Heroes in Business - Lives - The 1 Brand Relationship-Builder mixdown

Episode Date: April 28, 2021

This episode will show you how to get proficient in with the #1 relationship-builder between your brand and your market. If you leave this element out, you are doing yourself/your brand a dis-service in this episode of Social Media on Steroids with Dan Shinder     

Hi, and welcome to the Social Media on Steroids podcast. I'm Dan Schindler, and I created the Social Media on Steroids brand of education, training, consulting, and services to help others learn from my experience of achieving extraordinary results with content marketing on social. I attracted a following of over 1 million people and reach millions more online each month, 100% organically. In this series, I share the strategies that helped me cross all the milestones it took to get there and that we still use. And please, before we dive in, take down my email address in case you have questions. I answer all questions and I take suggestions for topics to be covered in this

series. You can reach me directly at dan at advancedsocialmarketing.com. And of course, the website is the same URL. Follow the blog there and the Advanced Social Marketing YouTube YouTube channel. Okay, let's jump in. Okay, welcome to episode eight. Lives, the number one brand relationship builder. Lives are the number one way for you to build the relationship between your brand and your target market. Going live on social media is the number one way for you to build a relationship with your followers, with your audience, with your target market. This is very important. But before we get to that, be sure to check out more episodes you may have missed by going to advancedsocialmarketing.com slash podcast, or just check out your favorite podcast platform and search Dan Schinder. That's S-H-I-N-D-E-R.

It's on about 40 different podcasting platforms, so it should be pretty easy to find. Subscribe there and enjoy. Live and learn, right? Subscribe there and enjoy. Live and learn, right? So you can also sign up for my e-list at www.advancedsocialmarketing.com and get notifications for all the wacky changes that happen on all the major social media platforms, as well as notifications for free workshops

and other learning opportunities with me. So Lives, the number one brand relationship builder. Why is it important to build this relationship? It's important because we need to build likability, trust, and brand love. There is so much noise out there on the internet, on the outer web, the interweb, online. The good news is it's so easy for anybody to get online and put out a message. The bad news is that it's so easy for anyone to get out and put out a message. Oh my goodness, there is just so much noise out there that you've got to stand out. And it's important that you remain at the top of people's minds, or at least on their list somehow, of people

they want to follow, people who they trust, people who they like, a brand that they love to follow. This is why it's so important to build that relationship. And it's actually quite easy to do. There's really no secret to it. It's just like in real life. Like I hear a lot of people and read a lot of stuff by people who say that the digital world is just so challenging and so different. It's not a real experience. That's BS. It's just like real life, especially with 2020, everyone on lockdown and not having that many in-person experiences. I've been teaching online and presenting online for over eight years. So it was kind of nothing new for me, but I know that it was a learning curve for a lot of people. I totally get that, but it truly is the same as being in person. And a lot

of people say, oh, but it's not a real experience being in person. And a lot of people say, oh, but it's not a real experience. You can't build real relationships. Are you kidding me? I have a couch to sleep on, a place to pee in over 130 countries because of the relationship I have built with Drum Talk TV fans as me being the face of the brand.

It's really the same as meeting people somewhere, being introduced, fostering good vibes, a relationship with people that you have something in common with, and just cultivating that. It's really that simple. That's the end of this episode. Just kidding. Hang in there with me. So what is the relationship? What is that relationship that I'm being so firm about you've got to build it? It's a relationship where your audience feels comfortable participating in the experience that you're providing to them. And if you listened to episode three, if you listened to episode seven, you know that you are not providing an experience if all you're going to do is advertise to people, if all you're going to do is promote to people. But going live and having conversations and

interacting and providing an experience, that is a big part of marketing. That gives them the why to follow you. That gives them the why to trust you. That gives them the why to like you and the why to love your brand and fall in love with what you do and want to be part of it if you do it right, if you provide value. It's a relationship in the true sense of the world. And I'm going to tell you a quick story about when I first realized that people, well, not everybody, but a lot of people were in love with Drum Talk TV, my lifestyle brand in the music industry. history. So we made this, I made this meme and it was a photo of a young lady at a drum set that was purple and it was in this beautiful lush green forest. And on the image, I turned up the

saturation. So the colors were just beautiful. And the meme said, you're never alone when you have drums. The post said, when I posted it on the Drum Talk TV Facebook page, the post text said, which you should always have, the text said, has playing music ever helped you through challenging times? I didn't think, I must admit, I was not a genius yet. This helped me realize I was a genius. I didn't realize I was a genius. Anyways, enough of that. Good thing my wife's not here. I didn't think like, oh, this is going to go viral. This is going to be great. I looked at that post the day after it published and was astounded by over a thousand comments. And this is way back before video on Facebook. We had maybe 50, no, we probably had about 80,000 followers at the time. First year of

Trump Talk TV, 2013. And it had more than a thousand. It had, I think, a few thousand comments and at least a thousand shares. And people were commenting, spilling their guts out, saying, yeah, playing music, being a musician, being a drummer has helped me through challenging times. I used to be a latchkey kid, but I'd come home, play my drums, I'd feel better. I grew up in a very abusive home. My dad was an alcoholic, used to hurt my mom, da-da-da-da, was not nice to me and my siblings, played music, played drums, helped me through it all. Story after story after story. My wife left me, took the kids, the house, the Cadillac, and the mailman, and the milkman, but drumming got me through it. So I realized at that moment, and if that guy's listening, I apologize. I realized at that moment, and if that guy's listening, I apologize.

I realized at that moment we had a relationship with our audience. But I also learned about three years later, we needed more of a relationship, or rather I did as the face of the brand because we ran a crowdfunding campaign and it flopped. How many people would be so enthusiastic about telling you that? I'm telling you that and I'm proud of it. It flopped. I'm proud of it because we figured out why. Well, Lori Shube figured out why, who was our chief digital officer at the time. We had a killer video for Kickstarter. We had amazing rewards. It was airtight and it flopped. And afterwards, I was devastated. I really was. We had about 450,000 fans at the time, maybe 500,000 fans. And it took some thinking and it took some shaking off of that experience. But then Lori said something that made so much sense.

She said, you know, I think I know why this didn't do well. She said, you don't have a relationship with your audience. And she saw my astounded look on my face because I'm everywhere on the internet. If you just search my name, don't even put in Drum Talk TV, just search Dan Schindler. And I'm all over our interviews, our event coverage, documentaries. So what do you mean I don't have a relationship with the audience? She says, well, they know who you are from the interviews and all that, but you don't have a relationship with them.

And she was in the video as well. And no one knows me except the artists and the brands that we work with, the makers of gear. So I thought about this. I thought, wow, oh my gosh, that's true. Well, that December is when Facebook Live came out. And I remembered what Lori said. And I said, I'm going to grab Facebook Live like a bull by the horns. And I am going to ride this thing into the sunset, into an even happier place. And I did. I started a show, Dan's Almost Daily Vlog. Almost, so I wouldn't have to do it every day. Because, you know, sometimes things come up, I'm busy, maybe I can't make it. And so Dan's Almost Daily Vlog. Sometimes it's once a week, sometimes it's four times a week. And I remember

the first time I was going to do it, and I told my wife, I said, I'm going to go down to the studio and do the first Facebook Live on Drum Talk TV. I'll probably see you in about 15, 20 minutes. I was down there. It lasted 45 minutes because people were into it. It was so interactive. No one taught me how to do this. I just instinctively made it like a show, like a TV show, like a podcast, like a radio show. I had a beginning, I had an end, and I just talked about drumming and talked about music. And I asked people to comment and they did. So I'm going to teach you how to do lives and why they're so important. We're covering already, but that's part of my experience. And I got to tell you something. In the eight years as this is being recorded on April

19th of 2021, eight years, four months later of Drum Talk TV almost to the day, I've interviewed my biggest living idols in drumming. I've interviewed a lot of other big artists in music that are also my idols and just other great, great musicians, educators, makers of gear. I've gone to Singapore three times. We did two documentaries in Japan. We did documentaries in Singapore.

We've been to Canada. We've been all over the place. I've done so much with Drum Talk TV, but I gotta tell you something. My favorite part of being with Drum Talk TV but I gotta tell you something my favorite part of being the Drum Talk TV guy is doing the live shows and we have more than one

but let's just stick right now with Dan's Almost Daily Vlog I have so much fun connecting with the audience interacting with the audience we schedule it just like any other post, we schedule it just like any other meeting or task. And I go live. We have a system down now. While I'm live, my son Steven is sharing it all

over in different drumming and music groups that are relevant to the topic. Sometimes I have a topic. I plan ahead. Sometimes I don't. Oh my gosh, it's three o'clock. I got to go downstairs into the studio. We're going live in half an hour. Got to get ready. I go down. I don't have a topic. I go live and I ask the audience, what do you want to talk about? Want to talk about gear? Want to talk about tuning? Want to talk about a certain genre of music? Have you heard something lately that you want to know how to do? If I know how to do it, I'll show you. Do you have a new favorite influence? Maybe, you know, whatever it is. Or often I'll have a topic. It's the anniversary of an album coming out that I'm really into, or I'll just have a hankering to play a certain kind of music

or music by a certain artist. And then we'll talk about it. I'll break stuff down. It's so much fun and it changed everything. I can't go anywhere. And I'm not bragging, but I can't go anywhere in the world without people coming up to me and saying, saying, hey, Drum Talk TV, kudos, or just whatever, or sometimes throwing something at me, but they know who I am. That's my point. Even in this podunk little, oops, I mean, this little rural town we live in of 7,200 people, shortly after we moved here, I was in the audience to watch my wife in a play, sitting with A.D. Adams, who plays drums with Louis Prima Jr. and Witnesses. And these two young kids, teenagers, come up and he says, hey, is your name Dan? And A.D. looks at me with his

eyes wide open. I said, yeah. Dan from Drum Talk TV? I said, yeah. And A.D. starts laughing his head off. And then the kid looks at him and says, hey, and you're AD Adams. And I started laughing. It was great. So my point is this relationship building process will do wonders for your brand. And when people like you and they trust you and they love your brand and want to be part of what you do and support you, they will buy from you. They will sign up

for your free stuff. They will sign up for a paid whatever it is, product, workshop, service, seminar, webinar, whatever it is that you do. Please trust me on this. It works. So that's my experience. Let's talk about some prerequisites. You've got, well, it's good to be comfortable on video. And don't wait till you are. Dive in. I've got a client. This guy's great. I love him. I got a client. We'll call him Felix. So let's tie this into the Felix the cat story. Remember Felix the cat? Maybe some of you aren't old enough, and that's okay. But Felix the cat was all about the magic bag. And the professor, the evil professor, always wanted that magic bag because that's where the magic is felix i must have that bag and sometimes he'd stick the master cylinder on him i am the

master cylinder the professor has the magic bag and that's when it was a problem because that's where the magic was well let me tell you something like I tell my friend Felix, we'll call him Felix all the time. You don't need a magic bag. The magic bag is between your ears and in your heart. You have the magic. This guy obsesses so much over how things look, how he looks, the camera angle, this, that. Is that stuff important? He looks, the camera angle, this, that. Is that stuff important? Yeah, but it has taken him forever, forever to spin out a couple videos. He takes three weeks to send me a couple examples.

Don't do that. Belly flop in, learn to swim as you go. That's how you learn. That's how you'll get good at it. That's what I did. I'm no better than you. I'm no different. You can do it too.

Okay? So no Felix syndrome. Dive in and do it. If you've got an expertise, if you've got a message, if you have a community, build that relationship with them by going live, whether it's on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, whatever your thing is. I do mine on Facebook because that's where our biggest audience is. I will, however, be going live with Advanced Social Marketing, my Social Media on Steroids series. I should know the name of it. Just like

I do these podcasts, but they'll be live on my LinkedIn page. I'll be doing that soon. And of course, I've got a YouTube channel as well. So don't obsess over that stuff. And let's talk about gear. You don't need a bunch of fancy gear. Don't worry about that. Use a smartphone. If that's all you have, use a smartphone. But let me give you some tips. Don't have the phone screen facing you. When you do, everything's backwards and it looks lame. I'm sorry, it looks lame. When you have it backwards, any writing that might be on your shirt or in the background, it's backwards and it's distracting. Then people are trying to read it backwards and they're tuning you out. They're not hearing what you're saying. And it also, for people like me who get it, they're saying, wow, doesn't this person know it's backwards? Like all you got to do is turn the

camera around. You could line up your video without you in it. You could point the camera where you're going to be sitting. You don't need to see yourself because then you're looking at the screen, not right at the camera. Look at the camera so you're not looking off camera. Engage people with eye-to-eye contact by being on camera. This stuff's really easy, I promise. Have decent lighting, have decent audio. If you're in a room and you're only using the onboard microphone of the device, let's just say smartphone for now, I'll cover some other options. If that's a big room or a wood floor room or a tiled room,

it's going to sound roomy and reverberate, and it's going to be harder to understand. So find a room that makes sense. Or if your best room does have a roomy sound, you can get a lapel mic. You can get a lavalier mic that has an adapter for a lightning jack for an iPhone or for whatever the Android equivalent is. I don't know. I don't have Android. I'm an iPhone guy. I have, I'm talking to you now through a microphone

that is a Samsung, S-A-M-S-O-N-H-X-D-1. It's a $99 mic at Best Buy or 87 bucks or whatever on Amazon it's a wireless mic and it comes with a USB receiver so you can plug it into your laptop or your desktop computer if you're doing it in your office or on the road with your laptop whatever or if you're using a smartphone or an iPad, it has, or rather you can get a lightning jack adapter for your iPhone, iPad, or the Android equivalent. I love this thing. And we use these when we cover events. When we cover the NAMM show, the largest music trade show, we have five crews that each have an iPad as their camera, one of these mics, and it's got the lightning jack adapter, works like magic. You can open up the microphone, adjust the gain.

It runs on two AA batteries. I mean, it's so easy a drummer can do it. So gear is easy. If you want to use an iPad, use an iPad. If you want to do it at your desk or somewhere with a laptop or computer, do it there. It's really easy. There's different holders for smartphones that mount on a tripod, like a regular camera tripod or a small desktop tripod. I've got one of those next to me. It's about nine inches. The legs are about nine inches and then it stands up about another 10 inches. And then there are also really inexpensive holders for iPads and iPad minis. The same holder will adjust for both and different types of tablets that mount on tripods. And then there's these tripods that are lightweight aluminum. Again, you can get them at Walmart, Target, your favorite camera shop, Amazon. In fact,

at Walmart, Target, your favorite camera shop, Amazon. In fact, on Amazon, they're called Amazon Basics. It's a lightweight $10 tripod. I've taken them around the world three times, seven of them. Once in a while, after a couple of years, one might break it, throw it away, or you keep it and cannibalize the parts in case another one breaks. And for 10 bucks, you get a new one.

I mean, this is not an expensive endeavor, so don't use that as an excuse to put it off. You can do a single camera shoot or a multi-camera shoot with third party programs like Switcher Studio, and there's a few others out there. So the gear is easy. If you use a selfie stick, again, don't have it so the screen on the camera is facing you, then everything's backwards. Turn it around. If you can see the lens and you're holding the selfie stick, you're in camera. Okay? So let's talk about format. When it comes to formatting your lives, kind of serialize it. Make it a series. Make it a show. Come up with more than one if you want that covers different things. We do.

We have four, I think. There's Dan's Almost Daily Vlog. There's Drumming Injuries with Dr. Nadia Azar. That's me and Dr. Nadia go live and talk about repetitive motion injuries. There's one I do with a drummer named Jason Gianni called A Tribute to the Tributes. We pay tribute to awesome tribute bands and what the takeaway is for musicians.

And then there's a Dominic Fragment does Wicked Chops Live. They're easy. They're fun. Think of your channels as a television network and think of these lives as different shows, different series. So what I do when I start my show and you want to have the live broadcast sandwich. That's right. That's what I call to have the live broadcast sandwich. That's right. That's what I call it. The live broadcast sandwich. Have an opening, then provide an experience, then have an

outro. My opening basically starts like this. As soon as we're live, I say, hey, how's it going? Dan Schindler here on Dan's Almost Daily Vlog on Drum Talk TV, coming to you from Globe, Arizona, 100 miles east of Phoenix in the mountains. Where are you? Chime in, tell me where you're watching from. Right away, that gets people involved. Right away, that tells people that it's interactive. Right away, you're giving an invitation

for them to participate, and they will. Give shout outs. Hey, there's schmeckle berg in norway there's henry ishka bibble in manhattan hey there's sally's pseudofed in you know whatever just call out names and places they love that and what i do is i monitor the live on a different device than I'm going live on because it's impossible to follow the comments on the same device. So I use my laptop to log in. Like I said, we do it on Facebook. So I log onto the Drum Talk TV Facebook page and I'm watching the live just like any of you would be. So I could see the comments in real time. I can scroll up and down. I can click like, give them a heart. I can comment. I could type a comment or Stephen will, or I just even better, you answer verbally. And you talk about whatever it is you do and go ahead and advertise.

Go ahead and make an offer, but provide value. How do you do that again? Remember from episodes three and seven, it's all about the common interests. So if you're having a knitting class online or whatever it is you do related to business, health and wellness, whatever your thing is, but talk about knitting. What was your most recent knitting project? What was the most difficult knitting project? What would you like to learn from knitting? By the way, May 6th, I'm having a knitting workshop online. Here's what you'll need. Let's talk about the different types of needles, the yarns, maybe braces for your hands. Maybe you're older, you get a little bit arthritic like me. So you want to provide value, but go ahead and advertise. In the text of your post, you want to have a title for the live

video. And you also want to have a description and end that description with a call to action that has a link that'll drive traffic. Even if it's just to sign up for your email list, or if it's to sign up for that workshop, the knitting workshop, or whatever it is you provide, or the discount on the widget that you talked about and demonstrated. Use this code, get a discount, mention Dan's name, pay double. So this stuff's really easy to do. And then I have an outro and it's basically, all right, well, we're done. I got to get back to work or okay. If no one else has any more suggestions, we're out. I make it really easy. And I say, remember to click, um, uh, get notifications when Drum Talk TV goes live. And by the way, when you're done going live on whatever platform it is, it archives to that channel, which is great because then it lives on

forever. Be sure to share it into relevant groups. That increases the reach. That exposes it to people who otherwise may not even know that you go live, may not even know who you are, may not even be aware of your channel, may not even be aware of the product or service you provide. So share, share, share. I'm going to do a whole episode on how to spread your content beyond your channels without boosting posts, without paying for advertising. It's the system I used 100% organically in the first seven weeks of Drum Talk TV by doing what I'm going to teach you. We had 47,000 fans in the first seven weeks of Facebook without ever boosting a post or paying for an ad. Eight years later, over a million fans, mad engagement, 2,500 new followers every week, still no boosting posts, no paying for ads. I'll teach you how to do that. Your content's

got to be good though too. It's not just sharing it. I have a systematic way of sharing it. That'll get you more reach, but the content's got to be good. It's got to resonate to your target market. to resonate to your target market. So that's it. It's that simple. Go live. Let's review. Go live. Build that relationship so that you build likability, trust, and brand love so that you drive more traffic to where you can do business or at least get them on your email list. Build that relationship. Interact with them. This will also tell you what your audience wants more of, what they want less of, what they like, what they don't like, what they want to learn from you. It's a chance to sell yourself and your brand and your products and or services. It's easy and it's fun. Get over yourself if you're not comfortable being in front of the camera. It's just a piece of plastic and electronics, just like being in front of people.

Oh, maybe you're afraid of that too. Get over that. Seriously, just be comfortable. Don't waste time on this. I'm telling you, if you're leaving this element out, you're doing you, your brand, and your products and services, and your followers, and your target market,

a great disservice. So, apply what I teach and begin getting better results. Guaranteed. I promise. There's no way it doesn't work if you do exactly what I teach. Much more to be covered in more episodes. Be sure to go back. Look at the other episodes.

Oh, listen to them. Don't just look at them. Listen to the other episodes. If you want to them. Don't just look at them. Listen to the other episodes. And if you want to learn more, need your team trained, need a service provider who knows how it really works, or just have questions, reach out. And I'd love to connect and sign up for the newsletter again so that you can get, it's more than a newsletter,

so you can get notifications of all the fun stuff that I have coming. And what? There's one other thing. Oh, yeah. Cue the music. So remember, if you're serious about what you do, get serious about how you market it. Sign up for my newsletter and get my six steps to daily success PDF at advanced social marketing dot com and get notifications about my free workshops and other learning opportunities, as well as the wacky changes on the major platforms. Stay up to date and see how I can help you further at the same URL. Check out the blog there and follow the

advanced social marketing YouTube channel as well. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn at linkedin.com slash in slash Dan Schindler. Happy marketing.