In Episode 43 of the Business & Life Conversations Podcast, I am so excited to share with you my 3 key takeaways from Michael Steltzner’s opening keynote during the Social Media Marketing World in San Diego. Michael is the man behind Social Media Examiner and runs this event every year where 5,000 eager participants attend to talk and learn more about all things social media. Mike talks about the following topics and how we can apply these to our businesses effectively: Facebook and Instagram’s ever-changing style; vanity metrics; and how to make an impact and connect with your audience and clients.
This episode is sponsored by Angela’s 4-day, 3-night Women in Business Retreat happening in Australia on October 24-27, 2019. Click here to learn more.
Important Links Mentioned in the Show:
Australian Business Collaborative Facebook Group
Finding Balance in Business Women’s Retreat
Angela Henderson Active Business Facebook Group
Angela Henderson Facebook Business Page
Prefer to read 3 Key Takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2019? Here’s the transcript:
ANGELA:
You’re listening to the ‘Business and Live Conversations’ podcast with Angela Henderson, Episode 43.
Hey there, you’re listening to the Business and Life Conversations Podcast. My name is Angela Henderson and on this show we talk about improving your business, life or both by having amazing and rich conversations with brilliant guests. Who will inspire you and who will give you tips and tricks to help you grow both in life and in business.
Hey there, and welcome back to the Business and Life Conversations Podcast, with me, your host, Angela, from Angela Henderson Consulting; where I help women in business to build the foundation of framework they need to grow a sustainable and profitable business. I’m so thrilled that you’re tuning in today because it’s going to be an epic episode. On today’s podcast, I’m going to be showing with you the 3 key takeaways from Social Media Marketing World that were in the opening keynote by Mike Steltzner. But before we get started talking about all these amazing key takeaways from Social Media Marketing World, this episode is sponsored by my 4-Day, 3-Night Exclusive Women in Business Retreat where we focus on women having the chance to connect, refocus, learn and grow, in order to grow both in life and in business. This event is being held from October 24th through to October 27th at the Gold Coast in Queensland, Australia, and it’s an exclusive event with only 50 tickets being sold. From having 8 of Australia’s top female entrepreneurs speaking; to surrounding yourself with these amazing people that will lift you up both at the conference and after conference; to deal with masterminds; to get individualized help on your business from both your peers and speakers; to amazing food, being able to sleep in, and eat a meal uninterrupted by your children, you’re not going to want to miss this event. To learn more about this event and to purchase your ticket, simply head to www.angelahenderson.com.au and click on Retreat.
Now, let’s jump in to this juicy episode. Now at the time of this recording, it is April 10th and I’ve just come back from three weeks of travel. It has been an amazing journey, it’s been a humbling journey, it’s been a challenging journey, being away from my family for as long as I have. It’s been the longest time that I’ve been away for this particular stint. But again, I’m so grateful for my husband and for my kids, either for supporting me and getting me over to United States for Social Media Marketing World, and also my own, individual mastermind. So yes, today, I want to talk you specifically about Social Media Marketing World and the 3 key takeaways that I’d heard from the opening keynote which is by Michael Steltzner. The Michael Steltzner is the man behind Social Media Examiner, and every year he puts on the most amazing event in San Diego, where 5000 eager entrepreneurs, agencies, corporate, creatives, etc. head to San Diego for this amazing event, where you talk about all things social media. I’m talking about Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Twitter, you name it; there is a wealth of knowledge at any given moment. Not to mention the vibe you walk in and they’re like, they’ve got this amazing signs that say, “Hey, high fives. Do you need a hug?” And there’s bells and whistles and the energies; absolutely vibrant, energetic, and contagious really.
So, yes so this is my second year at Social Media Marketing World, and again being able to connect with all the friends that I met from Australia last year, other people that I’ve interviewed on the podcast from Switzerland and other parts of America and Australia; just being able to see these people, human to human, is such an important element in the time of technology where all we really crave is connection, but we’re actually losing our connection with people. Conferences are key to not only being able to reconnect one to one with people, and give them a hug, look them in the eye, but also, it’s where your business is going to grow exponentially, is by heading to particular conferences that is going to help you grow both personally and in your business.
So now today is just more of a conversation, I’m neutrally just reflecting back on my notes. So it’s not going to be super polished, so I’m going to tell you guys that now, but I think it’s super important that we talk about Social Media Marketing World 3 key takeaways from Mike Steltzner. So let’s jump in.
Now as Mike would say, now a lot of these again, I’ve just written down from listening to Mike. So I want to give full disclosure and credit to the majority of these key takeaways, I’m just going read, talking about what Mike had talked about. So I want to give credit where credit is due. So what Mike really started talking about is Facebook, as we know, is constantly changing. And this year at Social Media Marketing World, like no other, and with these changes, comes options. Facebook is going to keep changing, the algorithm is going to keep changing, Instagram’s algorithm, all that, and what they talked about is really, there’s two options you have, people; two options. Don’t change with the algorithm, keep fighting it. Justify your activities, look at the vanity metrics, and complain about it. Or you got option two when all of these things continue to change. You can either rethink your strategy, embrace the change, and just rock and roll what you do best. So what option are you going to do? Like, I don’t know how many countless times I’ve
Now, the other thing that Mike talked about is that most people in business are going to think that bigger is better, more numbers are better, more everything is better; but the reality that is, better equals bigger. So you’re much better off having a smaller audience that is more engaged, knows you, connects with you, has trust with you, has credibility with you, because better is bigger. Again, better quality relationships equals bigger. Now as you guys know, whether or not you’ve been listening to me on the Business and Life Conversations Podcast, or over in my Facebook group, The Australian Business Collaborative, I talk about things often and we’re so glad to hear Mike say the following, “Making a big impact on a smaller number of people is more important than making a small impact on many people.” So true; that yet these vanity metrics that we continue to see, “Oh I’ve got nine million Facebook followers.” Yes, but how many of them are either bought, how many of them are actually seeing you, how many of them were you actually able to connect with? And we’re going to talk about an upcoming episode, ‘Connection Equals Conversion; Conversation Equals Conversion.’ That yet the vanity metrics continue to skew people’s ideas. There’s also the thing about that, the sole problem, is you must get better at developing influence. You must be thinking about this, how are you going to start developing and influencing your community in order to grow a successful business? When you think about positioning yourself in influencing people from a positive element, you know they’re going to start listening to you, they’re going to start talking about you, and when this happens, like I said earlier, you’re going to build trust and credibility, which means ultimately, you’re going to get in front of these people and be able to sell to them when they feel comfortable with that trust factor.
And as I’ve said, in order to influence, you must connect with your people on a much deeper level. You cannot treat them like numbers; you must start treating them like humans. Again, let me repeat, you must stop treating your audience like numbers and you must start treating people like humans. It kills me to see people on your regular Facebook pages, everyone’s happy to have a chat and a laugh, and they’re commenting, and they’re liking, and they’re sharing. But as soon as you get to your business page, onto Facebook group, it’s like, “Oh my God, what do I’d say? What do I do? How do I respond to these people?” Just treat your business page and your Facebook group just like you would your family and friends; ask questions, respond to comments, be engaging, be helpful, and overall, just be a kind human being.
Now, Mike talked about the 3 most powerful ways to be connecting with your people in 2019; and said number one is Instagram Stories. And back in October 2018, Mark Zuckerberg said, “We want to go from a feed-only world to a feed-plus-stories world.” In 2016, only a hundred million people barely, were over on Instagram stories, compared to today, in February 2019, there are five hundred million people every day using Instagram stories. And he said that most of the market don’t use stories, actually only 30% said yes in a survey that a Social Media Marketer examiner had done, while 60% said they don’t use stories. So knowing that one of the three powerful ways to connect with your people is going to be Instagram stories for 2019, you really, really need to be thinking about how you can start to implement this into your business.
The next powerful way to connect with your people in 2019 that Mike talked about was live video; the power and beauty of live video. He also said that Mark Zuckerberg said, “We’re trying to make a different experience in what you might be able to get on YouTube. We’ve changed our services to encourage meaningful, social interactions rather than passive consumption.” Again, Facebook wants you to stay on that platform because when you stay on that platform they make more money. But they don’t want you to passively consume information like you would over on YouTube; they want you to be interacting as humans, not numbers, on a regular basis. While video also gives you the opportunity, again, to build that community, create those connections, and build up warm, humble experience. Mike also indicated that 51% of marketers don’t use live video. Again, not like it’s mind boggling to me because I’m constantly doing lives in my Facebook group; it comes natural to me, but it’s not natural to everyone. He said when he looked at which platforms do markets use for live videos, he said 1% are using Twitch, 3% use Periscope, 80% are using YouTube, 16% Instagram Live, 41% Facebook Live, and 51% are doing nothing. Well that’s like, crazy right? Like, super crazy.
Now people are also worried about lives in needing to that they need to be super long. But when again they looked at the data, they actually found that 62% of people doing live videos are using videos for less than 10 minutes at a time, 17% are only doing video, video lives between 11 minutes to 20 minutes, and 8% are doing 21 to 30 minutes or more. Now again, for those of you that are nervous, and thinking that you’ve got to create this long, extravagant videos, you don’t. When again, 62% of the overpopulation are using Facebook lives, are doing live videos and they’re less than 10 minutes.
And now so the third most powerful way to connect with your audience in 2019 is YouTube. He said YouTube is the new Facebook. And he said YouTube is where your longer videos will be consumed. Now I’m not going to get into the particulars about the research that they did, but I will give you a quick overview and what I mean by that, is that Mike had his serious, the journey on Facebook. And what they found is, he’s got an enormous amount of people over on their Facebook page, Social Media Examiner, but when they actually looked at the data, the only majority of people watching his videos, I believe he said was only watching 10 seconds or less. He was flabbergasted; 20,000 people who follow him and only 10 seconds or less is what they’re watching. However when they moved over to YouTube, where people are more likely to consume video from a passive consumption, their numbers were staggering; people were staying for minutes, if not finishing the entire episodes.
So looking at these 3 three main things, the 3 most powerful ways to be able to connect with your audience in 2019; Instagram Stories, Facebook Lives or YouTube, I encourage you not to go out and try and start doing all of these because you’re going to stretch yourself too thin. But I would encourage you is to look at your overall strategy right now; where are your consumers, your ideal client, your customers currently seating? How do they consume information? Do they consume information via video? Do they consume information auditory and maybe a podcast that is better for you to focus on? Are they on Facebook more or they’re on LinkedIn more? Because Facebook Live is really great and well, as long as your consumers are there. So just because Mike Steltzner says that these are the 3 most powerful ways to connect with your audience, and though they are, again your audience isn’t necessarily always going to fit into this peg. And so I encourage you again to really reflect on Instagram Stories, Facebook Lives and YouTube; choose one first, do it well, then bring on a second. But whatever you do, please don’t try and start learning YouTube, Facebook Lives and Instagram Stories because you’re going to feel overwhelmed, you’re eventually going to get burnt out, and you’re going to get nowhere in your business.
Now, if you’re thinking about what else could you be doing in your business right now, is I can’t emphasize enough to you that as I said earlier on, conferences are amazing on so many levels. And if there’s anything that I’d take away from my ongoing international training, I’m about to head to The Maldives in September for another mastermind with James Schramko, is that you must be thinking about positioning yourself at conferences. Again, amazing on so many levels, you get to meet people, hear people, have deep conversations, give people a hug, and it’s these people that become part of your tribe, it’s these people who are going to be able to support you, you’re going to be able to reach out to them when times are tough. Human connection is where it’s at, don’t be fooled that technology is taking over. It may take over, but it will never replace human connection. So as I reflect on my journey to San Diego for Social Media Marketing World, and looking at the 3 key takeaways from Social Media Marketing World being Instagram Stories, Facebook Live and YouTube, I’m super excited to work my team and think about my own strategy for what we’re going to do at Angela Henderson Consulting.
Now, what I would say is that, if you’re thinking about conferences, and if you’re thinking about what could I be doing as a woman in business, I would really, really think about where can you go and connect with these people for conferences? Can you go to a local meet-up? Can you go to a workshop? Can you go to a conference? Or could you join me and 50 other women at Australia’s Leading Women in Business Retreat as I’ve mentioned earlier? I don’t know. So have a think about the 3 key takeaways, have a think about where you can position yourself and connect with people.
And that’s really it today everyone. My team and I will also be putting together the whole transcription for this episode at www.angelahenderson.com.au, and of course I cover also to related Business and Life Conversation topics inside my Facebook group, the Australian Business Collaborative; up close to 5000 amazing community members. So head on over and join us. Have a fabulous day and I look forward to having you join me next week for another amazing episode of the Business and Life Conversations Podcast. Have an awesome day everyone. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the ‘Business and Life Conversations’ podcast with Angela Henderson, 3 Key Takeaways from Social Media Marketing World 2019. www.angelahenderson.com.au
