Trusted Influencer Strategy - Interview with Neal Schaffer
Petra
0:02
If you want to create any kind of change, you need to be able to influence it might be to get the buy in to get the funding for a new project, it might be to attract the best talents to work with you and to work for you. Or it might be to land career and business opportunities. So the question is, how do you become a trusted influencer, especially in the digital first Worlds, and this is why I'm super excited to be joined by somebody who has been talking about the power of influence and influencer marketing way before it was a thing. Neal Schaffer is joining us today, he has not only written for business and marketing books, but he's also the authority when it comes to influence. So thank you so much for being here.
Neal
Oh, thank you so much pressure. It's an honour.
Petra
0:44
I've been following your work for quite some time, to say the least. So I would be very curious to know what got you and actually into the influencer space.
Neal
0:54
Well, thank you very much. Well, if you've been following my work for a while, you probably know that before my book on influence marketing, I've had other books. And I'd say my journey started, like most of our listeners, I was a corporate executive, corporate employee.
And it was really during the last financial downturn back in 2008, where for the first time, I found myself in transition in the United States, I found my job. And then three and a half months later, because of the economic downturn, they decided to pull the plug on international business, and I was in charge of business development in Asia Pacific territory.
So that was a real shocker to me, I was always the one who changed jobs, who was always in demand, and have it go the other way around, it made me realize that I needed to build something that no one can take away from me. And that was my personal brand. And that's where and this is back in 2008. Where it was actually the day that Barack Obama was elected President, that I started this journey, that even if I was to get another corporate job, which I ended up doing interviews, I ended up not getting for various reasons that that downturn lasted a while for those that remember. But I also started in really creating what became what my brand is today. And it's really, you know, the elements, I know that before the conversation that you talked a lot about Petra, as well, is obviously content creation is part of it, you know, building relationships as another part of it, you know, being out there.
You know, whether it's social media or in physical events, just a combination, and really just continuing the journey, but always with the thought of educating and really helping and bettering those around me.
So that's really where it all began.
Now, I've written four books, and I write books, because my main job is consulting with other companies. And when I consult with them, that's where I get lots of ideas. And it's really where I see opportunity to educate, where when I speak, or when I consult, if I see a lot of issues coming up that I think there's a lot of misunderstandings about or there's a need to look at things differently.
That's where I embark on sort of like a big project. So back in 2013, I wrote a book called maximize your social, which was really about social media strategy consulting, because too many companies just didn't get it. And I wanted to share with them my process about doing it.
And in back in 2014 15, I launched my own event called the social tool Summit, it was a physical conference, because I got a lot, I got asked a lot of questions about the technology, behind marketing and social media marketing. So it was really 2019 2018, where I realized there was a lot of interest in influencers and influencer marketing, but very little resources out there.
I wanted to learn more about it myself, and I began this journey. And I was on this journey, you know, interviewing people, like you're interviewing me today, or doing research, you know, finding case studies and thinking about my own clients. I had this very, very different perspective that I thought was not getting out there.
So I thought I have to write the book on the subject. And that's really what I did. And I followed that up with, you know, rebranding, my podcast and you know, being a guest a lot of podcasts. I started blogging a lot of my blog about influencer marketing, which I hadn't done.
And as a result, I mean, it's a great case study, because this is someone who came out of nowhere. I began my blog in 2008. My first blog post about influencer marketing probably wasn't until late 2019 When I was ready to launch my book in March of 2020. And, you know, a year later, I'm now known as this expert in influencer marketing.
To me, I don't consider myself an expert I consider it's just one of the many skills that I need to provide my clients and help them with, but that's sort of how it works. When you create content when you get out there. And you build relationships, and you share you know, unique ideas, unique perspectives that everyone listening probably has, you know, I'd say you can become, whether it's an industry influencer, thought leader, whatever you want to call it, you know, within six to 12 months of consistently getting out there, but your views and perspectives, you can start to get known.
Even if you don't want to become a solo entrepreneur, you want to remain a corporate employee. I think we were talking before this, there's still tremendous benefits to sharing your perspectives. And not only does it benefit you, it actually benefits your employer a great deal. And part of influencer marketing. I know I've been talking a lot here, but I'll stop here. Part of influencer marketing is also if I'm a company, I want to tap into the influence of my employees.
And the more influence my employees have out there in digital and social media, the better it is for our company. So I think, you know, 10 years ago, businesses were not ready for that they'd stay off social media, I think it's very, very different today. And hopefully, this conversation I know we just got started will help enlighten our listeners and help them you know, take the next step on their journey of personal branding.
Petra
5:39
That's fantastic to hear. And thanks so much for sharing your journey and your transparency about it. And you're so spot on, you're the best-case study because simply by sharing an idea, talking about it from a different angle makes you already tick also in that field, also when you don't, quote unquote, have the credentials for it and with that, you can pivot in any directions.
Now speaking of misconception, because you also said one of the reasons why I actually wrote the book and research further were or are misconceptions about a topic. When we talk about influencer and influencer marketing, especially in Australia, we talked about that before. People cringe about this term, especially senior executives.
Now, what does influence mean to you and what are the biggest misconceptions about this term?
Neal
6:21
Yeah, I think the biggest thing, and this is one of like the first chapters of my book, The Age of influence is that you know, influences already existed. There were you know, Charlie Chaplin doing you know, commercials back in the day Babe Ruth, famous baseball player, doing you know, a newspaper ad for cigarettes. In fact, there was a Mark Twain brand of cigarette, leveraging his influence I go into, you know, Wedgwood be being one of the first influencers because the royal family used his, you know, his fine, or, you know, dinnerware, which made it very easy for him to sell this to other people. So, you know, when we look at it that way, what's happened is that, you know, when we grew up the people that influenced us for some of the executives listening, I am a Gen Xer.
And, you know, the people that influenced me were definitely TV stars, Hollywood stars. When Top Gun came out, I think I was a senior in high school and one of my best friends, you know, over the weekend, he watched it, he came back on Monday riding a bicycle with a black leather jacket on I kid you not many Tom Cruise.
Today, though, when I look at high schoolers, and I have two high school children. They're being influenced by very, very different people, right? They're not being influenced by the traditional TV stars, traditional movie stars, they're being influenced by people that they see on their social networks where they spend their most time, we could say that Tik Tok and YouTube have become the TV of today for this new generation. So the concept of influence of ICX someone talking about something, it makes me interested in it, you know, back in the day before social media, they were only celebrities, you had to be a celebrity to have influence, right.
And either you or your music star TV star, you know, Radio Star, film star. But today, what's happened is the influences become incredibly democratized to the point where five years ago, social media was literally influencing political elections. Right. So we've come this far, where at the end of the day influence comes down to trust, it comes down to substance.
So in order to trust someone, there needs to be some substance. And this is where the content comes into play. In the past, it was a TV show, you know, movie, today, it's a series of 62nd, TikTok, it's YouTube videos, whatever it is.
So we have to understand that how we are influenced today is very, very different than it was 20 or 30 years ago, with social media, being the number one most popular thing we do, ask, I mean, anyone under 18, I would put, you know, a lot of money down that say a majority of people under 18 spend way more time on social media than watching TV without a doubt.
And I'd even say even people in their 20s are like that. So if you imagine all the influence that came from traditional media, from the TV ads, radio ads, and the celebrities, when you think of all of that being sucked up by social media, there's a lot of people that are influencing, you know, a lot of other people in a lot of different ways. And that's influence.
I mean, you know, I'm not a TV star movie star yet, you know about me as being an influencer for influencer marketing. And you probably found me whether it was through Apple podcasts or YouTube or Google or Amazon digitally, you found me and that's really what's happening today. Is that digitally people that have content is being found and the building relationships and building community and yes, they're building influence.
I love to give the example charted Amalia this, you know, 16-year-old who came out of nowhere and Dunkin Donuts, which is one of the biggest, you know, Donut and coffee chains United States created a drink after her just one year after she appeared on to tic tock, this is an entirely new generation of influence.
I understand the pushback that, you know, a lot of senior executives might have. But it's real. And there is a real influencer economy. There's a lot of money in the billions of dollars being funnelled into this. And it's effective because guess what? Those traditional ways of creating content to advertise your product, people don't like them. People, I think with Coronavirus, especially, they really crave the raw and authentic. And it's funny, I have my own podcast and I interviewed someone who's a specialist in, in, in Creative Advertising.
And she was saying, No, you don't want to go into a studio and create, you want to like just use an iPhone, you don't even wanna use a ring light, you just wanted to make it look as natural as possible, as organic as possible, because that's what sells today.
So it's very hard for companies, businesses that are used to doing business, the old way to get used to it, but that's the reality. And it's only going to grow and grow as our use of social media grows. And as these digital natives get older and older, that's, that's what they're used to.
I think 2021 is really a key year with the emergence of Tik Tok, and really this mainstream short form video becoming one of the most critical ways of getting seen, whether it's on tick tock on Instagram, or we could argue YouTube shorts, it's a very, very different way of communicating, right.
And people can see through if it's an ad, people can see through if you're not on the platform, and you're not creating content, the way that other creators are creating content. And that's where influencers come in. Because they're better at creating content. I used to work for a big brand. Well, a big consumer packaged good brand. And I also was I had a chance to work for Procter and Gamble, I had an offer in my early days, I ended up not working with Procter and Gamble for various reasons. But you know, the way that those brands are used to of having control of creating, you know, advertising is just very, very different than what people enjoy today, what people will consume today.
It's time for a change. And I think the sooner that the executives understand that I think the sooner they'll understand influence, because guess what, that high schooler is probably better at creating content that resonates with other people on Instagram, or Tiktok. or even on LinkedIn.
Believe it or not, we've seen some younger generation. People make great content; they are better creating content than big brands are. And that's the reality. Big brands want to distance themselves. humans crave connection.
Influencers can bridge that gap, right? Between when done right between the brand, and the audience. And that's really the way you should look at it. And I'd say, you know, I'm talking b2c, but even b2b about understanding, you know, technology, or what have you.
It's the same thing. It's tech bloggers, it's YouTubers. So really understanding that influencers play this really, really unique role connecting, connecting communities and social media, with companies, when relationships are done, right. I'm not saying you just go after anyone and everyone. But that's the role that I believe in Petra, I know that you're really passionate about this. That's the role that everybody listening can play in their industry as well. Right. And there's a tremendous amount of IP that most corporate employees and especially executives have, that never gets out there digitally.
And once it gets out there digitally, that's where the magic happens. It's similar to when I my backgrounds, b2b sales, and when I'd bring our executives out to the clients, the executives had these tremendous stories about our company, about, you know, how we started about our clients, how we found unique challenges and how we solve them. And there's just a tremendous amount of storytelling internally that most companies have that never gets out there. And that's a real waste. And that can be of real value. So I know I talked a lot I know, we went on a little tangent there. But hopefully that all made sense and hopefully reframed sort of what influence is nothing new. But with the democratization of media influence. It's taken on a new life. And either you get it or you don't a lot of young startups, young companies, they get it. They're, they're well versed in it. You know, you have a new generation of companies that came out of nowhere, they just on influencer marketing on Instagram and Tiktok alone, they're able to generate business. And there's some older companies that have not participated that maybe have lost some market share, or lost some edge. And I think that's the reality of the day.
Petra
14:27
All right, so fascinating. And you dropped so many gold bonds that we need to unpack here a little bit. Your book the age of influence was released a couple of days, I believe prior to the lockdown in 2020. And I think it has never been more relevant than now to be able to establish yourself in digital age because before Coronavirus Yes, we did use social media and digital platforms but nowadays everyone has to use them there is no other option. So this digital first interaction is so important. You also mentioned trust It is built through content. Now, so many executives have already all the stories in the content, but they don't think to, to put it on social media, they talk about it in person, because this is their natural way of communicating. What kind of tip would you give those who see that there is no way backwards that they need to embrace digital? How can we get started to be more influential, especially if it's not our quote unquote, job, if you don't want to become an influencer is our role.
Neal
15:28
You know, I like to take it personal. So I'd say if you do a Google search for something, and you find you know, the topic better than things you find in the search results, or you find people on social media talking about something, but they're not correct, or they don't have a logical perspective. I think you can you can find instances where it's like, no, that's not the case. This is the case. This is what my experience tells me, I think those are potential triggers. To get started in having a voice in terms of having a voice, you know, LinkedIn offers a blogging platform. And a blogging is probably very, very scary.
But it could just be starting a conversation on LinkedIn. Hey, I've seen a lot of people talk about, you know, this topic in this way. I've always thought it's this way, what do you think?
And even something like that, you know, having a natural conversation with your followers and Connections is a great way to get started. Because through that, you're going to get reaction, and then you're going to be responding to their comments. And it's going to get, I believe, the wheels turning in terms of, you know, yeah, I have a lot to say on this subject.
A lot of people think that what I say has value, so that, you know, I think just participating I know like, you know, blogging or creating videos, that's, that's really intimidating for most people that haven't been doing this, even for people that have been doing it, you know, YouTube video can be very intimidating. So just start by having a conversation. LinkedIn is a great place. I mean, it could be on your personal Facebook, there's some people who they have business conversations on Facebook, but LinkedIn is clearly you know, where those conversations can be had. In fact, you know, I recently on my own LinkedIn said, something that I would normally put on Facebook, I put on LinkedIn, because I think I'm going to get a more qualified response. And this is dealing with, you know, I was one of the few people who got the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, and I'm going to get the booster and should I get Pfizer, moderna? Johnson Johnson, I just felt that on LinkedIn, I'm going to get a, a more appropriate more professional answer than I would on Facebook, even though it's quasi personal.
People are using LinkedIn, you know, in this way more and more, in a more personal way than they did maybe 10 years ago. So that's a place to start. Maybe it also starts not by you're even asking a question, but responding of every day finding content that you can respond to maybe just going through your feed and responding. Maybe it's doing searches, and you know, placing your commentary throughout LinkedIn. But it really starts by having a voice, right? Everybody has a voice, you just now need to digitally, you know, implanted somewhere.
I think at the end of the day, if your mission is to help people, then you can't go wrong, right? You're doing it in your own way. But that's how it gets started in very, very small baby steps. And then when there's some common themes, like you know, what, people just have a very, very, you know, incorrect perspective on this subject. I know, it's, you know, I've helped so many companies with this. And I know internally, it's this way, I got to get the word out there. That's hopefully where the passion kicks in. And you begin the process of true content creation.
Petra
18:31
I love this very practical approach, because you're so spot on thought leadership is not a one-way communication. It's about testing and getting feedback and implementing that feedback and refining the message. And so many are afraid of, quote, unquote, get it wrong, or get negative feedback even or get backlash on their perspective. Have you got any tips on how we can deal with firstly, the fear of posting to start with in case somebody says something negative, and B, it might happen that somebody doesn't agree with us? What can we do in that case?
Neal
19:03
Well, that's where if you are a true expert in something, you've already gone through these conversations, you've already had people say, I disagree, maybe at conferences or with clients, but you have a perspective that says No, I, you know, I, I agree, you know, I agree to disagree. Or, you know, this is why I believe this perspective, is better than your perspective. This is natural. We're human beings, we have lots of different opinions. I think a lot of people are scared that when they put something out there, people are gonna say, You're wrong, you're incorrect.
In all honesty, it takes a lot, I think, especially on a platform like LinkedIn, it takes a lot of guts to actually disagree with someone publicly, they may think it internally, but to go out of your way to comment and to put your personal brand on there. Not everyone's going to do that. And the people that aren't the people that are going to do that may not be the people that they may be doing it for a different reason than to have an intelligent conversation.
I'd say that, you know, if your ideas are baked enough that you've gone through in real life, these arguments, I think it's totally okay. For social media, you always have the option, especially if it's on your own profile, you always have the option of blocking people. I know it sounds crazy, but you know what, it's your profile your real estate, if someone doesn't abide with, you know, human kindness, on your profile, you blocked them, I blocked people almost every day on LinkedIn, for different reasons, not for that reason. But I think generally speaking, the amount of negative comments that come is used the very small, if any, for that reason. Now, if you're on a platform like Facebook or Twitter, who knows, I mean, it's, you know, everyone's sort of out there. But if you stick to LinkedIn, I think you'll see.
You know, what, if it's a really controversial topic, then don't talk about it is another solution, you know, try to stay with the most conservative topics that very few people would disagree about is the other approach there. But you know, I think that in terms of, you know, people disagreeing with you, that's totally okay. I, you know, I have people disagree with me, and I give my reasoning, they give their reasoning, and it is what it is, right? And that's totally okay.
What you may find that when it's public, is that some of your friends come to your rescue and say, no, no, you're right, this other person's wrong. And I've had that happen a lot, as well. And that's where you really foster this community, right. So sometimes putting yourself out there can be scary. There's always the advantages and disadvantages, the benefits, and you know, and the bad things that come with it, I just think the benefits far outweigh the potential negatives. And the potential negatives can be dealt with in these ways that I talked about.
Petra
21:39
I love this approach. Because in the end, as a personal brand, the only way to stand out is to stand for something that means some people love you, and others don't like you at all. And this will always be the case. And we're just taking the conversation to another level, instead of having the conversation a room where people could disagree with us, it's now public, but at the same time, this is the age that we live in.
Neal
22:00
Yeah, and you know, it's funny, there's a lot of young, the younger generation will say fake it till you make it. Right. You're not faking anything, you've already made it, you already know your stuff. So there's, there's a lot of other people out there in social media who don't know nearly as much than you do. But they're going out on a limb, saying all this stuff, you know, your stuff. So if they can do it, you can do it. So there's something we I think we can learn from a younger generations,
Petra
22:25
When you don't voice your own opinions, you give somebody else the space to do so. And that might be completely the wrong thing to do. But at the same time, when we don't stand up for it, and we accept it. So we it's our own responsibility in the end.
Neal
22:39
Yeah, I mean, this taps into the fact that you got to be passionate about it, right? If it's something you do for a living, but you're not really passionate about it, it's going to show in your content as well. So you know, tap into your passions, and maybe the passion that you have isn't related, directly related to the job you currently do. Maybe it's related to a job that you want to do. For instance, I just talked to one of my clients. It's a guy in marketing, and he's all about educational technology. That's what he wants to do. He wants to create his own product. And, and he was talking about it. And, you know, if he was going to talk in social media, I'd want him talking about educational technology rather than marketing. Because five years from now, that's where he wants to be. So this is another thing to think about.
Petra
23:21
And this is a really important aspect, because in the end, research shows that we're not just changing jobs more frequently, but entire careers, because technology is replacing tasks. And some industry, or industries, or professions are no longer relevant. So the only way to stay relevant is to reinvent ourselves and actually go to the next stage. Also, when we're not there.
What you did, you started talking about this topic, and all of a sudden, you were the go to in that field. It doesn't happen overnight. But it does happen when you are prepared to show up and share your learnings along the way. Also, when it's not perfect, quote unquote.
Neal
23:55
Yeah, and you know, the funny thing is, after writing the book, and getting out there and having businesses contact me about wanting to, you know, work with me, and in terms of being a consultant for the influencer marketing, I realized that companies weren't doing a lot of the basic digital marketing things that they should be doing, they were chasing after the shiny new toy, without having their house in order. I said, you know, for your objectives, we can be a lot more impactful if we do some of these other things.
So I'm not gonna say reinvented myself, but I find myself talking less and less about influencer marketing these days, and more about just general digital marketing, which is actually gonna be the subject of my next book, which I'm still in the process of writing. But it's natural. I mean, we evolve so quickly, and the world is evolving so quickly. It's only natural that your career is evolving. And if it's not evolving, I sort of worry for you because everybody's job over the last five years or 10 years with technology has probably changed in some way. And you always want to be ahead of that curve. And if you haven't changed your ways, or you haven't picked up any new skills, I really Word for your future. In all honesty,
Petra
25:02
I couldn't agree more. And also, especially leaders need to embrace the new generation. And if they want to attract the best talents from the next generation, they need to be where they're at. They need to be powering the conversations that they're having. And they need to stand for something. And this is I think, why clubhouse initially, boom so quickly, because the founders actually took part in conversations and they hosted those town halls and build a community, whilst being part of it not being in the high horse in the hidden, hidden room somewhere and talk down to people this age is over.
Neal
25:36
Yeah, amen. People want to work for companies that they respect, that feel are socially responsible. And I mean, the same thing when people want to do business with and buy from products from those companies as well. So it's a very, very different time that we live in, I think, you know, 2030 years ago, people didn't really care. But we're, we're all changing. You know, even right now we have the climate conference going on in Glasgow, Scotland, even, you know, talking about things like we're gonna we're gonna reduce methane gas, I mean, 3040 years ago, who cared. So it just, it's just an example. Things are always changing. And companies are evolving, because people evolve. And as professionals, we need to evolve as well.
Petra
26:19
Excellent. Now, to wrap this interview up, which has been nothing but gold so far, you recently released also a podcast episode on what leaders need to know about influence, can you give us a couple of key take outs, what leaders and senior executives need to take in consideration for themselves to establish their own online presence and profile, but also to tap into their employees, profiles and their audiences?
Neal
26:45
Yeah, you know, I think the what I tell leaders is that when we look at social media, especially, you know, for businesses, it's very, very hard to gain visibility, because of the way the algorithms work, the algorithms favours people. So it's really about embracing that fact.
Instead of just spending more and more money on advertising, really realize that if you can get your employees, talking about your business, talking about your brand, it can be a very, very powerful thing.
Now it has to be done in an authentic way, you're not going to pay your employees that talk about you. But it's creating an environment, right? It's creating a training program that says, you know, what, if you want to learn how to take better pictures, or shoot better videos, or or do took, we're going to teach you, because we want to empower you.
And if you talk about it's great, even if you don't talk about us, it's going to help develop that relationship, right. And therefore, I believe that companies really need to lead by example. So if you want your employees to be doing social media, you need to be doing social media, yes, the executives need to be taking part in the exercise as well. But I think just re-imagining, you know, the role that social media and the employees can play in just your branding, and not just social media marketing, but Employer Branding, as well, right, that people say positive things about your company out there on social media.
This is something that I think that every leader, needs to understand.
I think if you can take that approach, you know, we would call this employee advocacy, you know, in the old days, a few years ago, I call it employee influence, or really treat your employees as influencer, if you're in a b2b company, when you have your lead technology person, or, you know, the these key people that everybody your clients all want to talk to, those are your influencers, right.
So treat them as influencers, help them, you know, encourage them and help them to create content. And if you can create this sort of program, where you're helping your employees, you're teaching them about personal branding, you're giving them all the skills to allow them to empower them to be themselves on social media. And maybe they'll share positive comments about your company, who knows. But if you can create that sort of a program, you can now be able to bring in your customers as influencers, you can start to bring in outside people as influencers.
I believe that for, you know, leadership, it's really understanding the role that influence plays today in social media, and really, you know, embracing it, and finding ways in which you can create, you know, some structure around it, and create this inclusive program.
That might include your customers might include your followers, your fans, but definitely include your employees. And I think every company should have such a program so that the employees that are really into social, Let's equip them, let's you know, let's make them the champions of our brand out there.
Petra
29:46
Oh, that was the perfect wrap up because in the end, it also helps the company because if, say a sales team or account managers, or the business development team needs to go out and find new clients, when those clients already have had some kind of interest. With the sales team, not just with the CEO, they already have a lot more trust in the entire organization, which hopefully makes them to enroll with this company rather than with a competitor. So it comes back in full circle.
Neal
30:11
Oh, it absolutely does. And, you know, social media at the end of the day is about word of mouth. And that's how you get word of mouth going you, you can begin with your employees. And especially if you're in a b2b organization, your salespeople are your influencers. In fact, they also get monetized. they monetize their influence with commission right from sales made, so they are the perfect people if you're thinking of creating this program, and fostering influence in social media begin with your your salespeople. And you you know, you can't go wrong. And then once again, they build trust through their connections. They talk about your company, really they you know, you want them to, to talk about the things that they would normally talk about when they're offline meeting your customers, but to do more of that online, and you can imagine the impact that can have on your business.
Petra
31:00
Oh, I love this conversation and your take on influence your definition, and also how practically you can explain the benefits of it and rethink the way how we see influencer marketing, it could be literally tapping into your junior staff who spread the word for you positively and all of a sudden has the ripple effect. This is what makes somebody or some thing trusted.
Neal
31:23
You don't have to have a million followers to have influence today. And that's the that's the key thing that anybody can be an influencer and even in the influencer marketing industry. You know, they used to say micro influencers had to have 10,000 followers. Now they say nano influencers have to have 1000 followers.
We're in the day and age were look around, you look at your employees, look at your customers, look at your followers, look at all the people that have more than 1000, LinkedIn connections, or Twitter followers or Instagram followers. There's a lot of people out there. And you know, a lot of companies, especially niche b2b companies, they don't even have 1000 followers themselves. And even if you have 5000 followers, if you have, you know, 10 employees with 1000 followers apiece, you've now doubled your potential reach.
The math just adds up on the side of leveraging social media not to promote your brand, but to develop relationships, and to foster relationships with all these people that already have brand affinity for you, right? Your customers, your employees, your fans, and to leverage that that word of mouth in a positive way. And if you don't see the word of mouth happening, that's where you want to create this program, practically bring people in, develop relationships with them. But I think social media really is the ultimate. You know, I don't want to say marketplace, but it's just the ultimate venue to develop relationships, and tell people use it. And I think the you know, if more and more businesses use it the same way, they're going to reap a lot more benefits than just trying to promote and advertise. I think those days of getting a lot of traction on social media by doing that are pretty much gone.
Petra
32:54
Now this conversation has been incredible. So thank you so much for sharing all your insights. You mentioned briefly, there is a new book in the making, what can we expect? And when are you planning to have it out there? And what is it exactly about?
Neal
33:07
Well, I'm hoping to release a free preview before I write the entire book to get feedback. But it literally is about a term that you had said before, which is digital first, which is when I began working with companies after Coronavirus after publishing the age of influence of really re just as I reimagine influencer marketing and social media of reimagining digital marketing.
A lot of companies have been investing in things like SEO, investing in things like email marketing and marketing automation, but their perspectives on it are still very old. And I think that it requires a reset and a new way of looking at these things, especially with Coronavirus. And the fact that you know, it requires a acceleration of the digital transformation that most companies have been really slow in doing.
You know, I am a social media marketer turned digital marketer. So hopefully it's a unique perspective to digital as the age of influences a unique perspective to influencer marketing. So hopefully sometime next year, it's still very, very early days. But it's something I've been wanting to write for a while and every time I talk about it on a podcast like this, I am held accountable for actually writing it.
So thank you for asking about it. And yeah, if you it's not available yet, but if you follow me on the socials or or hit my website, hopefully before the end of the year, you'll see that free eBook, and you'll get a feel as to what what I'm talking about.
Petra
34:26
Oh, and it's exciting. Honestly, I can't wait. Oh, I'll check in with you every now and then see how far you’re. I’ll be your accountability partner now. We've got it on recording.
Where's the best way to connect with you? You mentioned some of the social side. We got a preferred platform as you clicked it.
Neal
34:45
Yeah, well, so you know, I'm Neal Schaffer, I'm everywhere on social. I don't have a preferred platform because people are everywhere. I my preferred platform is your preferred platform. Let's put it that way. So you'll find me everywhere. And I also have my own pockets. Of course called The your digital marketing coach podcast. And then obviously the age of influence is available wherever books are sold.
Petra
35:07
And I'll put all the links of course in the show notes and I couldn't recommend checking out any of your resources anymore because they are very valuable, very practical and most up to date resource that I qualified. So thank you again.