Paul Brown: [00:00:00] I was still in a sales job and I was on the board and I said, as a business, we are trying our hardest to cold call to win new clients all the time. On my podcast, nothing to do with work. I was had the opportunity of speaking to super senior people that I never dreamed I could ever speak to. And all I was doing was social media, will you come on my podcast? Yes. So I said to the board, why aren't we doing this as a business? So the board said, okay, here's free reign. Let's go and do it. So I stopped doing my job within the business, and I just had basically social media, podcasts, videos, freedom, and cut the story short. In one year I generated £800,000 revenue. I did no sales. I simply spoke to senior people and introduced them to our sales team and then left. And we did 800 K, which was about 10% of the business, which was 14 years old.

[00:01:19] Chris O'Hare: [00:01:19] I'm Chris O'Hare your Quick Win CEO, as a CEO I've run businesses, founded startups, consultant for others and even won awards. But in this show we'll be talking to entrepreneurs and experts to help you understand key concepts for your business along with 3 quick wins that you can take away and apply to your business today. Every week we'll be finding out about the entrepreneur themselves and diving into a different but important topic.

 Do you want the secrets to build your own 100,000 followers on social media? Our guest has 40,000 followers on tech talk, 27,000 on LinkedIn, 20,000 Twitter, and has even worked with the likes of a heavyweight boxing champion, Anthony Joshua.

[00:02:04] Our guest, Paul Brown is an influencer in his own, right. And founder of bait being media, a social media and video production company. Paul gives us some incredibly useful insights and actionable tips. Even I've been inspired to do myself. Paul's approach is in my opinion, that of a viral Hunter he's always ready, tapped into the networks and waiting to maximize the opportunity to create the next piece of content that rides a social media wave.

[00:02:37] And this was a refreshing, the different podcast episode that I think will give you an alternative perspective or social media. Here we go, or Brown.

[00:02:47] Thanks for coming on this show. Paul first, tell me the last thing that you read or watched, or did that left an impression on you? It could be a Netflix series, funny video book you read or quote.

[00:02:59] Paul Brown: [00:02:59] Chris. Thank you very much for your time. It's nice going from clubhouse to your podcast. So that's great. So the impression is it's bit of a crazy one. It's YouTube and it's streamers. And I don't know if you know a lot about YouTube streamers, but I met some guys at are protests and they basically go on, live on YouTube for five hours every day, and they have a chest, a camera chest, like a camera Mount on your chest.

[00:03:30]A microphone that they click on battery packs in the back, and literally they just go around London streaming. And I think it's really interesting that they get 300 to a thousand to 10,000 people tuning in to see what they're up to. And it is literally just doing basically going to the shop, riding around London.

[00:03:53] So it it's opened me up to this new world of streaming. I do stream a lot on YouTube, LinkedIn, and Twitter, but I'm Facebook live. But now I'm thinking about, there is this future world of streaming and it just inspired me that these guys have no jobs. They get money put into their accounts.

[00:04:13] They've got about 10,000 followers and it's just a totally new world, a bit like clubhouse, but you actually see what's going on in their world at any point. And if I want to get hold of him and I've met him obviously, and I have to go on their Shreem and see where they are. And then I start typing on the stream, where are you?

[00:04:32] And then we meet up. So it's it's a new world that I'm keen to explore and try out more things.

[00:04:40] Chris O'Hare: [00:04:40] I absolutely love that because before we started this podcast, we were talking about Periscope and how it was so interesting watching people stream live in certain locations and you can basically zoom into a part of a map and go, okay, what's happening here? What's this person is streaming. And then you come up with that piece of gold and and I think again it's like this boy arrest. Type view of, you want to watch what other things are happening around the world. And it's almost like for me, it feels a bit like live street view.

[00:05:13]I'd love to be able to just tune in somewhere what's something. And I used to go on these websites where the webcams are streaming live just to see what was happening. And I think that's really cool because you've got a moving person moving around and that's all they do. And actually they've created this interesting niche and this interesting area around that.

[00:05:33] Paul Brown: [00:05:33] And another thing you said was I'm streaming live on LinkedIn. Which I've been trying to get access to that for a good year now. And they still haven't given me access.

[00:05:46] Wait, let me tell you for our got mine, it's a lot of email bashing. Okay. And there's a guy called who he didn't help me, but he has posted a formula how to get LinkedIn live, a guy called Andy foot.

[00:06:00] I don't know if you've seen him on clubhouse or check him out. It's F O T E. And he's got like a slide, a deck of how to get LinkedIn live and you message someone at LinkedIn and it fast-tracks you get LinkedIn live. Are you posting your videos on LinkedIn? On a weekly basis? Do I need to do more?

[00:06:18] Yeah, I think you should be doing like. Now weekly should be fine, but two or three a week should be hit the criteria. But yeah, it took me three months to get LinkedIn life is LinkedIn live really worth it? Not really, to be honest, I there's only one lady that I know that smashes it and she's called immediate Emilia Sadara that if you've come across her yet.

[00:06:40] But she has a hundred to 200 people in a room every Wednesday at day. But yeah, otherwise I don't see. A lot of people that get more than 20, 30 people online at a time and LinkedIn has now pushed it. So when you are live on top of your profile, you go live on your profile, which is a new thing. That's come out over the last month, but it's tough to work.

[00:07:09] I use it simply as a live tool to means I don't have to edit and blah, blah, blah. So I literally just push record or go live and then I've got it saved on LinkedIn and then I repost it.

[00:07:22]Chris O'Hare: [00:07:22] That makes a lot of sense because what I was going to do is essentially I've done this already, but with YouTube live streaming, my podcasts.

[00:07:28]The only problem is with that, that you don't get the lessons on your podcasts. So I've actually stopped doing that. Cause I want them to go onto my podcast and listen to it rather than watch it. But I don't know. W it's very early days for this podcast. So I'm trialing things and doing different things, but that was one thing that I had noticed is that my podcast lessons were lower, but my YouTube views were a lot higher because the same people will just watch it instead of listening.

[00:07:56] Paul Brown: [00:07:56] Yeah. It depends where you want to direct your traffic. And I use software called stream yard and the other one is real stream. I've used both and both are very similar. Some of them have just a little bit better mobility on your mobile. One of them is better than the other one, but it changes all the time, but basically stream yard will Be like a broadcast center like we're doing now and then a push it into YouTube, live Facebook live doesn't do Instagram live, LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, and Twitter.

[00:08:27] They're my four. I go live on. And yeah, sometimes if I'm talking about American football, I get up to 200 people live across all platforms. If I'm a protest, I've got up to 2000, but yes, some days I just get 20 to 50, it's people, and it's a lot more manageable and more of a community feel.

[00:08:51] That's really interesting. Okay. I might go back to it. Like I said, I'm in that trial phase at the moment, so I don't, but I'm using stream. I've used stream now myself before, but I think it depends on the audience. Where are they going to be? How are they going to consume you content? Yeah.

[00:09:05] Does anyone have a good thing about using these platforms? They put captions on it for you now. You go through stream yard and then on LinkedIn live on YouTube live, you've got captions now automate, automating your speech so that there is one benefit, but it's a really good question is, Paul come later podcast numbers drop, but your social media numbers go up.

[00:09:29] And I guess it's down to your goal. If you want to do, be bigger in YouTube, then, focus everything on YouTube, but it is a tough social media platform to get success with. That's and that's exactly why I'm focused on the podcast with less podcasts out there. And people tend to be a bit more loyal, I would say with a podcast, whereas YouTube, you can go down a rabbit hole, within three minutes, they're going to jump off your video and look at something else because visually people get bored quite easily.

[00:09:57] Whereas I found with podcasts, people are just going for a war. They're just, you're there along. You're like their friend in their ear. And so that's why I'm focusing on podcasts. Plus the idea of I can go up the charts on Apple podcasts would actually be far more helpful. Cause I don't think YouTube I'm going to make much of a dent.

[00:10:17]And like I've been number eight on the Apple chart before come on. And that's why I've been focusing on podcasts. And so I'm trying to direct people. So I'll do things like our release, my podcasts Links rather than my YouTube link beforehand to make people go and listen to it, in my pocket.

[00:10:38] So all your listeners, yet, you're hearing all my tricks of what I do to you. But don't take offense. All I'm trying to do is make sure that this gets out to more people, but what do you think about that? Yeah, Chris, I think, you're being transparent. You're telling everyone how it is.

[00:10:52]I disagree with you slightly on the YouTube thing, and it's something that I've only come across over the last six months is I kind of use YouTube now as a TV channel, so I don't watch TV, but if I was bored on the weekend, I would literally go to YouTube kit subscriptions, and I've probably got about 30 subscribers things I enjoy watching.

[00:11:18] And then I just basically watched the latest episode. So that's how my YouTube works and the recommendations, as we all know, YouTube is a good search engine. So hopefully I do get some new recommendations of other stuff. So I think. Do you think I will? The one thing I disagree with, yes, I've got a place where my podcasts and yes, I've got a place where all my YouTube subscribe, subscribers or subscriptions, and I do actually see them as almost like a conveyor belt on Tuesday.

[00:11:53] I know so-and-so's coming out. So I'm quite excited about that, okay. Yeah, maybe you treat YouTube, like I treat podcasts. So maybe that's just our different perspectives because the way we different we consume it because I don't consume a lot of YouTube for the time because I'm always doing something always busy.

[00:12:13] I'm always moving forwards. And the only thing that kind of gets my screen time in the moment is Disney plus is pretty good. I'm finding that gray and Netflix for my usual ones are finding golden nuggets in Netflix and Ella and I'll binge on those, but that tends to be it. And then the other things is if I'm driving or walking or doing exercise, podcasts goes on almost every time.

[00:12:33] And. That for me is the way I consume content, but I completely agree. And that's why my videos do go on YouTube because I still think there's a massive audience. I just haven't quite worked it out. And perhaps, this is something that you can tell us about in this course episode a hundred, I know YouTube expert, but yeah, I have got years of experience on YouTube and a reasonable following on YouTube.

[00:12:58] So yeah, we can discuss that. And it's interesting you say about podcasts cause we obviously met in clubhouse. We had the chat before about. We've now not on clubhouse so much anymore. And yeah, I'm very similar to you. I have my podcasts, I have my YouTubes. And then if there is an influencer, I'd just say loosely.

[00:13:16] If someone recommends, I think you should listen to this. I'll give them a go on one episode. And if I like subscribe or. Into my library of podcasts and then it joins in that micro-community yeah, myself, I'm not a Netflix person. If my girlfriend's around, we may watch something and I'll try and get into the next flip Netflix mode and I'll watch the top 10 and try and learn what's going on or I don't watch TV.

[00:13:44]Yeah, I do similar to yourself, live a, quite a sheltered life and Disney. Plus is it called, I haven't seen the functionality of app. I'm guessing it's Netflix only for Disney, right? Yeah. But actually what I didn't realize with Disney plus is how many companies they actually own. So there's stuff on there, like Quantico I've been watching, which is, I've never saw it before, but that's pretty insane how great that is.

[00:14:07]X-Files is on the going back, yeah. So I'm going through the back catalog of X-Files, which is Epic. I loved X-Files, as a kid. And so the opportunity to go through and do that, it's a really good point because, we get into these new cycles of life and then me particularly, I get addicted to it.

[00:14:28]Like I say, club house for two months, I was. Semiotic test in the morning. I have my shows in the afternoon, certain days of the week, I had my shows in the evening inside my or rooms, you should be saying. Yeah. And yeah, we've YouTube. I went for stage four years ago, watching it a lot really of my guys.

[00:14:47] And then three years later, revamp a game back on YouTube, enjoying sort of certain people making content. And yeah, I'm really excited for the episode. So yeah, it all goes in cycles and it's definitely a I'm addictive watching. So hence why I don't watch a Netflix or series because okay, tiger King breaking bad.

[00:15:10]The big ones. If the world's talking about them, I watch them. But yeah, otherwise I try and makes a lot of sense. What drives you as an entrepreneur? What kind of gets you out of the bed in the morning? So say you're stuck in bed and you say, Oh, I don't want to get out. And what's that thing that just says, you know what, this is going to get me out of bed and you're going to crack on.

[00:15:32] So yeah, as a person, I'm up seven, o'clock awake every day. That doesn't mean I'm out of bed at seven. And yeah, for me, it's all about content creation. I get super excited of producing content and getting it in newspapers, working with key people. Yeah, like auntie Joshua, the boxer, I do work made the videos for him before.

[00:15:57]Whether it'd be BMW, whether it be working for Bollywood actresses or getting my content out there in the newspaper. So yeah. So every day I'll wake up. I get my tick. Tocks done. I posted ticktock in the morning. I check what's trending on Twitter. I'm on Instagram saying hi to them when you follow us.

[00:16:19] So yeah, every day I'm on social media looking to grow. And the thing that excites me the most is something that's going to go viral and it's not money. It's a hundred percent creating content. There's not a me, but maybe capturing that viral moment. We're going to talk about a lot more about that. Cause I've had a look of your content.

[00:16:40]And there's definitely an element of you trying to create buyer orality around your content. But we'll cover that a bit later because let's understand more about what you do, what your business does. And so the listeners can understand where you're coming from. Yeah, so I'm I'm co-founder so me and Andy set up by the media 18 months ago, we create videos for influencers and also for small businesses, we have a price point of a thousand pounds to come to you for the day and create a handful of videos and then edit them for you.

[00:17:13] So that's our classic business model. We then help companies with marketing. So for example, we work with a small business with a view to create a post every single day, whether that be real stories blah-blah-blah for about 500 pounds and just basically do the management content, ideas, post-it and engagement for people and companies.

[00:17:41] So maybe media videos and managing social media. Okay. And so how did that form about how did that come about in terms of the company? Were you just quite popular on social media already and you thought you could turn this into a business and w what did you do before? Yeah, really interesting.

[00:17:57] So I was a director of a sales business, but probably where all started was probably six, five years ago. I was I had a life coach and he said to me, you should be doing a podcast. You should be talking more about your passion and which is American football, the Cleveland Browns. Five years ago, I started doing a podcast and posting small videos of my.

[00:18:28] Life as a Cleveland Browns fan in London. And yeah, I basically had one viral video probably in 2018, which was probably my changing moment where suddenly I had turned my phone off because I was getting so many notifications. My phone would just jammed. And at that point I realized, okay, just turn your notifications off.

[00:18:54] And then yeah, I got a viral. My first viral video was 2018 and the excitement and joy it gave me was out of this world. And. It's not about the numbers and the vagueness. I just enjoy finding news and blah, blah, blah. So it started then, and then I realized let's put more effort into this. Let's do daily podcast.

[00:19:18]Let's create a video every single day and post that onto Twitter. I grew Twitter up to 20,000 and basically then realized let's go across Gary V style, go across all social media channels. So my goal is hit 10,000 on Instagram, and then I'm on 30,000 on LinkedIn, blah, blah, blah, and 45,000 on Tik TOK.

[00:19:42] But yeah, just constantly creating content, documenting my life and growing it. And I was still in the sales job and I was on the board and I said, as a business, we are trying our hardest to cold call to win new clients all the time. On my podcast, nothing to do with work. I was had the opportunity of speaking to super senior people that I never dreamed I could ever speak to.

[00:20:11] And all I was doing was social media. Will you come on my podcast? Yes. So I said to the board, why aren't we doing this as a business? So the board said, okay, here's free reign. Let's go and do it. So I stopped doing my job within the business, and I just had basically social media, podcasts, videos, freedom, and cut the story short.

[00:20:40] In one year I generated 800,000 revenue. I did no sales. I simply spoke to senior people and introduced them to our sales team. And then left. And we did 800 K, which was about 10% of the business, which was 14 years old. So there was suddenly this new generation of 10% of sales that we never had due to the fact that we were doing social media, going to events, networking through social media.

[00:21:15] And then I, and then in that last year, I realized I was doing it for a business that I wasn't love passionate about. I was trying to be, it was electric cars, so I was going to America and Germany, but it wasn't like my heart. And then I thought, let's leave this job. And let's set up a brand, gives me freedom to work in any industry that I want since then, obviously ANSI Joshua football players, premiership football players, but will it.

[00:21:49] No, obviously COVID came along. It's been tough, but it's I don't think we're nowhere near a hundred percent of where the business should be. No, I think what you've taken it, it's still pretty impressive. And I love that you are, you're basically telling the old guard, this is how you make sales these days.

[00:22:05] This is how you do it. And that it came from this post that you did this epiphany. And I'd love to have that one day where my phone is just so rammed full of notifications. And

[00:22:17] uh,

[00:22:17] hopefully it'll be for something that. Want to be known for, but knowing the internet these days, it's pretty random what you get, what goes by.

[00:22:27] All right. So what is this viral post, but what was it? It was simply me opening a bottle of champagne celebrating and LeBron, James retweeted it and the Cleveland Browns retweeted it, basically the Cleveland Browns didn't win a game for 600 days, basically. So after two years of losing, they won open a bottle of champagne in London, and it went viral in America.

[00:22:55] Basically. Why is there a guy in London supporting the Cleveland Browns and he's popping champagne? Nuts was like, ah, okay. There is a market for this didn't click at the time. This is what I wanna do, but it did definitely ingrained in my brain. Like why can't I do this every day? And I think when you know this, when you learn this, you can't do it every day because the moons have to like line up to get a viral video.

[00:23:23]You have to be in the right time at the right place and the right following or community to push that video viral. No, that makes a lot of sense. I think where you were then, have you had a viral post since that match that? Yeah. Yeah, probably 10 times bigger, but can we just dive into that a little bit?

[00:23:47]What's that, what's the biggest one you've had since and compare it and what you did differently between the two. Yeah. So I, as you get more of a community and audience, so if we take of Bible, for example, if leadpipe who created their own video and it was funny, they could post it on their own site and there's a good chance of going viral.

[00:24:11]If your dad, Chris, for example, posted a video, which was quite funny, you'd have to wait until lab Bible saw it then to give it the kick to make it go viral. Your dad could have made something funny and you never know someone else may pick it up, but it needs some sort of momentum or something to drive it, to make it go viral.

[00:24:33] Now, the bigger the community you have in the audience, you have the easier it is to get a viral video. So like we've said earlier, what about clubhouse as a mounting is the same with an audience or a community or on social media is as that grows up, there's more chance of a video going viral because you've got the support behind.

[00:24:56] There is a bit of a shelf life though. The first time Ali G you may love it and go crazy. This is funny, but once you've seen him. Do the same cop copyright a hundred times. You don't want to push that reshare button. You do have to keep thinking new ideas all the time, but yeah.

[00:25:12]I've had multiple videos with over 2 million views on multiple platforms. For example it wasn't a political, it wasn't really a political post, but there was a scene. Someone did fate defacing, Churchill, and basically nodule Farrage contacted me and said, please don't delete that tweet.

[00:25:35] I want to talk about it. I said, sure, Nigel, and I'm not, I believe of his politics or not just to let you know, for the podcast. And yeah, he talked about it and then I just saw every second, 10,000 more views and it got to 2 million in the end. So yes, and options the same on tick tock, easier to go viral.

[00:25:55] And yeah, sometimes, you get a bit of momentum and you get the one meal and then it's enough to push it to two mil, basically. So that's really interesting. That posts of Churchill being defaced. That was the thing that was the most popular one that you've had. Would you say? Yeah on T on Twitter is the most viewed one.

[00:26:16] And I know that it does work in that pyramid way of if someone like piers Morgan would reap, if peers, if piers Morgan retweeted, one of my viral contents, there's gonna be a lot of people with a lot of different opinions. Now that's probably the most powerful is when you have something with multiple opinions, because people can't help themselves, but comment and it just makes the algorithms go crazy.

[00:26:45] Gotcha. So it's being almost being opinionated. Let's dive into your different platforms that you have because I was looking at your stats. So on Tik TOK, you've got 40,000 followers. Twitter, you got 20,000 Instagram, 8,000 LinkedIn. You got set around about 30,020 7,000, but okay. And Facebook is about 5,000.

[00:27:08] So with each one of those platforms, they all serve different purposes, right? So you must have a different content on each one of those and they all do different things or do you are you just following the vitality? Are you just trying to find an, a gap in the market and then build a following and it doesn't really have to align with other parts of your brain?

[00:27:30]That's a really good point. And You've got a choice to do two things. You can state your guns, or you can follow your audience and it's a situation. So I'll give you an example where I fail Tik TOK food just can't get it to work. So sorry. Th the three general things that I focus my content on would be food, London updates, and American football.

[00:28:02] Now, for a fact, American football doesn't work on some social media food doesn't work on Tik TOK. So there is different places where I put more effort into certain things, but in my head in general, I am thinking for me, what bait be media for me, most of my posts have an audience that liked them three things.

[00:28:23] So then it goes down to tick tock. They love the conflict, the drama of anything, London updates. It's bizarre. I could post a video of Oxford street, a o'clock at night, no police, nothing going on. And I get 200,000 views. Just once again, it goes back to people are just interested to know what's going on in London at nighttime.

[00:28:48]Where am my Twitter base is probably mostly American football fans, but that's where I do get some love for live London updates. And then once again, the food isn't that passionate on Twitter. Really? My audience, not really. They like it. Don't get me wrong. But then Facebook likes food and LinkedIn likes food.

[00:29:14] So yeah, it is really bizarre how it works, but I do, I have a pillar color column of content I create, and then I reword it for each different platform. The target audiences are different than depending on where, what it is like to, you're saying about food doesn't really work on Tik TOK. Is it that your audience that you've built on Tik TOK are just not that particularly interested in that?

[00:29:41] Or does the platform as a whole not have that interest food on Tik TOK is probably the biggest thing. Paul Brown doing food on Tik TOK. Can't get it to work. Maybe you're spot on. Maybe my audience is being built up on Tik TOK on London updates. So it just doesn't. This just doesn't go viral because my audience doesn't want to see food.

[00:30:11] So if I posted something happening to Churchill, that's going to be opinionated people. Yes. Last BU can't do that. The two sides of the coin, which helps the varsity, but the the food I can try and invent the most amazing bacon cheese, potato sandwich looks amazing grilled under the grill flops, just sure.

[00:30:37] Very frustrating for me, but it is what it is, and at least I know where my strengths and weaknesses are on a platform. And then this comes back to the same thing. Do I keep pushing food and hitting a wall or do I listen to the audience and do the food on other platforms and just keep my audience happy?

[00:30:55] So it's a tough one. Yeah. And do you know what? I think that's pretty much what everyone says about social media is trying to work out what works and it's this experimentation and knowing what the audience actually wants and what they're shouting for. So the and they're shouting by whether they like it or reshare it.

[00:31:15] Exactly. Yeah. I think that's really tricky to find that. Yeah. And I'm not a fan of I shoot from the hip I've got no social media calendar. I will, in the morning, as you said, what motivates you getting up? What is going to be my content today? I sometimes have a day of actual content that I've got in my phone.

[00:31:41] I can post across platforms, so I'm never under pressure. Come on pool. You've got to go out now and find an hours of content for the day I've already got. I've already got stuff on my phone that I can produce by do. Now every day I need to go out for an hour and sniff out news content or something.

[00:32:04] That's interesting that's going on. So it's almost like you're using it to break up your daily routine. Cause you've got your job, your day job. And you're actually seeing this as a bit of a RNR time. You go out, you're discovering things. You're stretching your creativity muscle, basically trying to discover this stuff, but it's you're always hunting for this viral thing you say.

[00:32:26] That's true. And yeah. So I'll give you a nice, quick story. Is that on Sunday night, I knew that the pumps are opening Monday morning. And I'm on Twitter. I don't spend a lot of time researching, but there was a, I searched first pub opening Monday morning, two or three minutes. I found one pub in London, down in Bexleyheath, which is probably an hour outside central London.

[00:32:57] There was opening up Oh one and closing at 3:00 AM. And they said they're full. And I was like, Jesus, I w I know for fact the it's the only pub. It's a great story. So I DM the owner said, look, I know you're full, but can I just come down and produce some content? Yes. If anyone leaves, can I have a pint?

[00:33:25] Not really, Mike, come on. If anyone leaves you on the reserve left for no one turns up. So I'm, I'm always pushing my luck. Anyway, I get there at 12. It visa sky's there. The sun's there Joe's there. So I know I'm onto a winner, but I have to stand there in the cold. It was freezing it like minus something.

[00:33:49] And ITV was filming everyone, interviewing everyone. And, I'm like, ah, angry with myself that I'm not on the other side of the camera, but, I produce enough content on my video got 20,000 views picked up by the sun, picked up daily mail, picked up by sky news. So it was a win and waiting in the car, followed me out of the back of it, so there's like little silly wins that I get from doing that. But that is all because 11 o'clock on a Sunday night, Paul Brown's prepared to travel an hour. Stand there for an hour, get my content for an hour, then come home. So yes, it's four hours of my life, but I really enjoy that. And I'm always looking for that next win and next, the next thing to go and film and get involved with.

[00:34:46] So is that your plan for growing the audience on these platforms? Cause we w you've got these essentially quite niche audiences for certain things and you're experimenting trying to work out what works well, but would you say there's a plan to this? If you could say these are the channels I've got, this is how I'm going to grow them.

[00:35:08] What does that sound like? Yeah. So I've got no massive plan. I'm not, I want to hit 10,000 on Instagram, just so I got new features and I can learn about the new features. I'm about to quite a few milestones, I'm on 19.9 on Twitter. So I'm about to at 20,000, will I post about it? No life goes on.

[00:35:28]But yeah, and they are only numbers. Getting jobs with BMW or getting better exposure is what I'm looking for is, I want. Aja or Tyson fury to phone me up. Go, I saw what you did with Aja. Can we work with you please? And yeah, none of it's baked be media-related I'm not thinking to myself, I must grow my audience.

[00:35:52] So make the meter do well. I believe creating content, creating videos will do bait, immediate good in the long run, but and just a real point on that, baby media does professionally edited filming and videos where I do all my own content myself. I'm filming myself on my phone. I'm trimming, I'm slightly editing, but nothing on the same level as baby media.

[00:36:21] And I'm telling my clients, you should be making authentic content yourself and posting it yourself. You don't need us. Maybe for a professional website video or something like that, but yeah, so that's yeah, it's I don't wanna go piece, but yeah, I just enjoy making content and basically one, bigger stages, but I know I have to work to get to that stage.

[00:36:47] Okay. So I completely get what you're saying. And if there was a secret formula to the way that you were doing the things that you are doing, it sounds like you're just hunting for the opportunities. And you're just constantly tapped into the networks, knowing when these things are gonna happen.

[00:37:07]And then and taking those, those opportunities with both hands and really trying to milk the most out of them. Is there any other kind of formula to it? We could, let's go into a, more of a case study of this next, but so where we can describe like bit by bit how we would do this, if we were starting from nothing, what, with all your experience that you have now, how would we then grow this brand or this thing, but first of all, let's understand is there a particular formula that you follow?

[00:37:38] Yeah, definitely. Chris and I think you've just answered a massive point there, which is doing your research, knowing your community, knowing your industry every single person should be talking about their industry, knowing their industry. And so that's the, that's probably the first thing. So the classic thing is bait beams and Weetabix.

[00:38:03] I saw that I was late. I, it took me a day to produce the content, but then I add baked beans with Weetabix. I've think that every person or every business should be, have a finger on the pulse for what's going on their industry and then be able to talk or show or relate to it. So I think that's the, that is probably the most important thing is I am not going out there in a mankini running through the streets of London, looking for viral posts.

[00:38:38] I'm trying to food and drink. Okay. That's Paul's little world. I should know that the pubs are opened on Monday. You should be there somehow somewhere. Relatable to that breaking news. And when you get to that level of, if you're talking about iPhones, the new iPhone is coming out, you've got an opinion or an insight about the new iPhone coming out or whatever it be about a new plane or new car, or, that's the information I think everyone should have in their own world, basically.

[00:39:16] Okay. So let's dive into that a bit more. So if you're essentially riding a wave or a trend of something that's happening, are you not going to get drowned out by the fact that so many other people are doing the same thing, or are you more likely to be discovered because you're riding that wave? So this is the thing I've always toyed with.

[00:39:39] Shouldn't you go in the opposite direction than riding ways, because then you're more unique and you're weird or whatever. Whereas if you go in the other way, You're just going to see lots of the same content or is that, does that trigger things for people to go and hunt for and look for it and discover more about it or looking for a different opinion about that thing?

[00:40:02] What you think? Yes. It's a really good question. And to answer it, I think you'd have to divide it. I'm afraid to say is you have to be constant. So I have to be on the pulse with everything that goes on with the Cleveland Browns. So people expect me to be a good source for news. So they trust me. They hear that make phones and saying the Cleveland Browns have signed someone.

[00:40:31] They should be able to go onto my Twitter and see the I've already commented or talked about it. So to answer that, yes, you have to be consistent. But then on the flip side, it is good to do things in your own way. Now I've tried obviously multiple things. I've tried breaking news on a zoom, on, in London and stuff and it just didn't work.

[00:40:57] So I've been there with a microphone guide, breaking news, Cleveland Brown signed Eric Cantona and hopefully that's going to go viral. It didn't go viral. People didn't really click a light to it. You just got to constantly work out what format works for you and bizarrely, when it is anything that's real news.

[00:41:17] People do like genuine content, text word, form, very basic. So they can just relate to it very quickly. But yeah, I definitely think your identity should be definitely unique and yourself. If you wear a shirt, Chris, then you should always wear a shirt or, maybe wear a Hawaiian shirt sometimes.

[00:41:39] I don't know, but whatever your tradition is or whatever your difference is, then you should keep to that. So you stay true to yourself and your brand, but you do make the most of the waves that come around and the trends that come around because people are hunting for your side of the story. Yeah. And I think that's probably the best nugget is every single person can talk about their industry, but they don't normally, and they've probably got a lot of information that they know about their industry that they're not sharing at the moment.

[00:42:16]Yeah. And you could be writing a quick social media post on Twitter, copy paste it to then five or six different platforms and. Do that very regularly. And then suddenly you become a subject matter expert in, in a real niche. I'm all for not copying, but giving your opinion on something's relatable in your industry.

[00:42:43] I like that. That's good. Nothing. That's going to move on nicely to my case study example where cause some of the listeners are to want to know what's a structured way that you've got this to this hundred thousand people, followers that you have. And you've been testing and learning, now that you have some experience and you know the formula of how you do that.

[00:43:04] So say let's take me for example. So I'm a tech guy and I'm on my journey. The crazy my own audience. And I basically want to grow my social media and I'm starting from scratch. So I've got barely anything, I've got a thousand on LinkedIn and I've got, about 300 on Instagram next to nothing on everything else.

[00:43:26] I think Tate talks about 300 and I think Twitter's about 300, but it's around those numbers. So basically like everyone else has got about those numbers right. On those platforms. So if you use me as an example, how would you then structure my growth to growing my social media in the way that you've done it?

[00:43:49] And I think you're going to say a lot about what you said just a second ago, which is about, becoming an authority. Yeah. So Chris, the first thing I'd ask you is don't think, but I think ness is on the weekend or in the evenings. What do you enjoy doing? Oh, so this is about getting more personal, right.

[00:44:12] Okay. So I, I enjoy reading a lot of the latest things that's going on around technology. So I'm constantly looking on like macrumors, which is what's the latest Macs that are coming out. What's the iPhones that are coming out. I listen to a lot of podcasts around, crypto currency and what's going to change the world.

[00:44:31]I listen to another one called tech 10, which is about the latest news for that week. So these are the kinds of things I do in my spare time. I also listened to Stephen Bartlett's podcast, Epic guy. And he talks to these Business entrepreneurs about the way they've started their business. And he really dives deep into the certain things.

[00:44:49]He listens to a nugget of information and he tries to core out of this entrepreneur to get this real insight into the, their lives. So it's always about growth learning and usually around technology and entrepreneurship. So anything sport or related or anything if I gave you an iPad on the weekend and you say you're a hospital, nothing bad, but you're a hospital and you've got an hour.

[00:45:15] What would be the first websites would you go onto? So for example, I would go on daily mail. I'd go on check about my fancy football, which I enjoy. I then go on to maybe let's see what's going on with the Cleveland Browns, but yeah. What would be your things that would, if you had an iPad in your house?

[00:45:31] Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Interesting. Formula one is I'm a formula one fan and every formula one or not. They go on a bit too long and I'm always got things to do, but I will try and I always follow the news. So I'm reading news every day, but I'll watch if I think it's gonna be an interesting race, I'll watch it.

[00:45:49]And I think this year is going to be quite interesting. It's not going to be a whitewash, so I think that's gonna be quite interesting. And then otherwise, when it comes to websites, if I go to BBC news, I'll go to the tech section or I'll go to Google news and it'll curate the list of stuff that he thinks I should read.

[00:46:05] But the kind of time I spend on those kinds of things that are less than five minutes, I get the headlines, I see what's happening. And then I feel like I've got my daily digest of, is the world crumbling before our feet? No. Okay. I can get back to my daily life. Yeah. So I look at the news and I'm like China's flying planes over Taiwan.

[00:46:25] I'm not really, we're gonna have another war. This is going to be exciting, but all so for you, as a case study, the things have come out. Like I've tried to, you've got a lovely mic in front of you. You've got a road podcast, so you know, your tech you've talked about tech probably five, six times.

[00:46:41] My question to you is, how much are you talking about your attack on social media? Very little. Yeah. So the only time I get to is probably on this podcast. Yeah. That, and me thinking now, if I wanted to buy a show, Mike, I remember Chris and our Chris, do I need a Phantom booster in the cable?

[00:47:02]Cause that's really weirdly techie, but only someone who's going. No one knows the answer to that question. So yeah, if listen to you, my case study would be definitely be producing and over why I bought that mic. Why everything I've got, I would talk about and then start building on iPhone thirteens coming out.

[00:47:29] Do you think it's going to have. No more charging cable, probably the biggest thing about the iPhone at the moment, that's the kind of stuff that I would be thinking about for yourself, but, you've got all the F all the feeds coming into you what's going on, but then you teasing your audience.

[00:47:47] You are telling that, something, but also asking them opinion. And that's a really good thing is people like to be told things, but they also like an opinion or they like to be asked. So it's an art of Cleveland Brown signed Eric Cantona do you think that's a good move or a bad move? So already you've got your audience are going to give their opinion.

[00:48:10] So you're not giving the opinion, but your audience is then given an opinion or you own the opinion and say, I think that's a terrible move. Bang, lots of opinions. Paul, what do you know? You're based in London, American footballs in America P off, and that's yes, like you said earlier about, you've got a strategy of what you're doing with your audience.

[00:48:31] And I've got almost like a little strategy of, I am playing with my audience in the aspect of, I'm not just giving them the facts or my opinion, always I'm sometimes asking their opinion. What do you think about this? What do you think about that? And, being consultative with your audience is also another good trick.

[00:48:54] So let me just digest what you've said, and then I'm going to ask another question. So basically. You're taking the opinions that you're forming in your own mind and asking them out as a question and trying to get their opinion on this various forms or things that you're digesting or thinking about.

[00:49:17] So how would you do that? How would you just would you share a video of you looking at your mic or whatever I say, or I'm this mic and how raw and unfiltered and uncut would that be? How polished does that have to look and where would you share it to, and then would you follow up with another question?

[00:49:38] So a video almost, or a voice recording, or then posting a textual post on something like LinkedIn saying, this is, I've just bought this shore, Mike, and this is what I think of it. What's your opinion on it. I think we can talk about content separately in a minute, or maybe you want to talk about it now, but if you imagine everything there is three stages, a start, a middle and an end.

[00:50:08] Now you think about your Mike, there was a marketing stage at the start where you were looking at different mikes and thinking to yourself, I could buy the road podcast and Mike for a hundred pounds or the show for 350, but there's only 10% difference between the mix. Do I need to spend so much for the show, Mike?

[00:50:30]You can see straight away, you can ask your audience a question about, would you go with this mic or all that mic? So there's a whole journey about any one bit of content for me. I asked my audience. Do you know of any pubs that are opening up midnight in London? So you can see that there's always a pre-question.

[00:50:54] So you're taking your audience on a journey. And so you'll get five or six people saying I've got the Schermer mic. It's worth every penny, the road Mike's okay. And the next stage then is obviously buying the mic and really opening it. We can talk about the content I'd produce in a minute, but then obviously the people then who saw your questions before are now, then actually I'm saying, Oh, wow, Mike, you got the mic.

[00:51:28] What's your thoughts. Then the last thing is obviously then given your thoughts, packaging's a bit cheap. I spent 30 to 50 pounds for this. Sure. If you're listening to this podcast, I'm only joking, you spend. You've got the bike. I've plugged it in Jesus Christ. I've got no sound. I can't guys, I'll walk you through the whole setup.

[00:51:50] Why I'm, why am I getting a clipping sound while I get a no sound? So you can see that we're just one bit of content. You've got three bits of content. I start the content. And and so there's another way to think about it is you are getting your audience excited at the start, engaged you, then showing them.

[00:52:14] And then you're obviously showing you the results. So hopefully that answers in the aspect of don't just think, Oh, look at me, I've got a 350 pound Mike, someone may go idiot, but see that you've taken him on a journey and they see your thought process. Then it adds more weight to yourself.

[00:52:34] Okay. And so then how would you then do the content itself? So would you take, would you record yourself talking to a camera or would you just type it out or how would you, you're very video heavy, so I'm assuming it's going to be video. And would it just be an iPhone camera and just holding up, talking to it or is it a bit more professional polished?

[00:52:55] Yeah, so definitely not professionally professional and polished in my head. I'm thinking story over production, but it's gotta be watchable. And so I like to think 30 seconds, max. And the way I produce video content is actually Instagram reels. I find it the quickest, easiest way at the moment to put a 32nd video together with a load of short clips.

[00:53:25] So yeah I'm classically filming on my phone all the time and I'm classically doing it in micro content world, which is portrait mode. So yeah, I will be potentially talking about it as I look at the product. So you hear my voice and you wouldn't see me, but I'd be more focused on that product.

[00:53:54] I classically looked to 50, 50 split of looking out and looking, could it be

[00:54:03] mixture? I don't want it to be always my voice and. Yeah, I would like it to be more of sometimes may take up, for example, 90% of it is always looking out and only 10% of me, my audience likes the outside of my camera. Doesn't like me. No, don't take it as an offense that really you've given us some great value that, so let's dive into your hacks, your three top quick wins that you would tell people to grow social media following.

[00:54:36] Yeah. Let's just go with the three have done in a bit of detail. Number one is obviously, your industry. Why aren't you talking about it more? I E yourself, Chris, if you want more of that social media, what you're talking about, your products that you've got, blah, blah, blah. Number two is creating the content.

[00:54:58] Get into a system of creating short, sharp little videos that you constantly post that don't take a lot of time to produce. Probably the biggest thing that I do is trim. So a 15 second video, and then I'll turn it to a seven. Yeah, the second video. That's how brutal I am. The second I speak is what I trim it too.

[00:55:24] And if it's hello, I'm Paul. That goes, this is the new iPhone 13. What's your thoughts on it? And of trim and that's the only bit I'm using. I'm really brutal on my trimming. And then the last thing is you have to grow your audience. So just because you post something, that means you have to build a community.

[00:55:47] And if Ben gives you some advice about what Mike to buy, send better, Dan, thanking him and then giving him some insight of what you actually learnt. So it is a 24 seven job of actually growing your community and being personable with your community. Nice. I like those quick wins. Well done. And what about if people wants to go away and learn this themselves, what resources are available?

[00:56:14] I think YouTube is amazing. I think you can go on YouTube and learn so much about any issue that you may have take YouTube. For example, you're not getting very many views, it'll say subject thumbnails, storyline, whatever it is. YouTube normally has the answer for everything, for self training and teaching.

[00:56:37] So yeah. Anything that you have have a struggle with, get onto YouTube. But yeah, my biggest thing is be yourself, try things and it doesn't happen overnight. Your first. A hundred followers is a big achievement. Then your first thousand followers is a big achievement. Then 5,000 is a big achievement.

[00:56:58] You don't just go to a hundred thousand overnight. It does take time effort. And if it wasn't you, Chris, and you were a client, I would ask the question why do you want a hundred thousand followers? Why do you want a million followers? And normally there's a reason cause I want to be a TV presenter, or I don't know.

[00:57:19]I want to make money and someone said to me, cause they want to make money. I personally don't make money on anything I do with social media. I enjoy doing it. It's a passion and yes, I do get some B2B media work out of it. Yes. I made you get some free stuff, but trust me, there's a lot easier ways to make money than getting a hundred thousand social media followers.

[00:57:44] Thank you for that. And so how can. People will contact you if they wanted to connect. Yeah, definitely just reach out to us on social media. If you listen to this podcast, it'd be great. Just to hear anything you think, God, this guy's annoying or disseminate. Damn. It's always interesting. And yeah, that's another interesting thing is as you grow on social media, you will get trolls a hundred percent and I'm never take it personally.

[00:58:09] It's all about fun and a troll will always help you with algorithms. So the more they comment, the better it is. But yeah, any Instagram DMS, probably the most personal thing to get ahold of me or LinkedIn, Twitter or Facebook gets lost in spam folders these days. Okay. Great. Thanks for that poll. Really appreciate it.

[00:58:32] It's really good speaking to, and I love what you're doing on clubhouse. So your great hosts

[00:58:44] could have gone on for ages with the amount of information Paul was providing, but what did you think of Paul's quick wins, quick win number one, your industry to talk about it more quickly. Number two, get into a habit of creating short, sharp videos. It doesn't take long to reduce and quick win.

[00:59:04] Number three, have to nurture your audience and grow a community. If someone messages you replied to them. But what was your favorite bit of the show? And you can tell me on clubhouse, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, tiptoe, or YouTube. You can find me with at digital. Remember there are several other podcasts available to listen to which you can find on Apple podcast, Spotify and YouTube.

[00:59:29] And why should I be so grateful if you can subscribe and write a review, but until next time, I'm your quick win CEO finding out.

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