This Content Strategy Could 10x Your Business… | Insiders Group Discussion

All right, we live today, boys. Welcome to the Howdy Media Insiders Group livestream, Q&A time. Ask away, man. Ask away, ask away. If you want to talk about social media, let's freaking talk about social media. I've learned a lot in the past 2 and a half years. Started this business, which is originally Flights and Sights Media, in 2022. Um, I started in my college apartment, and the reason I got into this thing and got a camera was because I'm a realtor as well. And so I was listing one of my houses. I was like, man, there's like hardly anybody who takes pictures or does any sort of marketing for this stuff here in Abilene. And so guess what I did? I went into $4,000 in debt in 2022 while I was in college on top of my student loans. So I got, I got that, I got my camera ordered, I got my— it's a Sony camera. And I was like, you know what, I bet I could learn how to do this. Discovered I absolutely loved cameras after that. And now it's been 2 and a half years and now we've ventured into real estate stuff. We ventured into drone projects. We— hold on, let me see. Yeah, we do lots of real estate stuff, real estate marketing, social media management, social media. We're honestly pushing more towards consulting now. For social media just because of— we're trying to scale something, and obviously we'll have social media management clients, but that's not going to be like our bread and butter. Um, Sawyer, y'all hiring? LOL, miss you, brother. Proud of what you've been doing. Thanks, man. Sawyer's an OG from the DC, boy. Hope you're doing good at ACU. I've seen you've been doing some stuff in front of the camera. That's a good skill, my friend. A lot of people can't do that. A lot of people freak out. A lot of people freak out. But yeah, and then I got a drone and I got my license and everything. I was like, you know what, this is gonna be fun. Did a few free videos, leveraged those things to get my future clients. And I also want to throw in there that every single one of my clients, like, this year we're, we're 10x-ing what we did last year. And every single one of my clients has been through either word of mouth, like referrals, which is why networking is important, first of all. The second thing that has driven these leads is completely social media, like Instagram, TikTok, and Facebook. Instagram and Facebook have been the biggest things that have promoted this, and that's where majority of my leads come from. And so like, it's just a— it's a testimony. Like, you can use my business as a testimony. Um, I just got, literally as we're speaking, shout out Ronnie, I got an inquiry just now off Instagram. And it's like, how do you do this? It's just being consistent. Like, being consistent. I try to post. There was a while for— I was posting every day, right? And also, shout out, shout out Tito Go. I was posting every day, and within that little time span, I did like giveaways and like, um, entertaining content. Uh, but during that time, I gained a couple hundred followers. I was stuck ever since, like 4 or 5 years ago. I've been stuck at like right around the 800 or 900 follower mark on my personal. Obviously I posted like once, once a month maybe, because I was so busy with school, so busy with, uh, sports, and I had no reason to post. What's up, howdy day, how's it going? How's Lubbock treating you? But I had no reason to post. Until I really started to want to drive, like, my personal brand, drive my business. And so posting every day, posting multiple times a week, engaging with the people online— like, guys, there are 5 billion people online every single month. Hey, actually, that might just be on YouTube alone. 5 billion people. And you could go look this up, like you can Google this. This isn't some like hidden fact, like this is out there. People know this. And there's people who are making ungodly amounts of money online through serving people, through teaching people, through being a part of a community. And it's like, why would you not want to do that? Why would you not want to reach the 5 billion people that are watching online type of thing. And so I'll use my buddy Levi as an example, who we've been helping out. He, in the last— what was that, I think 7 months, 6 or 7 months— he went all in on YouTube, started from 0 subscribers. But guess what he did? He posted every single day. For 20 minutes, like a 20-minute long video every single day ever since the day that he started. And so for these 7 or 8 months straight, this is what he's been doing. So guess where he's at now? Like 7 months later, he's posted every day, he's built a community, he's about to hit 80,000 subscribers. And he just quit his full-time job just because he's been making YouTube videos. And they're nothing crazy, no high crazy production value for the most part. We're going to be helping them with some higher production stuff, but like nothing crazy, no high production value. He straight up sits in front of his computer like this, reacting to videos, reacting to controversial topics. And so I don't know, if he can do it, anybody can do it. Like, you don't need anything crazy, you don't need any, any special skills. You— all you need to be able to do is have an opinion, be able to talk, be able to communicate. And so these are just things to think about whenever you're trying to grow online, whenever you— and if you do it right, listen, this is what happens. You'll find your target audience if you do it right. But let me emphasize that if you do it right, you can find your target audience and they will be loyal to you. They'll trust you. Google put out a stat that says if you watch somebody— or let me phrase it— it takes 7 hours for somebody to trust you enough to buy something from you online. So like 7 hours of watching your content, 7 hours of engaging and interacting with the stuff that you put out there. And so if your business— and part of that is, is getting your face out there— like, do you have 7 hours worth of content? Do you have 7 hours of things that people can watch to where they can gain trust? Like, this is what I'm doing right now. This is why, this is why I'm doing this. Even if not a ton of people watch this, like, if the right people watch it— if I have 10 people watch this who is the ideal client, who is the exact target audience, and even half of them become a client, or if I get a sale to even half of them, like, that is worth it. Like, it doesn't matter how many people— you could have a million people watching you. And this is something that me and Yelly, who's— shout out, she's in the Insiders group, go give her a follow on Instagram and TikTok and Facebook if you don't. But this, like It's exactly, it's exactly what we talked about, and it's finding your target audience, finding the person that, that you're selling to, that you want to influence, that you want to connect with on some level. And if you find the right people, it's very valuable. And so like, if you have a million views of people who don't have any idea what you do you're in and you get one sale, it— those, those views don't matter unless you're on YouTube, then you get some AdSense money. But those views don't matter. Like, in order for a smaller creator, a smaller business to succeed online is you have to structure it in a way that the people that are watching are potential clients. And then if you have that figured out on top of 7, at least minimum, at least 7 hours of content that they could watch, then your, your conversion rate for this stuff is going to be like 50 to 60% higher, sometimes 100% higher. And the more you put yourself out there, the more findable you are. The more opportunities people have to buy your stuff, to book you, to hire you as an agent, to hire you to paint their house. Like, it's just a numbers game, honestly. Like, the more stuff you put out there, the higher odds that you're gonna get leads from it. And so the people who are investing in this stuff, the people who are taking video seriously, are winning. Like, they— a lot of them who are winning now like I'm talking 7-figure like numbers here, sometimes 8-figure numbers. They don't have a huge audience, but they've been posting consistently over the past 5 or 6 years, and now they have a very specific niched-down audience, and their sales are going up through the roof. Like the credibility they have because of how much content they have out there like the engagement that they have, it's huge. And so like part of this, the Insiders Group that we've started, it's, it's one of my ways to, to serve and give back and show you like there's ways, there's, there's other ways of doing things than just working your 9 to 5 job. Like you, there's nothing wrong with working a 9 to 5 job. But if you can take your skill and you're like, your knowledge, and you can package it right, like, which, which— let me backtrack a little bit. Personal brand can help you in everything. Like, if you have an audience and people are watching, it's, it's pretty easy to make sales at that point, especially whenever you have this much content out there. But there's ways to monetize this stuff. And so if you're a business owner, funnel things that go— like, make content that leads people to your offer, to your service, to whatever you're doing. And don't sound salesy, just like be, be real, because people want realness, they want authenticity. Like be real. Not, not like the app. I hate that app. Have you guys, have you guys seen that app? But just be real and people respond to that, which is why I like live streams. We're gonna start going live weekly, and I'm trying to nail down an exact time and day that I want to go live, but with our schedule, with shoots going on, like, it gets pretty chaotic very fast and things have to be rescheduled. But we're gonna start doing this every week. And so like, if you have— hey Nikki Jo Jones, how's it going? Thanks for joining. I don't know, I just think it's so, it's so important to utilize the internet. And like earlier I was talking about how there's 5 billion people monthly who are on YouTube alone. And, and like, that's a good chunk of the world that are staring at their phones, including me. I'm one of them. Like, everybody's online now. And so why would you not push online growth? Like, if you do it right, if you funnel these, these people to your offer or service, like, in the right way with the right strategy, like You can have 1,000 followers, you can have 500 followers, but if they're all ideal clients, then like you're set. If you make 400 sales when you only have 500 followers, are you gonna be mad about that? That's just my two cents. But getting an audience, getting in front of a camera, is probably the most important thing that you could probably do for yourself and for your business right now. Like, and it doesn't have to be fancy. I'm streaming right now. Usually I have access to like cameras they use on Netflix, but I'm using my laptop webcam right now to go live. Like, you don't have to have the most expensive equipment. You don't have to have anything crazy. I don't even have a light set up right here. So like, just get started. I would encourage you, the faster you can get started, the faster you'll see results. And, and the first few months, I'm gonna tell you right now, like, it's probably— you're probably not gonna get any traction. Like, this Facebook group that I've started I'm probably not going to get any traction, and I'm okay with it. Like, I'm okay with talking to a few people, but if I help those people out, like, it's worth it if they're— if they're who I want to help. Like, if you're a small business owner, if you're a creator and you're wanting to grow your brand online, like, that's what we're doing here. And so I'm just here to like serve back and like give back and teach and educate like to people who— you don't know what you don't know. And so I'm trying to change that, especially like around Abilene, because Abilene is about 5 to 6 years behind of everywhere else when it comes to anything of online or like any sort of progressive like marketing strategies. It's still very, very, um, suit and tie, like professional, which is not bad. There's a time and place for that. But at the same time, if you're going to be doing all that, might as well turn on a camera and put it out there for the world to see. So an example of how it's easy, but it's— it sounds easier than it is. Being consistent is not easy, but it's necessary in order for you to grow online. Like, that's really the only way. And one of my friends who was on the podcast a couple weeks ago, her name's Yelly, go check it out, it's on our YouTube channel. Just Darren Pacheco. We talked about this, and she has an iPhone 12, which is not the oldest phone, it's not the newest phone. Shout out to Yelly though. I didn't know this, but she used that same iPhone 12 for 1 year straight of posting consistently on Instagram. She found her niche. She found her target audience, and now she has like well over 100,000 followers on Instagram. She has well over probably 250,000 followers across all platforms, and she's just using an iPhone. And so if the gear, if the equipment is what's stopping you from creating, from being consistent. Just, just start creating. And, and I'll be putting some, some good microphone options in this insider's group in the near future. There's these, these microphones by— I think they're by Hollyland, I think that's what it's called. But it comes with two little microphones, there's two magnets, and that you can, you can clip onto your shirt, you can clip onto your hat, like you can clip it on anything, um, and it plugs directly into your phone. You can plug it into your phone, or if you have a camera, you can do that. Phone is quicker, it's easier, but you just turn it on, it automatically connects to your phone. And you hit record. And that's literally, in order to get started, that's the easiest route. And so if you just got here, um, welcome to the stream. Thanks for watching. Hope you're doing good. Uh, it's Monday at 2:21 PM, and if you're able to watch, thanks for watching for real, because I know lots of people have full-time jobs. And I'm just— I just wanted to come on here and hang out with you guys, give you some insider info on social media, this whole content thing, and why it's so valuable and why we push it so hard and how it has driven our business, which used to be— we rebranded. It used to be Flights and Sights Media, now it's Howdy Media. But the whole reason we've been able to grow like we have is because of social media. It's because we showed up online. It's because we put ourselves out there. And I, I don't like being on camera, honestly, but I'm doing it for the brand. I'm doing it for the business because guess what? This is how our bills get paid. And so if you don't want to get in front of a camera because you think somebody's going to make fun of you, if you think somebody is going to say things about you, like, literally, who cares? It does not matter. At the end of the day, you're doing this for you. You're doing this for your business and your family. You're not doing this to have people— I mean, if you are, then you need to reevaluate what, what you're doing and why you're doing it. If you're doing this, if you're running a business, if you're trying to make money, if you're self-employed, like, and you're doing this to get approval of other people, then I would say, yeah, you may want to reevaluate. But our business, like, we started in 2022, and now, I mean, we're— we 10x'd in revenue what we did last year, probably more. No, I guess it's about 10x. Of what we did last year. And I, I haven't spent hardly anything on ads. Like, we usually— and we only use ads in very specific scenarios, um, which we can talk, talk about that more later. But what we did was we showed up online, we found— first of all, we found something that was, uh, a need in our area. And then once we figured out what that was, we capitalized on it, and then we put ourselves out there. And so the very first year of our business, I worked for 7 months. Then again, I was in college still. I had a drone, I had a like a $300 or $400 drone and a $4,000 camera that I went in debt to buy, and I made— I didn't even make my money back that year. I made a couple thousand dollars all year long, did lots of free projects, which I still do free projects every now and then. But like, if I wouldn't have posted online, if I wouldn't have utilized social media and video, then we wouldn't be here right now, and we— I wouldn't have met like the hundreds of awesome people that I have through this. What's up, Binzy? Welcome to the livestream. But that's just like a testimony, and it's like we made $2,000 our very first year of running our business, and 2023 we probably I mean, we made significantly more, but it still wasn't anything crazy. It was still just me. And at the end of '23, 2023, I was like, okay, it's time. Like, it's time to start expanding. It's time to start growing, which is why I got the podcast studio. And as soon as I got a space, like, as soon as I got a space Because it's so new in Abilene, I did have to run some ads here, only a few hundred bucks though, to get kind of— get it off the ground and get the word out there. But like, as soon as I got a space, it changed everything. I, I immediately started to have to bring in help, and so now our team has grown to about 7 or 8 people. Well, no, not or. It is at 8 people right now who are weekly helping with the business. And why do I bring in so many people? Well, first of all, the Lord lined that up just exactly how he wanted because I didn't put out any ads, I didn't put out any job listings or anything. Like somehow, and this all goes back to like passion, and it all goes back to, um, what you're called to do. Because if the Lord has called you to do something, he's not going to leave you stranded. There might be seasons of where it feels like it, but like ultimately he's going to pull through. And God is greater than any contract. God is greater than any job listing. Like, ultimately, that's what got me here— consistency, trusting in the Lord, and acting on what he called me to do, which is now why we're here in the Howdy Media Insiders group. Welcome if you're just joining. Um, but the whole catalyst and the whole reason, like, we even got here is because of social media. That's the whole point of this thing. And why I'm doing this right now is because I want to help people. I want to help people do the same thing. Um, I— sorry, just got another inquiry from social media. I'm telling you people, I've gotten 3 inquiries just from being on this livestream right now. Um, but social media, man, like, there's, there's 5 billion people. If you didn't hear it earlier, there's 5 billion people who are online every single month. And if you're consistent, if you know your target audience, if you show up, it will— like, you will see growth. It may be slower than you want, but you will see growth. Um, if you're watching right now, leave in the comments like what your business is, um, and how you've utilized social media, if you have at all. Uh, I'm curious to kind of see. And if this is after the live ends, if you're watching this pre-recorded, like let me know, let me know in the comments. I'll respond to you in the comments. But I'm gonna be doing this like hopefully weekly, and I'll figure out exactly what time and day I want to do these things. Um, but what time works with you guys too? Like, leave in the comments like what time would be best for you. Because I want to help. Like, I want to be a resource. That's why I started this group. And every now and then I'll go, I'll post some nuggets that could potentially change everything in the way you think, the way you post, the way— like, there's very simple strategies, there's very simple tactics in order to do this stuff. It's like, one of them— I'm gonna give you a gold nugget right now if you're watching this— one of these strategies for creating content is a lot of times people get overwhelmed and they, they feel like they, they— it's too big of a task for them to handle at the time because you got to get the cameras, you got to get you gotta learn how to edit, you gotta learn how to upload. Like, they feel like it's a huge task. And so a lot of people think, what does that mean? Like, you gotta get— you gotta film every single day. Like, you gotta be editing every day, spend 1 or 2 hours of setting up, editing, posting. Like, no, listen, there's things called— for example, here's another nugget— batch creation. Have you heard of batch creation? What is this? Like, this is a very basic principle that majority of people do who don't have time throughout the week. And what they'll do, they'll sit down and they'll record like a month or two worth of content within like a few hours. So that way, guess what? You only have to set up once, you only have to film once, and you can go out And if you don't have someone to manage it for you, you can schedule it yourself. But you can, you can schedule out these posts every single day. So like if you spend 2 hours recording short form and tip, if you do long form content, you can cut up the long form and turn it into short form. And then you have even more content. So you don't have to sit down and just film short form. Which is why you need to be on YouTube, because long form builds trust. If you're listening earlier, builds trust. Takes 7 hours for someone to trust you online, but you can film all of this in a few hours. And don't make it complicated, like you don't have to edit it crazy, like just do something like this. This is— we just hit— we're about to hit 30 minutes on this live. We're about to hit 30 minutes and this, this is considered long form. So guess what I can do? I can take this livestream, throw it into Opus Clips, which is an AI, uh, AI video editor, and I'll have like 20 or 30 clips that I can use for the next month. Like, it's not hard to make content. You just have to be smart about it. Batch creation is one of them. Um, doing solely long form is one of them. Like, make the most out of your time, because if you think about it, if you, if you do this stuff for 1 or 2 hours, if you even, if you do 1 hour a day, 1 hour a day during the week, you're spending 5 hours filming for 1 piece of content each day. So what is that? 5 times 4, that's 20 hours if you're setting up every day and making that a part of your daily routine. Don't do that. Batch create. Take one day, spend 4 or 5 hours, right? Film everything. Make it very simple stuff. Make it a simple layout. You don't have to do— to where, like, you don't have to do a ton of editing. And if you need help editing or want to learn how to do that, we're here for a resource for that. But go batch create all this content, schedule it for the next 3 or 4 weeks, and then you don't even have to touch it. Like, you don't even have to think about it because it's already done. It's already scheduled. Guess what? You're, you're turning that 5 hours into a month's worth of content, sometimes 2 months. So it's just being smart about it. It's being— it's about being smart about it, figuring out who your target audience is, coming up with strategies on how to reach them, and consistency. Like, again, shout out to you to go, go get you some tea if you haven't today. Yeah, that's the message. That's the message I had today. If you have any questions I'm gonna be on here for a few more minutes. Leave them in the comments. If you're watching this pre-recorded or after we end the livestream, send me a message. Like, this group is for community. This group is to talk about this kind of stuff. So like, if you're having a trouble or like a hard time figuring out what to make, for example, if you have like a few different options and you're like, I wonder what the people would lean towards as far as their preference and watching. Like, do people want to watch this or this? And if you have two pieces of content, this— I don't know, these are just things like you can utilize this group for. If you have a podcast, which side note, we can help with podcast setups. We can help distribute and edit and record all that. Which is one of the things to do here in the Howdy Studio. We're not limited to the Howdy Studio, but one of the things. But like, if you have a podcast and you need somebody as a guest, this will be a group. Like, there's plenty of business owners, like, and the group's only going to grow. We're about to hit 100 people. There's business owners who want to get their name out there. Podcasts are one of the best ways that you can do that, which, yeah, I'm a big fan of podcasts. If you don't have one, you need to start one, even if it's very simple. Just start, because those reps that you're getting, those— the first 20, the first 10 to 20 episodes don't— like, it doesn't matter how many people are watching or listening. Because nobody, nobody's gonna see it because you haven't built up that foundation, you haven't built that authority yet online. And so the biggest tip that I could give you is to just start. Like, if you want— if, like, so many people tell me, man, I've been wanting to do this forever, I just don't know how. That's the first thing that I hear, or I don't have the time, or I don't think anybody will watch me. Like, there's things that people say all the time, excuses, and it's like, it doesn't matter. Like, the sooner you get in, the sooner you'll see a return on that. And again, if you have the right strategy, if you have the right end goal in mind whenever you're making this stuff, you'll find your target audience will find you. It's just a matter of making yourself findable. So that's my spiel. I guess I'm gonna hop off pretty soon if there's no questions or anything. Thanks for watching if you've been watching. I appreciate it. Thanks for being a part of the Insiders Group. If you have somebody who you think would benefit from this group, invite them. There should be an invite button, I think, on, on the group page. But we're gonna be doing this weekly, so watch for updates, watch for posts. And yeah, thanks for being a part of the community. Don't be afraid to engage, don't be afraid to post. I know for a fact I'll be commenting on anything that's posted in here. So if you have a question, you literally anything, shoot it up in the group. It's been real, guys. Hope you have a wonderful Monday. Go out, get creating, start that podcast, create that social media content, create that YouTube channel. If you have any questions, like, that's what we do, that's what we help out with. Um, yeah, we'll see on the next one.