RYB 835: Creating Video Content and Leveraging Platforms + SIMPLIFY Process (Friday Jam Session)

00:00 Yes. What time it is. Friday jams way. Hey, Hey, what's up everyone? Welcome to the rock your brand podcast. I'm your host, Scott Bowker, a serial entrepreneur on a mission to help you.

00:14 This show is designed to teach you to inspire you, to motivate you to take massive action and build a future proof business, so whether you're just starting out or taking your existing business to the next level, this is your home now. If you're ready, I'm ready. Let's rock your brand. What's up?

00:37 Welcome to this Friday jam session. Super excited. You're here and if you haven't heard me say it before, I'm going to say it right now. This is probably one of the highlights of my week because I get to hang out with some cool people every single Friday and answer some really awesome questions. Now you might be asking Scott, how do I get my question answered? Well, all you need to do is become part of our take action crew. How do you do that? Very easy. Head on over to take action. crew.com it's totally free and we do it every single Friday and it is a blast. So what you're about to listen to is one that we did last week. So this way here, even if you can't attend, you can always show up here to the rock your brand podcast and listen to our live jam session.

01:24 All right guys. So sit back, relax and let's jam. Favorite place to learn tech, like live stream editing, setup, et cetera. All right, so where should you learn? Well, the first thing I would do is ask what do you need to learn? All right? It's not about do should you learn everything. It's, it's what should you learn? So the first thing I would be like, okay, what do I, what am I trying to do? I'm trying to create a live stream. Alright, what do I need in order to learn? Number one, the equipment that I need and then the software that I need right now. You can also say, and also I need to learn how to structure a live. Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe that's another thing. So there's three elements there, right? There's tech, right? There's uh, there's what do you need to do on video or say on video or how to structure something and then you need software to broadcast, right?

02:12 So those are the different elements before we can ever think about what we need to learn, we need to figure out the steps that it will take to get to where we want to go. Right now, I did a full video walkthrough of my setup here, so that'll get you part of the way there. All right. And I will drop the link here for YouTube, uh, Watchers and listeners, uh, because, uh, after the fact, I can put a card right here that'll go to that video. All right? So what that, what that basically will do is it'll help you with that part. Now, what I would say here to you specifically is I would not overcomplicate this process. It could be as simple as this, right? I'm a big fan of just getting, getting in it, like getting to it, doing it. Don't overthink it, right?

02:57 So the biggest thing for you is like what are you going to speak to? Okay. Or speak about on that broadcast. And once you have that figured out, it's like, okay, how do I broadcast? It's pretty simple. You grab your phone, okay. You can even prop it up like I have here on Instagram right now. You can just prop it up and then go ahead and go live. Like literally you don't need him any software to do it unless you want to. Mult multistream right. Like, so right now I'm streaming the Facebook in on the page on the group and on YouTube. So three different channels, streaming rate from there. Okay. And if you're listening to this, you guys can't see, but I'm pointing at the camera. Uh, but in the very beginning I didn't use any tools or anything like that. All I did was I just got my phone and I thought about what I was going to teach or talk about and then I just hit record or not even record.

03:46 I hit live and then that was it. So there we took the barrier to entry way down. So I would say that for anybody doing anything, if you're trying to think about all of the different things you think you have to do, you probably don't have to do, you know, maybe 20% of those. Okay, figure out what it is you want to do and then reverse back. You do not need a $1,200 camera. You don't need a softbox. You don't need the special software in your computer. If you're just starting, you can get set up and just start using your phone. I shot a lot of videos training on my whiteboard by just taking my, my iPhone, putting it on a tripod, pointing at my whiteboard with me in it, not even using an external mic at the time. And then from there it just had a window light that was giving me good light.

04:36 That's it. The biggest thing is people want it, the content, right? So stop worrying about necessarily the equipment, the software, all that stuff. I'd be thinking about the content, the other stuff that stuff is, is pretty easy to get started and then you can always get fancy. So that would be my advice there. Salma. Uh, your stream is pixelated on Facebook. Is it really? Huh? It looks okay on my end. Uh, let me just look here and make sure that everything is streaming. Okay. Yeah, I'm even hardwired guys, if you can do this in, um, in the chat, let me know if that's got cleaned up at all and we can go from there.

05:19 Uh, let's see. Salma says, yeah. Okay. So let's see if that's got cleaned up at all yet. It's okay here. Karen says it's okay. Uh, okay. James is in the house. What's up James? All right, cool. Let's just answer some more questions here. All right. Uh, let's see. All right. Uh, okay Salma, you have another question, but I want to make sure that I get a lot of other people's questions too. So we're going to kind of sprinkle these in. I'll come back to your cell, my promise. Uh, okay. Uh, let's see. Oh, let's see. Okay, Kate Kay has a question on, uh, hosting. Have you heard of SiteGround web hosting? Curious what you think. Also, someone recommended a Weber MailChimp or convert kit for email hosting, but I thought we could just use our host company for this. Okay, great question. All right, here's the deal.

06:09 I have not used SiteGround but I've heard good things about them. So it's totally your preference, whatever you want to use. Okay. Me personally, I like to keep things within the same things that I've used over and over again. I've tested them, I've tested blue host, I liked them, but I don't like them as much as HostGator, just me personally. Okay. And I'm a little bit of a creature of habit sometimes because I've built businesses on those platforms and I just, I get comfortable within those because they work. So why change it? Right? Um, so HostGator has been really good, but the one tip I would say is I do not and I'll get to the email, a autoresponder, and you know that provider here in a minute. What I don't do though is I don't buy the domain through HostGator. I'll buy the domain through GoDaddy.

06:59 That way it's separate. I can take that domain and I can point it anywhere I want, but if I buy it through HostGator, a lot of times it's hard to detach that from HostGator. So I would always go daddy or whatever your, your email or I'm sorry, your um, web URL, your, your web address, um, that you want to purchase it from. Totally fine. Just make sure that it's independent and your hosting is separate. That's just what I've found is easier cause then I can point it anywhere. I want the web hosting, I use this host Gator. I like them. They've been really good to us over the years. Uh, you know, so a lot of times something will happen. You can't get ahold of people. You're always able to get ahold of someone. And then as far as email, no, I would not use their email built in.

07:38 Yes, they have that. I would not use that. That is like last, last, last resort. I would not use that. I would use something again independent. And that to me right now, I've used a Weber MailChimp, I've used active campaign infusion soft, I've used ClickFunnels, uh, send grid. I've used them all, right? Like a lot of them. And now I've gotten rid of all of those. And now I'm using convert kit. That is my choice of, of uh, or my email provider of choice right now. And just so easy to use. Uh, it's a, it's the, the deliverability is really, really good cause they have good servers. Uh, so if you guys are interested in going through my affiliate link, you will buy me a cup of coffee. But also if you do go through that and you want to send me an email, I'll give you some extra Reese sources.

08:27 Uh, and we're actually gonna be adding some more templates and stuff that I'll give you. Um, if you go to a brand creators.com forward slash convert kit, that should take you to that signup page, you'll also get a free trial and you also get, I believe, up to 500, uh, subscribers that you get, um, that you can have without even paying for it. So it's pretty cool. Um, but that's what I would recommend for that. Uh, okay. Uh, okay. Salomon wants to know another live video question. Why do you use E cam instead of VMX for live? I don't use cam for live. Um, I use stream yard. All right. And there's a reason why I do that. Uh, he cam in order to use E cam, I use E cam to record my videos or my podcast, right? If I'm recording a podcast episode dedicated for just the podcast or YouTube, I'm using E cam.

09:19 And the reason is is because the quality of the picture is really, really good, right? If I want to then broadcast that to Facebook or I want to broadcast it to YouTube or maybe a Facebook page or a group I need to purchase another tool that allows me to multistream trim yard has a built in. So I pay one monthly fee and I get that other feature and it's all underneath one, you know, one place or one host. I don't have to go and connect this to this and then I have to make sure that I change the headings over here to like it. I've used it before and it's just, it makes it more cumbersome. I don't, uh, I don't enjoy that process. So I've found stream yard very, very stable, really clean, allows me to share my screen, allows me to stream multi multiple platforms, um, and they're always improving things.

10:08 So that's the one I use. Salma. Uh, let's see here. Jennifer, how do you launch when you aren't ready? Like I want to put the welcome mat out and move the furniture in as I go. Thoughts? Uh, I love that. And okay, so let's talk about this quick. So are you talking about launching a product or launching a website? So I would want a little bit more clarification there. If we're talking about launching a website, the only thing that you need to do is you need to commit to that market that you're going to go in. So if you're going to talk about, uh, you know how to catch more bass and it's going to be all about bass fishing, you just need to put your stake in the ground and you need to do it right. You need to just get started and then you can start to build and then you can buy the welcome mat, right?

10:53 Like the welcome mat that you're talking about is like, you want that to let, let people come in, right? A lead magnet, whatever. I say you do it as soon as you can. Like why not start building and stop looking at the land, right? Like that's the big thing for me. Like I want to get started as soon as possible, but I also want to make sure I do the validation part upfront. Once I have that done, I feel pretty good about it. I'm all about like, let's go ahead and get the shovel out and start digging. Like, let's go. Um, so I would say, uh, I would, if it's a product, now that's different because now we're basing everything off of one product. So if we're doing that, it's like when do I launch that product? I personally wouldn't start necessarily with a product.

11:36 I would start with the market and the attention and the traffic and the email list and then I would start to think about what else I could sell those people that would serve them. That's what I would do. Uh, let's see here. What's up Brian? Good morning Ron. Boots farm. What's up? Uh, okay. Let's see. James, what's up? Good morning. Little late, but that's okay. Uh, Ashley. Okay. I'm brand new to creating a barbecue brand with my husband. I love this by the way. I love that you're sharing with me what you're doing and what you're in. Cause I can give you so many better answers if I know exactly what we're talking about and we're not making up bass fishing stuff anymore. Right. So I love that. Thanks for being transparent. I'm brand new to creating a barbecue brand when my husband, we have already started writing articles, but I'm wondering if we should start doing video immediately as well.

12:27 I'm a professional photographer, but I don't do video. And I'm wondering if I should invest either paying someone to do it for me, pay someone to teach me or wait and do it later. I would love your feedback on this, Ashley. Here it is, and I'm going to make this super simple for you. All right? You're already creating content. You're a photographer, okay? We were photographers, I don't know if you know the story, but my wife and I were photographers for over 10, 12 years. Uh, and uh, we built a local brick and mortar photography business and then went and started teaching online, uh, Photoshop and create templates and all that stuff. So anyway, we kind of come from the same, the, you know, the same background as far as video goes. I think all you need, all you need, okay? If you're doing barbecue stuff, it's probably going to be about barbecuing, right?

13:17 It's going to be about the grill, it's going to be about the briquettes. It's going to be about the smoker. It's going to be about, uh, you know, different recipes. It's going to be about the different seasonings, like all of that stuff, right? So if you're already creating articles, why not just get a tripod, your camera with your phone or your video camera with your phone and then just start recording like that's it. Like the editing side of things. You don't have to get crazy with the editing. Like to me fancy doesn't necessarily sell it actually sometimes will hurt you because then people think, Oh, this is just well produced. It's a company, right? Versus you being like, Hey, it's Ashley and my husband. I don't know your husband's name, my husband John. And today we are excited. We're going to be doing a new barbecue, uh, sauce and uh, it's something that was passed down by his grandfather.

14:08 We're going to give you guys all the ingredients, but we're also going to show you exactly how to put this on and how to make the best barbecue ribs ever. If you're interested in that, stick around. That's what we're going to cover, right? And that's it. And then you can just be yourselves. You just be yourself. Get to it. Like number one, the biggest thing for you is to just give people what they are coming there for, right? If they're coming there for a, a, a recipe on barbecue, uh, you know, recipes or they want to have the best barbecue ribs, that's what you're going to give them, right? That's what they're searching for. That's what you want to give them, right? And if you've done a little bit of research in that market and you know that, uh, let's see, uh, beer batter, barbecue ribs, if that's it, right?

14:51 I'm making up stuff. I have no idea if that's it. It would be something like that. It'd be like, you know, uh, if you're interested in creating these amazing, uh, beer battered Ray barbecue ribs and you want a simple recipe, uh, rent, I can't even speak a recipe that everyone is going to rave about and everybody's going to talk about. You're going to want to stick around because your mouth is going to be watering something like that. And then boom, you get into it. So you hook in the beginning, you always hook in the beginning, tell people what they are showing up for that they're in the right place and then deliver it. I would do that immediately. Like there is nothing that should be stopping you on that. There's no equipment that you really need. You have a phone tripod. If you don't have one, invest in a, in a tripod, you can get one for like 20 bucks, right?

15:36 And the only other thing I would maybe invest in is maybe a microphone, right? I have a zoom H one. Uh, it's all you need, right? You can even get a little $15 a lav mic, put it in here, plug it into your zoom, even put it into your iPhone or whatever you have, right? You can do, it's so easy nowadays to do that. There's no reason you shouldn't. And if you're already creating the articles and if it's you and your husband, that's the story, right? That's, that's you. You guys are the characters right in, in the, you know, in the show. Right? So I would embrace that. I would definitely embrace it. And anyone else out there, you know, they're, they're thinking to themselves like, I want to create this thing, but I'm just not sure if it's time to do this. My only thing would be this, if you are already rocking and rolling, you see how I did that there in the Friday jam session, rocking and rolling.

16:27 If you're already rocking it and your, you know, your content, you're pumping out your content and it's good and you're in a rhythm, then if you don't want to take your eye off that because you think if you do the video, it's going to slow the other thing down, then maybe you need to kind of do it slowly, right? But I think for you guys in your market, it is going to be necessary to do that and it's going to also give you multiple ways for people to find you because you have an article that resides on, uh, you know, on your website, which can be found by Google and Yahoo and being, and all of the search engines. And then you also have your, you're a YouTube site, right? And that you can then repurpose that stuff. The other thing I would say, which we're loving Pinterest right now by the way, we're loving it.

17:13 I think your market would definitely lend itself to that, but we're loving Pinterest so much that every single brand that we touch from here on out are adding that Pinterest component to it. It's a must. It's, it's in that equation right now. If for some reason we go into a market, we see a whole bunch of opportunity and we validate it and the Pinterest thing isn't there, then we won't do it, but for the most part, I don't know a lot of brands that can't use Pinterest. In your case it would be an easy add and it wouldn't take up a lot of time and anyone that is here live or watching this, we are going to be doing a live training. My daughter and I daughter is the one my my 24 year old daughter, which I mentioned here before on the show. She actually, she actually was teaching me what I needed to do because we were doing it wrong.

17:58 And then once we brought her on and had her started to manage the two brands that we're building and brand creators Academy, um, they're just skyrocketing right now. The, the traffic is over a hundred visitors per day just from those us, those really early on Pinterest accounts. Um, and they're just growing. Uh, but there's a strategy and a technique and I'll talk about it here on a, on a future podcast and on a coffee talk. But, uh, if you're interested in that, stay tuned cause I got more details coming in on that and we're going to do a, a, a, a workshop where we're going to be doing that outside of right now we have a training inside of brand creators Academy and all of our members get access to that, but some can't get into brand creators Academy right now cause we're closed. Um, so we're going to do a little pop up workshop for Pinterest because it's working and we love it and it's a strategy that we're going to be using, uh, for a long time.

18:46 It's evergreen content. So anyway, a little side note on that. Let's get to another question, Karen. I am doing three videos a week, three to four Facebook lives content, one to two times a week. Most of our traffic is on Facebook. I have a VA that handles Pinterest, Instagram, and posts our videos on YouTube. We are growing on those platforms too. So I'm con, so I'm focused on Facebook. We have 141 subscribers in 25 days. It's the perfect time for the educational field, working on third email for Monday on fun activities, kind of on slowdown. Uh, is there anything else I can do to bring in more subscribers or do I keep planting seeds? You can't, you keep planting seeds. It sounds like you're doing a lot. So I would make sure that you're not getting overwhelmed. But from what I'm seeing here, Karen, I liked the Facebook lives.

19:38 I mean, heck, if you're watching this on Facebook, you know, I'm doing a Facebook live right now, so I'm a fan of it. What I like about the Facebook lies is are the lives, if, if you can repurpose them, right? So if you can, if you can plant those on YouTube, which I think you said you are, because that's searchable. Facebook is, it's searchable, but no one really searches on, uh, on Facebook. They don't search for like how tos and stuff. Right. Um, but it's a great way to engage and get people interested. Right. I do like the idea of Pinterest more so than Instagram, to be honest with you. If I was to pick out of those, I would be more focusing on Pinterest and Instagram, um, for your field especially. Okay. Um, because it's visual, right? And Pinterest, there's going to be moms that are gonna be searching for that stuff and they're going to pin that stuff.

20:25 Right. So I would look into doing that. I've got an episode I just recorded. It's going to be airing, I think next Monday, which we'll be going through the Pinterest strategy that we've been deploying and that's working. And it'll also mention more about the workshop that we're gonna be doing here. We're gonna be doing it on June 1st, by the way. That's when it's going to start. Uh, so let's see here. Uh, more questions. Yeah, a lot of questions. You guys are ready to jam, aren't you? All right, cool. Uh, let's see. I'm just trying to scroll guys really quickly. All right, cool. Everybody's saying it's better now. The screen. That's good. Derek, what's up? Uh, let's see, Lloyd. Uh, okay. So Lloyd says, Scott, you probably get the same questions asked over and over and over again. Do you have a frequently asked questions, resource anywhere?

21:12 Uh, you know, that's a great question and we really don't, other than when we have people visit our site, we're trying to really create more of a resource area or a start here. So depending on where you're at, it's a great question. And with the new remodel, it is definitely something we're going to be putting into practice. Uh, okay. Derek wants to know how much is screen yard. Um, screen yard is the plan I'm on, I think is 49 a month. But they have, they have them as, they have a free, a free one too. It'll have some branding on it. And I think the cheapest one is like 19 or $29 a month. Uh, let's see. Oh, Derek, again, did you say you prefer WordPress over a ghost.org for blogging? Yes. WordPress. And it's not the free word press as far as hosting. It's free.

21:57 But we host, we create a hosting account through HostGator, and then we do a one click install through our backend that installs WordPress. And basically WordPress is just the engine that's running the blog and the website. Uh, let's see. Oh, okay. So Jennifer says a coaching website. Okay. So that's, so why, why wait? Like why, why wait Jennifer, like start, build, build the house, start brick by brick. But every time that you're doing that, you can be also letting people know what you do and how you help them. So for you, I'm in the coaching business too, right? We're, we're kind of in the same business. If you're in that business, you got to show up even before people are there. Right? Like I know right now there isn't as many people that are here with us then that then that listen to the podcast.

22:43 I understand that if you're listening to the podcast, you're one of them. But I know that, but I know over time this is going to grow. So why wouldn't I give this attention right now and keep building and keep building and keep helping people. And then when people will start to find me later, they're going to see that growth and they're also going to see that I've been committed. This isn't just an overnight success thing. Right? So I think it's important that you start as soon as you can and in your business there's nothing to wait for. You don't have to wait for a product. You are the product in a sense. Right. Uh, let's see. Mmm, okay. Uh, let's see. Okay, Kate again or no, this is a different case, I think. Yeah. Is it true that Facebook algorithm, uh, don't like links on the post?

23:30 They say you will have lesser reach if you put links. I've tested that. Uh, I think there is some, there's probably some truth to that. Uh, but I can't say a hundred percent for certain. I don't think anybody can. So that's why you would mix it up, right? Mix it up a little bit. If you have a post that has links in it, maybe you put it in the first comment, you can do that, uh, or you can just post it and then you can repost it and then put the link in the repost. But again, I don't, I don't go down that road of like, okay, Facebook, I'm looking for them to give me all the reach. What I'm doing is I'm trying to get organic reach, but then I'm also building a custom audience behind the scenes guys. Everybody that's watching this right now is becoming part of a custom audience without anybody really knowing it.

24:14 Now, it doesn't mean I'm going to use it in a negative way. It just means that I'm only going to be showing stuff to, if I want to pay to get in front of people, I'm only going to be paying for people that have raised their hand by watching. Right? If you're sitting here right now and you've been on here for 20 minutes or 30 minutes, there's a good chance that you're probably interested in building the brand. So if I have something to offer and I put it out there, do you guys, whether it's free, paid, whatever, it's a better chance of you guys wanting it and reaching the right people. So I'm not always looking at Facebook as organic. We can't control that. Okay. We can control paid though. And that's way down the line. But I'm just saying you want to build that stuff in the background.

24:54 Uh, what do I think about lead pages? I use lead pages, uh, in the past. And what do I think about it? I think they're a good company. I just think that other companies have made it really, uh, similar that's built in. So convert kit has its own lead pages kind of built in. They have their own, uh, page builder, uh, enough to get up and running. Uh, Kajabi has its own. So if you're using Kajabi, why would you go over to lead pages? So a lot of times if you're looking at something like that, uh, it's a great tool if you just want to get up and running quickly, but it's pretty expensive for, for what you get when you're using convert kit, you can pay for that, have the email provider in, have a lead page, a built in or a page builder built in.

25:34 So, um, I think they're a good company. I've used them, they are easy drag and drop really cool. But you got to limit how many tools you're going to be using too. Right? You want to limit that. You don't always need all of the bells and whistles and keeping it really clean is important and I think ConvertKit does a really good job with that. Uh, okay. Let's see. Jennifer says, got it. Thank you. Yeah. Keep us posted to Jennifer. And any other questions you have definitely fire away today. Seems like a lot on, I always try to think about like what's the theme of these jam sessions? Um, this one today seems really about content creation and also video and I think live streaming. Right. And I love that because for those of you that have been following the podcast for many years, know that it's always been about eCommerce.

26:27 Uh, primarily I love these discussions. I will be more than happy to dive deeper into these, into these topics. I've been doing it for years, I'm learning all the time as well. But, uh, content creation is big and it's a huge asset. No matter platform you post on. And again, you want to look at the platforms, but it's really, really powerful. So I'm so glad that we're talking about content creation and I love being able to dive into these examples. So again, if you have anything on content creation specifically, drop it in. Let's, let's jam on it. Uh, okay. Let's see. Uh, so Ron says, working on working and listening, been a longtime listener of the podcast. Love your messaging on brand building. I'll thanks man. Um, or I think it's Ron boots. So is it Ron? Ron, is that your first name? I'm just curious if it's a username or if it's your first name.

27:18 Uh, Derek, where do you store your content to keep it safe and for links? So, Mmm, I guess I need a little bit more clarification on that. Derek mean, where do I store it? Well, if I'm posting content like, uh, articles, it's going to reside on my blog, on my website. So it's, it's there, it's on my host. Um, if I'm posting on, on YouTube, it's hosted on YouTube. If I'm posting on Pinterest, it's posted on Pinterest. So that's kind of where we're storing those different things depending on the platforms. And a lot of times we'll repurpose, right? So if we have a video on YouTube, we'll take that and then publish it over on the blog or vice versa. Uh, okay. Edmond, what's up Edmond? So before launching, how would you grab your market attention and build an email list without having a product being shipped?

28:05 What would be the suggested lead time between email lists, listing marketing awareness and product launch? So we're talking about a physical product at this point, right? If we're talking about a physical product, then we want to grab people's attention that want a physical product. So the best way in my opinion, is to either, if you have the product yourself and that is going to be the product, do a giveaway for that product. Now the only thing is if you don't have the product, then you need something that's relatable to that product or an accessory to that product. So if you're selling, uh, maybe a fishing real, then you might want to give away a fishing pole that the real will go on, right? So I know you said not using a physical product as like the lead magnet, but why not? You don't have to ship it by the way, find something on Amazon and then raffle that thing off and then that's going to be your lead magnet.

29:00 And then you'll just direct, uh, you know, shipped directly to the winner. And then that way they're, anybody that doesn't win, you can give a discount code on your product. Like, so that's the, that's the best way I've found to do it. We, we did that recently in brand creators Academy. Any of you that's watching that isn't brand creators Academy. You know what this is. We did a contest giveaway with a $200 prize. We bought all of them basically through Amazon and just shipped them directly through Amazon. Once the winner was picked and we, we generated 9,337 I think was the exact number of emails and it was great. Now we didn't have a product to sell them on the backend. Um, we didn't, we didn't do it for a product launch. My only caution to you admin is you may be disappointed at the uptick for that.

29:48 And what I mean by that is you, you may see that just by building the list for a product launch might not be the best use of your resources and time because not a lot of people are just going to buy the minute that they see you and find you, you have to nurture that. So I always tell people, you know, you can still do it, but you don't want to expect that you're going to sell 150 units right off the art right off the bat. Right now. You could, it doesn't mean you will. Um, so that would be my bit of advice there for you on that. I would say also you might want to look into Pinterest ads. We've been having some pretty good luck with Pinterest ads on a separate little, uh, a separate little test here that my business partner is doing on their own.

30:32 Um, so you might want to check that out. Mmm. What do I think about Yoast plugin for SEO? Excuse me. I think a Yoast is a great plugin to give people the green, the yellow and the red light. Okay. It was funny cause I was just talking to my daughter and her husband who actually is our SEO expert behind the scenes. And um, we think it's a really great tool for people that are under the 25,000 page view Mark. But once we get past that point, we want to start getting a little bit outside of just following some check boxes. Right. Um, it doesn't mean it has to be crazy different, but it means that if we don't get a green light, it doesn't mean it's bad. But in the beginning we want reassurance that what we're doing is optimized to its fullest. So that's why I do think Yoast is a great plugin for SEO.

31:25 Um, and we're using it right now personally and it's working. So yeah, I, I'm a fan of it. Mmm. The Panama, the Panama and Mike, uh, hi, I'm the male that is in your, uh, that is a year into selling hats for natural hair community. Our primary product is seasonal hat for women. We are looking to hire a freelancer to write blogs for us. Um, okay. So what is the question that you want to, you're, you're selling female products and you, you're higher and you're a male. Um, I'm just not sure I understand the question. If you want to ask that question again, I could try to answer it. Uh, okay. I actually see this now. You, you posted down here, our goal is to rank in Google organically by October. What other actions can we take? Perfect. Love this. Here's what I would do. First off, I'm going to take a sip of coffee because I need one and then we'll answer that question.

32:18 Alright, so what I would do is I would start creating that content. Now what are we in the time of doing this jam session? We are in may, so we have may, June, July, August, September, we got five months in five months, we have created two brands and we were eight, 8,000 to 10,000 page views in five months. Right now we're over the 20,000 Mark. So it starts to really hockey stick up as you keep going, right? So I would say I would start down that route immediately. And the second thing that I would do that I didn't do right up front, but I would do now, is I would start that Pinterest. I would start the Pinterest side of things because your market would definitely lend itself to women by the way, who are on Pinterest and you're going to be able to start to get traffic from Pinterest even quicker than you can from, uh, just writing blog posts.

33:15 Okay. So I would do those. I would do those too. Um, side by side, uh, again, I'm going to be doing a full episode coming up on the podcast. Uh, depending on when you're watching or listening to this or if you're here live. Um, that's going to be the following Monday. I'll go through the exact procedure in the strategy that we're using and I'll also talk more about that workshop that we're going to be doing, which might be of interest to you specifically because this would lend itself to you perfectly. Um, so hopefully that answered. Kate, I hear, uh, thrive apprentice helps build online courses straight out of the box. Have you heard of thrive used it? There are a slew of other thrive themes. Thrive architect, thrive leap. Yeah, it's a, it's a platform that has a lot of different templates and a lot of different plugins and stuff.

34:01 I have used it very, very little. Um, again, I don't know that you need it. Um, I don't know that you need it. I think also sometimes we get too many things that we have at our disposal and then we get confused and from listening to you before Kate, because you, you had a question last week about, uh, you just want the simple steps to get up and running that there is going to confuse the crap out of you. Okay. So I would just warn you of that. Um, so I would just keep it simple and small and let's just make those small action steps like boom, boom, boom. Right? Like let's knock those out. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. I don't think you need that right now. Personally. Just my personal preference. Okay. Or my personal advice for you, Derek, do you use a pad to write on your screen capture?

34:52 Uh, yes. I have an iPad basically. Um, and I can just share that screen, which is great as well. For video. So if you're doing any type of training or if you're doing any examples, it's a great way for you to give people something else to look at. You can use your whiteboard, which I have one here in my office. You can do your iPad, which I also have here, but you don't have to. But it's a great tool to give people another way to consume. Octavio. What is up my man who's crushing it, by the way, he's my content, uh, uh, w rockstar, my content rockstar. Octavio, I just want to share something here for a minute. Octavio joined brand creators Academy, I believe it was first round and uh, and came in and you hadn't even really set up his website or anything and just kind of kept putting it off, putting it up, putting it off.

35:41 And then finally got in there and he said, you know what? I'm going to do this. We're going to do this. And came in and a little bit of nudging, a little bit of pushing. Now he is on a roll YouTube videos, uh, making his own thumbnails, uh, in our community helping and sharing. People do outsourcing. We writers, he's creating blog posts that are Epic every single week. I am just so excited and proud of Activia. So I wanted to give him a little shout out, one of our BCA tribe members here in the house on our morning talks. So Octavio, brother, I appreciate you man. Uh, you mentioned about turning post to YouTube. How do you do that without just reading posts on camera? Thank you. It's very simple. Great question. I top you and I'm glad that you asked this. Um, so what you would do is you would just bullet pointed out, okay, what does the blog post say?

36:33 Okay, and what is the message? Or what are the lessons that are top all right or that are described? So you might have five of them. All you're going to do is you're going to come on with your hook. That's your title of the blog post, you know, and then after that, it's going to be five points or three points or seven points or whatever. Right? And then all you're going to do is you're going to go through those seven points, right? And you're going to do it. I would do it freestyle, I wouldn't do it where I'm scripting everything. I'd be like, okay, what am I going to talk about? Okay. The one way to catch more are the three ways to catch more bass in a pond. Way. Number one is make sure you go at a certain time, right? And the reason why is because a fish like this and dah, dah, dah, right?

37:14 The second thing is make sure that you use this type of lure, right? The reason is is because they like this color and they usually bite this better, like whatever, right? I'm making up stuff. And the third thing is make sure that you, you know, uh, I don't even know. Now I got gotta I'm thinking on the fly here. Uh, make sure that you, uh, that you use a certain type of, um, I don't even know. I'm stumped. Uh, whatever you would use for catching more bass, whatever it is. Um, so obviously you need to know your market. You need to know that. So me right now I would have stumbled and I would have lost it, right? But I'm not trying to sell the bass fishing world. But what you want to do is you want to just map them out. Your, your, your first intro is, you know, Hey, you know, in this video I'm gonna share with you three ways to catch more bass that you might not have used in the past.

38:10 These work for me every single time. Stick around. That's what we're going to cover in this video. Alright guys, super excited to have you. If you haven't subscribed yet to the channel, go ahead and subscribe this way. Here you get more videos just like this one. And uh, and also if you have any questions for me, comment down below. All right guys, let's get cracking. So first off, if you're looking to catch more bass, I found that you see that? That's it. That's the transition. Three points, five points. That's your, you can read it. I've seen people read it in the narrate over top of like visuals. If you don't want to be on camera. But if you're cool with being on camera, just jump on camera and hit it right. Cause people want to see a face. If you can show things this bait right, this, uh, you know, um, this type of a spooled that you're using, your spooling technique or whatever, right?

38:58 Any of that stuff that you can show visually is going to help you. All right. So anyway, hopefully that helped you. Octavio. Uh, let's see. Derek says, do you write down all your plans? Uh, yes and no. I don't get too crazy down the road. I look at big picture and then I come back and I look at like the next 90 days and then we go from there and then I reevaluate in 90 days and then we do it again. Um, so that's it. Uh, let's see. Okay. Uh, Salma Pinterest is better to use for product, brand or service too. I think that's a question. Um, no, it's great for anything. Um, here's the other thing. I have never used Pinterest for the podcast, by the way. I think we dabbled with it. Someone said, Oh, I'll, I'll do it for you. And I think it started and then it stopped.

39:43 So I never did anything with it. We're going to now start introducing it to the podcast. Why not? Right. So I don't know that for sure if a podcast would lend itself to it, I'm going to try it. But I don't know why it wouldn't, right. If people are looking to create a business or are looking to take their photography business to the next level, there's probably going to be boards that are going to talk about marketing strategies for a wedding photographers, right? And so I do believe that there's a place for Pinterest in anyone's business, but you would want to do that research. Um, but no, it's not just for product at all, at all. It's, it's a lot for how to, or recipes or you know, like the barbecue example, that's a great thing for Pinterest, right? People want to go there and find different, you know, different recipes that they're going to be able to do.

40:34 Cause they're a barbecue nut, right? Like that's what they want. They want to look at barbecue grills, they're going to be a, you know, they're going to be investing in smokers or pizza ovens or any of that stuff. It's a great place. Now, it doesn't mean that it has to be physical product. It could be the recipes, right. It could be the techniques. It doesn't have to be the product, although it could be, uh, let's see, a kiss. Keep it simple. Yup. I need to remember this. Thank you. You are a great Scott. Really appreciate you taking the time to do these coffee talks. No problem. Thanks for showing up. Um, Oh, and then, uh, the, the Panamanian, I don't even know how to say that. Uh, Mike, I'll just call you Mike. Uh, this has been very informative. I listen to all your podcasts, but this is my first live. Thank you for all the content that you put out there. Uh, my name is Mike and I'm listening from Germany. Yeah, another Germany listener. Uh, love it. Um, okay. And let's see.

41:29 Oh, have fun at the cabin this weekend. Yeah. Actually, uh, the Lake house. We're supposed to be going this weekend and my wife and I were just looking at the weather and the weather doesn't look great next week. And we're like, Oh, should we even go? I don't know. We got the dogs, they're going to be wet and tracking in and it's, so we don't know. Hopefully we're going to be able to make it there. Uh, but anyway, I just wanted to, uh, I'll let you know that Karen or Kate. Yeah, I'm possibly going to be going there to, to the, uh, to the Lake house. Uh, okay. One, uh, one or two more questions. All right. Oh, cool. Look at that, Justin. Good evening from the Philippines. What's up? How are you, uh, let's see. Ashley, what do you use to schedule your posts via the different platforms?

42:12 That's a great question. So if we are going to publish things, and again, we're experimenting with this right now, there's a, there's a tool called tailwind and uh, it's a really slick tool. It will allow you to post on Instagram and Pinterest and Facebook and all these different things. But one thing that I've noticed and we're testing this is that when you use schedulers, it definitely decreases your reach. Now with that being said, if you want to take a scheduler and have it post as a filler and then you post on your regular stuff manually, I'm okay with that. But if you're going to rely on just an auto poster, I believe you are not going to get the reach that you should and that you deserve, right. So I'd be careful with that. Um, and I would always wait until you kind of figure out what you want done before you ever offload it to a VA or a scheduler.

43:07 So just make sure that you know that first, uh, Karen Pinterest has taken off. We have 12,000 views in the last 15 days. Seems to go up every day. Yes, Karen. Yes. Happy to hear that. That is awesome. So you know what? That's a great point that you just brought up. Okay. We just uncovered some data. I did a coffee talk a few days ago talking about focusing on what's working, not worrying about what you know is shiny over here, focusing on what's working. You put some things in play and Karen, you've got a whole bunch of things that you put in play, right? What one right now is getting the best reach or the best return on time. And right now Pinterest seems like it's doing pretty good. 12,000 views. Now, the one thing is, I would look at this though, Karen, and this is something that we always pay attention to.

43:53 So views, are you talking impressions or are you talking clicks? How many clicks would you say are happening in 15 days? That's the number I'm really measuring. Views are good, but views don't turn into website visitors always, right? We add, yeah, 135,000 impressions last month. Okay. Out of that we got 6,700 ish link clicks over to the website. Still good. But the impressions, they, they seem good, but you're not really getting people over to your website. So I'd be interested to hear that. Uh, let's are Derek, would you use the blogging feature on Shopify to sell your products? Yeah, you can. If you're on Shopify, there's no reason not to use their blogging platform in their product platform side. Uh, let's see. Oh, Mike, again, what do you think about the blog site that comes built into Shopify? Okay, so that's another one. So there's two questions there on the same, same thing.

44:51 I think it's great. No, I haven't used it personally, but I know that it works. Um, the only thing is, is any time that you're, you're, I'm hearing things about WordPress and plugins and things like that, you're just gonna have to try to find an alternative on that platform because Shopify, um, isn't the same as WordPress. It's still will do well in rankings and all of that stuff. Um, so I would say if you haven't built everything in Shopify as far as content side, you might want to start it on WordPress. We've done that where we have the blog and the website all built on WordPress. And then we have a Shopify store that is connected through a, um, a sub domain. And that's how we've done that. That's how we've gotten around that. I keep hearing about Yoast and Google, um, in SEO. What do you think about this?

45:38 Uh, I don't know. I don't, I guess I don't pay too much attention to that. Uh, you know, all of the talk. Of course I want to pay attention a little bit, but I don't know, I kind of keep my head down and keep working unless I hear really like big, big news, right. Like, um, I don't know. I just keep cranking. Uh, Nope. Name is Chris farm named after my grandfather and great grandfather Ronald in boots. Oh, that's awesome. I love that. That's cool. Okay, Chris. Got it. Ah, okay. For content creation, I've hired IgG influencers who have made great content, but it wasn't necessarily a hit with Facebook ads. Um, do you have any recommendations for content creators? Well, I don't necessarily think that's a bad thing that they created content and it didn't perform well on Facebook ads. Maybe Facebook isn't the place.

46:29 Right. And I think you said yours is in the, in the a hat market for, for women. Uh, maybe that's not the place. Maybe it's on, I mean, you can put videos on Pinterest by the way. So you might want to, again, you might want to play with that. It might just be the wrong platform for your market rate now, right? So, or it could be the videos. It could be the, the content that's created. Um, if it's just a, if it's just a video going through like product not gonna, not gonna do well, they don't do well. What does the hat do? What experience does the hat help someone with? Right? That's what you're telling them. That's the, that's the thing that you're selling. It's not the hat. It's the thing that the hat does is it make them feel beautiful. Right? So you got it.

47:11 Does it give them more self confidence? So we have to think about those things before we think about like, okay, we created a video, I had an influencer, take my hat and wear it and it didn't do that well. Right? So we got to look at those things. All right, well I hope that you enjoyed that Friday jam session. And like I said in the beginning, if you to attend one of our live Friday jam sessions, all you need to do is head on over to take action crew.com that is where we show up every Friday, 10:00 AM Eastern time, and you can join us, you can ask a question and then, uh, I can answer it and we can go ahead and also publish it here on the podcast. So once again, I just want to say thank you so much for listening. This is always one of the highlights of my week. And until next time, remember I'm here for you. I believe in you and I am rooting for you, but you have to, you have to come on, say it with me. Say it loud. Say it proud. Take action. Have an awesome, amazing day. And I'll see you right back here on the next episode. Now go rock your brand.