Maximize Your Social Influence Podcast with Neal Schaffer

Since January, 2013, I have been on a mission to help marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners better leverage social media marketing to grow their business through this podcast, which was originally called Social Business Unplugged and then, after publishing my 3rd book, Maximize Your Social. With the imminent publication of my 4th book, The Age of Influence, the title was further changed in October of 2019 to the current Maximize Your Social Influence podcast.

The current mission of the Maximize Your Social Influence podcast is to:

Help marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners to grow their business through leveraging digital and social media marketing through the perspective of digital influence.

While more than half of my podcast episodes are solo recordings, over the years I have been honored to interview many thought leaders in the marketing industry, including (clicking on their name will take you directly to their episode):

  • John Lee Dumas
  • Jay Baer
  • Mark Schaefer
  • Michael Stelzner
  • Joe Pulizzi
  • David Meerman Scott
  • Matt Navarra
  • Carla Johnson
  • Amanda Russell

If you would like to be interviewed for my podcast, please complete the application here.

Below are a selection of my latest and popular podcast episodes for your listening pleasure. You can also subscribe to hear all of my episodes on the following platforms:

Maximize Your Social Influence Podcast on Apple Podcasts Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Spotify Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Google Podcasts

Table of Contents
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  1. Newest Podcast Episodes
    1. 214: 7 Steps to a Million Dollar Virtual Event [Liam Austin Interview]
    2. 213: Business Success Begins by DOING
    3. 212: Redefining Social Media Content Measurement and Strategy [James Creech Interview]
    4. 211: 13 Actionable Tips to Maximize Your YouTube Influence
    5. 210: How to Maximize Your Impact on Social With Video [Kate Skavish Interview]
    6. 209: How to Strategically Create Your Library of Content in One Year
    7. 208: 5 Creative Ways to Set Up Your B2B Sales Team for Success [Pam Didner Interview]
    8. 207: What Leaders Need to Know about Leveraging Influence
    9. 206: SEO & Social Media: Your One-Two Punch [Stephan Spencer Interview]
    10. 205: All You Wanted to Know about Marketing Funnels
    11. 204: Going Live: Why Livestreaming Matters (Christoph Trappe Interview)
    12. 203: Why Isn’t Your Brand Trying to Become More Influential?
    13. 202: Every Successful Entrepreneur’s Common Path to Uncommon Success (John Lee Dumas Interview)
    14. 201: Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Reignite Your Brand [Jason Falls Interview]
    15. 200: How to Scale Influence through Community (and Why I am Launching One)
    16. 199: How To Grow Influence In a Red Ocean [Jeroen Corthout Interview]
    17. 198: I’m On Clubhouse. Now What?
    18. 197: How to Increase Your Influence With a 100-Page Book [Mike Capuzzi Interview]
    19. 196: My Initial Thoughts on Clubhouse, the Newest Social Media App
    20. 195: How to Maximize Your Real Estate Social Influence [Chris Stuart Interview]
    21. 194: If I Was Your CMO: Where to Invest in Digital and Social Media Marketing in 2021
    22. 193: The Importance of Influencer Collaboration in Building Influence [Amanda Russell Interview]
    23. 192: My Marketing Technology Toolstack for 2021
    24. 191: The Technology and Tools You Need for Your Marketing Infrastructure (Part 1: WordPress Plugins)
    25. 190: Can an Introvert Become an Online Influencer? [Bob Gentle Interview]
  2. Popular Podcast Episodes
    1. 175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts
    2. 174: How to Rethink Innovation to Grow Your Business [Carla Johnson Interview]
    3. 173: My Guide to Help You Maximize LinkedIn for Your Business
    4. 172: Navigating the Marketer’s World of Constant Change: How to Thrive During a Pandemic [Ken Fitzpatrick Interview]
    5. 171: How to Gain More Experience – and Yield More Influence – in Social Media
    6. 169: How to Leverage Your Employees as Influencers
    7. 168: What You Need to Do Today to be Successful on Instagram [Ace the Gram Interview]
    8. 167: How to Gain Clear Visibility into Your Digital and Social Media Marketing Activities
    9. 166: The Many Ways to Become an Influencer Today [John Lee Dumas Interview]
    10. 165: Influencer Marketing During COVID-19: Still Worth the Investment?
    11. 164: How to Skyrocket Your Qualified Organic Traffic [Farzad Rashidi Interview]
    12. 163: LinkedIn Message Ads: The Convergence of Influencer Marketing and Paid Social
    13. 161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence
    14. 160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]
    15. 156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus Pandemic
    16. 154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus Pandemic
    17. 153: How to Create and Implement an Instagram Strategy to Grow Your Brand [Christy Laurence Interview]
    18. 152: Getting Started with B2B Influencer Marketing
    19. 150: How to Know When It’s Time to Monetize Your Influence
    20. 149: How to Become a Published Author [Lee Constantine from Publishizer Interview]
    21. 148: How to Scale Your Digital Branding
    22. 147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look (AJ Wilcox Interview)
    23. 146: Pinterest Marketing for Those Who Still Don’t Get It
    24. 145: Free PR: How to Leverage the Media to Amplify Your Brand Exposure and Increase Credibility without Spending Money [Adrian Salamunovic Interview]
    25. 139: LinkedIn for Students: What Do I Put in My LinkedIn Profile if I am a College Student?

Newest Podcast Episodes

214: 7 Steps to a Million Dollar Virtual Event [Liam Austin Interview]

Looking to make a splash in your industry? Virtual summits might just be the best way to do so toady. Perhaps you have registered for such a summit which had one or two dozen speakers, or maybe you have spoken at one.

If you have done webinar marketing before, a virtual summit can help provide exponential value to attendees and benefits to your business.

If you are intrigued by the potential or running a virtual summit or event for your business, this episode is for you. I interview one of the thought leaders in the space, Liam Austin, where we discussed:

  • which virtual event is right for you
  • how to sell more of your signature offer from your event
  • how to get recurring revenue on autopilot

This interview actually influenced me to begin preparing my own virtual summit which I hope to unveil in the near future! If you are interested in launching your own virtual summit, in addition to reaching out to Liam, make sure you check out HeySummit [affiliate]!

Also, if you are a fan of the podcast and want to join my free monthly group coaching session, send your screenshot to [email protected] Thanks!

Liam Austin Links

213: Business Success Begins by DOING

If you’re listening to this podcast, you’re doing so in hopes of implementing my advice or that from my guests in your company or own business.

As a content creator, the greatest respect you can pay me is in implementing what I teach.

In launching my group coaching membership community Digital First, I realize that many people get stuck with their digital marketing and simply don’t execute. You can listen to as many podcasts and read as many blog posts and watch as many YouTube videos as you like – the information you need is all there, but if you don’t begin on the journey of execution you can’t be on your way to business success.

Yes, this is a topic you’ve probably heard before, but I wanted to send you all a reminder based on recent conversations and executions I have seen in my own community. You don’t have to join my community to become successful at digital marketing, but if you don’t have a network of “doers” to surround yourself with and be inspired by, go find one – TODAY!

Learn More:

212: Redefining Social Media Content Measurement and Strategy [James Creech Interview]

You’ve probably heard the term “data-driven content strategy,” but what does that mean exactly? And how can it be applied to our social media content?

Enter James Creech, Co-Founder & CEO of Measure Studio, whose motto is “It’s a pleasure to measure.” In our interview we uncover a lot of great tips vis a vis how to properly measure social media content and what insights for our social media strategy we can find from doing so.

Some of the things we talked about in this episode include:

  • Finding an effective social content strategy is hard. It’s a blend of art and science that requires constant experimentation and refinement. To do so effectively, you need strong tools at your disposal that go beyond the limited analytics available natively from social platforms.
  • The first 24 – 72 hours are critical for assessing content performance. You want to establish a strong early trajectory for your content to rank highly in search and boost organic discovery.
  • Benchmarking content performance allows you to understand what’s working and what’s not working, so you can focus on making incremental improvements over time. This is particularly valuable given how often social platforms’ algorithms change.

As a bonus, James also talked about his experience working with the Biden Harris campaign on their social strategy during the 2020 election cycle, so lots of learnings to share from that experience!

James Creech Links

211: 13 Actionable Tips to Maximize Your YouTube Influence

I don’t pretend to be a YouTube expert by any means, but if you are new to the platform like I am, how successful you can be there is all about the details.

Strategically creating, editing, and uploading my first YouTube video ever made me feel like I “finally” started taking podcasting seriously back in 2019, 6 years after my launch!

Similarly, I have had a YouTube channel for some time, but it is only very recently where I have decided to be a little more strategic and intentional about the videos I post.

I am still very early in my journey, but these are the 13 actionable tips for YouTube that I wish someone had taught me, and they are tips that I don’t see in the blogosphere.

Hope you’ll join my on my YouTube journey here:  https://youtube.com/nealschaffer

Learn More:

210: How to Maximize Your Impact on Social With Video [Kate Skavish Interview]

Look at your social media analytics, and you will probably notice that those posts that were or included a video component probably performed the best. This should be no surprise as video is perhaps the most powerful form of content that helps to create trust and connections unlike any other content medium.

There is no better person to guide us on how to leverage videos in our social media TODAY than Kate Skavish, co-founder of the video marketing platform Wave.video. Listen in as Kate teaches us how to be relevant by including videos in our marketing content mix and helping us stand out by providing tips on how to make better videos consistently.

Kate Skavish Links

209: How to Strategically Create Your Library of Content in One Year

Instead of always trying to figure out what to write your next blog post on or wonder why you aren’t ranking for strategic keywords, take my advice and learn how to plan out and build one year’s worth of blog content which will become your strategic library of content.

This content will not only help you rank higher for SEO but also give you a social “voice” and allow you to engage with both prospects and clients in social media as well as your email subscribers.

I will show you the exact steps I have taken to outrank formidable competitors in building my own Library of Content in this episode.

Related Tools:

208: 5 Creative Ways to Set Up Your B2B Sales Team for Success [Pam Didner Interview]

For B2B brands, your internal influencers are often your salespeople. They are facing your customer and often are the most active on social media because they can monetize their influence in the form of additional commissions.

That’s why every employee influencer / advocacy program for B2B brands becomes successful when there is alignment between sales and marketing.

If this is a need your company has, you are in for a special treat. B2B marketing thought leader and best-selling author Pam Didner joins us today to give us some creative ways to set up your B2B sales team for success, including:

  • Identify how you can help sales via different sales stages
  • Map marketing content to a sales cycle
  • Understand the collaboration process between sales and marketing

Pam Didner Links

207: What Leaders Need to Know about Leveraging Influence

If you want your organization to yield more influence in social media, or if you are looking for your employees to become more active in social media to raise your company’s digital profile, this episode is for you.

Listen to all of my advice that you as a leader can do to push the ball forward on leveraging influence that can impact your entire organization.

206: SEO & Social Media: Your One-Two Punch [Stephan Spencer Interview]

If you want to learn how to apply the concepts of SEO to social media, you are in for a treat. Today’s guest is one of the most recognized SEO experts, Stephan Spencer who is co-author of The Art of SEO, co-author of Social eCommerce, and author of Google Power Search, all published by O’Reilly.

In this episode we talk about something that you might not have considered before: The SEO value of your social media. Specifically we discussed:

  • SEO applied to your YouTube channel and videos
  • Getting SEO value from social media posts
  • Content marketing strategies: coming up with hooks, getting links not just social shares, etc.

This is a longer than average episode as I got a TON of value from this interview – I am confident that you will as well!

Stephan Spencer Links

205: All You Wanted to Know about Marketing Funnels

“It’s all about your funnel.” “You gotta have a funnel in place.” “This tool will help serve all of your funnels.” A lot of people say a lot of different things about funnels, so let’s take a step back and look at what exactly marketing funnels and why they are fundamental to your business.

More importantly, learn why there is no one-size-fits-all approach to the subject and how you need to be creative in designing funnels that truly serve and deepen relationships with both your prospective and present customers.

Maximize Your Social Influence Podcast on Apple Podcasts Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Spotify Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Google Podcasts

204: Going Live: Why Livestreaming Matters (Christoph Trappe Interview)

Serial author and content marketing expert Christoph Trappe joins me for this episode dedicated to livestreaming and why it matters. We all know that video is the most powerful to express our brands or our ourselves, but why aren’t we doing more of it?

Christoph will help you better understand and utilize livestreaming with his advice on:

  • The evolution of livestreaming as a differentiator
  • How to integrate livestreaming into your strategy
  • Tools and tricks of the trade

Christoph Trappe Links

203: Why Isn’t Your Brand Trying to Become More Influential?

Instead of always trying to tap into the influence of others, why isn’t your brand trying to take a strategic approach to increase your own digital influence? The benefits of doing so are plentiful, and influencers have already perfected the formula of what you need to do.

So what are you waiting for? Listen to this episode and build your own influence as a company or brand!

202: Every Successful Entrepreneur’s Common Path to Uncommon Success (John Lee Dumas Interview)

Why are some entrepreneurs successful while many others fail?

Since creating one of the most popular business podcasts of all time, Entrepreneurs on Fire, John Lee Dumas has interviewed more than 3,000 entrepreneurs and taken the time to decipher what has made them successful, culminating in the publication of his first book “The Common Path to Uncommon Success: A Roadmap to Financial Freedom and Fulfillment”.

John shares some of his findings with us and teaches us the steps we need to take to find whatever uncommon success we are looking for.

John Lee Dumas Links

201: Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Reignite Your Brand [Jason Falls Interview]

Jason Falls is one of those guys in digital marketing I have had a ton of respect for for many years. Imagine how surprised he was – and then how I was – that we both found out we were writing books on influencer marketing at the same time!

I beat Jason to the punch, but for anyone who read The Age of Influence, Jason’s new book, Winfluence, is a must read. We discuss the background for his book as well as Jason’s uniquely holistic perspective on the value of influencer marketing.

Reference Links for Jason Falls:

200: How to Scale Influence through Community (and Why I am Launching One)

Whether you are a brand or a person, the ultimate sign that you have influence is when people are singing your praises when you are not in the room, whether online in social media or offline.

What if you can bring all of your fans together in an environment so that they can talk about you while also getting direct access to you or your brand?

This is what brands are doing by investing in Facebook Groups for their customers, and in doing so, they are investing in a community that can scale their influence.

Many digital entrepreneurs are doing the same for their customers of their digital programs.

I have decided that the next step to scale my own influence is in the creation of such a community. Listen in for my thoughts and plans for my new Group Coaching Membership Community, Digital First – and learn how you can become one of my founding members!

199: How To Grow Influence In a Red Ocean [Jeroen Corthout Interview]

How does one go about building influence in a crowded market?

I often go back to my own background in B2B sales and look at habits, partnerships, and focus.

That’s why it was so refreshing to be joined by a special guest who serves the market that I used to work on who has very similar advice.

Today I am joined today with the co-founder of the simple yet powerful CRM for small businesses selling B2B, Jeroen Corthout of Salesflare.

In this interview we discuss:

  • Focus on habits rather than goals: consistently deliver value in focus areas, rather than focusing everything on goal metrics
  • Expand outside your own influence by leveraging the influence of others: partner up in every possible way with people who reach the same audience
  • Real expertise is hard to find and extremely valuable, so focus on attaining the highest possible quality (e.g. don’t have copywriters write your content; pick your expertise niche; etc.)

Reference Links for Jeroen Corthout:

198: I’m On Clubhouse. Now What?

New to Clubhouse? Trying to figure out how to get started and exactly what to do now that you have received that invite and joined the newest rage in social media?

Continuing on from my introduction to Clubhouse on episode 196, this episode will provide you detailed hand-holding to help you navigate around the app and create a focused strategy that will help you Maximize Your Social Influence, even on Clubhouse.

If you’re looking for an invite to the app, make sure you sign up to receive marketing communications from me here to get a chance to be invited when I get new invites to share!

197: How to Increase Your Influence With a 100-Page Book [Mike Capuzzi Interview]

Have you ever wondered about how you can build influence by writing a book? 

Have you ever thought about writing a book but the process seems to be overwhelming and you simply don’t have enough time in the day?

This episode is for you!

I am joined today by best-selling author of The 100-Page Book, Mike Capuzzi, a prolific author who also helps business owners and entrepreneurs write and market their books.

In this interview we discuss:

  • The power of helping before selling and why books enable you to market and sell at a more sophisticated level.
  • The unique advantages of short, helpful books (shooks) and why often a short book is a smarter strategy than a traditional book.
  • The essential ingredients to authoring an effective shook.

Reference Links for Mike Capuzzi:

196: My Initial Thoughts on Clubhouse, the Newest Social Media App

Have you heard of the latest rage in social media Clubhouse? Have you received an invite on your smartphone and unsure as to whether or not you should join? Are you on Clubhouse and still trying to figure out how to glean value from it? Let me share with you my own experiences with Clubhouse, describe its functionality in further details, and provide you with my advice on how to best maximize your social influence on Clubhouse.

195: How to Maximize Your Real Estate Social Influence [Chris Stuart Interview]

This week I am the one being interviewed, and by no other than real estate visionary and CEO of the leading real estate network BerkshireHathaway Home Services, Chris Stuart. I have had a chance to work together with Chris and his company, and I have found that the real estate industry is especially ripe for innovation regarding their marketing communication. Keep your eye on BerkshireHathaway Home Services as they represent what the future holds for the industry!

Even if you are not involved in real estate, I highly recommend you listen to this episode as it gives you my best practices in using social media as part of your personal or business brand whether you are in sales, marketing, a business owner or an entrepreneur. I believe that real estate agents and brokers make up the largest number of salespeople in the United States, and considering that each one also is their own business owner, they need to be savvy at both sales and marketing. They also cannot meet their customers physically, so there is also a need for them, like yourself, to better digitally engage with their current customer base and prospective clients.

I’m confident by the end of the episode you will have found a few new ways to Maximize Your Social Influence regardless of industry.

Reference Links for Chris Stuart:

Maximize Your Social Influence Podcast on Apple Podcasts Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Spotify Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Google Podcasts

194: If I Was Your CMO: Where to Invest in Digital and Social Media Marketing in 2021

What are my predictions for 2021? Instead of trying to predict the future, which I don’t think anyone can do accurately, I’d like to offer you my advice as your virtual CMO. Focusing on those key areas that I am focusing on in writing my next book, here is where I would invest my marketing budget across Search, Email, and Social to help you reach your business goals and improve the digital and social media marketing for your organization or brand.

193: The Importance of Influencer Collaboration in Building Influence [Amanda Russell Interview]

Amanda Russell, author of The Influencer Code and Professor of Influencer Marketing at the University of Texas, Austin, joins me for a special interview about building influence in today’s digital world. Amanda has an amazing life story of competing at a global level and then starting over from scratch, but her trained skills combined with intuition in seeking relationships with influencers and capitalizing on the opportunities that they brought her has led her to a successful career that my listeners can learn a great deal about influence from.

Our New Podcast!

Amanda Russell Links:

192: My Marketing Technology Toolstack for 2021

This is part 2 (see Ep. 191 for part 1) of an introduction to my recommended marketing technology tools and apps for 2021, including a detailed breakdown of what tools I use and recommend for search engine optimization (SEO), content creation, writer marketplaces and tools, blogger outreach tools, backlink monitoring tools, website analytics, email marketing software, email verification, lead magnet promotion, social media dashboards, video marketing tools, and podcasting tools.

Tools Mentioned in the Episode

SEO Tools

Content Creation Tools

Writer Marketplaces & Tools

Blogger Outreach Tools

Backlink Monitor Tools

Website Analytics

Email Marketing Software

Email Verification Tools

Lead Magnet Tools

Social Media Dashboards

Video Marketing Tools

Podcasting Tools

191: The Technology and Tools You Need for Your Marketing Infrastructure (Part 1: WordPress Plugins)

As we approach the end of the year, it’s time to do an audit of our digital and social presence. One of the audits that I recommend you do on an annual basis is for all of the technology you use to support your marketing infrastructure to help you Maximize Your Social Influence. I intended this episode to be more comprehensive, but there are so many tools and apps that I would recommend, after going through Content Management Systems and WordPress plugins, I decided to divide this into a two-part series.

Even if you are not using WordPress or you think you have all of the plugins you need, I highly recommend you give this episode a listen so that you can hear about some functionality that your current website might not have!

Links for Select Tools Mentioned in the Episode:

190: Can an Introvert Become an Online Influencer? [Bob Gentle Interview]

Is there something holding you or your brand back from digital success? Could it be that you might be a little on the shy side when it comes to a social network, or content medium, or just in general? If so, this is the episode for you! Fellow digital marketing expert is going to help you understand:

  • How to move from shy introvert to showing up online
  • Why the idea that some people might not like you is a good thing.
  • How to best navigate all of the marketing advice and choices you have online into your own context.

This episode will dive into the psychology of how to become a better entrepreneur and marketer online.

Guest Links

While the above are my 25 newest episodes, below are my “Greatest Hits” from the past, including some pretty epic interviews and advice that you’ll want to subscribe to download them all!

175: Why I am Investing Time in Being Interviewed on 100 Different Podcasts

I got really serious about podcasting in 2020 142 episodes after I began this podcast. I got even more serious with the publication of The Age of Influence, utilizing this podcast to build a community that listens to podcasts. Utilizing podcasting as a form of influencer marketing to help incite word-of-mouth marketing about my book has taken my understanding of the significance that podcasting can have for any business or entrepreneur to a completely different level.

By teaching you what I have experienced and learned, I believe you will not look at podcasting the same just as The Age of Influence and this podcast have hopefully helped you look at influencers and influencer marketing in a completely different way.

174: How to Rethink Innovation to Grow Your Business [Carla Johnson Interview]

What sets successful businesses and professionals apart? One might argue it is all about being able to innovate. Fortunately for our podcast listeners we have a very special guest, Carla Johnson, who has written a few compelling marketing books and will soon release her newest book, RE:Think Innovation. This podcast will be a sneak preview of that book, in which you will learn why:

  1. People think innovation is only about the products and services they sell, and why they’re wrong and missing a huge growth opportunity. 
  2. There are things that iconic companies with big budgets do that you can learn from and apply right away for your business…if you know how.
  3. You too can learn how to innovate through a simple, repeatable, scalable formula for how to take inspiration from any brand, experience or situation you have, and turn it into extraordinary outcomes for their business – startups, established Fortune 100 brands, and any organization in between. 

Links mentioned in the show:

173: My Guide to Help You Maximize LinkedIn for Your Business

Social networks come (TikTok) and go (Google Plus), and some merely borrow the best features of other social networks to continue innovating (Instagram). The one thing about social media that has NOT changed since I began my career in social media marketing is that LinkedIn continues to be the best place for professional networking and B2B social media marketing.

Every year or two “newbie” marketers wake up to the potential that LinkedIn has for your marketing, but since I wrote two books on the subject in 2009 and 2011, I would argue that the potential has always been there. Similar to influencer marketing, marketers have tended to dismiss LinkedIn when they talk about social media marketing options. As part of my role as an educator, I have been creating a free ebook for sometime with best practices for using LinkedIn, and I’m psyched to announce that my newest version is now available for download. Listen to the full episode for an introduction and details on how to get your free copy!

Links mentioned in the show:

172: Navigating the Marketer’s World of Constant Change: How to Thrive During a Pandemic [Ken Fitzpatrick Interview]

While the current coronavirus pandemic has provided us some urgency in which we need to tweak our marketing, the fact of the matter is that anyone in charge of marketing their business always need to pivot amidst the constant change that existed before we first heard the term “COVID-19.” I can’t think of anyone better to help guide us through this change than Ken Fitzpatrick, CEO of the Digital Marketing Institute, who provides:

  • an insight into how c-19 is bringing even more change to marketing
  • some perspective on marketer’s fear of becoming irrelevant
  • what are the skillsets marketers need in the near future

Links mentioned in the show:

171: How to Gain More Experience – and Yield More Influence – in Social Media

I often get asked by marketers in transition or recent graduates how they should navigate the job market as a digital marketer. Whether you are looking for more ways to make yourself more marketable (pun intended!), gain more experience, or yield more influence in digital and social media, I believe the solution is one and the same, and the answer to the problem is often staring you right in the face!

Maximize Your Social Influence Podcast on Apple Podcasts Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Spotify Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Google Podcasts

169: How to Leverage Your Employees as Influencers

According to my brand affinity model for influencer marketing, your employees are those that naturally have the most brand affinity for your company because they are an organic part of it. How, though, do you activate your employees as influencers? How does this relate to the concept of employee advocacy? How would this work in regulated industries? And are there any analogies to leveraging employees as influencers that you see in influencer marketing today?

Today’s episode covers all of these questions and is a summary for a recent webinar I did for the leading employee advocacy platform PostBeyond entitled “Employee Advocacy is out, Employee Influencer is in.”

Links mentioned in the show:

168: What You Need to Do Today to be Successful on Instagram [Ace the Gram Interview]

Instagram has become a critical piece of the puzzle for most businesses because of its popularity and high engagement, but not everybody succeeds on the platform. There’s a lot of noise about what you should and shouldn’t do on Instagram, and some of that advice is either outdated or might lead your account to getting banned.

Let’s change that. From the importance of niche branding on Instagram to the critical role that influencers play on Instagram to the unique way in which you should use Instagram for personal branding, Instagram specialists Viv and Tash from Ace the Gram will teach you a thing or two new about the platform that can help improve your Instagram TODAY!

Guest Links

167: How to Gain Clear Visibility into Your Digital and Social Media Marketing Activities

How do you know what impact everything that you do in digital and social media marketing has on your business? The secret comes down to what I call the PDCA approach to marketing that my agency is named for, but more importantly, it comes down to visualizing your marketing funnel and aligning everything you do with a part of that funnel. After that it comes down to measurement and truly geeking out on the numbers in the reporting that I recommend you do.

Listen in for the full details as to how to effectively do this spending little time but having maximum impact on your business!

Links mentioned in the show:

166: The Many Ways to Become an Influencer Today [John Lee Dumas Interview]

John Lee Dumas is one of the most influential rockstar entrepreneurs out there, and it was an honor to interview him for my podcast. You will learn a lot in this episode on John’s story as to how he became an influencer through podcasting but also his recommendation for you if he were to do it all over today.

Guest Links:

165: Influencer Marketing During COVID-19: Still Worth the Investment?

You might be wondering what impact COVID-19 might be having on influencer marketing. After all, you can’t fly freely around the world to take pictures of product in exotic locations. But, as you know, travel influencers only represent a small portion of the influencer marketing pie. Here is my advice for businesses trying to navigate the current uncertainty to figure out what role, if any, influencer marketing should have in your marketing strategy.

Once again, today’s episode, like Episode 161 before it, is based off of a webinar I provided for the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland about marketing in the age of coronavirus.

Links mentioned in the show:

164: How to Skyrocket Your Qualified Organic Traffic [Farzad Rashidi Interview]

For many businesses, their primary source of digital influence doesn’t necessarily come from their social media presence but from their website. How to increase the digital influence of your website in the eyes of Google and generate more qualified organic traffic leading to more business through “free” advertising is what every business owner wants.

Today I interview Farzad Rashidi, co-founder of Respona, who is going to give his advice on how to exactly do that. Some of the topics we discussed include:

  • Organic traffic 101: Why it’s important for hockey-stick level growth
  • How to properly research and create quality content and landing pages
  • How to get your content ranked for your target keywords

Guest Links

163: LinkedIn Message Ads: The Convergence of Influencer Marketing and Paid Social

One of the goals of influencer marketing is to incite the word of mouth marketing that organic social alone can’t, but there are times that we will still pay to play and employ Paid Social as part of our marketing. How might we be able to use Paid Social as part of our influencer outreach? This is a case study from my own influencer marketing program for the launch of my new book, The Age of Influence, and how I am leveraging one of the unique and most cost-effective forms of Paid Social that many don’t know exist or haven’t utilized properly: LinkedIn Message Ads.

Links mentioned in the show:

161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence

1 of the 6 pillars of digital marketing is email marketing, but it’s often the one easy to forget as most talk about more trendy topics such as social media marketing, content marketing, or influence marketing (I’m partly to blame!). Based off of webinars I provided for both the University of Jyvaskyla in Finland as well as the email marketing software company GetResponse, learn all you wanted to know to get you inspired to do more with email marketing and lead magnets.

Links mentioned in the show:

160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]

What is the connection, and even the similarities, that marketers who want to improve at both SEO as well as social media need to have? Join me in this interview with one of the world’s leading experts, Cyrus Shepard, SEO Advisor for MOZ, as we discuss:

  • Why SEOs and Social Marketers both need to have a wide breadth of skills for writing across social pages, metadata and more
  • The way in which aligning SEO and Social skills can lead to more backlinks, improved engagement signals, and more owned SERP real estate for branded queries
  • How enhanced social media efforts can lead to higher search demand

Digital influence isn’t just about influence on social networks. It includes influence you hold in the search engines! That’s why this conversation was so exciting and stimulating for me, so I’m sure it will be worth your time.

In case you are new to the podcast, my new book The Age of Influence can be bought at any major bookseller worldwide. Here’s a link to the Amazon USA page for it: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence

156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus Pandemic

This is the 3rd in a series of episodes helping you make sense of what the coronavirus pandemic means to your business. This episode will be focused on the marketing aspect of your business. Is it OK to publish content on social media now? Is it OK to advertise? What should I be posting about? What marketing activities should and shouldn’t we be doing? These questions will all be addressed in hopes of inciting you to action to show up and help your own community by pivoting your marketing in these continued uncertain times.

Maximize Your Social Influence Podcast on Apple Podcasts Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Spotify Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Google Podcasts

154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus Pandemic

Today’s episode is a special edition broadcast because so many clients and others have asked what our businesses should do in the midst of the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic. I want to offer my own perspectives not because I am an expert per se in managing pandemics (I don’t know of any marketers who are!), but because you need to listen to a lot of different perspectives to navigate the best path forward, and I want to be one of the voices that you tune into. It is this same concept that I bring up as advice in this episode. Stay positive and stay safe!

153: How to Create and Implement an Instagram Strategy to Grow Your Brand [Christy Laurence Interview]

Instagram requires a very different strategy compared to other social networks in order to be successful. I had the pleasure of interviewing Christy Laurence, CEO and Founder of the leading Instagram scheduling app Plann, to discuss all things Instagram and how you can best create and implement an Instagram strategy to grow your brand.

Some of the things we discussed include:

– Instagram content strategy
– the importance of the grid
– hashtags
– posting frequency
– the value of Instagram analytics
– and more!

Additional links:

152: Getting Started with B2B Influencer Marketing

Today I want to share with you a real-life example of how I am rationalizing my client’s marketing spend and the different options we are considering for B2B influencer marketing. If you are looking to create fans for your business, why wouldn’t you reach out to influencers in your industry and try to recruit them through the spirit of collaboration like I teach in The Age of Influence? This episode will help you understand how to find B2B influencers and all of the different ways in which you could collaborate with them.

Additional links:

150: How to Know When It’s Time to Monetize Your Influence

As you try to build more digital influence, you might start wondering when and how to begin monetizing your efforts. This episode provides you a number of different scenarios for both the different triggers which might indicate why you should begin to ask for compensation as well as calculating what sort of remuneration you should begin to ask for. This episode also includes advice for marketers who want to build better relationships with influencers.

149: How to Become a Published Author [Lee Constantine from Publishizer Interview]

Did you know that my new book on influencer marketing, The Age of Influence, began as a test market on a crowdsourcing platform for authors called Publishizer? It’s true! You can even see my original proposal page here: https://publishizer.com/the-business-of-influence/. Today’s podcast is looking at the personal side of influence for those that want to yield more influence by becoming a published author. If it wasn’t for Lee, my new book wouldn’t have been written, so I hope today’s episode inspires YOU!

148: How to Scale Your Digital Branding

Whether you work at a company with staff or you are an entrepreneur, you need to scale so that you can focus on your business and have other experts around you do what they are good at. This includes your digital and social media marketing work. If digital influence is yielded from content creation, you need to stay focused on your content and IP and let others help you do things that are not primary business drivers. I want to share with you what I have done to help scale my own marketing operations and my advice for you.

147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look (AJ Wilcox Interview)

Everybody talks about Facebook and Instagram Ads, but what about LinkedIn Ads? If you are targeting a lucrative demographic or are a B2B company, LinkedIn should be one of the focus points of your marketing. Join me in this interview with one of the world’s foremost experts on LinkedIn Ads, AJ Wilcox, as he teaches you all of the different options you have and how to make the most of them for effective advertising on LinkedIn.

146: Pinterest Marketing for Those Who Still Don’t Get It

I have published 3 other episodes about Pinterest marketing, but because Pinterest continues to deliver results for me, I wanted to share you with my latest thoughts on the platform for those that have yet to take Pinterest seriously. Pinterest is a very different social network, but for those business and influencers that are content creators, Pinterest just might be the gold mine you have been searching for in social media.

145: Free PR: How to Leverage the Media to Amplify Your Brand Exposure and Increase Credibility without Spending Money [Adrian Salamunovic Interview]

Join me for an interview with Adrian Salamunovic, Founder of Earned.co and Author of FREE PR, where we discuss all of the free things you can do to get media exposure. This includes learning how to differentiate yourself, identifying the right media targets and channels, and how to amplify and leverage the media you get after it’s published by using social media and paid social.

139: LinkedIn for Students: What Do I Put in My LinkedIn Profile if I am a College Student?

How do you advertise your profile amongst so many professionals while you are still only a college student? And what might professionals learn about their own LinkedIn profile optimization from my advice to college students? Listen on for the details!

Additional References

Maximize Your Social Influence Podcast on Apple Podcasts Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Spotify Maximize Your Social Influence podcast on Google Podcasts

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