LIVESTREAM - Tips On Social Media, Personal Brand, & Content Strategy

Yes sir, we are live, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the live stream. Today we're standing up, today we're doing a little bit different. I'm still trying to figure out what is the best method for us to get this done. So we're vibing, we're hanging out today, we're live, we're live on YouTube if you're on YouTube. There's a link in the description for you to come and ask questions live in our Facebook Insiders group. So if you're there, make sure to hit that link, come over here to Facebook, and you can engage with me and a surprise guest today. If you follow me on Instagram, you'll know who that surprise guest is. He may or may not be on the Howdy Media team. Let's just say that. Shout out to the new hat. Bethel Assembly of Anson today. How have y'all been? How y'all doing? How's the Insiders Group? We got some questions that we're gonna continue answering from yesterday— or not yesterday, we weren't able to go live yesterday, unfortunately. Uh, we— I decided to go live every single day, and then I was like, oh crap, I forgot we already have shoots scheduled. So don't worry, don't worry. We're blocking out the schedule. We have this time blocked off. It's going to be at 1 o'clock. Let's plan on every day. If we aren't able to, I'll let you know in Facebook group. If you got any questions, leave them in the comments below. Again, we're gonna have a guest on today, a special guest, special guest. If you can guess who The guest is— I will give you a shout out on stream. I will give you a shout out on stream live. Here we go. Let me open up my messages. There were some questions we didn't get to get to last time, um, and that's, that's what this half hour— sometimes we'll go an hour— that's what this live stream is for. Um, it's, it's to be a resource for you to come on here and ask questions, learn about things. We love focusing on content. We love focusing on like strategy and personal brand. We, we are here in the Howdy Studio, which is one of the reasons we love content so much is because we've seen the power of podcasts, podcasts, YouTube videos, talking head videos, livestreams just like this one. We've done livestreams before, but it's just the power that comes with, with investing in video, investing in learning what you need to be doing as far as like what you're posting, when you're posting it, uh, how to create it, how to create a, uh, a system and a program that allows you to get it done efficiently, um, and on time. But yeah, content, that's what we're talking about, um, and I truly believe that's The quickest way to scale your business, to scale whatever you're doing in 2024, especially after COVID. Everybody ended up getting on TikTok, watching video content, and then video has taken the world by storm. And now we're seeing these content creators, these videographers who used to get paid $20,000 or $30,000 a year to do their job, now they're getting paid $100,000, $200,000, even $300,000 a year just to make content because it's that powerful. And these businesses are starting to catch on and they're like, wow, there's billions with a B people online right now watching videos every single day. We got to be dumb if we're not investing in this stuff. No offense if you haven't yet.

That's why we're here. We want to help.

That is why we are here. All right, we got a question from Stephanie, uh, Ellison. She's part of the Insiders group. She messaged me. We weren't able to get to it last time, so let's go ahead and touch on some of those things. What is a clear step to making a great podcast? So whenever it comes to creating a podcast, if you're wanting to start Um, and whenever we say podcast, you can honestly switch in and out the word content with that because ultimately when you're making, when you're recording a podcast, you're ultimately like making content too. Um, but whenever you're making a podcast, whenever you're making content, I think it's super important to, um, have an end goal in mind. And we talked a little bit about this. On the last livestream, but have an idea of what your target audience is. What, what do you have to offer them? Why should they be watching? You know, like who, what, when, where, why type thing. This is basically stuff that we learned in elementary. It still applies to today. And if you can answer all of those questions, that's where you're going to see the most success because you have strategy. You have an end goal in mind and you're not just shooting in the dark. So that would be the first clear step. And then after that, it's all about execution. It's just staying consistent, doing it once a week, doing it once a day. This is a challenge for me to go live every single day, but I'm, I'm trying. And I may not be perfect, and that's okay. That's the beauty of doing this. It's just you're thinking the long term here, you're not thinking short term. If you're unable to, to make a post that day or something, it's okay. It's the same thing whenever you're trying to clean up your eating, whenever you're trying to go on a diet or something, and if you mess up, if you mess up on a day, it's how you bounce back that matters. If you are on a carnivore diet and then you go eat a bunch of cake, it's okay. The next day you better get back on the carnivore diet. If you are trying to post once a week, if you're trying to post 4 times a week and you miss a day, it's okay, post the next day. Like, there's always tomorrow. And the crazy thing about social media is you have to think about it in the ultra long-term perspective because And some people say they like— they, they're making content until Jesus comes back, which means, I mean, if, if he comes back while we're alive, then we won't need content anymore. If, if we die, if we reach 85 years old, which everybody can talk in front of a camera until they're 80 or 90 years old, this is something you'll be doing for the rest of your life. And if you start now, like the people who started YouTube, the people who started Instagram and Facebook, like the create— the original creators are now profiting insane amounts because they took advantage of getting in the game early, getting this stuff done. But that's just my spiel on podcast. If you have any questions you want us to answer live on the live stream, go ahead and put them in the comments below. What's up, Nico? What's up, Yelly? Welcome to the live stream. Nico, how you doing, man? How's business? I saw that you do some video stuff. You reached out to me a couple weeks ago. Hope you're doing good with that. Um, I always think there needs to be more people who do this. There needs to be more people filming things. There needs to be more content in general in Abilene because Abilene's a cool place. Abilene's a cool place. There's cool people, um, there's cool stories that need to be told in these businesses. Usually Abilene is about 5 to 6 years behind on majority of things. And so if you can get in now, man, if you can get in right now, you're already ahead of the curve. It's kind of like a time capsule. You go to Dallas, you go to Houston, you can see what people are doing. And that's what Adeline's gonna be doing in 5 years. So take advantage, take advantage of it, man. Keep doing your thing. Video is going to get more and more prominent. It's gonna— it's not going away. Like, if you think about how many people have smart TVs, have iPhones, have iPads, and are constantly scrolling on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook, Like, there's so many people at this point. Unless the whole world was to lose power for some reason, like, it's not going away. So might as well invest in it. Might as well invest in it. Hahaha. Yelly, I love the sticker. I love the sticker. Didn't mean to send the haha. It was supposed to be a cool emoji. Love it. Hey, we have a guest in the studio today. If you can guess who it is, I'll give you a shout out. For all the viewers out here, you know how it is. And this is a private group, and this is the live stream, um, to YouTube and Facebook. If you're on YouTube, you don't have access to put any comments, like we can't see them. If you do put them in there, I'm not going to look at them until later whenever I check YouTube. On Facebook, we're watching live. We're watching the Facebook comments live. So if you're watching on YouTube, make sure to join the Facebook Insiders group, the link in the description. What's up, Stephanie? Welcome back to the live stream. We actually just answered another one of your questions that you sent in that we didn't get to, so you'll have to go back and watch that. Levi is Yelly's guest? No, we do not have Levi in the studio today. Today, but he will probably be on some live streams. He will probably be on some live streams. I think it'd be cool to, to even do some of my podcasts live. Like, we just put up an episode today, um, his name's Jesse Cochran. We, we play at Bethel Assembly of Anson, uh, every single Sunday together. Uh, he plays the bass guitar. He has a window cleaning business. So shout out to Jesse if you need your windows Cleaned. Go check it out. But yeah, I want to do live podcasts. I want to do more live streams like this. Oh, our guest is crawling on the floor for some reason. But no, it's not, it's not Levi. Not Levi. Building relationships is key. I think that is also a huge thing. Some people think you can post 2 or 3 times a week on social media and your whole business is going to be changed. That is 100% false. Although it is important, and that's where we've gotten 90% of our customers, you still have got to go out there and make connections. You still have got to go network. Like, that is never going away. The more people know you and the more people like see your face and get to talk to you in person, the more they'll trust you. Which is like this, it's like video, like, oh, look at that, check that out, that's called bokeh. But it's just like video, like you're seeing me face to face, I'm talking to you. And once you hit around 7 hours of watching this face, you'll trust me according to Google. That's according to Google. Collaboration over competition, 100%.

100%.

Especially in Aveline, and there's not like a ton of competition. Might as well collaborate. Might as well collaborate. All right, is our guest ready to come on? Did you grab any water too?

I am parched.

No, not coffee. All right everybody, today's guest Today's guest— where's your mic? Where's your microphone? Okay, you got it. All right, we're having our friend— our— I'll have you, I'll have you stand on, stand on this side, stand on this side. Come on, Mike Echeveste. Welcome, Mike. Mike, go ahead and talk for me real quick.

How are y'all today? Got my delicious Monks coffee from down the street. Can you see that?

Oh yeah. Shout out to Monks.

Shout out to Monks.

So Mike has been working for Howdy Media since February. Tell the people a little bit about that, Mike.

Uh, yeah.

What have you learned? What have you been a part of?

I've learned a lot. Darren definitely took a chance on me. I think—

big chance.

I think it goes both ways, though. I took a chance on Darren leaving a job that was just getting paid to like kind of, you know, work for a startup. I never thought I'd do startup business. Yeah, never thought I'd do that. And I ended up doing it and I love it and I can't imagine being anywhere else.

Hey, Cam, Mike, glad to have you on the livestream today. You guys are going to be seeing a lot more of the Howdy Media team. Um, there's about 8 of us now. Surprisingly, it's grown to 8 people. Um, we'll be slowly getting to meet more and more of them. Naomi says, Big Mike, hashtag work bestie. Naomi, thanks for joining the live stream today. Naomi is also part of the Howdy Media gang. You ever have a question on content or using your phone to film things, she's a great resource for that too. Gilly said, I need some of that coffee, please. LOL. Monk's is awesome, dude.

It's great.

It's fantastic.

It's packed in there, actually.

Really?

A lot of people.

Wow.

1 o'clock on a Friday.

1 o'clock on a Friday. People are getting lit out here, just like Mike. Mike needed a little pick-me-up to finish the Friday.

I was back there.

Mike likes to sleep on this couch back here.

It's very uncomfortable. But when you're really exhausted, so whenever you're in a startup, right?

And we started this business in March of 2022. It was just me for a year and a half. February comes along, I add on 2 people, right? We were on a budget. We're still on a budget. That doesn't— I mean, that doesn't mean it has to look bad. So shout out to my wife Katie for designing this bed. I said, hey Katie, you have about $1,500 that we can spend on this set. Can you make it look good? And she said, do you want me to buy couches too? Because a couch at IKEA is $2,000. I was like, well, just don't buy those couches. So we found on Amazon, there's lots of things you can find on Amazon. I bought pretty much everything on Amazon. Whoa, that's amazing. Y'all are killing it. And y'all hire me too. Haha. Yelly, don't you worry. Don't you worry, you'll be, you'll be involved in a lot of things. Hopefully we can continue to collab together. Um, Yelly's an awesome, uh, influencer. She's an influencer on all the platforms.

Are we live on YouTube too?

Yes sir, we're live on YouTube.

Oh cool.

And Facebook. So if you're on YouTube, speaking of, click on the link in the description to the Facebook group and we can see your comments. We can't see your YouTube comments right now, um, but go apply to be a member. I'll check here in a second if there's been any applications, but I have to let you in. Um, so yeah, looking forward to it.

How's your water?

It's so good, y'all. We're standing right here in the AC.

That actually feels great.

And it's— it feels great. Listen, but My mouth is so dry. Y'all have any questions? Now is the time. You have access to us for about another 10 to 15 minutes. Again, we'll be doing this every day, every weekday, not on the weekends. Go enjoy some time with your family. Don't spend all your time watching me. If you do want to watch more of us, we're on YouTube. We post everything on YouTube. We got a lot of podcasts going up, try to do a podcast per week. But Mike, how have you seen content in your life and in your situations? How has it improved what you're doing?

Um, I think as a viewer, it definitely sucks. Now being on this side of it, it's never easy, like watching a video and be like, Especially like an ad, like watching it and like, okay, how is this gonna help you sell anything? Like those are like my mindsets.

So you're critiquing it?

Yeah.

Is that what you're saying?

Every video I've watched, unless it's like a funny video and it's meant to be funny, then it's like, okay. But if you're like trying to like sell your business and like your videos aren't well, it kind of like makes me like, it gives you that ick. But from this side of it, it's great. I apply it every day in life. I try to do everything. I've caught myself doing it more and more, like on all my friends' Instagram posts, I'm commenting. And even if it's like an emoji, I do like a lot of sports photography. So like when I see one of my athletes' photos that they post, I'll comment like dog or like the cat or the— not the cat, the goat emoji, just because like that helps them, you know, helps them in their algorithm and it helps, you know, in retrospect, help me as well on my side of the sports.

Yeah, that's a good point. If you ever see any of your friends' posts or any people that you follow, like, and you genuinely enjoy their stuff, make sure to engage with their content, like the stuff, comment on their posts. On Instagram, there's like a save feature. Make sure to save it. Make sure to share it. If you do all 4 of those things, it boosts it in the algorithm and promotes their posts. Therefore, you get more views, you get more traction. So it's completely free, so might as well do it to support your fellow business owners, your fellow creators. Um, what kind of stuff are you creating right now, Mike?

Um, I just finished up the last episode, or I'm pretty sure the last episode of the sort of docu-series. Um, I followed Hardin-Simmons football around for about, about 3 weeks, um, from the start of their fall camp all the way to their first scrimmage. And that's when the last episode is, and it's super cool. Uh, so y'all should go check that out.

Where at? Where can you look?

Hardin-Simmons football on YouTube, um, or you can go to Big Mike Sports Media on Instagram and there's like a link in my bio. I've been traveling with the football team, doing photos for them.

I'm trying to think what else I've been doing.

When I'm not doing that, I'm like on school, on campus all day. I come out in the office. That's also where social media has helped, 'cause like being on a college campus and being involved, it's super hard for, you know, people to kind of promote things nowadays. Flyers and like graphics on a TV don't work anymore. Like you have to do like a funny social media video. And so that's something I try to implement in my life and all my clubs and orgs is like, hey, we need a cool graphic and then maybe like a cool video to go with it. And then I was like, we always need photos and videos of our events because that's how we promote it for the next year. Or even like we just did a Hispanic Heritage Month event, Hispanic Heritage Month event on campus. And I took photos and I was like, all right, And then yesterday we had a meeting with our alumni association and they're like, hey, it'd be cool if we could put a slideshow together with those photos. So it's like in retrospect, like what I'm doing isn't only helping the club, but it's also helping our campus ultimately.

Yeah, advertisement. And that's where it becomes even more important. And if you're part of this group, it's probably because you see the importance, you see the value in doing this stuff online and video and photo. Um, because that's where the eyeballs are. Like, used to, back in the day, eyeballs were on newspapers. Eyeballs were— see, even Mike's eyeballs are on this phone right now. And me too. We're looking at the comments. What's up, Matt Atkins? Hope you're doing good, man. Hope to talk to you pretty soon. Really good job, fellas. I like the massive action. You have to, you have to have massive action. One thing you'll learn about me is I don't really like to do things halfway. So if I'm going to do something, I'm going to do it all in.

I'll just comment. How could businesses, owners connect with upcoming talent at local universities? Are you talking more of like athletics or like just like I could like students that are like thriving on campus? It's like so much different things. Like when it comes to athletes, obviously like NIL is like just a big big thing right now. But when you're talking like students, um, the more successful students I've seen like on campus, um, are the ones that are getting involved. So going to like, um, reaching out to like the clubs and orgs on campus, um, and like promoting your business, be like, hey, I want to donate this or this to you or your club and org, um, if you can like slap my logo on your graphic, or you can just say, hey, this event was sponsored by so-and-so. Um, I know 325 Nutrition is one that the athletics, um, all the football players consistently post. It's like every day on my feed, it's 325 Nutrition. Um, they do a really good job of promoting their business and having athletes promote their business. Um, so things like that, just like having people, um, also like hiring college students that are currently college students. I think me and Darren work well together because Um, I mean, we're not that far apart in age, but I'm still a college student, so I know what things are trending and what aren't. And Darren's like a little older.

I'm the old guy.

He's like more of the, like, the brains, like, okay, why is that working versus why is it not working? And then versus me, like, hey, it's a cool idea. And then Darren's like more of the analytics, like, okay, it's working because this is what's popping out and this is what not is, what not what is not popping out and how to apply it to like a business standpoint.

Because like you can just post trending stuff all day, but like ultimately if you don't have a call to action, like if you don't have a lead funnel set up for them to go to on the business end, you're just getting views. Like you may get some ad money, but if you want to actually capitalize on it, like that's exactly what you have to do.

Okay, you're talking about creatives. Yeah, like I said, going and talking to— I think one way that I would be appealed to it is like if you're going to a university, talk to a professor and be like, hey, can I come talk to your class? Because students, I mean, especially when you're going out through a semester, once you get past the midpoint, midpoint, I know especially for me, midpoint past the semester, it's like, okay, same professor every time, even though I love the professor, it's like same professor every day, every other day. So it's like really hard. But you like, hey professor, like, hey, I own this business. I'd love to talk to your business class, or I'd love to talk to your advertising marketing, or emailing the deans of the colleges and telling them, hey, like I have an internship. Um, cause those do get sent out. Like this morning I got an email and they were like, hey, interns wanted for Connelly and Co. And that's like down the street. And that's like super cool cuz people don't think their stuff gets sent out to us, but it truly does. And it's like honestly emailing the professors and talking to the deans of colleges. Yeah.

And there's a lot of opportunities. I went to Hardin-Simmons University where Mike is currently going and he's the president of Hardin-Simmons. So this is a good guy to ask. But whenever I was there, I was in the school of business and we constantly were getting, um, interview opportunities. We were constantly getting emails for internship opportunities. Um, so it's definitely a good resource. So straight up, can't you find the dean email on the website?

Yeah, you go to the website, you just look up, um, like staff directory. Typically you can put the name, but I think there's like different subjects you can put. I know on Carnes Simmons it's like you can type in business and it'll pull up the business professor, or you can do like the academics and you can put the School of Business. And if that's what you're looking for, then you click on that and it'll pull professors and the deans. Um, or if you like have a college student, you know, like feel free to DM me or contact me and I will put you in contact. I'll send you all the info.

What's your email? Give them your email. Uh, it's at—

or it's michael@howdy-media.com.

I'll put it in the chat right now. Michael at howdy-media .com. Hey y'all, don't forget to like this livestream if you're learning something. Don't forget to like it if you're on YouTube. Again, click that link in the description, it'll bring you over to Facebook, and I will accept your request. Uh, sorry, I'm reading at the same time. Can you pull out your phone and read these comments? I'm gonna go see if anybody's needing to be let in. Nobody from YouTube. Come on, YouTube, come on, man. Naomi says, have you thought about reaching out directly to the professors, heads of departments? Well, exactly, exactly. We kind of talked about that a little bit. Um, make it fun, take a giveaway item, let them enter by giving you an idea for a piece of content.

That's a great way to grow your business, um, especially if you target it towards college kids.

If you're—

college kids love free food. Like, that's the number one thing college kids love, free food. So if you put on an event and you're like, hey, free food, like, that gets a dozen college kids there within the first minute.

And that right there, Matt, is, is also a good opportunity for content. So like, straight up, you can just take out your phone, take some clips, and that's content. You didn't have to do anything else. You were going to have that event anyways. And so if you start thinking of that as your mindset, it's like everything can be content. And like, if you have an event, things happen every single day that nobody knows you do that type of thing. Like nobody knows how much we have to set up the studio, how much we have to set up and tear down our sets on site shoots. So like videoing that stuff and getting people like, sneak peek behind what they actually see you do whenever you work with them. It's huge because it builds authority, it builds credibility, etc., etc. Leave some more questions in the comments below. Let's keep it going. We'll be on here for about another 5 to 10 minutes, and then the next one won't be till Monday. So ask away. What are y'all up to this Friday? Are y'all working?

Are y'all What are you up to this weekend?

Doing any shoots this weekend? This weekend I am not doing a single thing. Praise the Lord. Praise— I mean, other than going to church, that's about it. That's about it. What are you doing?

Um, football team's off this week, so that's good for me. This is my first weekend Saturday off in the next— the next— to like December. So I will be watching college football though, probably just sitting at home.

Who's y'all's favorite college football team while we're over here on the stream?

Working on homework too.

We're not homework. Life of a college student. Life of a college student. All right, we'll give you a couple more minutes, ask some more questions. If not, we're gonna wrap it up. We have a lot of editing to do for some pretty big projects we're revising today, um, and hopefully going to be finalizing that stuff today. If you need anything done, I know I've talked to a few of you guys who are watching, if you need anything done, don't be afraid to reach out. We are a resource, and, and it does— doesn't just have to be video, it can be social media. We're going to be putting on workshops pretty soon. Um, hopefully we can get in at Grain Theory. There's an event room with projector. We're going to start booking out some spaces, um, having local meetups, having, uh, I guess, education networking events in and around Abilene, uh, just to teach, just to teach people how to utilize social media, how to come up with the strategy. Um, there will be free ones and there will be paid events, uh, so just keep your eyes open for that stuff. Uh, and obviously I'll let you guys know in the Insiders Group when and where those will be. Yelly will be a big part of these workshops. She's going to be bringing some game, teaching some of the heat how to do these things. Yelly has grown her Instagram over 100,000 followers in only one year with an iPhone 12. So you may want to listen to what she's saying, but it's going to be a good time. Thanks for being a part of the Howdy Media Insiders Group. Thanks for joining us, Michael, today. If you ever want to book any— anything, uh, like sports photography or sports videography, this is your guy. Let him know. His email is in the comments, and he'll help you out. All right, everybody, sounds good. Hope you have a wonderful Friday. We'll see you next week. Now comes the awkward moment where we have to put our mics down and go turn off the live, so Have a good one.