Latest / Mortgage Marketing Radio / How to Build Influence in Today's Digital World

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How to Build Influence in Today's Digital World · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
0:11
With so many mortgage loan originators vying for the attention of real estate agents, it
0:15
can be difficult to stand out and establish meaningful connections.
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
0:31
And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
0:34
with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
0:39
To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
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of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
1:03
Hey, thank you so much for having me.
1:13
It is a pleasure.
1:14
So Neil, I have to ask you coming out of the gate about your brand new book, which we're
1:18
going to give people links to in the show notes.
1:20
Your most recent book, The Age of Influence, the power of influencers to elevate your brand.
1:27
So that word influencers gets thrown around a lot.
1:32
And for us in the mortgage and real estate space, can we really benefit from quote influencer
1:39
marketing?
1:40
Why don't we start with what does that really mean?
1:42
Yeah, you know, it's funny.
1:44
I sort of redefine what digital influence means in the book.
1:47
But if we take a step back, I've seen influence, I mean, before social media, we had influence,
1:52
right?
1:53
You had celebrities do TV commercials and now you have, if you have kids, they're tuning
1:58
into people that probably we've never heard of, you know, on YouTube and Instagram.
2:01
So definitely, you know, the concept of influence has changed.
2:05
But for instance, when I do social selling trainings with insurance sales professionals,
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they talk about centers of influence, probably something that in your industry talk about
2:13
as well.
2:14
And these are influencers.
2:16
Now, do they have digital influence or not as another, you know, question?
2:20
But digitally speaking, there are people that have bigger communities that have more
2:24
mind share than others.
2:25
And these are people that we can tap into for partnerships, collaborations, and the more
2:31
influential we become, the more mind share we gain with our community if we do it, right?
2:36
And therefore, you know, with coronavirus today, it's hard to meet people in person, obviously.
2:42
And digitally, the only way to meet people is through search email or social, right?
2:46
So searches your website, obviously, your content, email, hopefully you're all doing that.
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But social is something that is really hard to get hurt and even for big companies.
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So, you know, leveraging the power of other people in your community that have influence
2:59
to me as a no-brainer.
3:01
Hmm.
3:03
So let's bring that for the context of the listeners, right?
3:05
Because I always like to get right to the, you know, the listeners and how can we ultimately
3:09
serve them?
3:10
We talk both strategy and tactics, but tactically, centers of influence, yes, we do use that
3:15
term in the real estate mortgage space, also, you know, sphere of influence, same thing.
3:21
You know, but still, I'm stuck on this for a moment because most people here like influence
3:25
are marketing, right?
3:26
And they think, oh, that's not for me.
3:27
That's for the big Instagram guru or the YouTube guru, right?
3:31
So how can we pivot this discussion to make sure we set up the context out of the gate,
3:36
the right way?
3:37
For those thinking that, well, that's not me, I'm a practitioner of real estate or mortgage.
3:42
So here's the thing, even in that influencer marketing industry, they have different
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tiers of people with influence and everybody immediately thinks of celebrities.
3:51
But now we have what's called micro influencers that have a minimum of 10,000 followers and
3:56
we have nano influencers that have a minimum of 1,000 followers.
3:59
You have people with 1,000 plus followers on Instagram that are worth that brand see
4:03
value and working together with.
4:05
Hmm.
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Maybe look around us like, huh, you know, I have 1,000 LinkedIn connections.
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I might have 1,000 followers on Instagram.
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You already have more influence than 90X percent of people out there without you're even
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realizing it.
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And maybe of all the partners that you work with in the industry, maybe some of them also
4:24
have a bit more influence than others.
4:26
And maybe we can consider collaborating online for something, right?
4:30
Doing like a joint Instagram live, for instance, doing shout outs to each other.
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I mean, tactically speaking, there are a lot of different things you can do.
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But I think it's recognizing that if we're going to play in social, that we want to be
4:43
strategic and we want to try to leverage the influence that other people might have in
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our community and see how we can work with them.
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We can go outside of the industry as well, right?
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There's no reason why if you're in the mortgage industry, you couldn't reach out to an
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influential local restaurant, for instance.
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And hey, you know, maybe I can sponsor a food giveaway, I don't know, I'm just thinking
5:02
out loud here, but there are a lot of things you can do to tap into, you know, local community
5:06
where you go above and beyond your industry in a more like lifestyle content.
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And I think that's where it gets really compelling where people follow you, not just because
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you talk about the mortgage or real estate industry, but because you talk about yourself.
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And you expose things about you that other people might be interested in listening to because
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you have a passion for something, right?
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And I think there's something a lot of people miss out on when it comes to social media.
5:28
The reason that influencers became influential is that they consistently created content
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around a niche.
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So if everybody listening was to take that same model, in addition, everything else they're
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doing, I think that they can begin to yield a little bit more influence.
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And if they collaborate with others that I've influenced, I think that's going to benefit
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them as well.
5:48
Yeah.
5:49
So you raise a couple of good points in there as I'm thinking about this and it's kind
5:52
of unfolding in my head on this as we discuss this further.
5:57
First of all, we're in a business that requires us to be known, number one in mortgage or real
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estate.
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We have or need to have a certain amount of influence to get chosen, right?
6:08
Because ultimately isn't that what leads, you know, the old cliche, no like and trust
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you, right?
6:12
That's what's going to get you to.
6:13
So first and foremost, I guess part of the game today, air quotes game, in becoming
6:20
known and getting attention, do those two things lead to being influential right out of
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the gate, do you think?
6:29
Be coming known?
6:30
Yeah, I mean, obviously, you know, when people tune into you, then you have mind share
6:37
and it leads indirectly to more people listening to you.
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So I guess, you know, it's not about getting a million followers, it's about that sphere
6:45
of influence and it's about showing up in the feed of your strategic partners or people
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in your community on a daily basis or on a weekly basis or with Instagram stories, even
6:56
you know, this could be linked in this could be Twitter, it's not just Instagram.
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But it's showing up where they're consuming content.
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And I think that's the main thing.
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They may not be ready to do business with you now, they may not have a deal for you now,
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but when they do, you want to be top of mind share and social media is the place where
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you can do that because you can be publishing daily and you can be in people's feeds daily,
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right?
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And that's where you begin to yield, you know, more influence, more mind share, especially
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with the people that follow you and that engage your content.
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You begin to become one of their primary influencers.
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Yeah, 100%.
7:28
Now, you raised a good point there in talking about being seen in the feeds.
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And so there's like a parallel audience, I think that we're looking to be seen in the
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feeds of as a mortgage professional.
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One of them is clients and consumers, obviously, but the other which you mentioned is partners,
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right?
7:50
Referral partners.
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And so in our case, it's largely real estate agents.
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It could be insurance, it could be financial planners as well.
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And that makes me think of, I'm trying to pull him up here on, yeah, Eric Braun on Instagram
8:03
who I had on the podcast a while back.
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And if you're listening, Eric shout out to you, man.
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So this guy in Instagram's got 13,000 followers and what he told me was that he leveraged Instagram
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to grow his influence and awareness amongst his local real estate agents, which led to conversations
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and deals.
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Hey, man, that's exactly it.
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Text book, right?
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Yeah.
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So that's why, you know, the concept of digital influence is applicable to anybody, right?
8:32
Anybody can try to do that.
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But nobody does because most people just stick to this old, I'm just going to publish business
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stuff that nobody engages with or they don't know.
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They don't engage with other people.
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They may call these people, but do you follow them on Instagram?
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Do you engage with their content?
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Do you comment?
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Right?
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Do you give them shout outs?
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And that's the real difference.
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And I think as we get younger, the demographic shifts in this country, you get younger and
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younger, you know, younger generations, I mean, that's their number one thing in social
8:59
obviously.
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So it becomes more and more important to have a presence.
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And if you're going to have a presence, you want to have as much influence in that presence
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as possible.
9:06
Yeah.
9:07
It's a great formula.
9:08
You first start with trying to befriend people that are more influential in your community
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and they don't have to have 100,000 followers, even if they have 1,000 followers that there
9:15
is value in building that relationship.
9:17
So first translate the offline online and begin there.
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There you go.
9:21
I love that.
9:22
Translates offline online.
9:23
Yeah.
9:24
Good point as well.
9:25
It's not about the number.
9:26
It's quantity over quality.
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And a lot of people get caught up on that, like even with me giving out Eric's numbers
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there, like 16,000 followers is pretty, or 13,000 is really sizable, I think for the
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niche that we're in.
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But here's the thing, right?
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I'm sure you've heard this before, this example of if 100 people saw your post, imagine you
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standing at the front of a room on stage and front of 100 people, it's virtually the
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same thing.
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Yeah.
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I mean, obviously, you know, we have to take a step back and say if we're, it's like listening
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to a podcast where you're listening intently for 30 minutes versus seeing an Instagram post
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in your feed, where you're not going to be spending 30 minutes in that post.
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So, you know, there is a difference, obviously.
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But we're spending so much time in social media, are you seen or are you not seen, right?
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So it's stacking it repeatedly over time?
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Yeah, it is, right?
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And becoming, it's that no like and trust of being trusted.
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And hey, when it's time to make a decision, I'm going to call that person because they're
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top of mind.
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And what it comes down to.
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Yeah.
10:29
So I think people in my industry, the two that we're dealing with here, right, real estate
10:33
mortgage again, not that I mentioned that enough times, it's like, where's the dollar
10:37
sound?
10:38
Every time I should say that.
10:39
To Ching.
10:40
But the point is this is the demographics older, the average age of real estate age is 57.
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The average age of a mortgage broker, law officer, whatever, it tends to trend higher
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as well.
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But there is an influx of newer, you know, younger people coming in.
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But again, you know, let me put this out there, right?
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I believe that your attention, your investment in time, should be where your target market
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is.
11:00
So just with that disclaimer up front, but let's face it to the point you alluded to
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is the younger generation.
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And the obvious thing we all know is that the millennials are the largest, you know, segment
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of home buyers ever to enter, right, the, you know, the buying pool that to your point,
11:20
to what your book talks about is.
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Do you think they would risk, they are responding or they do respond to more, quote, people
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being influential on social, is that what they're looking for?
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I guess what is one I'm asking?
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They're looking for people to relate to, right?
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I think more than anything.
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They don't care if you're influential or not, but they look at your content.
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And are you doing what they're looking for people to relate to?
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Yes.
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They really like them.
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Yeah.
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So, you know, if you're targeting an older demographic, there's Facebook, there's LinkedIn.
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I mean, there's all sorts of different social networks.
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Younger demographics are a little bit different.
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It's like, who are you, right?
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You know, do you even have an Instagram profile?
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When I see you, do you, do you show who you are as a person?
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And those are key things.
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And it's really, you know, it's about, you know, people in your industries are great
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at developing relationships.
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It's just doing that online.
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It's actually, you know, following and engaging with other people in your community and
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authentically commenting and really building friendships from there.
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And I think a lot of people that have become influencers in their early days, that's
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how they started, right?
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I mean, they were publishing consistently great content, but they were also engaging with
12:24
others, proactively reaching out to people to get noticed for who they are.
12:29
Hmm.
12:30
Interesting.
12:31
So, in terms of being influential and across most of the platforms now, you know, we've
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got video as a key part of types of content we can post.
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How important do you rank video for becoming influential?
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You know, I think that there are certain content mediums that perform well in the algorithm.
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And there's this pushback that I'm not even on social media or it's hard for me to just
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publish a photo.
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Why do I have to do video?
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So, I want to keep everything sort of in, you know, under control here.
13:04
You don't have to do videos the number one thing.
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And in fact, I don't think you should do video unless you do video.
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I mean, do you do normally video things, right?
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You have a GoPro.
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Did you have a flip camera back in the day?
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I don't know.
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I found one here today.
13:18
And here's the thing, because whatever you do, you got to be consistent with it.
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And it has to last.
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And if you're not passionate about it, I don't want you to do it because it's not going
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to last.
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It's going to be a one-off.
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So, you know, if photos is your thing, obviously Instagram, if speaking to your thing,
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podcasting is great.
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If videos you're thinking YouTube, whatever it is, you know, find what you're good at
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and do that.
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Because otherwise, it just doesn't last and it defeats the purpose.
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So you can become influential in any medium, right?
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Or in any social network.
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Yeah, but I think that's a good point is that's kind of what I say to people to start with
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the platform you're already on, you know, and engaging on.
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Hey, while we're going there, let's then talk about, I'm going to do a segue that I
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don't often go to, but I like where we're going with this.
14:04
Tick-tock.
14:05
Tick-tock.
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What's the age of a home buyer?
14:10
Exactly.
14:11
Nuffset.
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And, you know, I've been doing social media marketing for like a decade now, right?
14:17
So we've seen, you know, you've got to be on Google Plus or a couple of times we had
14:22
MySpace and Snap.
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So I see, you know, Tick-tock is the eating away at SnapChat.
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It's a very, very young demographic.
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There are older people on it, like there are older people on SnapChat.
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But I let the other fools rest of those platforms.
14:37
I'd stick with the tested and true platforms that still have way more people.
14:41
And it's, you know, if you're a dancer, Tick-tock is awesome.
14:44
If you like dancing to music, perfect.
14:47
I just don't know how much business benefit you're going to get.
14:49
Amen, brother.
14:50
Amen.
14:51
Where is the hold on?
14:52
There we go.
14:53
Thank you.
14:54
Thank you.
14:55
For the best, truest honest answer that's not a guru answer that says you have to be on
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X.
15:01
Yeah, and, you know, Jeff, I think after you remember, I mean, you know, we can say
15:05
all we like or don't like or how much influence social housing doesn't have.
15:08
But, you know, in your industry, there's only a few things you can do, especially with
15:11
coronavirus.
15:12
So this is, you know, if you want to have a digital first mentality, social has to be,
15:17
I mean, yeah, website, obviously, right?
15:21
Content, obviously, email, you know, hopefully.
15:24
But social is just one of those areas where there's just so much potential for that daily.
15:30
You can't email someone on a daily basis.
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But you can publish in a daily basis and hope that they see your content on a daily basis,
15:37
right?
15:38
And I think that's, you know, when you look at all your options and if you think about
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the concept of influence and collaborating with other influencers, what you build up
15:45
your own influence in the community, I think it begins to be compelling.
15:49
If you enjoy doing what you do as well on social, then it's a natural five, ten minutes
15:53
a day.
15:54
You don't have to spend an hour, two hours, three hours doing this, right?
15:56
Especially if you're not going to do, I mean, video takes a long time.
15:59
I'm even like doing video.
16:00
I mean, even carousel plus an Instagram, it's like, you know, I just want to put one photo
16:03
up there.
16:05
That's enough or a story.
16:06
So you don't have to go overboard on this and it shouldn't take you that long.
16:09
It went you get into a process in the system.
16:12
Hmm.
16:13
Yeah, that's a good point.
16:14
In turn, you have any recommendations on a process, right?
16:17
Because we're also time strapped.
16:19
Yeah, I think a process, I mean, it's going to be different for every social network.
16:23
But obviously, there's the content.
16:25
And what influencers do, which is religion, is they do photo shoots.
16:29
So they'll hire a photographer and they'll go around their locale or maybe, you know,
16:33
I live in Orange County in Irvine or hop at a real one, obviously, but maybe they'll
16:37
go down to Newport Beach or they'll go to Hollywood or Santa Monica or someplace iconic.
16:41
They'll bring a few different wardrobes and they'll just have pictures taken, right?
16:45
And those pictures will last them maybe three months.
16:49
So this is something anyone can do.
16:51
You can go to Craigslist, okay?
16:53
When I went to Tokyo on my last business trip, I found someone and Craigslist did this for
16:57
me.
16:58
And then on a business trip, I found someone on TripAdvisor that does this for me, right?
17:01
It's like a hundred, two hundred bucks and you have content for 90 days.
17:05
I mean, you say it does.
17:06
You mean take pics?
17:07
Is that what you mean photographer?
17:08
So I'm taking pics and then just send me the digital photos.
17:11
So now you have content.
17:12
You can't see you don't have photos to post, right?
17:14
Right.
17:15
But it could also be you because we're talking about the community of going around, you
17:19
know, locally, you know, taking shots.
17:21
Once again, we're talking about photography here.
17:24
It could be talking about your favorite restaurants, your favorite locales and other people.
17:28
Oh, man, I love that.
17:30
You know, hey, what do you recommend for what's the best ramen place in a river?
17:33
I don't know, but it strikes conversation among locals.
17:37
But this is the type of, you know, the type of thing where the process should be batch
17:42
content creation.
17:43
So you, you create content once and you have it enough.
17:48
It's like podcasters will do interviews, you know, every day for the week and it'll
17:53
last them two months.
17:54
So it's the same thing.
17:55
You, you back the content every day, you publish the content, but you also proactively reach
17:59
out to people.
18:00
So you look for people in your community doing hashtags, searches, or people that have,
18:04
you know, checked in the locations, not as much of that with coronavirus, but you know
18:07
what I mean?
18:08
And you go in your, and you actually engage with, with, with people in your network as
18:11
well, right?
18:12
And you respond to people that have engaged with you.
18:14
So this whole process, I mean, the content creation, assuming that you already have it
18:18
made, this whole process, you know, five, 10, 15 minutes, you can say, okay, I'm going
18:22
to follow 10 people a day, I'm going to leave 10 comments, there's all these, you know,
18:26
there's all these different formulas for doing it.
18:28
But I'd say you start something, stick with it, you see how you do.
18:31
Yeah, it's great advice.
18:33
And I know I've followed and engaged with and even featured a couple of those people in
18:37
my book.
18:38
Jason Ferris up in Fresno, he's got, you know, Fresno, he calls it Fres Yes, right?
18:43
How's that for creative?
18:44
And he's got this whole, he was over 20,000 fans on his Facebook page and a real estate brokerage
18:49
that's Fres Yes, right?
18:51
And that's how he kind of built his platform, he did video content, featuring all the great
18:56
reasons to live in Fresno, right?
18:58
Which became Fres Yes.
18:59
And if any of us like you and I know Fresno, that's kind of cool and funny.
19:03
And then there's Jonathan McKinnis, a loan officer in Missyanna, Indiana, Indiana area,
19:08
and he's same thing.
19:10
Like you know, we've heard the saying before that you're a media company with your backend
19:14
as being mortgage or real estate.
19:17
He did the same thing, started interviewing, became influential.
19:22
Why does so many people struggle though with crossing that chasm or that gap from I am
19:28
AX, right?
19:30
Two.
19:31
Oh my God, I'm a media company.
19:32
I need to produce.
19:33
Why is that hard?
19:34
Yeah, it's just, you know, first of all, I think that people don't necessarily see the
19:39
ROI of social media.
19:42
Or they start you in it and then they just stop because as you know, it takes time.
19:46
It doesn't happen overnight, right?
19:48
It takes time for people to get to know you and it's no different over social media,
19:51
especially if they've never met you for the first time.
19:54
It's also that, yes, there is content that needs to be created because content becomes
19:58
the currency of all of it.
19:59
If you don't have content, you know, you're not seen in the feed.
20:03
So those are the three things.
20:05
And you know, the content, like I said, it can be really easy.
20:09
It could be lifestyle content.
20:11
You know, what do you enjoy doing?
20:12
It could be shout outs to local businesses, you know, even to people in your network that
20:17
you have a lot of respect for.
20:19
I don't know.
20:20
It requires a little bit of creativity.
20:23
But you know, when I mean, I've spoken at some real estate marketing conferences and whenever
20:27
I meet agents, they're like, I'll give you $500 a month, just do it for me, right?
20:33
And there are things in real estate marketing where you can do something like that.
20:37
But this is one that really you need to be on top of because it's representing your personal
20:42
brand.
20:43
But that becomes a business.
20:44
People relate to you because of that brand and it requires you to create the content.
20:48
Now, you can, you know, outsource some of it.
20:50
Like I said, for photo shoots, you can outsource it for different things you can do.
20:54
But at the heart of it, you got to have sort of this editorial calendar mindset that says,
20:59
okay, what am I going to talk about, right?
21:00
What am I going to post about and to create some sort of calendar and some, you know, ideas
21:06
about content.
21:07
And I think that's probably the biggest struggle.
21:09
Mm-hmm.
21:10
Yeah, 100%.
21:11
It's got to be you because that's who they're connecting with, that's who they want to connect
21:15
with.
21:16
Absolutely.
21:17
And that's, you know, getting back to, you know, the book about influencers, you know,
21:21
reverse engineering it, every influencer is a content creator at the heart of it, right?
21:26
Well, the key to influence really is content creation and consistency and content that's
21:33
relatable and authentic that people would want to engage with.
21:37
Yeah.
21:38
So that brings up my next question then around content people would want to engage with.
21:41
I know of the people I've talked to, they often struggle with the balance between posting
21:46
business related content versus more personal, if you will, what would you say to that?
21:51
Yeah.
21:52
And I think that's a big struggle because the business stuff, it probably doesn't perform
21:56
well.
21:57
And I've seen it myself, especially on, on photo networks like Instagram.
22:01
And I think what a lot of, you know, people that I know that do really well with the business
22:06
stuff is the picture is not business.
22:10
Make sure it's taken from a photo shoot with maybe a title saying, you know, interest rates
22:16
question mark or I don't know, right?
22:17
But it's still people engage with the photo and then go into the caption.
22:22
I think the captions have become more important than they were in the past and still can do business
22:28
with a non business image would be my recommendation there, but you also want to have a mix.
22:33
So when I work with grants, we talk about content categories, right?
22:36
So, you know, and I know it's not just about Instagram, but just sticking to Instagram
22:39
as a theme here, you have nine squares when people go to your profile, what are the first
22:44
nine things they see?
22:45
So it could be nine different categories of content.
22:48
So maybe one of them is business, maybe one of them is local community, maybe one of them
22:53
is collaborating with other people in your industry, maybe one of them relates to local
22:57
restaurants because you're a foodie, maybe one of them relates to like local sports teams
23:01
because you're a big fan.
23:02
I don't know, right?
23:03
But this is the type of, and maybe two of the nine only business and another two of the
23:07
nine will be collaborations, but that's, once you have that sort of system in mind, number
23:12
one, you're not just posting about your business all the time, that's the key thing here, right?
23:16
You're limited to one out of nine, two out of nine, three out of nine.
23:19
But the other one is, you begin to create these categories, it's like, okay, now I need
23:23
to create content for like restaurants, let me drive around town, take some pictures
23:27
so I have some stuff to put up there, right?
23:29
And you begin to sort of, you begin to get these assets as inventory of content that you
23:32
can now place into these categories, and then when it's time, and even in advance, you
23:37
know, using tools, you can schedule this, you begin to like have different ways of engaging
23:41
with people, and you begin to see what content performs better or not, right?
23:45
So in a lot of ways, this would help you sort of optimize what you're doing.
23:49
I know it sounds like a lot of work, once you start to do it, it actually makes it easier,
23:53
but yeah, the business stuff, you really want people to relate to you as a person, and
23:58
then once in a while when they see the business stuff, they go, huh, I think that's really,
24:02
you know, obviously, if you want to build a large community, it's going to go beyond
24:07
just your business partners and your current customers, right?
24:10
It's going to go to people that don't know you, and you probably want to build out like
24:13
no interest from you as a relatable human with your more of lifestyle content than the
24:18
peer business content.
24:21
Any recommendations around frequency of posting content?
24:25
Does it vary by platform?
24:28
It does.
24:29
You know, when we talk about Instagram, I mean, once a day would be awesome.
24:32
That's even, I don't even do once a day, so I know it's really, really hard.
24:37
You know, once a week, you know, that's where, you know, you have Instagram stories and
24:40
they disappear, so that's a, you know, that's a great one if you could check in on, you
24:44
know, once every day, I'd say minimum once a week, but the more the better, I'd say Facebook
24:50
is the same.
24:51
I mean, if you have a Facebook page, you really struggle to get any action going on.
24:55
It's pretty much paid a play for most businesses, you know, which is why the whole notion of
25:00
getting more influential as a person means that you can cut through the algorithm.
25:05
So if you could do it every day, if not at least once a week, even if you don't
25:10
post every day, it doesn't mean you can't be engaging every day and getting your name
25:14
in the notifications of people in your community.
25:17
So that would be, that would be my recommendation, at least have a daily process where you do
25:20
it for 15 minutes, whether or not you have content.
25:24
And then people with that have to get very clear on as we said earlier, your target market,
25:28
where they at, it would probably make sense to filter your, you know, the amount of time
25:34
you spend on a given platform and your, you know, the investment you make on that based
25:38
on that criteria.
25:39
Absolutely.
25:40
Hmm. Okay, so cool.
25:42
Let's, let's tell people a couple of things that they want to connect with you, such as
25:46
your book.
25:47
What is, is this your third book?
25:49
It's actually my fourth.
25:50
Your fourth book.
25:51
You're crazy.
25:52
I know I am.
25:53
But you know what?
25:55
First of all, my first book I wrote in 2009, so it was a long time coming.
26:00
Yeah.
26:01
Well, I understand the process of writing a book is definitely nothing easy about it for
26:05
most people.
26:06
If you're going to write a good book, right?
26:07
Yeah.
26:09
Which, which clearly I can tell you have, you have.
26:10
So once again, it's the age of influence, the power of influencers to elevate your brand.
26:16
They can find that on Amazon.
26:17
You also have a podcast.
26:19
Tell us about the podcast.
26:20
Yeah, the podcast is called maximize your social influence podcast.
26:23
So it's all about looking at, you know, marketing, digital marketing, social media marketing
26:28
through this lens of influence.
26:29
Mm-hmm.
26:30
All right, and they can tune into that on any podcast platform, right?
26:34
Indeed.
26:35
And then you're also what appears to be a prolific blog writer.
26:38
Is that true?
26:39
Do you want to sleep, man?
26:41
Yeah, I, you know, I've been blogging since 2008.
26:44
My original blog was all about LinkedIn.
26:46
And you know, back in 2009, I had these people saying, hey, I'd love to contribute to
26:50
your blog.
26:51
So I sort of opened up the blog.
26:52
So I have like 20 bloggers that blog once every two months.
26:56
Yeah, there's like 450 posts on anything and everything, social media and digital media
27:01
marketing.
27:02
That's Neil Shafer.
27:03
Yeah.
27:04
Yeah, for sure.
27:05
So let me ask you about blogging then, the written word, right?
27:08
Where does that stand in, you know, the old, is it like the email is dead, right?
27:12
What about blogging?
27:13
You know, I think email is actually very much alive.
27:15
Oh, I agree.
27:16
Yeah, with coronavirus, you've probably seen a lot of email.
27:18
So blogging is interesting.
27:20
I mean, you know, getting seen in searches is critical.
27:24
And I think if you do blogging about your local community, then you have a better chance
27:30
of getting in searches when people search for, you know, for local information.
27:34
So I would say absolutely blogging is important for that web part.
27:38
It also gives you content to share in social media.
27:41
So Instagram is visual.
27:42
But if you wanted to share on a Facebook, on a LinkedIn or Twitter, then obviously these
27:46
links are very, very good.
27:48
So, you know, do searches for, you know, if I was looking for someone to do business with,
27:54
what are the keywords I put in, right?
27:55
And it's probably going to be no keyword than the city or county or state of what have
27:58
you.
27:59
Look who pops up and go to the content and see what it is.
28:02
And I think you're going to get a lot of good ideas as to what Google serves for that
28:06
content.
28:08
And it's really about making, you know, a keyword strategy.
28:10
It's like, these are the keywords that I want to show up for.
28:12
And it's about creating that content.
28:15
You know, content creation is something that you could outsource as well if you wanted
28:18
to.
28:19
There's loads of great freelance writers out there.
28:21
And it's just a matter of, you know, making sure you have content that when people search
28:24
for it.
28:25
If you don't have the content, you're never going to be found in Google.
28:27
So it is something that, you know, is sort of, if you have a website, you need content.
28:31
And if you're going to do content, it should be targeted among those keywords.
28:34
And the best way to do that is to blog content.
28:38
Very interesting.
28:39
So I'm glad you said that because, you know, I for a long time have been saying that,
28:44
you know, the written word isn't dead and that like when we talk about how does somebody
28:47
start on social, you know, if you're a writer and if you like writing, then go ahead and
28:51
do that.
28:52
But you never hear really hear about blogging anymore.
28:54
It's really having any juice, you know?
28:56
And, you know, I, man, here in Orange County, it's like, we, I didn't grow up here.
29:00
I grew up in LA County and then I lived in Japan and came out here and just whatever resource
29:05
you're looking for locally, like what, like what's the best soccer team if I kid in or
29:10
the best ballet teacher looking for a tutor or what have you?
29:13
There's so much uncharted territory that if you really want to become influential in your,
29:18
you know, in your community, and you start talking about these things through a blog,
29:22
I think there's a lot of places where you could start to rank for.
29:26
And even this is the equivalent of lifestyle content in Instagram is this sort of community
29:30
information that you know because you're an insider, but most people just don't know.
29:35
It's just word of mouth.
29:36
Now, I will say for people in your industry, this isn't a social network that I normally
29:40
talk about, but next door is absolutely critical and I'm assuming you're all on it and I'm
29:46
assuming you're all looking for opportunities to jump into conversations.
29:50
But I would say that that is a critical, probably the most important social network to be
29:54
on right now.
29:55
I mean, correct me if I'm wrong.
29:56
If you're a real estate agent.
29:57
If you're a real estate agent.
29:59
But even if you're not, there's still are agents that are on there where you can be seen,
30:03
right?
30:04
It's funny you say that because I am on next door and I get emails from them every day.
30:08
Like, you know, about the posts happening locally and stuff like that.
30:10
I was looking for one right now.
30:11
Yeah.
30:12
So why do you think that's so critical for real estate agents?
30:16
People, people are on it.
30:18
This type of information that people use to search for in Google, they're asking questions.
30:22
And so they're asking questions on next door that are kind of housing local community related.
30:27
Absolutely.
30:29
How do I get rid of a beehive?
30:31
Think of you're the real estate agent that goes, hey, I always recommend you're snack the hell out of it.
30:35
No, I'm scared.
30:36
I mean, there's some stupid questions.
30:38
Don't get me wrong.
30:39
But the thing is whenever, you know, if it's like, you know, Neil Schaefer license realtor
30:44
is my profile name.
30:46
And every time I respond, I'm building trust and they see that I'm a realtor and it's
30:50
right.
30:51
And you're not pitching, by the way, when you come in to respond.
30:52
You're adding value, man, social media is all about adding value.
30:56
You're not.
30:57
But everything, most questions are sort of home related or home services.
31:00
So there's no, you know, I work with a realtor in Newport Beach.
31:04
And one of the most invaluable things he gave me was a list of trusted service providers.
31:09
Yeah.
31:10
That is huge.
31:11
Because he's, you know, he sold hundreds of homes, he didn't do it for 20 years.
31:15
So that is like critical and extremely valuable information that everybody listens to this
31:20
podcast, hopefully, has.
31:21
And when you start to share that, it doesn't cost you anything, but you win friends, you
31:26
win fans, the no like and trust.
31:28
And now there is just just just to put a cap on that.
31:31
I think that's a great example of another way that you can become an influencer.
31:36
Because think of the positive impact you're having on behalf of these fears of influence
31:39
of those people, you're featuring as your trusted, you know, provider list.
31:44
Yep.
31:45
And there's your content, you know, once a week, we're going to introduce one of our
31:48
favorite providers.
31:49
We're going to highlight a new partner once a week, exactly, exactly.
31:51
So you love that.
31:52
I love that.
31:53
Yeah.
31:54
So you, it's, you know, there's a lot of layers here, right?
31:56
But once you start to appeal it, there's a lot of different ways in which you can influence
31:59
others digitally.
32:02
In someone of an easy way and you're adding value and you're making people happy, right?
32:06
You're, you're solidifying relationships with them.
32:09
And they, you know what, they're just going to be even bigger fans of you.
32:12
And hopefully they're going to refer more business your way as well.
32:15
Because we're human beings.
32:16
That's how it works.
32:17
Well, I hope by people listening to this, they get inspired and to share this also with
32:21
somebody else that you think could benefit from hearing it.
32:23
If you're a loan officer listening in a real estate agent should hear it, please pass
32:26
it on to them because there's so many ideas to, to, as you say, peel away from this.
32:31
You know, and there's so, there's so many things people could take into
32:34
advantage of as agents or lenders to, to up their content game.
32:38
But most aren't for whatever reasons and hopefully we broke through some of those.
32:44
But if you choose to take this on, you too can be an influencer.
32:47
You know, yesterday, our next door, it's almost saying I heard because of coronavirus
32:51
that they're not going to raise lease fees in the apartment.
32:54
But I just paid, you know, additional lease fees.
32:56
What if an agent came in and said, hey, let me help you negotiate this?
33:01
It's, I mean, it's, it's there for the taking.
33:03
So, yeah, all kinds of ways to show up, all kinds of ways to show up and be of service
33:08
online and social media.
33:09
Hopefully you got some ideas today.
33:10
So once again, let's go around the horn.
33:12
Neil, for people who want to connect with you, where's the best place you want to send them?
33:15
So it's, first of all, my name is sort of hard to spell.
33:18
And there's no Starbucks brista that gets it right.
33:21
So it's the real Neil NEAL, NEAL, and it's shape for SCH AFFER.
33:25
So NeilShaffer.com, NeilShaffer, everyone's social media.
33:29
The age of influence is the name of the book.
33:31
And maximize your social influences, the name of the podcast.
33:34
We'll just keep it real easy.
33:36
Yeah, I love it.
33:36
Thanks for being here, man.
33:37
I learned a ton and I think our listeners did as well.
33:40
So thank you so much.
33:40
I'm honored to be here, man.
33:42
Yeah, appreciate it.
33:43
And listeners, you know what to do.
33:44
If you like this episode, like I said, share it with somebody.
33:46
Or, hey, leave us a review wherever you're listening to this.
33:48
And we'll see you on the next one.
33:50
Bye for now.
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