If you're not doing this, you're missing opportunities (The Beach Episode)

So, how are we going to start this one? Do you think there's any way that I'm going to be able to know when the song kicks out, like last time?

That was pretty amazing.

That was weird.

That was very weird. Welcome back to

Welcome back to What is MAVEN, the show about sitting on the beach, making videos, making money

Living your best life.

And real estate. I'm your host and fellow student, Amara Andrew.

And I'm Jeff Sarris. And I just realized these mics, the wind on them is probably going to sound really not good.

Oh, I didn't think about that.

Yeah. What if we hand 'em like this? Our mini mics.

That works.

Yeah, this might be better. I feel like those mics are going to be crazy.

Sorry, I feel like an idiot talking like this. That seagull's trying to open a box of food. Do you see that?

Yeah, that's funny.

Oh, that's fun. Anyways, welcome to the show. As you can tell, and see, and smell, and hear, and—

And you should probably hold it further away.

Yeah, probably. This is a different podcast episode today because we are on drugs. No, we are on the beach.

We are in Ocean City, New Jersey, not Ocean City, Maryland, which seems to be the common one.

Yes, we are in my family's natural habitat. Literally, they're from here, so he gets to see the stomping ground. I'm not from here, but my family is.

Well, yeah, I know you've been here before.

Anywho, what are we talking about this week?

I don't know, what are we talking about? What is the show about? It's called What is MAVEN?

WhatIsMaven.com. You do videography for Realtors.

You do brand development for everyone else.

And MAVEN.

Yes.

And we're going to be in Dallas soon, but anyway,

Yeah, that'll be wild.

-huh. So,

Have you had a nice time here?

I have had a nice time.

Good.

It's just so funny. We have like invisible microphones. I feel like just

We do look like we're on drugs.

It does look funny. And like especially like this, like you're going to

Fist bump.

So this week we thought we should talk about why you should post on multiple social media platforms when maybe people are telling you that you shouldn't, which is the dumbest fucking advice ever. So we're going to get into that.

But yeah, it's so important to just create… Having a little trouble here.

That's fine. I got this. So, specifically what I want to talk about is short form video and why it's important to, like you can do photos and text, we're not really going to touch on that as much.

This is mostly just for video based content, specifically short form video based content. And I've seen a lot of people just say, you know, or like I've worked with a lot of people who only post to one specific social media platform or they're instructed to only post to one specific social media platform. Fine and dandy if you have a very short term trajectory…

No, not even! It's fucking stupid, I'm not even going to lie. I'm trying to be nice and cordial and miss congeniality, but I think it's the dumbest advice because, well, there are a variety of reasons.

One of the main ones that sticks out to me though, is that, you know, social media platforms, whatever's like trendy and hip right now, is not going to be trendy and hip in maybe 10 months, 10 years, it could get banned! Like whatever socio-political things that are going… Socio-political!

But just all the different things that are going on in the world, you never know when something's going to happen. So, I'm not going to name any specific platforms, but just that can totally happen. I think you had something.

Oh, no, I'm good.

Oh, okay. Cool, well that's fine.

But no, but so like…

We've had a lot of sun today so we're both a little chill.

So

So, I guess

Post everywhere. The whole thing is post everywhere. Don't only post on Instagram if you're a Realtor, don't only post on TikTok if you're a dancer, or whatever.

Don't, like…

Sorry, there's a swarm of seagulls that just got a french fry and it's like -oh.

Wouldn't that be a flock of seagulls?

And I ran! Yeah.

Is that the, I don't even know. But post everywhere.

Yes.

And why…

So, I guess what I, I'll just keep going! So, what we always try to tell people is post everywhere because if, let's just say Instagram for some reason tomorrow is completely gone, whatever happens, it just, it's shut down and it's no more, you have literally nothing to go off of if that was all you had.

Well, and when I started doing all this stuff like 12 years ago or 13 years ago, it was all about owning your platform. So, social media was still… It was still a little earlier, so owning your own platform would be your website, like having your home base where you know when things change, you're in control.

So like having an email list, having all these things make sure that you are not at the whims of a big company.

Japan wins!

I knew you were going to do that!

But it's so true, cause then like let's say, yeah, you're doing really well on one social media platform, that goes away, you literally have nothing. But…

Or…

But or…

Like Facebook.

Together we're butter!

But, but like with Facebook how they one day decided you'll get no reach unless you pay for it.

Yes, that is huge, cause then it's like, okay, well screw you, I'm not going to do that. But then even if someone changes their algorithm and then your stuff doesn't do as well, or take off as well, or whatever it is, it's… You got to, you got to be smart with it, cause then let's say, okay, Instagram's gone forever, but you've secretly been posting to Twitter, TikTok, Threads, YouTube Shorts, which we'll really get into YouTube later, you know we love a YouTube.

But if you've been posting to all these other places, you already have a massive back catalog when everybody else moves to that platform, so you're already in, you're kind of like grandfathered in even if you didn't do well in the moment. Like Twitter, I get very minimal engagement, my ones of people who love me, so thank you.

But Twitter's absolutely minimal for me, but TikTok, Instagram kind of, YouTube really well, Facebook phenomenal, which shocked the ever-loving shit out of me! Which is also something that we should touch upon.

Well, yeah. Let's, yeah, let's not zoom too far ahead to that because Facebook was a shocker. So,

I was shocked.

Well, actually, okay, so of all the platforms,

People slow, man.

Where have you made the most money?

Facebook. I didn't want to post there, I was like, who is even on Facebook? Which no shade if you're on Facebook, whatever, you do you.

I couldn't tell you a single person that I knew of my age that was on Facebook still, like it just, it was like taboo to be on it and it was like a very specific type of person where it was like I don't really want to be on there. But then he was like, "No, you should just post there because like why not, you're already making the content." And I was like, "Yeah, sure."

Well, and that's, so that is the thing, the whole…

Cause I was posting everywhere else except for Facebook, cause I was like, "Oh, why would I?"

Well, most people don't post anywhere except one spot.

Yes.

So if you're already creating the content, why not? Especially Instagram, it's one little tick box

Yes.

To have it auto-go to Facebook.

-huh. It's so simple.

And because you did that, and because you automatically went to Facebook, it was the first opportunity that you had.

I got my teaching gig that way. I forgot that I was friends with one of my old professors from undergrad on Facebook. She's…

And what year was this?

What year was what? Did it happen?

-huh.

Well, this was 2020 during the pandemic when I was just posting to TikTok constantly, then I stopped. You know that whole story, go check out the other episodes to learn more about that. But I was just making these videos because I was just, I don't know, losing my mind and I was like, I should just do this.

So,

No, because it's art history and you had fun with it.

Well, yeah, that's why I have the podcast now, but anyway, so I was just making these videos and then one of my old professors, she saw the videos and she just sent me an email randomly one day and she's like, "Hey, I really like the videos that you're making. Do you want to teach?" And I was just like, "What?" I just, I didn't think anything would come of it.

I didn't have any expectations. I was just making stuff that I enjoyed and then posting it.

Well, and you didn't have a bunch of engagement.

I got maybe like two likes at a time on each video, so I didn't think anybody saw this, but I never saw her name pop up in the list of people who were engaging with it, but she still saw it and still made a note of it, and it was like, "Wow, that's really cool."

Yeah, it was, "We need a teacher. I know that Amara can teach. I see her do this every so many days."

Yeah, she's a little weird, but we like her.

Yeah, I know she could fulfill this role, even if it isn't something that she's done before.

Yes.

And even if she's afraid of birds.

I'm terrified of birds, so I'm like, they're watching me. They sense my fear. That one's walking toward us!

I love all of them over there.

-huh.

And I've been shit on every year that we've been here, so I'm like waiting for it.

No, but that was the big thing. So, you, you were posting there,

Yes.

No engagement. You could have like basically none. Nothing, not of note.

It wasn't, just like we talked about last week,

It was extremely minimal, which if you were focused on vanity metrics, I would've been absolutely distraught by it, but you can't do that, which we'll talk about in a minute.

Well, you would have stopped, so. And like we said last week, your ones of listeners, like you don't need millions or thousands of listeners, ones is enough.

Yes.

And like, who knows in 2020 how many people were actually seeing your videos, but that

Probably more than I thought.

That one professor, but she could have been the only one. Just in theory.

Yeah.

That one professor was all it took to then be able to turn it into thousands of dollars, because it wasn't one teaching gig, it was semester after semester.

Yeah, it was for almost 3 years, which is shocking. But then knowing that for you too as a small business owner, Realtor, whatever, entrepreneur, you never know where your next customer is going to come from, especially like even if you rely on referrals, someone will be, "Oh, well I saw Sally Bob," your favorite name. "I saw Sally Bob post…"

That's her new thing. Every reference name is a Sally Bob.

I say it even more now because he hates it! He's a little oily. It's we're dry, that's why.

But if Sally Bob sees your video online and then they're like, "Oh, I don't need this person right now, but my best friend's cousin's uncle, Jim Cathy needs…" So, I don't know. But all that to say, you're just becoming more and more known as a person, which is what MAVEN is all about, is becoming a known expert in your field and showcasing that, and letting people know that you exist.

How did he say it? You're becoming a known person. Known like known as a person is just funny.

Yeah, you are becoming a human, welcome!

Yeah, we're just introducing you to the human world. But yeah, so the big thing is posting everywhere. So that was one example for that because the opportunity you didn't know was there.

Like we had no idea.

No.

None.

And that's the beauty is you never know where the opportunity is going to come from, like it's just amazing.

You do more until more is too much, you do less until less is too little.

Yep.

And that's the whole pendulum of life and entrepreneurship, you're back and forth and back and forth because there's no perfect spot to land on.

Yes.

And I know before you mentioned something about the Twitter algorithm.

Yeah, what did I say? What were we talking… Oh, okay.

So, and this is sort of a different topic, but we are very much on YouTube. We're very much about YouTube.

100%.

So, if you notice, if you were to look at Amara's socials, the most successful platform, I don't know, would be YouTube, because that's where you focused the most attention. And it's not like huge or anything, but it is the

Oh, yeah.

It's the secret sauce. It has the most longevity out of every single social media platform, I believe.

Well, yeah, and now I'll… We'll dive in that one sec- in one second, but like your other social isn't really, that's not the focus, but you still post everything there. So you still post everything to Instagram, but you're not making it for Instagram, you're making it for YouTube.

Yeah.

And basically what happens is all of the other platforms are ephemeral. So they have a window of time, and we don't know what the window of time is for the feed on any platform except Twitter because Twitter actually open sourced their algorithm recently, like within the last year. So now you can see exactly how the algorithm works.

So, before you had 24 hours. So you would tweet, it would organically show up for 24 hours. Now they change it to 48.

All that means is we have Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, TikTok could be a little different, LinkedIn, like you just think about it that most of these platforms have that window, they have a 24 hour window, a 36 hour window, whatever it is, and they're not going to show your stuff organically ever again.

Which is nuts!

And it's only when people are going to your profile, so if you have a strong Instagram profile, all this expertise, someone finds you and scrolls through and watches 50 videos, whatever, that's great. But YouTube is the one platform where you could post a video today, and it could be, we're in Ocean City, New Jersey, so it could be the best coffee in Ocean City, New Jersey, not to say that anyone's posted that one before, however,

I have!

But you could be a Realtor. You've gone for Ocean City, you've gone around Ocean City, you've done the best coffee, the best burgers, the best this, the best that. You might get 10 views, you might get 100 views, you might get 1,000 views, but you don't know how that'll pop off initially or if any of that'll happen a year from now, 2 years from now, 5 years from now because it's in YouTube's best interest to reveal any content that is successful.

So it doesn't matter if you made it today. It's not a timely platform, it's a forever platform. So if you did the coffee in Ocean City today, and then in a year, a year and a half, people are really searching for it, that suddenly could be your most successful video 12 months after you made it.

And that's the only platform where that happens. So now you think about that when you have 10 videos on YouTube, 100 videos, 1,000, basically think about how much content you've made on Instagram. What if you had all of that also on YouTube, the only place where they're going to dig it up for viewers who want to see it?

There's a huge opportunity there that's so different than every other platform.

Yeah, and YouTube Shorts has become more popular recently, but I still don't feel like people quite understand or are even taking advantage of it enough, cause like we yell at my clients all the time, "Post to YouTube!" And this isn't directed at them at all, but it's just like it's, it's not even… Well, we'll talk about…

It's directed at Realtors, because Realtors are following what everyone does, which can be okay to get started, but then if everyone is on Instagram and everyone is posting there and nowhere else, it doesn't mean that nowhere else works.

Yes.

It means there's the market there is not as saturated.

Right.

Like the market on Instagram is saturated for Realtors,

Oh, yeah.

But like there is so many other markets.

There's very few Realtors on YouTube right now, which floors me because I would be pouring my entire marketing budget, whatever budget into making YouTube content, and then just having your videographer chop it up into clips, cause that's like, it's huge, it's multi-purpose. Oh, you got the greenheads?

What?

Those are Jersey Shore bugs. They…

They bite?

Yeah, they chomp you.

Yeah, why are they biting?

They hurt really bad.

Yeah, I don't like it.

I don't know why. Where'd they come from? I just showered.

Yeah. Oh, I didn't, so they don't like stink, apparently.

But yeah, posting to YouTube is our number one thing. That's the thing that, even if you weren't going to post elsewhere,

Yes.

It'd be post on YouTube, but, is this what you were going to talk about?

Don't overcomplicate things?

Yeah.

Yes. So, that is something that I think a lot of people get hung up on because they're overcomplicating it. So, what do we mean by overcomplicating things?

There a wide variety of different things, but essentially, you can break it down into, "Well, what time do I post to these other various different platforms? Do I post the same thing? How do I change it?

How do I tweak it?" You are making it way too fucking complicated! You're never going to post your stuff if you keep thinking about all these things. You can think about them later down the line, but you need to set up what works for you right now.

So for me, just quick, easy, same time, same platforms, same video, same description, almost the same hashtags, everywhere, literally every social platform you can think of.

So what happens when you post them everywhere? What's what are the results you get?

So, I have had a video do 1 million plus views, 1 million plus views, almost 2 million views now on a specific platform. On the other platform, 5 views, 10 views. But then the reverse happens too, where a specific video will do really well on that other platform, but it'll suck ass on that first platform where I thought it would do well.

So…

There's a fly.

That doesn't, but that doesn't mean that you made better… Oh no, I'm getting bitten.

Oh, these suck!

So that doesn't mean that content was actually more suited for the platform necessarily.

No.

It just means it fit the algorithm bet- like, so you're not making different types of content, and that is a thing, like people will recommend it and it's good advice, like you make… I'm blanking on the actual phrase, but you're basically creating content, the creative that goes into your content is tailored to the platform and what the platform expects.

Yeah.

But that, you can definitely do that and that can complicate things.

Yes.

Which you need to start simple.

Well, yeah, or you could say, "I'm making this piece of content, if I didn't post it anywhere else, that's worse than me posting something there to begin with." So like, if you're not posting anything on YouTube, there's nothing worse than that. There's nothing you can post on YouTube that is that isn't obviously bad thing to post, period.

Like if it's okay to post elsewhere, the worst thing that you can do is not post it also to YouTube, also to TikTok, also to Twitter, also to every platform where it can reach an audience as well.

Oh, yeah.

So, like it's worse to do that than to worry about platform fit.

100%.

Because that is just not even, it's not even a thing to consider.

Well, and you said this quote and I made sure to write it down cause we were just chatting over this a little bit at dinner at Jay's Crab Shack. They make the best, Jesus Christ, best gluten-free pan- Best gluten-free crab cakes. I just got so excited cause they were delicious, so shout out!

But you said it best, you said, "You'll overthink yourself into inaction," which I thought was perfectly spot on.

Into inaction. So, yeah, so like you can

I think that's what I said.

Yeah, I just didn't know if it was emphasized enough, but yeah, you can overthink yourself into inaction, and the number one thing that we want you to do is, these bugs! These little flies are horrible! But the number one thing we want you to do is to take action.

It's to get started, to do your thing, and stop waiting. This is so funny, cause this is like a beautiful spot, we have, there's no bugs.

It's perfect, but the flies are horrible.

No, but like, there's been none. This is the first time I've seen them at all.

I forgot.

That's what we get for being out here at night. But so, inaction is the worst thing you could do. So you need to get started.

Like we have so many, I've worked with so many people over the years who were like, "Oh, I'm going to wait until this. I'm going to wait until that. Like, oh, I can't launch my website until I figure out this."

And what happened to them?

Well, yeah, and then they don't get, they never start.

Yes.

So then they're years, a decade in and they're like, "Well, now I'm going to start this," or they start something very temporarily. It's so hard to focus right now.

It's okay. I'm sorry.

No, it's not you, unless you brought these flies. Did you bring them with?

Yeah! I packed them in my carry-on.

Wow.

That's your fault.

But, so inaction is the big thing. So, you need to get started. Like we have so many people over the years who say, "Oh, I'm going to wait until this." No, you have to get started.

You need to put stuff out there, and don't overcomplicate it. Don't worry about perfecting it. Embrace imperfection.

Embrace the flies, and don't overcomplicate things. Seriously, don't overcomplicate things. Post to YouTube Shorts, and you'll be fine and dandy, I promise.

And if you're a Realtor and you're going to be in Dallas for Tom Ferry's Summit, we will be there, so you should come find us.

Yeah, come find us. Take a photo. Oh, maybe we'll have like a special prize, like a lollipop, I don't know.

Take a photo with us. Don't just take a photo, that'd be creepy. Or, do whatever you want.

How about just talk? I like to talk about these ideas with people.

Sure they do. Our ones of listeners aren't even watching this right now. Well, then I need to get rid of the giant posters I'm selling of us.

You ding-dong. No, but if you're there, let us know and we'd love to chat.

Seriously, come say hi, that'd be awesome.

Chat strategy and content, and, yeah, it'll be fun.

Yeah. I am getting eaten up.

Yeah, so I think we might call it, cause also I want to get some Banana Whip.

-huh. Do you have a joke?

I do not have one off the top of my head. What do you call a fly that bites your ankles?

A piece of shit? Hey, that works. Okay!

Thanks for tuning into the show. Do you have a real one you wanted to do?

I was going to try to make one up. What did the ocean say when you left?

What did, what did it say?

Nothing, it just waved.

Good job. That's pretty damn good.