181 – Lakia Robinson runs Tom’s social media: Tom talks How We Handle Social Media

Episode 181 – How We Handle Social Media
[00:00:09] Welcome to Screw the Commute. The entrepreneurial podcast dedicated to getting you out of the car and into the money, with your host, lifelong entrepreneur and multimillionaire, Tom Antion.

[00:00:24] Hey, everybody, it's Tom here with episode 181 of Screw the Commute podcast. We got a very special guest today on our Monday training. This is a young lady, a young woman that I don't know what's politically correct nowadays. I'm sure she'll tell me. But she's been with me almost five years and she keeps me from pulling my hair out on handling the social media stuff. And I know everybody out there is like, oh, my God, this is there's something new all the time. Facebook is changing this. That the other. Am I supposed to post a lot? Am I supposed to not? I mean, how do I get engagement? But I don't know any of this stuff and it's driving me crazy. Well, we're gonna try to help you with that today, because that's all she does. Day and night for me. And she's gonna have some great insights. So we'll get to her in a minute. But there are a podcast app is in the iTunes store. You want to check it out at screwthecommute.com/app where we have complete instructions to show you how to use all the fancy features so you can take us with you on the road, put us on your cell phone, tablet, and there's all kinds of cool, fancy features that we teach you how to use at that link screwthecommute.com/app. And I got a big freebie for you for listening to the podcast. It's my twenty seven dollar e-book, How to Automate Your Business. And just one of the tips on this e-book has saved me over seven and a half million keystrokes and guaranteed it saved me carpal tunnel syndrome. All right. So so, yeah, you want to download that later at screwthecommute.com/automatefree and all the links and stuff we talk about today will be in the show notes for episode one eighty one. And when you want to find a specific episode, you just go to screwthecommute.com and then slash and then the episode number. So it would be screwthecommute.com/181. All right. I'm looking for some affiliates. So if you've followed me for a while, if you've bought my products, you know, I create high quality products and services at a reasonable price. And I would love to send you a bunch of commissions, either pay power check or gold bullion or whatever you want. We have all ranges of prices. We have public speaking staff, entrepreneur stuff, and we have Internet marketing stuff, and it's all high quality, reasonably priced. But you can get commissions anywhere from 10 bucks to like in excess of 5000 bucks and everything in between. And some of it is residual, which means we'll be sending you a check every month or putting it in your PayPal every month. So check that out. You can email me if you think that this might be something that would work for you. If you have influence over a group of people or an email list or if you're just network a lot, we can be sending you a lot of money. So e-mail me at orders@antion.com and we can kick it around a little bit.

[00:03:35] All right, let's get to the main event, how we handle social media. Lakia Robinson is here with me and she's been with me for about five years and it takes a massive load off of my back and I still have to participate, too. It's not that I'm totally divorced from everything. Even with her handling this all day and all night. So. So it's a it's a big production. It's a must have for you now in your business, because guess what? If any clients. The first thing they do is check you out on social media. Does anybody who ever heard of you? Is anybody care about you? Do you have one in one like out of, you know, in the past 10 years? I mean, that's not going to cut it anymore. So it's part of this whole thing and it's also part of Google's ranking for you in search engines, because you used to be we just get a bunch of inbound links and use keywords properly and good to go. But now Google is saying, you know what? If those inbound links are real, you know, because you can go buy them off. A lot of places get crappy fake links. They said if they're real, somebody is talking about you. And if you can't prove it with your social media, you're never gonna see the light of day in the search engine results. So. So these are all the necessary evils that we teach you and my mentor program how to keep up. And we're going to give you a primer right now with Lakia. So Lakia. I can't say my normal opening because I don't want your husband to beat me up.

[00:05:22] So you working out of your house today, right?

[00:05:24] I am! Super excited and happy to be here today.

[00:05:28] Yeah. Yeah. Save that trip through the tunnel. Folks, we have the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel. She lives in Hampton and I live in Virginia Beach. And it's always a crapshoot of whether you're going to get through there it's the only way in and out. So she's screwing the commute today. How about that? All right. So let's tell people a little bit about how we handle things and and how we use social media marketing.

[00:05:57] All right. So one of the major things that we do when we are focused on social media, no matter what platform we're on, is understanding why we're on that platform. A lot of times, you know, we what we work with mentees all the time and they're frustrated, overwhelmed. And it's because they don't have a mindset of what am I doing on this platform? So that's the first thing we kind of establish when we are doing anything with social media. And that is OK. What is my priority? And that is to generate leads to ultimately build credibility and to stay on top of that person's mind by putting out really good content in order to get them over to our site to purchase something to sign up or whatever it is that we want to lead them to, whatever the end goal is. So that's the first thing that I'm always thinking about. Whenever I post any piece of content, whatever platform I'm on, I have to know what I'm doing. And so that's a major, major key is the mindset. And once I establish, you know, what I want for that platform, then I'm looking at my top priorities. So we love to use Facebook here. It's a really awesome platform for what we're trying to do or what we are doing. We're promoting the podcast and we're promoting webinars and seminars. And if you are on some of these platforms and you're pulling your hair out like, oh, my goodness, I'm not getting organic traffic. Well, a lot of times you do have to pay for the traffic, which is what we have been doing with Facebook. And it's super awesome and helps us to accomplish those goals. So our top priority on that platform is to make sure that we are putting out that content. And in doing that, you know, when I come in for the day, I always have a list of what is going out. And Tom is pretty good at telling me what he needs to be promoted. So from I already know that the podcast is important. So that is always on my bucket list. Who is coming out on Monday? Who's coming out on Wednesday? Who is coming out on Friday and having a list of that? So that I can really focus on putting good content out for that platform. Another thing that's top priority on my mind is what seminars are we either attending or we having online, whether that be a webinar and interview, Tom, my interview with another podcast or with someone else on, you know, on social media or if he's also doing something himself on social media. So he does a lot of Facebook lives on his page where like little consider them mini webinars.

[00:09:02] Yeah, yeah. They're kind of webinar content, but the delivery method is just a little bit different with Facebook Live than like a webinar that I know I'm going to record and replay over and over.

[00:09:14] Yeah. So I kind of keep it in my mind. What is he going to be talking about? Because I need to get some content out there. I want to make sure that everything is geared up and ready to go. And I'm going to talk a little bit more later on on how I kind of break everything down. So right now, it's just kind of like the top priority.

[00:09:45] So I'm going to talk about graphics. I'm gonna talk about some of the videos and things that we make because I think once you have an overall view of what you are trying to accomplish. So we have the podcast, we have the webinars once that's written down. Now we have to think, OK, what kind of content is going to bring them in? So once I have my goals set the priority. That's when I start thinking about what do I need to do as far as graphics and videos. So graphics might be me taking that title or yeah, I'll probably would take the title in the subtitle and create templates. So I always have a template because you have to stay organized with everything that's going on. And once I have that priority that I know that I have to. Things can change. So I might need promoting a podcast today. But then Tom is like, all right, I need to promote something else because I'm going to be on this interview. So I need to be flexible in that. So I usually do templates. So these templates are literally just for screw the commute. I will have several different ones with different colors, different backgrounds, different fonts. Or we you normally have the primary font, but I go in there and just change out the podcast episode, the podcast title, subtitle images or whatever it is to really promote that episode.

[00:11:22] So it makes it go a lot faster for you because you have the templates ready.

[00:11:27] Oh, yeah. So if it's something that's like I didn't catch or it's last minute, I can go ahead and just drag and drop stuff. And of course, that's not ideal because what I like to do is really kind of plan things out. And I don't like to have just one piece of content. I like to have several pieces of content. So if there's a podcast coming out about hobbies, which is a recent one, then I want to have maybe four or five different pieces of content. So I would literally have the main podcast episode with Tom space episode number. Then I might have another one that just gives the same Tom title and podcast episode, but then I might have a different color and have a different background. Then I might go in there and listen to the episode or get the transcripts and grab snippets of that content from there so that I can create another graphic that promotes that episode. So it's always a great thing to have little snippets of stuff so you can go in there and use that for social media because you don't want anything long and drawn out. But to go in there and grab those little bite sized pieces is something that is very, very helpful. And I like to create lists, so. If I am promoting an episode that's coming out in two weeks or just anything, I always I have a Google doc that I love, love, love, and I have a bucket. I call them buckets, but it's a little like. You can look at it as a piece of paper or page. One page might be seminar titled seminar. And then underneath that, I'll have several different several different pieces of content, like small snippets of what that seminar is about. So that might be hobby seminar. And then I will have another paragraph that is of another seminar, and I'll have several different bite sized pieces to promote that content. So I always keep documents so that I can go in and pull when I need to pull it out, because it's super helpful when you want to promote it that day and get all that content out there. And then it's helpful for the future. We don't get rid of anything. We recycle everything. We repurpose everything. So we take all of those pieces of content. Once we've given it out in real time, we'll put it in a another platform, which is meetedgar.com or Meet Edgar. We'll put it in that platform and we'll continue to promote it now. I might change up the actual text because of course, it's not coming out today. It's coming out maybe a month or two or three months later. But I still want them to go over and listen to the episode. So it might be entitled Hey, come over and watch an oldie but a goodie. Where we talked about building or using your hobbies and making your hobbies work for you. So we might do something like that. And I'll have I'll go back in there and change up everything once I put it in the other platform. So that looks different than when I'm promoting it today. Hey, today at 2:00 p.m., our episode goes live. Come and watch hobbies or something like that.

[00:15:03] Let me let me jump in here for a second. Yeah. So first thing is that making money with hobbies is what she's talking about, because we're all about making money and doing online business. But this this automation stuff is really powerful. We've even learned some of this from one of my students years ago because it keeps building everything she builds and for real time gets added to this massive library of stuff that this program metes it out all over the place. So don't think cause she's talking about very specific things that she's promoting in real time, that you have to do that all the time for everything. These programs allow you to keep loading them up with your content and then it metes it out everywhere for you on an automated basis. So it's really a way to maximize your reach without pulling your hair out or being on it every second of every day. And the other thing is, is I'm guilty of dumping stuff on her at the last minute. I'm very guilty. I wanted to make sure you heard that.

[00:16:15] Yeah. Thank you. Yeah, but it's super helpful to have that library. So we have maybe over two thousand pieces of content and we just build it up over the years and it's extremely helpful. So, you know, like he said, it doesn't. So it will. It allows me to have a lot of content that's going out. And then it helps me to focus on something else.

[00:16:40] And plus, you're going on vacation next week. And so. And then instead of it getting all dumped on me, maybe little pieces will get. So prepare for me to release at a certain time. But Meet Edgar is taking care of all the other, you know, standard stuff that we have going out all the time while she's on vacation.

[00:17:00] Absolutely, so if you're at that seminar or you are at our hosting a webinar, you're doing something maybe on vacation, then that's working for you. So it's really like your personal assistant. Well, it will help you with all of that. And so we use that platform, that library, to help us daily. But there's also real time stuff that needs to go out that you can. You can do it in the other platform. Meet Edgar, but I prefer to use another platform that allows me to go in there and put it on the exact date, and that is buffer.com.

[00:17:39] And that's also the one that I use to make my Facebook stories. They have a free story creator, which I can do on my own just whenever I feel like it, which is fun. And if she's you know, if it's a weekend on a Sunday, I put something out that she didn't even know about. I can make my own story and get it out there all day with people clicking over. They don't really click from it, but they get an idea of what I'm doing. And so it's just one of the many methods. But Buffer has a free story creator, and I'm not even totally sure, but I'm listening to this as much as I'm talking because I got Meet Edgar and I got Buffer and I got a thing called audience. And I'm hoping that I understand by the time we're done with this call why I'm paying for all of it.

[00:18:26] Well, for sure. Meet Edgar. It's definitely helping us daily. Buffer is helping us on Facebook. All the platforms, really. But we use it for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn. We use it for those platforms and we can also use it for Pinterest. But I found another way that's super easy. As soon as I create graphics, I can upload it via that platform. So I'll talk to you about that. Let you guys know some of those platforms that I use to actually create content.

[00:19:01] And by the way, folks, one of these one of the things is that I have realized over many, many years that doing this is any any one of these that she picks, it's not like I'm some kind of Instagram bikini model that's got millions of views. Right. Or Pinterest. You don't have to be millions and millions of views, but when you appear everywhere. And you have a presence everywhere, people that go to hire you for whatever you do, check you out. And when they see your name everywhere, a lot of times people just say, well, you're everywhere. You know, got a thousand videos on YouTube. Some of them have two views in the last 28 years. I mean, I don't know. But the thing is this. You're everywhere. And these programs and what Lakia is telling you about can have you appear that way and you just appear bigger than life to a potential client who then doesn't want to get you down on price or, you know, just say, well, let me think about it. They think, wow, this person is really hot because they see you everywhere. So that's part of the strategy here.

[00:20:07] It is definitely a part of our strategy, so we make sure that we are utilizing them every single day. A lot of times people are wondering, especially if you're a solopreneur you don't have a lot of time. We see that a lot in with our mentorship program that people are like. I am frustrated. I don't have time with these platforms will really help you. It's literally your personal assistant. So it takes. So for me when I am creating content. I like to pick choose a day. I like to pick one day out of the week where I am creating graphics. I am creating videos. I am looking at content that I may have missed and putting it all together so that I can put them into those buckets. Now it is super helpful to plan. You have to be a planner when you're on social media, especially if you decide to go on multiple platforms. You have to plan. And so I highly recommend choosing one day that you make yourself. It can be for an hour. I would say maybe two or three hours. But if you have one hour to spare. That would be the time that I would use to go through books. Go through books that you can take quotes from or you can cure a continent where you're going to other people's sites in your grabbing their content, of course, crediting them too, but using borrowing their graphics, their quotes, their videos and creating sort of like a library of curated content.

[00:21:49] And then they're thrilled to death you're doing it. That's the whole thing. You're spreading the word for them. People take my stuff and spread the word for me. I don't cry about it and say, oh, well, as long as they give you credit, you know, if they're sharing it, it's automatically tied back to you. So, yeah, people love it when you do that. So don't feel like you always have to create everything yourself.

[00:22:11] Yeah. Because that's where people get hung up. One is like I only have the small amount of content. Well, first, that's a lot. Anyways, that's good to have at least some pieces of content of your own. But if you don't and you're just starting and you don't want to pull your hair out, then find other people's content that complements what your message is. There's huge sites that only curate other people's content.

[00:22:37] YouTube, Twitter, some of the biggest sites in the world. I mean, that's what they do.

[00:22:44] Exactly. So think like a YouTube, think like a Twitter that they're collecting other people's content. And so, again, you want to find stuff that complements yours and don't be off again. Don't be afraid to do that. I remember talking to someone and they're like, well, you know, it's not mine. But if they go to that other person's page and they don't stay at mine, they're going to come back full circle to your pieces of content for sure. And they're going to think, oh, this person shared this information. You're like a resource. Think of yourself as a resource, like a library. You know, people keep going back because they have resources that they need. And if you're providing up to date content from authors or just anyone that you know that they need to know, they're going to come back. So just think of it like that. Don't be afraid to share other people's stuff. And again, that's videos, graphics, infographics on Pinterest or whatever it is. Use that to complement what you have. So that's one library of resources that you want to have in your arsenal. So I would create a document in you in Google that has different categories. Maybe if you're an author and you are a self-help or self development, I think it is, then you might have a category where you have a lot of links that go to this person's content or videos where links that you go to another person's content so that you can easily just go and click. If you decide not to use a platform like meet Edgar or Buffer. Grab that content and copy and paste it onto your platform. So have that resource. Then you want to have your resource for yourself. If you're an author, make sure that you are utilizing every aspect that you could possibly use, meaning graphics we use canva. I absolutely love this tool. That's where I create my templates. I can just go ahead and duplicate content and then go in there and change it when I need to. Every single thing with graphics, the color, the just anything they have templates do for different things. Oh yeah. I kind of customize mine, but they do, they have templates everywhere. It's amazing and they have different for some of you who don't know. Please go to Canva.com. It's super awesome. But you can go in there and they have templates for Pinterest. So those pretty graphics that you see. There's graphics for that. There's graphics for Facebook, graphics for Instagram, dimensions, the sizes, everything.

[00:25:33] Yeah, they're already pretty sized for you. That that will drive you crazy if you're not a graphic person trying to make something the right size. Well, they're already the right size when you do it. So and then when you get done telling them about Canva I'll tell them what I use because I'm kind of a Neanderthal with graphics, but. But I have some tools I use.

[00:25:53] Ok. And yet my life was incomplete without Canva. You know, because I remember going back and forth trying to figure out the size and then going doing a Google search and trying to figure out what they what they changed it to. It's already done for you in Canva and they have graphics in there. Of course, the templates. But then you could also look for royalty free images. So that's a huge thing. A lot of times people are trying to figure out where to find their graphics or thinking about how do I credit them or just a ton of different things that come along with using someone else's content. It's all provided for you in that program. You just type in a keyword. It'll pop up. You can either pay for one, which usually they're like a dollar or you can actually get one for free. And always do the free stuff. But they're really high quality, not these old junky sites that may have pictures from and from forever ago. And you're like, this isn't even modern. Yeah. So everything is up to date. What platform do you use, Tom?

[00:27:00] Okay. So there's several that I use. One I just mentioned was the buffer story creator. Now it's a little bit rudimentary, but it makes some gorgeous things for my Facebook stories. And you can put text on it. You can upload a picture to it. And it's very colorful and really stands out totally free. It's the buffer story creator. Another thing I do is I use PowerPoint, which I have a site called PowerPoint stinks. And people that know me know I've ever used PowerPoint when I speak. But it's perfect for making little graphics like I'm going to make a Facebook posting. Lakia's not around. I'm going to, you know, just thought of something I think should put up there. Now I have a private Facebook group. Screw the commute Facebook group, which, by the way, is only one dollar trial and then $37 a month. Lakia's in there. Larry's in there. I'm in there. You can ask questions of everybody that's there and it's really powerful. But anyway, I'm going to put something up and I don't want to bother her with it. Or if it's on a weekend, I just go into PowerPoint and they have all these pre designed pretty backgrounds. So I just pick one and then I go insert text and I drag a text box over it and then I type in some text and then I just do use my snipping tool in windows, I don't know what it's called on the Mac and I just do a screen capture of the graphic and then I upload it to Facebook and it's gorgeous. I have no graphics ability whatsoever. And then if I need something a little bit more, I use a free service called ipiccy.com and you can put text on, you can upload a photo, you can put text on it, you can crop it. You could just through all kinds of color stuff and crazy stuff, you can put the by now buttons or anything you want is totally free. You don't even have to. I don't even think you have to get an account, you just use it. And so all of this stuff will be in the show notes. But I use the buffer story creator, PowerPoint, and iPiccy and none of it cost me anything.

[00:29:21] Awesome. Tom, I didn't even know you used PowerPoint.

[00:29:24] Yeah. So I just when you see some of my events, I just pick a pretty colored background. PowerPoint has loads of it there and then put some text on top of it and then screen capture the part that I want and load it up to Facebook. It doesn't have to be exact pixel size like an ad might might have to be as long and I loaded up there if it looks fine I'm done usually now that I've done it a couple times I know about what to do and then as long as it fits in the picture on Facebook posting, it's okay with me.

[00:30:03] Another thing I used to used some years ago, PowerPoint and I would create different backgrounds so you can in PowerPoint, they you know, they have that premade canvas that they give you.

[00:30:16] That's what I use. Yeah.

[00:30:17] Yeah. You can change the dimensions on that. So if you were to change it to a Facebook graphic size and go in there and create that, you can also save them as JPGs. I think you can do to PNG.

[00:30:34] Yes, another way might be an upgrade for me for my skill level to do that.

[00:30:42] Okay. Yeah. So another tool that I don't use I've used in the past, but PicMonkey.com is a good one. For images, so it's online photo editing.

[00:31:03] Yeah. Because there's a lot on my cell phone that will do some cool stuff. I'm going to look them up while you keep talking.

[00:31:10] So try out, PicMonkey.com and then pixlr.com. That's a little bit more as though it's a lot. It's very sophisticated. I would say that it reminds me of Photoshop. So if you want something like a Photoshop feel then that's it's a lot easier than Photoshop, but it gives you that feel and that vibe. But I typically use that when I need to take out something like the background. So if I just want the image of something or maybe someone's face, I don't want the background noise, I'll go in there and use that tool. But if I don't need to take a background out, I go straight to Canva and do all of my editing and creations, especially logos and things like that. They give you if you have the pro account you can upload a text, you can upload your own logos and everything so you can choose your color and all of that like your color palette. So it's super helpful. These are really good tools to use.

[00:32:20] Yeah, and you can start with a free account, but I think I bought her the paid account. So I found some of these photo editing apps on my cell phone here that are really powerful. When this first one, you may not need any more because I think Facebook for Facebook anyway. It's called photo collage. So it allows you to put multiple pictures into one picture. Gorillacam is a very handy thing for you for doing time shots and all kinds of stuff. Photo mirror is kind of cool. It makes them the mirror image of your photo Photo wonder. Let's see what else. And Camera 360. Some of these I haven't used for a while because some of the functions are available on Facebook and Instagram and stuff, but those are the ones I use. Photo collage, gorillacam, photo mirror, photo wonder and camera360. There you go.

[00:33:13] Awesome. So since we're talking about photos, let's talk about video, because that's another component that should totally be used when you're on social media, of course. Video is like huge. I mean, you have your Facebook Lives at one point. I mean, they're still on Periscope, but it's not as big as soon as Facebook Live came out. It was like people are still using it, but then people really went over to Facebook live. So Facebook live, you have your Periscopes, you're doing YouTube streaming, all of that great stuff. I like to use. I mean, if you're on your phone, you can also use an app called InShot. InShot is a really good app. You can either record from that app or you can record from your phone and upload it to the app later on, but you can go in there and do really cool backgrounds and add text. Those are some of the things that people use to create memes. So we use. We do some videos here of software that we love is anchor.fm now anchor.fm is really a platform, they've changed since we started using them. But originally you could go in there and you can create a podcast and they would host it for you.

[00:34:39] Yeah, we're not promoting that for podcast if you want to do real high quality, but they have this feature that would tell them about the future of turning your voice into text and video.

[00:34:50] Yeah. So that's what they did. That's why they came out with. But we solely use this platform for creating videos like you literally. OK, so what I do is I will create a blurb. So we have a podcast episode and I am promoting that person. So I will come up with a short maybe 30 second clip of content and then I would upload it to the platform and it would transcribe it into video form for me. So it will be a video with words and then we can change the background, we can put some music to it. And then once I have that, it will process download it and then I upload it to the platform.

[00:35:34] I can't wait to hear what you say about yourself on this one. Yeah, because you're going to do one for this episode and you're going to say the great Lakia Robinson is going to be on.

[00:35:53] Hey it's LG here, Social media director for Screw the Commute podcast. And then oh that's gonna be cool because then.

[00:35:58] You could talk about yourself.

[00:36:01] Yeah. Awesome. Amazing. That should be fun. Yeah. Yeah. So I do things like that and then that platform, it helps me create content.

[00:36:14] It's a free thing too.

[00:36:22] Yeah. But definitely be careful you're not uploading to their platform.

[00:36:26] Yeah. You don't want to do podcasts out there. That's a whole different animal if you want to do. I mean you can if you just want to slop something out there. But if you want high quality you get that freebie that I give away screwthecommute.com/automatefree and on the same page, if you scroll down, you can get a white paper on how to create quality podcasts and people are charging four and five thousand bucks for what's in that document right there. So. So if you want to do high quality, go go download that white paper.

[00:36:58] So be careful because you don't want to upload your podcast there. So we use that freebie and then we use headliner.app. This is pretty awesome. You can pretty much do the same thing as anchor.fm where though they would put words on video, but you could also add images, you can add different transitions and different fonts. And a lot of times when you look on if you watch a podcast episode on social media, they might have those little wave forms. So you'll see the video and then little wave forms, which is alerting you that someone is talking. That platform will let you do that. So you can while you're speaking, if you don't want words, it'll have that little waveform going up and down. So that is a really awesome free tool. And I think you can do 10 uploads. They just change this so you can do 10 downloads a month and then you don't have a watermark either, which is awesome. A lot of times they will have, you know, anchor.fm at the bottom or whatever. You've built it on that platform. But this does not have a watermark at all. So you can download 10 and then if you want to do more a month, which I think 10 is enough. But if you want to do more a month, you can pay. I think it's twelve ninety five a month, but that's a free resource. When you want to put images to your videos, a platform that I like to go you can find videos is unsplash.com and pixabay.com and we'll have, of course, some links to that in the description, but pixabay and unsplash and you can go in there and search videos and you can get them the particles floating in the background. Or you can like if you're talking about a child running in your video, you can find clips of children running that you can upload to your videos. So. You want to think content, what can I put out there? Telling a story that allows people to see, to allow people to see that you are providing great content and that is just really good. So it's high quality stuff to HD. So definitely check out those resources because they're awesome.

[00:39:49] All right. So Lakia does this stuff get kind of stale after a while.

[00:39:53] It does. But you have to be. Think of yourself. You know, your marketer, your business owner. So you have to really mix up your content. So we just talked about graphics. We just talked about videos. Those are some really cool things that you should be doing right now on those platforms. But you also want to make sure that you are putting it like doing quick videos behind the scenes, doing videos on Facebook live, making sure that you have a lot of different content. So you have your content, curated content, videos, graphics, regular post, which don't have any graphics. So it's just text and you're always leading that. I want to just stop right there because you always whenever you're posting, you always want to lead your people somewhere. So these are really cool things to put on social media. But what's going back to what we talked about the very beginning, why are we on this platform? It's cool to share a funny video. Awesome. But you can also tweak the the post to bringing them back to your site. So if I post something about the webinar or maybe a webinar, I personally by the webinar I'm going to tell them this webinar is happening at 2:00 p.m. Make sure you go and sign up. Click here to get or reserve your spot. So as you can see in that small little sentence, I am telling them to do something. That's essentially what you want to do on your platform. Tell them to do something. We call it a call to action. We're telling them, go sign up to this newsletter. Go sign up to for this webinar, go, you know, do whatever it is that you want them to do. And that goes back to the beginning. I have an end goal in mind. How can I get them to that end goal? Well, of course, we're posting valuable in information resources that they can get and that we're also building credibility at that point. We're showing them we know what we're talking about. Tom does webinars on Sunday nights and we've gotten amazing results from that. You know, we've gotten new mentees because Tom is constantly pouring out information and he's consistent, which is a very, very important thing to remember. You have to be consistent on these platforms. If you post once a week, that's not consistency. And that's all we say. Definitely use these different platforms to help you get the content out there. And another key thing to remember is if you do decide to use platforms where you schedule stuff out, that's amazing. We promote it, but also make sure that you're engaging because we want to build credibility, build a relationship with these people. And so if you aren't coming on until like maybe the following, you get on on Sunday and then you don't get back on the platform to the next following Sunday. And there's questions that are going out. People are looking for you. People want still the human touch. So make sure that you're going back to these platforms, even if you schedule content. It's super, super, super important because you know, again, it's important and you want to. Another great thing or another thing that we do and how we run our media is, you know, we go on to different platforms or different groups. Facebook has a lot of groups. You want to make sure you're going into those groups that has your audience and being a resource to them. That could be a day that you choose out of the week to go and make sure that you your your present where you are answering peoples' questions, that you are giving valuable information because they're going to remember that. They're going to remember that this person answered my questions. Just think about the groups that you're in now. And there's always that one person that answers the question and you remember them.

[00:43:57] Now, let me jump in here. Let me jump in here for a second. See, folks, you can. It's not like you have to be tied down and sitting at a desk in front of your computer to do this. See, I get your cell phone, can get notifications if somebody mentions you or ask a question on one of your platforms. And so I could be anywhere. I mean, I could be down at the park with the dogs. I get a notification that it's easy for me to just hit the notification. Takes me right to the post and somebody says, Hey, Tom, what do you think about so-and-so? I can talk to, you know, just hit the, you know, the voice button. Answer him real quick. And they think, wow, he must you know, he's he really takes care of us. So you can. It's one of. I'm a stickler about and Lakia just mentioned this. You wait a week and you don't get back to somebody, they're never going to think much of you. After that, they wasted their time dealing with you. And you're. You're going to get less and less engagement over time and the less engagement you get. You're just you're kind of wasting your time because nobody cares about you. If you don't show that, you at least care about them. But but with these tools were showing you, you can automate that a little bit. And then one other thing we just had Mari Smith on who's considered the queen of Facebook. And she did make a good point now where you've got to balance this. Lakia's saying, you got to post regularly and once a week. Not enough. I agree. But five times a day is too much. If you're just throwing crap out like crazy, nobody's going to respond to it and your engagement goes down and you're going to look bad in Facebook's eyes. So it's quality over quantity. Plus being regular about it. So think in those terms, you've got to really put some thought into things that people will engage with. And there's an enormous number of engagement techniques that you can use. You can look you know, you can any number of geeks online will tell you how to engage better, but quality over quantity. But do it regularly once a week. Not enough. Five times a day is too much. Find out what works best for you.

[00:46:10] Absolutely, I totally 100 and 30 percent agree with that. Because at that point, if you're putting out crap, it is literally you spamming people and no one likes spammers. So with that in mind, though. How can you put out quality content if those steps that we said, you know, the videos being intentional graphics. But I always have a schedule. So when we do curated content or curate content or content from week or two months ago, I like to have a schedule. So Mondays. What am I putting out? Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday, Friday. The weekends. So say if you're an author or something. Maybe on Monday you want to put out one of your quotes from your book and promote your book or something inspirational. Just because it's Monday and you know that people have a hard time getting up on Mondays and going to work, that's something that you can share, something inspirational. Tuesdays Tuesday might be promo Tuesday where you're focused on your products or your service. Or maybe even your webinar that's getting ready to come out. And Wednesday could be you giving out a blog post, sharing your blog posts, sharing your audio, sharing your videos. Thursday could be something that's curated. And of course, this is just an example. You go in there and you change things how you want. But on Thursday, that could be you curating a post. So someone else's video, someone else's content. Friday could be because, you know, they're getting ready for the weekend. Hey, you know what? Are you asking a question? What are you doing for the weekend? Let me know. Being more engaging on Fridays, then you'll have the weekends where maybe, you know, you have a ton of podcast episodes and you want people while they're relaxing to just listen to your episodes. So you might promote your episodes during the weekend or on Monday morning or whatever it is that whatever rhythm and flow you get into. You definitely want to be consistent and change it up if you have. Of course, if it's Thursday and I want to share someone else's content and I know I have a webinar that day I might let go of or not curate any posts for that day, but I might focus solely on just promoting that webinar. So you definitely want to have a schedule in however you approach whatever platform you go on. You want to have a schedule. You want to have a strategy. And its first starts with. Why am I on this platform? And then when you figure that out, that's when you start plugging in. OK, what content can I give them to bring them back? How can I build credibility? What testimonials to this is another one you can use, but testimonials that you've had in the past. That's an awesome graphic. That's an awesome video that you can use to put on your platforms.

[00:49:22] And when all this stuff is taken care of, when you have these tools in place and or end the war, someone like Lakia that's handling on that regular stuff for you doesn't mean you can't pop in a brainstorm, you know, cause a lot of us entrepreneurs you know, we think of stuff and bam with these tools and even without the tools, you can get something out instantly before you forget it or it's not hot anymore. So. So it doesn't mean that you're stuck in a in a rhythm. The rhythm is keeping the regularity going. But you can still pop in anytime you want with an event or watch party just posting on either your personal and or business account. So it's not going to stifle your creativity by having these tools play in the game for you. And then you can still come in and throw touchdown passes anytime you feel like.

[00:50:11] To piggyback off of creativity. You are actually more creative when you're. Your time is freed up to do other things. So if you have these platforms running for you. Just think of it. You do it one time and it runs for a whole month for you and you just pop in and, you know, be relational on social media. You have a whole 30 days to think of something else.

[00:50:45] Well, and some things that are what we call evergreen could run for years. Like my public speaking stuff is evergreen compared to my Internet marketing stuff. So there's stuff that I mean, I've been selling a product. I created twenty eight years ago. It's still selling. So it's so evergreen stuff. You can put it in there and it'll run forever. But you've got to keep an eye on anything that's real timely because you don't want it going out automated, you know, four months from now and it's totally gone and obsolete by then. So you do have to monitor a little bit.

[00:51:22] Oh, yeah. And that's why I use Buffer. Buffer helps me with real time stuff. Meet Edgar is more of the evergreen stuff. And also, don't forget, Facebook also has a scheduling platform, too. They won't recycle it for you, but you can go in there real time and put your content in scheduling for the date.

[00:51:41] And what's funny about that? That used to be a big no no. They wanted everybody doing everything manually and then they frowned upon automated. And I used to teach that that it was don't use automated stuff on Facebook. Now Facebook allows you to do it. So that's how things changed in these worlds. And and how Lakia and I have to keep up with this stuff because we're teaching other people. And so we don't want to be teaching old stuff, but it is a rapidly changing field. I mean, Facebook changes something pretty much every day.

[00:52:14] Oh, yeah. And how I keep up with that is Google Alerts. So I put a keyword in there and it will send me emails out depending on what. What's the frequency that I want to have them send it once a day, twice a week, however I want, they'll send me the list of articles, videos, articles, blog posts that are being put out on the Internet. So I automatically get a populated list and I can go through and see what is happening in those those platforms. So that could be very useful for you. Maybe not, you know, maybe social media. But if it is you using it for your specific industry, if you're a speaker and you wouldn't know the big events that are happening, of course you might be on a list, but you could also do a Google alert. So that keeps you very, very up to date with everything that's going on.

[00:53:09] Oh, yeah. Let me tell you an example of how I use that. One time I was doing an event for Hallmark Cards. And so the minute I get booked for an event, I put the keywords into Google alerts and then I watch it every day so I can get information to customize my speech. Well, the morning of the event, I checked before I went down to the meeting room and an alert came in for Hallmark cards and I said, oh, man, this is pretty big stuff here. So I talked about it in the speech and none of the executives even knew about it. So they thought I was like a genius or I worked in the company or something. So this can really take you to a higher level in your industry by knowing what's going on. It doesn't have to be a speech. It could be if you're pitching something or, you know, some service to a corporation and you know more about them than they do. That's pretty impressive. It's free.

[00:54:09] It's absolutely free. So check that out. It's going to help you tremendously on whatever platform or whatever goal you have. It will help you.

[00:54:18] And it gives you ideas for postings. You see what's in the news in your industry and you can say, hey, I just read an article and so and so about, so and so. That's stuff that's all current. That shows that you're your present in and with everybody. It's not something that would be evergreen, but it comes to you for free automatically. You'd be crazy not to take advantage of it.

[00:54:43] And also Tom, that could be something that is evergreen, though, if you think about it, how we use our podcast and although it's not happening in real time, I always put a caption in there that lets them know that this was in the past. But I'm tying it in to, you know, right now.

[00:55:00] That's true. That's true. That's a way to do it. See, that's why I have young people around folks. My my brain is worn out by now. And I didn't think of that.

[00:55:09] Very, very young people.

[00:55:13] Oh, yeah. But you're at 18.

[00:55:20] So what else we got for them?

[00:55:22] So that's all that I have.

[00:55:25] Yeah, that that that keeps people busy for a while there, but. But just the bottom line, folks, that is they want you to know that there's tools that'll help you with this. They're paid usually the some of the automation tools, but it's not tremendously expensive compared to the return on your investment, because if you don't have all this stuff going out, you're kind of screwed if you try to do it every every second yourself. You can't do your regular work because it's a full time job. So investment in some of these tools and I don't even have affiliate links for any of these. This is. These are just so powerful that let Lakia put, you know, make a massive presence for us everywhere. In her normal workday, you know, so. So it's it's really, really powerful.

[00:56:13] And folks, if you'd like to have somebody to hold your hand through all this stuff and the other thousand things you need to know to be successful online, you might want to consider our mentor program. You have access one on one to me. Lakia. You see how brilliant she is. Marc, Travis, Larry, Jennifer, all of these people are subject matter experts, and that's part of our program. And the claim to fame of our program is that we don't lump you in with everybody else because if you're advanced, you don't want to hear the beginner stuff. And if you're a beginner, you're lost. If we're talking to an advanced person. So I made a deal with myself 20 plus years ago that I'm going to take care of people one on one or I'm not going to do it because we tried group coaching a little bit. But even when we had beginner, intermediate and advanced, it still didn't work that well to get results for people. So we are one on one group that you can not get anywhere else. In fact, we'll take over your computer screen. Show you where to click. Tutor you one on one. And then it's very unique in that you have a visit, an immersion weekend where you actually live in this estate home and you get Lakia to cook breakfast for you. So you know what? You don't want me doing it. In fact, if you see me coming up to the stove, I have a I think I have a apron that says ptomaine poisoning is in your future or something.

[00:57:46] He knows how to work one of the stoves. But you have foreign stoves. He does not know how to work it.

[00:57:53] I don't know how to thing. It's in German and the website's in German. I have no idea at all. It's very unique. And also where Lakia normally works out of our school. And it's the only licensed, dedicated internet marketing school in the country. And you get a scholarship to that. And I'm going to get Ashley to do us the new video. A guy joined the mentor program and he gifted the scholarship to his daughter, who he had spent eighty thousand dollars on an education and she's working at some low salary job. And so after a month in the school, she's making eleven hundred dollars a month on the side. And after two months, three thousand dollars, she's quitting her job. And she's still got four to six months left in the school. He's thrilled to death. And Lakia is one of the instructors. Marc is the main instructor. And I'm always there. It's a unique program that I triple dog dare people to find something they can that can match the value of this program when we do video production and we teach all of this stuff. One on one. So check all that out at greatinternetmarketingtraining.com. If you have questions, you can always e-mail me or get in touch with me at the number on the site. All right. So what kind of closing words do you got for these screwballs over here Lakia?

[00:59:19] Be consistent. Be consistent on the platforms that you choose. Make sure that you understand why you're on there. You know your marketing purposes. Getting them not to stay on the platform, but to at least get them over to your Web site to purchase something to sign up. Let them be the forefront of your mind. After that, you want to make sure that you are being intentional about every single post. It's not spamming. It's not just throwing something up in last minute because you don't have time. But being intentional in sitting down, cleaning out content and organizing yourself so that you're not last minute and you are really, really having a strong brand when you're on these platforms. And lastly, let's see. And the last thing I would say for you to remember is don't be afraid to use tools. They are your best best friends find those tools that you can implement on a daily basis and help you. So it's like your personal assistant so that you're not running around all crazy. Use these tools. There's a lot of them out there. Choose what's best for you and run with it.

[01:00:41] There we go. All right. So that was Lakia Robinson. She's helps us screw the commute around here and helps a lot of people screw the commute. So like I said, you get access to her and me and all the other people, as subject matter experts. We've had Marc on who's the video expert, written three books on YouTube marketing. We've got Larry, who's tech guy and also the podcast, the behind the scenes guy. And we've got Travis, who's the tech guy. And all of them are really nice. Travis is writing a book. He used to win awards at the last place. He worked on customer service because he's got such what I call a Web site manner instead of a bedside manner. It's because he's technically he's a techie, but he doesn't make you feel stupid. All right. He's really nice. He's writing a book. I can't say the whole title here, but it's called The Art of Acting like you give a SH**. So he's really good. So everybody here is. But we just don't put up with anybody that's not the greatest to take care of you because that's our culture here is the high level of service. So so yeah, Lakia you'll get your tip. So don't worry. And for everybody else, we'll catch on the next episode. See ya later.

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