#241: How the Social Media Landscape Is Shifting

Want to know how the social media landscape is shifting?

I have my friend and social media strategist, Neal Schaffer, on the show for his third appearance to talk about it.

Neal and I both started seeing things change this summer with the explosion of not only TikTok, but also BeReal.

TikTok is 100% entertainment and has nothing to do with our friends or our social graph. BeReal is all about our friends. These are the most exciting new platforms right now.

The question is… Can Instagram and Snapchat catch up?

We talk about how we are craving real connections in the world, and how we’re seeing thing shift toward more authenticity.

What social media trends are you noticing? I’d love to know so please email me.

How the Social Media Landscape Is Shifting | The Blogger Genius Podcast with Jillian Leslie

Table of Contents

Show Notes:

Intro 0:04
Welcome to the Blogger Genius Podcast brought to you by MiloTree. Here’s your host, Jillian Leslie.

Jillian Leslie 0:11
Hello, my friends. Welcome back to the Blogger Genius Podcast. I am your host, Jillian Leslie, and I’m so happy that you are here. I’m a serial entrepreneur, I love building businesses on the internet and helping you do the same.

Jillian Leslie 0:26
I want to give you an update on MiloTreeCart. This is the payment tool, David, my husband and I have launched to help you creators and bloggers sell digital products like memberships, workshops, eBooks, courses, you name it directly to your audiences.

Jillian Leslie 0:49
As you know, I’ve been getting on lots of calls with people who have audiences. If this is you, and you are not selling directly to them, I can help you turn on a whole new income stream.

Jillian Leslie 1:04
For example, I was working with a crafter last week, she has about 20,000 TikTok followers, she decided to do a one hour Zoom workshop set up her sales page in MiloTree Cart went out, sold it and boom made over $750. Now she can take that recording and resell it over and over as a mini course.

Jillian Leslie 1:25
If this sounds like something you’d like to do, and you have an audience, set up a call with me go to milotree.com/meet. We’ll talk about a product idea get you selling and wait until you see this bucket of money just waiting for you.

How the Social Media Landscape Is Shifting

Jillian Leslie 1:40
For today’s episode I have my friend Neal Schaffer, back on the show. This is his third appearance. He is a social media expert. Ever so often I feel like I need to reconnect with Neal, to kind of see what is happening in the social media landscape.

Jillian Leslie 1:40
This summer, especially I’ve been starting to feel things shift. And Neal has as well. And we talk all about it. So, without further delay, here is my interview with Neal Schaffer.

Jillian Leslie 2:14
Neal, welcome back to the show.

Neal Schaffer 2:17
Thank you so much, Jillian, it’s always an honor to be here.

Jillian Leslie 2:19
I reached out to you, couple of weeks ago, and I said, Neal, I need your insights. I need to know what you are seeing out in the social media landscape. Because this summer, I’ve started to notice things shifting. And so I was like, “Neal, I need to pick your brain.”

Jillian Leslie 2:39
What would you say? We were just starting to talk and I said, “Oh, wait, wait, wait, wait to record.” But one thing you just mentioned is the rise of TikTok.

Neal Schaffer 2:50
We all knew that it was big. I think some of us, during COVID, we also had this thing called Clubhouse.

Jillian Leslie 2:57
For a nanosecond.

Neal Schaffer 2:58
And it’s like, well, is this a product of COVID or does it have legs? I’d say for various reasons, it didn’t have legs. And it was a product of COVID. Was TikTok the same?

The Rise of TikTok

Neal Schaffer 3:10
Kids are at home, they got lots of time, they can dance in their house, and watch TikTok, but clearly, TikTok has really taken off and have so much impact that it has influenced not just Facebook, which always copies other social networks, we know. But even YouTube, right with YouTube shorts.

Neal Schaffer 3:26
And just the stats that come out that more people are spending more time on TikTok, than YouTube is really shaking up the entire social media industry, I would say.

Neal Schaffer 3:29
And, with that, it means that I think it’s really time that we rethink our approach to social media, because every social network, well, LinkedIn is obviously a little bit different. Same with Twitter. But when we talk about the big networks, they’re really moving us in that direction.

Neal Schaffer 3:55
Whether we like it or not, I think Instagram recently had some backlash with even the Kardashians saying, hey, don’t become like, TikTok. So, it really makes you question, who are our people and what content do they want to consume?

Neal Schaffer 3:55
Do they just want to consume an image? Do they want to consume a video what type of video? And I think it’s time when we started in social media, I always teach you need to have role models. If you can’t figure out a social network, like back in the early days at Twitter, what do I tweet? Well, go on to Twitter, find a role model.

How to Figure Out What to Post on Social Media

Neal Schaffer 4:24
Find people in your industry that have already been there, done that, and analyze what they’re doing and try to reverse engineer, give your own perspective, have your own strategy, but it gives you an idea. And I think it’s time. I think with Facebook, we already did that.

Neal Schaffer 4:37
With Instagram, we might have done that a few years ago, but I think we almost need to do a reset. And really go on to TikTok specifically, go into reels; go into YouTube Shorts, and find those role models again, we’re going to be very different than they were a few years ago.

Neal Schaffer 4:53
TikTok two years ago was primarily dance entertainment, today it’s very different. There are professionals; there are real estate agents who are showing up being raw and giving great advice and they’re building followings and influence and from that business. So it can be done. It’s a little different.

Neal Schaffer 4:53
And I know we have a lot of Pinterest people that listen and I’m a Pinterest person myself and I recently had Kate Ahl on my podcast and I know she has appeared on your podcast and we all love her. And one of her comments was like, “TikTok is almost becoming what Pinterest used to be.”

Neal Schaffer 5:15
And I think to myself, even TikTok has these ads as seen on TikTok. It’s these 30-somethings, 40-somethings that, hey, did you know that you can do this?

Neal Schaffer 5:30
I saw it on TikTok, and I think of like Pinterest idea pins, and it’s like, well, that’s like, TikTok. It’s, in 15, 30, 60 seconds, can we show how to do something? Can we teach someone something?

Neal Schaffer 5:48
So, I think if you take what we already have, and repurpose it in their format, I think that we’re all going to get at least a lot more visibility for what we do.

Neal Schaffer 5:57
Even on Instagram, I noticed now when I published on Instagram, maybe I stopped getting likes, like 12 hours after publishing. It used to be 18 hours before that. It used to be 24 hours before that. It used to be two days. I noticed the impressions are way down, and reels, obviously are way up, even stories.

Neal Schaffer 6:16
For me, my images seemed we’re always outperforming stories, not anymore. So, also it’s a reminder look at the data. And what is that telling us where we need to shift because we use social media differently as time goes by.

TikTok Is Not About Your Friends, It’s Pure Entertainment

Neal Schaffer 6:30
And clearly when you are consuming a three second video versus, well, if you have a long caption, it’s one thing but the video just engages people in a way in a deeper way than what other forms of content do when we grew up watching TV.

Jillian Leslie 6:44
Totally. I was going to say one thing that I have seen, and I’ve read a bunch of articles about this. And I think it’s really true that Facebook came on the scene and Twitter on the scene with a social graph as the backdrop, which is, you’re my friend, I befriend you, I see what you’re posting.

Jillian Leslie 7:03
You post photos of your kid, I post photos of my kid, I see you on vacation. And that’s kind of how it started. And then it became well, let’s open this up. And now all of a sudden, you’re posting articles to the New York Times, and then I’m seeing that as well. And it became a source of news.

Jillian Leslie 7:18
But at its core, it was friend based. It was who your network of people was even if I’m following celebrities, or who knows what it was person to person. TikTok comes out and they’re like, we don’t care about that.

Jillian Leslie 7:32
We don’t care who your friends are, we care about our algorithm, we are competing now with television; with Netflix, we are just here to entertain you. And that I think is very different at its core.

Jillian Leslie 7:50
And it is therefore all about kind of serving you up crack. Because they know what does well, they know they learn you. I’ve read that it can take them 45 minutes to really understand who you are based on your browsing pattern.

Jillian Leslie 8:07
And then they can serve you up the exact right little snippet that will light up your brain. And so, now it’s interesting, because what does Facebook do.

Jillian Leslie 8:18
Again, it was always this idea that nobody could ever come in and compete with Facebook, because it’s taken years and years for them to create this social graph of all your relationships.

Jillian Leslie 8:30
And then that was always like, oh, Facebook is going to be dominant even through Instagram dominant forever. And all of a sudden, here is TikTok saying, oh, no, no, we’re coming at it from a totally different angle.

Jillian Leslie 8:42
We are going to give you dopamine hits, which by the way, light your brain up more than me seeing photos of you on vacation, or the New York Times article or whatever. It’s almost like it’s just even more stimulating. And it’s better than Netflix. And it’s just little pops of stuff.

Jillian Leslie 9:05
Just like my daughter watching her on TikTok is like she is on drugs.

Neal Schaffer 9:11
My kids as well.

Jillian Leslie 9:12
And I say to her during the pandemic I kept going, “Are you on TikTok more or Instagram?” Snapchat, she uses for like talking to people but it’s in a totally different bucket and she would say, “Oh no, I’m on TikTok 3/4 of the time and Instagram, maybe on 1/4 of the time.” And now I would say it’s like 90% TikTok.

Jillian Leslie 9:35
So, just watching the evolution for her has been shocking.

Neal Schaffer 9:41
It has taken over watching YouTube videos. It has taken over watching TV, I think for that generation. And I think YouTube is sort of similar. There’s a famous YouTube expert name Derral Eves and he says, just create your content, let YouTube find your viewer.

Neal Schaffer 9:58
And I think that’s exactly what TikTok has done it’s organized based on their algorithm, what people are interested in, and therefore if you publish something they will find those people that would want to watch your content.

Neal Schaffer 10:09
And it’s a very, very different phenomenon maybe in some ways, it’s similar to Pinterest, because we had followers on Pinterest, but it wasn’t based on a social graph.

Jillian Leslie 10:18
Exactly. It was content specific. And I loved what you were saying about the way to get your feet wet on TikTok is to go and again, like everybody on TikTok, we’ll share this strategy, if you’re into, like how to grow your TikTok, which is kind of where I am, in terms of what the algorithm shows me.

Jillian Leslie 10:41
And it is literally go search in TikTok for video, go put a keyword into the search bar, go check the settings for what has had the most likes over the last month, look at those videos, and literally copy them with your voice. But I mean, use the same sound, use the same hashtags.

Jillian Leslie 11:08
Take as much of it as somebody has already created because on some level, this is done well. You might not know why; nobody even will know why. But you just take all of those elements, put your face in it, like your slight message change and post it.

Jillian Leslie 11:25
And I think that is so fascinating, because we all kind of respond as humans similarly to things. So, if one video has done well, instead of recreating the wheel thinking, you know something, the TikTok algorithm knows something.

Jillian Leslie 11:40
So therefore, all you’re going to do is feed that very similar content to the TikTok algorithm.

Neal Schaffer 11:46
Yes. TikTok is meme culture.

Jillian Leslie 11:49
Yes, yes.

Neal Schaffer 11:51
It’s extremely trendy. So remember, in high school, one month, people will be wearing one thing and the next month another thing and they were being influenced well, I grew up in the 80s, like Madonna or Tom Cruise, what have you. And TikTok is really that like accelerated.

Neal Schaffer 12:05
So, I find my daughter, our daughter is in high school now. So, she’s interning and doing some social media and helping them with their reels and TikToks. And she showed me when it’s for an Agave mix, so she showed me, “Hey, Daddy, check this out.” I didn’t get it.

Neal Schaffer 12:17
She was, “Oh, well, it’s a TikTok meme. It’s a TikTok meme. People on TikTok will get it.”

Jillian Leslie 12:17
Oh, my God, I get that from my daughter. Like, “No, no, you won’t understand it, mom.”

TikTok is Meme Culture

Neal Schaffer 12:24
So, if you do some reverse engineering, here, you’ll find 25, 50, 100 different memes that you can replicate, obviously, with your own voice; with your own content; with your own culture and values and branding.

Neal Schaffer 12:38
But that I think, is what I see people successful on TikTok are definitely doing and guess what? Those memes change all the time. It’s high school. The high school fashions it’s changed like every month. My daughter doesn’t wear Vans anymore.

Neal Schaffer 12:50
“What? You were all into Vans last year, what’s going on this year?” And I think for all of us it’s like, oh, my gosh, we finally have Tailwind, we have Tailwind communities, we can reschedule our pins. Once we have a system down, it’s going to work forever.

Neal Schaffer 13:04
Obviously, that is not the reality today, and we need to work a little bit harder, a little bit more creative. The flip side is I think it’s a lot more fun once you have your system down. And it’s funny, Jillian, I mentioned I was in the Midwest.

Neal Schaffer 13:18
So, in Detroit, Meta put on a free event for small businesses, they call it Meta Boost Small Business Studio, they actually had a real school that I attended, teaching everybody how to create reels.

Jillian Leslie 13:29
What do you find out? Share.

How Reels Are Like Pinterest Idea Pins

Neal Schaffer 13:32
They basically went through the user interface. And they showed examples. And it’s funny because the examples they were showing, it was almost like if an Idea Pin came to life, that is what a reel is.

Neal Schaffer 13:44
It’s moving video, it’s snippets of video that are pieced together to show like a transformation of something a recipe or makeup or whatever. So, this is fun thing. On reels they have these grids, so you can record the top first and then the bottom.

Neal Schaffer 13:59
They basically know it’s going to be hard for people to visualize in the podcast, but they said, first of all, we want you to take a picture of you, you’re going to stick your head up, you’re going to look to the left, then you’re going to look to the right, and then you’re going to stick your head down.

Neal Schaffer 14:11
So, we get on this grid, it’s a top bottom. And we did that. And then the bottom goes, I just want you to take a video of like a coffee cup in front of you. And so, the effect is when you put them together is that your head is coming out of this coffee cup you’re looking to the left, you’re looking at right and going back in the coffee cup.

Neal Schaffer 14:27
Would you ever use this content? Probably not. But it gives you an idea of the creativity and the different things you can do. So, you could have a left right grid, where you’re talking to the left, and then you’re on the right just like nodding or disagreeing to the person on the left.

Neal Schaffer 14:44
But I think really the easiest way, Jillian is just to consume that content. See what’s out there, understand those memes and know that some are going to be easier to replicate than others. But I think that gets you started on the journey.

Neal Schaffer 14:51
Like you said, Jillian, like with workshops unless you do it you don’t know once you do it, you get the data. You find new transformations, new ideas. And that’s exactly the same with TikTok. And therefore with reels and with YouTube Shorts, I think we can all lump them together with short form video.

Neal Schaffer 15:09
It’s just a different process of content creation, that is going to require more creativity, it’s going to require us to consume more of that content to understand the platform. So, we don’t look like we’re coming from outer space, which happens to a lot of older people that are on TikTok according to my daughter.

Neal Schaffer 15:09
We don’t want to seem like a boomer. So, it’s very different. And if you don’t do that, you can continue using social media like you used to, but it just becomes less effective over time.

Jillian Leslie 15:35
Definitely. The reason why I wanted you on the show, is because I am feeling the earth shifting underneath me. And what I mean by that is, I got comfortable in my Instagram strategy. And I got comfortable in even like Google SEO and keyword research and stuff like this.

People Are Using TikTok for Search

Jillian Leslie 16:00
And by the way, I’m reading an article last week about how, again, like kids, like our kids aren’t using Google, like, we use Google, you know what they’re using. TikTok.

Neal Schaffer 16:13
TikTok.

Jillian Leslie 16:14
TikTok is becoming a search engine, like what? So, what’s interesting is all of these technologies that we assumed would just be the way they are. And yes, Instagram might come out with some sort of new part of their app that they copied from somebody else, like BeReal, which we’ll talk about.

Jillian Leslie 16:36
I’m starting to see disruption in a way that I hadn’t seen previously. For example, I don’t know about you, but I think now Google Search kind of sucks. I think that it’s been over-optimized. There was an article, I think in the New York Times about this.

Jillian Leslie 16:58
David, my husband and I were recently talking about this, like how over-optimize the results are and like gamified, they are like, they’re not necessarily the information you’re looking for.

Jillian Leslie 16:58
So, people are typing in, let’s say, I want to search for apple pie recipe or something like this, but they’re going like apple pie recipe, Reddit, because at least with Reddit, those are more real people, or like car tires, or something where I want people’s real opinions about something.

Jillian Leslie 17:26
And they’re searching for Reddit stuff, because they want the Reddit reviews or they want the Reddit threads rather than whatever is going to show up on the first page of Google that you kind of go, “Ah. It doesn’t feel real. It feels like it’s been written by some bots.”

Think of Digital Marketing in Three Buckets

Neal Schaffer 17:40
I like to really simplify digital marketing into three big buckets. You have search, you have email, you have social, these are the three primary ways in which people can digitally consume information. I think search and email are still golden, some things have changed.

Neal Schaffer 17:58
You’ll talk to some people they will say oh, more and more people, they find the information within the search result, within a featured snippet, and they don’t even go to the website, I have had really good success.

Neal Schaffer 18:07
This is why Jillian, I need you to do my workshop, I’ve had really good success with SEO the last two years, and my traffic keeps on increasing. So, it is possible even today, and I’ll say the part about being real, is that I use my own brand, nealschaffer.com. And I will always say people trust people, more than logos, people trust people more than businesses.

Neal Schaffer 18:07
So, I lean into the fact that it’s a person providing this information, it’s going to be impartial. I’m not trying to sell you an email marketing tool, or a social media marketing tool, because I’m competing against those companies that at the end of the day, they’re writing the content to get people to opt into their business.

SEO is Still a Strong Strategy for Growing Your Business

Neal Schaffer 18:42
I’m not doing that; I want to provide you that information. So, I think that there’s still opportunity, I do think that rawness has helped that realness that it’s an actual person that they can engage with that will respond to comments what have you. Email obviously, is still golden now.

Neal Schaffer 18:57
Is it becoming text with younger generations? Absolutely. I just spoke last week, Jillian at an American Auctioneers Association, auctioneers around the country. In California, where I live, it’s not that big, but in some parts of the country. It’s huge.

Neal Schaffer 19:09
And there was one gentleman there who said oh my gosh, our text campaigns are incredibly effective, incredible, just like with Facebook Messenger marketing, the early days, 80% open rates or what have you, but they’re actually seeing that.

Neal Schaffer 19:22
So, if you combine the text; the WhatsApp Facebook, Messenger, Instagram DM and the email that’s still really effective, the social is really where you need to be real. And I almost think Jillian just thinking is that that social graph breaks down, if not enough people post enough interesting content.

Neal Schaffer 19:39
So, I can keep going to Facebook, see what’s going on or I can be really entertained on TikTok. And I think we’re also seeing some of that, that there are limitations as to the creativity of people even within your social graph.

Jillian Leslie 19:52
Do you really want to see my vacation photos? Do you care that much?

Neal Schaffer 19:58
Case in point Instagram postings we started seeing more reels from people we don’t follow. It’s the exact. They were experimenting. And it’s funny because before all this blew up when I was at that event, they were saying that experiment was going successfully.

Neal Schaffer 20:11
They’re finding more people are consuming more reels from people they don’t follow was the data that I was being told by the meta folks at that event. I think that part of it is definitely from COVID is that when I think about these influencers, like Charli D’Amelio is a great example. She just showed up on TikTok doing dances.

Neal Schaffer 20:24
The dance skills are crazy some of these TikTokers. But beyond that, now, it’s people, it’s you and me showing up it’s not about using a lot of trickery. Maybe there’s a way of showing transitions and making it more engaging from a video perspective that we all need to study.

Neal Schaffer 20:46
But the effects are all in the app for the most part. There might be some third-party apps, but the app itself is incredible. In terms of the functionality, just need to figure it out. Like I mentioned on Instagram reel trick.

You Must Show Up on Social Media Now

Neal Schaffer 20:56
So, it requires us to really show up in a raw way. And in video, and I think there’s a lot of introverts that love Pinterest, they don’t want to be on video.

Jillian Leslie 21:05
But they love being a food blogger and hiding behind the recipes.

Neal Schaffer 21:09
Show the recipe now.

Jillian Leslie 21:11
But show your face if you can, because again, I want to connect.

Neal Schaffer 21:16
Yes. People connect with faces.

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Jillian Leslie 21:52
When I think about my daughter, and there she is going to school remotely and her move away from Instagram which I think is like every teenage girl it’s like aspirational and their worst nightmare.

Neal Schaffer 22:08
Mental health.

Jillian Leslie 22:09
Exactly. And I could see that and I weirdly felt like showing up looking at TikTok where people look more normal. They’re weird parts of TikTok too. So, you have to make sure your kids are not going into those areas. But people look more normal on TikTok than they do with filters on Instagram.

Jillian Leslie 22:27
Plus, Instagram is like your best moment, it is like the golden hour of look how fabulous I am whereas people were more raw on TikTok, especially at the beginning. And I think therefore, that was one of the reasons for my daughter was not seeing any friends.

Jillian Leslie 22:45
All of a sudden she has these perceived friends on TikTok. Not that she knows them. She’s just consuming their funny content. She’s like, “Look, people are funny on TikTok.” And that was enough for her to keep her engaged.

People Want to See People They Can Relate To

Jillian Leslie 22:58
So I think again, you and I’ve talked about this a bunch of times, people want people, people want raw people, people want to feel like they relate and they connect.

Neal Schaffer 23:08
And this is really great timing. Because, as I mentioned, I taught my first course at UCLA Extension Influence Marketing last night. So, we had 15 students in the room. They were only three from the United States, by the way.

Neal Schaffer 23:20
So, we had Taiwan, Brazil, Armenia, Turkey, because the first class is introduction, why are influencers influential? What are the characteristics that make them influential? I’m not saying you all need to become influencers, but these are people who are able to grow a community and a following, because they have certain factors.

Neal Schaffer 23:39
And interestingly enough, we had 10. And at the end of the class, I’m like, “Okay, let’s narrow this down to five.” I think the top one, and I lumped it into one thing, it was relatability, honesty, authenticity, and relevance. This one bucket of things.

Neal Schaffer 23:58
By the way the other one was relationships, relationships with followers trust community. In other words, when they recommended something, even if it was hashtag ad, it was still believable that they were truly recommending it.

Neal Schaffer 23:58
And then content, obviously, is one of those five things. The other one is, well, it’s really hard is charisma, which really means being more of a trend sender trend setter than copying what everyone else is doing.

Neal Schaffer 24:28
Which is really hard to try to figure out and then persuasion because all this adds up to persuasion and influence. But I think that relatability honesty, authenticity, and relevant, it’s something Jillian don’t we say, hey, I’m showing up for my girlfriends and it’s like, I’m talking to my girlfriends when I’m online.

Neal Schaffer 24:47
I think that is really the approach that if more people took so it’s less about programming, like oh, we need to create the image in this dimension. And we need to click here button in an arrow.

Neal Schaffer 24:58
It’s a very different mindset that says, Okay, I’m me. And I’m just having a conversation with my buds or my girlfriends. And I’m just sharing what I know as if I was seeing them in real life. And I’m using some skills that I learned from being active on TikTok or reels. And those are things we need to pick up, which I think we can do.

Neal Schaffer 24:58
But that’s a very, very different mindset than this, let’s schedule out our pins for the next year. Let’s schedule the blog post. Let’s check Yoast SEO and all that. It’s very, very different. It really is coming back to the relationship aspect. But it’s that adding of the authenticity and the rawness that COVID really required us to do.

Neal Schaffer 25:17
And I think yeah, go back to the Instagram, my daughter two years older than your daughter, but with Instagram, you couldn’t repeat what those influences were doing. Because they were on remotely.

Jillian Leslie 25:46
They were like, kind of on a mountaintop.

TikTok Is Relatable

Neal Schaffer 25:48
TikTok it’s repeatable, it’s relatable, my daughter and her friends will sort of like mimic famous TikTok dancers, and they record videos, they may not post them, but they get a kick out of doing that. That is relatability. It’s like, yeah, I can do that, too.

Neal Schaffer 25:48
And maybe that is almost like a guide for creating our content. Yes, I can do that, too.

Jillian Leslie 26:01
I can do that too. So, when I teach and I talk about, I want people to do workshops, paid workshops, like you, Neal. And I say it’s better if you’re only one to two steps ahead of where your people are. So, one woman that I coached to create a workshop is married, I’ve told the story is married to a French chef.

Jillian Leslie 26:34
But I don’t want to learn from the French chef, how to cook. I want to learn from her who has learned from her husband, because she’s relatable to me. I feel I would feel embarrassed. Or what if I asked a stupid question to the French chef, or what if I don’t understand his French accent the difference is too great.

Jillian Leslie 26:59
But she is a mom like me. And she’s learning along and her skills are much better than mine. But I relate to her. And so weirdly, I want her to teach me how to do French cooking, not him.

Neal Schaffer 27:14
Yeah, that’s true.

Jillian Leslie 27:16
And that is where I feel like this is your opening that even though a lot of times people get nervous, like what do I know? Well, chances are, you know a lot. And you really can empathize with where somebody is. And like on TikTok, somebody is doing a dance. And you could probably figure it out and do it yourself.

Neal Schaffer 27:37
I think TikTok in 2022 you don’t have to do a dance anyone. You don’t have to do a dance. It’s not about dancing. You only have to be one step ahead. And really, it’s like everyone in the room last night, how do we know if that’s good engagement or not. You need data in everything you do to fall back on.

Neal Schaffer 27:57
So, you’re not going to know what performs or you’re not going to know what your audience engages with, until you actually create that content and get it out there and see. And if you are only one or two steps ahead, it’s raw, it’s relatable, that engagement is going to show up.

Neal Schaffer 28:10
It’s also going to guide you as to what content you might be doing more of and less of it. It’s like one of my clients for my Fractional CMO Consulting, they provide nutritional supplements, and they have four main products.

Neal Schaffer 28:24
It’s like, okay, we’re going to divide all of our strategies into four different things, our SEO, our email, and our social, and we’re going to get different results on different channels for different products. And that’s awesome.

Neal Schaffer 28:35
And maybe the social media just becomes talking about one product. And I’ve talked about this in classes I teach, in Nordstrom they focus on like female fashion, if you go into Nordstrom, they sell men’s they sell everything else. But up until recently, it was just female fashion, because that’s what sold on Instagram.

You Don’t Have to Do Everything on Social Media

Neal Schaffer 28:46
So, you don’t have to do everything, just find that niche or a niche within a niche. If you don’t know it, test out these different ideas and content, and then be able to say, okay, I did it for a month. I did four different reels, four different products, or four different angles or four different categories of content.

Neal Schaffer 29:06
And one just performs way better than the others. Awesome. You have your answer.

Jillian Leslie 29:10
Go there. Go there. Absolutely. Let’s talk about BeReal. Because I don’t know much about it, but my daughter.

Pay Attention to BeReal

Neal Schaffer 29:18
I don’t know much about it either.

Jillian Leslie 29:18
But it’s just interesting that this has come out of nowhere. It’s an app. It’s one of the most downloaded apps on the App Store. And it’s again, in response to this idea of like the perfect Instagram photo.

Jillian Leslie 29:34
I think what happens is you get a message on your phone that you have two minutes to take a photo of you being real in that moment and it takes one of your front camera and back camera and it will show you how many times you have reshot it. So that therefore the goal is just to be real.

Jillian Leslie 29:34
And then if you do the photo, you can see other people who you’re friends with, you can see their photos as well. So, it incentivizes you that way. I’ve read that it’s like huge. I’ve read that it’s already peaked and on its way down.

Jillian Leslie 30:11
Who knows whether this will be like a Clubhouse or be like, TikTok. But I think it speaks though to this desire for authenticity. And as I’m thinking in this conversation, I think that the world like we have a crisis of confidence, who to believe.

Jillian Leslie 30:32
I think that therefore we want to trust people again, we want people to show up, and I think my theory is, this is why something like BeReal, is speaking to people over some overly optimized, filtered Instagram post that’s been photoshopped.

Jillian Leslie 30:22
So, that’s just my theory about where we are as a culture.

Neal Schaffer 31:01
If you think about it, social media has as well a lot of businesses have stemmed from youth culture, social media came from youth culture, and Facebook grew from universities. Twitter might be a little bit different. But clearly, we had Snapchat which grew from a young culture, Instagram as well.

Neal Schaffer 31:21
If you remember the early days, it was very, very young term millennial now older, obviously. And TikTok, obviously has that young culture. And I have also found I hear more about Snapchat these days of kids going back to that as just a way to have fun messages between people and send snaps, and then you got BeReal.

Neal Schaffer 31:38
Not a lot of people publish a lot of content on TikTok. They’re just consuming. So, it’s not really a messaging platform that kids used to keep in touch.

Jillian Leslie 31:46
No.

Neal Schaffer 31:46
So Snapchat, actually filter and then BeReal, is like a combination of a few different things. It’s a way for them to communicate, but also have this fun aspect. But it’s not like you’re creating some snap and looking silly and some filter, it’s authentic.

Neal Schaffer 32:02
I first heard about BeReal this summer. But it’s funny, because last night, one of my Brazilian students, and actually her older brother is a Brazilian influencer with 7 million followers on TikTok.

Neal Schaffer 32:02
She was talking about how she would be shooting a video at a mall in LA and people come up to her and, “Oh, you’re shooting your BeReal for today, aren’t you?”

Neal Schaffer 32:20
She said that happened like five times. So clearly, I think we’re still at the beginning. And I’m like, “What do you think about people who work for influencer marketing?” She goes, “I could totally see brands doing it.” “Have you ever seen any brands doing it?” She goes, “No, not yet.”

Jillian Leslie 32:32
Not yet.

Neal Schaffer 32:34
It’s still very new. But I think just spending 15 minutes a day in TikTok in your niche is going to provide you and then just the ability to reverse engineer and start to act is going to be one thing, but if you really want to test something else out download BeReal and put your friends on it.

Jillian Leslie 32:52
I think you’re going to inspire me to do it today.

Neal Schaffer 32:56
My daughter was like, “Daddy you got to get on BeReal.”

Jillian Leslie 32:59
Both of us, we can friend each other. But it’s funny because my daughter will go, “Oh, my BeReal come in my BeReal with me.” And then we take the photo and it gets sent out. And it is all about where are you in your day?

Jillian Leslie 33:11
She’ll be like, oh, so and so is watching Stranger Things on Netflix, and it’s like, oh, okay, like that’s the BeReal. Now. Here’s something I get this a lot. I’m trying to help people set up paid workshops and show up live.

Jillian Leslie 33:30
And then one thing that always comes up is the person saying to me, “Oh, my God, but what if my technology fails? I’ve got to have Zoom. And I don’t know, what if my sound goes out?” And I say, “That’s great.”

Jillian Leslie 33:46
Because if you can do it with grace and humor, your people will love you even more. It’s almost like a gift because you’re freaking out in the moment. And you’re going, “Oh, no, wait, can you hear me guys? Oh, no, wait, wait.” And then you figure it out that your thing isn’t plugged in.

Jillian Leslie 34:03
And maybe it’s a disaster, and maybe you have to get everybody to come back. Who knows. But you going through that in real time is not bad. In fact, it’s good. Because you are human.

Jillian Leslie 34:15
So, when we’re talking about TikTok, and people are going oh, no, no, not another platform. Please don’t make me show up live and show my face. Please don’t do all of this.

Advice: Get Embarrassed and Just Try

Jillian Leslie 34:27
I’m like, “No, go do it and be embarrassed and make it yucky. And nobody’s going to see it. And it’s not a social graph. So, your friends aren’t going to know that you’re doing it. And it’s worth just putting yourself out there.”

Neal Schaffer 34:41
I once hosted a webinar and people on it. And they couldn’t see my slides. I’m like, I don’t know what’s going on here. And I kept on going to my slides but they weren’t seeing them. And I kept getting the message, “Neal, we can’t see anything what’s going on?”

Neal Schaffer 35:01
“Okay, everybody, let’s do a reset. I’m really sorry, we must have some technical issues. We’re going to log back in,” and everybody did. Well, I had forgotten to share my screen. I laugh about it now. It’s the boomer mistake back in the day, but that stuff happens. And everyone was understanding.

Neal Schaffer 35:17
They didn’t know that. They thought it was a technical difficulty. They log back in, they saw the slides, everything was fine. So, at the time, it was like, “Oh, my God, I feel so incredibly stupid.” But it’s okay. At the end of the day, they got the transformation they came for, and that’s what counts.

Jillian Leslie 35:17
And they probably had that warm feeling. Oh Neal, it’s not working.

Neal Schaffer 35:38
He has technical difficulties. He’s like us.

Jillian Leslie 35:41
Yes, exactly. So, I guess really, what’s really nice about this Neal, because we’re friends, is showing up with you, my friend. And talking about just being real, being authentic.

Jillian Leslie 35:55
And it’s like, I like checking in with you. And the message that we seem to come up with in each of our interviews is this same message, is kind of colored in different colors, like talking about BeReal, or talking about how everything is shifting, but yet the message is the same.

Jillian Leslie 36:15
Which is put yourself out there be real, take risks, be embarrassed, and just do it.

Neal Schaffer 36:20
Yes. People do business with people they like know, and trust, on social media. It helps you accelerate, creating those relationships through content. And that hasn’t changed.

Neal Schaffer 36:33
So, in order to get like, know and trust at the end of the day, you have to build relationships, because people don’t follow you and buy from you the next day.

Neal Schaffer 36:39
So, if you can remember that, and just knowing that the way to develop relationships through content, changes over time, and will continue to change, five years from now, who knows?

Jillian Leslie 36:48
Yes.

Neal Schaffer 36:49
When I first started seeing all these reels, and all these people that I follow, all of a sudden, I hadn’t seen any of their images, but I’m seeing their reels, and they’re just talking to camera. I’m like, that’s pretty stupid. But on the other hand, they’re getting visibility.

Neal Schaffer 36:58
And I might think it’s pretty stupid, but they’re reaching new people. And some of their followers may not think it’s stupid, because they’re already used to consuming reels and TikTok. I think we just need to have a different mindset.

Neal Schaffer 37:12
We are our worst enemy. I am my worst enemy. I know it, Jillian. And I should have launched my workshop a while ago, and you’re not in right now. I know.

Neal Schaffer 37:12
And I think everyone else listening is as well. But I think it’s something that we really need to begin to lean into if we want to retain visibility, but always in a raw authentic way. And always about the relationships, the relationships mean.

Neal Schaffer 37:17
I know a guy who just got started Instagram, he’s a videographer. He takes wonderful videos. But guess what, he doesn’t engage with anyone. He just publishes content. So, he gets no engagement, even though the contents are really good.

Neal Schaffer 37:41
So, when I teach, I create this digital Influence playbook for everybody. I’m like, okay, so you publish content, that’s only half of it. The other half is engagement. It’s going out there and engaging with other people following liking, commenting, sharing.

To Have Success on Social Media, You Must Engage with Others

Neal Schaffer 37:55
And if you did that as much as you actually spend time creating content that’s going to help you develop this community, and more people are going to see you, they find that you commented on someone else, or they see you commenting a lot. They’re going to start to hey, who is this person? What have you.

Neal Schaffer 38:08
So, use all the tools at your disposal. And it’s very, very easy to get into this one trick pony like, “Oh, now I know how Pinterest works. I can just set it on autopilot.” The days of autopilot are done even like SEO, I will go back to posts I republish a year or two ago and republish them.

Neal Schaffer 38:24
Like Okay, time to revise it two years ago and influencer marketing strategy I didn’t talk about TikTok have to revise it two years from now might be BeReal. I don’t know. But everything is influx. Everything is temporary. And we need to have that same approach.

Neal Schaffer 38:38
I’m really excited about it. I don’t like it. I have friends is like when they were 20, they knew what year they wanted to retire where they wanted to be. I don’t want to know where I’m going to be next year. I enjoy the adventure of life.

Neal Schaffer 38:49
And if you can have that same mindset, I think it’s a really exciting time to be on social media.

Jillian Leslie 38:54
I love that. Neal, honestly, I’m so glad that we recorded this today. And I think you’re right, I think that what I’m noticing and you’re noticing is things are shifting and changing like they always are. But I think that we get comfortable like, “Oh, this is Instagram, and I’m going to use this for the next 20 years for my business.”

Jillian Leslie 39:12
And what do you mean, there are these new tools that I need to learn? Like you’re smiling right now and having that playful attitude of like, cool, how can I use this platform to build my community to connect with people to grow myself to put myself out there in ways I never would have before?

Jillian Leslie 39:32
Like, how can I grow from this? And how can I just be alive and celebrate this moment?

Neal Schaffer 39:39
I don’t want people to take this the wrong way. But I have this mastermind group and I have a pretty snarky gentleman in the group. Great guy, but when other members are like fretting over the details of what we talked about today.

Neal Schaffer 39:51
He goes, “Stop worrying about it. In 50 years, it’s not going to matter. So have fun doing what you’re doing.” And it just echoes in my head.

Jillian Leslie 40:00
Just a good reminder.

Neal Schaffer 40:00
A reminder.

Jillian Leslie 40:02
Absolutely. Neal, if people want to find you see what you’re publishing find you on social what is the best way?

Neal Schaffer 40:12
I am Neal Schaffer, N-E-A-L S-C-H-A-F-F-E-R. Nealschaffer.com, I’m Neal Schaffer on all the socials. I also have my own podcast called Your Digital Marketing Coach with Neal Schaffer. So, if you’re looking outside of obviously Jillian’s podcast if you’re looking for additional podcasts to checkout, definitely go there.

Jillian Leslie 40:30
Oh, well, Neal, we’re going to do this again. I’m going to reach out to you again in a couple of months and go, “Neal, what’s going on? I need to pick your brain.”

Neal Schaffer 40:35
It’s all about BeReal! I have no idea.

Jillian Leslie 40:40
Well, thank you so much for coming on the show.

Neal Schaffer 40:43
Thank you so much, Jillian.

Jillian Leslie 40:45
I hope you guys liked this episode. I really think things are shifting. If you are noticing it yourself. As you build your businesses as you are using different social media platforms, I would love to hear from you. Please email me at jillian@milotree.com.

Jillian Leslie 41:04
And if a bunch of you share your thoughts, I’ll put it together in a podcast episode.

Jillian Leslie 41:09
And one last thing before I go. If you want to start selling digital products with MiloTree Cart, and you’re not sure what kind to create. Take my quiz that I just created at milotree.com/quiz.

Jillian Leslie 41:25
And it will tell you based on your personality, whether you should start with a digital download whether you should start with a paid workshop, whether you should start with one-on-one coaching.

Jillian Leslie 41:36
So again, head to milotree.com/quiz if you want to get on a call with milotree.com/meet and I will see you here again next week.

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