Ep. 91: Authentic Marketing - Lessons Learned From Going Live for 45 Days in a Row [Stepping Into Your Authenticity Series]
SHOW NOTES:
Nedra Rezinas: LinkedIn - Instagram - Website
Caterina Rando: Website - Linkedin - Instagram - Twitter
Katie Brinkley: Instagram - Linkedin - Various Links - Twitter
CONTACT HEATHER:
Contact Heather: Instagram | LinkedIn
Heather’s Passion to Profits Group Program: Register
Get the Balance Right Coaching: Website
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Zeitzwolfe Accounting: Website | Facebook
For the past eight weeks, the show has had a focus on authenticity and how it correlates with marketing your brand.
Throughout the Stepping Into Your Authenticity Series, I also challenged myself to participate on Instagram Live for 45 days in a row. So needless to say, a lot has been learned!
While going Live was initially intimidating (big yikes), it ultimately became a truly rewarding and insightful experience. One that has positively impacted me on both a personal and professional level.
During this series and my time spent Live, I’ve gained (and hopefully shared) a deeper understanding into visibility; How putting yourself and your brand out in
One lesson that has been reiterated from various guests throughout this series is that authenticity is a prevailing force. Seriously, if authenticity was a person, she’d be a sweet, but total badass.
On the surface, it doesn’t seem like authenticity and marketing would go hand-in-hand. There’s this (very realistic) perception that advertising is this sleazy entity designed trick ya and steal your money.
I’m not denying that that isn’t the case for some companies, because it totally is. But that doesn’t mean that our brands have to succumb to the gimmick.
A goal of marketing is garnering consumers that will be in it for the long run; Strategizing on how to establish brand recognition and earn trust through actions and transparency.
Now, that doesn’t mean that you have to go and spill all of your company horror stories to your audience.
Instead, showcase the humanity in your brand. Because consumers who connect with your company will be the ones that stick around.
Success isn’t found in one-off sales, it’s found in the relationships that we nurture. And in order to build a sustainable connection with your consumers, you have to approach them in an authentic way.
For this episode of the show, I’ve complied a few of my noteworthy Instagram Lives, all of which emphasize the power of authentic marketing.
Welcome to the last installment of our Stepping Into Your Authenticity Series. As a companion piece, host Heather Zeitzwolfe decided to take on a self-imposed challenge to go LIVE on Instagram for 45 days in a row. The catalyst for this challenge was to break through her fears of going LIVE. More importantly, she wanted to set an example for those in the audience who have been reluctant to try it.
After receiving words of encouragement and numerous questions, Heather decided to wrap up the series with a few highlights from her experience. This episode is a hybrid that blends excerpts from four LIVES
The first LIVE featured was from day 29 of going LIVE on Instagram. The topic was influencer marketing and fraudulent followers. This conversation was a reaction to the documentary Fake Famous on HBO.
The following segments, which are included within the hybrid episode, contain three dynamic women. They were featured originally on the podcast during season one. Back again are Nedra Rezinas, Caterina Rando, and Katie Brinkley. To watch the interviews in their entirety, be sure to follow the links below to view on YouTube or catch them on Instagram on Heather’s account: @zeitzwolfe.
First up is, marketing expert Nedra Rezinas. She joined us in episode 50 to discuss how to generate more leads through using Linkedin and referrals. Nedra returns for day 23 of going LIVE to discuss the importance of doing things differently to stand out in a noisy market. In this clip they chat about the power of informational interviews, taking a break from social media, and Mike Michalowicz’s book, Get Different.
Next up is a business coach and speaking expert, Caterina Rando. She rocked Heather’s world back in episode 49, where she explained her technique to get more clients through speaking engagements. This time she joins Heather on her 39th day of going LIVE. They continue the same topic but explore others such as having a sales fountain rather than a funnel.
The last segment features marketing and Clubhouse coach, Katie Brinkley. She was on the podcast for episode 28 to discuss three big mistakes to avoid with social media. Although the lessons she shared are still relevant, it was recorded way back before Clubhouse was even a thing. Now she returns to share her insight on the platform, where you can often find her moderating rooms on effectively using Clubhouse to grow your business. As an early adopter, she has witnessed the transformation of social audio. She shared her expertise on the subject for day 26 of going LIVE.
Listen to the other podcasts from the Stepping Into Your Authenticity series:
Ep. 83: Embrace Video to Build, Influence and Grow Profits with Elaine Williams
Ep. 84: Discovering Your Unique Voice by Going Live featuring host, Heather Zeitzwolfe
Ep. 85: Five Steps to Authentically Attract Your Target Audience with Danielle LaFleur
Ep. 86: Create a Greater Impact for You and Your Client Through VIP Days with Terri Levine
Ep. 87: Standing Out From the Competition Through Television Exposure with Stacia Crawford
Ep. 88: Pitch Like a Pro and Gain Visibility Through Booking More Podcasts with Angie Trueblood
Ep. 89: Monetize Podcast Guesting to Grow 6 Figures and Beyond with Christine McAlister
Ep. 90: Create Human Connection with Your Audience Through Clubhouse with Rita Goodroe
Looking for a community for cool, female entrepreneurs? Join the FREE Get the Balance Right Facebook Group. You’ll get access to special events, giveaways, and our host, Heather Zeitzwolfe, CPA.
Featured Instagram Lives:
Influencer Marketing, Fake Famous and Content Inc. with me, Heather Zeitzwolfe!
Authentic Marketing - Embrace Being Different with Nedra Rezinas (featured on episode 51 of the show)
Contact and Follow Nedra: LinkedIn | Instagram | Website
Gain Influence Through Authentic Speaking and Engagement with Caterina Rando (featured on episode 49 of the show)
Contact and Follow Caterina: Website | LinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter
Using Social Audio to Authentically Communicate Your Message with Katie Brinkley (featured on episode 28 of the show)
Contact and Follow Katie: Instagram | LinkedIn | Twitter
THE INTERVIEWS
Influencer Marketing, Fake Famous and Content Inc. with me, Heather Zeitzwolfe!
Heather Zeitzwolfe: ““I watched a documentary last night on HBO that talked about social media and it was all about inauthenticity. I had no idea about this. Maybe I'm naive or something, but I had no idea that you can buy likes and buy followers on Instagram. It's kind of weird. Like, I guess people want to be influencers so bad that they would buy fake followers.
I guess they're trying to like get products to back them and all of that, so they inflate their numbers. So that's about as inauthentic as you can get. Right now I have 400 followers as of today. Wow. They are real, as far as I know, they're all real. I have not paid for bots or followers through some kind of dark web thing. They're real people. I believe they're real people. If there's any fakes. I have no idea about that.
And that got me thinking like, ‘Oh my God’, in this documentary, they talk about how young kids today, instead of like, when I was a kid where it was like, you'd ask a kid, like, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’ and you say, of course, ‘An astronaut’. Or when you're a kid, you know, you think of like these like heroic type things that you could do as a job, you know.
And kids today, being an influencer is what they want to do. That's kind of crazy, like that as a career. Like don't, they have anything else that they would rather do besides be fake famous?
And what was really funny in that documentary was they showed how these people stage these photos that they're taking.
So they were like, ‘I'm staying at this mansion’ or whatever. And they pretend like they were at a mansion, but meanwhile, they're like maybe just in some place that they rented for the day. And take all these photos and then they release them over time and pretend to be different.
Like these people would pretend like they were on an airplane and to do the fake a window that they were sitting next to was a toilet seat cover. The round part with the hole and they were sitting in front of that and then they had a fake picture behind him. It looked like it was like the sky. Like they were actually in an airplane completely.
It just kinda makes you wonder, like, are you that desperate for attention that you would stage these photos or make it look like people really liked you? I don't get it. I guess there's, you know, a lot of pressure out there for people to get followers and likes and especially, I guess if you think you that you want to be an influencer as your “career”, I've got that in air quotes.
Fake Famous, that’s the name of the documentary I watched last night. Fake Famous. Oh, and this other crazy thing in there, I didn't know anything about this. But I guess there's some wall in Los Angeles, it’s some designer store maybe or something, has a pink wall.
Yeah, people from all of the world, come to have their picture taken in front of this wall. They do selfies in front of this wall. People, really seriously, you travel all over the world to take a selfie in front of a wall because you're going to get likes?
This is just nuts. Okay. So I think when we have our priorities in the wrong order, if that's what people are worried about is taking a picture in front of a pink wall. Oh God. Now you got to wonder, are they really influencers or are they just people that are buying their followers through the dark web? And it was really funny in this movie. You could buy like thousands of followers for like a hundred.
And then this guy that was doing the study with all this, and he was buying the fake followers for these people, that he was trying to show that how easy is it to turn somebody into an influencer by buying all the fake stuff and doing the fake, photo shoots and all that kind of stuff. Some of the followers who were, he was trying to buy on the dark web or whatever, and this one guy, which is like ripping them off over and over again. So he didn't actually get the followers.
These fake followers, they also make not only fake likes, but they also do fake comments, not weird. We have all these like bots and yeah. They steal people's identity to do it. It’s a really creepy, interesting thing to think about, but I think really the most mind blowing thing is that people pay for followers.
That's just like a thing that people do. And I guess it's rampant on Instagram. I had no idea. So those people that you see that have millions of followers, you have to wonder how many of those are real and how much are fake. And are they doing this so that they can get, certain brands to like give them free stuff? It’s kinda weird.
It's like one of those things, I guess they have to like buy the followers and then they get to a certain point and then people are like, ‘Oh, this person must be important. They've got like 3 million followers, I guess I'll follow them too’.
Anyways, all right, so that is just not being authentic to me at all. And this is all about stepping into your authenticity.”
Authentic Marketing - Embrace Being Different with Nedra Rezinas
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Nedra, introduce yourself to the world!”
Nedra Rezinas: “Thanks, I really appreciate you having me on today!
I'm Nedras Rezinas and I do marketing strategy and coaching for service-based businesses. I love helping them discover ways that they can embed their values into their marketing and not have it be something that they dread or is completely overwhelming.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Marketing can be extremely overwhelming, especially when there's like all the things. And you're told like, 'You should be on TikTok, you should be doing this, you should be doing that’.
Then the flip side is you hear, ‘You should only be in a couple of places and really get those solid and have a grip on what you're doing with that. Then you can explore other ones’.
Maybe we can just start with that question of: should we be in a lot of places, if it's easy? I use things like Missinglettr and Later, where I can post in many places, but then it ends up being the same post.
Nedra help us out! Should we be doing all the things or what should we be doing?”
Nedra Rezinas: “Yeah, I hear this all the time, Heather. I think the first question is: where are your customers hanging out? Where are your best clients hanging out? Because you could try to be on all the platforms, but like you just said, it's exhausting.
And, if it's just falling on deaf ears and not being received, and it's just wasting your time and energy and it just exhausts you, it’s always good to step back and go, ‘Who should I talk to? Who am I serving the best?’ and narrowing it down a bit.
And I know it's really hard. I'm actually trying to do it for myself. And, it is worth the effort because then your marketing efforts tenfold. It’ll be so much easier to share what you're doing. For example, a lot of my clients have a lot of success on LinkedIn.
It's just one of those platforms that a lot of professionals are on and it's easier to connect. It's a lot less noise than Instagram, Facebook to talk to the ones you're listing to. I've been having a lot of interesting discussions about Facebook and how it's kind of imploding on itself and people are hopping off like wildfire.
So I'm definitely advising my clients not to spend a lot of time there, especially because I think over the years it's become like this melding of personal and professional and it gets really confusing and people don't know what they're doing, and I'm like, ‘Just even take a social media detox, just get off of there for awhile and see how it feels, don't even sweat it. I bet you won't. I bet it'll just take your stress level down a notch’.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “There's all this pressure like you said, Facebook is one of those weird things, because I have a business, now I'm letting people be my friends I know through business, I'm not posting anything personal anymore. So, it's difficult for people to, who are entrepreneurs. And I would imagine it's also difficult for people that are just working a regular job because now employers look at your social media accounts. It is this weird blend of: what do I post? What do I not post? And all of that.
So there's also that added pressure.”
Nedra Rezinas: “Yeah. And I'm having a discussion with lots of my community and clients about what can you do outside of social media. What can you do that makes you stand out and be a little different?
There's this book that came out by Mike Michalowicz, I bet you're a fan of his, that is called Get Different. It came out last fall, and it has all these different messages of how you can take your message and do it in a different format or different system then the rest of your colleagues and be able to hit your audience the right way, but maybe in a way that is not traditional.
For example, there's a really good story in there about a therapist who really wants to work with couples. And she is listing herself in these directories, doing the traditional ways of being a therapist and it's not working. So she actually recorded these videos of her giving a breakdown of like this Latin TV show soap opera about like how to help these couples. And it's really popular. And people, receive that well and started wanting to work with her because she was doing something a little different and standing out. Because therapists, at that time, this was a couple of years ago, we’re not doing video.
So I'm not saying that everyone should go out and do video. I'm just saying, find a medium that works for you. That you enjoy, that your clients will receive well and also naturally be drawn to.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “ I love that. And you know, that's also part of this whole thing that I'm doing with stepping into your authenticity. And I do have that book, and kind of one of the little sparks of it and, you know, people always say like, ‘Oh, you're so authentic and that's part of your brand’.
And I want to explore more in video because I was afraid of it, going live for 45 days. If you've got a plan, like you're challenging yourself is one thing. But if you're trying things that are different, how long should you explore these different things before you give up and be like, ‘You know, this didn't work’? Or is it a matter of kind of tweaking things and just marketing as a lot of experiments?”
Nedra Rezinas: “Absolutely. That's what the book talks about. And I've actually been doing it myself, just to try it out. Mike recommends at least a hundred touches. You have to do it a hundred times to see where it's moving the dial and that's a lot.
And like your challenge you're doing with yourself, Heather, this some forty-five days is going to, I don't know what day you're on, but it definitely that's a lot of days. So you have to pace yourself and I've actually been doing my own version of it.
I've been sending out handwritten cards to a select number of, types of clients. And, I've been at number 50 and I was starting to give up and I think now certainly attraction. So it's really about being persistent. I have an Excel spreadsheet where I'm tracking every little detail and seeing what was working, what’s not.
You need support and accountability for it, because it's hard. It is not easy.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That's an interesting thing. So that 50 mark, maybe a hundred, you got to just keep trying it, and then you got to figure out the tweak.
I keep thinking like, ‘Oh wait, how do you do some market research around this and get some really good feedback?’, because if you want to ask your friends, maybe they're going to be too kind about it. Or if you ask your family, they don't really understand what you're doing.
Do you recommend like going out and finding other colleagues and just be like, ‘Hey, can you just give it to me real?’, or do you want to find people that are in your target? What are some ways that you would advise people that are maybe on the cheap that are trying to do some market research?”
Nedra Rezinas: “Yeah. Well, one of the things I've been doing is asking for introductions to get informational interviews with people I'm interested in working with. That's been great because there've been really honest with me and like, don't even mind doing that thing. This is where you're gonna find more folks.
Or start networking in these groups. That's like the fastest way. I was trying to get into Facebook groups to get information. I was trying all these things. It was not working at all, but once you start talking to people that are in the field, right amongst the other people that you want to serve and work with, that's when you're gonna get some answers.
That's really, an easy is ask people for 20 minutes of their time. And then send them a thank you card. Really appreciate them and don't ever try to upsell, that's one of the things I was very cautious of is, I'm not selling anything. I'm just gathering information and wanting to be supportive, and honor the industry I'm wanting to work with.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I did some informational interviews back when I was trying to figure out my niche. And I found people that I didn't know had other people that I did know, and then they recommended other people to me.
It was interesting when you first come up with a set of questions, how you think that it's going to go one way, but the more you talk to people, you realize like, ‘Oh, I need to tweak these questions’. But you want to keep them as similar as possible so that way you collect some data. You can see some trends or things that you were like you weren't expecting.
I think my interviews were around 20 minutes as well. Did you have the same questions that you asked everybody? Or how did you establish the questions?”
Nedra Rezinas: “Well yeah, one of the things I realized was be aware who you're talking to. I started talking to people that were close to retirement and they were not giving you the answer. So I had to be like, ‘Whoa, okay, scratch those answers. Those weren't very helpful. I need to talk to people that are five years into their business that are having these challenges I'm talking about to these other people who were not having the challenges’. I think that's really important. And then I did start tweaking the questions and I asked a lot in the beginning. Now I only ask three because that is, I now know, that's plenty to get the information I'm looking for.
And then, like you said, Heather, based on those answers, there's like some questions and some kind of follow-up and like, ‘Okay, what what's going on here? Let's get into this and against the weeds. And like, what's some details that you can share with me that I'm not going to know unless I'm an insider?’.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Right. And so these informational interviews for me, it was finding out the language that the ideal customer that I thought in my mind was my ideal customer, what types of language that they would use about the problems that they needed solved.
And then I'm trying to also figure out what. Is this, the client that I need now, or is this a client that I need to build up to? Like, I need to have more experience with maybe someone at a different level and then also are the services that I think that they need, do they actually want those services?
Was that kind of what you were asking about?”
Nedra Rezinas: “Yeah, exactly. What are the pain points? What are the challenges they're having? And then if it's something I'm wanting to offer that match what their needs are and what they're willing to spend, like also talking about money, what does that look like and where people going now to get help with that?
Like who are the experts? We forget it's like we can collaborate with our people and they’re probably other people that are talking to those audiences and they could use your support. Or they may not, but you don't know, you have to go up there and ask them. And it's definitely scary and uncomfortable, but that's how change happens.
And that's how you can grow and get into different audiences. And that is a lot faster than individual one by one, going through, social media, DMS, or emailing people. It's a lot faster.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “And what about just gathering information for like, maybe if you're going to have like a new offer in your business?
I'm in that situation where I've got some group programs and I'm going to be rolling out and I want to make sure that I'm one, including the things that people care about. And also I want to understand, like, what is the transformation that they are looking for? And so that I can not only tweak the program to accommodate for that, but also use the language that they would be using around that.
From a marketer's perspective, when you're gathering this information, Are you looking for like, phrases that you can use in your marketing? Informational interviews are not going to give you testimonials, but it may give you like, the questions that they're asking. Is that what you're gathering and how do you utilize it?”
Nedra Rezinas: “Right. Yeah, I definitely have captured some of those, and those are really valuable because when you're, you're introducing a program or sending out a bunch of emails or, putting out there, it's like that StoryBrand model I don't know if you guys are familiar with that.
I bet you are Heather, where you want to have your client be the hero, you're the guide. And you're helping them solve a problem and avoid failure. And usually there's a villain, right? It's like the classic, like Star Wars epic where you have, you know, Luke Skywalker's the hero, Obi One could obviously guide Luke. But that is exactly what you're doing with your clients.
And so having those things addressed right away: what's keeping them up at night? What are they trying to avoid? What are they trying to solve?
That's the kind of things you're asking those informational interviews. And I bet you Heather, and I found this too, they started repeating themselves and it's like, ‘Okay, these are… got it, these are the ones that are going to be meaningful’. Versus the outliers are the ones on the far right or far left, where it's like, oh,, that's more extreme than I can help with.”
Gain Influence Through Authentic Speaking and Engagement with Caterina Rando
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Caterina Rando, you are my friend, my mentor, my coach. You're the woman behind the Fempire. You are wonderful at getting people to speak. Why is speaking so important in business?”
Caterina Rando: “People will not buy from us until we build influence. Okay. We can do all the networking in the world and everyone can think we're lovely, but that doesn't mean that they're going to say, 'Hey, I want you to help me’. When we speak we show people our personality, and they can see if they vibe with us personally, but also we get to showcase our massive value.
We get to share our super tips and our ideas and our guiding principles and our philosophies and people resonate with us. And then they start to pay attention more. And then of course, Heather, as you know, it's on to invite them to come and spend more time with us. And that's where I encourage people, to do their own monthly Zoom, something, workshop or event where they can showcase their massive value even more, and then invite people to be your client.
But don't invite people to be your client when they don't know how amazing you are.
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That is the key — having like something where you can actually interact with people. Because before I met you, I kept hearing from coaches and, the gurus online that, ‘Have a webinar’. And you know, so I was buying webinars software so that I could hook it up and like, look like there was like a countdown where they could sign up and all these things.
And I was trying to get all that in place and you're like, no, no, no. All you need to do is just have a zoom room and invite people. There's that eyeball to eyeball time. You are a master at all of these things and part of that would be getting into our fountain. People talk about a funnel. You talk about a fountain. So explain the fountain.”
Caterina Rando: “The idea of the fountain is that, you know, if you think about a fountain, the bottom bowl is easy to get into.
Unlike a funnel though, where the water comes in and goes out, we don't want people to come in and go out. We want to cultivate, not just clients, but long-term and lifelong clients. And that happens when you make it easy for people to get started with you. You under promise and over deliver, you give them more massive value than they anticipate. And then guess what's going on?
They're not going to go anywhere. They're going to continue to work with you. If you have other offerings that are going to serve them on an ongoing basis. And this is why Heather, I know that you're having your mastermind, where people can come and be with you on an ongoing basis because business is dynamic.
Another guiding principle is always have ways for people to get massive value from staying engaged with you. This is why you're coming on the list retreat with me because every business owner needs to get away every so often and retreat.
And like you're doing the mastermind, that's the mentorship program, that’s great. Because every month there's new challenges for people to address in their business. As we continue to grow, our clients are continuing to grow, and there's always more to learn and explore.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I just love this analogy that you have of the CAPE. Can you explain, where did that even come from this idea of the CAPE? And explain what the CAPE means.”
Caterina Rando: “I used to teach what the CAPE stands for which is: certainty, authenticity, positivity, and enthusiasm.
And one of the gals at one of my workshops put that together and she said, Hey, that's CAPE. And that was great because then that gave us the idea that before you are going to make a sales call or give a speech, you want to make sure you have on your CAPE. And you can just like, twirl it around and wrap it on as a gesture to show you and remind you and physically embody that: okay, I'm going to talk to this person or I'm going to give this talk and I'm going to have my certainty. That I have massive value to bring. I'm going to be my authentic self. Not going to worry about being like anybody else. I'm going to be positive. Depressed salespeople and speakers do to not attract clients. And of course, enthusiasm is that we want to bring that extra energy to these important conversations or talks.
It's not as casual. Like if we're meeting our girlfriend for cappuccino, that's going to be a little more relaxed conversation, but we got to really bring our energy, especially in virtual, my friend, Heather, because that has to keep people engaged.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “You always talk about making sure that we are speaking in front of the right audience and that we're talking about the right topic. We're smart, we know a lot of things we could be talking about all kinds of things, but you talk about narrowing, your focus.
Can you explain that a little bit more and why you think that's so important?”
Caterina Rando: “So the idea is that we only want to talk about what matches, what we see. So, for example, I've been doing my thing a long time, Heather. I could give a great talk right now on networking. I could give a great talk on communicating in business.
Well, that's fine, but I don't have a workshop or a program on networking. So yeah, I could bring my massive value, but it's not going to put money in my business. So you want to speak about what matches, what you’re now going to be able to serve around. I teach a class called Achieving Sales Bliss: A Workshop, because I have a nine week program on sales.
We want to talk about what matches, what we offer. And we may have a lot that we offer, but we want to make it easy for people to get started with us. So we really want to focus on whatever our lowest cost offering is to get new people in the door."
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “We've been in this virtual world, we're starting to be able to go out into the real world and do actual speeches and presentations in the real world. Do you have any tips on going back into it again? And getting ourselves used to going out there and mean it's so easy to pop on a zoom call and just be like, ‘Okay, I'm going to present today’.
Like right now I've got yoga pants on, but flying somewhere or traveling, you feel like we still need to do those things or has the world changed?”
Caterina Rando: “Zoom is definitely not going away. And now that we all know how to use it, there's still going to be a ton of opportunities to speak virtually. That's not going away, which is awesome. And we may want to leave our house once in a while, but the thing is, I'm not gonna run around as much as I used to because I don't have to.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I do want to ask you about Clubhouse. So Clubhouse I met some incredible people on Clubhouse.
So tell us about how Clubhouse has changed your business.”
Caterina Rando: “I have cultivated some relationships with people that have become clients on Clubhouse. What I love about it, Heather, it’s a place for us to engage more casually, even more socially than being on Zoom and having meetings or workshops and that kind of thing.
I think it's really great for cultivating relationships. It's also great for meeting new people. When we bring our hot topics that we talk about and getting podcast guests, and getting invited to on people's podcasts. Cause you and I both have a podcast and expanding our reach and meeting with people that we vibe with all over the place.
I think it only enhances community and relationships, and of course can get us clients. The more time we can be together and connect with other like-minded people, I think the more we can uplift our lives, but of course it can also take over your life.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “You gotta be careful that you don't go down that rabbit hole of Clubhouse.”
Caterina Rando: “I think you know, the beauty of Clubhouse is you can talk about all kinds of topics just to get to know people. It doesn't always have to be as much of a direct line, fast path to cash, like when you do a workshop.”
Using Social Audio to Authentically Communicate Your Message with Katie Brinkley
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Hey, hey, it's Katie Brinkley.”
Katie Brinkley: “Heather, I'm so excited to be doing this live with you!”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “You've been killing it on Clubhouse. Do you have rooms on Clubhouse? Do you join other people's rooms? How are you utilizing Clubhouse?”
Katie Brinkley: “Clubhouse is still a part of my marketing strategy. It's definitely seen a little bit of a dip and kind of a change in culture. I just think that a year ago we saw clubs and rooms happening because we all missed that conversation.
Now that life has gotten a little bit busier, people are more intensional with their time and with the rooms that they're hosting. We're getting a lot better content. We're just not getting, I feel, as much content as we were a year ago.
One of the things I do love about Clubhouse that they've updated and changed is ability for replays. And, as someone, who also has a podcast, or Heather, that the replays are great because before if the room was over then you missed it.
Now it's almost as if developers at Clubhouse have realized that there's lives that people have gotten back to, and they've been given the option for creators to have the replay. And with these replays, you can share them with your email list. You can push them back out, through your podcast, grab the audio clips.
So there's a lot more options for the creators. There's some times where I'll have a room and the whole 30 minute room will only have like 150 people kind of through, but I'll go back through my feed and I'll check it. It all of a sudden there's been 300 people that have listened.
And that's an additional hundred and 50 people that will have listened to the replay. I think that it's a different strategy now on Clubhouse. It's still, one of my favorite social audio apps. There's a lot of them out there now, and Clubhouse, it's my favorite. We're all finding different ways to utilize, social audio and just be more intentional with our time.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “With the replays, pepurposing content is a great thing. If you've got content, you want to be able to repurpose it.”
Katie Brinkley: “If you're doing like a regular show, then you know, that's something that's pretty evergreen - turn on the replay and then that way you don't have to worry about doing it all the time.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “When you go to host the room, you can turn that on, how easy is it to actually take that recorded bit? And can you download it or do you have to like copy from something?”
Katie Brinkley: “It's at the very end of the room, if you want to see what the replay was and what the stats are and everything. And, there's other tools now, if you want to use, I think it's like, Club-desk. That's the desktop version of Clubhouse. There's a lot more tools that have come out for Clubhouse.
One of my favorite social audio platforms, if you want to repurpose it for your podcast is Fireside, which is the Mark Cuban-backed social audio platform. It's great cause you get the transcripts, you get the audio file, people can join live, they don't have to. Fireside is completely different than Clubhouse.
Yes, they're both social audio, I definitely think that Fireside is a great tool for podcasters, especially that want to have a video element. They want to broadcast live YouTubes. They want to have those transcripts and they still want to have the live studio audience. Fireside has been a great resource for me and my other podcasts that I have."
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “That is really cool. Okay. So I didn't even know that it had all those features. Let's go back to my original question about you have your own rooms.
Are you hosting any other people's rooms and what’s your advice on for people that are maybe getting started? Should they have their own rooms? Should they be in other people’s?"
Katie Brinkley: “I am a strong advocate of using other people's clubs or just opening it up to the hallway.
I think a lot of people are interested in the vanity metrics. You know, how many followers, how many people are in the room. And with replays, now, if you host the right room and the right club, you're going to have a very targeted audience coming to listen to you speak.
So that's where knowing how to title correctly is important and finding the clubs where your target DMA is hanging out is extremely important. Keep all of that in mind when you are hosting these rooms, and don't worry about the room size, even if it's just you and one other person that are in that space.
It's fine because of replays now. And if you're being shown over and over and over again to your target DMA, you're in a good spot.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Wow. Okay. So these replays, I'm going to be asking you some really novice questions. If you're hosting a club, and you want to have the replay, is the replay under that club or can you post it somewhere else or does it live within the club that it happened?”
Katie Brinkley: “It'll stick at the bottom, but then also you'll have it in your feed. So if you go to Clubhouse.com @Katie Brinkley with just me and my profile, you'll see at the bottom on a ton of rooms that have been recorded and you could be like, ‘Oh, Katie has been doing all sorts of brands, I want to listen to this one, this title sounds intriguing' and you can go and listen to the recent one."
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Oh, okay. And can you actually send people links to these? Do the replays only lasts for a certain amount of time or they just sit there?”
Katie Brinkley: “They're there, if it's just you that is the moderator and the only person speaking, until you delete it, that's the only way people aren't going to be able to listen. It's going to live forever.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Wow. If you did a room, you can download the file and then you can produce your own transcript for it or something like that.
I personally like Clubhouse for me. Why go into another area and do something else? But, have you been finding that people have had success using other tools that are similar to what Clubhouse is providing?”
Katie Brinkley: “I have. And the thing is, with all of these new social audio apps that have come out, it's just like all these different social media platforms. They all have their people. They all have, what works best for them. They all have their niches.
And I think when you're set up for success or you already have a strategy, let's say LinkedIn is your platform, you have 2,500 followers on LinkedIn. You post regularly to it. You have an engaged audience — why not use LinkedIn Audio? Why would you go and try and recreate the wheel on Twitter Spaces or Clubhouse or Fireside?
All of these platforms exist for a reason and there's different niches and different audiences in different ways that you can engage on all of them. So really think about where you're getting the most traction and what type of conversations you want to have.
Twitter Spaces has gotten really big for news, for Bitcoin and NFTs. LinkedIn obviously is very networking focused. Fireside, I believe is just kind of podcasting 2.0. Clubhouses for Conversations. Facebook Audio Rooms, I feel is more for celebrities.
So I think that all of these platforms have their own identity. So you can't just go in and expect to try and use them all the same.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “Now the LinkedIn version, I'm just going to call it LinkedIn live where people can do a little chatting to the people that are on the screen.
So what you're talking about is, is it fully audio or can you actually see the people?”
Katie Brinkley: “It's fully audio.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “And do they have stages like Clubhouse?”
Katie Brinkley: “They're all similar, but they're all just a little bit different and they'll have their own feel to them.”
Heather Zeitzwolfe: “I guess that's what matters though, is if your audience is on that platform.”
Katie Brinkley: “Heather, I think that with all social audio, what we need to take away from it is audio is still around. Video didn't kill the radio star. There's still something powerful about hearing someone talk and having the opportunity to connect with them through voice. And you don't have to get camera ready.”
