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
- Dan Gingiss
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:
- iHeart Radio
- Amazon Music
- Overcast
- Podcast Addict
- Castbox
- Stitcher
- Pocket Casts
- PodBean
- PlayerFM
- Breaker
- Deezer
- RadioPublic
- TuneIn
- Castro
- Listen Notes
- Podbay
- Podchaser
Newest Podcast Episodes
178: WHY You Need to and HOW to RESET Your Marketing TODAY [Jay Baer Interview]
The digital first mindset that your business needs to survive today is only part of the story. My special guest for today, the legendary marketing author and speaker Jay Baer, argues that the circumstances that we live in today require every business to function as a startup and create an entirely new relationship with your customers and potential clients.
Listen in as Jay gives some specific advice as to how to do this – hint: “FAQ” is a strategic keyword here – as well as also provides some strategic wisdom around the customer experience marketing gap that he sees and why it is critical to close it to remain relevant today.
Jay Baer Links:
Convince & Convert: https://www.convinceandconvert.com/
Jay Baer: https://www.jaybaer.com/
Social Pros Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/social-pros-podcast/id499844469
Episodes Mentioned in the Show:
35: Youtility: Jay Baer Shares Insights on Mobile, Content Marketing, and Social Media
177: The 11 Blogging Mistakes Your Business _Might_ Be Making
I have been blogging since 2008, and to be honest with you I really didn’t think strategically about blogging since fairly recently when I started talking about the freshness of content on episode 129 almost two years ago. Since then I have come to realize the mistakes of my own blog as well as those that I have helped in a variety of capacities over the years. Since Google is the biggest digital influencer of them all, I wanted to share with you the 11 blogging mistakes that I see businesses make yet very few podcasters or people in the blogosphere talk about. I hope after listening to this episode you will have a much more strategic look at blogging and how impactful it can be for your business.
For those of you interested in my fractional / outsourced CMO service, please contact me here: https://nealschaffer.com/contact/
Episodes mentioned in the show:
160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]
137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition
129: How Fresh is Your Content?
Links mentioned in the show:
SEMrush: https://nealschaffer.com/semrush [affiliate link]
The Blogging Millionaire on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-blogging-millionaire/id1072931592
Ahrefs study on blog traffic: https://ahrefs.com/blog/search-traffic-study/
The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/
Yoast SEO Plugin: https://yoast.com/wordpress/plugins/seo/
176: Corona Marketing – What Marketers Need To Know Now [Joe Pulizzi Interview]
Today the Godfather of content marketing, Joe Pulizzi, joins me as a special guest to help you find opportunity in the midst of the coronavirus. Our episode on “Corona Marketing” led us to talk about a wide variety of things your company can be doing _today_to grow your business despite the times that we live in. These include:
1. How marketers can cut through clutter with their content.
2. Strategies on how to build an audience in a recessionary environment.
3. What subscriber channels make the most sense to drive revenue.
Links mentioned in the show:
Joe Pulizzi’s Website: https://www.joepulizzi.com/
Joe Pulizzi’s books on Amazon: https://amzn.to/2Z3LMUl
Corona Marketing [Free Ebook]: https://www.joepulizzi.com/corona-marketing/
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.
Episodes Mentioned in the Show:
166: The Many Ways to Become an Influencer Today [John Lee Dumas Interview]
13: Got Good Social Media Marketing Apps? [Ian Cleary of Razor Social Interview] (my first interview!)
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:
- People think innovation is only about the products and services they sell, and why they’re wrong and missing a huge growth opportunity.
- 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.
- 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:
Carla Johnson’s Website: https://www.carlajohnson.co/
RE:Think Innovation by Carla Johnson: https://www.carlajohnson.co/author/
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:
Maximizing LinkedIn for Business: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizing-linkedin-for-business
Podcast episodes mentioned in the show:
163: LinkedIn Message Ads: The Convergence of Influencer Marketing and Paid Social
147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look [AJ Wilcox 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:
Digital Marketing Institute: https://digitalmarketinginstitute.com/
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!
Links mentioned in the show:
The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/
170: Why Earned Media is More Important Than Ever During a Pandemic [Valerie Christopherson Interview]
In crisis there is opportunity, and for those who understand how media consumption has changed during this coronavirus pandemic, there are distinct opportunities for your business to appear on the radar of more people organically earned media. Learn all about this opportunity straight from the PR expert and thought leader Valerie Christopherson, Founder and CEO of the PR agency Global Results Communications, headquartered right here in my beloved Orange County, California.
Our conversation went above and beyond the topic of the current pandemic as we discussed other issues upon us and how we can respond to them, including my sharing my own story of how I was called out on social media and how I will be responding. It is a good reminder that if digital influencers are the new media, with that comes responsibility.
Links mentioned in the show:
Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Free Ebook: https://nealschaffer.com/maximizing-linkedin-for-business
Neal Schaffer on Instagram: https://instagram.com/nealschaffer
Global Results Communications: https://www.globalresultspr.com/
Global Results Communications on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/globalresults/
Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:
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:
Exploring the impacts of employee advocacy on job satisfaction and organizational commitment: Case of Taiwanese airlines: http://www.isihome.ir/freearticle/ISIHome.ir-21028.pdf
FTC calls out Sony — and Deutsch L.A. — for deceptive advertising: https://adage.com/article/news/ftc-sony-deutsch-la-deceived-consumers/296004
The Age of Influence: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence
Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:
165: Influencer Marketing During COVID-19: Still Worth the Investment?
123: Enterprise-Wide Employee Advocacy is a Natural Outcome of Social Business [Sociabble Interview]
121: Everything You Wanted to Know about Employee Advocacy [PostBeyond Interview]
115: How Cathay Pacific Built a Global Employee Advocacy Program
107: Creating Employee Advocates with GaggleAMP
94: Employee Advocacy, Social Selling, and The Missing Alignment Between Sales and Marketing
82: How to Take Your Employee Advocacy to the Next Level: An Interview with GaggleAMP
69: The Definitive Guide to Employee Advocacy
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!
Links mentioned in the show:
Ace the Gram Website: https://acethegram.com
Ace the Gram Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/ace-the-gram/id1351123456
10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/
Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:
147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look [AJ Wilcox Interview]
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:
The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/
Episodes mentioned in the show:
161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence (my episode on lead magnets and email marketing)
110: How to Generate Leads from Facebook with TabSite [Mike Gingerich Interview]
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.
Links mentioned in the show:
John Lee Dumas’ Website: https://www.eofire.com/
My being interviewed on Michael Stelzner’s Social Media Marketing Podcast: https://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/social-strategy-with-neal-schaffer/
My being interviewed on John Lee Dumas’ Entrepreneurs on Fire podcast: https://entrepreneuronfire.libsyn.com/615-neal-schaffer-maximize-your-social
Episodes mentioned in or related to this one:
164: How to Skyrocket Your Qualified Organic Traffic [Farzad Rashidi Interview]
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:
Freshbooks #IMakeaLiving Micro-Conference: https://nealschaffer.com/freshbooks
Jon Rettinger’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR0AnNR7sViH3TWMJl5jyxw
Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview
Episodes mentioned in the show:
161: The Hidden Power of Email Marketing to Scale Your Digital Influence (the other content from the similar webinar I presented on)
156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus Pandemic
154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus Pandemic
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
Links mentioned in the show:
Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/
Age of Influence on Amazon: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence
Visme: https://www.visme.co/
Respona: https://respona.com/
Marketing Strategies We Used to Bootstrap Visme to 4 Million Users [Free Ebook]: https://www.visme.co/marketing-strategy/
The 10 Best Social Media Marketing Podcasts to Listen to in 2020: https://nealschaffer.com/best-social-media-marketing-podcasts/
HARO (Help a Reporter Out): https://www.helpareporter.com/
Episodes mentioned in the show:
Ep. 160: SEO and Social: Honing the Skills Needed for a Modern Marketer [Cyrus Shepard Interview]
Ep. 156: How to Pivot Your Marketing During the Coronavirus Pandemic
Ep. 154: COVID-19: What Your Business Needs to Do to Survive During the Coronavirus Pandemic
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:
The Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/
The Age of Influence on Amazon: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence
Episodes mentioned in the show:
147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look (AJ Wilcox Interview)
162: Why the Riches are in the Niches in Online Business [Jillian Tohber Leslie Interview]
You’ve probably heard the advice that if you want to become an influencer, you need to niche down. This podcast is going to be all about why the riches are in the inches and what you can do to take advantage of that. I interview the CEO and Founder of MiloTree, Jillian Tohber Leslie, and we discuss:
- Why drilling down in your niche can help you explode your business
- Why using Instagram and Facebook Groups is GOLD for selling to your audience
- The importance of teaching your audience to buy from you
Links mentioned in the show:
Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/
My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/
MiloTree: https://milotree.com/
Catch My Party: https://www.catchmyparty.com/
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:
My Marketing Book Giveaway: https://nealschaffer.com/marketing-books-giveaway/
Age of Influence Free Preview: https://nealschaffer.com/age-of-influence-preview/
Email Marketing Statistics: https://nealschaffer.com/email-marketing-statistics/
Recommended Email Marketing Software: https://nealschaffer.com/email-marketing-tools/
GetResponse: https://nealschaffer.com/getresponse
Episodes 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
159: An Introduction to The Age of Influence and Resetting Your Perspective on Digital Influence
Why does influencer marketing and collaborating with influencers regardless of industry have such incredible promise for businesses now and well into the future, even during this coronavirus pandemic? This episodes focuses on why I wrote my recent book, The Age of Influence, by reading you the actual Introduction from the published copy. By hearing my perspective through this episode, the way you look at digital influencer will forever be changed – for the better!
The Age of Influence can be bought at any major bookseller worldwide. Here is a link to the Amazon USA page for it: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence
158: How Human Writing – and AI Content Creation – Will Help You Scale Your Digital Influence [Kate Bradley Chernis Interview]
This episode features an interview with Kate Bradley Chernis, Co-Founder and CEO of the content marketing tool Lately, which helps you automatically turn your content into dozens of social media posts in one click. Some of the topics we cover include:
- Why writing is the most important skill in your toolkit as a marketer or a salesperson
- How any marketing person or tool can’t help you if you start out with crap: “you can’t polish a turd”
- How AI can help your content creation process
- How humans and Artificial Intelligence can work together
Thanks for listening, checking out my Age of Influence book, and subscribing and reviewing on whichever app you use to listen to this podcast!
157: Influencer Marketing before the Internet: A Personal Case Study to Help Guide You Towards Success Today
Today is a very special episode dedicated to a very special personal, my father, who recently passed away at the age of 93. By sharing his life story, not only will you better understand my DNA as an educator and entrepreneur, but you will learn how to take the same holistic approach like I do to influencer marketing so that you can find influential collaborators and distributors that can help you scale your business to the next level.
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.
Today’s episode is a special interview I had with a special friend, Mark Schaefer. Mark is one the true few thought leaders in the marketing space, whose most recent book Marketing Rebellion talks about how the most human companies will win in the marketing of tomorrow. While we planned to talk about a lot of issues, as you can imagine the current coronavirus COVID-19 pandemic weighed over our conversation. However, this current pandemic only served as a poignant reminder for Mark’s message, which now has more urgency to it because of the situation we are in today. You can find at Mark at BusinessesGrow and also on social media on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn. After listening to the podcast, I do hope you’ll reach out to him.
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!
Popular Podcast Episodes
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!
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:
- The Age of Influence – my new book
- Respona – blogger outreach platform
- GroupHigh – blogger outreach platform
- Superfans – book by Pat Flynn
- Maximize Your Social Influence community on Facebook
151: How Every Small Business Can Increase Sales with Video [Jayson Duncan Interview]
Are you looking to do more with video in social media? Join me for this interview with video marketing expert Jayson Duncan as we discuss how can businesses get into a groove of creating video on a regular basis, how to get people to watch your videos on LinkedIn, Facebook and YouTube, how to create successful video ads, and more! Learn more about Jayson and his company Miller Farm Media here: https://millerfarmmedia.com/
Please join our “new” community on Facebook: Maximize Your Social Influence Facebook Group
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!
The Age of Influence page on Amazon is here: https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence
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.
144: How to Do Influencer Marketing the Right Way in The Age of Influence
There is an incredible amount of misinformation out there about influencer marketing. Fake followers, phony engagement, people that come out of nowhere and get paid hundreds if not thousands of dollars for posting a single photo on Instagram. Is this influencer marketing bubble about to burst? These are some of the ways influencer marketing is portrayed, but they miss out on a holistic definition of digital influence, which existed way before Instagrammers or YouTubers, and also ignore other trends in digital marketing that will push more and more brands to creating collaborations with influencers. Learn about how to do influencer marketing the right way by listening to this podcast.
143: Fanocracy: The Next Evolution in Marketing? [David Meerman Scott Interview]
Join me for an insightful interview with the bestselling marketing author David Meerman Scott, who’s The New Rules of Marketing and PR has sold more than 400,000 copies worldwide. David joined me for an interview where he revealed the background and a preview of his new book: Fanocracy: Turning Fans into Customers and Customers into Fans. While the theme of “fans” has been something covered by others, David offers a unique approach backed by case studies and neuroscience which I believe you will find quite insightful. Once you hear the scientific background behind Fanocracy, you might join me in believing that it really might be the next evolution in marketing – for those forward-looking companies who empower their marketing and customer experience teams to push forward on a “fanocracy” initiative. For my listeners, even if you are not a large enterprise, the same concepts that David discusses can be leveraged by any entrepreneur, small business owner, or marketer. You can purchase your own copy of Fanocracy here.
142: Influencer Marketing for Even the Smallest of Businesses
If you think influencer marketing is just about famous consumer brands spending lots of money to have YouTubers and Instagrammers talk about them, you are far from the truth! Discover how any business in any industry can and should leverage influencers in this episode #142. Learn more about my upcoming book on influencer marketing, The Age of Influence, at https://nealschaffer.com/ageofinfluence.
141: How Can Marketers Stay Ahead in a Rapidly Changing Industry? [Yam Regev Interview]
If you are a marketer, especially a digital or social media marketer, it really gets more and more difficult with each passing day to keep track of all of the changes going on in the world of marketing as well as all of the excellent and insightful blog content that are being published. From following social media feeds to subscribing to RSS feeds and newsletters, all of us marketers have our own system that we have created to try to cope, but this approach may not be ideal, especially for the subject matter that we are less familiar with.
This episode #141 features an interview with Yam Regev, CMO and Founder of Zest.is. We discuss all of the changes in marketing that marketers need to be concerned about, how can marketers consume all of the blog content that is being published on a daily basis, as well as how a combination of Community + Content + AI utilizing the free Zest.is app can help support today’s marketer. You can access Zest at https://zest.is
140: Want to Excel at Social Media Marketing? You Need to be an Active Consumer of Social Media First
For whatever social media channel you want to become proficient at, STOP listening to this podcast and START becoming a user of the channel! As marketers, we sometimes look for new social networks or content mediums to utilize for marketing, but instead of reading blogs or listening to what advice others give us, becoming actual users and consumers of the content on those platforms or of those mediums is probably the single most important thing you can do at the beginning to get better at them.
This episode #140 was inspired by my own podcast and the confession that I personally wasn’t a consumer of podcasts yet was a podcast creator. While the positive thing is that I might not have been influenced by other podcasters and thus my podcast might be unique, it also means that I failed to grasp the importance of certain things about my podcast or the needs of podcast audiences.
As mentioned in the intro, if you haven’t subscribed to my newsletter, please do so by going to my website and entering you email address on the sidebar widget or the one at the bottom of each page: https://nealschaffer.com
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!
138: Customer Experience Marketing: Why You Must Embrace It to Stand Out as a Business [Dan Gingiss Interview]
Customer experience marketing. It’s a buzzword that a lot of people throw out, but what exactly does it mean, how important is it to you business today, and what are the first steps you can take to implementing customer experience marketing the right way?
I could not think of a better person than friend and customer experience marketing expert Dan Gingiss to have on my podcast to answer these questions and more for my listeners.
As Dan explains, customer experience marketing is a vital aspect to both your online and offline business. It also could be the one defining thing that can differentiate your brand from your competitors.
Dan takes us through the correct way to implement customer experience marketing. Listen in and read the show notes below to learn more.
137: How To Optimize Your Blog Posts For Higher Search Rankings And Stay Ahead Of The Competition
Getting to the front page in the search rankings is a battlefield – you’re fighting a war! The struggle to stay relevant and compete with an ever growing number of competitors requires the right tools and the right approach to revitalizing existing blog content and strategically creating new content.
If you are approaching content from a social media marketing perspective, or from a blogging perspective, today’s podcast is going to really resonate with you because I want to give you a hopefully new and really holistic way of thinking about search engine optimization and therefore the content that either you already have on your site or new content that you are going to blog in the future as part of your content marketing and social media marketing efforts.
Social media keeps changing. It seems that every few weeks you hear that Facebook has some new algorithm that messes up all the energy you’ve been putting into it. Then a new feature appears and everyone tells you how amazing it is for branding and marketing. And then it turns out that it’s not as amazing as everyone says (remember Periscope?). How do we keep track of the social media marketing trends? How do we adapt? How do make sure to stay atop of the ever-flowing changes but at the same time never waste too much energy on them either?
Today I interview an expert to help you answer all those questions about social media marketing trends.
During my recent trip around the world, I was able to go to the Falcon.io “Spark” conference in Copenhagen, Denmark, where I finally had a chance to meet up with someone I’ve known and respected in social media for quite some time: Matt Navarra, a social media consultant and former social media director for the The Next Web as well as consultant to organizations such as the United Nations and BBC.
In this interview I talk with Matt about what has happened to social media in the past 12 months and what’s next for the future with regards to social media marketing trends. Should businesses continue experimenting with Facebook? How can brands make use of both Instagram and Facebook Stories? What is the next big thing? Listen to find out!
134: It’s Time to Bring Content, Organic Social and Performance Marketing Teams Together [Falcon.io Interview]
I recently keynoted social media enterprise platform company Falcon.io‘s Spark conference in Copenhagen, Denmark on the topic of influencer marketing. I had a chance to meet with their founder and CEO, Ulrik Bo Larsen, at the event and get his perspective on all things social media marketing. Listen in for his advice.
131: How to Create Your Own Instagram Followers Policy to Increase Your Community and Gain More Engagement
On this podcast I first compare the concept of an Instagram follower policy with that of other social networks and then focus on detailing my experience on Instagram to help you create a policy that will help you grow both Instagram followers and engagement.
127: 10 Tips to Hack Your Social Media Growth
Today I’m talking about something that I haven’t talked about before: growth hacking. Growth hacking is basically how to quickly create a robust social presence on a newly launched effort in a short amount of time. I have had a few companies reach out to me for advice on this subject, and was recently asked what my first steps to start building a big presence would be. The ten tips I’m talking about today are great not only for social media newbies, but also for folks who maybe need to take a step back and make sure they haven’t missed these important steps.
110: How to Generate Leads from Facebook with TabSite [Mike Gingerich Interview]
This week, I am coming to you from Victoria, British Columbia, in Canada where I keynoted Social Media Camp. At the event, I ran into my friend Mike Gingerich of TabSite. TabSite is a great tool that helps you run contests and capture leads, mostly on Facebook, but also on the web. It integrates with tons of common platforms like MailChimp, Infusionsoft, Canva, and Hootsuite, and it’s so easy to use. It’s a great way to grow your following, get shared on social networks, and engage with people. Learn more in this episode!
71: Neal’s Fave Social Media Productivity Tips & Tools
Spending too much time in social and achieving too few business results? Let me share with you my favorite social media productivity tips – and a plethora of tools to help you and your business improve your social media productivity by leaps and bounds.
8: 5 Components of a BAD Social Media Marketing Strategy
What makes a BAD social media strategy? Here I outline 5 key components that you should avoid in planning your own social media strategy.
1: The Biggest Reason You Should Become a Content Creator (and Why I Started this Podcast)
Welcome to the first episode of my podcast! This will tell you why I launched my podcast, which at the inception was called the Social Business Unplugged podcast. I also want to share with you how a podcast can feed into an inbound marketing strategy.