Episode 2: Jeff Brown Talks Social Media in 2018 and Predictions for 2019 With Host Rob Cairns

Show Notes

This week I’m pleased and excited on the SDM interview show to talk to my good friend, Mr. Jeff Brown. Jeff is the CEO of alpha social media Inc, an organization that provides workplace education training for Nova Scotia businesses. Jeff has been done workplace education, social media training, WordPress, training, and more. Jeff and I collaborate on many other projects. And we thought today we would sit down and talk about social media when in 2018, and where we think it will go in 2019. So please join Jeff Brown and myself as we talk about social media in 2018, and where it’s going in 2019.

Rob

So we’re here with Jeff Brown. And Jeff is a social media trainer. And we’re gonna talk a little bit about social media, what happened in 2018, what’s going on in 2019? And we’re just gonna kind of do an informal chat just to say what’s going on. Hi, Jeff. Hey, Rob,

how you doing?

Jeff

Good today,

you were having a good day, just preparing for 2019. And what is ahead

Rob

you know, social media in 2018, we had a couple of funny things happen. We had on Facebook, we had all the election scandal with the Russians, we had all the changing rules on Facebook, which seem to be changing by the day lately, not just with how groups were how pages were how ads work, Twitter, we see issues on Twitter. And then we see some changes. You and I were talking offline about things like Tumblr and changes they’re making and a whole pile of other stuff. So what do you see was the biggest thing that happened in social media in 2018?

Jeff

The 2018, I think the biggest thing that was that happened, I would say was with Facebook, and all the breaches because it really showed people that their information was more vulnerable than they thought. Now, there’s still a lot of good things ahead. When you think about people starting to tune out, people starting to move away from their feeds as far as the day to day paying attention to it. That became a significant hurdle. And Facebook’s really has to work hard at trying to win these people back. Because if they’re not there, that has businesses, it’s going to be pretty hard to mark the people that are going to be looking at their Facebook accounts.

Rob

It’s really interesting, because I hear, you know, and we’re both in that space. And one of the things I read is, Facebook’s audience is declining amongst millennials, but Instagrams audience is increasing, or WhatsApp audience is increasing. And guess who owns WhatsApp and Instagram? Yes, exactly. So does it really matter at the end of the day?

Jeff

Well, that battle be decided by the people literally that are on Facebook. But it’s something that businesses are going to have to really pay attention to, because reading some articles here talking about, you know, where really is your audience. Because if your audience, the people that you do business with earning a certain social network, it doesn’t make sense for you to be there. And so and so when you think about what happened with Facebook, it just shows that all these networks are vulnerable. And I, I’m watching more and more a movement for some people to do more on Twitter, for instance, I just saw a CBC story on trends on Twitter, for 2018 was the biggest ones. And I didn’t see anything like that on Facebook at all. And we always have to be aware, I remember when I was younger, in my Wilder days. They used to have bars, where one month, there would be a massive crowd there. The next month, it would be a ghost town. People are fickle, and they’ll move to where they think the crowd is. And that’s one thing that social networks have to be aware of is that literally they may be doing great now, but they could become a ghost town if they don’t really live up to the expectations of the people there that are on those social networks. That becomes a challenge to work with. As a business as a digital marketer. As a person helping business we always have to be aware that there will be some Interesting things coming. But this is always in the background if the people don’t have the confidence, all our best strategies and tactics, what better hill of beans?

Rob

It’s so it’s so true. I mean, people are fickle. Businesses are fickle, like, for example, as a business, especially a small business, I think what business owners need to work out is what your demographics are. So I always use the example of Pinterest. When I’m talking demographics, you’ve heard me use this example before, and I say, Okay, if you’re a young woman with disposable income between 20 and 40, where are you going to be? Probably Pinterest, and I’ll tell you why. What people look for, is jewelry, cooking, lingerie, shoes, things like that. And believe it or not, that’s all the stuff that flourishes on Pinterest. So it’s all about knowing your market. And people say, Well, you know, is it really worth it? Well, what I’ll tell you is, if you’re marketing on Pinterest, your CPC or cost per click is this call is actually less than on Facebook on Google ads. So knowing your demographics is really important, because it’s a small business owner, you don’t have time to be everywhere, and you don’t have the money to hire somebody to be everywhere.

Jeff

Absolutely. When I’ve had some really great conversations on strategy around this, but also on the idea of doing some research ahead of time. Want to speak to that, Robert bet?

Rob

Yeah, I think in terms of doing research, I think what you have to do is kind of looked at where your your market is. So first of all, work out your target market, I’d say okay, where are these people hanging out? And I’ll give me an example of that. I’m not big, I have an Instagram account. And I’ve thrown a couple of videos lately up on Instagram, I don’t spend a lot of time on Instagram. And the reason is, from a business perspective, it doesn’t work well for me. So I just don’t do it. So do your research, know your target market, and then turn around and figure out what your advertising costs are, if you’re going to go into cost per click, or figure out what your people costs are? Because even if you’re doing free social media, you have to pay somebody or have somebody do that. What’s their hourly rate? What is it cost them to do the job, because that matters. And that factors into what I call social media budget for small business. So you need to figure that out, then you got to figure out where do I want to spend my time. So I’ll go back to my buddy who’s got a jewelry store, I use that as an argument. He spends very little time on Twitter, very little time, where he spends most of his time is on Instagram stories and Facebook business page. And he’s starting to spend some time on Pinterest for that exact reason. So he’s figured out what works for him. And then after you start running these campaigns, don’t look at the number of followers don’t look at the number. Don’t even look at the engagement numbers. Look at how many of those people convert to leads? And is it worth it? Because that is more important. You can have all the engagement in the world as a jewelry store as a how a DIY shop, but if it doesn’t convert to sales, or business, what’s the point?

Jeff

Yeah, and strategy is going to become very important in 2019. For the simple fact that, literally you need to know where people are looking, you need to put something shiny in front of them. And then you need to build a flow for them to follow through and measure all along the way. So that you know when they ring the bell at the end, so to speak. Very smart, and building your strategy will be important.

Rob

There’s there’s no question and I think that strategy will encompass more and more video, even on Facebook or Twitter, more and more pictures. So posts with pictures and video get more and more results. We’ve proven that we don’t want facebook facebook wise, actually increase all your stuff showing up higher in the timeline. And I have a good example of that. I’ve proven that in the last three months I’ve been I’ve been on a video terrorists, you know, so for that exact reason. And I bet that so I think that has more of an encompass. And part of the problem is the millennials and the younger generation doesn’t want to spend time reading two or 3000. Paid word blog posts, they’d rather look at a two minute video or a three minute video.

Jeff

Yeah, I think that’s becoming more and more a trend as people read less and unfortunately, that’s just the reality of it. They want to because they feel pressured that their time is is valued in the field rushed, and they need to, in their mind, get what they need to get as quick as possible so that they can move on to something else. And that is typically what we are dealing with as marketers.

Rob

No question. So going along that I actually think the biggest story of this year was one that I expected, but not so soon. And that’s the demise of Google Plus. We all know, several months ago, Google Plus got hacked. And they’ve basically announced by July of 2019, June or July, that it will be no longer exist. This is their second opportunity into the social media space. Google Buzz was the first one. Yes, anything they’ve created in house hasn’t done well. And II think they’ve purchased has done very well. For example, YouTube, was purchased at developed out of house at YouTube’s got better with some creation tools and things like that at Google and YouTube Live. But frankly, I think Google just needs to give up on the Facebook killer, I don’t think it’s their space, I don’t think they need to be in that space. And the other big site, that device The 2018 was stumble upon is no longer either. Well, and I think Tiger would kill stumble upon, again, where people move to was a site called Reddit, same type of site. And I think stumbled upon was just so yesterday’s news, if you know what I mean.

Jeff

Yeah, exactly. And as we’ve seen, over the years, things change. And business needs to embrace those changes and move with things that are actually working. And things that aren’t working are simply going to die out and fade away.

Rob

And sometimes it’s just somebody else taking it over. And a good example of that happening recently is flicker, the all mighty photo site that was a Yahoo property. So Yahoo was sold to Comcast in the States. And flicker, has now since been offloaded and sold to a company called smugmug. And for those who don’t know, smugmug is a high end photography site. So that’s a good marriage, except they’ve now gone to a freemium model. So to be viable, they’ve decided they need to start charging for their services. So it’s, it’s interesting to see where sites go, and why things change.

Jeff

Yeah, well, speaking of change, one of the things that I see, and you and I talked about it a bit, is Voice Search. Voice Search is going to be a game changer, in that, with all these Amazon echoes, these devices that you should be talking to, and it gives you information that is going to be a game changer in the digital marketing realm period. And where I see that going, and be able to talk to us a bit is that your website is going to be more important now than your social media, as it becomes the source that will bring back the information to these voice searches. Now, it’s not going to kill social media, but it’s going to because your website a lot of ways does better than most of anything on the internet period. We may even see websites that incorporate a social aspect to it coming very shortly, where they’ll move their people away from the what we consider the traditional social networks. And they’ll build a social neck network like environment, based on their websites, for instance.

Rob

No, I don’t disagree. And I can even see social networks being built around Voice Search. I mean, I could see that coming, personally, because people are on the go. And it’s easier to pick up the phone and talk into the phone. One of the reasons why I think audios become so big to in the last couple couple years. I mean, everything from podcasts to you name it. And I think the whole thing about social media is creating that community around it. So, you know, I think, you know, we’ve talked about one of the sites that I spent time on his LinkedIn. I think LinkedIn is kinda lost with its communities right now. There’s some really good connections on that. But LinkedIn, the standard seems to be Oh, I’ll connect with you. And by the way, the first message is here’s a list of my services contact me. Yeah. And I usually pushing on Connect button and say goodbye.

Jeff

Yeah, that turns people off really fast because they really, do they really care about you. Do they really care about your business and what’s their business building model? Is it simply get as many noes as possible to get to that, yes. Are they really building on building quality relationships that literally can lead to something or to a new network through there? Are they really building relationships? And I think, subsequent to voice search, you’re right building the community is going to be one of the most important things. And that’s when a local business, a smaller, smaller medium business can get a really one up on the bigger businesses, because they’re going to have an easier time to build community around them. That Corporation like Coca Cola, for instance, or Pepsi,

Rob

that no, no question and even more so is, if you look at, I like to use the example, you and I both know, a great lady by name like Kim Doyle on Facebook. And Kim has built this amazing content creators community. And it’s the only community I know where there’s no egos, no garbage, no crap. And I’ve talked about I use Kim’s committee as, as an example for a lot of people and say every other community, there seems to be egos. And for some reason that one does not. And that’s why the committee keeps growing and growing and growing.

Jeff

Yeah. And that’s absolutely critical for success, because we’re getting back to the time where we used to have corner stores in each corner of the block. And the corner store owner really focused on building relationships to help him grow his business, which meant that they had to know who the mom and dad were, they had to know, the kids what they did sports they played. And I’m not saying that all small medium, businesses need to dab in that deep. But he’s absolutely critical now that they understand who they are marketing to, and that it’s going to require more than just stuff want to buy a house kind of deal. They need to have some good social credibility in their community, and be a trusted business in that community.

Rob

Yeah, you know, it’s funny, I agree with it. And it’s funny, you know, I was reading another article and somebody said, is Twitter even relevant anymore? And I kept saying, all you have to do is look at US president, he seems to make Twitter relevant, whether we want to hear our dog or what he does or not. And, you know, and there was a guy in Toronto, who I know really well, really well, but I know through political circles guy named named Rocco Rossi, who’s head of the Chamber of Commerce in Ontario. And Rocco actually posted a tweet a couple of days on New Year’s Eve that was meant to be so terrible and funny. And the twitterverse took offense to it to the point he had issue an apology and removed the tweet. So anybody that says Twitter’s not relevant anymore, going in 2019, I think is missing the boat in a big way.

Jeff

It could be one network that I think could really benefit. If, for instance, like companies like Facebook, don’t take the community around them seriously, as far as protecting them. And really, there comes a point where they continue to whittle and whittle at the visibility of posts. on a regular basis, people are just going to say we’ve had enough. That’s where if they’re not careful, they have to literally make sure that they do what’s necessary to keep them happy, because I think Twitter is probably one network that people still have a hard time understanding. And it’s more I go the analogy, Facebook is the billboard everybody stands ready talks about, but Twitter is the telephone line. And it’s who you call who you interact with on Twitter that absolutely determines whether you get succeed on that network or not. And if you think about it, the the ability to directly communicate with some of the see if you really like authors, authors are limited, for instance, and what they can write simply because publications have limits, but imagine talking to an author in the stuff that he didn’t write. Imagine talking to people and having conversations with those people. That way you get the rest of the details. That’s the beauty of how Twitter can really impact it may not be a great global blasting tool. In a lot of cases for the average person that Donald Trump, he can put something on there and it goes everywhere. But you and I, we’ve got to work hard at building a small loyal community around there that people that will support us people will refer our business people that Well, you know, share our stuff. This is where I see social media going is making better connections this year, deeper and more meaningful connections. Because the days of putting something on a social network and hoping that it’s going to go, boom, those days, I think are pretty much gone.

20:22

So I agree with you in terms of in terms of that. And I also think, you know, Twitter is still the place to go for disasters, it’s still the place to go for current news, it’s still the place to go when you need something in a hurry. It’s still and you and I talked about the Search Engine Journal released a article recently that said Twitter was one of the top alternative search engines, so it still matches for search. And frankly, without Twitter, we wouldn’t have hashtags on Facebook and Instagram.

Rob

Absolutely. It’s a great place for you to if you want to improve your social media, it’s a great place to practice and post a lot, learn from your posting work, learning how to write headlines that actually crave interest, because you’re not going to get penalized for over posting on Twitter.

21:10

No, you’re not. So where else do you see 2019 going in social media?

Jeff

I see. I see social media. As far as really being focused, I see. Keywords becoming more and more important. And what I mean by that is, if if people are searching, then you have to be prepared to show up in the right searches with the right content in a way that you can maximize once you get there. And I see conversations or I’ve always been an advocate, post better, and drop the frequency but post better and create more meaningful posts that people literally will stop. And it will solve a problem or provide a moment of levity, for instance, in someone’s day. And so excuse me, being more decisive, more impactful with the posts that you posted there and put better content on there.

Rob

I would agree. And I would think one of the things I see happening is, I think, you know, interesting enough, I think Snapchat has got, for example, it’s got some challenges, I think you’re gonna see a decline there. I really do. I think Instagram is just growing by days and droves. And one of the thing that’s driving Instagram is Instagram stories and Instagram TV right now, if you look at that landscape, YouTube’s getting a little better with the live YouTube Live Video integration. So that’s driving that video is kind of where it’s at. So YouTube was growing by the day. Facebook, I think has some challenges between the political messages, the app messages and everything else, depending on who you talk to. There’s a community or two ticked off at the organizer for Facebook almost on a daily basis. But nobody’s going anywhere yet. Because there’s still a billion users on Facebook. So you got to remember that people like to grumble but they don’t like to act. And that’s kind of I don’t see a big network killer coming out next year. I don’t see it happening. What I see happening is some more niche networks.

Jeff

Yeah. Yep. And people collectively agreeing to be part of one network as opposed to spread out.

Rob

Yeah, it’s so true. And I think what people need to be really careful of, especially for a content creator is not to put same content out on every network, customize it for the network that’s going on. So for example, I do Facebook Lives almost on a daily basis during the week after a minute, two minutes. Generally, as a rule, I don’t post those on my blog, even though I can embed I did with some of the Gutenberg stuff. But as a rule, I tend not to. And the reason is, I don’t want to send content all over the place. Because if the same contents everywhere, why does the person who follows me on facebook need to follow me on twitter need to read?

Jeff

Absolutely, absolutely. And that’s the mistake that a lot of people make is that they take one post and put it everywhere. And there’s no reason for the visitor to go to all those different sites. That’s where you have to learn to customize something from one network and then customize something else for another network. Now, it takes a lot more time to make these things for these networks. But if you post less, but you post better content, and you get them in front of people, you should do better.

Rob

That no no question or repurpose your content. For example. If you posted the video on Facebook, maybe take it take the audio from that video and create an audio recording of repurpose it that way. And then you give people the option. Maybe they want to listen to that video, if it’s suited for video as an audio on a smartphone while they’re running around jogging. Yeah, then he gives those options, right. And that’s really important too.

Jeff

And I suspect, just like you and I are doing creating strategic partnerships to create content that’s going to be relevant for listeners. Yeah,

Rob

I would agree. I mean, I’ve, I’ve got more requests than for me to do podcast interviews in the next six months, and I’ve had in a long time, more and more people are jumping into different realms. And part of it is people are tired of just reading texts, they actually want to read, excuse me, the, they want to listen to stuff or they want to watch stuff. And I think that that whole model is changing. And, and that’s an issue too, right? So

Jeff

Well, let me just throw in something funny here. I was direct messaging on Twitter, a friend of mine. And I was asking him, my question was how do you perceive the health of the industry as a whole, the digital marketing, his comment was filled with people half assing, and pretending it’s going to need some changes. And so we still see that that there is a different level of marketing business in different locations. And knowing what you need, and what you can expect, especially in the new year, when the game is going to be any up to a higher level, where in order to get in front of people, you’re going to have to have really smart people working with you to advise you and help you with your social media strategy, your digital marketing strategy, if you want to call it that way. Because it’s, it’s not hard as a business to spend money. But it’s hard to spend money wisely. I agree why finding people that really know their stuff, and that can give you wisdom and help you with develop a really good strategy for your business is going to be key for 2019. No, I

Rob

100% agree with you, Jeff, I think I think things aren’t gonna change as much as people think. And but where I think it’s changing is we’re getting back into this whole digital marketing thing where, you know, and this is where digital marketing social media kind of cross pass, as far as I’m concerned is people are doing more on relationships instead of the old way. So like, what I was talking about earlier, with LinkedIn, the shove, shove, shove, method doesn’t work anymore. You know, people like the human touch, people like things like, for example, you know, I reached out even though I was away yesterday, I and you noticed, I sent out a whole pile of New Year’s greetings. Now, let’s be fair, with the exception of a few, including yours. Most of those were written a week ahead ago. But the point was, I did do that. A lot of marketers don’t do that a lot of marketers don’t reach out to past clients and wish them the Happy birthday. I do stuff like that. So I think the human touch, even in social media is more and more important by the day.

Jeff

Absolutely, because it’s still your business, one of the basic principles that do work should be used over and again, and that’s where your best new customer is a customer that has done business with you already, you’re going to spend less money to get them back in the system again. And so a simple, even an old style, send a card to someone or an email or just wishing them a happy birthday and have a super day things like that, you think, take very little to actually do really matter nowadays. Because people want to know that you care and you’re thinking about them, and you’re investing in them,

Rob

or something I do with you off from where as you know, I’m a bit of an educational junkie, I’ll take stuff I’ve saved up and throw down USB key and I’ll drop it in the mail or going back to the it’s true though.

Rob

No, but that but I see the cards like I’m not gonna throw a shout out because I read a really cool book called The power of human connection by Cody Bateman, Cody Sachi, the founder of a company called sendoutcards. And it makes sending out cards so easy, you can take your subscription and send out carts and you can take a picture of the smartphone and just send out a card and and it’s really cool way of keeping in touch and so ever so I can add that, at the end, you can check out shameless plug the interview I did with Matt trap on on the book. So you know, I think human interaction is important. I mean, you and I are a good example. We met on social media and we talked probably four or five times a week bouncing ideas off switch. Absolutely.

Jeff

Absolutely. The it just literally I just know when you’re gonna call. Yeah, it’s it’s not always about the business.

Rob

Oh, no, it’s sometimes it’s about how’s your family, how’s this, how’s that? Happy New Year, you know what’s going on and half the time, we don’t need to talk about the business. And that’s the interesting thing. So I think people need to take social media put the human touch back in, let’s get away from all the automated garbage and the noise. And, you know, take some time I, I saw a couple people come up at my feet today I had talked to in a while, and I kinda wish them a happy new year, and I took the time and message them and said, You know, I’m thinking about you kind of thing. So that’s,

Jeff

that’s really important, too. You can never underestimate how important that one touch could be someone or I mean, it could literally be thing that encourages them that moves them on, that really is a little bright spot in their day. And as business we are not, should not solely be focused on making money. Yeah, so to be creating some social good, we should be giving back to the community. That’s one of the the pillars of my business, it’s not all about me.

Rob

Now, I know, it can always be about you. And I think, you know, sometimes you have to give back. You and I both you’ve been involved with Crimestoppers countless times, and on social media doing some cool stuff. And you know, I’ve been involved in a couple of community websites. And the problem you got to be so careful, though, is when you give back so much, sometimes people expect you to keep giving and they forget you’ve actually got a business to run, then that’s the ratio. All that

Jeff

is is but it’s nice to be able to give when you want to

Rob

know question are you know, how do you have one good tip for people in 2019? What are the what to do with their social media?

Jeff

The one tip that I always say is that take your social, one individual on person that, you know, they’ll help you grow your business and get to know them offline. And so build, find that person that we can create a win win, it’s good for you, it’s good for them. Because there are business owners out there looking to mentor people in business. And it’s about finding those people, it’s about creating something that literally will help you to grow your business. And so it starts with you finding that individual, and then building with that individual and then taking the scary path as they typically do stuff that scares the living daylights out of you, that you know, will grow your business. So it’s as good as it is to be online. Your Online should always be a lead to something offline, where literally, you’re building something of value. And you and I are a classic example where we literally met on Twitter, we went to Skype, and I met you in Toronto face to face. And now my phone is not stopped ringing. But we’ve grown together.

Rob

And that’s why neither but we grow together and you build it together. You kind of You got it. The hardest part about working from home is surrounding yourself by people and getting that social interaction.

Jeff

Yeah. And you and I deal with a lot of business owners. And the thing I would say too, is is simply that find someone that can help you and encourage you this year on social media that you can potentially connect with. hate to use the word in real life because social media still is in real life.

Rob

I hate that term. Offline is a better term for

Jeff

Yeah, exactly offline, and build something of value this year that stretches you and your business and stretches the person you’re connecting with.

Rob

Yeah. I’ll take that one further. I mean, even kind of if you’re into social media, go to a site like meetup dot com and find some networking groups in your area and use meetup through your social media community and move it off by going into this year, I think what people need to realize is kind of to put the human element back into people and show little empathy. And my whole theory was social media. If you want to make your business known, help some people out. So if you see somebody who’s got a problem on Twitter or Facebook, send them a message and say, I’d like to help you. And and then say, you know, how I’d like to help you and don’t have a hidden, don’t have a hidden agenda, like help them? Not. I want to help you. And by the way, I want to charge you 20 bucks to help you. No, no, no, no, to help them solve their problem. Because you know, what, if you help enough people, you’re gonna get what you want, sooner or later. It’s just a question on wind. So I’m a big believer that put the human gentleman help some people out. Don’t be afraid to answer some questions. I mean, you know, somebody said to me recently, you give away tips every day Minute Tips. And, and do they work? And I sit? Yeah, they do work, because I help people. And, and those Minute Tips cause Well, they cost visibility, but they also create a relationship. And people. You know, I had a comment on a Facebook video I did two years ago, I had a comment on a Facebook video on how to install the classic editor and Aveda YouTubes and social media to be denied for people come to me this week and say, that really helped me out of the job. Thank you. And then and then they kind of you know, and then they start watching and the community grows. So help people grow your community, and you’ll be much better off for.

Jeff

Yeah, because when you think about it, you’re helping small businesses and they really are the backbone of a lot of the economy. I mean, business, big business comes in, and they can come out just as easy but to small businesses that really stay thrive, and really bear the weight of a lot of this of the of the taxes for instance. And so helping them really helps the economy and helps the area.

Rob

Yes, thanks for your time today. If somebody wants to get a hold, do how is the best way right these days? Besides what 900 Jeff? Yeah,

Jeff

they can get me at Jay brown at alpha social media. inc.com. That’s my email. That’s Jay brown at alpha al pH a social media, I nc inc.com. They can reach me there. And that’s usually my fastest way of getting back to people because as you know, I’m a trainer. I find myself in rooms locked in for about three to four hours where I can’t really answer phone call. But every now and then I can sneak take a look at my email. And if it’s a quick enough question, I can get back to them as fast

Rob

as possible. Thanks for your time, Jeff and have a happy new year and 2019 looks to be a good year for social media.

Jeff

It’s going to be exciting and full of opportunity despite all the drawbacks. Thank you.

38:17

Thank you for joining this week’s SDM interview show. Please join us every Thursday for the weekly SDM interview show as posted on stunning digital marketing comm if you need any digital marketing needs, please contact us via our contact page at stunning digital marketing.com or on Twitter. Tweet at our CEO at Rob Cairns are on Facebook facebook.com slash stunning digital marketing. We’d be glad to help you sit down and help you with your digital marketing project. Have a great week everybody. Bye for now.