Unlock Facebook’s Hidden Potential to Build Relationships and Grow Fast

In my recent episode of the Blogger Genius Podcast, I had a conversation with Devin Schubert, a business coach specializing in leadership, team building, and innovation through a Christian lens.

The episode dives deep into the strategic use of Facebook for building relationships and growing a business. Here, we break down the key takeaways and actionable advice shared during the episode.

Optimizing Social Media Profiles

Key Points:

Profile Optimization: Devin emphasizes the importance of a well-optimized social media profile. This includes a clear and compelling bio, a professional profile picture, and a banner that communicates your brand’s message.

Pinned Posts: Utilize pinned posts on Facebook to highlight your story and the value you offer. A strong hook at the beginning of your pinned post can capture attention and encourage engagement.

Actionable Tips:

Bio and Banner: Ensure your bio succinctly describes who you are and what you do. Your banner should visually represent your brand and include a call to action or a tagline.

Pinned Post Strategy: Craft a pinned post that introduces you, shares your mission, and invites followers to engage with your content. Use a compelling hook to draw readers in.

Show Notes:

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• Devin Schubert
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Building Relationships Before Selling

Key Points:

Value First: Both Devin and I stress the importance of building relationships before attempting to sell. People are unlikely to make a purchase or schedule a call if they don’t know you yet.

Engagement Over Sales: Focus on providing value through your posts to build trust and rapport with your audience.

Actionable Tips:

Content Strategy: Share valuable insights, tips, and personal stories that resonate with your audience. Avoid pushing sales too early in the relationship.

Engagement Tactics: Respond to comments, ask questions, and engage in conversations to build a community around your brand.

The Role of Facebook Groups

Key Points:

Community Building: Despite claims that Facebook groups are declining, Devin argues they remain a powerful tool for fostering community and engagement.

Private Groups for Memberships: Use private Facebook groups for memberships to create a familiar and accessible space for your audience.

Actionable Tips:

Group Engagement: Ask engaging questions during the sign-up process to capture emails and nurture relationships. Tag new members in welcome posts and provide valuable content through videos and training sessions.

Content Sharing: Regularly share resources, host live sessions, and encourage member participation to keep the group active and engaged.

Engagement Strategies

Key Points:

Simple Communication: Devin highlights the importance of simplicity in communication and calls to action. Straightforward prompts encourage more responses and engagement.

Creative Posts: Use creative and fun posts to spark conversation and engagement.

Actionable Tips:

Engaging Questions: Ask simple, intuitive questions that invite participation. For example, “What time do you see this post?” can generate comments and boost visibility.

Fun Interactions: Create playful posts that encourage debate or sharing, such as asking whether a cup is half full or half empty.

Long-Term Mindset

Key Points:

Patience and Consistency: Devin and I stress the importance of a long-term mindset. Building relationships and nurturing trust takes time.

Avoiding Discouragement: Don’t get discouraged by low engagement on business-related posts. Visibility is key, and silent observers may still be considering your content.

Actionable Tips:

Consistent Posting: Maintain a regular posting schedule to stay top-of-mind with your audience.

Focus on Relationships: Prioritize building authentic connections over immediate sales. Trust and rapport will lead to long-term success.

Email as a Central Tool

Key Points:

Email Marketing: While social media is great for attracting followers, building an email list is essential for nurturing relationships and maintaining control over communication.

Lead Capture: Use Facebook to capture emails and grow your list.

Actionable Tips:

Lead Magnets: Offer valuable lead magnets, such as free guides or webinars, to encourage email sign-ups.

Email Nurturing: Regularly send valuable content to your email list to keep them engaged and build trust.

Content Repurposing

Key Points:

Master One Platform: Devin emphasizes the importance of mastering one platform before expanding to others.

Repurpose Content: Repurpose content across different channels to maximize reach.

Actionable Tips:

Content Strategy: Focus on creating high-quality content for Facebook, then repurpose it for other platforms like Instagram and YouTube.

Cross-Promotion: Promote your content across different channels to reach a wider audience.

Call to Action Philosophy

Key Points:

Value Posts: Devin prefers to avoid calls to action in value posts, allowing the content to resonate without pressure.

Strategic CTAs: Use calls to action in other types of posts to encourage engagement and interaction.

Actionable Tips:

Subtle CTAs: In value posts, include subtle calls to action, such as inviting comments or shares, rather than direct sales pitches.

Engagement CTAs: Use clear and direct calls to action in posts designed to drive engagement, such as asking followers to join a group or sign up for a webinar.

Building Trust

Key Points:

Engagement: Responding to comments and engaging in conversations builds trust and deepens relationships.

Voice Messages: Devin finds voice messages more effective for building genuine relationships than text alone.

Actionable Tips:

Active Engagement: Make it a habit to respond to every comment and message. Show appreciation for your audience’s participation.

Personal Touch: Use voice messages in DMs to add a personal touch and build stronger connections.

Conclusion

This episode of the Blogger Genius Podcast offers a wealth of insights into leveraging Facebook for business growth. Devin Schubert’s emphasis on mindset, consistency, and relationship-building provides a roadmap for bloggers and entrepreneurs looking to connect with their audience and drive engagement on social media. By focusing on providing value, maintaining a long-term mindset, and optimizing your social media presence, you can effectively use Facebook to achieve your business goals.

For those interested in learning more about Devin and his strategies, you can connect with him on Facebook at facebook.com/shubertdevon. And for further support with your digital product strategies, reach out to me and explore the resources available through MiloTree.

By implementing these strategies and focusing on authentic engagement, you can build meaningful connections that lead to business growth and personal fulfillment.

Other Related Blogger Genius Podcast episodes You’ll Enjoy:

• How Can Bloggers Prepare for a Profitable Q4 with Jillian Leslie
• Why Freebies Are the Secret Sauce to Email List Success with Jillian Leslie
• The Not-Secret Strategy to SEO Success with Bernard Meyer

MiloTreeCart, the Best Tool for Non-Techies to Sell Digital Products

I also want to introduce you to the MiloTreeCart, a tool designed for non-techies to sell digital products easily. It comes with features like fill-in-the-blank sales pages, check-out pages, a sales dashboard, upsells, and customer support. MiloTreeCart is currently available for a lifetime deal of $349 or three easy installments of $116.33.

Transcript: #348: Unlock Facebook’s Hidden Potential to Build Relationships and Grow Fast

Jillian Leslie 00:00:07 Hello and welcome back to the show. I’m so happy you are here. I’m Jillian, host of the Blogger Genius podcast, founder of MiloTree, where we sell software just for bloggers to help you guys sell digital products and grow your audience as you can learn more by going to MiloTree.com. If you’re thinking about tapping in to a new income stream, selling your knowledge anything from an e-book to a membership to a subscription to coaching to a mini course, definitely go check that out again at MiloTree.com. For today’s episode, I have Devin Schubert on the podcast and we are talking all things Facebook. What’s interesting is I have not done an episode just on Facebook in so long, so it feels almost like revisiting an old friend. And this also speaks to something that I have been sharing a lot about, which is in order to grow a successful business today, I recommend you have one place where you can connect with your audience, where you can put out your solutions, your view of the world, and see who you attract.

Jillian Leslie 00:01:27 This is where you have deep conversations one on one with people. And Devon has found that in Facebook. In fact, I have a Facebook group called the Become a Blogger Genius Facebook Group, and I have to be honest, I’ve let it go stale and I am going to dig in again, because what I realize is that I miss it, and I love the kind of casual vibe of it. So if you are not a member, just search for the Become a Blogger Genius Facebook group, and you can hear me doing recaps of my episodes talking about new ideas I have about business building. So please join! And now I’m excited to share my episode with Devin, where he goes into his tactics on how he has been able to grow and cultivate his relationships his communities on Facebook. Devin, welcome to the Blogger Genius podcast.

Devin Schubert 00:02:29 Hello, hello. Thank you. This is exciting to be here. Jillian, you.

Jillian Leslie 00:02:33 Are a business coach. You teach leadership team building innovation all through a Christian lens and then you become a Facebook expert.

Jillian Leslie 00:02:44 Would you share a little bit about your background?

Devin Schubert 00:02:48 Yeah, absolutely. Thank you for giving me this opportunity to share with everybody that’s listening. And I have grown up really being a person that has loved influence. I have started churches. I started seven churches, nine ministries. I started a foster care system through the churches. I was a social worker for 15 years.

Jillian Leslie 00:03:10 Interesting. Now the word that really jumped out to me just now is influence. How have you learned to use Facebook to amplify your influence and grow your coaching business?

Devin Schubert 00:03:26 I believe first off, Jillian, it’s it starts with your mindset. You know, just like writing, starting out, writing and copywriting and writing your blogs, you’re not always going to have a huge rush of people right away. It takes time, it takes consistency, and it also always have to remember. It comes back to our heart, our heart posture of why are we doing this? Are we doing this for fame? Are we doing this to go viral? Are we doing this for those important things? Or we really doing this to really make a difference in people’s lives, to help them with their health, to help them with their life, or to make them into a better person? The blogging and social media are very similar in those ways of if you give up, there’s a life that could not be touched by what you need to share.

Devin Schubert 00:04:13 And so with social media, it’s consistency. You may not see that traction right away. In fact, a lot of people don’t right away. But within a couple of months of posting multiple times a week. And ultimately, if you can post something every day and specifically on Facebook and Instagram, if you can post something every day. And I was running a workshop one time, Jillian, and with this workshop I was teaching people to be consistent. How important that is for social media. I said, I’m going to make this a point that you just need to put the letter A, just put anything out on social media and allow people to get to know you. So I put the letter A and I’ll tell you about 60 to 70 people commented b c what are you doing? They’re having comments in that I got two clients from posting the letter A on social media.

Jillian Leslie 00:05:10 But I, I need to stop you there. You just went to Facebook every day. You you were also posting posts or literally the only thing you were posting was the letter A.

Devin Schubert 00:05:23 Yeah. So that day was the only day I’d actually posted the letter A otherwise I’ve built, built it out to where I’ve been consistently posting for about two years now.

Jillian Leslie 00:05:33 Okay, okay.

Devin Schubert 00:05:34 So and so I’m posting about my life, about my business, all those types of things. And then I was just teaching people. You just got to be consistent. That’s how I built the brand that I’ve built.

Jillian Leslie 00:05:44 Interesting. Okay. So so you weren’t posting the letter A every day. You were just posting posted at one time and you got a response?

Speaker 3 00:05:54 Yes.

Jillian Leslie 00:05:55 And people were curious. What’s he doing. So yeah of the social media platforms that you use where do you live and where do you think the most juices right now.

Devin Schubert 00:06:12 Yeah. You know I live on Facebook. Everything that I’ve built multiple six figure businesses off of Facebook alone. I believe that if, if you can build a seven figure business on one platform and then move to the others, you’ll have a team that you can manage the other ones with.

Devin Schubert 00:06:30 And so if you’re going to go all into every single platform, that’s a lot of work. It’s a lot of work. And you’re leaving a lot of leads and conversations out there if you’re trying to post on all of them. So for me, I started on Facebook and that’s where I’ve continued to build. It all depends, Jillian, on where your audience is. You know, for for some people, their audience, if you’re reaching, you know, the the elderly, they’re probably not going to be on TikTok. They’re not going to be on Snapchat, they’re probably going to be on Facebook, LinkedIn or something similar like that. And so it’s really.

Jillian Leslie 00:07:04 Like I do think, though, that like, Instagram has kind of become the I would argue that Instagram is still the most popular in the audience that I’m talking to. And I would say that Facebook in my mind, feels a little old.

Speaker 3 00:07:23 Okay.

Jillian Leslie 00:07:24 Yeah. So tell me, what is it about Facebook that is magic for you?

Devin Schubert 00:07:31 Yeah.

Devin Schubert 00:07:31 So Facebook and Instagram are tied hand in hand so you can post on both platforms at the same time. I post on both things. I just don’t follow up. The thing that I love about Facebook is being able to utilize the Facebook groups and being able to have more, conversations and hone people into a niche, specific area. Now, you can do that through Instagram and funnel them to, like, a school or a circle or a Facebook group or things like that. But the algorithm favors and Facebook when you have captured audience with people. And so Instagram also, if people don’t like to be on camera, well, it the algorithm likes when you show your face. People like when you show your face if you’re posting stock photos. Instagram, Facebook doesn’t like that. If you don’t like posting reels, you know Instagram may not may not be the right thing for you. So while I do agree with you that Instagram is the uppity up and is a great platform to be able to utilize, if people don’t like having pictures or making sure that they’re showing themselves.

Devin Schubert 00:08:39 Instagram probably isn’t the best.

Jillian Leslie 00:08:41 Okay, so what you’re saying to me is that on Facebook, you’re able to capture people’s attention and turn that from attention into a conversation. And then from the conversation, you’re able to sell your services. Is that kind of how your funnel looks?

Devin Schubert 00:09:05 Yeah, absolutely. I, I teach people that we should teach in public and sell in private. Nobody likes to just go out about and try and see all these sales tactics out there and be sold to out in public. I believe it’s more of a relationship type of building thing where you’re nurturing them. And so if I can teach things in public, like all the bloggers and things are doing, you guys are are blogging and teaching people. Now, if you can utilize that and, and allow people to say, hey, I didn’t really understand this part of what you were saying, can you tell me more about that? Wow. Now they’re building another depth of relationship with you. And then when you put an offer out there to say, hey, you know what? I actually coach people.

Devin Schubert 00:09:48 I actually teach people how to do this. I actually help people along this. Or here’s another product, here’s a digital product, or here’s a free lead magnet to where you can download it and and you can capture their email. All these forms are ways that now you can nurture that relationship and build it on a personal level.

Jillian Leslie 00:10:04 Okay. So when that totally makes sense to me when you are on Facebook and you said to me post every day, what are you posting? What are you teaching? What does it actually look like?

Devin Schubert 00:10:18 Yeah, yeah. Great question. So I believe that there there’s all types of content that you can number one do, but I like to bring it down into the ABCs of social media. What does that look like. The first thing is is all about attention. A lot of people don’t like attention. I don’t want the attention. I don’t want the attention put on me. I want to just hide it. It’s okay. I’m fine not being seen. Well, what is your real passion? Why are you doing the blog? Why are you needing to get this out there? Because you want to see lives transform.

Devin Schubert 00:10:50 Do you want to see the help out there? So you do need to draw attention to your content. What does that look like? And so I like to put it into three areas. Number one what are the results that people are getting. So a post you can do once a week is results. What types of results are you getting or what types of results are other people getting through what you’re doing. So that can be a testimonial. That can be some type of a success. It can be a number of clients that you’ve gotten. What are some results that they’re getting? Number two is value. Add value to what they’re doing. So this can be teaching. This can be this can be stats. This can be your entire blog. You can have all different types of value posts that you can put out there. And number three is all about lifestyle. People want to recognize you as a person. They don’t want to recognize you as this person on a platform that’s perfect, that never does anything wrong and never gets anything wrong.

Devin Schubert 00:11:47 They want to see a human element to where they can say, hey, you know what? I’m drinking coffee too. I would love to have coffee with Jillian. And I know those types of things. They want to be able to see that. Not saying that you have to show your kids, you have to go all out with that. But you know what? If you go out to a restaurant and you’re a you’re a health guru and you say, man, I found this awesome restaurant. I went out with my husband and this is what it looks like. people are like, oh man, I can go to a restaurant and be healthy. Wow. Awesome. And so you see how you’re bringing your lifestyle into that. And people can really relate. That helps build the relationships to the next level. So a part of the attention that you’re drawing is results value and lifestyle.

Jillian Leslie 00:12:30 Interesting. So let’s go through then three of your posts each one and what it looks like so is the first one let’s say so results and you will post an image.

Jillian Leslie 00:12:42 Will you post a video? Are you speaking directly to the camera and will your results posts look different every week? Let’s say so. So talk to me then about what that actual content looks like that you are posting once a day.

Devin Schubert 00:13:00 Yes. Great question. And the answer to that is yes to all the above. Whatever you want it to look like. I’ll tell you that I have worked with some of the biggest names and tried to learn from them, and ultimately I’ve built my tribe by being me. I’m not following a template or a script. My people know when I try something different and it’s a script or a template that something or somebody else has given to me. And so sometimes I will go live. Sometimes I’ll post just a colored background with a saying, sometimes I’ll post a video, sometimes it’ll be a real but ultimately, no matter what I do, it’s going to be me doing and sharing with my people what I feel like they they want to hear and what they need to hear, for them.

Devin Schubert 00:13:51 So I don’t have necessarily a specific answer for that, except for find the results that you want people to hear about and share it in any way that you want and find what works. What is your tribe want to hear?

Jillian Leslie 00:14:03 So therefore what you’re doing is you’re looking at your analytics. You’re seeing where you’re getting the most engagement engagement. And you’re saying, hey, me going live, people like that, I’m going to do that again. Ooh, this static image with like some ocean background just didn’t hit it with my audience. So sorry. We’re not going to be like posting the tranquil image with the inspirational quote. Let’s say they want more interaction. And is that how you are doing it and learning?

Devin Schubert 00:14:34 Yeah, absolutely it is. And it’s also remembering that you’re not going to reach everybody, and you shouldn’t want to reach everybody. You should actually be repelling people away by them not agreeing with you. Because if you’re really reaching an ideal client, an ideal person that you want to be able to work with or you want to read your things, it’s okay to push some people away and say, hey, you know what? I know that you like just jumping on Facebook and looking at memes all day.

Devin Schubert 00:15:02 That’s not me. That’s not what I’m going to do. You’re not for me. And guess what? That’s okay. It’s cool. We don’t have to be, like, aligned all the time.

Jillian Leslie 00:15:10 Do you feel though, like having strong opinions is beneficial? I have an audience and and I put myself in this category. I think we’re really nice people. We don’t want to offend people. We don’t want to say anything controversial. And I don’t mean politically. I just mean like, you know, I don’t like watermelon, let’s say. And people go, what, she doesn’t like watermelon? That’s like, I can’t be friends with her. So do you want to be putting out opinions that people might not agree with like that can feel scary.

Devin Schubert 00:15:44 Yeah, yeah, it definitely can. It definitely can. And my suggestion to my clients are pick and choose what battles you want to start. Because for me, I’m not going to post about being a Democrat or Republican because guess what? That doesn’t mean anything to my brand, to who I am, to what I’m doing.

Devin Schubert 00:16:02 It just doesn’t. and so why pick a fight where I don’t need to start a fight at.

Jillian Leslie 00:16:08 Got it. Okay, but if you, Let’s say you are, I don’t know, an interior designer. And you think the quality of these pillows is better than other pillows? You know, like, this might be something that you’re going to go to the mat for.

Devin Schubert 00:16:30 I think as long as you do it with a heart that again is being open minded and that I really care about these people, and some people may shift their belief, and that’s important. Some people may just completely reject and have a complete closed mind about it. But as long as you are doing it from the right perspective of being respectful of other people, for me it’s it’s a lot about my faith. I would stand firm on my faith and, and those types of things. When it comes to generating quality content on social media. I’ll stand firm on that rather than some. I translated garbage that you just put in there, and it still has all the goofy markings in there from straight from ChatGPT.

Devin Schubert 00:17:14 I’ll put that out there and say, you know what? This is not this is garbage, this is garbage. And if you’re okay with putting garbage out there, awesome. Bless you and what you’re doing. It’s just not for me. And so I’ll stand my ground and I’ll put those markers down to where some people say, hey, you know what? All right, you’re not for me. I love GPD. That’s okay. And so I think it’s the same thing with those other people.

Jillian Leslie 00:17:35 Interesting. So you’re posting and you are you asking questions? How are you getting that conversation again? I shared a lot of people post on social media and it’s crickets and nobody’s talking to them. How do you get people to talk to you?

Devin Schubert 00:17:54 Yeah. Can I share some secrets? Is it safe to share secrets here I love.

Jillian Leslie 00:17:58 Secrets, yes.

Devin Schubert 00:17:59 All right. Good, good. so let me share with you an algorithm hack that I do usually once or twice a week. And what this is, is find some type of engaging question or meme that will get people talking.

Devin Schubert 00:18:15 So, for example, if I put out there what time. And this is this is my favorite post. So don’t use it all the time. is what time are you seeing this? And so you recognize immediately, you’re like, oh, I gotta put what time it is because I don’t have to think about it. All I have to do is write it down and people are going to respond. And so what’s the point of this? You’re going to get a lot of people commenting that shows Facebook or Instagram that people are seeing your content. They’re staying on that platform, seeing more ads, which makes Facebook happy. So now the next day after you have 20, 30 couple hundred comments on that, now you put an engaging, business post or a blog or something out there that people are really going to get value from. Because here’s the secret. Everybody who saw that post the day before and commented are now going to see your your post the next day.

Jillian Leslie 00:19:21 Very smart.

Devin Schubert 00:19:23 That is how you get it.

Devin Schubert 00:19:24 But with that I always have to give. And I fell into this a couple of weeks ago that not everybody’s going to comment on that business post. Not everybody’s going to comment or like it or hard it any of those things. Don’t get discouraged and go into the likes and the and the comments, trap because people are seeing it and that’s what matters. You’re being seen. And so that may turn into a DM that may turn into, you know, them following you closer. and so, you know, make sure that you’re not falling into that trap of, oh, I only got one. Like, because two weeks ago I did this and I had 160 some comments the day before. And I’m like, yes, this is going to be awesome. And I released a brand new lead magnet. I was so excited. And in 6 to 7 hours, I don’t remember which one it was. I had one like, and I’m like, forget it, I’m taking this down. I’m done.

Devin Schubert 00:20:26 This was a dumb lead magnet. I’m not doing this. And I went to one of my coaching groups and I said, hey, I left us up only for you guys to show that I’m not perfect. Anyone know what? Over the next 24 hours, I got 74 people to download that lead magnet because I left it up there and I didn’t fall into that trap, even though it hurt my own self pride and image that nobody liked it right away. I stuck and stayed with it and that made a huge difference.

Jillian Leslie 00:20:54 Interesting. Now let’s just talk about briefly, how do you optimize your page on Facebook to get the most engagement?

Devin Schubert 00:21:06 Yeah. Great question. this is my favorite thing to tell people about okay. Is let’s let’s go on a journey. You and I are driving down the road. And what are the big things that you see off on the side? There’s these big billboards, right? You think about the lasting impression that they have. You got to get quick and get it.

Devin Schubert 00:21:26 Well, in Facebook and in all platforms. We have that as our banner. We have that banner. The first thing they see is that banner. What does that tell you? Tell them about you. now there’s two different thoughts. Number one is just have some random things up there. People have their cats or something like that up there, or you tell a little bit about who you are and what you do. And I believe that if you tell a little bit about who you are and what you do, that will make a huge difference to where if you say attention all health moms or attention all coaches and consultants, they’re going to be like, oh, hey, that’s me, that’s me. I’m going to look a little bit further. So the banner is the first thing that I suggest to people, to optimize their profile. The second thing is your info or your bio section. So your eyes are going to go from your banner to the left to that bio section and have I don’t suggest putting sentences, just put quick bullet points of what it is that you do and don’t really doesn’t really matter if you went to college or any of that, if you’re, you know, a business type of thing.

Devin Schubert 00:22:33 So really just hone in to what you do. And then the third thing is your pinned post on Facebook. You can have a pinned post and Instagram. You can have featured sections. And so with that you can click on the three buttons on the right hand side, and you can pin a post to the top. This is very key because you make a good hook at the beginning saying, do you want to see a live transform? And then down below that, that upper third where your, your, people have to click to see more, tell the story about what you’ve been through, how you got to where you are now, and what you do to help other people. Not necessarily a call to action to work with me, but adding value in that in that pinned post will be like, wow, I so relate with Devon. I still relate with the the circumstances he’s gone through. He’s he’s a building a business that that’s amazing. He’s traveling and speaking. Those are all things that I want to do.

Devin Schubert 00:23:31 I’m going to follow him for more. And then people comment below. And when you open up a page and you see that the first post has 500 comments, you’re like, oh, okay, most people won’t recognize it’s a pinned post. Anyways. but you know, you open that up and you see a thousand likes and 500 comments. People are intrigued as to what’s going on. Okay, fear of missing out. I gotta open it up. So those are like the top three things that I suggest to optimize your profiles.

Jillian Leslie 00:23:58 Now, would you recommend putting a post that leads to an opt in, let’s say, do you think that’s still too early in the dating?

Devin Schubert 00:24:07 Yeah. Like we don’t.

Jillian Leslie 00:24:08 Know each other well enough.

Devin Schubert 00:24:10 So we’ve tested that. We’ve tested that in a couple of different things. we tested that on our banner, like having a click here button. So you open it up and it opens up the side panel. We’ve put, like, schedule a meeting, you know, do a free call and most people don’t click on it.

Devin Schubert 00:24:27 But if you put if you want more information, drop me below. People will drop me. Why? Because if I’m just clicking on your profile for the first time, I’m not going to schedule a call. I’m just not. I don’t know you. And plus, that probably means you’re going to try and sell me. And so the types of things with the with an opt in thing. Okay, I don’t really know you enough. Like, how do I know what you’re going to give me is valuable. And so that’s why it’s important to put those value posts and those results and those lifestyle posts out there consistently so that once they see the pinned post, now they scroll down a little bit and they see, oh man, look at all this stuff that they’re getting. And then when you have those call to actions, man, people jump right on it.

Jillian Leslie 00:25:14 You know, I am all about you selling your wisdom and expertise to your audience in the form of digital products. But then people come to me and say, but I don’t know where to start.

Jillian Leslie 00:25:28 What kind of products should I create first? Well, if you take my digital product personality quiz, it will tell you you can get this at Milotree.com/quiz. Go take it. It’s fun and in two minutes you will know where to start again. It’s milotree.com/quiz. And now back to the show. Let’s talk about Facebook groups and how they fit into your strategy. So I have a Facebook group called Become a Blogger Genius, which is related to the podcast, and I haven’t been as active in it recently. But talk to me about how you see Facebook groups fitting in to your Facebook strategy and your business strategy.

Devin Schubert 00:26:22 Yeah, that’s a great question. Can I start off by debunking? Can I stand my ground on something?

Jillian Leslie 00:26:28 Let’s hear it. Let’s hear it.

Devin Schubert 00:26:29 All right. So there’s there’s different sayings right now that Facebook groups are dying like they’re done. They’re dead. And a lot of people are choosing not to utilize them. They’re jumping to a school which Alex or Moses now promoting and or a circle type of thing.

Devin Schubert 00:26:44 I’ve joined a number of those and guess what? I never check.

Speaker 3 00:26:47 Them. I know.

Jillian Leslie 00:26:49 I have. I have to agree with you. So here’s here’s just one thing that I tell everybody, anybody who is starting a membership and like the money is really if you can start a membership, there’s money there because of recurring revenue. And I am all about make it as easy for your members as possible. And I say what you want to do is use a private Facebook group for your membership, and you can store all your zoom videos, any PDFs it can be a place for conversation. And I get this all the time. But I hate Facebook. And I go, yeah, but guess what? Everybody knows Facebook. Do you really think you’re going to get your members to download some random app on their phone that they’re going to remember to go check? No, we’ve already been taught Facebook, so a Facebook group does not seem as intimidating, even if you’re getting push messages to go on some random app that you’ve.

Jillian Leslie 00:27:51 Now you’re asking your members to learn a technology that is such a huge ask. Do yourself a favor, do everybody a favor, and just use a private Facebook group.

Devin Schubert 00:28:05 Completely, completely agree. And here’s here’s another piece of that. The people that are on Facebook, they’re already on Facebook. They don’t want to go off to another platform. And the same things that you can do in these other platforms, you can do in Facebook. So when I put a new post out there or I’m doing a live or a training, guess what? I send an email to those people and I click. I put a click here to learn more and guess what? It takes them right to that post.

Jillian Leslie 00:28:35 Yes, definitely.

Devin Schubert 00:28:36 To that.

Speaker 3 00:28:37 Training.

Devin Schubert 00:28:38 So you’re using the same tactics over and over again? Absolutely. So yeah, Facebook groups are so important.

Jillian Leslie 00:28:43 So you okay so back to what you were saying. You’re debunking the myth that Facebook groups are dying. They’re I, I personally see them pop up all the time.

Jillian Leslie 00:28:54 And it’s and I think that the story it’s a good story that Facebook’s dying that Facebook groups are dying. It’s not sexy like that’s I think that I think Facebook’s problem is it just doesn’t feel sexy anymore. It feels kind of old, a little clunky, like there’s so many features. How do I find that again? You know, it just feels like it’s, I don’t know, like your cable company. It just doesn’t feel slick. But it’s functional.

Speaker 3 00:29:27 Yeah, yeah. So tell me.

Jillian Leslie 00:29:30 How you’re using Facebook groups to grow your business.

Devin Schubert 00:29:34 Yeah. So first off, we have three questions for people to answer. And as you love we always have drop your email in there to get updates. Why? Because you know what? They may not always check the notifications. And a great way of nurturing is always through emails. so utilizing that we also drop a question and then it says, hey, this is what we do in our in our group and this is what we do for our business.

Devin Schubert 00:29:59 If you would like help with this, check yes or no. And that is a great way to start conversations of, oh, you can help me make, a whole month’s worth of content in 60 minutes through an interview. Yeah, I’d like to hear more about that. It’s a free way that you’re capturing people’s attention right away by just getting a yes or no and and allowing people to answer those and then following up with with those, with those questions, putting them into a Google sheet, of some type to keep track. And then from there, we tag them in a welcome post where I have, two welcome videos on that. so they click on it, they go through everything. I believe that everything should be a funnel. Everything is really a funnel. We’re always funneling them in. So again now it’s it’s getting that question okay. I’m going to start a conversation now I tag them on the welcome post and it says this is what we are. This is what we do. This is what we are not.

Devin Schubert 00:30:55 If you want to join in on this journey, click here and watch this video. It then takes them to another post that says, hey, welcome to this group. we’d love to have you join and do these types of things. And then I give three different, trainings, about what I do. And for me, it’s about how to build your social media out. And so I have three videos to kind of again nurture them along. And every two days we tack them on these other videos. So they’re getting notified again about these, these things about these videos. And then at the end we have the call to action.

Speaker 3 00:31:28 So interesting.

Jillian Leslie 00:31:30 So you’re moving them through your funnel by tagging them on certain Facebook posts. So you have an assistant who says, okay this person came in on Monday. So Wednesday we go in and we tag them. And then on Friday we go in and we tag them on these posts.

Devin Schubert 00:31:48 Yep, yep. We have an entire KPI tracker that checks when people join.

Devin Schubert 00:31:53 It shoots them into this Google sheet. And then we have day one, day three, day five, day seven, and then ongoing conversations. And that’s what our KPI tracker looks like. And they just they tag them and then they do the check mark. And yeah, my team my team does that aspect for me.

Jillian Leslie 00:32:09 That isn’t me okay I want to go through your funnel. So is it just Devin Schubert or like, where do I find your and this is your page or this is your this is your group.

Devin Schubert 00:32:20 This is just the Facebook group. Yep.

Jillian Leslie 00:32:22 Okay. So what is the name of the Facebook group. So everybody can.

Speaker 3 00:32:26 It’s called.

Devin Schubert 00:32:26 Epic. Epic entrepreneurs powerfully influencing culture. And it’s facebook.com slash group slash epic showdown.

Jillian Leslie 00:32:39 Ooh okay. So if I go so I’m going to go into your funnel after this to watch myself get moved through your posts. I’ve not heard that before. Of course I’m used to. Well, I give you my email address and then I get sent into a funnel.

Jillian Leslie 00:32:55 So are you also doing that? Are you tagging me through posts but then also sending me emails?

Devin Schubert 00:33:04 Yep. You go through, seven seven email sequence. I don’t do seven days straight in a row. I skip a few days in there, but I do. You do have seven emails that will take you through kind of the similar process, but, you know, some people aren’t going to pay attention to Facebook. Some people love emails. Either way, they’re going to get it. And I hardly ever have people that just bow out of the whole group because all you’re spamming me with all this extra stuff. No, they they normally don’t.

Jillian Leslie 00:33:32 That’s so interesting. Now, do you have a similar funnel for Instagram or is Instagram just really a place for you to be sharing your stuff that you’re posting on Facebook?

Devin Schubert 00:33:43 Yeah. So right now Instagram, I only really pay attention to it by sharing the same things on Facebook as I do on Instagram, as I grow in that, that’s like my next thing beginning in 2025 that I’ll dive into is all the other platforms, but I will probably Instagram.

Devin Schubert 00:34:00 You can put in like actual, chat bots in there, and I will either utilize a chat bot to so that when they say when they raise their hand on a comment, it would respond to that, but ultimately I’m still going to send them right to my Facebook group because I want to be able to nurture that conversation. I don’t want to have this person in Instagram, this person on YouTube, this person on TikTok. No, I want a centralized place where I can have conversations with people. And for me, that’s going to continue to be a Facebook group.

Jillian Leslie 00:34:30 So in Facebook, how often are you posting? What’s your strategy for keeping that community alive? So we were talking about your business page where you’re you have your strategy of kind of results and teachings and kind of personality. What are you doing now in your Facebook group?

Devin Schubert 00:34:55 Yeah, in the Facebook group, we take a much deeper dive into value and into a lot more lives. So I do with epic, what we have transitioned into over the last month, is it really being an in-depth training ground for people, for entrepreneurs.

Devin Schubert 00:35:11 And not just, you know, you’ve made 7 or 8 figures. Great. But do you really have the heart behind it? We want to we want to interview and we’re going to be doing summits, and we’re calling them epic chats to where people are being interviewed and being able to share the value that they have, and they bring their friends to that and engage in the conversations. And so it’s really growing a community by just adding a ton of value. But also I go for what I call epic walks. I go for a walk every single day. And guess what? I go alive. I go on a Facebook Live, I hold my phone up and I talk to people for 3 to 5 minutes. People love that and I don’t have to, like, prepare anything. I don’t have to, you know, whatever. I’m operating out of a place of overflow.

Speaker 3 00:35:56 So people, you’re doing.

Jillian Leslie 00:35:57 This in your group, you’re going live in your group and you’re just then calling, like putting people on in your inner in your life.

Devin Schubert 00:36:08 either on my live or we schedule. So, like, I just had, somebody, you know, do, like a podcast type interview, thing that we do. And, so we’ll have epic chats to where we’ll have, 4 or 5 people at a time, kind of like a fireside chat. Each person will get to share about what they do, how they’re helping people, and then give a call to action on that. Got it. And people are just loving those.

Jillian Leslie 00:36:31 But otherwise, are you just responding to comments. Yep. Interesting. Now let’s talk about call to actions. Just because you had mentioned that before I pressed record. What are your thoughts on call to action. How do you get people to take action.

Devin Schubert 00:36:48 Yeah, there’s there’s two different thoughts. Number one is when I do teaching posts, those value posts, I do not do a call to action because I want people to leave with a mindset of, wow, that was really good. Not, oh, what should I do with this? No, I want it to resonate and sink in.

Devin Schubert 00:37:09 And so I don’t do call to action posts or call the actions on those value posts. I do it with any other type of post. Basically, it’s drop me in the comments below. It’s you know, if this resonates with you, let me know. When I go live, it’s hey, if you’re watching live, drop hashtag live. If you’re watching the replay drop hashtag replay, if you’re getting value, drop hashtag value and whatever you’re getting of value. So we can go back and see that that bumps up the algorithm of all types of things. But again, it’s making it so simple that people don’t have to think about responding. If you think of a very in-depth question that you’re going to ask people, you can expect to have hardly any responses.

Speaker 3 00:37:50 I unless.

Devin Schubert 00:37:51 It brings a trigger response.

Jillian Leslie 00:37:52 I am. That is my philosophy in life. It’s all about like, you know, it’s funny. We build tools to help people sell digital products and our tools are simple and people will.

Jillian Leslie 00:38:06 I always say a tool you use is so much better than an expensive, complicated tool with tons of features that you don’t use. So I am all about how do you serve it up to somebody and say, just go. It’s intuitive. Like you know exactly when you say, what time is it? Everybody can like within two seconds on their phone, know what time it is. That is like the easiest question ever because I, I would ask questions like, where are you located to just to hear where people are coming from.

Devin Schubert 00:38:41 Yeah absolutely. I always say simplicity scales.

Jillian Leslie 00:38:45 Oh I like that.

Devin Schubert 00:38:47 More simple. You can make something the more easier it is to scale. Because if it’s simple as business owners, as leaders we should only be doing 20% of the work ourselves. And that should be mostly vision casting and strategy 80% of what we do should be handed off to somebody else that can do it. And so if we make it simple, guess what it’s simple to hand off, which scales your business tenfold.

Speaker 3 00:39:14 Well, one.

Jillian Leslie 00:39:14 Thing that I think is interesting that you shared is you’re getting to do it to Instagram, like Instagram, you’ll do it, you’ll get there. But right now you’re focused on Facebook and you’re focused on moving through people, through your posts, by tagging them and sending your emails, and that you don’t have to do it all at once because you’re starting with something, figuring it out, really digging deep, and then boom, like you’ve got your strategy, then you can start to expand. I think there is this FOMO of, oh my God, well, what’s happening on what’s happening on TikTok or YouTube, those kinds of things. So what other social media platforms, though, are you using, for example, YouTube. Are you on YouTube? And how does that what is your strategy over there?

Devin Schubert 00:40:05 Yeah. So I’m not I’m not utilizing I have all the handles. I have it all set up ready to use. YouTube is my next one. I’m starting a podcast and so I’ll be doing that on, on YouTube as well as, you know, the video, and then I’ll be repurposing on all other platforms.

Devin Schubert 00:40:20 So at this point, I’m not utilizing any other ones. because again, it’s all about Facebook for me. When you have so many conversations going on on one platform, why? Why move to another one if you if it’s not broken, don’t fix it. Now here’s do I have FOMO?

Jillian Leslie 00:40:37 But people people talk about well but Facebook changes to algorithm and then I don’t get any engagement. And one thing that I say is make sure you’re moving people to your email list because you can own that. But what do you say to people who don’t, who get scared that, oh, you know, Facebook can turn off my account. Facebook can change how my posts are seen.

Devin Schubert 00:41:03 Yeah it’s it’s a great question. And I always say just stop it. Like stop complaining like stop. We’re utilizing a free platform.

Speaker 3 00:41:13 To get more people complain.

Devin Schubert 00:41:15 About a free platform that 2.9 billion people can reach. Guess what? If you keep on posting it’s going to be seen. Like Facebook doesn’t want you to leave no matter what people say and all.

Devin Schubert 00:41:29 You know, there’s all these people that are complaining about the algorithm and complaining about my post getting taken down. Guess what? Every single one of your post isn’t being taken down. Stop living in the day to day and live for the longevity of your business. Play the long game, not just what’s happening right now until Facebook completely, completely shuts down. Then I’ll worry about it. But at this point, exactly. Continue to build up your email because you do have control of that. And while you’re doing that, you have to have some people some place to get people’s email addresses from. And so utilize social media to do that and then focus on the emails, as you continue to nurture people.

Speaker 3 00:42:08 Yes.

Jillian Leslie 00:42:08 And that’s why I say social media is great, top of your funnel. It’s where people don’t know you. And then all of a sudden they do know you. And then if you can build that relationship, boom, you can get them on your email list, you can nurture that, and you can ultimately sell your products and services to them.

Jillian Leslie 00:42:25 But don’t what you would said earlier too, like don’t think you’re going to sell at top of your funnel. Don’t be so presumptuous that you put something out there and nobody purchased. It’s a it’s a longer term and especially I think today where people kind of are less trusting and feel like everybody’s trying to sell them something, if not that you don’t want to be somebody who is selling something, it just needs to be high quality where people can trust you.

Devin Schubert 00:42:57 Yeah, people hate being sold to, but they love to buy. Yes, people love to buy. So don’t give up when your posts aren’t getting the traction. But maybe the relationships that you’re building, you’re slowly building that trust to be like, hey, you know what? I actually think that we could work together. I’d love to jump on a call and just talk about what that look like by building that relationship. It’s not somebody being sold to, it’s somebody being like, hey, okay, I have noticed over the last 20 days that I really need what you have to offer.

Devin Schubert 00:43:29 And so it’s just like, hey, let’s just have a conversation. And it just being a gentle nudge of, hey, this is what it could actually look like. it’s it’s so much easier than trying to sell people in the public all the time.

Jillian Leslie 00:43:40 So here’s a question. You do a post, a value post, and I comment on it and I go, hey, that’s really interesting. And then you comment back like, explain how you’re building this relationship just through for word comments to ultimately me working with you or me buying your products. So walk me through how you think about that.

Devin Schubert 00:44:04 Yeah, so when I add somebody on Facebook or they add me, as always, an initial hey, glad to connect. let me know if there’s anything that I can do to be able to support you. Something simple like that, just to start a conversation. Sometimes people respond, sometimes people don’t. Not a big deal. Then it’s once people comment on my post. I do respond to every single comment on Facebook, and that’s important.

Devin Schubert 00:44:29 Why? Because I want people to be seen, heard and loved. Those three things are always my foundation, and through that, I try and have those open conversations on the comments. I at least trying to have two conversations, through the comments. And then I take it to the DMs and I say, hey, I love the conversation we’re having, or, hey, thanks for participating in that game. You know, I did one with a cup. it was a it was a cup of water and it said how how this is going to cause controversy with entrepreneurs. And this is a cup of water. Everybody is like, this is a glass, this is this. It’s half full. And so it’s like, hey, thanks for playing my game. It’s really fun to remember as entrepreneurs, we need to have fun. What have you done to have fun this last week now I started a conversation with you. Oh you didn’t have fun. Wow, you’re working 80 hours a week. That sucks.

Devin Schubert 00:45:21 Do you enjoy that? Now I’ve started an in-depth conversation. I can add value to what what we’re talking about in the DMs, so I can take any type of conversation and take it to the DMs and just say, hey, thanks for participating. how’s life going? I haven’t heard from you in a while. those types of things. And I just ultimately will try and have some type of conversation to where I will then be sending voice messages back and forth with the person. And that, to me is where the real relationship happens, is you can hear my voice. You can hear my heart. It’s so much different than just text. And that’s usually where it’s like, hey, you know what? I really feel like I can offer some more solutions. I’d love to just jump on a quick coffee chat with you. No sales, no nothing. Let me see how I can help you with your business or with what you’re going through. I do that for 15 minutes and that’s kind of my pre-qualifying of do I? Is this really somebody that I can help or not, or are they for me? I don’t want to work with people that are just going to cause me and my business headache.

Devin Schubert 00:46:24 I got enough headaches going on. I don’t need that. I don’t need a person to come in because I need a paycheck. I really want to be able to serve people that want to see a change in their lives. And that’s where that 15 minute call or those voice messages back and forth, I can tell really where they’re at.

Jillian Leslie 00:46:40 That is great. I think that that I also, when people are looking at my card, say, hey, get on a 20 minute call with me, it’s free, and we’re going to talk about your strategy, and I’m going to see. I’m totally upfront. I’m going to see maybe my literary card is a good fit for you. Maybe it’s not. but I just want to show you. I want to paint the picture for you. What you can’t see. And because I’m working with so many entrepreneurs and see where they’re having success, I can say confidently, hey, based on your email list, based on what you post, you could go this way and I bet you you will have success.

Jillian Leslie 00:47:20 Because I’ve seen it. I’ve seen these patterns. Yeah. So I am a big I am a big fan of that. Devin, I have really super enjoyed this conversation and you’ve kind of given me so many new ideas. I’m loving this idea of tagging people in post, by the way, to move them through a funnel. That’s like mind blowing. If people want to learn more about you, join your Facebook group, email you whatever where or your go to your website. Where should they go to connect with you?

Devin Schubert 00:47:54 Yeah, Facebook is the number one thing. It’s, facebook.com, slash Shubert. Devon. Or you can look up Devon Shubert and you will see a wonderfully looking bald man with orange all over the place, and you will find me there.

Jillian Leslie 00:48:08 Oh, wonderful. Well, I just have to say, I so appreciate your time and thank you so much for coming on the show.

Devin Schubert 00:48:16 Absolutely. It’s been a pleasure.

Speaker 3 00:48:17 Thank you. I hope you.

Jillian Leslie 00:48:19 Guys like this episode with Devon.

Jillian Leslie 00:48:21 For me, it was really fun revisiting Facebook, almost like what’s old is new again. As I shared in the episode, I was really impressed with his funnelling in his Facebook group. Wow, I’d never heard that before. And my other big takeaway was that Devon is having success on Facebook. And so guess what? That’s what he’s leaning into. He doesn’t feel the need to be everywhere. So if you feel that pressure, please remember Devin and just dig in to one platform where you could have real and authentic conversations. If you want to talk about your digital product strategy or you’ve got questions for me, book a free call. Go to milotree.com/meet. Because I’m really seeing a lot of bloggers and online entrepreneurs have success selling their own products and services. Or just go check out milotree.com. If you’ve liked this episode and you have a friend who you think could benefit from it, please share it. Also, if you would leave a review of the podcast wherever you are listening, I would be greatly appreciative.

Jillian Leslie 00:49:33 You guys have been leaving such wonderful reviews and I will see you here again next week.