Duke of Digital
Duke of Digital
031: The Top 7 Trends of Social Media with Cyprian Francis
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Boo-Yeah! It’s time to get your social right. Raise those pinkies because in this episode, we’re discussing the top seven trends in social media.
Brian Meert
https://www.linkedin.com/in/brianmeert
Duke of Digital
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AdvertiseMint
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Boo . Yeah, it's time to get your social media right. Raise those [inaudible] because in today's episode we're talking about the top seven social media trends in 2020
Speaker 2presented by advertisement. The juke of digital will guide you through the rapidly changing landscape of digital marketing, social media and how to grow your business online. To submit a question for the show, text (323) 821-2044 or visit Duke of digital.com if you need an expert to fix your ads, the friendly team at advertisement is ready to help visit advertisement. That's M I N t.com or call (844) 236-4686 to grow your business. Here's your host, Brian Mitt .
Speaker 1All right , we have with us in the studio today. Sipri and Francis, thank you so much for being here today. Yeah, it's great to have you here. Um, you are an agency owner. Uh, you're the host of the Cyprian Cyprian Francis show. Uh, you're the, you founded and cofounded seven different businesses. Uh, you've worked in finance for a while. Man, I , you've got so much of a background, I'm just really excited to have you here. Did I miss anything?
Speaker 3Well, it's, it's very broad. Um, but what I'm excited about is to be here in Hollywood with you broadcasting because , um , I've only been out here for about a year and a half, right. So like, I'm here to pursue the dream of entertainment and marketing and digital and media and all this and it's just so exciting to do it here in Hollywood versus, you know, boring Chicago where it's probably like 10 degrees right now. But yeah, I'm very excited to be here to talk about social media marketing. What else?
Speaker 1I love it. I love it. True story. A couple of weeks ago , uh , some of the people on our team went in the elevator and we're going down and it stopped on the floor below ours. And Brad Pitt got into the elevator and they texted me a photo. They're like, dude, we've got to get a photo with you. He's like, yeah, sure. Get in here guys. And they texted me and they had just walked out the door and I was like, how does that happen? Ah , you guys didn't call me. I would've said I, but only in Hollywood. The only in Hollywood. Yeah, they're there . Everyone's here hustling for business, which is great. So, well it's great to have you on this show. Um, I wanted to have you here because you had a fantastic blog post that just dropped a , was it last week? A couple of days ago . Okay, perfect. So you did a blog, a hump blog cast , um, you did a, a blog and then you had a podcast on the same topic, which was the top seven social media trends that are going to be happening in 2020 or that people should be aware of that are happening in 2020 and I just, I love the list and I was like, I want you to be able to come on this show so we can chat through them.
Speaker 3That's right. But it's , it's more than 2020. It's the new decade. Right, right. So like some of these things are going to be a product or a service or a trend for the next 10 years. Right? So if you're going to get on a bandwagon, you might as well start in 2022 hope to utilize some of these things.
Speaker 1Now, before we, before we jump into that, I just want to make sure , um , that people can find you. So tell us a little about the agency that you run, how people can connect with you , um , how they can be able to , uh , to get in touch with you after they listen .
Speaker 3Sure. It , it , you know, just like you, I'm, I'm branded, you know, pretty good and myself with the, with the handles at Sipri and Francis. That's CYP, R I a N Francis [inaudible] , francis.com. The Instagram, the Twitter that YouTube the , the ticktack eye , which we'll get into, but I didn't do that one as myself because I have some reservations, right? So I have like a little alter ego that you can do some risque stuff that isn't really my name. Um,
Speaker 1boom. We just went from Eugene to PG and we're working our way up the radio . I love it .
Speaker 3Um, but yeah, that's pretty. And then you know, Google and I'm there and I'm always interested in talking to new people about things and you know, particularly entertainment stuff lately. Right. Which is why I'm here in Hollywood.
Speaker 1Got it. Now you told me a story kind of about when you started that you were in financial and then you've , you've worked with, you know, starting a variety of different companies that led kind of to the agency and a lot of it had to do with kind of the birth of digital, of social that you were, you know, from financial coming kind of to the digital world. You know. Can you share a little bit of kind of the backstory that led into that before we jump?
Speaker 3Sure . So when I was in high school, I worked at a country club as a valet. Like that was my hustle and the coolest guys had the Cadillac Deville and stuff. And they would come in at like noon and they would golf. And I was like, what do you guys do? They were traders, they were all traders at the board of trade. So I was like, this is kind of what I want to do. All right , I want to be cool like these guys. So that's where I geared my education. Like I studied finance, I worked on on the floor for a little bit. And then what ended up happening in like, Oh eight, Oh nine, all that changed . Like everything went digital. Nobody was on the floor anymore. And so I still wanted to be involved. And that turned into helping these old school guys develop websites, utilize social media, create campaigns, generate leads, collect credit cards online. They didn't, you know, that wasn't their world. And so that turned into two or three different businesses, small , um, which w went into Forex, which I don't know if people really know what Forex is, but it's the trading of currency, right? So like the dollar versus the Euro versus the Aussie versus the pound. And it's just like trading stocks. Um , but it was unregulated for a very long time. So we were able to do riskier campaigns, right to a worldwide audience. And from there it turned more entrepreneurial stuff. Um, I really liked the takeoff of the startup world , right in Chicago. Groupon became this huge thing that like, got overvalued and then went public. And then I was like, well, maybe you probably need to own a company that goes public to make a lot of money. So I got into the startup world and then , um,
Speaker 1I think at the time Groupon was the fastest growing company ever on planet earth. And when it came out, like they were just on a skyrocket up.
Speaker 3And the, the brainchild is a guy named Eric Lefkofsky. He's like a billionaire, but he started like eight companies themselves. Like four of them went private and he started a little VC firm called light bank. And under light bank they housed like 30 startups and we all work like in this incubator. So it was, it was exciting. So that's , that's where the digital stuff went. Um, but after awhile I started to create the content, right? So I picked up the camera and I started to create the content to market the product. It really didn't matter what it was. Right. Um , because video, as you probably know, is the advertising guy converts the best online, right? So if you can make good videos, good ads, you'll, your marketing will be better. Yup . Yup . So I really liked that and I was like, maybe I want to do something like that for the rest of my life. Not going to happen in Chicago. Got to come out to Hollywood. And so part of the agency is creating our own content , um , developing some scripted stuff while working the agency side and helping clients and being creative and stuff like that.
Speaker 1Got it. Got it. Oh , I love it. I love it. Ah , fantastic background. Thank you so much for sharing. Um, all right , so I wanted to jump into , uh, the, the top seven trends that you have , uh, that you've listed in social media for 2020. Uh, the first of which was social listening is on the rise. So can you give us a little background into what is social listening? Why should people be aware of it and how does it work?
Speaker 3Well, social listening is basically taking the information that your fans or your consumers are putting into the social sphere, into the internet and gaining information from it. So , um , the good and the bad, right. So , um, one of the examples that I used was um, you know, imagine , uh, like taco bell releasing a new burrito or something and they give it a weird name, right? That, that offends the Latin community. Right.
Speaker 1Well, I think actually yesterday they just killed the peanut. Mr peanut, did you hear about this? I mean, so they're getting a lot. The planter's peanut guy, they just, yeah, he's a classic. He's been around for I think like 60, 70 years. They just did a pre Superbowl ad where he drives off a cliff and there's the bunch of guys hanging on a, on a branch and he goes and they're like, no, and that's, and then they're like, stay tuned for what will happen at the super bowl decision
Speaker 3to cancel. That was probably when they released it on Twitter or Facebook, something. All the comments or at least more than 50% are negative, which is that's listening, right. And making decisions from what the people are telling you now it's more beneficial for bigger brands that have audiences. For the smaller ones it's maybe not as helpful because you don't have the data,
Speaker 1right? Yeah. Yeah. Um, okay . We're going to pause here for a second. Man . My computer crashed twice. Hold on. So the whole list I have, can you ask Courtney real quick to just print out my papers? Um, I don't know what's going on, but it crashed REITs . It's never happened before. I just want to make sure I have the rest of those lists. I've got the spinning wheel of death. I was like, Oh man, I'm going to be able to make it one to two downs . I could probably try and remember a couple.
Speaker 4Let's see.
Speaker 1It's the third crash. That's not a good sign. The computer. Yeah. You might just need to know because she's on it , uh, for the episode. I don't know . It just, it, it's restarted three times today. So I was like, Oh shoot, let me do it again. And then it just, it keeps crashing and crashing. So Mark where it's at on there, so we can cut that all out and then we'll get started in. Cool . Sorry about that. Okay. That's fine. That's fine.
Speaker 3It happens, man. I've been on your side plenty of time to do it .
Speaker 1It was crazy. I was like, I was sitting there and I had to hold this there and it's all, and I was like , uh , that's not, that's not a good thing. Uh, cancel your , they kind of
Speaker 3kills the mojo . Yeah , we were rockets .
Speaker 1We were rocking. Yeah, I know. Let's see what it says here. I could try to upload it again, but that's probably a good thing to have those backups. Well , look, we got the , uh, the background stuff out, so that's good. That's it. We're cruising along. So I, you, you talked about , um, social listening and then I can jump in and then we'll keep rolling. Right ? Yeah . Sorry about that. I was just like,
Speaker 3been on the look. I , yeah.
Speaker 1Oh man. Uh, so it did it once and while you were talking, I just, I logged in, I started, restarted the computer logging back up and was like, Oh, we're gonna make it through this. Like it's no big deal. And then I was about to ask, I was going down the list and it's all again. I was like, all right, something's happening. Bump a bone. Yeah . I need a better example of fucking taco bell shit. I'm glad you guys get going at ADM . like, yeah, we tried to fuck , here we go. Thank you. Courtney. She's out there in there right now. 8:00 AM every day. Uh, yeah, we do it every day, Monday to Friday. So we , uh, we've been pushing hard to get more podcasts episodes out and I'll send them, yeah. If you know, of anyone that's , uh , that's interested or , um, has got something going on or something that's happened, like in the , I mean, we, we talk a lot about digital social media , uh, e-commerce , uh, you know, advertising. That's kind of the world that we try to, if you ever get dry, you know, let me know. Keep them coming. Yeah. I mean Courtney is the one that does all the booking. Um, so she's always on the hunt and we're reaching out to a lot of people and then other people get referred to us. So for sure it's something that we're always, I'll look out for him . Beautiful. Thank you so much. All right, so if this crashes again , um , on back in . All right , so we're gonna finish up, he was just talking about social media , uh , listening. He finished with you, finished with , uh, the , uh, example taco bell. We were talking about the peanut and then I'm going to jump back in. All right , so I'll give you a three, two, one. Yeah. You know, it is really important. I think that how brands are now listening much, much more. I think that there's a conversation that's happening around the world and this is now much more of a priority over things like email or, you know , um, let's say like phone, even someone picking up the phone. And I would say a great example of this that I see numerous times is with airlines. Okay . You know, if someone misses a flight or they're, you know, they're delayed or something, I will see my friends whine and complain on social media and put in, Hey, Delta airlines, your planes are delayed 15 minutes. This is unacceptable. And I'm like, what is happening? But yeah, they're not calling a number. They're not , um, you know, sending an email to support. They're like, I want to tell everyone that this is a problem and you should fix it. And I mean, there's some extent that now becomes an even greater problem because if you can't address , um, what your, your customers are saying about your , your company, it becomes a problem. So you need to be able to have tools to listen. You need to be able to have tools to be able to respond. Um, and I think that there's a lot, you know, in the article you mentioned a couple of the tools that, you know, people should be using are available for people to use. Um, you know, and I , I'll kinda run through these and you're welcome to jump in if you want a a warrior, a.com is meant for, you know, social monitoring, being able to keep tabs , um, on specific keywords , uh, uh , Gore pulse, which is social media management tweet deck , uh, which you utilize to help organize hashtags Brandwatch , uh, which are tools to be able to help track your brand health , um, which I think is fantastic. Keyhole for hashtag analytics who'd suite and sprout social for social media?
Speaker 3Yeah, so my biggest, the , the, the three that I use the most are TweetDeck. TweetDeck is free, so anyone can use tweet deck and if you have multiple brands or handles, it's very good for organizing that. And then the hashtag organization as well, like you could layer it up like 10 hashtags that are either directly related to your brand or similar keyword. So it's also utilizing the UGC content, right? Like if someone says something really funny with the right hashtag and you retweet it, that, that, that very reality can , can really blow up in your favor and you don't even know it. Um , and then sprout social is really good , um, for similar Twitter stuff. Right. So I think there's more Twitter, social listening than , than any other tool. Um, for Facebook. Probably just the comments, right. Someone needs to be aware of of those and monitoring those. Yup . Um, but a lot of them are still evolving the softwares , right. Because this is becoming a thing in , in marketing. So , um , I don't know who the leader is , uh , but they all kind of do their own thing.
Speaker 1Yeah. I mean, I , I would advise people to generally tink around with these and because everyone will have different options, different features, different , um , kind of tools that they build and create. And a lot of times I'll use two very similar services because one's got a single feature that I'm like, that is really powerful and I don't want to spend time trying to build it on my own, but I need the ability to do this one thing. Um, and so I , I'd recommend, you know, tinkering around with them and playing a bit. And it's just, there's so much power. Like, why don't you get in there? I remember the first time I opened tweet deck, they've been around for a while , but, and to get in there and dropping some hashtags and it's like you start to see the amount of volume that's coming through on certain things and you're like, Whoa. Like, all right , I gotta get in on this. Uh , this is, there's a lot of people talking about this one topic or this , uh , one specific hashtag or things that are trending. Um , it's just crazy when you see the amount of volume that goes through this. Um, I don't know. I , I've always been impressed when you start to see the volume behind it. Sure. Um, all right. Number two , uh , social media trends for 2020, you list tick tock . That's right. Oh, all right. I am on tick-tock , uh , I spend way more time watching tick talk than I do post teenagers . Um, I just have a good time. It's, it's a light. It's fun. It's uh , yeah. I can kind of go down the rabbit holes. If I see something that's funny and I'm like, Oh, it makes me laugh and I'll watch other people do the same sort of thing.
Speaker 3It is . I think the coolest part about tic-tac is these like viral clips that then everyone reenacts themselves and then that becomes like a category. Like you could just see that one audio clip reenacted by like a thousand people. And I think those are the ones that go the most viral, right? Like , um, what else? Let's see the filters, right? They got the AI filters, which I don't really see utilize that well, but it's legit with the 3d molding and you can turn yourself into a dinosaur.
Speaker 1Good job with a lot of their creative tools for allowing people to be able to create a lot of these videos. And I always loved vine. I was a biggest fan of vine and I would, I had like , uh , I would save all the videos that would make me laugh, like just really good ones. And whenever there were times I have a bad day, I'd go back into vine and be like, let me watch all these saved videos. And I just, you know, in 10 minutes I'd be walking out smiling, being like, all right , let's keep going.
Speaker 3Every everyone I asked, I'm like, Oh, are you, and these are like actors in there . I'm like, are you on ticktack ? They're like, no, but I liked vine. I loved vine. I'm like, it's the same. It's better. Right ? I do think it's better than vine. Yeah. My only concern with tic-tac in general is that it's like a Chinese company. Right. And that's like a big thing, right? So you never know what the data, is it legit, right. Like the payouts, things like that. Right .
Speaker 1In China right now, like there's someone that's like, man, we love Instagram, but you never know about the data. Like do they say the same thing? Have to wonder they're over there and like, Hey , um, but no, I'm a, I'm a big fan of tick tock . I mean, some of the things that you mentioned in the article is, you know, it's , it's generally known as being a platform for, you know , individuals under 35 which Instagram was a , I mean, Facebook when it started was that same audience , uh, Instagram was the same audience when it started and they kind of grow and blossom and eventually become these big, big , um, platforms. But I mean, you had it that there's 500 million active users daily active users on, on tick-tock, which is a huge number. I mean, that's like 7% of people on planet earth.
Speaker 3Did you know if those numbers are legit?
Speaker 1Yeah, I'm not , I'm not counting them one by one, but that's what they put out , um , in their, in their documents. But you know, it is crazy. I mean, it's definitely growing. Uh, you know, I see way more celebrities now kind of jumping on board, trying to get on with that. Um, a lot more people like Gary V, every time I've seen him speak, he's like, tick tock, tick tock, tick tock. Which to some extent it's true. It is now like Instagram was when it first started, which is if you can get in on that and ride that wave up , um, you've got potential to be a much, much bigger influencer than someone that's not paying attention and lets it get, you know, get by him before it gets [inaudible] .
Speaker 3I'm interested in the music component too because they have mainstream songs and artists and do they pay for those rights, right. Like I , I'm , I'm really curious about how that works but, but the vitality of some of those helps the artists. You know what's crazy is
Speaker 1there was last weekend I went on to Spotify and I was like, Hey, I haven't done this a while . And I was like, here, it's like the top all time songs. Right. And I started going down this, I haven't listened to it in probably a couple months or you know, I'll jump in the playlist and they start going through and playing them in order and of the top 10 songs, seven of them, I was like, Oh that's tick-tock . I hear that song everywhere and take talk . Like , I don't hear it on the radio, I don't hear anyone else. But I was like, Oh, I've heard that song 500 times on tick-tock cause they do this one dance to it. And so I don't know if that's the reason it's there is because of tic talk or they did it first and then it became popular on take talk. Like, I don't know if the , the chicken and egg of how that works. But it is fascinating to see, like to go through that and be like, man, seven of these top 10 songs all have a skit or a dance or something that people will do to this song. And they'll do it again and again and again and repeat it again. And I'm like, it's incredible. To me.
Speaker 3It's the dancing too, right? Like the very simple ones. Uh , yeah . And then the girl just turns around 500,000 views.
Speaker 1Yeah. Surprisingly fun to watch. It doesn't, you know, I think the thing that I love most about tick tock is it's not , um, it's not, it doesn't seem overly scripted. It doesn't seem like people are trying, it's like, Hey, I'm going to do something fun and here's my take on it. And I think just the process of watching different people do that same thing again and again is fun and entertaining. Kind of like reality show. But it's not like only certain people are cast, it's anyone can get it on that. And I think that's what makes it kind of fun is you could watch a mom do it, you could watch a kid do it, you know, you can watch a , a cheerleading team, do it. You can watch an actor do it. Like all these different people were doing the exact same thing, which brings together an element of connectedness.
Speaker 3Some of the other viral ones are like parents or relatives, like the , like the super Boston dad, right? Like , Hey dad, say something right. He's like, no.
Speaker 1Yeah, no, it is a , it's fascinating. So if you haven't played, if you haven't gotten on tick tock , you probably should. Um, and, and you know, Gary V's all about start putting out content, trying to get in on some of the, the challenges or the dances and , and start to get in there and just do them on your own and get into the , the conversation. Um, there are the options to run ads on tech talk , but it's still very limited.
Speaker 3Yeah. I think it's just that, like the only ones I've seen is like that splash page that you hit. Right. But
Speaker 1yeah, it's still only a to kind of the beginning that they'll show , um , and either links to a website or you can link them to a profile. Um , and it's all charged on a CPM basis. Very similar kind of Snapchat or Instagram when they first launched it . It'll evolve for sure . Oh , for sure. Yeah, I would imagine that , that that'll change very much in the next couple of years. All right. Number three of a, of top social media trends, stories. You , you are bullish on stories . It's ,
Speaker 3it's very similar to the tic TAC , right? In that when you're on tic-tac you go up, right. Your swipe is up. It's still vertical content, but you're swiping up and you like something, maybe you watch it if you don't, you keep scrolling. Stories is very similar in that you just, right. Yep . You like something, you let it flow. Right. So in my mind it's starting to become like an entertainment portal in vertical form that's UGC generated by people that you like your friends, things like that. And because it's on Facebook, the advertising capabilities on there are incredible. Right? Very cost effective. Right. You can drive traffic. So , um , very, very bullet .
Speaker 1Yeah. And the things that I love about stories and I've always loved it from, you know , the beginning of Snapchat is when it was vertical, it took up the whole phone. It was a different format, you know, now on the side. Um, so it was kind of different and unique. Um, I love that it had a time-sensitive component to it , which was if you don't watch this within 24 hours, it's gone. And I think that creates a very sort of a addiction or a need to check on something again and again of did my, the people that I followed , did they do something else? And I also think it, it brings together like a , uh , um, an element of like you're with someone, right? Like Kim Kardashians. Uh , you know , Kim Kardashian, I was at a concert , uh, for Jay Z and Beyonce and Kim Kardashians walked by right next to me. We were down in the, like the open area. And I go as I'm home that night, I'm opening the stories and she's there doing all of her stuff and I was like, no , that's awesome. But whether I'm there, whether I'm in New York or somewhere around the world, you feel like you're kind of side by side. You get that insider look into a person's life, you have the ability to talk with them. I just think that adds an element that is more real than a lot of times they hear , I'm going to take 500 selfies and post a perfect one up. And people think that that's what my life is all the time. I think stories have a more kind of realistic element to them.
Speaker 3Totally. And they have some of the similar components to tick tock with the filters and graphics and gifts and things like that. So it makes it content , uh, unique, right? Like it could be a selfie one , uh, the , the first story, the second one could be a graphic of some store . The third one can be music. Um, I really like when they on stories, when they created the categories that you could save your stories in. Because whenever I meet someone new and I start following them, I like to just go through the categories, right? Like living in LA, my trip here, Comicon that. Right. And so it summarizes things for me.
Speaker 1You know , what I think is fascinating is, you know, when I , um, you'll look at other companies to work with or a lot of times do , um, necessarily like interviews or I'm doing research on someone the first place, even more than LinkedIn, their first place that I generally go to look, it will be on Instagram. And I'll be like, let me, cause I can visually see what is this person all about in 10 seconds I can scroll through newsfeed. And then from there I go into the stories and I can very quickly click through and be like, Oh they in Hawaii, Oh they did this. And I feel like I then have the ability to connect with person. Cause I'm like, I know about your life in a visual sense in a very quick, short period of time. I have things that I can relate with you or talk with you about and , and go from there. And I've always loved that. It's always where I start when I, when I do my homework.
Speaker 3So it shows the importance of branding yourself well on Instagram, no matter your niche, right? So like I meet a lot of actors that don't have good Instagram and I'm like, like, no one's going to hire you because they're going to go look at your Instagram and it needs to be legit. Right? So whether you're politician or all that, it's very, very important. And 20, 20, it's only going to be important for the next decade
Speaker 1is the new resume. Um , it's funny, yesterday I had a conversation with an individual that works for a celebrity that most people would know by name. Uh , if I were to put up a photo of her, they'd be like, Oh yeah, I know who that is. Um, and she was talking about how she lost a role because, and she's well known and they were just like, we don't think you have enough social media following. Like, you're , you're beautiful, you're talented, you've got a great resume, but your social media following is enough. And if there's someone that's similar and they've got, you know, 2 million views and you have 200,000, we're going to go with that option because we know that that person can promote the movie and help it go. And it blew her away because she's like, all my life, I've focused on being a wonderful and a talented actress. And she's like, now it was, it wasn't about that. It was what do I have in my arsenal that I can be able to use to help promote the movie? Um , and that's when, you know, my friend was hired and brought on and they started doing a lot more. But it's just crazy that even at the highest levels of, of entertainment, you know, you've done everything right. You still need to be , um, promoting yourself. You need to be able to have those tools and those accounts that basically your microphone, you need to always be growing your microphone.
Speaker 3And I feel like a lot of, a lot of these people that struggle with this are afraid to use the advertising in Facebook when in reality you don't even have to spend that much money. Like a dollar a day will get you a thousand views. Right? And so, you know, you promote it to the right people in the right location with the right ad and over time you solve that problem.
Speaker 1Yeah. Yeah. I mean it's just crazy because I think what people don't understand is you have the ability to 100% control the narrative of what you say to who you want to say it to . Meaning your exact audience, the people that love you the most. You could pay and ensure that every one of those eyeballs would see whatever you were talking about instantly, every single day. And it's just so powerful. And a lot of people don't realize that or they think, Oh, well I should just be popular and I shouldn't put money behind it, but Oh , I'm 100% you have just an incredible tool to be able to make anything you want to happen happen.
Speaker 3And I , it's interesting how you said Instagram, even though there's a Facebook stories, but who watches Facebook stories, right? Yeah . I don't,
Speaker 1I don't know the , I don't know the numbers behind it. I mean, the process of the stories was, you know, Snapchat had it first. Instagram borrowed it from Snapchat. Um, and you know, we were in Facebook's offices and they were, they got up on stage and they were like, Instagram stories is the fastest growing product we've built or we have in face , in anything we've ever built inside of Facebook. All the different tools or features or anything. When we launched stories on Instagram, the usage of people behind that was incredible. And I think because of that, they just rolled it out onto Facebook thinking it's the same sort of thing. But to some extent I would agree with you. Like I don't remember the last time I watched a story on Facebook, even though it's the exact same thing. Um, I just generally watch them on Instagram. That's where I consider where they're at. Um, so, alright , well , uh , moving on , uh , next trend , uh , live going live. All right, let's talk about that.
Speaker 3Yeah. So , um, the, the, the reason that's on the list is basically because of the algorithm, I think , um, in that when you go live with a certain amount of audience for certain amount of time, you start to pop up in feeds because, you know , Facebook's really trying to break into video in and live is a good way to do that. I don't know if Facebook is better than Instagram, but I mean Instagram has a live so we could cover a lot of the same things we just talked about of the value of that. Um, but it's no different than like television. If you, you know, if someone's broadcasting a good live event , people are going to watch it. So , um, for those that aren't utilizing it, start to maybe think about how you can write , you know, we probably could have done this live if we really wanted to. Um, but there's, there's great value in it.
Speaker 1Oh yeah. It's, it's incredible to think how far live is come and where I think it'll go. Um, you know, Facebook is interesting. You win when you first, when it first came out, you'd go live and it would appear instantly at the top of your feed . So I mean, they put a lot of push behind it and I don't necessarily see it that much anymore of live videos appear on Facebook. Instagram, on the other hand, when you go live on Instagram right to the top, that's it. They alert you. It's right there. Um, and so, I mean, if in a world that's very noisy, the fastest way to get in front of everyone in that line is by going live. Um, for sure. What's, what's interesting is we've been working a lot with Amazon and Amazon has a new program that they've been launching for live is they're trying , uh , they're putting a lot behind it , um, to be able to kind of make it kind of like a QVC sort of where any person that's selling products on Amazon could be able to go live and talk about the product, show how it works, things like that, which is fascinating, but I've never, and I'm on Amazon probably every day picking something up or buying something. I've never seen promoted. Like there's no where on the site where it's like, Hey, this is where you go to watch or here's a live video or something that is relatable to a product that you care about. I've just never seen them put it on to the site somewhere yet, which at some point they probably will. They're busy building all their money. They're in a back room, like giant, a giant vault like screwdriver Doug . It's like, yeah, look at all this money.
Speaker 3The one thing that's always kind of turned me off from going live is like, when I'll do it and there's like five people and I'm like, Oh, should I just keep doing this for the five people? Is it going to grow? Right. So like I think that's something that , that , that new live users need to overcome and maybe come up with a strategy for going live, like at a specific time with a specific person for a specific thing. Um ,
Speaker 1I do think that is really important. And the other thing to remember as well is even in that scenario, you know, if you're going live and you're like, Oh, it's five people and you know, everyone wants tons of people would be like, Hey, we're all jumping on that. Um, the video does stay up and a lot of times they can still get videos afterwards so all videos are saved. Uh , which is important to remember. And while there may only be five people there while you're doing it, by the time you know, month rolls by, you could have a lot more views than that.
Speaker 3And the live component is going to change , uh, in the future as well because of some of the crazy things that happen when things are live right, which isn't what we're promoting. But that's just the reality of life. Like something crazy is happening. You can make it go live and it's real time data with the world
Speaker 1for sure. And I think the example of that did that caught my attention the most was the Chewbacca mom, which is the lady that put on the bask and it was like a Chewbacca face. You opened the mouth, they'd go this, she, I think she went live on Facebook and was just, and was there talking to me like check out this mat and she was just busting up laughing. That was it, you know, just honest fun. She was just like, this is incredible. Watch. It makes a noise. When I opened the mouth and did that for a couple of minutes and from that people started sharing it and just like, I don't, when she probably started, there was probably five people. They were like, Hey, check this out, but then be like, Oh, you gotta get in on this. And then they were commenting and joking around and then from there she ended up getting on the Ellen show. And , um, it's just crazy. Just resonated when someone was just being their honest, genuine self. So I do think live , um, I expect, I would expect lives to continue to grow quite a bit. Um, and I'm just fascinated by that because 20 years ago, I mean, 10 years ago , five years ago, if you wanted to go live, you had to go into like a television station that had hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment. Um, and to be able to now you can do it from your phone at any point in time to everyone on planet earth. Uh, if it's a topic that they care about, it's just so incredible to ,
Speaker 3and I wouldn't be surprised if Facebook's try and find some advertising thing to put on to live. Right. Cause I'm thinking you can advertise on [inaudible] .
Speaker 1I think that you can , um, once the video is done, then they, when they reshore it, then there's pre-roll or things like that that come through. Um, but yeah, it's, it's , yeah though of course. Find a way though . Throw ads on that. Um , all right , next up. Micro influencers. Um, this is a trend. Let's talk about that.
Speaker 3Yeah . So everyone knows what an influencer is, but they're starting to become too big and not , not as impactful. Right? So when brands cut these deals with influencers to do these posts and things like that, they're not getting the ROI that they expect. So we recommend to brands to find micro influencers, right? Like, you know, people that spend a specialize in cooking, but maybe not just cooking me like cooking tacos, right? You know, or fitness and fitness of , you know , um, I don't know the abs or something. I dunno , but, but if you're going to get more bang for your buck and these, these micro-influencers , um, I dunno, maybe like 3000 to like 10,000 followers will probably be cheaper and you'll, you'll get more bang for your buck. And , um, you know, they're open and they're creative and maybe there's more than just posting something, maybe you can work together. Right. Um, those are my thoughts.
Speaker 1No, I love it. I love it. You know, I've, I've had, and it's funny, we mentioned Kardashians earlier. I had a conversation with someone that we were talking about the brand and they're like, well, we just had one of the Kardashians , uh, promote us on, on , uh , Instagram. We had to deal with them. Uh , an influencer deal. And I was like, Oh, it's awesome. Hey, congratulations. That's great. I'm sure these are great. How was the ROI and men, the look on her face was like a change of subject. Like you could just tell someone had a great idea of let's get a Kardashians to back us up and with the amount that they paid versus how much came through from sales. And that's generally the problem with influencers is they get big, they can get agents, they can get contracts. So like, well, Hey, this is what we want. And they get to call the shots on who they really want to work with. And that's the pro of micro influencers is they're generally influencers with what, like 10,000, 50,000 is that kind of the rain ?
Speaker 3Sure. But I , but I've seen some very impactful like three thousand five thousand pieces . Right .
Speaker 1And I think that's where it kind of comes from is now you have these people that are in the process of growing, but they're open to working with you or they're more involved with a highly specific niche. Uh , it's very closely aligned with your business. And so a lot of times you can create these deals with these types of people , um, which is perfectly aligned where they aren't necessarily a spokesperson, but they can talk about your products and they've got people that care about what they're talking about. I mean , it's a fantastic way to see a really good return on investment from what you paid versus what you're able to generate or grow your business through.
Speaker 3And it probably is more than just an Instagram post, right? Like you can have some sort of a broad agreement where they represent rep or they help explain the brand or the product to the public. And like, I'm S , you know, I'm surprised I'm not seeing more of it on tic-tac to be honest. Right. Which it , it'll be. It'll, it'll be there for sure. Uh ,
Speaker 1well I think it's crazy is , you know, a lot of times will you utilize , um, influencer content when they post something up. But we'll have contracts in place where we actually use that for our paid ads , uh , and it performs very, very well. So, you know, while they may do it and it goes out to their followers, once we can take that same content, be able to utilize it and repurpose it and get it to a much, much larger audience , uh, and be able to kind of leverage some of that social cloud . Um, and someone that most of the time, you know, I'll be honest, influencer content doesn't really feel like an ad. It feels like someone just generally talking about it . You know, sometimes it can be a little over the top. Um, but for the most part it's generally pretty authentic and influencers are happy to get deals and want to want to do that to be able to grow. Um, so I just, I've, I find it fascinating that, you know, we see really good results with that when we use it for paid media,
Speaker 3when it doesn't feel like an ad. I think that , I think that hits the spot on.
Speaker 1Yup . Yup . Um, so I mean, there's a couple of tools for people listening. Um, you know, there's heartbeat or grand , uh, that are great tools for, for influencer management. Um, I think that you mentioned in your article and then there's, there's also , um, a company called obvious that li L Y , uh , which has meant for nano influencers. So I mean that's, those are kind of like super micro influencer, which is, you know, below 10,000. So these are people that are just starting out but not after this podcast. Everyone go follow them , let's get 'em out. Um, so yeah, that's uh , it's just crazy. There are these kinds of segments that allow businesses to be able to find the right people that are talking about, you know, their , there's genre or their niche and be able to get them involved with their company.
Speaker 3And the way that the tools work is as an influencer, you sign up and you kind of build, it'll build a profile and then as a brand, you go in there and you create a campaign and then you kind of have a database of oo to work with and their prices and stuff. So there is a process or you could just slide in their DM, right. And try and cut a deal right there too.
Speaker 1It's true, both of those work. Um, all right, next up , uh, we've got two more to go. Podcasting. Woo . That's right. Now you're on board. I'm on board. I w I've drank the Koolaid and gone into a a hundred percent . What are your thoughts on black?
Speaker 3So the, the, the, the moment that it converted for me was when Gary V did the anchor thing, right? You know, anchor the software for podcasting. It just got purchased by Spotify. Um, but it's very easy to produce the anchor.fm anchor.fm . Right? And it helps distribute to all of it. And he did like a video or something where he was like, why it's so easy to start your own podcast. You just have to download this app and hit record and you can have a podcast. And I was like, well, let's do it. I like to ramble and talk about things. It's good for promotion. Um, it's cool to be on Spotify. It's cool to be on iTunes, right? I'm not like a musician or something, but it's a channel and it's becoming more and more popular in the mainstream. Right. Especially here in LA, people are driving for like an hour, right? I hear people, you know, wanting podcasts and things. So I'm very highly recommended for a brand, for a personality, find a topic similar to the niches in , in the micro influencers and you know, produce content.
Speaker 1It does amaze me cause you know, podcasts has been around for a while , 10, 15 years now. I mean I feel like it's been out for awhile , but the level of quality and the level of content that I'm like, Oh man, this is really good. Like I loved audio books back, you know, from most of my life, cause I could listen to them while I was driving. So I kind of was able to do two things at the same time. And the books that I found the most fascinating would be autobiographies, which are generally people telling. Here's the story of how I got from nothing to becoming the, you know, the Senator or president or things, you know, celebrities. Um, and I find podcasting very similar were a lot of times you're able to kind of get glimpses into the journey , uh, which I find incredibly, you know , entertaining and fun. Um, as well as some of the content that's being produced. Like some of the murder mysteries or the shows kind of go back to like early radio where, you know, there wasn't visuals and they had to find ways to really hold attention. And I just find myself so fascinating . I'll get friends about, you have to listen to this one and I'll be in, you know, 15 minutes. And I'm like, Oh , I'm hooked. I gotta get all the way. Yeah . Like I have to know what happens. Um , and it's just really, it's really interesting to see how much it's kind of grown because [inaudible] did somebody say, I would think radio for me from my end, I feel like radio is dead but not spoken word or people listening things. I just think radio is a hole . People don't go to the internet. They listen to radio because it's in their cars. Right . But now that they have, you know, with their internet and the rise of other stuff there, it's easy to listen to something else. I think radio's on its way out. Um, but I don't think people are gonna stop listening to audio content and that's where podcasting is kind of taking its place and is growing because I get to pick and choose very much like Netflix. What I want to listen to when I want to listen to which you can't do with radio. Radio is programmed . You have to wait, you have to be at the right place at the right time. And I just, I don't really watch much content that's like that anymore. I ma I want what I want when I want it. Um , and podcasting just fits right into that.
Speaker 3And if, and if you want to learn something or you want to pick up a new skill, I like the niches and like the, the expertise, right? Like I , I followed a podcast last week about film producing. That's all this guy talks about his film producing. And that's things that I want to learn about in 15 to 20 minute minute segments throughout the week. Right. But you can do that for cooking with kids, politics, all of that. Yeah.
Speaker 1Yeah. And that is fascinating because, you know, to some extent, you know, people want to learn, they want to learn from the best. They want to learn from people who are experts in the industry and now is a way where, you know , there as more and more content. And I would agree. I don't think podcasting is going to slow down anytime soon. Um, I think it will continue to grow. I think more people will begin to kind of, you know , do it or set up podcasts or audio formats where people can come and learn from it. Um, and for me, I just think it's exciting cause there's quite a few that I follow and you know, to be able to just get little glimpses , uh , is so valuable for me. And to some extent there is no cost for it other than time.
Speaker 3And a podcast on Spotify that's like only been around for like a year. It's new . Yeah.
Speaker 1They started to really push it in. And I've, I mean , I heard a couple of reports, but the numbers from that were really, really good. A Spotify got in and started to put that in there. What was traditionally just music. Um , and now what's crazy, I use Spotify so much for music and it's easy. That's , I listened to your podcast through Spotify. That's where I went in and grabbed it really quick and was listening to couple of different episodes , um , before the show today. I mean, that's just crazy to think of now. I'm not going through my podcast app. I'm just going right to Spotify to be able to pick.
Speaker 3And as a music user or consumer, I've always been a Spotify guy. Right? Like I like the algorithms. I liked the discovery and they probably have a lot of data that over time will , they'll start to show you things that might interest you based on what you're listening to. I mean, that's kind of cool. Like you don't have to go searching for it. Um, but you can. Um, but, but Spotify is definitely my, my source.
Speaker 1Oh , I love it. I love it. So podcasting , if you don't have one, you get what's set up at anchor dot. FM. Uh , that one's for free. I think we use a Buzzsprout for us here , uh , which is one of the more popular ones, but it does cost , uh , and surprisingly enough, as we upload more stuff, there's always a little extra fees that come pop it up. So there are hustling and I'm like, Hey, is he been hanging out with , uh , with Amazon Zuni , although that money , um, okay , last trend for social media in 2020 and I like this one a lot. Humor, well , talk us through that.
Speaker 3So, you know, because social media is now this new new entertainment vertical, right? It's, it's interesting to see certain brands , uh, incorporate humor into their contents, right? Like, I think burger King does a really good job where they're always like roasting McDonald's, right? Like , you know, with images and memes and things and consumers catch onto that, right? But like any brand can do that. Um, and I think it just kinda helps , uh, refine the content. It helps it stick it out, helps make it become more viral. And that's the value in social is like the things that people like or the things that are getting take off. People like humor. Right?
Speaker 1It's so true. I think, you know, they won an award. Um, they, because they created a campaign where if you were within like a hundred feet of McDonald's, you would get a coupon code sent to you for a one, a 1 cent Whopper that you could get and go show. But the only way to get that was to go within a McDonald's and then leave, which is just so fascinating of our advertising campaign is trying to get people to leave McDonald's and come to burger King. Um , and I loved it. I was like, Oh, it's beautiful. Beautiful campaign. Um, but I think in regards to humor, it's so true because I, we see this all the time with paid ads. You know, so many people approach advertising from kind of the old school approach of before the internet. I need to just put up a billboard or I need to create a graphic and just put it in front of someone and show it a thousand times and eventually they'll do what I want. And that is the worst thing you can do. And those, you know, Facebook charges you the most amount of money for that. But when you can make someone laugh or smile or have an emotion, you know, that just, they stick around for that and there's so much content. I think if you can create a little moment in someone's life where they smile and like, Oh , it's great. Uh , for me it's always been the Superbowl guy loved the Superbowl for the ads, like all muted during the game and go get food. And then I'll come back and be like, here we go. And I'll sit down and watch the ads. And I love it because there are little moments of, I'm like, I feel like they went the extra mile to try to entertain me during this process. And I've always just enjoyed watching the ads over the Subaru
Speaker 3and , but those are very high production value. A lot of people involved. You can be just as humorous in day to day text . Right. And I think that's where the value in having an agency help you with your social or I'm hiring creative people to run that. Right? But there's some, you know, there's some rough patches there because some things are a little too risque that go over the, you know, cross the line that gets you in trouble. But like, you know, that's the name of the game for sure. For sure.
Speaker 1And I think it's true that, you know, there's, there can be humor with, you know, just on the basic levels. I mean, even using some of the story formats, the filters, film , something about it has to do with your business and use that for an ad a lot . It feels so genuine. And so unlike a traditional ad that people, a lot of times will stop and watch it and pay attention. So I just, I couldn't agree more with the humor element. Um, especially in social. And he's had a Rocky last couple of years, a lot of up and down, lots of people. I mean, there's already been people kind of fighting and attacking, but um, you know, lots of argument divisions and things of politics are crazy. And I think that if you can just take a minute to make people smile to make people laugh, I think that will go a long way with someone being like , like thank you for that. It just puts that little Goodwill in the little piggy bank , um , in relationship with your company and the , and the consumer.
Speaker 3And you ha if you have a boring product or boring service, right. This is a way to get out of that box. Right. And find new new customers and audiences and things like that. Yeah . So good. So good. Well, I wanted to thank you so much for being on the show. Any, you know,
Speaker 1as we kinda closed down , uh , the show today. Any fun, final or last thoughts of , uh , advice or tips that you'd give for business owners out there in relation to social media?
Speaker 3Well. Um , I mean, I don't want to be like an advocate of tic-tac , but like , uh , people are somehow scared of it, but, but I would say go on there and check it out. Um, grab a handle before someone else takes your handle because that's a big problem. Took mine, someone got mine. I was like, no. Right . That's, that's a , um, and , and then , uh , don't be afraid to try these tools out, right? Like they're there to help , um, uh, create, make the process a little bit easier. And if you do it right, you can generate revenue. So yeah. Um, and then if you don't have an agency, right, holla at your boy over here and college boy over here. We can help you out.
Speaker 1It is up on tick tock or any of the other places. We'll , uh, we'll take care of you. Awesome. Well, thank you so much Cyprian for being on the show today. Um, and we will catch you guys on the next episode.
Speaker 2Thank you for listening to the Duke of digital podcast with Brian Mitt , one to network with other business owners. Join our exclusive group at facebook.com/groups/duke of digital fancy the Duke. Leave a five star review on your favorite podcast app, and you can be mentioned on the show. The Duke of digital was produced by advertisement and recorded in Hollywood, California.