How To Use Basic Technology for Social Media | Ep 054

Kacie: So now we're going to get into social media stuff. This is your world, social media and video technology. Cause I think that again, just like with the other, you know, operational, there's so much out there and it's just. Every, every week there's a new thing, a new tool, a new, great, amazing tool to use. Just like I feel like there's a new social media platform to get on.

It's like, okay, as a small business owner, I'm already doing all of my accounting. I'm already doing building tables or making tacos or whatever you're doing, um, while, you know, cleaning bathrooms and doing all of this stuff. The last thing I want to do is sift through a hundred different programs to figure out what to do for video.

The Business Project Podcast. Business can be complicated. We break it down so regular people like us 

John: can understand and find success. I'm John Crespo, accountant and consultant. 

Kacie: I'm Casey Bryant, marketer and event planner. If you run a business or want to run a business welcome 

John: to the show.

Kacie: Welcome back to the warehouse. 

John: You might hear a little bit of, uh, Background noise, but that's okay. There's a lot of stuff going on, so that shows that there's movement. 

Kacie: Yes. We have moved. I don't know if you guys noticed from the last podcast, but our set is a little bit different. We've moved back into our office.

Yeah. And there's a lot going on here. Yes. And it's craziness. We try to keep it a little quiet for you guys, but you notice. It's a little bustle. Yeah. Background noise. It's cause there's lots going on, man. Yeah. 

John: This is actually, how many times have we moved now? One, from the first office to, um, my office to the other office to this one.

Kacie: Four times. Four times in a year. A little over 

John: a year. Eventually we'll find our home. Yes. 

Kacie: Forever home. Yes, we will. Forever ish home. Yeah. But we're so glad that you guys are back for another one. We've got some good information. If you guys missed the last podcast, we went over technology and operations and gave you guys some tips for some tools that you should use.

We'll So important to have it. Yeah, you know when I forgot one. 

John: This was a good one because we were speaking about it before this. 

Kacie: Yeah Spark mail is one that I forgot to mention in the last podcast what it has to do. I'm downloading it now. It's really great It basically if you have more than one email address, so for me personally I monitor like six email addresses.

You can put it all in one app and it pulls them and what I love about it too is if you read it in Spark Mail, it marks it red in your other mailbox too so you don't have to do it twice. I love it. Yeah. It's great. So that's one little bonus from, from that we missed 

John: last week. You know why? It's so hard.

So I have Gmail, I have, or Google workspace, right? So most of my, most of my emails are, are Google Gmail, but I also have a, an Outlook, um, email for another client. It's so hard to like. Merge them together instead. So going from all these different email apps, this thing is going to be a game 

Kacie: changer for me.

Yeah, it is awesome. Even if you just have like a personal email and a work email or, you know, if you have an info at email with your business that everybody sees, it's just so great because it's just all in one app. You don't have to go a hundred places to check your email. 

John: And it doesn't matter. Who hosts the email.

Nope. That's 

Kacie: what I like about that for sure. Yeah. It's great. And even when you go send an email, you can pick which one of the emails that are synced in there that you want to send it from. Nice. And then you can even create custom, um, you know, like signatures for each one. It's amazing. Nice. Yeah. What's it called again?

It's called Sparkmail. Check that one out. That's a game changer. It looks like the little airplane, you know, paper airplane that you throw. That's what the little emblem is on it. Cool. Yeah. Good stuff. Okay. So now we're going to get into social media stuff. Oh, this is your world. Social media and video technology.

Cause I think that again, just like with the other, you know, operational, there's so much out there and it's just. Every, every week there's a new thing, a new tool, a new, great, amazing tool to use. Just like I feel like there's a new social media platform to get on. It's like, okay, as a small business owner, I'm already doing all of my accounting.

I'm already doing building tables or making tacos or whatever you're doing, um, while, you know, cleaning bathrooms and doing all of this stuff. The last thing I want to do is sift through a hundred different programs to figure out what to do for video. 

John: You know, um, I want to, I have a question about that.

Yeah. As a business, right, should we be on all of the social media, um, apps or programs or whatever that's out there? Cause there's, how many's out there? Like, ten? So many. Um, so we don't, we shouldn't try to be on all of them, right? No. We have to figure out which ones our clients are in, and then what type of, uh, content resonates in those particular...

Channels, right? Because not everything is the same everywhere. It's not so there's some front end kind of like figuring out that has to be done 

Kacie: But one of the cool things that technology has done is it may it makes it easier to be on multiple platforms because before You know when we first started there was Facebook and really that was it And then Instagram came along, and it was Facebook and Instagram and YouTube, and those were really the only three places that you Twitter, you know, those four, I guess, places that you most people were on.

And so it's like, okay, so Twitter is short form text. So you just make short form text for that. And then you had to make completely different thing for Instagram. It was very picture pick, you know, beautiful pictures and a small caption. So Instagram, you had to make Totally different information. And then YouTube's long video, totally different information.

And then Facebook, you know, pictures and write ups, whatever was working on Facebook. So it was like, you had to know each individual platform. You had to take time and create content specifically for that platform. Now there's so many tools that can, you just do a video, you plug it in this tool, and then it spits out.

Um, and you still have to grab it and post it and customize it a little bit, you know, but it makes it easier. So even if, even if your focus is not LinkedIn, but your focus is Facebook, you can still post that content on LinkedIn and it's not hurting anything. It takes like two seconds. You know, to post the same content.

Um, so, go ahead. 

John: I was gonna say, what was the old way of posting on all these different channels? 

Kacie: You had to create custom each one. Each one? 

John: So, a video for Facebook or whatever? That's a 

Kacie: lot. Yeah, long video for, so you really had to be specific on which platforms you wanted to be on. So, you know, hey, we're gonna focus on a marketing strategy.

For just Facebook and Instagram, and then you had to make the beautiful pictures and then the, you know, pictures and posts for Facebook, but the cool thing to now is that they're all copying each other. And so, yeah, they are all now. Instagram does reels. Tick tock is like real form. Um, YouTube has YouTube shorts and so Facebook has reels.

And so. All four of those specifically Reels kind of, you know, short video also work on Twitter. They also work on LinkedIn. So it's like you can create one thing and then put it on multiple platforms and it'll feel like it fits in that platform. 

John: That's awesome. I noticed something about Twitter recently is like they're, they're going on.

This media, they're trying to become like this media app where you can do everything on there. Like you can have, you can do, we can do a podcast and stream it on Twitter. Like it's, they're trying to do all that kind of stuff. So what, you know, to your point is you can, we can sit here, let's just say we're creating this video, right?

We can create this video, plug it in to some magical thing program that can. Put it out to all of the different channels in the form that fits that channel. 

Kacie: Yes I'm about to give out an amazing tool. You ready? Should I give it or should I make them message me for the tool? There's a couple of them. 

John: I say they message you.

They message us? You can't give out everything. 

Kacie: How about we put it in the back end of the business project? The free membership. Okay. If you go to the free membership in the back end of the business project, I'll do a video, of course, specifically on These magic tools that you can use. 

John: Well, how about you say what it can do without Mentioning what it is until unless they get in there.

Yeah, 

Kacie: find out let's do it. So there's there's several of them teasers Yeah, they can I mean at that point you can just Google it too if you want to do that, but Um, so there are tools out there. Say you do a long, a long, a video. Say you do a, a testimonial of one of your customers. So you're recording with your cell phone and a little microphone that attaches to your cell phone and your customer is talking about how much they love what you do and you changed their life and blah, blah, blah.

So that video, say it's It's four minutes long. That video, you can plug into a tool and you can say, Hey, I want to use this video for TikTok and Instagram. And it will, in a couple of seconds, minutes, depending on how long the video is, it will take that video and it will chop it up into three or four, five, depending again, how long the video is, different videos.

It will, you can pick if you want it this way, horizontal or vertical, you can, it'll give you the trending keywords to use for each, for each one. It'll write a description to use in each one. So it'll write a description, say you're doing TikTok or YouTube shorts. It'll say, here's the description to use for YouTube shorts.

Here's the description to use for Instagram. And. Literally all you do is take it adds captions and you can customize what the captions look like because a lot of times nowadays People don't eat they don't watch the videos with the sound on because they're doing it You know while they're in the doctor's office waiting in the waiting room or they're doing it while they're in work and they should be working So they they watch the videos without the sound on and so captions are really helpful so it'll automatically add captions and you can make them customize them for your branding and then Literally, all you do is just pick which ones you want to export.

You can either export and save them and then upload them to the platform, or you can upload them directly onto the platforms. Very cool. Yeah. 

John: So going back to, um, getting time back in your day, we all know that, um, you know, video and posting on social media, posting online is important for a business.

Everybody's online today. It doesn't matter what industry you're in. Your people are online somewhere, right? So you got to create some, you got to create Content that'll reach them where they're at. So you gotta go where your clients are at So being it instead of having to spend hours a week probably creating content for each individual Platform there's tools out there that will crunch that down One program will create it for all of them.

You're buying back, I don't know how much time in your day by doing that. Like, you've been in marketing and branding and creating content for so long. Like, um, you had to go from... Helping clients create content for each individual platform to now being able to, you know, make that process way more efficient, how much time has that 

Kacie: put back in your day?

Oh my gosh, it's insane. It's insane. We used to pay somebody probably 20 hours a week just to edit content, just to make the, the small content and things like that. And now, literally we do one thing, plug it in there, pull it all out. It saves so much time. There's still some custom things that we have to do for certain And and it's not perfect because like, you know If you post something on tiktok and then you post a reel on instagram, they want you to use their music They don't want you to import music So there is some like tweaks and things that you have to make But it does save a lot of time and I don't know if this is going to be forever.

I don't like, I think X is really trying to, old Twitter is really trying to, they, they don't want you using all the things they don't want, you know, you copying what they have and they want you to be on their platform. And so they're going to start Tik Tok has just started doing. Uh, the TikTok shop to where you now don't need to go link to Amazon to be able to order, you know, products off of TikTok.

You literally buy them straight through TikTok and the, um, creators. So like, say we are, um, an influencer and you want me to wear your hat and sell your hat because I have all these followers, I can put your hat in my TikTok shop and then say, I want to keep a cut. I put like, I want to keep 20 percent and the rest goes to you and TikTok takes care of that.

Wow. Yeah, which is what Amazon, you know, very similar business model to a lot of these third party places that we're having to do it now. It's all done right there in the platform. So I think right now we're at a crazy time where they're all just like butting head ends, battling who can get there first, to where, Yeah, we have the ultimate, like, app where you don't have to go anywhere else to do, all of your things can be done here.

John: Yeah, that's, that's interesting. It's a good time right now for us, I'm assuming, as users, Where they're battling it out. Right? So there's probably some benefit on the TikTok shop TikTok shop thing. Where maybe you can get some stuff pretty cheap now. Just because they want to get that. So, I'm gonna start checking that out.

It's interesting to Take advantage of the fighting that's going on, not fighting, but positioning that's going on between these big 

Kacie: guys. Yeah. And it's hard as business owners too, because I think, especially if you've been in business for a while, you get used to, so we started on Facebook and Instagram.

That's how my business grew. I mean, we grew very quickly. It was even before Facebook was doing ads or monetize their platform. And we grew really quickly and everybody that was. That said that they wanted to follow us, saw every post that we did, but now it's only like one to three percent, I think, people that follow your page typically see your post because they want you as a business to pay because they need to make money.

And so, um, you know, back then it was, it was, that's how you grew your platform. And then TikTok came on the scene. It's like all these people that were, On to TikTok first, got these huge audiences because TikTok was trying to pull everybody away from, you know, Facebook and Instagram. And so if you were, you know, within the first months or even first year of TikTok, you had it, you had the audience, they gave it away.

Now they're starting to really reel it in and define, you know, we look at our views even from when we've started. Our, you know, our views at the beginning, even though we had less followers, were more than our views now. Because they just like, they, they set the hook and then they really in. Bait and switch.

Yep. Savages. So, we're now, as a company, having to sit down and be like, this is our business. So, do we spend time continuing to grow our Facebook, even though it's as hard, way harder than it was when we started eight years ago? Or do we switch our focus to TikTok? Or is there a new thing coming that we need to...

You know jump on the scenes with and so I think I think that's the hard part too is Just like everything else in your business. You can't just settle in and Nest and be like, okay This is where we're placing our stake and this is what we're gonna do because it's only gonna work for a little while, right?

John: They're always changing something up always changing So I think having access to a program that stays on top of the changes and can create your content in a way That's meeting those Whatever's, whatever is popping right now kind of feel is, is a true benefit. Mm-hmm. ? 

Kacie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. There's a lot of programs out there that can help with social media and we'll link some in the show notes.

DS Script is a really great program that our team uses. You can import your videos and then it automatically adds it. Trans transcribes them. So we do this, we use this for our podcast when we're done with our podcast, we put the podcast video in there and it automatically transcribes it so that we can add those transcriptions to, um, you know, our, our podcast so that you guys can read it.

If you want to, it makes it also to where. Um, people can find it easier because it says, you know, what the podcast is about. And so, um, that's a great, that, that tool also gives you the ability to easily make it turn a video. If it's a horizontal video, say you film a testimonial this way, but then you want it this way.

It'll, it makes it really easy to do that. It also gives you the ability to get rid of ums and ands. And if you're, if you're having an interview that you're doing and the person you're interviewing is like, and, um, and then, um, and, and, um, Then it'll get rid of all of those just, just a click of the button.

Yeah, that's cool. Yeah. Gets rid of all the filler filler words. So, um, that's Descript is an amazing, amazing tool for social media. There's a tool that you can use. I don't know it off the top of my head, but again, we'll use it in the show notes. A lot of this, I don't do, my team does, um, but it will get rid of the Tik Tok, um, logo.

You know if you Oh, the little watermark that they put on their stuff? Mm hmm. Yeah, because if you do a TikTok and then you export it to put it on a different platform, well, Instagram doesn't want your TikTok logo on their video. Otherwise, they're gonna suppress it. So there's a tool that you can do that'll remove the watermark.

There's lots of great tools. Yeah. To help you navigate the social media craziness. 

John: It's a necessary evil. So why not utilize the resources to make it easier? Right, get your time back, go out there and do other things, but also you got to get out there. You got to get on social media, you got to get on the, on the web, on the internet, YouTube, whatever.

You, you got to get your business out there. 

Kacie: This is something that you need to have as part of your weekly routine. You know how we talked last week about Trello, creating a Trello board, or at monday. com that Has all of your tasks that you need to do every week. Well, this is, this needs to be one of them.

Unfortunately, it needs to be something that you spend time on. And with these tools, fortunately you can spend less time on it than you needed to before. But you also, um, you have to do short video. It's just like you are missing out on customers and opportunity to reach customers and it doesn't have to be complicated.

You can do, you know, behind the scenes. things of what you're already doing, setting up your, your food truck, or, you know, setting up for the day, bringing your team in, you can do things about your team, you know, this is so and so and they like to. You know, eat salads every day for lunch. Like who likes solids, you know, just funny, funny things about your team.

You could do, um, you could do special events, you know, Halloween or Christmas theme things, um, you can do testimonials are amazing. So there's, if you just search online, you know, ideas for different types of content, and then just. It might take you a while to figure out what you enjoy doing or what your audience likes seeing.

But you're not gonna figure that out if you don't do it. If you're just frozen because you're scared or you don't know how to start. It's too much. Just start somewhere. Yeah, 

John: a lot of people like I'm not into that. I don't do that. Yeah, but you scroll through Facebook and Instagram all day. Yeah, right. Why not, uh, see 

Kacie: your stuff?

And if, if it is something that you absolutely hate doing and you never want to do it, then hire somebody to do it. Exactly. 

John: Pass that stuff

Kacie: off. Yeah, because there are people out there that do love it. They live on their phones. 

John: Yeah, very true. Wow, this is good. Yeah. So that, uh, secret one, they have to do what to, to, uh, find 

Kacie: out what it is?

We'll put a link in the bio, but you guys need to go to our free membership in the back end of the business project. This is This one's a 

John: game changer. If you don't take advantage of that, you're going to be missing out for 

Kacie: sure. That, that platform, thebusinessproject. com, those of you that don't know, it's, it's, we've been working on it for a long time.

It's brand new. It, um, we've had so many other projects going on. But basically it's resource, it's printables, it's articles, it's videos, and it's going to be growing over the next couple of years. Um, you know, partnering with businesses that specialize in certain industries. John does some videos on accounting and we have some on marketing and social media and, um, banking and all the little things that go into small businesses.

It's basically what we talk about on our podcast, just all in one place with printables and You know, better 

John: takeaways. So instead of you having to Google different concerns or different steps in running a business, you just go to thebusinessproject. com and there it is. One stop shop. Yes. It's 

Kacie: the way to go.

All right. So check out all the information in the show notes. We'll make sure and put it down there for you guys. 

John: And get in there and get that get that app that uh is gonna change your life. Yeah 

Kacie: Start using some of this technology, even if you're already using technology. I'm sure there's something that you can do We even did a podcast a couple weeks ago.

Maybe a couple months ago now about Cleaning out your technology. Yeah, decluttering. Yeah, decluttering, because that's a thing too, is like, I feel like when you, if you are good at this, you get to a point to where you're like, man, I'm 5, 000 different subscriptions, so if you're on the other end of this and you're using A lot of technology.

Maybe take this time to figure out which ones you should be keeping. I was doing 

John: that 

Kacie: this morning. Figuring 

John: out what to keep? Yeah, all these subscriptions. I'm like, what do I really need and what do I don't? Yeah, 

Kacie: it gets carried, you get carried away. Yeah, and it adds up. Yeah, all right, 

John: cool. I hope you enjoyed this.

We're coming back next week for some other good information, so just stay tuned. We'll see you next week. Take care. Bye. 

Bye.