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. 204: Going Live: Why Livestreaming Matters (Christoph Trappe Interview)
    2. 203: Why Isn’t Your Brand Trying to Become More Influential?
    3. 202: Every Successful Entrepreneur’s Common Path to Uncommon Success (John Lee Dumas Interview)
    4. 201: Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Reignite Your Brand [Jason Falls Interview]
    5. 200: How to Scale Influence through Community (and Why I am Launching One)
    6. 199: How To Grow Influence In a Red Ocean [Jeroen Corthout Interview]
    7. 198: I’m On Clubhouse. Now What?
    8. 197: How to Increase Your Influence With a 100-Page Book [Mike Capuzzi Interview]
    9. 196: My Initial Thoughts on Clubhouse, the Newest Social Media App
    10. 195: How to Maximize Your Real Estate Social Influence [Chris Stuart Interview]
    11. 194: If I Was Your CMO: Where to Invest in Digital and Social Media Marketing in 2021
    12. 193: The Importance of Influencer Collaboration in Building Influence [Amanda Russell Interview]
    13. 192: My Marketing Technology Toolstack for 2021
    14. 191: The Technology and Tools You Need for Your Marketing Infrastructure (Part 1: WordPress Plugins)
    15. 190: Can an Introvert Become an Online Influencer? [Bob Gentle Interview]
    16. 189: You’re Measuring Social Media ROI All Wrong
    17. 188: How to Use Podcasting to Expand Your Reach and Land New Customers [Robert Loewenthal Interview]
    18. 187: What If I Told You You Already Had Enough Content to be Successful?
    19. 186: Content Marketing: Why It is Now a Business Strategy [Mariah MacInnes Interview]
    20. 185: Why You Need to Invest in Content Longevity and Discoverability Going Forward
    21. 184: Why Understanding Your Audience’s Pain Point is the Secret to Digital Success [Mitchell Levy Interview]
    22. 183: Influencer Marketing for Search Engine Optimization: Building Backlinks for SEO
    23. 182: How Networking Helps You Scale Your Business [Philip VanDusen Interview]
    24. 181: How to Optimize Your Content Publishing on Your Blog and Social Media
    25. 180: Why Every Entrepreneur Should Publish a Book [Josh Steimle 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. 171: How to Gain More Experience – and Yield More Influence – in Social Media
    5. 170: Why Earned Media is More Important Than Ever During a Pandemic [Valerie Christopherson Interview]
    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. 151: How Every Small Business Can Increase Sales with Video [Jayson Duncan Interview]
    20. 150: How to Know When It’s Time to Monetize Your Influence
    21. 149: How to Become a Published Author [Lee Constantine from Publishizer Interview]
    22. 148: How to Scale Your Digital Branding
    23. 147: LinkedIn Ads: A Comprehensive Look (AJ Wilcox Interview)
    24. 146: Pinterest Marketing for Those Who Still Don’t Get It
    25. 145: Free PR: How to Leverage the Media to Amplify Your Brand Exposure and Increase Credibility without Spending Money [Adrian Salamunovic Interview]

Newest Podcast Episodes

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

189: You’re Measuring Social Media ROI All Wrong

Since publishing The Age of Influence, my thoughts on influencer marketing and social media marketing in general continue to evolve. As I prepare for the writing of my next book, I wanted to share with you my latest views on how you and your business can best leverage social media for marketing in 2021 and beyond: By looking at social media as a marketplace for collaboration and strategically moving social media users through your funnel of Social Media Relationships.

188: How to Use Podcasting to Expand Your Reach and Land New Customers [Robert Loewenthal Interview]

A lot of businesses don’t realize that, like blogs, podcasts are not just a personal content medium but can also be used by businesses. To explain the various benefits of podcasting for businesses, I am joined by Robert Loewenthal, Founder and CEO of Whooshkaa, Australia’s leading podcast hosting solution who have been successfully expanding globally as we speak.

Robert will help enlighten you on:

  • How some companies are using targeted podcasts as part of their outbound sales and marketing.
  • What is a branded podcast?
  • How can podcasts help bridge the communication gap during covid?

Guest Links

187: What If I Told You You Already Had Enough Content to be Successful?

We are told that, in order to yield more digital influence and be more successful in digital marketing, that we need to create more and more content, and the more content the better.

But is that really the case?

I will tackle this myth using my own real-life experience and instead help you transition off that hamster wheel of content to something that requires a fraction of the resources and will help you become more successful!

186: Content Marketing: Why It is Now a Business Strategy [Mariah MacInnes Interview]

Join me in this interview with “Content Queen” Mariah MacInnes as we go deep into the value that content has for your business. Among other things, Mariah provides a refreshing perspective on:

  • the four pillars you can implement into your content strategy so you never run out of content ideas
  • how to be more consistent with content creation without it consuming your time
  • the actions you need to take to ensure you get more engagement with your content online

Guest Links:

185: Why You Need to Invest in Content Longevity and Discoverability Going Forward

As we close out a year and enter a new one, it’s time to holistically look at our digital and social media marketing strategy.

If content is the currency of digital and social media, where should we be investing our content creation efforts going forward?

Here’s my advice, where I really juxtapose social media with all other content in terms of longevity and discoverability to give you a clear picture as to where to get the biggest bang for your marketing buck going forward.

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

184: Why Understanding Your Audience’s Pain Point is the Secret to Digital Success [Mitchell Levy Interview]

Today’s special guest is Mitchell Levy, global authority on credibility and the author of the brand new book Credibility Nation. In this episode Mitchell breaks down why understanding your customer’s pain point is the key to success in digital and social media, specifically:

  • Why whatever you do in digital and social media, your messaging should be focused on your audience and not yourself
  • How to create an audience-centric mindset
  • How to revise your digital and social media marketing strategy with your audience in mind

Guest Links

183: Influencer Marketing for Search Engine Optimization: Building Backlinks for SEO

You’re blogging – check. You’re doing your keyword research and focusing on competitive keywords – check. You’re optimizing all of your blog posts for SEO – check.

You’re probably doing all of the above, but you’re still not ranking in Google – why?

That is exactly the situation I was in until I embarked on doing some research. And from that research, I have come to some conclusions.

The final frontier of SEO and ranking in search engines is in generating backlinks. And if you want to generate backlinks you need to be proactive in doing so.

This episode will hopefully be an eye-opener for you as I introduce my own research and methodology so that you can maximize your own social influence.

Reference Links:

182: How Networking Helps You Scale Your Business [Philip VanDusen Interview]

Join me for this insightful interview with branding guru, fellow podcaster, and YouTube influencer Philip VanDusen. We talk all about the power of networking and the impact it can have on your business, especially as we are in the midst of this coronarvirus pandemic. Some of the things we discussed include:

  • How the pandemic has effected our decision-making power
  • The power of mastermind groups
  • How “natural networking” – in a new way – can help you scale your business quickly

Guest Links

181: How to Optimize Your Content Publishing on Your Blog and Social Media

As you publish more blog posts and content throughout social media on a wide variety of subjects that are relevant to your business, how do you know which content is performing better or worse? How can you take that engagement data and feed it back into your publishing infrastructure to create more or less content about what types of content that are relevant to your company, and in doing so generating higher and higher ROI for whatever metric you are tracking?

In this episode I introduce a quarterly content audit which I just started doing which gives you specific instructions of how to do this with your own content using my own blog as a case study. You’ll learn about the concept of content buckets that I introduced back in 2013 in my Maximize Your Social book and how to apply that in PDCA style with a data-driven approach which allows you to further optimize your marketing with every (quarterly) iteration!

180: Why Every Entrepreneur Should Publish a Book [Josh Steimle Interview]

If you want to yield influence in digital and social media you need to become a content creator. Not all content has the same longevity or impact, but if you wanted to make the biggest bang for your buck and create the most impactful content that can help drive your business, a book is the answer. You’ll find out why in this interview with published author, speaker, and entrepreneur Josh Steimle who will share with you the why as well as how to get started, how to keep going and not burn out, and how to leverage your book to grow your business.

Guest Links

Josh Steimle’s Published Author Program: https://www.publishedauthor.com/

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:

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!

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:

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.

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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:

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/

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.

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