming on on Amazon for like, three hours, just working. And we both have a treadmill desk, which I love this kind of treadmill desk. And he's like, I'll walk and just livestream and then people will pop on, they'll ask questions, but it's like making yourself available as an expert to like, help people answer questions. But what even prompted you to say, I'm gonna get into this whole live streaming thing? And like, I would love for you to share with people that are listening or watching like, what is it really done for like your brand, putting yourself out there on edited stuff? First of all, the numbers are just unbelievable. I mean, I met you know, the the three hour livestream and I didn't even use the treadmill desk the day yet. But I worked. You know, I was editing a podcast, I was doing some writing for about three hours, had like, over 7000 people watching. I mean, that's crazy. And people can ask questions, and I got like a call to action. I was actually editing the real talk, the customer insights show. And so I have the link to the amazon music version. And people can watch it or listen to it, rather. And they can just click over, you know, so in fact, the edit the episode I was working on is already live because I'm actually using it for something else. So it's kind of interesting. And but how it really started probably I got on the livestream bandwagon back in the day when periscope came about and Meerkat and all those blab. And but it was only one channel, you know, I was sitting at the airport and live streaming on Periscope or whatever. And that was that. And then I started a podcasting. And the podcast was just a podcast. So what we're doing right now, except I was only going to the podcast channels, channels, there was still a bunch, you know, six, then 10 and 16. Now dhwani. I mean, it just they keep adding. And so there's obviously you know, you want to be on as many as you possibly can with one push. And then about February 2020, my content performance culture book came out. And I was on Jason false podcast and live stream, which I didn't really quite realize what he was doing. But when we first started talking, but then of course I did when we started doing it.
And he was going live to all these different channels. And then he literally just used what we what we did on the live stream on his podcast channels. And all very interesting. And it didn't seem like a lot of work. I mean, still there's work involved. But you know, we went live at like seven o'clock, 7am Eastern central time. And then like nine o'clock central time, like the podcast was already live. And so he used switcher studio. So I started trying switcher studio and switcher ships it to like it's like a production
software, basically, multi camera, you know, you can set up multiple, multiple cameras, and,
you know, to one channel, and then I was like, Okay, interesting. So how do I do multiple channels. So then, of course, you can use restream, stream yard, there's others, I use Restream. And you can go to like, you know, 810 channels that are relevant, they have 30 channels, so many of them are like gamer channels, marketers won't care about them. But you know, there's probably eight to 10 that most that many marketers will care about. And so really what I do is I do like so when you come on my show, whenever that is in a couple weeks, we'll go live to all the channels, then we'll take the audio and we'll put on the podcast channels. Now my philosophy is a little bit different than Jason's, even though I give him credit for getting me started. I do my live stream whenever that live stream happens. And then the podcast episode goes to the end of the queue. I try to be about a month out at the most you know, so it's seven days apart unless I go too far out then I push them closer. And it publishes a few weeks later. And the reason I do that is so I don't have I don't promote the same thing like eight different ways. And then I promote the live stream today and I promote the podcast down the road and then I might make an article out of it.
Sometimes not always, you know, and so I'm trying to really maximize all the content I create on all the different channels. And then, you know, the other thing you mentioned, the Amazon live is a little bit different. I stream my podcast there. But I also just do me talk me, me working, or me walking, or whatever, you know, and people tune in and ask questions. So it's kind of interesting. I just, I love it. So you really have taken the whole wash, rinse repeat method that I learned it years ago, we hired a branding manager. And he's like, you've got all these fascinating, crazy stories about psychology and communication and clients that you've worked with, with emotional money spending. And he's like, let's do 52 videos. And I'm going to take the audio and start a podcast, this was back in 2017. I didn't understand I was like, I love talking to the camera, just ask the questions, like whenever you want to know. And so we made 52 videos in three days. And back then it's like, I change clothes for everything. And I look like a robot. Because I can't, I cared about being perfect. And your content was a little bit different back then. And we were in a studio and then the pandemic hits. And it's like, my iPhones looking real good right now, to be able to get a message out there. Things don't have to be perfect. And so it's evolved over time to where we have this accessible marketing tool at our fingertips. I mean, if you have a smartphone, people, you can create content, I don't know how you can create content with a flip phone unless you have a video camera. But I've learned that, you know, he would tell me, Angela, it's not about your makeup and your hair and you don't everything doesn't have to be perfect. It's about the knowledge that you have that you can share with people that you can actually make a difference. And he's like, you're so much more relatable, if you don't try to be perfect. And so it took me a little bit of time to really get comfortable. And not, you know, it's like get comfortable being uncomfortable. And it took me a little bit of time. But if one more person says to me, like, I hate video, I don't. I just and I'm like, Well, do you want to connect with people, you have an incredible story, you have an incredible message, you have so much knowledge, why would you not want to get it out there. So for people that are listening, who are uncomfortable with video, I mean, get on clubhouse, or you could do a podcast? But do you find? Do you have any tools or any advice for people that have that mindset of like they're afraid to do video? Do you ever hear that? I mean, all the time, but I think it's a little bit of an excuse. But the other thing is just think of it as a conversation. You know, we're just chit chatting. It's a little awkward, right? Because like, I'm looking at the camera, and you're actually over there. So like, you know, I take a sip of water to look at you for a second. But so it's a little weird. It's not a true conversation, because you're not looking at the person, I could move the camera over there. But today, it's setup like this. But at the end of the day, just like think of it as a conversation, you know, and know what you can talk about and know what you can talk about, and just, you know, be real be you and you know, Don't be a jerk if you're a jerk, like Don't be that authentic. But, you know, share what you can share. And it's, it's really not that difficult. And the other thing is, you know, I got all this equipment set up here now, it's relatively new, it was not set up like this, I didn't have a ring light, a big one, I didn't have a 4k camera, I didn't have a microphone, you know, I was just using my iPad, or my iPhone. So you're absolutely correct, you can 100% just use your smart devices to get started. And honestly, when I'm traveling, which I know it doesn't happen as much right now. But I was in Phoenix a couple weeks ago and I was doing a live stream with somebody else. And I just put my iPhone on a tripod in front of me that airpots in bow doesn't sound quite as nice as this kind of mic. But it's it's fine. Now you do want to have the more you do them and the bigger your audience grows, you do want to have good audio and it's probably much more important than then good video, quite frankly. But but I think it's going to become a differentiator. And I do it all the time when I got 15 podcasts waiting in my queue. And the first one has bad audio. I'm moving on to the next one. Unless the topic is super interesting. And even then I'm like cringing and maybe not you know.
So do you have like do you sit down once a month or once a quarter we used to do once a year we were on a really good roll, like for my own company brand and my own personal brand. And then when the pandemic Can't wait and schedule some stuff, and then I'm like yeah, maybe we should just do it like quarterly. But we would go away to Cabo for a whole week and like create our content calendar of like what we
We're gonna release online and what everything had to have a strategy and a plan. So what is your overall strategy? Can you share some tidbits with people of like how to like, get it going? Yeah, I mean, definitely go to Cabo first. That's always a Yeah, that to get started. But so I used to say, first of all, you want to have an overarching strategy. And I just looked at mine again the other day, because somebody you know, at Vox PA, he actually said something about, you know, doing something, I was like, Oh, I wonder if that even fits with a strategy. And it does. But I just had to kind of refresh it, but high level, and then, you know, work a few weeks out, but COVID I think, as Todd me, he's, I used to recommend three months out, and then COVID hit, and you know, everything blown up, and everything still changes every two days anyways. So I wouldn't go three months out anymore, honestly, at least that production done, you can have a plan to an extend. So but but the other thing is, you know, you mentioned earlier, lock yourself up for three days and record 52 episodes. Well, in this model, that's actually not possible, because you can go live for 52 straight hours, at least I wouldn't recommend it for your audience. However, so I said that already. already. I can't take it back. But I mean, you might try that actually, you might go, Hey, we're doing 52 hours marathon. But I mean, I don't know like, you know, I don't know, maybe people will listen and watch, I don't know, so maybe or like eight hours or something. But But really, you know, go live once a week, then you have the next podcast episode. So you kind of have everything staggered to an extent.
So that's how I do but yeah, everything has to fit into the strategy, there has to be a keyword strategy in place, you know, what words are we trying to target here? What are we talking about? So all those things still apply, and then you know, do your best. Every once in a while. gut feeling is helpful. You know, if you can come up with a story that you think might be of interest, and it's not crap content really annoying to people, you might create it, even if there's no search volume. I mean, I wrote about Instagram reels audio being horrible. And guess what, hundreds of 1000 people, hundreds of 1000s of people were searching for it a little while later. And nobody was searching for it when I was writing about it. So. So don't just let everything you know, go by the wayside. But for the most part, you want to look into the keywords, you want to look into the topics, you want to look at the relevance to your business. So that's a long way of saying, yes, you want to have a strategy, but you don't want the strategy to allow you to slow down content that doesn't publish will never perform. If you don't publish this podcast because you don't like my hat or you don't like you know, you think I'm overweight or something which I am, by the way, you have a treadmill desk, but I have a treadmill desk illusion, the weight battle is one of the kitchen apps are made in the kitchen. So but my point is, if you never publish it, it's not going to perform no at the end right period.
Nope. So do you think that in terms of live streaming, should every brand and I was just on a for a recent podcast and we were saying like, every person is a walking brand, no matter what you do. I mean, obviously, if you own a business, you want to be maybe a little bit more aware, I just had this conversation with my 18 year old niece and she posted some ridiculous tech talk and I'm like, that really wasn't positive, you might want to consider taking that down because you have she nannies for three families and she has little brothers and sisters and I'm like they look up to you. And so I just want to call that to your attention. You know, I'm very careful with my words. What and what kind of what I really want to say is like what the hell are you thinking might take that down? It just doesn't look at and it follows you for life. But you know, it's like careful with with the teenagers because it's like it kind of has to be their their idea. Then she ended up taking it down but not all content really good content sometimes. And then she said like, this is like you know, the beach ball death to me like when I say it in the computer. I'm like, oh God, the will of death. And then she's like, but I'm trying to get used up. I'm like, Oh, honey, this social media is about having a voice and about helping others. At least that's what I'm trying to teach her like the positive part of social media. And like you don't do things just for views.
That's not the right mindset. So we should discuss that like not over text message. But I feel like that some people, they're missing the point. And so do you think that every brand, like should create content and actually should be even live streaming?
Well, so I get this question quite often should everyone do everything? Yeah, absolutes are always dangerous, right? Should everyone do this? Probably not. Should everyone do something else? Probably not. Is, is the weather always nice? Probably not. Right. So there's exceptions. I'm sure there are. But what people need to stop doing is finding excuses of why they can't do something. Hey, here's the truth, I can't lose any weight. Because food tastes too good. period, the X ray. So it's a fact like so. So at the end of the day, like if people go in and say, Oh, we can't do it, because we're too highly regulated, or we can't go, we can't do it. Because of whatever. Like, we can't do it. Because our CEO is not friendly enough. We can't do it. Because I don't like how I look. On camera, we can't do it. Because I'm I work at home in my pajamas. And I don't want to put on makeup or whatever, like, stop the excuses. So look for a way why you can do it, how you can do it. There's so many options today. So now we have private podcasting. So if you don't want to start with a public podcast, try a private one, get used to it, you know, and of course, depending how big your company is, a private podcast might still be a lot of people listening in your company. But you know, try it, try different things start small work your way up. And that's kind of why I did it. And usually I kind of hide behind the Oh, yeah, I started a podcast because I want to learn whatever. And then all of a sudden has like, you know, 180,000 or 200,000 downloads. And you know, people are listening to it. Now. I'm like, Oh, I better get a better mic. But stop the excuses. And there's always an excuse, why always, I can ride right now. Because I'm not a morning person. I can write today because my boss book meetings all day long. And now I'm in the afternoon, I can only write in the mornings. Do you know what I'm saying? It's like,
like, there's always a reason why you can't do something. So find the reason why you can do it and try it. It doesn't mean it's going to work doesn't mean you're going to take off. And the other thing I want to be very clear about is the audience size depends on your your industry. So for example, let's say you have a show, about construction stuff, construction equipment, and so on, I probably will not care about that one. But now, my audience might care about that. And that audience is a specific size. So you want to make sure like if that's if you know who how many people are in that audience, once you hit that, or a little bit up a little bit above, because there'll be bleed over and additional people who stumble across it, you have your market covered, right? There's not a million views in it. But there's enough people that might tune in. So just something to be aware of that too, because people will say that, oh my god, we only have this many people watching well, but how many people are in your audience? Like, you know, is it a million people? Is it? You know, 30,000? I mean, I still
bet Ben Smith has a website where he talks about people playing the fiddle and stuff. I could care less No offense to my good friend, Ben. But, you know, there's like 40,000 50,000 people in the in the North America that care about that topic, once he has 80,000 people on his website. And I think he might already have that. Guess what, there's nobody else that will care about that topic for the most part. So you got to be aware of that, too. It's so true. Well, in the way I look at it, too, is that I mean, we when you're consistent, and you show up, what you put out, you're going to get back in that's with anything and everything you do. That's why as I've as I've gotten smarter, and a little bit more wise, like every year I'll learn more. It's like I say no more to things that I say yes, because I'm not going to have us do it. And it's not that I don't want to do it. But I tell myself, I don't have time to do that, which is not really an excuse. But it's not important to me at that moment. So the answer is no. And and I find people giving excuses so often, especially women, and then I tell myself, I don't need to give you a reason or an excuse. It's not important to me. And if it's not important to get your brand out there and to grow your audience. You
See, you want that. But if you want something just like losing weight, if you want to lose weight, you have to count your calories. Or you have to watch what you're putting in your mouth. And it's like, but food tastes so good. It's like you can't work out all the time and then eat everything that you want inside and expect the same result. It takes this one thing, one thing called discipline. And it's with anything that you do, like I have to be disciplined to sit down with my calendar on a Sunday says for 10 hours to go answer all these questions to create 30 Mini videos, so that we can put it out for the next 60 days. I know that if I'm disciplined to sit there and do it, that it's done for the next 60 days, and something about that just feels good. I don't know I'm not live streaming. But
you can do it, it's easy, you can totally do it. So here's the thing, there's so many shortcuts, I'll give you an example. I livestream my daughter's basketball games. I got you know, with switcher, so I got a camera here camera there a camera there. So three cameras in the produce it on the iPad. And by camera, I mean iPhone on a tripod. But that's all I write down when there's a highlight. So as soon as the game is over, I can create a highlight reel 10 minutes, people say how they think I'm going through the whole game again. But I wrote down the timestamps, right. So by the time it's done, I'm just doing it. So my point is all kinds of ways to be more efficient. There's all kinds of ways to hack the system, don't just think, you know, oh, I have to do it one way or another. There's a gazillion ways to do it.
Well, and also to like my whole thing, being a productivity guru, is that to be present. And so if you're at her game, and you're so live streaming it, which is something that you enjoy doing, and you're also sharing it with a bunch of other people, but you actually have to pay attention and be present to timestamp, like those moments. And you're already going to be there. Anyway, so why would you not do those things? I'm sorry. And you have to pay attention because you got to flip the cameras. Yep, and the batteries and SD cards, like there's all these things. But don't use that as an excuse. Like for everybody that's listening. It's like you can do it with your with your iPhone. And then I have had people say, Okay, I'm doing this with my iPhone, and I'm creating this, and I'm creating that. And then I keep getting this notification on my iPhone that my storage is full. I'm like, well, that that's a that's a good problem. It's a good thing, but you can fix that. And then teaching people all about storage. And but you know what I think about years ago, when I started all this content stuff, if if the video person sat down and told me everything, I would be like, this is way too much work. And I don't want to do all of this. And so sometimes, like, I don't tell people everything at once, because you got to take it in chunks, like you said, just start, then you build an audience, okay, then get a better microphone, learn how to hook it up. And y'all it's not that Guess what, there is secret secret Tom, there is a YouTube video that teaches you how to do pretty much anything and everything. And if I google something, or go on YouTube and search for it, and there's not a video how to do that, I'll figure it out. And then I'll make I will make a video about it. Because somebody else has to be searching for these things. It's not just you, and it's not just me. So it's it's all about being productive. And then wash, rinse repeating that content if you're already doing it. So can you share any like stories or examples about like, how live streaming specific specifically has really helped your brand and coming across as like being very authentic? Like, what are some stories that you can share? Well, I think just by just by going live, you know, it's you have to be authentic, you have to kind of make it fun, have some personality in there and be able to talk it through, because you know you are live. So the only editing that has that happens is really before I open my mouth. And so it's something to keep in mind. On the flip side, I really what I found is when you do live streams with the executives especially you take the expectation that there will be an edit away, which is really powerful because people won't say anything they don't want to have on air, because it's already on air. Right? You can do it. So it really helps from all those different perspectives. And, you know, again, just think of it as a conversation. Just talk, just talk it through, you know, just chat about it. If we were live right now, you know, we'd have the comments up, we would see if anybody would comment when people are being trolls. You know, I might say that I'm like Oh come on, you know
We can stay on topic and blah, blah, blah. And sometimes you pull up the comment, you throw it on the screen, depending on what platform you use. But it's really, I think it's a really great way for people and brands, you know, brands are run by people at the end of the day, usually, typically speaking, at least in 2021 year, it gives them those guardrails to be authentic, to share things that matter and, and to make it fun at the end of the day, if you are boring to listen to, and I would not overthink that either. When you first start, but at some point, you know, you just like you learn how to be on camera you learn and talk and, and make it fun. tell a joke, you know, like you talk about silly acronyms like crap and other things like that. Tell fun stories, that engages your audience and they'll remember it.
One also to something that I've really had to learn, especially during the whole pandemic thing is a speaker is I'm always like, okay, you know, we both spoke at pod Fest in 30 minutes, y'all to get like, all this information out. It's hard. And it's like, I want to tell people so much stuff. But it forces you to be very thoughtful about what you're going to say like within those 30 minutes. And so, for podfest I'm like, okay, so I asked one of my team members, I'm like, can you be in there? And like, keep up with with any questions coming in? And then I'll go back and answer the questions like when I get to the content, and some people did it that way. I think I'm just used to that, because I have ADHD. So I like get really distracted, very easily. And so that's another reason why I really like to have slides in front of me because it keeps me on track. And it keeps me sometimes I still go off on tangents. But the slides helped me pull it back, especially like when I'm timing it and practicing it. But what are your thoughts or like your opinion, as a consumer, like someone watching because I noticed on y'all there were like, over, I don't know, 450 sessions, and some of the people use some of their 30 minutes to get on and just talk with people. And they're like, Hi, welcome. What questions do you have, and then they talked to them for a good 20 minutes, and then they didn't go into any of the content? And and till the very end, and they taught for about, I would say seven or eight minutes, and then like they would wrap it up? And then they would say, Okay, now we're going to go into clubhouse, or we're going to have a private zoom, like you can join this link if you have more questions. But do you think like, as live streaming, and as people are getting more acclimated into, like having a conversation, do you think one strategy works better than the other?
Well,
you got to test it. Yeah, you got to see what works and what doesn't work. It also depends on what your goal is. So I'll give you an example. I used to work with a guy who said I could care less if 598 people out of 600 hate me at this conference at this keynote, if two of them sign a big deal. You know, and so if the only goal is to make some quick money, maybe that's a good strategy, I prefer a little bit more of the the gray area, you know, get a good deal and get some good deals and, and not have 598 out of 600 people hate me, right? Because they thought I'm so annoying prick or something. So you kind of want to find that balance, certainly, on what you're doing and how you're doing it.
But I personally find it very irritating when people only talk because, you know, I came there for a reason. But I think these conferences, it's really hard to pick good sessions anyways. Because first of all, there's so many some people attend sessions because of the names. But just because you're a big name doesn't mean it's a good session, you know. So that's nothing to keep in mind. And, you know, sometimes the title doesn't tell you whether they're good speakers, or they make it fun or whatever. But you do always have to do fun things to keep people engaged. And of course, getting people talking, keeps them engaged, right, like I'm much more engaged now than, than if I was just sitting here watching you talk for you know, 40 minutes or whatever is interesting as it is, you know, no offense, but you know what I mean? So you kind of want to test it and see what works and also depends how many people show up. If you got to 600 people, you can't just have a conversation with them because that doesn't work. But if you have 20 people, maybe a conversation is the way to go. But at the end of the day, you do have to engage people somehow to make them feel like they're getting something out of it. Sometimes you know if they're not laughing or they're
Whatever, you know, or they're engaged in some other way, you probably have to figure out how to how to get them back and move forward. Yeah, but what you were saying something earlier to me too, before we started recording, like live streaming, especially on Amazon, like it's a little bit different, you don't have to talk the whole time. And that's okay. So how did you wrap your mindset around going from like being live and teaching and talking to people versus like live streaming, and like not talking? Like, we're at the beginning, it's totally weird. And because Amazon live is a different beast. And most people, what they do is they think of Amazon, like, you have to do like an infomercial. And I did that too. And then actually, you know, I had to deal with and you can't see it in this angle, but with
a robot vacuum cleaner company. So they sent this thing to me, and I reviewed it, and it performed just fine. And my six year old wanted to be in the video, she talked about it too. And it was kind of cute. But now every day, I put the camera on that vacuum cleaner when it drives around the house and cleans the house. I live stream, the vacuum, the vacuum cleaner cleaning, I call it the robot vacuum cleaner life camp. And, you know, people watch it, like there's, I mean, there's like 40 consecutive, whatever it is consecutive right now. Whatever, at the same time, yours. And you know, by the time you're done, there's like 7000 8000 10,000 people watching this thing, driving around my house. And that's a very different mindset from me having to talk about it for two hours, right? Or when we're done, I'm probably just gonna go back to turn the cameras back on. And I don't think I've any other meetings for the day. So just live stream myself working, and people can check out my setup. And if they have a question they can ask it. And it's been very, very successful for me. And it's that's a different model, though, right? Because that's not me sharing traditional value through content, it's me sharing value, through what I'm showing, without really doing much other than having the setup and being available. And I don't know why you can do that. I think companies, if I if I run marketing at a robot vacuum cleaner company, why can I run my own vacuum cleaner through somebody's house every single day? And be available for questions why I can do it like, and I'm not. And sometimes people go, Oh, they asked me something. And I'm like, Oh, I don't know, I'm in the other room, or I'm on the other floor. Like I'm not even near the thing, right? So because it's in another part of the house. And like, people can do that, like you can have it run around the office, you know, in live stream, and he doesn't show much of the house at all other than the floor, you know, so it's not like it's privacy or whatever. But think outside the box, what what might work for your brand. What might not work? You know,
like the other day, I got a new
What do you call it solar panel for a ring light, and I just live streamed myself installing it? Mm hmm. Like why not? Yep. I think that, um, I've been such of the mindset because I was a planner, and I'm still a planner for so long. It's like, when you plan things, you get results. And it's like we plan every even our lab strains like we just started this, we started to use stream yard, I got a fire lit under my butt at pod fest. So I'm like, okay, we need to like start using one of these restream or, or stream yard and go live on like these three or four platforms and like, show up consistently just answering one question, what's your number one time suck, and then giving people productivity tips of like things that we've implemented over the years. And so but I never thought, because with live streaming, it sounds like you don't really need to schedule it. It's not like you need to tell anybody or make an event on Facebook or LinkedIn. You can just do it is what I'm hearing. And that's acceptable. And that's okay. You just have to get started. It's true, but I I so yes, you don't have to promote it. In fact, I used to promote them. And it was kind of a mess, because then people see the old posts, which doesn't link to the new posts and whatever. But now I think I'm pretty sure you can do it in stream yard. I've seen people do it. But in restream, I do it in there as well. I schedule them to YouTube, LinkedIn, you can schedule to Facebook, I don't really stream to Facebook currently. But I do that because the preview posts, the scheduled post sees a few 100 views already. So there is value in doing that. So you don't have to do it. But it extends the reach and then there's always a call to action.
You know, like, I'm doing a live show with Jody Crangle, who's a voiceover actor, actress. And, you know, I link to her site. So and I link to my new book and whatever, or other podcast episodes, I'm already trying raising some awareness just by doing that.
So just yeah, I mean, see what works, see, you know, see what doesn't work. The only problem is, when you schedule things publicly, now, you kind of committed to going live.
I have I've, you know, I've had things happen and canceled something. And nobody called me angrily and said, Oh, my goodness, how can we bring the life? But
I do feel a little bit committed when you do that. So
you know, there's different ways of going about that, for sure. You got to show up. I know, our first stream yard we had, we scheduled it a week in advance, and then we went live. And then LinkedIn gave me some like little red thing that was like, it's not live. And so like, okay, let's get off. And we'll try again, I don't know what happened. It gave me an error that said that I'd posted too much that day. And I'm like, I haven't posted on LinkedIn at all today. And so my team members are like, No, we haven't posted on LinkedIn. I don't know what happened, but should happen, y'all. It's technology is not perfect. So I think that just be having a little bit of grace and not worrying about it. But I definitely hear you like, if you put it out there you commit to it. And even if there's one person, that's like looking forward to it, you want to show up for that one person. But I did download it when we were done. And then I re upload it to LinkedIn. And I'm like, you know, technology. If you missed it, you can check it out here on YouTube or on Facebook. I know they like for you to stay on the platform, but something happened. So we still don't know what happened. But that's okay. Like, we'll show up next week, we will try again, nothing's perfect, don't get all upset. It's like, we all understand that technology is imperfect. And then in the middle of one of ours, there's like a terrible tornado watch and thunderstorms. And I'm like, now if the internet goes out, you know what happened and like everybody needs to go get their bathtub, probably and or, you know, in a storm, not everybody has storm storm room or a storm shelter. Like depending on where you live, but it's just like, have a personality about it. And like, don't sweat the small stuff. It's not that bad. It really isn't. And you will make mistakes, I've made every mistake in the book, I've unmuted the wrong person, I've went on the wrong account, I've done whatever, I put up the wrong or third I did whatever, like just deal with it. Now we do have I do have a real talk, you know, we do have a little bit of a rule that if it doesn't trigger to network, like you just mentioned on LinkedIn within the first two minutes, and we catch it, we will just stop it, even if it went everywhere else, and we will start a new. So that's not a perfect setup, but you know, so it kind of gives you these guardrails on how to do and sometimes the live stream might not work. It happens there's like as Jason fall says 47 dominoes. Most are out of your control, you know, like it's my internet working is your internet working, is are the connections working is whatever, like, there's 100 things that could go wrong. So like, take it easy, relax, something will happen, no doubt, and just roll with it. And you know, there's been live streams, we didn't go live. And we just recorded the audio because it wasn't going to work. We tried it three times. And at some point, you got to give up and do whatever works. And that's okay. You know, just roll with it. And that's okay, sometimes. And I will say like, one thing that I've learned is right before we go live, or before I do podcasts or anything like that, like I restart my computer, I unplug everything, I plug it back in just a hard reset sometimes, like helps everything work again, depending on like how many windows and how many tabs and how many screens you have open. So I do try to like close everything before I start to get on. Because your your computer and the compressor only has so much brain power, just you know, just like humans. So tell everybody, where can they get your book? Because this is awesome. All that going live. Yeah, so of course it's available on Amazon. And it's I'm super excited. You can have the Kindle paperback, that's not a new thing for me. But now you can get the hardcover copy version. That's a new thing that in my previous books have come out in hardcover, a new program that I'm part of with Amazon for four independent publishers. So super excited to see that that's the hardcover is only like five countries US, UK, Germany, France, Spain, Italy, something like that. But of course you can get the book worldwide authentic storytelling. dotnet is my blog if you want to connect there as well. And, you know, hopefully connect with me on the business storytelling podcast.
Next on LinkedIn, if you want to, don't send me a message and let me know, you see that I'm human, you want to help me with my goals. Don't just say you're me on Angeles Show. I'm happy to connect with you. You enjoyed the show or whatever. But don't send me some crappy nonsense sales message like that.
For sure, but yeah, always happy to connect, hope you check out the book. And I really appreciate you making the time for to have me on your show. Awesome. And y'all if you're listening, or watching, you can keep doing whatever we're doing. We'll put all the links in the show notes. So you guys know how to get in touch, how to get the book and how to reach out. Do you have a favorite favorite platform that from social media like his LinkedIn or Twitter, do you have a favorite that you hang out on more than the others? So it? Well, I definitely hang out the most on Amazon right now. I mean, if you think about it, so let's say four hours a day, maybe five times seven. I mean, it's like 35 hours a week, you know? So if you go by that, definitely, Amazon is really being good to me right now. So, maybe so Amazon, I would think, um, it's very different. You know, if you only take the podcast, maybe still Amazon, I mean, there's a ton of views people tuning in to those shows, when I'm just talking with people about whatever we're talking about. If Amazon wasn't there, I don't know Twitter and LinkedIn are probably kind of neck to neck and, and it changes. And that's the other thing to keep in mind. Stuff changes. When somebody asked me, they said, How did you apply to be an Amazon live? And I said,
I don't know. And they said, How do you not know you have to apply? I'm like, I know. But I Amazon rolled out their influencer program, five, six years ago. And my rule of thumb is every time you do anything new, I always apply. Like, like, you can be verified on Twitter. I applied today, people asked me, How can you become verified Twitter, you can't anymore unless you're a celebrity. Because they shut that off. Right? They turned that on. And so I always make it when I know about it. I always, you know, apply, I'm unclip as I do this, I'm here, whatever, even if I don't use it. So I joined that program on Amazon, six years ago, whatever it was, never did anything. Then their role at Amazon live and I go in, I'm like, Oh, I better apply. I'm already in because I applied six years ago, right? And I've just hadn't done much. And I just start doing it. So So the trick is, like, always be curious. Try it sign up. And you know, at some point, the time might be right, and even if the time is not, right, who cares? If you have an account, you're not using, you know, why does it matter? So can I go follow you on Amazon? And that's how I see your live streams? You can? Absolutely, but it's very different. It's not really truly about like, so I told somebody a brain I said, Oh, I got like 185 followers, like, Oh, that's it. I'm like, Yeah, but that's not how it works on Amazon. I mean, you can you can totally Follow me. And that helps. But it's not like Twitter, like you don't go through the list usually like the updates, right? People see it, when, when they're shopping, they see it on the page for some people. So yes, you can follow and you can just go to authentic storytelling that net forward slash live that ships you right over there.
But it's different, like so I got 185 followers, but you know, I don't know, hundreds of 1000s of views quarter million shipped in products. So it's definitely a good channel. But when you compare it to like Twitter, you know, if you say I've got 185 followers, nobody would say that's a good account. Right? Different on on Amazon currently, right? Now, my I'm very interested to like, know more. So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna if I don't put it on my calendar, like over the weekend to like, learn new things. It just doesn't happen. So I'm like, I need to know more about this. That's awesome. This is super helpful. So fun to talk with you. And just, I love how you're innovative. And you're always thinking ahead. So thank you so much for everything that you shared today. This was awesome. You bet. Thanks for having me. Of course and everybody that's listening. Be sure to tune in next week to another episode of business unveiled. And thank you so much for your time today, and try out live streaming and let us know how did it go and what are you learning and keep innovating? Y'all have a great day. Bye. That's it for this week's episode of business unveiled. Now that you have all the tools that you need to conquer the world and GSD get shit done. Would you share this with your friends and fellow business leaders? One thing that would really really help us and help new listeners is for you to rate the show. And leave a comment and Apple podcast Spotify Stitcher,
Sure, or wherever you tune in and listen to business unveiled. You can check out the show notes at Angela proffitt.com slash podcast and link up with us on social media so you can share your biggest insights. And I want to know your aha moments. Until next week, remember, the profitable shifts and structures you're creating in your business, help you be more present in your life. So get out there and GSD