 So I just want to thank everybody for coming. This is a new experiment that we're starting called the Master Series. And the Master Series is kind of our way to help spread the goodness, spread the wealth. So one of the things that Geekdom has as an asset, I feel, is access to really smart people. And I think that this is the year where we take advantage of that and spread their knowledge to the members. And so that is the attempt. This is the first ever Master Series. And I'm really happy with our first speaker. She is not ridiculously nervous right now. So nobody look over there. Just look at the terrorist-looking guy. Sorry. So just a quick intro. I'm super, super pumped about this. We've got a ton of really great speakers coming in. Next month, we're going to have David Brice, who's the godfather of fanatical support at Rackspace. After that, we have a really amazing woman named Kathy Kirsten, who might not be in the audience or might be in the audience. And our goal is to just pummel you with amazing information and experts. So that's what the Master Series is. We hope you guys can make it as many as you can. But if not, we're going to be recording them. We're going to put them online in the member portal so that part of the exclusiveness of having to geek the membership is getting to see the Master Series. So without further ado, I'm going to do a little intro to Christie St. Martin, born in Bermuda, but then turned into a Canadian. And that's OK. And she's a huge sports fan, which I'll let her tell you about. But she started her own personal blog called All Things Christie, which she became kind of a legend for. She was a big deal. She kind of grew a cult following. And then later, actually, she wrote and managed a VH1 website called Best Week Ever. Also had the Los Angeles Times gave her her own blog. And she contributed to the LA Times Hero Complex. I guess that was a series? Is that a? It was about sci-fi and geek cults. It was nerdy stuff. Nerdy stuff and video games. Really cool stuff. Really cool things. That's what we care about. She also used to manage the social media for JP Morgan Chase and for L'Oreal. Kind of a big deal, I think. I've never heard of those companies. And apparently currently the co-founder of two online applications, web apps, that are getting launched this year. Is that right? Yes. All right. So enough of the brown guy on to the pretty lady. Please join me in welcoming the first kickoff of our master series, Christie St. Martin. Thank you. Oh my god. Thank you, Lorenzo. First of all, I didn't trip. So feeling pretty good for starters. Nailed it. So basically what I want to do is explain that it's really not that hard out there. I think it's just something that what you specialize in, what you do, and you're an expert in, this is kind of my field. And I hope that some of it resonates with you. And you can kind of take it and apply it to your own work. But I just kind of want to explain it's not hard. It's just a matter of getting out, doing it, getting more familiar, and finding out what really works for you. And obviously if you need help with your PowerPoint presentations for your business, I am your lady. Because I nailed it again. All right. This is a button. Pressing it. Whoops. Which way this way? Already nailed it. OK. So yeah, this is kind of what I want to go over today. So just a brief overview. So first I kind of want to explain why you're here, what brought you to the internet, why you need to use social media for yourself, what you want it to do, whether it's for you, or for others, or both. Engagement 101 and influence. So I'll explain the art of being pretty much the world's biggest fans to your fans, because that to me is everything that is important with social media. It's less to do with you and everything to do with the people that are following you. Operation Brand Hipster. So for those of us who are definitely part of a generation that didn't immediately know that when you get a sandwich delivered to your table, you were supposed to take a picture of it first before eating. If that's something you're like, I have no idea that this protocol for lunch. I'm going to explain that now you can train yourself too to be like, that looks like a delicious sandwich, and I'm going to share it with the world. Hashtag delish. So next one would be my social media checklist, which I actually created for the company that I'm working with right now, which is called HeroX, which some of you might know of that works with Geekdom for their MX challenge for San Antonio to turn San Antonio into the next big major tech hub, which is really exciting. And I do their community development and digital strategy. So I also just recently started training their new community manager, Julie, who I will probably put on the spot a few times today. Yeah, she's amazing. And she picked it up super fast. And you can say, oh, it's regeneration, but she's just really smart. Anyways, moving on. And then of course Q&A, because I know that what I'm doing right now is mostly focusing on the importance of why it's so necessary for you to be a really good listener online. And I focus on that, so I'm probably going to skip over a lot of the basics that you might have, so please feel free to interrupt me at any point in time. And then afterwards, any of the questions I don't cover. Bam. Excuses to popes, pictures of cats. Standard protocol for me. Anyways, so why are you here? What's your deal? And so the one thing I kind of want to say from a business perspective is it used to be a time period where if you had a complaint, you knew you had to call a particular complaint line, and everyone would do the iRule thing, and you're like, there's some number. I have to go to the website and scroll through. Who do I need to complain to? How do I do this? And unfortunately, that is not how it works anymore. You might have that number on your site, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that only 1% of people are actually still going to do that. They think they can contact you on all of your social platform pages. And it is your responsibility now to respond. Not just respond, but respond as fast as you possibly can. And that is very difficult from a tech startup place, because you're either bootstrapping it for yourself or you have a small team. And everyone feels like what they're doing is way more important than responding to a simple question on Twitter, but it's actually the reverse. So responding to that question on Twitter or Facebook is way more important than whatever you thought was key for that day. And that even goes as far as meeting investors. For example, I think your investor would understand that your clients and your future fans are going to be more important than that conversation. They're going to invest in you. Wouldn't it be nice to know that you care more about that than this guy in a suit? So anyways, basically what I want to do is explain that real-time interaction is 100% where you need to focus your time. I like the 30-minute rule, which is unless it's the middle of the night, and that's fair you were allowed to sleep as a human being. You can even maybe respond in the morning with, sorry it took eight hours to respond. I actually had to sleep last night. You can make jokes about it. You can be light-hearted. People understand. But as far as during the day goes, really as fast as possible. And with that comes down to, it seems really common sense, but the truth is it's so easy to get overwhelmed, especially when you start to take off with where they're hitting you up. And there's a lot of really great platforms and tools that you can use to kind of have it all in one center. Hootsuite's great. What I'm gonna suggest that anyone does at this particular presentation today is if you can write down your email address, I'm gonna send like a PDF format of a bunch of different things that are really good, like explaining who influencers are, like what platforms I recommend for your company. But I didn't wanna do that here. I just really wanted to drive it home that this stuff is super important. And the stuff that's super important is you being a real human being to your company. So the nice thing that you get to do as a startup is not be JP Morgan Chase, right? So you get to be personal. You don't have to do canned responses. In fact, I urge you not to do canned responses. You don't like, it's great to set like a guideline, right? Cause people are gonna ask a lot of the standard questions. So I truly believe that you should create a document preparing just literally brainstorm all the crazy questions you think someone may ask you online about what it is that you do, right? So have a rough idea of like, if they're gonna be like, well, how do I register? You know, how do I unsubscribe from newsletters? All that stuff you can create, but when you actually choose to respond, you wanna personalize that as much as possible. That's your opportunity to show your personality of your company and who you are. And so one of the things that I think is really cool about startups is that like, because it's your baby, you're the best person to be the community manager when it first start out. And then ideally as your company grows, you want your community manager to be your number two. And this is where I think a lot of companies get it wrong. So companies like JP Morgan Chase, I keep brailing on them, but I really, I hope that I never have to work for them again. They're gonna watch this and be like, why do you keep making fun of us? So, but the thing is like, a lot of companies just haven't figured it out that interns are not the person for this job. Think of a bank, maybe not JP Morgan Chase because maybe you have a break. Name another bank. Oh, I can't think of any. Nervous. Anyways, so when you walk in, the tellers, I don't know how it is in the States, but in Canada, they hate their job. So like, in fairness, I have worked in a bank and I hated my job too. And the thing is like, you get paid nothing, right? People ask you questions, you barely know how to respond to because you've had like a week of trading and you're supposed to know everything about banking. Now I'm an expert in credit cards because I've had to do it both personally in a bank and then work for an actual bank. So I kind of feel pretty smart about it. If you have any questions about credit, I am also your girl. So anyways, my point is they hate their job. They haven't yet figured out a way to make them the most important people in their company and they should be. The truth is a lot of it is just like, oh, it's really bad, we'll get our manager to it. But that's the face of the bank. Like most people have no idea what's going on. They don't do like stock investments. They're not talking to anything else. They have no idea. Their only experience of a bank is their teller and it's this miserable person who's like, please don't get mad at me. Don't ask me a question I don't know. I don't know the difference of my cards yet. Just please take this piece of paper and read it for yourself and come back to me when you've made your mind up. And for community managers, you can't have that. When you have a company, you shouldn't have to run it through a series of people to get approval to post something. And what J.P. Morgan does, and oh my God, why do I keep saying it? It's because they're really everything that's wrong in social. But anyways, what happens is, as a community manager, you're working with third-party content agencies, right? And then you're also dealing with client reps within J.P. Morgan Chase. And then even worse, you have to deal with their legal department. So we have pre-approved canned responses that have all been approved by legal. You think I could just take that and post it in the response. That is not how it works. I then send, I get the post it comes up. I'm like, okay, this guy, it's like, he can't find the branch. He needs a branch locator tool. Very basic question. Again, not really understanding why this involves a legal team whenever we've already discussed this about like eight months ago. I send this to the client rep in a nice email which takes me probably like three minutes to do. Which is explaining the time date, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, so-and-so has responded that they cannot find the branch in Kentucky. I recommend, not we should post, I recommend we post as we discussed eight months ago the locator tool app with their name tagged. They then go, thanks, Christie, that's awesome. They send it to the legal department and we wait eight hours. That poor person in their car trying to find just a bank, like just a bank, like, has long since probably looked it up on Google on their phone, right? And by the time I get legal approval to post it, it's eight hours later and I'm already formulating the apology response because I already know like we have failed you and I am super sorry. And that is what it's like for a big company and you don't, you get to avoid all of that. But this is exactly why you have to empower your community managers. So when you get to the point where it's no longer your job anymore, you have to let this person know just as much about your company as you do. And sometimes you can't do that in pay structures so what I recommend is letting them know they're the most important person in this company and finding ways to involve them and keep them looped in and keep them motivated and let them come up with really cool ideas to show case your company. And that's, as far as I'm concerned, that to me isn't a perfect community manager job. I don't know who wouldn't want that. And if you can sit there and go and you can't pay them the way that you want to, by the time you look for the next job, they're in that interview and they know everything about that company. Would you not hire the person who knew everything about a company that they worked for despite, like as if they were the CEO, I would be amazed. So, and that's kind of where I am today is that I chose to make the decision to learn everything about credit cards, right? I didn't have to. I could have just done the, I know community management and that should be enough and I'll just stay to pay attention to this canned response list I cared. And those are the people that you hire just for the record. Okay, moving on to the next big thing. It's like, again, real time, super important. Be honest, be yourself. Your company is you. What I think is most important is that you have personality. I hate nothing more than a Twitter page that looks like a generic feed, right? I've just like, so-and-so mashable article, read this. And there's no personality to it. You're not taking the time to maybe see if there's a Star Wars joke, you could incorporate into it. If you care, and the thing is if your audience are the kind of people that like Star Wars jokes, then you have various Wikipedia pages that you could pull jokes from and you can't remember quotes and you have endless options for photos you can use and content. So it's about knowing your company so well and your audience that you can speak authentically as if they're just a bud, right? And that's the approach that you get to do that J.B. Morgan can't do or L'Oreal can barely do. Anyway, so the other thing that I love doing is people don't, I don't do this because I'm just, I'm someone who's been online and since like mud days on dial-up, so I never had a problem just starting a conversation or something stupid online and knowing that I just said something stupid online and it is there forever. And please don't Google me because there's so much stupid stuff that I regret. But the point is you have to not be scared and you have to not panic. And the point is you probably are gonna make a mistake but it's more important to make the mistake to learn what not to do again than to just be like afraid to type a single tweet, right? And I think that the best thing to do is like, go have to model it after your favorite accounts. Like if you've ever seen something like a Facebook page that does something really great, think of it in brainstorm ideas of like, okay, well I can't, I'm not that person and my company doesn't fit this Star Wars fan page. And it'd be like, but what about it do I like? Like what kind of messages do they do? Is it because they're funny? Am I laughing? Is that why I'm reading this page? Or is it because they have great images that I know I can use down the road for myself? That's how you need to look at social media. It's a constant learning, keep examples, bookmark. Things that you love, go back and go back to it and be like, well I was that close to that, did I nail it? And most importantly, don't panic when no one likes your post. You're just starting out and not everything is gonna resonate with people. And again, a lot of the times it's just people like us that I don't know about you but I'm on Facebook and I have trained myself enough to like people's things. Sometimes I don't even read it but I know it's by friends and it's really important so you're not reading the comment but you're like, I'm a good friend. So leg button, leg button and just scroll through and use feed. A lot of people don't bother to take the time to do that. And that doesn't mean the content doesn't resonate with you. It's just like your time spent is valuable and what you're doing is you have to forget that you're preaching to everybody. You just want the right people to read your page. So you have to just presume that you have that huge audience that's hitting the like button from the get go. And I don't know if you've noticed this with your own social media sites but when someone finds you, it may take eight months but all of a sudden it's like they went back and read your whole Twitter page and it's just like like favorite, favorite, favorite. Retweet and it's like I was genius eight months ago and you just notice now is how I feel. I was like, that was gold. I gave you gold and you didn't like what I did and now apparently now you like me. But the truth is like that's your opportunity to respond. And it's not enough just to hit the follow button to that person who took the time to go read your Twitter page like a whole thing. Engage them, find out what they're about and respond authentically. They might again have nothing to do with your company. They may understand tech culture at all but they might say something like in their tagline I like yoga and I don't know, find a way. Like there's a Star Wars yoga chart, right? So if Star Wars is your thing and the only thing you know about yoga is there's a chart. I'd be like, have you seen this? LOLs, whatever, hashtag and create a relationship with that person who just took the time to follow you. So again, that's the listen part which brings me into the next section if I can turn it. There we go, okay. So listening is like the most important thing you can do as a community manager. So like as I tell anyone I train, so Julie over there I get them to put her on the spot, embarrassing. What I tell her is like it's so hard to explain to a boss who doesn't know social media or how to measure it. So when someone's like how do you do a scorecard for a community manager? It's very difficult because what I'm gonna tell them they should be doing is spend four hours on Reddit. So, and four hours on Reddit which has nothing to do about talking about the company. Right, so what I would recommend the ideal community manager whose job is just community management and I get if you're doing it yourself this doesn't really apply to you yet but ideally if you're successful it will totally apply to you and you will understand and hire the right person. Reddit is a great community for startups, right? Cause a lot of those people have been online since the internet came into existence, right? The older groups are and the young ones are paying attention to it. They have a bookmark, it's their homepage. They start their day there. They end their day there. It's all day interaction with other people that they introverts like me enjoy cause we don't have to actually talk to you face to face over having a really great connection and it meant something to me I feel good about it and I go home. This is where your community manager spends all of their time. What you do is you participate in other people's conversations. So I had a friend who was starting a dating website which is really cool and I can't talk about it yet so I'll just say generic dating website. What was really awesome and I told her to do she was like how do I launch? How do I do this launch? And I'm like well for starters have you, do you have a Reddit account? And then her answer was like no what is Reddit? And I'm looking at her because she's nerdy and I didn't understand in a million years why a tech person doesn't even know what Reddit exists. So we did a little bit of a crash course and explained and for those of you that don't know it's just, it's this major community that is to, is there anyone here? Raise your hand, I don't want to explain Reddit to anyone. Does anyone not know what Reddit is? Okay, okay, all right so. I have a friend that knows it. I don't have one. All right, so Reddit is this really great community that kind of started based off of like designs like farf.com and something awful which is geek communities that just wanted to share links. It's actually what I used to do for my old website before places like Reddit existed but it was one person. It was me doing like 12 links a day throughout the day of like cool stuff and then adding my like tagline or like witty retort or pictures of that. Mostly all pictures of that with what I think is witty. Retort and then hoping that people like it. The difference is the comment section is actually what keeps these things alive and they then vote, downvote and upvote what they consider to be amazing. So some of us have been on Reddit when they don't want to be, this person I have and I have watched things be upvoted and I read my comment section and it's when you go in the fetal position at night because you just basically get destroyed which you eventually get much better at handling and it's hard as a company when you get mentioned there because like the truth is a lot of people just say things because it's anonymous comments and they just want to be funny and they don't really care about what it is so it's a very humbling experience Reddit but it's a huge community that's become so popular that like there's not a news outlet that doesn't check Reddit. Like they get their stories from Reddit probably before they do anywhere else and that's kind of cool. So this dating, this friend of mine who wanted to create a dating website came to me she's like I don't know what to do I don't know what to do for launch how do I, how do I do this? You're a social media person, you don't know how to do this. How do I do it? And what I told her was have you been on Reddit? I suggest you go to the relationship columns and just start reading and commenting as a human being. Like as a person who you also have like you've created this website I'm assuming you have a story of why you did this clearly it was not an easy time for you finding this really handsome German guy that you met. And so she's like okay cool and she's also a huge foodie and I was like definitely go check out like the following sub Reddit groups to talk about these things and just engage yourself. So I told her eight months, just spent eight months getting to know the people of Reddit and the communities that are important to you and that's what she did. She is about to launch and she has now in the last two months which I again instructed her to do which is going really well. Started to tell her story and why she created a dating website. She had never met any guy that she liked locally and it wasn't until she was traveling abroad that she met someone and for her it was so interesting because it was different and unique and had different cultures and he's a Western guy and she's Asian and it was like discovering how to navigate each other's experiences. And so she created a dating website in the process of launching this amazing website that helps you find and explain different cultures. So it's like the idea that if you have chosen this route and you find someone it's like how do you get to know them? It's not just a dating website, it's gonna be more like best practices, how to navigate their parents, right? Cause like you don't understand what their culture is like and I think it's really cool and now the Reddit community is so behind this because they're actually giving feedback and have been giving feedback for months. They're going like you should probably do this and maybe have like all your blogs should have a regular person who's doing astrology reports and then you should also have a different blogger talking about their own personal dating experiences, not just success stories but also nightmare stories cause those are funny and people love sharing that. And she's been blown away, now she tells me that she's like having a hard time working in the site cause she's spending like 12 hours a day on Reddit with her friends. And the truth is when she comes to launch what's gonna happen is she's gonna immediately have that entire community behind her and they're gonna push her page to the top of Reddit and everybody's gonna hear about this amazing new dating website which is in fairness pretty questionable but that's also what's gonna make it work. It has quirky and not everyone's gonna agree it and that conversation that's happening on Reddit is not all gonna be positive. When it goes front page on Reddit the communities will be happy cause they'll feel like they did something that they helped her get to this point. This launch point is not just her job anymore, it's their success story. But when she goes live on page people are going to tear her apart and that's when the other part of community management comes into which is moderation. So it is your duty when people start asking questions about like oh this website is just called one of the questions she said was like and she said this to me and she's like I'm worried that people are gonna think it's like a yellow fever dating website and I'm like yes you are going to get a lot of questions about that. So what she started doing is prepared canned responses to explain that that's not the case. This is where it came from, explain her story and then she's gone back to these canned responses and added her own personality into it which is gonna be the personality of her website. So you create like I need to say this I need to answer this problem and then kinda stylize it. When that launch day happens she is prepared for at least 65% of those questions and maybe if I help her out and I have some time 75% of those questions and you're gonna get full of stuff you don't know how to answer and you just again you say I'm sorry actually I don't know how to answer that question yet I guess ask me again in four months, right? The same is like oh why did I not explain to you why it took me eight hours to get back to your tweet. It could be like I just got off a flight really sorry normally wouldn't happen please forgive me, your question is important to me. And that's what you do. It's listening, getting to know the kind of people that might be interested in what you're saying and then speaking authentically on yourself which is your brand. If you have any questions about that go ahead and ask just feel free to put your hand up. But yeah so do your research in advance so like what I told her to do exactly which is like I'm gonna give you like based off of my knowledge of Reddit I know there's a couple of relationship sub Reddit groups check those out but I'm like don't stop there. Like I'm sure there are sub Reddit groups I've never heard of there's probably dating websites and communities and forums all over the internet that just never appealed to me. I'm sure there's probably like I hate match.com website like find out what match.com did wrong right and then try to make sure you answer a lot of those questions on why you're not gonna be match.com and I'm like this is your job it's just as important as creating the product is getting to know the kind of people you're gonna be dealing with. Reddit for a specific so like depending on what your business is I actually like for her I actually thought this would be like a really clever way for her to do her launch. We'll find out. So but I think like there are stronger groups than others and I think it's about pinpointing the right one. The nice thing is like you should just find it anyways and then that's part of your brain your brainstorming process is like okay why I want to focus on this and this is a stronger community or you know there's still live journal pages that are really active which blow my mind that that's still a thing. Yeah like that people are still on live journal I kind of remember live journal it's in university it's like what I see Orchid is still happening I don't know I just literally pulled out an old school one Orchid is like this Google do you like that thank you I've been on the internet a long time. I occasionally log back into my Orchid account which I felt really cool at the time because Google created this community and it was like you had to get invited like to be part of it and so for an elitist nerd at the time an internet nerd I was like I'm like one of the first non-Google members to have Orchid account nailed it people like me so I created it and then like two months later got run over by Brazil so like the only Google that used this social media platform is pretty much the country of I don't know so occasionally I go check and they've like wrote something on my wall and I'm like oh people are still following me that's wonderful I don't know who that is so but anyways I'm going on a tangent do your research get to know like any kind of community that might be interested in your product and that's the same thing I recommend not just communities like Reddit but the Twitter accounts that might be interested in your story which I'll get into later about influencers and how to spot them. Ryan I'm gonna totally need a glass of water that's cool. Yeah so again funny story time I kind of already got into you which is what J.P. Morgan does wrong. I'm totally like a cease and desist winner from them but anyways this was not my doing but most recently J.P. Morgan did this ask JPMC hashtag event and some of you may have heard about it that is like asking the empire going do you guys have any opinions on the Death Star? I'm just we're just throwing it out there like do you think there's something we could do better and what happened was they just destroyed them and like some of these things were amazing I thought was actually pretty good for them because J.P. Morgan was in news for like a week but at the same time the story was like what not to do in social media and the truth is like I know that that particular Twitter handle was not handled by a content agency and a lot of them are but the problem is it's such a massive company and it's not all in one spot and I'm totally gonna drink all the water. Okay so what they did is they did the ask JPMC very funny very witty also very disappointing tweet that they had to deal with. The funny story about this is they didn't know it was happening. I'm the one who found it so and I was long since off the J.P. Morgan team and what happened was I my friend was like did like a retweet of something and I saw the ask JPMC thing and I'm like oh it's J.P. Morgan what are they up to? Click it find out that it's already I think it was fourth in trending on Twitter at the time and it only been up for like an hour and so I email my old boss that was there and I'm like so hey what's happening with this whole ask JPMC thing? Hashtag mistake. So anyways then they were like what are you talking about what's happening on Twitter and I'm like okay like I'm almost embarrassed I took me an hour to find it and I don't work with you anymore because I like to consider I know what's hashtagging like I'm tweeting at the time but no seriously she didn't know so then I told her she then forwarded my email on to everybody else in the company and then I started I got contacted by some very very big person at JPMC that was like thank you can you do an analytics report to explain like the fallout and what do you recommend we do for the next like week? So like they're basically like please tell us what to do we've made a terrible mistake and I'm like well first of all you have to let this one die out there is nothing something like JPMorgan can do like any apology they're not someone who can be funny and even if they handled it in a funny way it just would have made the fire bigger and what you have to do is just write it out that is probably not the same advice I would give a tech startup company I would tell you to be very honest and apologize and then again you're ask JPMC or ask your company probably wouldn't happen but the truth is like you're gonna make mistakes and there's different ways to handle it and the true response is always the human response like what would you personally do if you upset someone or offended someone you would apologize and you do it quick and you don't take two days to respond you do it like as soon as you realize you made the mistake and one of the biggest things that I always tell companies to do is when you do a post on Facebook and you mess up never hide it sorry and you never delete it you can hide it off the main page right so I don't believe in covering your tracks I believe you can go like I don't want this on my front page it's not important but you don't delete it and that's maybe the exceptions to that is extreme cases where maybe someone got a hold of your account it's offensive right but as far as like a typo right or you got like the date wrong or something along those lines just hide it cause that's being honest right and yeah no one's really gonna judge you because you had a typo right so you should get in the habit of just being like it's okay to make mistakes I'm a human my company is gonna create errors it's gonna happen and just write it out but yeah J.B. Morgan messed up and they wrote it out and they were in the news for like good solid two weeks on it and then I explained to them you're not only gonna be in the New York Times about this you're gonna be an example of what not to do for social media experts for years and I'm like so sorry you signed up for it and I'm like when that happens and you have anyone from this company a lot of people ask me personally like I work in social media what if they remember this how is this gonna affect my job and I'm like you explain it like I do you know you say you make mistakes clearly we were not aligned on that day we probably should have done made sure that was cool everyone knew in the company that was happening the truth is the company didn't even know what was happening which means whoever was in charge of that Twitter page didn't even let anyone in any department of this giant company that they were doing an ask JPMC which again confuses me because who was responding to it like what like I don't know everything in J.B. Morgan Chase are you telling me if there's investment questions and this was actually gonna be a real ask JPMC they had someone on the line to be able to respond to that I don't think so did they have a credit card expert ready to do that now so maybe think things through when you come down with a hey I'm bored today let's just see if you guys have any questions so yeah moving on if I can hit the button again buttons are so hard okay influencers this is probably where if you haven't started your company yet or you haven't really you have an idea and you don't really know anything about how to find someone to help amplify your voice basically what I want to explain to you is there's so many different types of influencers there are so many different explanations for types of influencers that the PDF that if you give me your email address afterwards has like a list of 15 and they're all completely different and they all want very different things from you oh also those dogs are pretty cute so, hooray see now I'm recovering from a cold so anyways the networker is your social butterfly which is again someone who is big on thinking that they know everybody so they're someone who are gonna be probably your biggest champions they like to know people they're gonna want to talk about you at some point but in order to get an influencer like the networker to pay attention to you and like any influencer to pay attention to you you have to give them something back and this is about part of the listening skills I was talking about earlier which is like as a social media community manager you know these people you know what they want right you know what makes them tick you know that on their twitter page on Mondays they're big into posting mashable articles right you might even know that they start doing that around 10 a.m. and you want to be the person who last night at like 12 p.m. was like I found the perfect article for you this is gonna be killer and you send it directly to them like it's not you with the intent to post it on your own page it's you going like I know you you love this I found this this morning nailed it and send it to them and that's how you develop a relationship and again it's not like I sent them a link we're in business this person's for sure gonna talk about me this could take months the same thing as like that dating website I talked about that is it's relationships I think the biggest mistake people make about community management is that it's any different than being a really good people person in real life it's like what would you do for your friends how would you help your buddy if you're trying to date someone you are going way out of your way probably well that's dating is really easy for you you can just be a jerk which is great like I'm glad that works for you but for the most part it involves a lot of wooing and a lot of like yeah I'll watch this ridiculous movie that you forced me to watch which is usually me being like so if you guys see Pootie Tang can we watch Pootie Tang together and then quote it for like a solid hour and it's usually like a guy who wants something for me is for sure gonna watch Pootie Tang and he'll watch it probably like six times in a row if I ask him to and that's what you have to do for any influencer so opinion leader as you I'll have to explain it it's pretty straightforward thought leaders that's often sometimes as far as I'm concerned the same as a reporter so an expert in a field loves to share their ideas probably doesn't do a lot of retweeting like just posting articles it's probably his articles and he might have a huge follower base because he's a genius and he says all the right things at all the right time and you know to pay attention to him there's a way to get that guy's attention which is again telling him he's a genius and not just retweeting him and at the same time offer something and you might do a lot of posting that guy on your Facebook page and your Twitter page and your Google plus page you know you might even email him you know like you were pretty genius today email and again don't just say that give examples show them that you actually read his blog post and actually read his blog post just FYI don't like do the quick glance over think that you have to do this for your business but being authentic if you care about your company taking off you're going to care about the guy who can help you get there and the guy who helps you get there is not just the investor and your buddy so that it seems common sense but I think what happens when you're doing a tech startup or any kind of venture is that you have a lot on your plate and you don't know where to kind of push your part in time this is super important if you want to take off so again the share is the reporter these are the kind of people that when you're ready to launch and you're ready to go they're your guy or girl so I'm so sick I'm so sorry and basically this is the same approach it's again being a real person but it's communicating reposting not just it's not enough just to like something I think that's the thing I want to make really clear and I know I I prompted you to remind me but I'm gonna jump into it and it's definitely not my really creative powerpoint presentation which is epic um you need to care enough to like more like just not just like person's page right like I do it all the time I get guilty I told you Facebook scroll like like like like what I do at night when I have time I go back and read the things that I wrote my friends always laugh at me because I'll like something and then eight hours later I'll respond and they're like well what you don't like well I'm a pretty busy person they can do they don't have that so but the truth is like that's that's being a real responder and that means that you care and I'm gonna pay attention that person and if you care about your tech company and your friends tech company geekdom is a great example there's a lot of people here doing great things and you got to know them and you talk to them when you're getting coffee um what you want to do is not just like their page go comment maybe repost some of their staff gauge like constantly do that and what you're doing is helping their amplification when you comment on something your friends see it if your friend comments their friends see it and it's the best and cheapest way to do advertising on Facebook um you can even have like a pact with your other startup buddy friend you're gonna comment on it and just because you're the CEO does not mean you can't comment as a person on your own page you can amplify it again to your friends and if they're your friends they're not gonna delete you on Facebook if you keep spamming their newsfeed about you um well maybe they will but they're not really your friends so that's what I recommend that people do and when I go to the geekdom page and even right now the hero acts one uh we're not doing enough uh I definitely have to pull in my team and give them an explanation of what they need to do for us which is like every time we post something like let's start conversation you know usually when you post something on Facebook I recommend doing a CTA so call to action it's not enough just for a picture uh do a link ask a question so ask questions that matter don't just be like I can't afford JP Morgan uh they will do like uh sometimes just for the sake of having a post up for a day which I super don't like um I think you should post every day but I think that it's quantity over sorry quality over quantity and at the same time like ask the right questions don't be like vanilla ice cream or chocolate like why that's not a conversation um but you could use examples like um if your tech startup you can be like I wanna uh we're learning how to deal and talk about social media for ourselves um what do you guys think about the JP Morgan thing like what was the worst mistake out of all those mistakes and then like engage a conversation and have the comment section be that topic think of the best um personal friend status pages that were like I did something the other day about gluten waffles right and I was it was funny I guess a little bit but I wasn't the only person who thought the gluten waffles were terrible right gluten free sorry thank you just because I haven't had any in so long that I'm my brain uh so anyways I thought they were really terrible the gluten free waffles and I didn't really know how to say it politely so I posted it on Facebook to vent a little bit um and what happened was a lot of conversation happened in that post and the last time I was visiting here um I met this amazing guy on the way to do the San Antonio MX challenge uh project launch um and basically this guy was so cool he was like eighty eight years old he was uh born and raised in San Antonio his whole like whole life was here he had two really incredible kids one was living in Boston it's a doctor and the other one um worked in the military is now retired and this guy was so amazing I learned so much about him and I had Facebook pictures of him up and we were doing it because it was Wi-Fi on the plane and so I'd post pictures of us having this really cool hangout and it'd be me going like guys amazing uh we're now going through the sky mall catalog together and we were judged he's eighty eighty eight years old he's wearing uh the rings that he had from his marriage and he had that he was like sixty five years of marriage this guy was intense I was bawling pretty much the whole time we were talking because he was just so wonderful but he was also funny so people all of a sudden were paying a lot of attention to my Facebook page because it would be me posting a picture and then I I didn't just keep posting pictures and like explaining a different status I kept a conversation entirely in the comments right so people had to keep refreshing go back and read so it was like a Reddit page but in the comment section of Facebook and it was me being like just heard another amazing Lewis story here it is and people were just like who is this guy and when do I get to meet him so I invited him to Toronto uh which I'm gonna meet him down here probably in the next week or two but what was so cool about him is we went to the sky mall catalog together and he was like favorite thing was the I don't know if you've ever looked in it but it's like there's skeleton lawn gnomes and he was just like find me up and I'm like yeah they are pretty cool so I'm holding like the sky mall catalog and he's making a face and I'm kind of like right like pretty awesome and there was like a sexy lady lamp thing so anyway for Christmas I then sent him the skeletal lawn gnomes which he really appreciated um but again like people still ask me like how's Lewis doing you're back in San Antonio you're gonna go see him right and like that's being authentic and I would have loved to have done that from a brand perspective like HeroX because we were there and we talked about it and he was so passionately interested in what Geetan was doing because to him he's the example of why they're having this project right like two incredibly smart sons you don't live in San Antonio like went like just took off um and he was coming back to San Antonio to spend Christmas away from his family because his wife died and he wanted to spend it like in their home despite not having a family with him so he was very passionately involved and I think that's that was the story I was telling in between the comment section and that was engaging and if you can do that from a company perspective then you should do it uh obviously you're gonna have to clear it with the person you have that wonderful plain conversation with before you post it on a public scale but those are the kind of things that resonate with people that's you being real um and that's what I wrote back and you try to always do um so anyways uh yeah moving on side please sidetracked operation for in hipster trading yes thanks for that yeah oh wonderful uh talking about examples of what not to do pick hashtags that potentially don't offend people yeah or mock a disorder um so anyways operation brand hipster training again uh what's common sense for kids today that are growing up with instagram uh existing to begin with and doing probably very questionable things with uh there's a way to turn this uh into you something great for your company now one of the things I like to say is like you don't need to be on every platform like I truly believe that not every company belongs on instagram so this might not even matter to you but at the same time doesn't mean you shouldn't have an instagram account and the kind of things that you can do for your instagram account might not be on your public page but what it is is like you guys having a great time at geekdom right it's like that the story of how you guys came to create your startup and where you're going to wind up being so if you want to be in company like fresh books who I think does social media very well um what they do is you go to their page just how awesome their company is like that's that's what it is there's nothing to do with their product has to do with their team right uh and again what they do really well is the the bank teller story that I was saying it's like what what fresh books does is they make their superstars or support staff the most important people in that company are the ones you call when that software isn't working you know you're talking to Ryan Ryan might have like a Pokemon collection and he really is in the Skittles um and you know that and the truth is like that's also why you're not going to uh kind of talk crap to Ryan on the phone even though you're really frustrated that the software doesn't work right so it's a really smart business move to have a face to your company um people are more inclined to be nice to you when they realize you're a real person right so and the truth is one of the things the fresh book also does that's amazing is that they empower their support staff to make the executive decision to go it's so-and-so's birthday we're going to send them a cake there is no clearance there is no like I'm gonna ask the CEO about it I'm gonna ask my boss they just do it and they bill it now obviously you can't send a car I would be totally over about it I'd be like you get a car you get a car you get a car everybody gets cars today it's on fresh books hashtag mistake um hashtag fired um never working again um so anyways that's what I recommend and that's what I would do for a social media manager it's like empower them but more importantly be cool and your story and your Instagram if it's not about your product is about who you are right and the truth is like if you're really into something you're gonna look it up and nothing is cooler than seeing like people creating and having fun together and that's like having a drink uh here I was giving Julie a lot of crap and I have given Ryan a lot of crap and I'm like this is like a really cool office you have like games I grew up playing on doors there was like mist and I pretty much lost my mind when I saw a mist because that game destroyed me it's also the first game that required uh you didn't get the book too and I was very upset about it and I remember not buying the book for like a really long time and then just staying like locked in a room for like a solid four hours so eventually like you are not smart enough to get out of this room without looking up what you have to do uh I'm really not so anyways that's something you can use and I want people to understand and think as if everything is a moment you could photograph and that's something that is really easy to do it for me I know that like I'm the person who walks into a restaurant or I'm ready to foresquare login but that's me and I've been doing this a really long time and before I even sat down I'm like well I hope there's something I can photograph in here and post my personal Instagram page which is I realize really lame probably what you guys are thinking but the truth is like I I also understand that it's for my personal brand right to you like so when I'm coming to talk to you about it I can speak authentically that I understand what Instagram is right that I understand how it's important not just for um if I want to get hired for a job in social media but if I want to explain to you that it's kind of cool to know the person a little bit better uh when they're not wearing the suit right um so anyways again when in doubt throw out some filter on it uh okay same thing it's just you have to think as if you have Twitter and Instagram goggles on at all time so again keep them really easy and I realize that not every office place is going to be like this place and that's that's okay but there's different things you do you go to a coffee shop you know that's where you're having your meeting today you're going to have maybe create your own hashtag for like when you're doing your training sessions so you could have like you know headquarters hashtag related to what it is you're doing and so every time you check into this coffee shop every time you come into work that's what you're using um and that's how people can follow you what you're doing um know the events we're talking about which is again unrelated to your business I don't know there's kind of a big event happening on February 2nd you may have heard of it it's called the Super Bowl um also the Seahawks are involved so uh very happy person and I'm flying back just to go watch the game I'm sorry I have to come up I have to say it um so go Hawks anyways uh that's something that you should be on Twitter for I get that like it's uh Sunday and you want to spend it with your family you have a reason to get involved uh it's a huge the hashtag people are going to be follow it refreshing it if you have something funny to say about it you have a personal opinion right that stuff's going to be seen it's also again the whole idea that you're not just a company you're a person right it could be even as simple as um just an idea leading up to the Super Bowl you have people who have very different opinions I know who should win which you shouldn't because Seahawks um so but if you if you did um that's a situation where maybe you have hilarious um jersey day everyone wore their jersey or everyone make fun of that guy for wearing the Broncos jersey which is what I would do um so put him in a corner in a room put a hat on him they can face the wall right no one's talking to this guy today because he's been banned like that's the kind of stuff you can do like creative fun posts um that show your brand and have nothing to do with your product but everything to do with why they choose your product over someone else um so again with fresh books the reason why I think they're going to be a huge success is because they have a face they're not just a software I'm sure that there'll be tons of competing software for fresh books before we know it but will they be as cool will they send you a cake on your birthday will they Instagram it right will you have something that's retweetable from your company and what they do for other companies by sending that cake is going I just gave you your content for today right so they didn't just take a picture send you or whatever they send you a cake or whatever that person then goes okay for my company I want to think fresh books so they Instagram the cake that just arrived tag it loop them back in fresh books gets other content to repost on their page right and success stories um and again probably little to do with your product and putting it into your uh yeah I know the people engaged on the events uh so again like for me there's no way I'm not following the Seahawks on uh pretty much everything I have like I think I have like four I follow fan sites on Instagram for the Seahawks and on Twitter like I follow every person I'm supposed to listen to you with an opinion but I also follow the bad guys and yes I just referred to you because it's a bad guy but you don't actually think but the truth is like I care and I pay attention and I'm in engage with them right I also will know by following those accounts what hashtags are trending right now because for sure the community manager for the Seahawks is using the game tag properly right it's not you don't have to guess it's there you know what's to do uh and then you just follow them and continue to steal their ideas essentially um don't talk for the sake of talking something I feel I do a lot of but on social I don't um say things that matter say things that are important say things that are funny and think about it but make sure you actually post it I think people hesitate and second having an opinion and you don't do that sometimes your post is going to be stupid um my best friend in the entire world and I are like super introverts which always confuses people because people are like oh you're really good and like group settings you can talk to someone I'm like yeah and then I go home and I don't talk to anyone for like four days in my little cave and it's wonderful and then I come back out to the world and I see everybody but my best friend and I um are identical personalities so she will come over we will sit on the couch and we will not say a single word to each other and we have our laptops and our phone and all we do is tweet to each other about a topic whatever we're doing um and we'll talk on instant message or everything else so we for Christmas live tweeted home alone movies um which was our opinions and you feel free to go back and check it it was pretty funny um but basically people got really involved so we created the hashtag regarding home alone movies because everyone was bored it was you know your holiday um and what happened is all of our friends started going I dropped whatever you're doing tonight you need to pay attention to Kristine Cat they are currently watching home alone drinking wine and being ridiculous online and that is what we were um before I knew it we had people I've never heard of like asking me questions and I use it as material you ask me a funny thing like we were used to she's a comedy writer I'm not fun as funny as her she's genius um so I tried to play off their strikes but that went on for hours like they actually we had people upset because Cat drank too much wine um by the end of home alone too and she wanted to stop and I was like you can't stop now we have to finish the movie so I'm like slapping her face man pictures supposed to be trying to wake Cat up and um the point was people started being like Cat rally like rally man like you've committed to lying to meeting a home alone this is important work and so our very important home alone work was finished and then she hated me the next day which is fine uh friendship hashtag friendship but anyways the point is like her job they said like she's writing comedy she wants to work in tv uh she's the actual senior editor for entertainment like yahoo entertainment um she gets interviewed all the time to talk about as an expert on media um an expert on uh I guess television she's the kind of person that when I'm this is literally the other thing that happens all the time I'm like who is that guy that does that thing with a hair and she somehow knows which is amazing but like she's like a walking encyclopedia of pop culture and that's her thing um so when she started doing this live tweet this was mentioned on radio talk like radio talk shows that she had to do interviews for they were like so your friend Christy you guys like seriously just sat on the couch just like just for the record we didn't say a single word to each other the entire time we just laughed like it was just if you could picture the couch we're just two girls are laughing hysterically thinking they're pretty funny right doing this for four hours um and I get I get you can't do that from a company perspective but if you can think like that and know that that's something that would be like endearing or uh you know like resonate with you and again like event tweeting is a really good example of that so for example this time period you could be writing stuff and live tweeting and being really funny or making fun of me which is really easy to do so I recommend that you do that if it's in the nature for your your own business go right ahead but yeah so quality or quantity and I don't know if you can see this so again I will send you the pdf version of this but I created this social media checklist and this is very overwhelming and I fully expect that people probably won't be able to do the vast majority of this but it's a really good thing to have saved to your desktop for just making sure you've done the best you could for your company today um so for facebook what I recommend is that you try at least this is really ambitious so at least every like in a week try to find in like five new pages um and by five new pages for geekdom you could just start by doing all the companies here that have one like follow them like them start paying attention to what they're doing because you want to be a great listener to your friends and the people that are in the same boat as you I recommend that you comment at least two pages per day so engage in other people's content aim for two posts today like this is this is something you can like literally just kind of like yeah nailed it done done social media for today um for your posts always include a call to action so as I said like a link a question ideally all three like a picture a question um a cta but again like sometimes you just say cool things that are not required for this but as many times you possibly can do that add the hashtags that are appropriate to your posts and turning topics so for example um when you create a content calendar I always explain you should do it loose um which is like never go I'm a hundred percent posting this because by the time you do it it's probably not even fresh no one wants to pay attention to it anymore but you know the Super Bowl is coming up I'm really sorry I keep bringing you up this can't stop I'm just really excited um so anyways you know it's coming up so plan posts around it right be like if you know it's coming up every year you can be like well I know that internally our company is going to have you know we're going to have Super Bowl Day and everyone Jersey Day and we know that we're going to do a post on this and we're going to make fun of Phil on Friday like guaranteed because Phil's a jerk so everyone now that we're going to put this in the calendar we don't like any of his choices in life specifically his teams so that's going to make fun of Phil Day and done and so that's the kind of stuff you can plan around those are the things you can build a call to action in advance um and you know what the hashtags are going to be for the Super Bowl in advance uh if commercials can do it and no one advance with the two you can do it um Twitter same thing kind of thing so I aim for new three new tweets today uh I recommend that one is kind of business related one is fun and social um and some are just kind of promotional for your company but your vast majority time on Twitter should be responding um getting to know people even the ones that aren't directly commenting to you like just out there being like hey I like your content hey I like your site da da da da retweet them I recommend minimum two retweets today when you're starting out uh follow at least 10 new people a day and one of the best ways to find followers is an example for me so when HeroX is starting out and still is very much starting out uh I was like okay we're like we're related to XPRIZE who's following XPRIZE and who is XPRIZE following right first thing I did was I went to XPRIZE and I looked at their follower list and I looked at the important ones and I scrolled through the ones with huge follower bases and I just started paying attention to you and I created lists and I was like these people I want to pay attention to you if XPRIZE wants to pay attention to them I want to know who they are sorry I thought I had my hands anyways um what I recommend also is like kind of a pro tip uh add comments to your retweets it's not enough just to retweet it you want your name to be branded on it too so what you can do uh you can always alter their message if someone's putting a link in a funny comment you can sometimes get rid of their funny comment if necessary try to keep it um and just keep the link do you like the ROT in front of it and add your own commentary and what you do is you're promoting your friend or your influencer that could help you out but you're also doing something for you and your brand right and then every time maybe the people who don't know that little trick just start retweeting what you wrote right instead of what you just retweeted so it's going to continue to amplify and help you guys out uh LinkedIn uh LinkedIn's actually a huge community with people our age group right now and and older and it's going to continue to grow that way um I even think the focus is going to be less on Facebook and more on LinkedIn if you ask me super important to get in there uh I recommend you try to connect with three to five people a week follow three new companies uh request one or two recommendations a week which is really ambitious uh so maybe just try to do one every like three weeks which is like hey buddy like thanks for doing that um graphic design artwork for us would it be cool if you would just write like take two seconds to write us something we'll write something on your LinkedIn page that your work was amazing right and that's like when people come to check out your company they can see this person like this person thought you were amazing and then you can return the favor repost all the blog posts on newsfeed so the kind of stuff that you're doing on Facebook for the most part it's usually going to be the same kind of content you want on your google page and your LinkedIn page I won't bother to reread all this stuff to you if you don't want to do but um interesting fact about Pinterest it's actually one of the best ways to drive site traffic so um huge following base and again it's a different community maybe your company doesn't fit on it but what I recommend is you can create a page do inspiration boards thing that help you out um maybe it's about your products maybe it's about things that inspired you um but try to do it to link it to your blog so it's a post and what's going to happen is when they'll follow through people are on Pinterest follow through almost every time right so they see something they like they click all the way to the source kind of cool um at least it's cool for now I recommend that you try to keep creating new pin boards um I allocate like at least like 15 minutes a day to Pinterest I try not to go in a Pinterest hole which is very easy to growl to do which is like all of a sudden you're like I didn't know you could curl your hair like that and now I'm watching curling hair videos for hours and then I get distracted by cat videos and it's a really bad cycle but um anyways yeah encourage followers to pin on your boards sometimes I like to do like a gift I'll do like a blog post involving our inspiration board on Pinterest right so you can drive traffic both ways um just to do Instagram at least one photo per day like and I get that not every place is like geekdom is really exciting but sometimes it could just be a sunset or you know maybe it's the what you use for your blog post the actual image and you just mention hey guys go check out the blog today like you can try something and if you really don't have anything good of quality then maybe don't post but for the most part like aim to have something um you use appropriate hashtag still important I try to follow new people every day on um Instagram uh and it's really easy to do that you just follow the hashtag and see who's interested in the same things that you're interested in so it was a Super Bowl it's very easy to find fans on game day I also Friday because it's called Blue Friday which means I'm in one of my jerseys uh and what happens is I post my photo and then I hit the hashtag and then I pretty much go like like like like to all Seahawks fans and what happens they go back to my page and they're like we also like you thank you like like and so like that's my kind of way of finding friends uh people who also understand that the Seahawks are the best thing ever um and yeah so I aim to like my friends pictures at least 20 or 30 of them a day um when I can I comment I like to do at least five comments a day if it's from a business standpoint showing that you're constantly engaged paying attention try not to do the same people all the time uh four square I really recommend and it's hard but you have to get the practices when you're showing up to work check in like wherever you are like you can say hashtag headquarters or like at this cage uh case I have um we're doing the you know hashtag mx challenge we're doing a meeting on this blah blah blah so like wherever I'm going right now I'm kind of following my footsteps this doesn't mean you have to do it on your Saturdays and Sundays or check into your home and let people know where you live right but it could be like the coffee shop and the thing is don't just stop there go uh does this coffee shop have a twitter page right this is a food truck have a twitter page and they do so like yesterday I actually made fun of someone's uh twitter handle because it was terrible on one of the food trucks and I will not call them out by name but we did recommend they change it and they agreed but they'll probably go ahead and rebrand it because it was very confusing because it left off the so you don't know if it's a typo right you hesitate um you're like it's not a correct word right so you just go like I don't know um so that's the kind of thing and like maybe your meeting was so good and you were really into fish tacos yesterday because they were full of gluten in fact it was amazing and I had a conversation with their their owner and back and forth on twitter that's what you should try to aim for like that's taking it the whole way through from four square I checked in blah blah blah and then the conversation you could say like these tacos are amazing that's it um anyways uh create a check-in for your office for sure have your employees constantly doing that when they start um what they do after when they go home it's up to them uh add two or three tips reviews for local establishments per week is what I recommend oh other thing is uh if you do any group outings with your team 100% four square check in that's your opportunity to instagram it like you have to think of all these uh someone's birthday the cake arrives you know before anyone touches that cake and it can be really annoying you can literally people are just starving and you can like take the chair out stand on the chair do this with your camera like this and keep taking it and be like no guys sorry really nail it like take it to a new level and that's what I would expect you to do from a company standpoint but then it's also like have that conversation about how good the cake was not an instagram like on instant messenger do it on twitter right or make fun of the person you can't include on twitter um so yeah blogger outreach one post a day I was kind of passed through that uh google plus add five new people in your circle and again reddit is more of a community not to talk about yourself but to talk about other people so in the event you finally have something to say they care and let's see oh oh hold on oh damn it one of my best slides is not going to show up it's a future roma quote you guys but uh anyways if you guys have any questions whatsoever now would be the time it's a lot of things I didn't cover yeah go for it yeah go for it so yeah questions obviously after you know we have told two um and uh I also want to let you guys know that we have ten book um titled life enomics the first time people who signed up so see Ryan in the back for those kind of questions don't pummel him because he knows ten that's a really good book because it talks about influence okay so like how to spot them how to get people in engagement so I recommend it yeah yeah so anyway ask ask questions just want to throw that out there but cool yes oh yeah minimally but yes I again it's a the face to what you're doing right and again what I think fresh books does is like I know who Ryan is and what he looks like and we just had a phone conversation and maybe because I'm a trained social media person so I had that call I had the call we had a conversation I immediately go to twitter and I think fresh books right like without hesitation if I had a really good encounter I'm the person I'm the I'm like your ideal user for a brand right because I know immediately I want to thank you for the experience but um nothing as you know uh the stories like people like to tell are usually the negative ones right um so what you want to do is always be creating good stories because even though the negative story might go to thousands of people the good one's going to go to five people who know that they definitely want to use your product so um yeah and as far as putting a personal spin on it like uh to use an example so when I uh Julie got hired um we immediately did like a post to say like we just brought on you community manager everybody welcome you know Julie like direct picture direct name like have her out there like that's what you should do um it's a personal side you don't overwhelm twitter like I really recommend again it's the quality over quantity but when you have something to say you say it and um the only exception to you really blasting on twitter is when there's an event so like perhaps you're hosting a launch party or something right or you're having like master series like that's when it's acceptable to probably do like 15 20 tweets and like I don't know a four hour period of time right but otherwise don't don't overwhelm people it takes a really long time to get someone to follow you in like about two seconds to get deleted um same thing with facebook I recommend only quality posts you don't you should not post unless there's something really amazing happening all day long it's like find the right time 9 a.m. find out when your your friends and the people that are interested in your industry are posting 9 a.m. is usually a really good time uh 8 a.m. is even better sometimes because no one else has actually woken up and posted so maybe it's at the top of the news feed and people just immediately go into their phone but every environment's different right uh Toronto different user base right we get up early whereas in Vancouver people I'm pretty sure no one works in Vancouver I'm still mystified that people have jobs in Vancouver because I go there and I go for coffee and it's like a ghost town and then I go on the train I'm like do people work here when do people wake up in Vancouver and I thinking I just haven't figured it out and they might go to work around 4 p.m. but like I actually don't know what I would post in Vancouver um and that's what I'm saying like get to know your city find out when like other people are tweeting on um San Antonio time right and that's when you start want to focus on your posts anyone else he is in the back if you're starting like a Kickstarter I mean obviously you have all these different social media but if you're doing something very specific for a Kickstarter which uh social media platforms do you think would be the most effective uh Kickstarter I would again I would do Twitter because I think more people are checking it on the regular where's Facebook like I said is something I neglect a lot and I am someone who's very tuned in I'll do the like like like like like like and then go back and read it I think Twitter is something people are constantly refreshing every day it also allows you to say a lot more and a lot less a lot more often right so um yeah I I definitely think Twitter is the best I would also say like work in your Instagram account you can tie it to your corporate one you can do to what it want like two to time yeah yes can you show the checklist I actually I should post it I'll post it on HeroX um for sure I'll do that uh after this I'll put it up there but I will gladly send it to you personally um I find it really good it's ambitious um ideally if you hire a community manager that's what you know they're going to be doing in the day like you know what I'm saying but like if you're doing it for yourself like really just try to be proud that you got some of those uh checked off and then try to aim don't just focus on Facebook like mix it up maybe Sunday for me um I dedicate the weekend to Pinterest because again if in case I go on the curl your hair cat tangent video trend thing I have like the justification to say I did six hours of nothing um so I usually do Pinterest on the weekends because it's the fun kind of girly side of a company it's still girly I don't care what anyone says it's the girly social media platform um but yeah more people more and more people are on it okay so the second question was which social media sites do you think provide the most link juice in terms of SEO okay um oh god so hate metrics uh I probably didn't get into that so here's my reason why I don't like metrics because you're focusing on the wrong thing at the wrong time right like right now you need to be worried about who you are as a company um don't measure yourself yet uh work on creating the right brand voice and the right stories and eventually when you're ready that stuff will become incredibly important but you've already nailed the important stuff right uh but anyways there are it depends it's so specific to what you you do right so like if you're a dating website I don't know like I recommended Reddit there's so many things I don't know about dating but I would probably go to look up all of the uh the columns like the newspaper columns like who find out where their twitter handles are like someone's probably paying attention like asked jane is that a is that a thing I don't know there's an ass jane judy I don't know what the name is it's probably like an actual person he does that when I know uh sex in the city reference can't even think of the person who is in that that is the writer for a sex column but her I would follow that person all over social whatever her name is it's obvious that I have not seen sex in the city right now yeah I'm aware that it existed and it's important to my people's being moving in so yes yeah if you're interested in knowing how strong someone's you know link juice is going to be back to you you can go to open site explorer dot and cloud and that'll tell you the domain authority of that website so for example I was consulting with the doctor group and they had a huge list of like directories they could do we prioritize them by the highest domain authority because that'll give that's like a rank in Google's eyes for how uh authoritative that website is so cloud.com also should be immediately um on your radar um that will uh pull out on all of your social media platforms and tell you who are the people who are talking about you who they're ones have the highest cloud score so their influence score cloud is influence um so it's going to tell you um like I think my score right now is like during after the home alone thing I think I I went up like 10 points for a solid month just because more and more people were tuned in but the truth is like you can find out who's the important people to go to on your twitter account and what they're interested in you can then keep following them to find out what they're talking about who they're following it's like an endless tunnel of information you can just keep finding more and more about what might help you out that's okay um you want to repeat your question in case there's a difference between product versus service and the social media as far as no no I don't think so um I think for example there's a lot of things that think it's tuned the service is being there to talk about your product right to so like a lot of what your your involvement in being on social is if your product has any questions you're there to respond and I think it's different people are going to have different ways of being on social like you are not created identically here um so for example like maybe all your businesses on twitter is answering questions right um maybe all you're doing is talking about um I don't know if you're social media coach or something like that like you're going to talk about like articles that are important and related to your business that maybe you didn't write but you want your people like your followers to know what's happening and I think it's just uh you find out what your purpose is you might not even know what it's going to be when you start doing it but very quickly you'll figure it out because you're going to find out what's more important uh who's responding to you what they're talking about I generally think on any uh platform uh you're going to change what you're talking about and I think it's you try to be fun you don't always talk about what it is you're doing right so sometimes you're promoting and most I'm responding and sometimes about the Super Bowl and last question for me how do you quantify as far as the expense of doing with at the end of the day that's it's creating a client it's creating a paying client so how do you connect both to say to justify to justify the need see this is the metric part that I don't like it's such a long game and I think that's why I get mad with metrics right like I hate that people think they had to measure themselves on a daily weekly monthly basis they're looking for like the immediate like why am I spending my time doing this and I don't think that that exists um go ahead sorry as an R&D expense or an R&D adjustment um I do it for clients I do it for me and I don't think that it's really sustaining it as opposed to well I said I tweet out you just never you just never know but I think that it's like writing jokes right like 90% of time they're not going to be funny 10% of the time you're really going to nail it but the times that you nail it that's what helped you um so for example uh oh god I'll give you my favorite social media story is I love this story and I love this brand I want so much to know what actually happened but uh this girl was a random person uh she tweeted that she loved chocolate so much she was going to follow um Kit Kat and Oreo Oreo on twitter like she linked in both 10 minutes later um Kit Kat responds with a tic tac toe board um with on the bottom corner is a pincher of two Kit Kat's crossed and then says uh your move next Oreo Oreo responds 10 minutes later um 10 minutes later and the Kit Kat bar is missing from the tic tac toe board and all it has is crumbs and it says give me a break like give us some break and it was just like the thing was that was meant for one person who did not even have an impressive follower list she maybe had like a hundred people no big deal she's just somebody you if you treat that as a potential like one it's authentic because you think it's funny and it's cute like those are your people those are people following your brand and yes people are still talking about the story and for the next two months after that happened it was such a big deal it was like who's like everyone wanted to know what was the ad like who's running their social like is it the same team uh we were imagining at the time I was working at SynCAP so we were imagining them like being side by side computers like both brands being managed and they planned this whole thing out and the truth is like I still don't know who did it but the point is like you should always be thinking like that and it's clever and sweet but it may not have taken off it could have never been noticed the girl had like a hundred followers maybe everyone wasn't paying attention that day because they were too busy paying attention to ask GPMC going badly right so the point is there's no no for sure method of success you just hope that it's going to work out but that became viral right and it was huge but it was only with the intent for organic growth right so and that's what I'm saying like that's why I don't like metrics I think um it's so important that like that those moments are allowed to happen because you care about it and they'll probably pay off and if you're clever and you hire a very good community manager who you trust enough to know everything about your brand and be like your number two but then also have a sense of humor or a light side of your company I really think you're going to nail it um and yeah like just go for it yes my lady so you've explained to me you know in the past couple days the importance of content and having content every day do you want to kind of talk about how do you go about generating content like when you feel a little bit like I don't I don't know what am I supposed to do today like I have nothing just why that's so important and yeah 100 so I have told Julie she has no excuse not to have content and great content because she works in a place where there's something always happening there's always someone to talk about here right there's always a company you could do a spotlight on there's always some ridiculous robot art you could put up on your instagram page like if anything you should feel like your brain's exploding because you don't even know where to start because you have so much stuff to talk about the average person the average company probably is struggling to figure out what to say um that is okay but that's also why I gave giving you the clearance to talk about who you are as a team so for example there's no decent story today that you think relates to your audience you can personally post about what Joe's doing today and who Joe is and we just hired this really cool graphics guy we want to give him his moment in the sun like we're really glad to have this guy on our team this is a link to his portfolio like you think of that and you constantly want to get out there get to know your city if your company is specifically very location specific in San Antonio talk about what's happening in your city so the cocktail classic that happened right like care enough if you want people to care about your business you should care about them so sometimes it's talking about other people and nothing to do with yourself and I think that's pretty much 80 percent of it but and it just kind of happens organically but also I used to as I told you I build content calendars very loosely I know what events are coming up I know that Christmas happens every year right so like there's no excuse to know that Christmas is coming up people might like that coming year there's a whole month of things you can do for content pieces coming up with Christmas you can plan that out in advance you might not be able to plan out and advance someone stopping by your company that changes your world right so that's something that you just hop on you adjust your content calendar accordingly but there's a lot of stuff you can get out of the way early on and the hard part is sitting down and realizing that you have to spend maybe three weeks building a loose content calendar for the next year but I recommend doing it and then you just kind of fill in the blocks but yeah anybody else the one thing I'll say also on the content calendar before I totally wrap it up is um I don't also write my post in advance for a year what I do is I do themes so I'll say something like on Friday I like to do you know a post I want to try to find a post that means something related to my company right or I'll be like on the 10th I'm going to do something that's funny right so I'll put like a general idea a message across and so on my google calendar it will say like ha ha funny posts lol memes like a memes right so like that's what I'll do um and then I go back and I try to write it as far in advance so that maybe two weeks I plan but I never do it in a whole year I just kind of map out a general guideline and then hope that I can stick to it but really yeah I actually use I do I use google calendar because it's something that's linked on my phone and I know I'm not going to like misplace it so it'll show up every day on my calendar of what day what I was doing it's also a really great way to remind yourself that you haven't done something so I use the same thing that I would plan all of my actual meetings in right yeah there's some really good like to do app stuff that's great um I like to use those uh I really like I I want it so bad for the microsoft phones to take off I'm still really hard-pressed because I love some of the like was it uh god um microsoft note is that right because one of my favorite apps this shouldn't be what it is uh anyways there's really great ways and that's what I like to drop ideas I had Julie um create multiple google um google docs and what she does is she has one to throw in ideas right one to just throw in like actual post formation and these things are great because they can be edited by multiple people um so you can just send the link and have people go back and check what you're doing um I've also had her create on her desktop um places to image drop like just dump pictures of people at geekdom pictures of the pictures around geekdom right like for the opportunity when she's looking for something and then properly take the time to label them so like um so you know when you're looking oh I have this really cool quote post wouldn't it be cool if that robot down the hall said it right so then you go to it pull it up use the quote that you found done um and then you'll find your own quirky ways to make it fast and important and when it first starts you're gonna go real slow so and eventually you won't even think before you wouldn't even think to check on twitter you're just going to be like go go go go so I thank you guys for coming though I'm sad you guys missed my last two amazing picture posts but they're really not they didn't add any value but thanks for coming you guys now it's over and I'll go into my