#59 Influencers, social media, and modern marketing with Jason Falls.

Speaker A: Thanks for listening to the nice podcast. I'm Dave Delaney. If you haven't noticed, we've taken a little bit of a hiatus over the last several months. A, uh, big revelation was found. I have adhd and that explains a whole lot. And of course, naturally, as a veteran podcaster, I started another podcast all about it, and it's called ADHD wise squirrels. And you can find it at, uh, wisesquirrels.com or anywhere you listen to podcasts. Just search and ADHD. Why squirrels? Pop over and have a listen. Let me know what you think. Thanks.

Speaker B: You enjoy podcasts. We know because you're listening to one. Hi, I'm Jason Falls, the executive producer

Speaker C: of the Marketing Podcast Network.

Speaker B: We love podcasts too. So much so that in addition to providing you with the great episode you're listening to, we also help businesses, brands and even individuals produce their podcasts. MPN Studios offers podcast consulting and production

Speaker C: services to help you get you or

Speaker B: your business its very own podcast. We we've helped dozens of smart people, advertising agencies and brands develop podcasts. All you do is record your content or interview. We take that and deliver a professionally produced audio or video episode, complete with show notes, transcriptions, and even promotional clips to use on social media. And our monthly subscription prices are hard to beat. If you or your company are jonesing to have your own podcast to establish thought leadership, drive business leads, or just have fun talking about your business or topic of choice, we'd love to help Learn more at marketingpodcasts.net Studio that's marketingpodcasts.net

Speaker C: Studio AI is a great tool to help you do research. It's a great tool to help you create the framework of good content. It's a great tool to help you be more efficient with your time in terms of writing, creating content, researching, things like that. But if you take yourself out of the equation altogether, then you. You have failed your audience. You have failed the message, you have failed communications.

Speaker A: Nice. Nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice, nice with Dave Delaney. Welcome to the nice podcast all about communication, collaboration and becoming better leaders. I'm, um, your host, Dave Delaney from futureforth.com where we help you retain talent, improve culture and communication so you have happier, more connected teams. Today I'm speaking with Jason Falls. Jason is the EVP of marketing for CPIO AI. He hosts the widely downloaded winfluence podcast and is the author of three awesome books, which I'm sure we'll talk about today. Plus, he's the executive producer of the Marketing Podcast Network. And if you're familiar with that. Well, you probably, unless this is your first time listening, uh, and in fact, you might have actually heard Jason's voice, uh, right at the top of the show because that is where this podcast lives. Uh, so, uh, it's, uh, with great thanks to Jason for having the NICE podcast as part of the marketing podcast network. So, Jason, welcome to Nice.

Speaker C: Thanks, Dave. Great to be here, man.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's awesome to have you here. So I always like to begin these things by asking, what is the nicest thing someone has done for you recently?

Speaker C: Oh, wow. Um, let's see. The nicest thing someone has done for me recently. Um, goodness gracious. Good question. Could put me on the spot on that one. Yeah, I, I think that probably the, the, the best answer I've got for that is. And this might open up an entire other line of conversation. Um, but my ex wife and I went to, uh, Nashville down in your neck of the woods last week to take my son, uh, to Belmont University for his orientation day. Register for classes and whatnot. And the, um, evening included my son going off with other Belmont students, prospective students, for several hours. So my ex wife and I went out to dinner and we drove by the Parthenon and we had a perfectly pleasant evening. And it was just, I thought, a nice gesture for the two of us to spend some time together, even though we are no longer married. And we had a very pleasant time out. So it was very nice. I thought she was, she was very nice to me, I was very nice to her and we had a wonderful evening.

Speaker A: That's awesome, man. That's great. Yeah, I love that. I love that. And it's exciting to, uh. Yeah. Have your son, uh, in Nashville. Actually, my kids both, uh, uh, study band. They're both, uh, musicians in there. Each summer, uh, Belmont has an awesome, uh, band camp. And so, uh, both my kids at this time, the time we're recording this, are both attending that for their second year. So it's like a week long, uh, summer camp thing there, which is pretty cool.

Speaker C: Belmont has a fantastic music program. In fact, my son Grant is planning on majoring in audio engineering and music industry, you know, sort of business so that he can go into the music world. So, yeah, um, that's one of the reasons he chose the program. We're really, really excited for him.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, yeah, you're in, you're in good hands there. Yeah, it's a great, It's a great school. Beautiful too. They've done it. Keeps growing and growing. Well, I guess like Nashville itself, but it keeps growing so much that, uh. Yeah, I used to work down there many years ago and it's, uh, yeah, it's gotten, it's gotten so much better. So it's cool.

Speaker C: Yeah, that's pretty.

Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah. So tell me, uh, a little bit about, uh, well, talk a little bit about your role, uh, as EVP of Marketing for cpio. What, what, what does that entail? And tell us bit about sepia.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: So Scipio is, um, to boil it down very conveniently for people in the marketing world. You'll know what this is. It's. It's an influencer marketing platform, but it's not quite built the way others are. Most, uh, influencer marketing platforms are built where you jump in and you say, I want to find content creators by this keyword. So you might type in bourbon, or you might type in, type in cooking, or you might type in, uh, you know, fashion or whatever. And those platforms typically come up with this laundry list of content creators who say that they create content around that topic. Um, or, uh, they're, they're, they're using those keywords in their bios, things like that. Scipio has a slightly different approach to influence, uh, marketing. And, and one of the reasons I joined up with Scipio was because they have this different approach. Because my philosophy on influence marketing is, you'll notice I don't use the word the R in the word influence marketing. Uh, I just say influence marketing without influen. And the DNA that Scipio has is when a brand comes to the platform, we plug in and we map your community of fans, followers, customers, employees, any other group that you're, uh, that's in your sort of ecosystem. Uh, and we look at, uh, you know, people who follow your competitors online, people who talk about you online, people who follow affinity brands. So brands that are not competitors, but are similar in nature in terms of the audience, and we map that community and look for influencers within that community, because community influencers, which is kind of what we call them, are more likely and better apt to create more authentic content about you because they buy from you, they know you, they're aware of your brand. Most influencer marketing platforms are, hey, let's go find a celebrity on social media who may or may not know you, and let's pay them a bunch of money to talk about you. Ours is, let's find people that are already aware of you, that might already be talking about you, and let's engage them at a level that may or may not Require you to pay them, um, so you get more authentic content that way. It also lends itself to brands to be able to cultivate better user generated content because you're looking at who creates content that is already in my customer base, my follower and fan base on online, et cetera. So we're just, I think a quicker path to more authentic content is kind of how I would describe the software.

Speaker A: Yeah, and I love that. Uh, I think it's an incredible resource because I think about like, like I ran as you know, I ran social media and content, a lot of content for Griffin Technology many years ago and at that time now Griffin made, you know, for those unfamiliar, they made like a lot of iPhone cases and iOS, um, Apple accessories and things even before that. Um, so there were so many. It was before I had ever heard of unboxing videos and holy crow, and this is like 0708 I guess, something like that. So um, but there were so many people who are getting tens, hundreds of thousands of views on their YouTube videos unboxing our products. And I was like, well why are we not corresponding with these people? Like they're, they're clearly fans. And so um, I would reach out to them and establish relationships and we would, you know, create an affiliate relationship where they would earn a commission with full disclosure, um, ahead of time on, on sales and include you know, an affiliate link in the description on the YouTube video so that viewers could click and purchase that product. Um, but yeah, it was just in exchange they would often receive, you know, our products for free, um, so that they could, you know, unbox them and things like that. So is that a lot of, do you do a lot of uh, uh, you know, interactions with, with folks in that sort of uh, consumer electronics space, for example?

Speaker C: Uh, we certainly can. Um, I think we have a couple of technology clients. Um, but we have grown up, we're still only about two years old, uh, so we're still very young. Software. We grew up in the health and fitness area so we have a lot of gyms and health clubs that are a part of our background. But we've expanded out into food and beverage consumer product goods. And I think we have one tech client, a couple of travel and tourism customers as well. Um, but the software is certainly built to do that now. I love that you use that Griffin tech as an example because what you just described was I think the way most brands think of user generated content, which is, let's find someone who's already talked about us, who already has content out there and let's reach out to them and see if we can get permission to repurpose it. And that's a perfectly good, smart way to think of user generated content. We like to take it a little bit further and say, hey, it's not just about what you can find that's already there. It's about finding the creators that create the type of content that you want and proactively giving them a brief, giving them a task. Hey, we want you to create more content, um, but we would love it if you would create it within these parameters. So we kind of mix the concepts of what you described as user generated content, finding things that are already there and then the process of traditional influencer marketing where you reach out to a content creator and engage them to create specific content, we blur those lines, um, which is helping kind of fill the content coffers for brands that uh, advertise on meta, that are looking for user, uh, generated content because it performs better in organic and paid social campaigns. And so that's really what Scipio does. And my job is to try to help the world know more about Scipio so that they consider us when they're looking for software like that.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's interesting. It's really interesting. I mean, I think these days, yeah, I have to admit I'm a little, I'm a little disconnected from the sort of influence, influencer marketing kind of space these days. But you know, I remember earlier on because I had brands actually hire me as, as an influencer to promote the work they're doing and I've actually been reaching out to non alcoholic breweries. Uh, I quit drinking three years ago and I'm like, why am I not, I swear to God, like the restaurants and bars I go to all carry my favorite non alcoholic beer now because I'm begging them for it. But it is an, it's an interesting segment and something like, I've even tagged them on social like, hey, you know, throw me a case and you know, I'll help you out. So.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker A: It's, uh, it's an interesting world. Tell me a little bit about like the, the challenges in this space. Not necessarily for Cipio specifically, but more widely in the world of influencer marketing. I mean, you wrote an amazing book, I highly recommend, called Winfluence, uh, reframing influencer marketing to ignite your brand. So tell me a little bit about some of the challenges and opportunities you're seeing these days.

Speaker C: Sure. I think the biggest challenge right now in the influencer marketing space and I think this would be the first answer of anyone who's in the space at all, whether they're on the brand side or they're at an agency or a software provider. The biggest challenge for brands to be successful with influencer marketing is finding the right creators. Um, and, you know, a lot of times, you know, when you think superficially about it, you're like, well, let's just go find people who create content that our target audience might, um, you know, uh, it might appeal to that target audience or that they have an expertise or credibility in our. Sort of. In our. In our running lane.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: So I've. I've done a lot of work with. As you know, I've done a lot of work with bourbon distilleries and bourbon brands over the years. So that is, let's go find people who are really crazy about bourbon or. Or let's go find people who are bartenders and mixologists and create really cool cocktails. And that is putting up a very limited view of what, uh, influencers you could potentially use, because you have to think in that particular space. If I've got a content creator on Instagram or TikTok, for instance, who creates a lot of content around bourbons, they're kind of prohibited from locking in with one brand, because if you lock in with one brand for content and do exclusivity, then they've got nothing else to talk about.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and so they're going to be very hesitant to do that. So you have to kind of adjust how you think. So you can expand out to the cocktail world, but you can also expand out to the cooking and food world and start looking at influencers in those spaces. Then you can say, well, wait a minute, let's broaden the lens a little bit, and let's look at people who are lifestyle influencers who fit our sort of brand Personas, if you will. And let's talk to that broader audience that they're not necessarily, necessarily coming to this channel looking for cocktail ideas or for bourbon reviews. They're actually coming to this channel to get inspiration for fashion or style or, you know, home decor or whatever. Um, and if that overlaps the brand, then you can expand those circles out. But the more you expand out, the more possibilities there are, the harder it is to zero in on the ones that make a lot of sense. And so that's why software companies like CPO come along and are able to say, look, we can help you do a couple of things. Number one, we'll filter all these searches so that you can get zero in on the type of content creator that you're looking for. But I think, and this is another thing that Scipio does that other people don't do at this point anyway, is we actually will help you find great content versus great content creators. M Because we have image to image and video to video search. So if I have an image that I really like as a brand and this is the type of image that I want to see on my Instagram feed, this is the type of content, uh, that I'm looking to be created from creators and influencers. And let's say you have a picture of, um, you know, a baby in a car seat eating an ice cream cone, and you're the ice cream cone company and you want to find a bunch of parents who take pictures of their kids when they go out for ice cream. And those are going to be the content creators you're going to reach out to. You can upload that image into Scipio and we'll go find creators that create that type of, that type of image.

Speaker A: Oh, wow.

Speaker C: Using AI to say, okay, we know there's a baby here, we know there's ice cream, we know there's a car seat. Go find images from all across the web, billions of posts, and show us the ones that have babies eating ice cream and car seats. M and then you can go through and say, okay, I like that one, I don't like that one, I like that one. I don't like that one. Make a list of 10 or 12 that you like. And then we'll use all of the data from that content and those creators to extrapolate out thousands of potential creators that you could reach out to. And then you're able to, within our platform, filter it down to a list that's reasonable. 20, 30, 40, 50 people that you can reach out to in a smaller group, or you can certainly scale up if you want. And we have the tools within our platform to allow you to do the outreach, do the campaigns, do the agreements, all that good stuff.

Speaker A: Yeah, I'd be curious to hear. I know, I know you're not like, I guess in the sales side so much, but I'd be curious how, um, like how effective it is to email influencers as opposed to, like, finding their phone number and calling them these days, because of the amount of, like, my inbox is just so many solicitations so often, and most of them are rather dodgy. So, um, so it's hard to, like, sniff out the legit one. So I almost feel like, yeah, like it would be wise to kind of pick up the phone and actually call that brand or that, you know, the blogger or whatever. Yeah.

Speaker C: And that presents another challenge, obviously, because a, when you're reaching out to people about their social media content, it's, they're not going to put their, they're not hanging their phone numbers off of these websites. So it's hard to find that you're lucky if you get an email address. A lot of the communication has to, you know, be via direct message on those platforms. So from a technology and I guess a conversion percentage perspective, the big challenge in the industry is getting, you know, good response rates.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, simply because if I'm a, if I'm someone who creates content that's interesting on the Internet, that doesn't necessarily mean I consider myself an influencer. So if I get a DM from a brand, I'm probably going to ignore it because that's not in, I'm not creating content for that reason. Um, the ones who obviously are creating content to be influential, to monetize their feeds, to, you know, make a little cottage industry out of their own content creation, they pay a lot closer attention to that sort of thing and they respond more. But the better performing content comes from the people who don't even consider themselves influencers.

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: So a lot of times, you know, you're, you're having to, uh, the good old fashioned advice we used to give back in the, in the, in the aughts, if you will, um, you've got to connect with these people, you've got to make friends with them on social media, you've got to comment on their stuff, you've got to engage with them over time so that you can build a rapport and a trust and a relationship so that you can say, hey, by the way, we love your content. Would you like to create some content for us? And then this person who doesn't consider themselves an influencer goes, well, yeah, that sounds kind of fun. I'd love to do that. Because then they'll respond that way because they know you, they like you, they trust you, you've built that relationship. Um, so it takes, takes a lot of manual labor sometimes and a little bit of time to get through to the right ones. I, um, will tell you that there is a vast gap between, you know, people who have, let's say 10 to 50,000 followers or so and the people who have more than, let's say 100,000 followers or so, because the people who have more than 100,000 typically are represented by talent managers or agencies or, you know, other representation firms. Um, and, um, those. You go from having to spend a few hundred dollars to get a creator to create content for you to spending several thousand dollars. Uh, because when you add a talent manager or an agency onto it, you're adding, you know, at least four figures, you know, onto your, Onto your digits there to make sure that you're compensating for everyone's time. And so that makes it challenging as well. But again, where, Where Scipio likes to play is the community influencers, the micro nano folks who you don't always have to pay, uh, much, if anything. And we have several clients that do, you know, dozens of influencers a month in terms of creating content, and all they do is provide them with product.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So it doesn't have to be expensive on the brand side.

Speaker A: Yeah, I actually just watched the, uh, the Nike or Nike movie last night. Uh, have you seen that yet?

Speaker C: Yes, I have.

Speaker A: Yeah. And so it was, you know, it's kind of, from what you're saying, from the agency side, it's kind of reminiscent of, of. I, uh, forget all the names, but, uh, Matt Damon's sort of outreach to, to try to reach, uh, uh, Magic, uh, or, excuse me, uh, to reach Air Jordan. Michael, uh, Jordan. Clearly not a basketball guy, or sports for that matter. Sports, uh, balls, you know. Um, but, uh, yeah, the, the kind of, the, the struggle he had to go through in order to kind of bypass the. The represent the agent, I guess, and have to, like in his case, fly across the country and drive to.

Speaker D: Yeah.

Speaker A: And, and go around it that way. So. Yeah, it's interesting.

Speaker C: Yeah. I would think that, you know, there's probably going to be a case study or two pop up at some point where you'll hear of a, uh, a brand who really wanted to work with an influencer and just couldn't get through the right way. And then they, you know, either ran into them an event or quarter, cornered them at a restaurant or something like that and did a similar thing. But you're right, if you want to get the right creator, sometimes it's a challenge.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and certainly a challenge to get them to work at the price that you can afford to pay. Uh, we do have a problem, I think, in the creator economy, as it were, that there are too many influencers out there and content creators who really don't have a good grounding on what the value they truly bring to a brand is. I think they overestimate it a lot. Um, and there's probably some content creators out there who are getting mad at me for saying that. Um, but when I go to someone, I literally have a proposal. I saved it because I'll never let go of it. Um, I don't want to throw anybody into the bus and share who it is or anything, but I have a proposal from a young lady, uh, who has 40, who had. This was a couple years ago. Uh, I think it was 46,000 followers on Instagram, which is a healthy amount. Um, and, um, she was in a very sort of niche home, uh, decor, sort ah of category. And I reached out and said I would really just love to see what your rates are for, you know, maybe a sponsored post and some Instagram stories and maybe a reel to support this campaign. I think it aligns with your audience really well, and I just want to get an idea of your price. And her response was for one static Instagram post. So just a still picture and a caption. No video, no stories or anything. Her. Her rate was $7,500. And I responded to her. She didn't respond back, but I responded to her and said, okay, thank you for sharing that with me. Can you please explain to me how that's going to deliver value to my client? Why would I ever spend that much money for someone who has 46,000 followers when most of the people who have hundreds of thousands of followers at that point were not charging the same fee?

Speaker A: Right.

Speaker C: Um, and so I think there's a lot of content creators out there who are just. It's a money grab for them, and they're just going to go and get as much as they can while they can. I think we're in. We're due for a big pendulum swing back and a little bit of a, if you want to say, recession within the creator economy, where some of the top earners are going to have to adjust their rates because they're just. They're just too expensive for most brands to work with these days.

Speaker D: And we're live from the living room as, uh, Doug eyes, uh, up the Match Day spread. He's reaching for the buffalo wing. Perfect. Hang on. What's this? Oh, he's gone for a can of Pepsi, too. Incredible. What a finish. Sensational combination. Look at the delight on his face. There's no doubt about it. It just tastes better. Match Days deserve, uh, Pepsi. Food deserves, uh, Pepsi. Grab a pack of Pepsi. Zero sugar for today's match. It's poetry in motion.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's pretty wild to think of, like, you know. Yeah, you think of like the uh, oh gosh, what are they, the Kardashians, you know, and the astronomical stuff that they charge for, ah, for you know, an Instagram post or, or something like that. But um, it's interesting, I'm curious. Like, I remember back in the day when the, when the FTC started, ah, finding bloggers for not disclosing, um, and certainly threatened big fines. Um, I don't know how frequently that happened really. But, um, what are the sort of rules of engagement these days with disclosure for such relationships?

Speaker C: Sure. Anytime you are, um, compensated in any way. So product or payment or perks, benefits as a content creator, the Federal Trade Commission, and then depending upon the um, sort of vertical that you're posting in, if you go over into financial services, then obviously the SEC and a bunch of other regulations come into play. But in general, the FTC requires that you disclose that you were compensated for creating, uh, that content. Um, and they want you to be overt and clear about it. So they don't want you to hide hashtag ad in your copy. They want you to clearly come out and say, hey, this is a sponsored post, I'm working with this client, et cetera. Um, there are ways to wordsmith it so that it doesn't sound so disarming or alarming for consumers, but you have to disclose it. It um, also too on the brand side, the brand, if they use that content, they have to disclose that they worked with that creator and that creator was compensated for that content. So there has to be clarity and transparency in terms of this content was created for the brand and was paid for by the brand. Um, now that in and of itself doesn't necessarily. We found over time that consumers understand the creator economy enough to know and some of them even appreciate when a brand works with their favorite creators. So it's not necessarily a bad thing. It's not necessarily detrimental to the effectiveness of that communication. And so that's why I encourage, and why I said a moment ago, I encourage creators and brands to work together to wordsmith that in such a way that it is very transparent and it's very open so that it qualifies under the FTC rules. But it also communicates the value exchange in a way that the audience really appreciates the relationship.

Speaker A: That's interesting.

Speaker C: You know, so when I. It's. It's just like for a sponsor on a podcast, right? I mean, we deal with that with the marketing podcast network and um, you know, we're working together on some campaigns right now, me and the. You and the Rest of the team.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Um, and, you know, I've, I'm trying to encourage our creators, hey, I'm going to give you a script to record or to read on your show, but it's going to deliver a lot better value if you can just, you know, read the script, consume it, understand it, but then just talk, just tell people what you know about this product. You can transparently say, hey, you know what? I personally don't use this product, but they are sponsoring the marketing podcast network and we really appreciate them doing that. And here's what they do. And if this is something you're looking for, then let's make a connection there. You can do it in a way that's very genuine and very valuable and appreciative or appreciated by the audience without being like, somebody's paying me to read this script, go buy this product. Here's the link. You know, yeah, it can be much better, but the FTC does require disclosure on both ends of the equation. Um, the. There is some gray area though, because as governments are, they don't evolve very quickly. Um, and because there's a lot of live video and there's a lot of Instagram stories and lots of new technologies at play here. Um, you almost have to be air on the side of caution if you don't want to get fined and make sure that you are always disclosing the relationship. Even if that particular piece of content wasn't especially called out in a contract and paid for. Um, you have to disclose that relationship. I think in general, the FTC and the various and sundry other government agencies don't have the time or resources to go, you know, play the police on this. Yeah, ah, I've only known of and read of maybe in the last 10 years, probably a couple of dozen instances of brands and creators being fined. Um, but that's not to say that that gives you, you know, clearance to go do and skirt those boundaries. I would always err on the side of disclosing and following the regulations.

Speaker A: So without naming any names, do any horror stories come up in your mind of ones that you recollect offhand?

Speaker C: I don't remember the brand specifically, but I remember the first time that I read an article of a social media post being dinged, uh, for fines by the FTC. This was probably 2013 or 14 around in there. And I want to say it was Instagram, but I'm not 100% sure because Instagram was still very young then. Um, but as I recall, it was. The FTC was Trying to make sure that it made a point to the world. Hey, this, you got to follow the rules. And it caught three or four creators who were not disclosing the relationship with sponsored content. And it find the creators $17,000 per incident. So per post. And it also find the brand $17,000 per post. So when you do cross that line, they're serious, they're going to make sure that you do that because again, it's all under consumer protection. They're trying to make sure that your audience, if you are a content creator or the audience of the brand, if the brand is using the content creators post that the audience is not duped or fooled into thinking that this was natural and organic and real, that it was actually paid for.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So you've got that kind of yin and yang push and pull when you're doing sponsored content. But again, you can nuance it and make it really effective if you try.

Speaker A: And when you think of like the. Is so, uh, something I've often advised my clients over the years about is as it pertains to like followers and things, it's really quality over quantity. So often. Right. Like if you have a hundred followers and they're all very likely to buy something from you or they're big fans, um, you know, gets like Kevin Kelly's original essay about, you know, a thousand true fans and the value of that, um, and then, and then the flip side of course, is those who, God forbid, buy their followers, um, and there's all sorts of shady things to do that way, um, and just kind of inflate their numbers, um, and then they go around like maybe you're. Well, not, not to say your 7,000 per post person was like that necessarily. But you know, the old. You hear these horror stories of these, uh, I guess, quote unquote influencers who like, you know, go to restaurants or resorts and demand a free meal. Don't you know who I think I am on the Internet? Um, so, yeah, where's your head at as far as like, like, you know, maybe weeding out the legit folks and, and you know, that quality over quantity comment.

Speaker C: Yeah. The good news is, is that the, the software platforms that are out there, Scipio and others as well, and there's plenty of other good softwares out there, um, are really good at that now and, and you don't see that happening as much anymore because it's no longer about follower count. And I think we've started to educate the marketplace over the course of the last few years, which is one of the underlying reasons I wrote the book winfluence, we started to educate the marketplace over the years that it's not about how many followers and the quantity of the audience that someone has. To your point, it's really about the quality of their followership and their communication. And so you see uh, statistics like engagement rate and view rate and things like that becoming more important to brands when they're looking for the right content creators. And to an even bigger point with user generated content nowadays, and this is kind of how Scipio has sort of started to approach, uh, talking to some, some prospective clients. It doesn't matter if the person who is creating the content has followers at all. If what you're looking for is really authentic user generated content that you can then take, license and use in your ad campaigns, on your website, on your social media channels, in your email, email newsletters. Right. So if I know that you know to, to use a, uh, ah, to use someone that we, you, I know you probably um, uh, know Leela Fever from the old Common Craft videos.

Speaker A: Yeah, sure.

Speaker C: At one point the most famous pair of hands in the world.

Speaker A: Yes.

Speaker C: Um, he did the old, you know, here's what Twitter is, here's what RSS feeds are videos back in the day. So you know, Lee and Common Craft created these wonderful animations that explained things. That was their talent was explaining things. Well, you could go and you could pay and this is actually Lee's core business. You could pay them to create those animated videos for you to use on your website and your social channels and you could even pay them enough to where Common Craft wasn't even there. They were white labeled. They belonged to you. M. So that's what brands more and more these days are using, quote unquote influencers for. It's like I don't even want you to post on your channel. I just know that you are a very talented content creator and that you understand this industry or this business or this product or this service. Service. I want you to create something fun and engaging around my product so that I can use it. And so the creator economy now becomes everybody's creative department, in their marketing department. Everybody's photographer, everybody's um, you know, graphic designer, everyone's copywriter, everyone's a producer, director, animator. Right. We're turning brands and agencies are now turning more toward this broader creative community and looking for great content. If that person also has followers online, there might be some benefit to say, okay, we don't just want the ugc, we want the UGC plus we want you to also post on your channel and therefore there's an influence piece that goes to it. Um, but the tools have gotten sophisticated enough to the point now to where when you go in and you do an analysis of a creator, you can very quickly tell number one who has ah, astroturf their follower count. So at Scipio we have a fort 14 point brand check and we do an analysis of your audience as a creator to say, hey, there's 45% of this person's audience are bots and suspicious accounts, so they're probably not going to be as effective as you might think. Um, and then we also have safety checks that say, well this person uses a lot of, you know, language. Uh, they talk about tobacco, they talk about religion, politics, etc. So you can go in and really see the creators and more about them before you make the decision to reach out to them in the first place. Um, and then to anybody who's dealing with a content creator who has, you know, do you know who I think I am or whatever that whole thing.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, at that point it's just, you know, you kind of just have to say, well you know, I'm, I'm sorry but that's just not how we engage with creators anymore. And you know, you're welcome to trash us online if you like. If you are a brand of any count, you're probably watching all of that and following it and, and making sure that you're performing some good social customer care to make sure that those um, you know, flames are put out. Um, but I, I don't think we see as much of that anymore as we used to.

Speaker A: Yeah. So you wrote three books on really on, on digital marketing. Right. Like there, the, the Rebels guide to email marketing you did with TJ Waldo and then no bullshit social media that you did with uh, Eric Decker. Uh, tell me a little bit about like where we're at as it pertains to social beyond the like kind of influencer side, but just kind of where, where Jason Falls head is at as it pertains to this stuff. Because of course, and, and just full disclosure here, not that we're selling anything but Jason and I, you know, we met at well probably on Twitter before anything but but at south by Southwest Interactive kind of the, the conference I guess traditionally for, for social media quote unquote types. Um, back in. I think it was 08. Um, so where's your head at with, with how and where we're at? Because I, I can, I mean I could go on for Forever talking about just how sort of jaded I feel about the state of. Of social. Like, it was really fun when, like, all the, like, lonely nerds like us were on there interacting, and suddenly it's like, you know, your racist uncle's on there now, now, um, and all of his, uh, friends, you know, so tell me, and not, not your racist uncle, uh, but tell me a little bit about where your head's at with, you know. Yeah, where the state of social media, let's say.

Speaker B: Sure.

Speaker C: So from a brand perspective, I, I definitely think we're at a maturation point now where most brands, um, understand that, you know, social media m is not like any other, not unlike any other channel.

Speaker E: Channel.

Speaker C: In order to really succeed, you have to invest in it. You have to invest dollars in creating content. You have to invest dollars in getting that content in front of the right audiences within a frequency to move the needle on your message. Um, content and creativity are starting to become the, you know, sort of the, the crux, the linchpin, if you will, of brand success on social, which is a good thing because it's holding brands to a higher standard. You know, when you get something like the, the OREO Super Bowl 20 tweet or, you know, you have, you know, Wendy's social media account roasting people on national roast day, um, you're starting to see great creative output is now being translated into the social media world, and that's holding brands to a higher standard with the underlying understanding that, you know, we did a good job in the early 2000s and 2000 teens of teaching brands that you have to listen, you have to respond, you have to engage. But now that sort of advertising creative, I think, is starting to really take over, over from a personal, uh, perspective. And, and I, I hesitate to dive too deep into this because I, you know, I turned 50 in January, so I'm now, I think, in most people's minds, officially old. And, um, and I feel old, and I look out at the tiktoks and the Snapchats and the, you know, the Instagram reels and the Instagram stories, and I'm like, ah, get off my lawn. Give me a good blog post and maybe a YouTube video and a good static image on Facebook or Instagram, and I'm pretty happy. Um, but I've had to, you know, sort of force myself to roll with the tide here and invest more in video and, you know, audio editing and more dynamic content to make sure that for my day job at Scipio and for all the things that I Promote and whatnot. That I'm, you know, staying hip to the times, if you will, because that those younger consumers, the ones who are in their 20s and 30s, if you throw up a static image or a blog post in front of them, they don't know what to do with it, you know. Yeah, they're like, why, why doesn't this play? Where's the play button? I want the video to be force fed into my eyeballs and earballs right now. Yeah, you know, it's, there's, there's, they consume content differently so we have to make that adjustment. I don't care for that, but I've had to evolve with that. And then from a really personal perspective, man, I'm really happy with my couple hundred close friends on Facebook and I don't really need the other places. You know, I just, I create some content on Tick Tock and I create some content on Instagram and whatnot and I still play around on Twitter a little bit here and there. Um, you know, and certainly LinkedIn more for business stuff. But I do that to stay connected with some people and to have a little fun. But if, if I could just, if I won the lottery tomorrow and I didn't have to work or do anything or, or you know, milk any of these channels for connections and things like that, I'd probably shut everything down except Facebook and just, you know, my 150, 200 closest friends there and I'm good, man.

Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of feel the same way actually. It's, yeah, it's interesting especially too like when. So I was, you know, for those not familiar, I was a speaker and a trainer for Google for about five years and I taught thousands of people of how to grow their businesses using Google specifically, you know, Google products and digital marketing as well, um, you know, traveling the country, kind of representing Google and Canada for that matter. Token Canadian on the team. Uh, but um, so often yeah, I would have like small business owners, you know, talking about their, their Facebook page and, and how, and I remember like when Facebook started Facebook pages, uh, you know, everybody, everybody and their brother created a, ah, business page for their, their business and abandoned their websites to focus exclusively on their Facebook page. And then know, over time Facebook started uh, really reducing the organic reach of that page and, and suddenly in order to, to reach anyone on your Facebook page, which is something many people are focused on still, you've really got to pay to play now. You've really got to pay to at the very least boost a post, let alone advertise. That content unless you have like a very vibrant uh, page. But for the most part, most point, uh, you know, I find that's not the case space. Um, so it is very interesting to see sort of where, where things have gone and, and you know I'm, I'm, I'm saddened by the state of, of things especially as you know, I think uh, with algorithms and, and yeah, anyway, not to, not to focus on that. Um, so as far as like uh, you know this, this podcast is, is very much about communication but it's also about leadership. Um, and you've been a leader certainly in, in the community as far as digital marketing goes over the years running your, your, your websites explorer, uh, and your, your conference and, and, and things like that. Um, what are your, what are your biggest challenges these days? As, as you know, being a leader, leading, leading people. You, you lead us on uh, on the podcast network, uh, our brave uh, leader. Tell me a little bit about, about some of those challenge.

Speaker C: Yeah, I think the biggest thing right now because you got to remember most of my leadership has been as a, you know, sort of community leader. So not within necessarily the confines of one business or one organization. So the marketing podcast network's perfect example because you know, Dave Delaney doesn't work for me. Dave Delaney's podcast is on my network and we work together but it's not like an employee employer relationship. And certainly I've, I've led teams before at agencies and I've got a small team team at Scipio that I'm leading from a marketing perspective. But in the thought leadership realm, uh, which is more where I feel comfortable, you know, sort of uh, where my experiences are. I think it's just becoming harder and harder to be a standout leader because the signal to noise ratio keeps getting worse. There seems to be a lot more people creating and this is, you know, this is what we get for diving into social media. Right. Social media allows everybody to be a creator. It democratized media. That's the good news. The bad news is is that a lot of people took us up on the offer and started creating content.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So there's a lot of noise out there and it just gets bigger and louder because more and more people are getting online, more and more people are creating podcasts, more and more people are creating blogs, more and more people are doing content on TikTok and social networks. And so the signal to noise ratio is deafening, you know, and, and it's hard to find those signals that stand out anymore. Even if you've Been doing it a long time. And even if you're really good at what you do, um, you know, I certainly can look at what I've done with influence marketing and winfluence and my podcast and my thought leadership platform, if you will, over the years. And I look at others out there who, you know, in 2008 or 2009 we were on a level playing field and now they're 10 times better, bigger than me with, you know, 10 times a bigger audience and a bigger platform. And it's not because they out hustled me. It's not because they, you know, did anything necessarily different than I did. It's just that either they picked a topic that was a little bit more timely or they had a little bit more capital to put behind promoting what they were doing. Um, and so it's just harder and harder these days to stand out as signal from the noise. The good news for me anyway is that I knew very early on I don't need everybody to listen to me for me to have a successful career and a good business and, you know, make good connections and have good friends. So I have not been fascinated with. I need a million followers on this platform, or I need this many email newsletter subscribers, or I need this many downloads of my podcast. I create content that is hopefully optimized to be discovered by people who are looking for that type of content. And if they find it and I provide value to them, then I. That's awesome. And if it's only 20 people, that's awesome. If it's 20,000, that's awesome too. And if it's 2 million, that's even more awesome, but still just awesome.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: So I don't worry about the breadth and depth of my network and who I touch. I just create the content knowing that it's going to be helpful to somebody.

Speaker A: I know this is a topic for probably a whole other conversation because it's a big one, but what are your thoughts on the future as it pertains to AI? Uh, um, and I mentioned that because we've got like chatgpt and I myself would be the first to admit I spend more time there than I do on a Google search these days. Um, and of course that's just giving me whatever ChatGPT provides, uh, in that result with no links. Um, but the other threat side of it of basically the Internet becoming kind of a burning tire fire of AI generated content event that's just now like just completely crammed full to. With, with just, yeah, AI generated content. So what Are your thoughts, what are your thoughts with, with the future?

Speaker C: Well, I'm a little worried about it, um, for a couple reasons. Number uh, one, I think as technology advances, it gives us great opportunity to be more efficient with our time. But what that also can translate to is it can allow us to be lazy with our effort. Um, and so I think that, you know what I've been jumping up and down and screaming as loud as I could, and I think I've heard from a lot of other people in the business, is that AI is a great tool to help you do research. It's a great tool to help you, um, create the framework of good content. It's a great tool to help you be more efficient with your time in terms of, of writing, creating content, researching things like that. But if you take yourself out of the equation altogether, then you have failed your audience, you have failed the message, you have failed communications, because the computer is only going to get you, let's say 80, 90% there. There still needs to be that human layer of analysis and empathy and interaction with the content and understanding of voice and tone and what's going to work with the audience and what's not. As you're using these tools to either write for you or even create, you know, videos or images for you, there has to be that human interaction, that control layer that allows you to translate the artificial intelligence into actual intelligence. And, um, that's where I think people who are in the marketing world or the communications world or the leadership world, or whatever world you're looking at, at the people who are being listened to. You, maybe me, maybe other people. We need to be, uh, able to say, hey, AI is great for this thing. It gets you 80%, 90% there. It's not the turnkey, set it and forget it kind of thing. You still have to bring your own human brain and interactivity into the equation to make this communications work. And as long as we keep that in mind. Mind, then yeah, it's going to help us be way more efficient and effective with our use of time and energy. I just don't want it to get to the point where we're taking that for granted and it's helping us be really lazy.

Speaker A: Yeah, because I think about, like, from m. A professional standpoint, like, like a business standpoint, if you're creating content, whatever the content is, professionally speaking, you're doing so with the intention of having some sort of conversion, right. You, like, somebody buys the thing that you're promoting or they, they fill out your contact form or they Sign up for your newsletter or whatever. But, um, but if you, if you go back to like the, the actual user's perspective and you think, okay, I'm doing a Google search for whatever it is and, and instead of doing that Google search and hopefully finding your either ads or your organic content in Google or Bing or whatever, um, if I'm searching for the answer in chat GPT, let's say, or some other AI, uh, medium, uh, if I get the answer I'm looking for, then that cuts out the content creator altogether.

Speaker C: Absolutely does.

Speaker A: Yeah. Scary. Scary. Interesting though. It's, it's certainly, it's certainly interesting days, but I think, I think you're spot on about the, the human approach to it as, as well. So. All right, well, let's move on to the lightning round as we wind down the conversation. Uh, no, uh, no heavy lifting here. Don't worry. Uh, all right, so complete this sentence. Nice guys and gals finish first. Nice.

Speaker C: Of course, of course, of course. Of course they finish first.

Speaker A: What's a nice book that you recommend? The nice makers check out. It could be anything. Non fiction, fiction, whatever. Just a book that comes to mind.

Speaker C: Happy Work by Chris Reimer. It's my favorite business book of all time.

Speaker A: Yeah.

Speaker C: Uh, because it's, it's basically kind of a fictional allegory about work. And I read it in like three hours, which it takes me like three months to read a single book. I read this thing in three. I couldn't put it down. It was a Happy Work by Chris Reimer. R E I M E R. Yeah.

Speaker A: And I'll include, uh, links in the, in the show notes, so, so folks can find that. I also have that book on my shelf. Uh, Chris is a great guy and it's an awesome book. Uh, how is Jason Nice to himself.

Speaker C: Ooh, daily, uh, meditation. Um, and lately I've been going on, I've been. I'm not a very active person. Anybody who has ever seen me knows that I'm not exactly a gym goer. Um, but I have been doing. I've been hiking a lot lately that's um, kind of low impact. But like, I'll go on the weekends and then maybe you know, after work one or two days a week to either walk around the neighborhood or actually literally go to a park park and, and go on a nature trail hike and um, been trying to be a little bit more active. So that's how I'm taking care of myself.

Speaker A: Nice. We'll have to do some when you're, uh, when you come To Nashville. There's some, some great hiking around here, so.

Speaker D: Cool.

Speaker A: Um, and as far as the meditation thing goes, tell me a little bit about like, are you doing like a guided meditation? Are you just doing it yourself?

Speaker C: I started out, the way that I got into meditation was I started using Headspace, the exact app, which is a guided mindfulness meditation app. Um, and I did that for like six years. Um, and did it, you know, maybe not every day, but I did it when I felt like I was tangled up a little bit and just needed to relax. But I did it daily for several years and then I would do a couple, three days a week. Um, and then I started getting back into meditation more on a daily basis and thought I think there's more to this that I haven't explored yet. So I actually went through this, the Transcendental meditation training. And so I know how to do tm and that's what my daily practices now is, is tm, which is the way that I do it is not guided. Um, you're taught how to do it and um, you're given a mantra and all that good stuff in the training. Um, and then they kind of set you free to, you know, sort of self guide. And so that's what I do these days.

Speaker A: I'm really. Yeah, we need to talk more about that because I'm quite interested in tm. Um, I've, I've, you know, have my own meditation sort of practice that I do, uh, daily. But I've been quite intrigued by tm. I mean you hear of, you know, I think Jerry Seinfeld is probably the poster boy for, for somebody who talks a lot about how it's, it's, it's been a huge part of his success. Um, yeah, and, and understanding like how to, how to, to find them, how to get the mantra, what that, what that looks like. And then also just finding like two 20 minute blocks of time in a day to actually practice, I think is, uh, is I do like a 10 minute a day and I'm like, oh my God.

Speaker C: Yeah, the two, the two 20 minute recommended sort of windows, you know, that's sort of for optimal, you know, uh, TM health. Um, and that, that is a challenge for, for anybody who's a busy professional, that's going to be a tough nut to crack. And it has been for me. But I will tell you this, and I think that your audience will appreciate this even if you've never meditated before. A quick description. Mindfulness meditation, like with the apps with Headspace, is really More of a very conscious way to clear your brain and focus on your body, focus on your breathing, focus on how you feel and just take a few minutes to clear your brain and just focus on you, you. And it's, it's powerful and fantastic and relaxing and if you do it and do it regularly, you'll love it. Transcendental M meditation is a little bit more about, hey, let's completely clear our mind. Let's not focus on our breathing or our body or how we feel necessarily, and let's actually try to go deeper into our subconscious, um, and calm our mind to the point to where we're almost dreamy. It's a dreamlike state when you transcend, if you will, and you're literally in this like place of calm and quiet and you've calmed your brain to the point to where you don't have worries or stresses or distractions and you're just resting your mind. M and when you reach that point, it's not easy to reach. That's why you have to go through the training. But once you reach that point and you teach yourself how to get to that point, oh man, it changes everything, Everything. It literally will allow you to take on the stresses of the world as they come and be okay with it. Because, you know, hey, for two 20 minute periods of the day today they're not going to be in my head because I know how to get them out and that's refreshing.

Speaker A: And I also think that uh, you know, for, for those listening who spend any amount of time on social media or Netflix, uh, I think, yeah, we there you probably have those two 20 minute blocks hidden, hidden in your day somewhere that you could find. Where did you do the training for that?

Speaker C: Um, so there's a transcendental meditation center. Uh, typically in, in most, you know, cities there's someone in town who trains or there's a nearby community. I'll guarantee you for you in Nashville there's probably two or three places you can go. They may even have a tm, um, not really a temple, it's more just like a center. Um, and uh, I went to the one in Lexington, Kentucky which is about an hour from where I live. Uh, but I was working there at the time so I was able to, to you know, make it easy to go by and do the training. I think the training was, I uh, want to say it was like three ah, or four hours, two days and then maybe one other weekend thing for sort of the ceremonial, okay, now you can go forth and meditate. Um, so it's not a whole lot of time. Um, and the cost will vary. I mean, generally your TM is going to be between 700 and $1,000 to do the training, but it's a one time cost and then you're welcome into the community. You get an app that you can use and so on and so forth.

Speaker A: Oh, that's cool. Yeah, I've seen David lynch has been, uh, promoting it quite a lot and, and I'm a big David lynch fan.

Speaker C: So, yeah, there's a, there's a lot of people out there who do, uh, tm. One of the first ones that I, I ran, uh, across was, um, you know, Rivers Cuomo from Weezer. Um, and he claims, or I've heard him claim on interviews, that he'll meditate for two, three hours a day, um, just because it's so relaxing and clears his head out. So, so, yeah, that's good stuff.

Speaker A: That's great. If you had a billboard, what would it say?

Speaker C: Oh, Lord, uh, wow, that's a really good one. I think if I had a billboard, it would say, um, you know, relax and have a drink.

Speaker A: You know, I like.

Speaker C: Let's, let's sit down and have a conversation. I enjoy that more than anything else.

Speaker A: Yeah, I love it. I love it. Jason, this has been so much fun. Where can people listen to your podcast first of all, and, and find out more about your work and, and get in touch with you?

Speaker D: Sure.

Speaker C: So winfluence pod.com is the easy place to get to Winfluence, the influence marketing podcast. Also host a podcast for Cipio called the Rise, which you can find at Cipio AI. We've got a resources tab there with our podcast on it. And of course CPIO is where you can find all that influencer marketing software and UGC stuff. And then my website is Jason Falls.com, so I've got a bunch of other stuff there and I'm really easy to find. I'm, um, Jason Falls on all the social networks. There's a like, uh, named politician in North Carolina who doesn't like me very much at all. And that's okay.

Speaker A: Yeah, that's okay. You could sell it. You'll be, you'll be a millionaire.

Speaker C: Exactly right. If I ever retire, I'll call him up and say, okay, how much you want for all this stuff?

Speaker A: Exactly. Exactly. All right, buddy, well, this has been a pleasure. Thanks so much. And, uh, yeah, we'll talk soon.

Speaker D: All right.

Speaker A: Hey, thanks so much for listening to the show today. Would you do me a favor leave a review. The reviews help others discover the show and they mean a lot to me, so I would appreciate that. Did you know I am often hired as a keynote speaker for company retreats or for conferences? To find out more about that, you can visit davedelaneyspeaks.com music by Alistair Crystal at AlistairCrystal CA. We'll see you next time. And be nice.

Speaker E: So many times I felt it coming up but when you look at me you melt all suspicion destroyed everywhere thought of feeling been appealing to believe it can be true But I'm sorry mind it's all eyes and I'm through yeah I'm through Whoa I'm through what I feel about you. Mhm.

Speaker C: You may know you're listening to this show along the Marketing Podcast Network, but did you know there are other great shows on MPN to help your business? Heather E. Hosts an amazing show called your Radiant Spirit. Heather, tell listeners about the show.

Speaker F: What if the colors you're drawn to, the creative urges you ignore, and the quiet, intuitive hits you brush off are actually trying to tell you something? Your Radiant Spirit is the podcast that helps you listen and live with greater clarity and purpose.

Speaker A: Purpose.

Speaker C: And where can people subscribe?

Speaker F: You can find and subscribe@heatherech.com your Radiantspirit on marketingpodcast.net or search for it wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker C: You heard her go subscribe.