2027 – Mastering Social Media: Build Community Through Engaging Content with Jerry Potter

0:05Hey there, thoughtful listener. Are you looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, influencers, influencers, and clients? Well, I've had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from. I've got a free video you can watch with no opt-in required where I'll share the exact steps necessary to be 100 % inbound in your industry over the next six to eight months with no spam, no ads, and no sales. What I teach has worked for me for over 15 years and has helped me create eight figures in revenue for my own companies. Just head to upmyinfluence.com and watch my free class on how to create endless high-ticket sales appointments.

0:51Also, don't forget, the thoughtful entrepreneur is always looking for great guests. Go to upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. I'd love to have you.

1:05With us right now, it's social media speaker and coach. It's Jerry Potter. Jerry, you're found on the web at mrjerrypotter.com. Jerry, it's great to have you. Josh, thank you so much for including me in the show. Absolutely. By the way, you're also a podcast host. I'll let maybe you kind of share a little bit about that and all of the work that you do. Would you mind just kind of sharing a little bit about the impact you have in the world and who you serve? Yeah, well, I am currently obsessed with helping online business owners run their business in half the time so that they can be done by lunch and move on to other things that give them purpose, whether that's volunteering, time with the kids, focusing on their health, whatever it might be.

1:50And so we do that with a lot of different things. But my main background is in content and content marketing. I was a professional radio personality for over 20 years. Then I got into the social media space for the last nine to 10. And then now it's all kind of come together. But I just love that the playing field is now even for people who want to reach new people. Once upon a time, you had to have a huge broadcast tower or a TV network or anything. And anyone can now build an audience online and serve them through it and help people anywhere in the world. Yeah. Well, here we are recording this.

2:27We're just kind of getting into the second half of 2024. What are the big headlines as someone who obsesses over social media trends and so forth to our friends that are listening? A lot of SMB founders, you know, they've got someone that's probably helping out with social media. They're probably doing about the best they can with what they know. Jerry, can you kind of school us on a bit of a state of the union for social right now? Sure. The biggest thing with social media is that for the first time ever, we can really reach new people consistently that don't know who we are. The big problem with social media marketing for so many years was unless you were going to spend potentially thousands of dollars in the confusing world of paid ads, you were just kind of stuck with who you were and maybe you got to share here and there.

3:15But Gary Vee calls this the TikTokification of social media, where now all the platforms have this content that they'll show to people who don't follow you yet. And it's generally short form video. So Facebook and Instagram Reels, YouTube Shorts, and then of course, TikTok videos. So that's the opportunity to reach new people, which is beautiful. But then we still have to kind of nurture them around. And so what I find that a lot of people are kind of, there's this gap between getting discovered like, oh, I got all this reach on my Reels, but nobody buys. And then on the other end, we have these clients who love us and we can't figure out how to close the middle.

3:53And so I think, you know, the big headline right now is we can still reach new people through these short form videos. And it's coming to LinkedIn too. I know you have a lot of people active on LinkedIn. I've been refreshing my app almost every day, like give me this new videos tab. Cause I just keep hearing about it from other people. And the beauty is we can still reach new people. We can still convert people on the end. And then I think the big opportunity right now is just to have a, we need some stuff in the middle to move somebody from a 15 to 30 second video to wanting to be, as I, as I teach, I have a framework where we take people from discovery to enchanted to being enchanted with you.

4:28And when somebody's enchanted with you, you know, if you've ever said, Oh, I'm going to buy from them someday, or I'm going to join their program someday. That's, that's where we want to get people. So what are those steps then for getting someone off social media? I mean, cause if they're, you know, they're browsing on Facebook or Instagram, they're watching stories or whatever. Why would they go off platform? This that's a great question, because a lot of the times people try and I think make the you know, if you imagine this massive canyon between getting discovered and then having your people who love you, people try and leap across the whole canyon in one swoop, you know, so it's like, yeah, I made a reel and I told people to come buy my thing.

5:08And it's too big of a jump. I've heard you say in some episodes of this show, you know, you can't turn around and sell a$10 ,000 coaching program at the end of a free podcast episode. And so, so we have to fill that. And I, what I have is this framework I created to make it simpler called the date framework, D-A-T-E. So discovery is when somebody first finds out who you are, right? They just, they didn't know who you were before. Great. They don't know a lot about us at this point. They don't know us. They don't like us. They don't trust us. There's none of that's there. So we can't ask them to take that step yet.

5:38The second letter in date A is for acquaintance. And I always think of acquaintances like that person that you like for me as a parent that I see at school pickup, I'm waving across the parking lot. I'm like, Hey, Bill, Will, who I don't know, you know, is in real estate, I think I don't know, you know, we don't, they don't fully know us, they just kind of know us. Well, the T and date is talking. And this is when it gets good. And this is where somebody is starting to actually engage with you. And it could be actual engagement, like having a conversation, talking in the DMs, joining your email list.

6:14Or like I saw my wife doing a few minutes. I didn't know she did this until today, but she was watching a YouTube video, a tutorial, and she was going, uh-huh, uh-huh, yeah. So sometimes they're just engaging with our content and they're responding in their own head or sometimes out loud. But this is the point where now they're ready to kind of take that next step. They're looking at your solution. They know what you do, all of those kinds of things. And then from there, we move somebody to the E and date, which I refer to as enchanted. And once somebody is enchanted, they're basically ready to, you know, take that next step, whatever it may be.

6:47They've kind of said, yeah, I'm going to buy this. It's just not time yet. Or I'm not ready yet or whatever it might be. Sometimes they're waiting for a discount, a deadline, different things like that. So we have to take people through that. You can do it all on social media, but it's a lot of work. So for most people, I say, I use social media for discovery and acquaintance and then try and move them somewhere higher leverage. For me, it's my email list. So I'm always trying to get people to my email list because now I've got campaigns that I don't have to think about, which is great. Podcasts are great for nurturing people.

7:23If you can move somebody to your podcast, I mean, I don't know about you, I've heard a guest on a podcast I've never heard of. And by the end, I've ordered their book. Yes. And when that happens, I've gone through the entire date in one podcast episode. So we just have to, we have to move them forward to something that doesn't require us going back and forth to really make it high leverage because there are people that run their whole business on Instagram with reels and shorts and, or sorry, reels and stories and feed posts and DMs. But, oh, it just sounds exhausting. So I encourage people for talking in Enchanted, find something higher leverage, a webinar, a masterclass, whatever it might be.

8:00What is it about the direct approach that you, because I agree with you, but I'll let you put this in your own words. The other approach, you know, kind of this spray and pray approach in the deeps, why does that strike you as exhausting? Simply because I can't move on to anything else. if like, I think the main reason for this, you know, when I work with people on streamlining their business and trying to run it in less time, we can't take that step until we've sort of streamlined our lead generation and it's consistent, right? I have a YouTube channel that brings me leads every week enough to run my business.

8:41So I don't have to, you know, I can take afternoons off, you know, to use the done by lunch idea because I don't have to go, okay, now I got to do more outreach. Now I got to do more of this. Now I got to do more of that. And so I think, um, Um, if you don't have that in place, it's really hard to ever feel like you're done. I had a lot of anxiety in college because I would, until the final exam was done, I just felt like I have to keep studying, I have to keep studying, I have to keep studying because when is enough, you know, and now it's the same way I think in business. If we don't have some of that stuff that we know is doing the work for us, it's hard for us to, okay, go on and enjoy the rest of our life.

9:19Yeah. Tell me about, I mean, you've got a huge following on YouTube, well over 100 ,000, 150 ,000, over 150 ,000 subscribers, over 400 videos. Jerry, what do you like about YouTube today? me? YouTube is, I mean, if all the platforms went away, I would hold on to that one. If I had to pick one, even if I didn't, even if I was starting from scratch, um, YouTube is a beautiful, um, bridge between getting discovered by new people, but also being able to nurture your current people. YouTube content lives on for a long time. You know, YouTube and podcasts, I feel like are the, the, the two mediums that you can get new listeners and viewers for years and years to come.

10:04I look at YouTube as like, once you get it working, you can't shut it off. Like unless I went, you know, if I stopped posting videos tomorrow, I would probably still make money from YouTube for years to come unless I went in and deleted the channel or something like that. So it's hard to get going that first little bit. Yeah. And I think that's why so many people quit. But for me, it took me six months to get to a hundred subscribers and five of them were probably fake Gmail accounts I created at least. But then a month later, it was a thousand and a year later it was 10 ,000. Yes. And so if you're serving people and another thing I love about my business is I'm still able to put out 95 % of what I do for free, you know, and a lot of it is on YouTube.

10:46If you're serving people and they are, they need what you have, you know, over time, you can reach these people. And it's just there's no better platform for that. Yeah. And, you know, I what I'd love to talk about is maybe some tips or tricks or what you'd recommend in terms of streamlining our work, right? So to a founder that's listening, and they're saying, Jerry, I just don't have the time for this. I don't know what to talk about on know how to crank it out. I don't know how to delegate. I don't know what goes where. Can maybe give us a couple of high level signposts to let us know that we're maybe doing the right thing?

11:28Yeah, absolutely. So whenever I sit down with somebody and we kind of do an audit of everything that they're doing, the first thing that we have to do with this, and it's the fastest way to cut your workload when it comes to social media and content marketing, is just pick one platform. And I know we don't want to build our entire world on one platform. So you still want to move them to an email list, but everyone comes in and we tend to look at social media as like, it's free. Why wouldn't I use it? But I always remind people, well, standing on the side of the road with a sign is also a free way to market your business.

12:02And if you're not doing that, then you don't need to be on all the social media platforms. So that really is one of the first things is just pick one platform and really go all in on it. And then the second thing, and this is true for all content marketing, whether you're creating, you know, if it's one of our podcast design consultants or YouTube channel or whatever, decide what your most important objective is going to be in the beginning. Social media lures us into this idea that whatever stats they put in front of us are the most important one. So that, so we look at it, we go, Oh, I only got, you know, 17 subscribers.

12:36We've only got 20 views. I got my first client from my YouTube channel when I had 17 subscribers and I wasn't soliciting. It was actually a hobby and someone put in the comments, Hey, do you do consulting? I was kind of like, sure. Yes. Yes, I do. So we really, when we focus on, you know, one network and focus on the things that are important, you know, you know, when the things you focus on and the things you measure are the ones that are going to improve that alone makes a massive, massive difference. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, I have a, and I, I know this probably is just going to be a, it depends kind of answer.

13:12Um, I don't, and I have a personal Facebook. I don't like selling there. Like I don't even like self-promoting. I definitely don't like pitching like, and to me, like I see some people that are just kind of slogging out the pitches every day. And it's really icky for me. Like what, what do you use? And again, it's probably, it depends based on who you're talking with. My clients aren't really in my Facebook feed, you know, with, and so for me, I see, and maybe this is related to what you were talking about anyway, but to me, it's like social to me is just about relationship build, relationship build, relationship build, relationship build.

13:57I go really, really light on business content, particularly for me for Facebook and Instagram. Twitter, I don't care. Twitter to me is pretty much like if I get anything out of it, cool. If I don't, whatever. I've kind of given up. Anyway, those are my opinions. LinkedIn is solid. I mean, but as I've kind of shared with you who our audience is and kind of who we work with, it probably makes sense. But to me, like Facebook just feels like it's just like a wild cross section of people you'd have like in your neighborhood. So that to me just feels, it just feels weird, you know, that you're pitching and selling at your neighbors all the time.

14:41It just feels kind of, you know, and again, if you're early stage entrepreneur, cool, wonderful. I'm sorry, I'm just, I'm just, I'm just going on. I have a solution for you. Yeah, please. I mean, I'll tell you, this is something that works really well on Facebook, and people should probably do it more on LinkedIn. The number one posts that people generally put up on Facebook, with the exception of people pranking their spouse and things that go viral, but the number one type of content on Facebook, and in a sense in all the platforms, are celebratory posts. So the best example of this is if you are browsing your Facebook feed, your personal Facebook feed.

15:19And all of a sudden somebody pops up and you're like, who is that? Like, when did I become friends with them? Or, oh my gosh, I haven't, I didn't know they were still alive. I haven't seen them in 10 years or whatever it might be. You became Facebook friends with them at some point. And now they've gotten married. They've gotten engaged. They've had a baby. They've got some new dream job, like something exciting happened. And so Facebook showed it to their immediate friends and family and they all went, oh my God, this is amazing. So then they showed it to more of their followers, more of their followers.

15:45And then eventually it got to me, Jerry, who forgot who this guy was that I, you know, Facebook friended 10 years ago. So that's the power of a celebratory post. So when you are posting about your business, when you post in a celebratory way, it includes the friends and the family, and it includes other potential people. So for example, when I'm running, I have a promotion I run called content camp. It's like a free five day challenge sometimes. And in it, you know, I'm, I got the dorky camping hat, the vest, like, you know, we go all in. But I don't go, hey, who wants to come to content camp?

16:21I say, wow, we just opened content camp yesterday and we've already got 100 people signed up. I can't wait to help these people figure out how to generate their content ideas, for example. And then people say, wow, that's really great. Oh, that's really cool. And it reaches new people who say, oh, that's wow. How do I sign up? I need help with content ideas. So when you do things in celebratory ways and always with humility, not look how awesome I am. Right. Thank you. But yeah, I'm so grateful that over 100 people have already signed up. I can't wait to help them reach the people they want to reach in their content marketing.

16:54So if you do that, you get the best of both worlds. You are seeding in the things that you do that could be paid offers. And I don't think enough people do this on LinkedIn. I think sometimes on LinkedIn, we stay in this too serious of a lane. And I love seeing celebratory posts on LinkedIn. And every time I do, not just I got a new job, but other ones, every time I do, there's tons of engagement and it makes a massive, massive difference. So it's just a nice hybrid that works really well. Yeah. Your website, mrjerrypotter.com, Ms. M-R-J-E-R-R-Y, potter.com. Do our friend that's listening. Just click in the show notes, click on the app, click on the little information icon.

17:32You'll find a direct link. Jerry, when somebody goes to your website, and I know you've got resources here, what would you recommend they do? I would say that your best opportunities, if you want to just dive into some of what we do, you can certainly look for us on YouTube under Jerry Potter. Or if you want to go to the website, the main thing that we are helping entrepreneurs do right now is sort of, you know, you asked about the overwhelm of social media. The big opportunity right now, we believe, is that podcasts and specifically video podcasts are the new social media. Spotify, YouTube are now, you know, you can comment on podcasts, have polls, different things like that, but still get all the benefits of an audio podcast.

18:13And so we teach a method, too, that we used from when I was a radio personality on how to plan a podcast. It's different than what everybody else does because most podcasts fail, unfortunately. And so we have a free masterclass that you can take anytime and learn this approach. And the whole idea is to get off of the grueling social media content creation and create this one piece of content that becomes all of your content. Yeah. I'm sorry. Where was that? I don't know if it's on there right now, but I'll make sure it's on there before we come out. So there we go. Mr. Jerry Potter dot com. Look for the free masterclass.

18:50Wonderful. Jerry, it's been a great pleasure. Again, you speak on social media. You're the host, by the way, of a couple of podcasts. Do you mind just kind of restating where folks can listen to you if they enjoy podcasts where they can get more Jerry? Sure, yeah. I host the Social Media Marketing Talk Show for Social Media Examiner, which is all about the latest social media updates. And then I also have a podcast called The Six Ways, where every week I bring on another expert to share what's working for them. And the idea there is that the loudest people on the internet are saying, my way is the only way to do this, buy my program.

19:25And so in every episode, we share six different ways to do something, like six different ways to work less without losing income, six ways to run a challenge to grow your business, whatever it might be. So a lot of different topics there. And it's been a really fun experiment to do and destroy this idea that there's only one way to do thing because there's not. So many things work. Awesome. Jerry Potter, thank you for joining us. Yeah, thank you, Josh.

19:55Thanks for listening to the Thoughtful Entrepreneur Show. If you are a thoughtful business owner or professional who would like to be on this daily program, please visit upmyinfluence.com and click on podcast. We believe that every person has a message that can positively impact the world. We love our community who listens and shares our program every day. Together, we are empowering one another as thoughtful leaders. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this program, if you're looking for introductions to partners, investors, influencers, and clients, I have had private conversations with over 2 ,000 leaders asking them where their best business comes from.

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