I don’t know if this was your intention of the story but I think like we deal with this a lot with our clients, right? They come to us and they ask us to do things that aren’t realistic. Right? Like build like a million followers on Instagram without spending any money.
This is e-commerce uncensored brought to you by Fast Forward Unlimited coming to you fully loaded and exposed with all the strategies and techniques for growing your e-commerce business.
Hey everyone and thanks for joining us on another episode of e-Commerce Uncensored. This is episode number 66. My name is Kevin Monell and I’m here with
Jason Caruso and Paul Chew. Paul Chew has been sitting in with us a lot with us lately, huh? He’s going to from now on.
Yeah full time, right?
Wow
He’s letting me play in the sandbox with the big boys now.
Look at that son of a gun. It’s fun, I like it. He can kind of fill in the gaps. Yeah, come on, you got to bring some youth to the show. Right, because you guys are old. You’re right. And you guys do some different stuff than his old folk like. I’m like Facebook Facebook Facebook and my like niece and nephew are like huh? What do you mean facebook? I don’t even go near facebook. And then you shit on Instagram, jump to it’s defense because that’s where it’s at.
And they kind of old person shame, they’re like “oh god you’re old.” Really like Facebook hasn’t been around that long. It’s like you listening to records. Anyway. Yeah. So today I just wanted to bring up a topic that came up to me last week and I wanted to bring it to these guys and just chat about a little bit. I had my, my brother in law came to me. He got connected with a friend of his that he met several years ago
And your brother’s a D.J. I think we should probably start off by saying. My brother’s a D.J. in the city.
He’s a pretty- New York City. Chaz Rockwell. @ChazRockwell (plug it for him). He’s- he’s, you know, from what you say, he’s pretty well known.
Yeah he’s pretty he’s pretty in the scene and he’s pretty active on social media.
So this this company came to him who kind of started several years ago and really didn’t make it that well and they came to him to try to increase their social following and be more engaging and interact on social media a little bit more. The background of the company is they’re a membership company for D.J.’s so that was another connection that they had. – he’s a DJ, and so this is a membership site that gives DJs access to music on demand pretty much. And also pre-access, pre access or? yeah.
Yeah to new stuff. Pre-releases.
There you go.
So if J.C. comes out with an album, he’ll get notified. You know he’ll tell you the details of it if we ever have him in here on the podcast but you don’t need to know all the details about it. It’s basically a membership site that offers music to DJs and they have 300 active subscribers, currently.
Are they paid subscribers?
300 paid subscribers.
So they’re paying $25 a month. There’s 300 of them. 300.
OK. So OK.
But they also have, originally they had 1000 built up over the years and they had lost 700 or so ya know? So they have actually a thousand e-mail addresses. So they tasked him with social media but also through on the fact that they have you know a 1000 e-mail addresses 300 of which are active subscribers. So when he heard that he’s like I got to talk to Kevin because he’s always talked about how great e-mail is and I think they need to take advantage of this and he was getting all fired up about e-mail. So he called me and said, asked me what I would do in that situation.
Now so I understand this; the thousand people were members at one point. Yes. OK. So there was a thousand members. Now they’re down to 300 members. 700 left. But he still has these thousand people who at one time were paying for the site. That’s right. So they need him- So do they need him to-
They didn’t even talk to him about e-mail. They just- it was like a side thing they were like we want you to post on our Instagram, post on Facebook Twitter or whatever. Oh by the way we have this thousand emails.
Ok so e-mail really wasn’t the point of him it was more what can he do with those thousand people.
Well no he- they didn’t tell him to take these thousand e-mail and do something with them. They said “You’re a DJ in the scene. You’re a New York City DJ. You’re active on social media. You’re good at this kind of shit. We want you to post on Facebook, on Instagram and Twitter and… what else is there?
Snapchat. (That’s pretty good though. Facebook and Instagram.) That’s all they wanted him to do. So he wanted to go, once he heard they had e-mails, he’s like “I’m going to go above and beyond. I’m going to talk to my brother-in-law and find out like what’s the best way to use these e-mails.
Right. So yeah I mean a thousand e-mails are not a lot but they are a thousand buyers. It is a customer list which is definitely more powerful. So you know are they going to spend money on advertising or is it just like we want you to like grow our-?
Organically. They haven’t talked about anything.
So Facebook ads, there’s not even going to be an option to them.
Well I don’t know that like he they didn’t- that’s another thing, I didn’t talk to him about running ads. All they wanted him to do was organic post but they but he was like I need to put a plan together, show that I know what I’m talking about and that I can be a part of this business, you know. So he went to them with recommendations, he wanted to go to them with recommendations of what they should do – the whole package as far as marketing. Now he’s not you know- he’s not a, ya know, a trained marketing person, he’s a DJ but he, you know, he is in the social scene so he figured he was a little bit of an influencer, potentially for them. And he’s a good writer so he could help them out in that area.
So well your advice to him was like– oh I throw I threw a whole bunch of shit at him, like, I overwhelmed the shit out of him.
To create like a lookalike audience.
Oh yeah. Yeah I totally confused the shit out of him.
And yourself?
And myself, yes (laugh).
I mean you have to confuse yourself because before we got on today this story has completely changed, from the first time. This is much more clear. We went from like email marketing to lookalike audiences on Facebook but they didn’t really tell him to do Facebook.
This was a, this was a recording we did earlier. I wanted to come in here and tell the story straight through without even talking to these guys before I blurted the story out and it just kind of backfired on me (laughs).
It backfired because you’re funny when you tell a story- like something else, like, comes in your head and, it’s like, you can’t just, like, ignore it and just keep going with the story, you have to stop and bring it into the conversation.
He’s firing off in every direction
And you do this, like, even with our clients sometimes, like, like Kev, like you can’t go from like this to like this, you have to explain how you got there! (laughs)
I do, I told you I have A.D.D. And it happens in my head too. Like if a thought comes up, like, I have to say it or I’ll forget about it. Yeah. And it totally got anyway– the whole story got jumbled around.
Because let me tell you something. This is a much more clear story than before.
Well you’re actually engaging with the conversation this time.
No, no, no, we’re trying to keep you in chronological order. I mean you literally went from he has a thousand e-mails to a look alike audience but they didn’t hire him to do Facebook. So it’s a really good way to still use the audience even though that, they’re not doing Facebook. Well it looked like audience can’t be used unless you’re doing Facebook. So you were kind of just jumping all over the place. But now I get it.
It’s not like they came to him and said “We want our own Facebook ads. We want our own Instagram ads. It was only organic social media posting.
So you know this is this is interesting right because I think that– I don’t know if this was your intention of the story but I think, like, we deal with this a lot with our clients, right? They come to us and they ask us to do things that aren’t realistic.
Right, like, like build, like, a million followers on Instagram without spending any money.
Mhm.
Or we- we had a client, that we’re not working with anymore, but basically like we had their– we got their website up and running and we’re like, “OK let’s start marketing it,” and they’re like “No, no, no, you told us you had the magic sauce where you can do this.” And I said, “I didn’t say we could do it without any money. I mean, what do you want me to do? Snap my fingers until somebody buys your product and see how many people will like your page because of that?”
I mean, that’s basically exactly what my thought was.
Right, so–
–to, to coming to you guys with this.
Right so basically, they basically went to him and said, “Hey, we want you to pull a rabbit out of your ass and get all these followers organically but you got to do it by just posting stuff about us all day.”
Well it seems like he needs to just start small, and start with what they’re asking for him, and prove to them that he can handle and do that, while using Kevin as a resource. Like get a whole outline, get a plan for what they could potentially do with spending money and actually making progress like you’re saying- doing what you need to do to grow a following, which costs money for ads and everything – and then show them that, but not implement that because that’s just in over his head, it’s in over their head.
The premise of their request is wrong.
Well I think, yeah, the premise of their request was wrong because not something that’s going to necessarily grow their business. However where Paul’s coming from, and I think we are, I do it a lot of times, is someone comes to us and asks us for one thing, but we go to them and say well you need to have this. And you kind of helped me out because I was doing a lot. and I don’t do as much anymore, because that’s what we know is right thing to do.
So if somebody asks- yeah you did do this a lot. So somebody coming to us and say, “Hey, I want to hire you for e-mail marketing.”
“No no no no, you, no no no no.”
I would never say ‘No’ I would just try to sell them on several other different services.
And not even sell them, you gotta be like, “but we gotta do your website first!” and they’d be like, “but that’s not what I want, I want you to do Facebook ads– (unintelligable) your face- your website is not ready for that.
And like they would- I don’t know that you turned anybody off by that, but it would be like you almost confused them because – not confuse them that’s not even the right word either.
But you weren’t giving them what they wanted.
They asked for one thing, and you’re trying to do the right thing by them and tell them what, you know, you think they should have instead, and they’d be like “Well that’s not what I want.” So sometimes you have to give them, you know- or sell them what they want and give them what they need.
And then say, in this instance, too, it’s like you’re going to say, “I want organic, I want someone to post organically for me which doesn’t really cost anything,” to telling them, “Oh you got to pay for Facebook ads,” and then like, all of a sudden. You’ve
(you lose them)
You’ve triggered something in their brain, like, Whoa whoa.
Yeah I’ve got to pay for something.
So that’s the delight–
Matter of fact that happened to you today. You were talking to our bookkeeper, and she basically said to you, “Kevin, you’re going to have to spend X amount of dollars on your taxes,” and you’re like, “Well I have never spent any money to do my taxes.” Same exact thing right? Like, you basically thought that you were going to pay a hundred bucks or two-hundred bucks for your taxes and then she recommended like a real… person and that guy wasn’t going to be a hundred dollars and you also were like, you know, thought you were going to do one thing and then something else came out of it.
And it triggers this thing. And it’s not like us or Josh going to them with this plan is, like, a way to get money out of them. It’s just, you’re telling them what the best thing to do is. You’re trying to help them but that doesn’t always communicate that way, when that happens.
Yeah they have their mind set already. And you know, once they have their mindset, they’ve made a decision to spend money on X, and then like you say, “No, don’t do X do Y,” and then it’s like a whole brain… F-U-C-K.
Yeah I mean, I think, to Paul’s point, it’s like, it’s good for him to go with this write up of strategies that they can implement; but I think he does have to, you know, just stick with what they asked him to do.
But like I said – or what we said – like that’s like a very… what they asked him to do he probably should have said no.
Because it’s not something you can do.
Why not? He can’t just be active on social media and engage like everyone should do anyway, even if you’re not spending it–
Where is he gonna get the picture? Where is he gonna get the content? (Unintelligable)
He has the content. The problem is their expectations. He needs to make sure that their expectations are correct.
OK. So look let me understand this. Guy comes to me and says, “Look, we’re not going to pay you any money. But you’re kind of tied into a group of people, and I want you to go on our page and I want you to post your life all day.” I will take to the guy. I don’t know. (Laughs)
I mean they’re not to– they’re not expecting him to do it for nothing. They’re going to pay him to, you know, not a lot of money at the start but they’re going to pay him to do the work.
Well I mean if he’s going to do that and grow their following to any significant number I would- I would tell them to do it himself. I mean why would he, why would he do it for them if all he’s doing is his own stuff. That doesn’t make any sense to me.
I don’t know the details or what exactly their content they’re going to be posting is, necessarily, I don’t know if they’re just going to use his life as like the, uh, I don’t know, the theme of their content. It could be totally something different, but he has to be the act the one that’s active on the, on the social media.
That’s OK.
But the thing is is like the activity on social media doesn’t equate to sales; just organic activity and social media. Oh yeah, you get the vanity number of a lot of followers, potentially, which that might not even happen. (Yeah) but it doesn’t- you don’t get money just for having followers. It’s like there’s a whole strategy involved to turning followers into customers, turning an audience into– you know I mean? Like there’s a whole string of things that have to happen first before you can just get start getting money from people.
And I’m going– I’m going through this right now with the person that I used to work with. She has 255,000 followers on Facebook. That doesn’t mean anything. Like there’s about 6,000 of them that are really active. And you wear those 6,000 out real quick, you know, when you’re trying to sell them stuff.
Yeah the client we were talking about the client earlier. It’s like, their main thing is, ‘I want 10,000 followers on Instagram so I can have that swipe up feature’ right? Like that’s great. That’s really cool. But who cares if someone who’s not really and interested customer’s swiping up on your Instagram right?
Well because I don’t think people really understand that though. I think we’ve had another client who at one point two million followers on Facebook. That doesn’t equate to shit.
Well you know first of all like, we mentioned the very beginning of this podcast, like Facebook is, in some ways, dying with certain crowds. I mean I know it’s like still a huge platform, but I think people on Instagram are way more engaged. I think there’s a lot more potential to sell things on Instagram. I don’t know I think you also have to have the strategy in place. Like you might have 100,000 followers but if you don’t have anything, like, into that it’s not going to work. But you might only have a thousand followers, but if you have a good strategy and you’re engaged, you might have a much higher percentage of people buying things or interested even though you have a smaller number of followers.
I just can’t figure Instagram out, and we had this conversation before. I go on there and by the very nature of the platform, it’s just pictures. And if you can’t put text on the picture because Facebook doesn’t like it, then what the hell are– I mean.
Well you’re an old man.
Well I mean like, there are certain products that will work, like if you’re selling pocketbooks, you put a beautiful pocketbook up there, yeah, people will click it. Like you’re selling watches, yeah, people will click that. But like, what about like a supplement or something.
I mean I think the main point is that, you know 50 engaged– you always say this you say, ’50 engaged customers are 50 engaged people in your business are better than 10,000 followers who aren’t engaged to you.’
And that’s that’s right. If you’re selling a product. I’m saying Instagram itself. I don’t- I don’t ever click on an ad because oftentimes I don’t click on dudes, quote-unquote, “entrepreneurs” that are looking into like a cool face.
You guys are marketers. You guys know why those ads are getting to you. Because that’s stuff that you’re looking at dude. Like to be honest I get ads that are about products that I either am looking into or that I’m searching for, so it interests me. So to be honest it’s like you’re probably just looking at weird stuff like on the internet.
I think instagram needs to fix their ad, news feed ads setup because it’s not appealing at all to me.
But that’s what he’s saying. And like Billie Jean, or I’ll be honest with you, even if Gary Vee who I am very familiar with, if a picture of him comes to my news feed and he writes under it, “buy my product” and all I do is see his picture of him looking at New York City, I’m not going to click it. There’s nothing there for me to click; a little stupid ‘learn more’ button underneath the picture pops up. No one reads the text on there.
Look. We’ve run hundreds of ads for companies and we’ve also run hundreds of ads for people on Instagram. I’ve never once seen it really successful. Never.
You could do videos too, on Instagram which helps some.
Give me one client of ours that Instagram really knocked it out.
I’m actually you know I’m actually running and I don’t think it’s a better way to do it is an Instagram story ad. I think that’s the better platform to do it on because–
Ok, we’re talking about the news feed of Instagram.
I don’t know, I haven’t had much success on the news feed and I don’t click on the news feed. I personally have never clicked on an item in news feed because I think it’s, I think the Instagram ad platform is messed up. Because you can’t click on, it if you click on the image it doesn’t do anything because you double click, you get a like. You have to click on the ‘learn more’ bar underneath the picture.
I mean that’s basically what I’m saying.
You’re asking somebody to do too much, essentially.
But you’re asking them to do something without giving them any information.
But you can use a video.
OK
I know you’re asking me to give you an example of what works when I’m telling you you can use a video to convey that message.
I’m telling you that when I see an Instagram ad, like an image ad, that has a stupid thing that pops up under it that says ‘learn more’ it doesn’t– it doesn’t give me enough information to want to click.
I think you guys are looking at Instagram and Instagram advertising and a little bit Instagram in a little bit of an antiquated way. You’re not necessarily maybe going to sell something immediately, first time someone sees it on Instagram like in Facebook ads or even on an e-mail blast or something. If you get someone to just go to that page that was successful because they’re going to see all the content that was on that that– was on that account. They might follow them and then they’ll see them again. Like you’ve said years ago and numerous times, you’ve got to show people what you’re selling and yourself like six, seven, eight, nine times before you sell them. That’s the whole point of Instagram, because they are successful. I buy stuff off of it. I’m interested in them.
You’ve bought stuff of Instagrm.
I’ve bought that stuff off Instagram. That watch, I told you about it.
OK. Besides that–
Other people- Look, look you might not like it but you have to admit you’re not in the demographic who Instagram is going for.
My wife is on Instagram all day and she doesn’t buy anything on it. At least everything seems to be Amazon. She buys everything on Amazon!
Well we can pull up numbers later and talk about another podcast of the success of it, because it works.
I think that the story ad probably works. I think that, you know, video ads probably work. I was specifically talking about a stupid image that comes to my Instagram feed that has a learn more button on the bottom.
I do agree with you, I agree with you that. I don’t agree with you of the fact that Instagram is as not a good place to have that.
No I’m not saying that. Wherever there’s millions of eyeballs, there’s always an opportunity to sell them stuff. I’m saying, basically, that the Instagram platform- ad platform sucks.
That’s your opinion and not factual though.
You know it’s factual.
It’s not.
Everything Jason says is factual. It’s not. It’s a fact. It’s absolutely not.
Russell Bronson says– was it Russell Bronson said that Instagram is– not a swipe- story ad is the most important. And I think it is, and I look at the story more than anything else. Like I don’t really scroll through my feed anymore I just do a story.
I look, I follow all the golf like you know PGA Tour. I follow all of that, but like–
Well you’re on it for different reasons.
That’s all I’m saying.
Like I’ll see it like an entrepreneur on Facebook and then I’ll go on Instagram and see that same ad. Like, that’s another thing. I don’t think you can use the same ad that you use on Facebook on Instagram. I think. it’s foolish. Like, they want you to use the same ad because they don’t really care, right? When you set it up in the back end it’s like put it on Instagram like No!
They want you to just leave it up to them to put it wherever they want.
Right. And I saw this entrepreneur who had, like, a ponytail and I saw him on Facebook, and I read the text on Facebook ads because it comes before the image. And then I see the same guy with the same exact ad on Instagram with all the text at the bottom and I’m like, I’m like, I’m not looking at that. You know I’m looking at the picture because that’s what Instagram is.
Yeah but it’s mostly photo.
Right so that’s what I’m saying. I think that they need to allow more text on it or just get a little bit more- a little less restrictive as to what you can put on it.
I think that’s intentional. I think they do that because both Facebook and Instagram – obviously Facebook bought Instagram – but they integrated ads to look like a regular post. I know there’s been a lot of other, like, podcasts and I’ve heard a lot of other people talking about how that was intentional to be discreet and it fits right.
And next thing you know you’re looking at a sponsored ad, you don’t even know it. But when you see that on Facebook and there’s a big chunk of text or a little bit of a caption. You immediately dismiss it at least I do. I think on Instagram people don’t dismiss it. You don’t dismiss it or realize it’s an ad until you see that swipe bar which, yeah, maybe does or doesn’t work. But the whole point is it’s supposed to fit in much more cohesively with the rest of your post that you’re already seeing in your feed.
Go on Facebook. Go on Instagram. I’ll guarantee you I would bet a week’s worth- whatever, money, whatever. I guarantee you that the the images on Facebook and Instagram that have text on them are clicked more than images that don’t, and they don’t allow you to put text. I never- when an image comes to Facebook, if there’s no text on it like rom it actually gets my- catches my interest I don’t even, like, unless It’s like a golf thing like… But still they have to have text on it, but Facebook doesn’t want text on it for whatever reason. Just saying I think the Instagram ad platform is broken. I think- not saying it doesn’t work for some brands and some products, it’s like anything else. Anything else, you know, people tell you there’s an anomaly whatever. I just don’t think it’s effective. I don’t look at them. I know- anybody that I talk to doesn’t look on them, ’cause I ask them these things.
You’re not the optimal Instagram user. That’s all, look, that’s a fair opinion. But no she’s not an optimal Instagram user either, man. She’s not as active on Instagram as I am as other people not- for different reasons, for different reasons. You guys have a kid. You’re you know you’re looking for different things than someone who’s trying to buy clothes and buy into a lifestyle of like travel and design and art and culture and music. It’s a much different demographic. That’s what Josh and Kevin were talking about.
There is a definite split in demographic where this specific instance, his demographic is going to be on Instagram.
Yes and I agree. And you know what, that’s a good point. Like if I’m an artist and I see some nice art come through my Instagram, just an image of art, I would say that that would be clicked. But for us, as entrepreneurs, it doesn’t work because, it’s like, I’m not going to click on some dude’s face.
Well it depends if you’re going after Paul’s age group. Yeah, like Paul is an entrepreneur. That’s where his demographic is. So you got to kind of, like, switch your mindset a little bit because they are there on Instagram.
I’m saying that the ad platform, the way it is working right now, I’m not talking about demographic, of course is demographic there. I’m saying that the ads, the way the platform works is not effective.
Maybe for you, though. I don’t know why you keep hung up on that. Like it doesn’t work for you, but it’s successful for me. So as an entrepreneur as a marketer, as a business, why would you not want to consider Instagram ads. They do work. You don’t buy something off of them but other people do.
I look at Instagram ads if we run for our company, our customers.
Even our clients, what are our clients selling? Like you said this is–
Glasses (laughs)
I’m running I an ad on Instagram for them.
Right. And your- how many orders have- I’m gonna even open it up to you. How many orders have we had from Instagram? Just tell me how many.
Zero
Zero. OK. Thank you very much.
But we’re getting orders on the retarget that’s on Facebook.
OK. And look, I’m not saying there’s no use for it. I’m not saying that there’s not people, there I’m not saying that his demographic isn’t there. What I’m saying is it’s not… there’s a reason why they have to push Instagram all the time on Facebook. It’s because I don’t believe as many people are using it And I believe that because it’s- let me give you another example, what about Pinterest; it should be a great platform to sell things.
Who ever talks about Pinterest ads.
My wife’s always on Pinterest, trying to buy shit.
How many times have we used Pinterest ads?
Very few.
Very few. Well I’m just saying that–
It’s the audience man. It’s like his- you can’t tell a kid who’s trying to go after a 20, 25, 30 year old audience to start running Facebook ads. It can be part of the strategy but it can’t really be the norm. They don’t even go on Instagram. Paul barely goes on Instagram. I mean Jock–
Facebook you mean. You mean Facebook.
Flipped that. Reverse it. Yeah.
But you guys were like- I’m not saying that. I get it. His demographic is there. They’re not on Facebook.
What are you telling him though? To run Facebook ads?
No I’m just saying that, this whole conversation started, is that I don’t think the Instagram ad in the news feed is effective. That’s the only thing I’m saying. I’m not saying whether his demographic is there or not, or maybe, between 18 or 20 they are. They can’t be there but they’re supposed to be there. It’s effective for Paul. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that the ad platform in Instagram is flawed because a simple image isn’t enough for me to click. Now yes if I see a golf club or a product like that, you would click on it – If I see, like, a nice golf club. I’m not- I don’t know what the hell I’m clicking over because you can’t say anything about it and I don’t read the comments underneath. But yeah I would probably click it, but it is my intent to buy in that scenario? Probably not.
I agree. I mean I agree that the ad platform can be fixed, but anyway, shoul?, we get back to the actual point of this conversation and stop arguing about it.
Wait, just real quick, we can get back to that. What do you got Paul? It says that Instagram mobile ad revenue hit nearly seven billion dollars in 2018 which is five billion more than just two years ago, so…
For who?
Just in general. No I’m saying for Instagram or for…
I mean people spending money on Instagram ads.
Who’s making the 7 billion? Instagram.
People are using the platform more often. that means people are using it. That means people are using and having success if Instagram is benefiting off of it.
I know the ad platform on Instagram is growing, like you didn’t always have ads on Instagram either. Right. The story ads are evolving over time, so I don’t know something maybe we should do a little digging on and see some information, some actual research on it.
Here’s a perfect example. Here’s a sponsored ad on Instagram. Tell me what in that fuck–
This is uncensored. We’re e-commerce uncensored. We don’t market on iTunes as explicit. We can get in trouble for that. Well we might have to start. We probably should.
This stupid picture has a guy swinging a golf club and it says shop now. Tell me what about that picture is gonna make me–
What are you buying? You have no idea what you’re buying?
That silly thing that’s in his hands? I know that that’s what they’re trying to sell there. But it’s it’s flawed. People on Instagram don’t read the comment they don’t read what’s below, which is part of the ad.
IBut I think to Paul’s point, you’re taking your experience as like a fact.
No I’m asking you what of that image is going to make you click. I agree with you were the same–
Tell me what are you going to click on–
If I was interested in golf just, I would be curious about it. Would your intent be to buy? I don’t know yet; What I said before, I would go to that page. I might follow them. I might I look at some other posts which might lead me to their shop. There’s a link in everyone’s profile that leads you to their shop. I do that all the time. Now this is a different story.
He’s showing us some woman.
Everybody’s interested in different things. The appeal is always going to be different based off the demographic.
But what are we talking about here. It’s like, we’re talking about like people buying off of social media. What we tell people all the time, their initial engagement with someone shouldn’t be to try to sell them something. Like for me I don’t know if you know that brand or not, but would that be a good strategy for someone to just throw an ad in front of you and say ‘Buy now.’ Like, that’s not a good strategy. Maybe if it said, uh, well I guess you can’t really say too much, but if it was to a piece of content which is one of the things that I told Josh he should do, is to start developing content on a regular basis and drive traffic to blog posts and stuff like that. Don’t go on Instagram or Facebook or any kind of ad platform and say ‘Sign up for my monthly subscription plan’ because it’s not the right plat. Unless they’ve seen you six or seven times before you put that ad in front of them. I mean he had two sides of it. So he had the 700 e-mail subscribers who had bought in the past. So for them–
A thousand or 700 ? Well he has a thousand e-mails, 700 of which are no longer subscribed to the service.
So they’re not necessarily a cold audience, they’re more of a warmer audience so he could potentially go to them and say “hey we’ve improved the platform. Everything’s new. We’re developing new content. Come back. Maybe give them a discount off the membership,” but that’s the kind of person he can go after and sell. Anyone else, it’s a different story. They’ve got to introduce the brand. He’s going to say “Hey you know, here’s five free songs that we’re offering. Come over here. Give us your e-mail address and we’ll send you five free songs or however the hell they do it,” or “Here’s a Top 10 list of music coming out in 2018” or whatever it may be. And then you know you capture their e-mail and then you can sell them, or you retarget them on social media
Well you can even send emails to them and ask them to like the page. I mean if that’s what he’s trying to do just grow the organic likes or whatever they call it on Instagram – followers.
Yeah I mean there’s definitely ways that he can use his base of a thousand e-mail addresses.
But then at what point is that not going to mean anything anymore? I mean Facebook– people really got angry when people used to buy likes, like, “Like my page if you’re an entrepreneur.” They would like spend hundreds of thousands of dollars to get all these likes then Facebook would be like, “Well you can’t communicate with those million people. Now you’ve got to pay too.” It’s like at what point is that can happen on Instagram? You don’t think that that’s next? “Oh well we want to keep everything relevant. So now only 3 percent of the people are going to see your stuff.”
They actually already have. They’ve changed the algorithm where the timeline doesn’t show it in chronological order. It shows it based off of what it thinks– (I hate that). It does suck. And they might change, there’s been a lot of complaints and petitions written about it. That just effects the organic; ads will still be the same.
That’s why it always goes back to e-mail.
Always. I mean it goes back to owning your platform really, or owning your audience. It always goes back to that, because you know, all the good that Facebook has done, all the good that Instagram has done, they’re not perfect. And they’ve done things I’m sure. I mean I hear a lot of people leaving Facebook. I do, I hear all time. Like I’m sick of looking at my news feed and seeing the same crap all the time.
To go to Instagram.
They do go over–
Well wouldn’t it be a successful way, regardless of how you do it – whether it’s paid advertising on Instagram, whether you think it works or not, or just organically – if you get engaged people on that platform, then you can get their e-mail address. L,ike that’s what I think is all I’m trying to say because e-mail is your guy’s domain, you know the best about it, but I’m on some e-mail newsletters from brands that I found on Instagram. And I don’t even look at their instagram anymore–
Because you’re getting e-mails.
Yeah I just- I just I know I’m going to be swarmed by their stuff. And when I was brought there from maybe months of engagement on Instagram first, before I even was like Alright, you know what, let me commit to these guys full time I like their stuff, and now I get e-mails all the time. Yeah I mean look I know people like Instagram and I know my wife’s cousin Phil, who plays golf with us all the time, and he says he prefers Instagram because he doesn’t have to read. Yeah. And so it’s just pictures. He’s like I don’t want to read all the crap, I just want to look at pictures
It’s more refreshing. People can escape a little bit.
I mean you know. At what point is that you know…
Well I think you just need to take those social platforms for what they are.
You have to understand what they are and use them as a platform to capture e-mail addresses.
Use them as an opening, not the actual foundation that your business is going to run off forever but get a customer from that and then that’s it. If you have your e-mail and you have them as a returning customer to your website then you’re good.
And I think the biggest problem people have is like I don’t think you can manufacture that and that’s the problem because if your brother wanted to do it right. And he wanted to do it in a way that the actual followers would would translate into money he would have to consistently post over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over until he doesn’t want to do it anymore and then he got to do it again for another year and then he would grow an audience. But until that man, like, you’re not going to manufacture fake followers and have it translate into money.
Well yeah you’re exactly right, even doing that, the followers that you do get from just posting cool pictures of him DJing and shit like that, does that even really get the right kind of audience?
Well yeah that’s the other part. Like you don’t even know if it was three adults and that’s the problem, it’s like let’s go back to the original premise. People want these quote-unquote ‘vanity numbers.’ They want this 10,000 followers and they don’t even really know what that means. Like, it doesn’t really mean anything. And his company actually is doing what our clients do. They come to us and they say, ‘I want a million followers’ and we basically say ‘No problem. You got to post every day multiple times a day.’ ”Well don’t you guys do that. Like no no no you don’t understand.
You gotta put out valuable content.
You gotta do it over and over. It’s a lot of work. So you might want to hire someone to do it.
And the content has to identify the right audience. So putting out nude pictures of a girl to get followers is not going to bring in and D.J. customers.
Yeah I mean if you want, you know. I think that – this is- you k,now Gary Vee talked about this a lot and I’m not like a huge Gary Vee fan. I like him. I did like him. I used to follow him a lot. Not that I don’t like the guy. I don’t even know him. But you know his lifestyle’s is too much for me, like,, I like to relax a little bit.
But you know, he talked about it. He says “You know people want what I have, but they don’t want to work for it.” And that’s exactly what clients want, who think they can pay for everything, expect. And you cannot buy an audience.
Yes, Adam Carolla talked about it today.
If you have billions of dollars like the movie industry and they just need a small, small percentage of people in the whole realm of things to respond, yes, you can do it. But for just regular schmucks like you have to do something. And that’s basically you know, Gary talked about that a lot. He’s like “You know everybody wants a million followers.” And this is where the hustle thing, the hustle came from. I followed him like five, six years ago when he first wrote his first book. He basically said like. People want a million – that’s when a million followers on Twitter was a lot – everybody wants a million followers but no one wants up ’til three o’clock in the morning answering every single tweet or re-tweet. He’s like “and that’s what I do. And that’s why I got the followers.”
That’s what it takes too. It’s not just posting once a day and putting a bunch of hashtags in your post. It takes outreach and commenting on other people’s posts and all that other shit.
Unless, and this is where I think Instagram is going wrong. I see it a lot in the golf industry and I know it’s not just the golf. I know that it’s in the weight loss. I know that it’s in the muscle. You get some chick who is like, works out almost nude and she gets 20 million people following her like Alright. You know, like that, It works for that because you got a lot of stupid guys out there who follow these people who have no talent other than they look good and they go to the gym in like a G-string and like a million people want to see that.
That’s the equivalent of putting a shiny object in front of a monkey.
Like that’s not an engaged audience, like there is a way to get a lot of followers in a quick way, whether it’s spending a lot of money and just stupid gimmicks like that and just cheap ways of women and sex and money. But you just have to put in the time and put in good content, and really like create a brand and an identity for yourself for whatever business you have to grow following. And like Kevin said earlier– exactly, you’d rather have 10 fully engaged, like, followers than 1,000 or 10,000 or 100,000 that aren’t really that engage that there’s like a 1 percent engagement ratio. So it’s more just about the quality over quantity.
And I think we went through this too. We would just like people just to get the follow back. Definitely. Yeah we’re experiencing it too. We’re trying to figure it out but we did learn.
It’s hard and it’s frustrating because you don’t get- you put out this stuff on social media. You get no engagement. No likes. You’re like “Ah I thought that was really good. What the hell?” Maybe I should take a picture of my shirt off and put it out there.
Then we’ll go right to zero. We’ll going to the negative follow.
Ah come on.
They might ban us from Instagram.
Well so basically I mean I told him,you know, to make sure that they manage- that he manages their expectations and to know what this is.
What does it mean though? We try to manage our clients and they don’t listen.
No we do. We tell them “You’re not going to get anything for three to six months.” And then they stop a month later. We told you this was going to happen.
Yeah people just have something in their head, like Kevin said and they don’t want to, like, let that go. They don’t want to think anything different, no matter what you tell them, no matter what’s the truth.
And they have this idea right, or you know business that they want to start that they think is wonderful – like I’m sure whoever Josh is dealing with thinks that this is the best platform that anyone has ever seen and–
(It’s the bee’s knees).
Yeah it could be really good. But no one cares that you think it’s wonderful.
But it could be, Kevin it could be wonderful, but it’s like anything else. Walk up to someone and say, “I’m going to give you a million dollars and I’m going to laugh at you and walk away.” Like even if you were really going to give it to them right?
What does that have to do with it?
Because there’s like– even if it is the best thing in the world, it doesn’t necessarily mean that people are going to jump all over it like…For example, a Lamborghini. If you came to me and said “Here’s a Lamborghini.” I’d be like I don’t where want to spend five thousand dollars for a tuneup. I don’t really live in an area where it’s that nice all the time. The roads aren’t that great. Like, all right. It’s cool. My garage is full of crap. I’m not going to put- it’s like even though it’s great, it doesn’t necessarily mean like I’m going to want it.
Well you have to communicate why you would want it in an effective way, because I think that’s the secret of it. It’s like you have to engage with your audience and convince them that they should do it. Just because it’s the best car or the coolest car–
(Persuade) Persuade your audience, right? Because they’re not going to believe you that you got the best thing out there just because you say it .
Everyone thinks their product is the best.
Exactly. We are the best. I’m sure there are people that would… well nobody can argue that.
We did have a nice phone call from a client and a half.
Half a client?
No we were doing one of their businesses, but we were doing the other one and they thought the grass is greener on the other side with this other company. And they just called us back and said they’re not happy with them but they’re in a one year contract. So, nobody thinks that we’re bad.
You have to go away, you have to try something new and then come back and find out. (Exactly).
So we got to have Josh on the podcast. He can talk about it more. We can get to understand it better.
We argued a lot on that one. This one?
Well–
Argue? We argue all day. Why would this be any different. It’s the same thing.
That you guys are good. Yeah. All right cool guys. Thank you guys so much. You guys can check us out on e-commerce on sensor dot com. It’s been episode number 66. And we’ll talk to you guys real soon. Adios.
Don’t forget to please leave a comment below or review us on iTunes or Stitcher.
If you leave us a review please let us know and we’ll send you an eCommerce Uncensored T-Shirt. You can email us at kevin@ecommerceuncensored.com or jason@ecommerceuncensored.com. Sorry but we can only ship the shirt to US only.
You can also check out the video of this podcast and see our beautiful faces on our YouTube channel. Click here to check that out and subscribe.