Ep #20: Katie Lance: Get Smart with Social Media

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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today. Welcome to Mortgage Marketing Radio. Thank you so much for taking time to tune in again. I just want to say that I appreciate you. I know you are busy and you've got a lot going on in your life. So the fact that you actually carve out time to listen to these episodes thrilled about that. And I'd be curious to know if this is your first time hearing this, if you're a loyal repeat listener or what's the story. So drop me a line if you'd like any time and that email addresses info at mortgagemarketinginstitute.com. And also if you make sure you don't want to miss any future episodes, subscribe on iTunes and if you wouldn't mind just take a moment, just leave us a review whether it's select the number of stars you want to rate the podcast, you want to leave a positive comment or two what I'll be doing actually moving forward is we're going to be doing kind of a weekly contest win. So each week I'll select somebody who's left a review or a positive comment or subscribed on iTunes and picking them out and giving them a free coaching session plus a free gift certificate. So more details about that to come. Alright so enough of that let's get into this week's special guest. I'm thrilled to bring you somebody I've been following for a while and I respect a lot in the space where there's a lot of noise, a lot of people trying to sell you stuff and shove stuff down your throat. And so I'm very honored that this woman Katie Lance made time to come share some of her energy and expertise. So a quick intro into Katie who she is. So Katie interestingly enough for years has been the chief strategist and social media director for Inman News. If you haven't heard of Inman News it's kind of like Katie calls it the Wall Street Journal of the real estate industry and they do you know lots of different conferences and things like that over over the year and so they have a huge following of real estate and mortgage-related professionals in there. But Katie I tell you what when it comes to social media you know her tagline is you know how to get smart with social media and she sure does because she took Inman's social footprint from just 7,000 fans and followers to more than 250,000 and she was actually the key person that launched Inman's ambassador program which currently includes some of the real estate's most socially active members. As a matter of fact that ambassador program has a reach now of well over 2 million friends and followers. So the resume goes on and on about Katie. She co-founded Inman Next which is the leading real estate industry blog and was the managing editor for Forum which is the future of real estate marketing, a very highly respected blog in real estate and the list goes on and on and on. And I ask Katie here today because I know a lot of us myself especially you know struggle with how do I make sense of social media. You know there's a lot of noise out there telling you know about the hustle and the grind and you gotta be everywhere all the time and always on and so I wanted to kind of dispel some of those myths but also provide really the goals provide some road map, some guidance on look we know we need to be active socially right and engage because that's how people buy today and how people build trust and loyalty right. So we know it need to be online but the question is you know where do we need to be everywhere how much how often what kind of content you know how do I manage this social media animal and get you know fit this into my day right sure some success stories we're going to go into those on today's show I'm one of the social media errors the big question should I outsource my social media or not right on and on so I think you're going to be really pleased with today's session and so I'm excited to bring Katie Lance to you today and without further ado let's get into the show hey Katie welcome to the show thank you it's great to be here it's great to have you it's great to catch you because I know you're flying all over the place and very very busy it's been our fact that we were just talking about how you recently came back from the in-man connect San Francisco and you were a featured speaker there with a number of sessions and so I do definitely want to talk about some of the highlights that came out of that as a matter of fact I was looking at your presentation you put on slideshare and on your blog and sites which will direct people to in a few minutes but before we get into kind of the content and boy we could talk forever about social media if you would mind just take a moment and tell the listeners who may not be familiar with you I know you've got a big presence in the real estate space doing some stuff in mortgage as well but who what are you all about what do you help people do in social media yeah absolutely so I run a social media marketing company Katie Lance consulting I was previously with in-man news for many years I was the chief strategist and social media director for in-man news which I always say is kind of like the Wall Street Journal in the real estate world right and did a lot of a lot of stuff with them just my whole background is in marketing and branding and launched our consulting company about almost four years ago and so we specialize in consulting for real estate brokerages franchises and mortgage companies helping them get smarter about social media and we also do a lot of training and coaching in the industry just launched our academy recently and we just really feel like there's a big need in the industry to help help real estate professionals and also mortgage professionals get really smarter about how they're using social media to build their business and also keep in touch with past clients excellent thank you you know you said something get smart about social media that's one of the things you help people do and I think that's a great tagline because I know for me right I'm trying to manage everything related to social media there's a lot of moving parts a lot of bright shiny objects bells and whistles and stuff so you know when you first engage with somebody and where do you start how do you start how do you identify to give them some direction usually one of the first things that we do when our first working with a new client we do it's called a social media audit and the word audit is always a little scary for some people right but it basically allows us to do a deep dive and to kind of have a 30,000-foot view as an outsider because a lot of times it you know whether you're an agent or a mortgage professional it's it's easy to just get caught up in the weeds and caught up in what you do day to day and it's very rarely do you get a chance to have someone kind of do a do a deep dive through everything you're doing especially in social so we peel back the layers we look at everything from if they're doing blogging or video you know Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter all across the board and you know we come back to them with with the good the bad and exactly and sometimes there's a lot of low hanging fruit like oh gosh you know you don't have your email anywhere or your website link doesn't work you know like just things we just don't check you know we put them up there kind of set it and forget it and then there's the the bigger issue of you know you're maybe you're missing out on an opportunity to connect with people you know through maybe Facebook live or you know Facebook advertising could be a little bit better you know as far as you're targeting so that's generally where we kind of start you know start the conversation but everybody's different you know there's no one size fits all well and that's great feedback and and I ask you that because I think a lot of people are confused about where to start right and I think you do have to start from the beginning and the basics make sure you've got that foundational you've got wheels on on your car number one and then two is okay so now what's let's I'm on this metaphor now what's the gas we're going to put in the car I mean there's a lot of gas we could put in like you mentioned Facebook live there's Twitter there's LinkedIn there's there's Snapchat so how do you help somebody to decide because you know I've heard this purported out there that you know there seems to be this this this this this promotion around hey you got to be everywhere man you know and I don't know how that sits with you I've got some thoughts on that but I know that's a struggle for the average user to be everywhere so how would you provide some direction for people that are dealing with that perception that they need to be everywhere yeah I think I think there is that perception and that pressure especially as all these new platforms and you know the next shiny object comes around for me I always try to to give you advice of I don't think you necessarily need to be everywhere I don't think you need to be on Twitter and Pinterest and Facebook and you know 20 different places I think for most people picking one or two platforms but going all in and really making it big splash for those tends to make the most sense but I will say once someone gets a strategy in place that's where adding on multiple platforms can really help because at the end of the day it's really about distribution if you're creating great content maybe you've got a great blog or a video or podcast you've got to be it's not just about creating that it's about getting it out there in a multiple platforms and the agents and brokers that are in multiple places and they're doing it well they sort of learn that secret sauce that it's about creating one or two pieces of great killer content pillar content once a month and then how do you slice and dice it so it makes sense on Snapchat Instagram Facebook you know without completely reinventing the wheel okay great so back to your comment about not needing to be everywhere and you're agreeing with that in the early stages and you mentioned picking one or two platforms and going all in how does knowing that our listeners are real estate mortgage how does one identify the right platforms for them well I think first of all in general I think Facebook is still one of the number one platforms I mean it's the numbers don't lie you know there's over billion users generally speaking most of our clients potential clients I mean everybody from you know kids to our grandparents are practically on Facebook and not only that but I think Facebook has one of the best options for advertising I think it's one of the best ad spends that anybody in real estate or mortgage could put their money into right so I think that's you know first of all that's I think Facebook is a big place to be but I also think you want to look at two other things number one where do you like what you know what's what's fun to you for a lot of people they like they like Snapchat just makes a lot of sense or maybe it's periscope or where there's something to be said about doing something you like if you feel like it's you hate it you shouldn't do it and second of all where where are your clients and I think a lot of times we just assume I hear this all the time all my clients aren't on Snapchat and so my responses will have you asked them and yes there's some people who aren't and there's some people who aren't on Facebook totally get that but you know it's amazing you say there's some people who are on Facebook but yes so just you know putting it out there and asking and not assuming I think is a big thing yeah no this is a great point to kind of survey your audience and the thing I just thought of is particularly to the to the mortgage and real estate space and I know you've you've done some research and on millennials and knowing that you know they are definitely one of those segments that's on Snapchat is that what you found yeah absolutely I mean the Snapchat's big demographic 40% of Snapchat users are between the ages of like 18 to 34 so you know it's that's a huge the huge demographic and it'll I think continue to grow and grow they put that Instagram Instagram's a great place to connect with you know people who might be a little burned down on Facebook because their parents are on Facebook so yeah great place for that okay great so good points right pick pick one or two platforms and a key point to that is a platform that you like because I totally get what you're saying is about like like if I'm not into the whole Snapchat thing then I'm just not going to use it so don't bother trying to force myself to use something right so if it's Facebook and YouTube great or if it's Facebook and something else but clearly what I'm hearing for you from you is in most situations one of the platforms you need to have some kind of presence on is Facebook for the reasons you mentioned definitely and I would also say too just to add on to that just quickly is that I'd also recommend especially in real estate and mortgage to also consider LinkedIn and LinkedIn is you know it's not as fun as Facebookers flashiest Snapchat but LinkedIn is still an important place when someone is thinking of working with you and they Google you LinkedIn is usually one of the first things that comes up so you know you don't necessarily spend a ton of time on LinkedIn day in and day out like you might on Facebook or Snapchat but you want to make sure your LinkedIn's up to date and that it's not reflecting who you were 10 years ago that it's reflecting who you are right now yeah and of course um you know you mentioned burned out on Facebook I think is what you said but because of you know if you're millennial your parents are on there but there's the other issue of social media fatigue and I'm sure you see a lot of this people talking about like LinkedIn for example you brought that up so there seems to be a growing you know pushback to LinkedIn and you always see those people saying hey put this on Facebook it doesn't belong here right right yeah I mean LinkedIn's not the place for you know your cat videos or what you had to breakfast it's like a professional network but there's still some yeah there's some definitely big benefits of LinkedIn okay all right so and I want to dive into some ideas you know actual practical ideas and how people can use a variety of these platforms we talked about and so this is probably a good transition to diving into the conversation or presentation you had one of them up at Inman Connect San Francisco you know you talked about some some some highlights there I think of what you see coming in the future and one of those is Facebook live and I've been experimenting with Facebook live and I definitely see some some benefits around that in terms of just reach and it's become pretty obvious to me that Facebook is for those people that are using live giving you much more reach than if you're just doing a static image is that true uh it's 100% true yeah I mean we in general we are we are very visual right and there's so much we are in information overload there's so much information coming at us and really the number one way to stand out especially on Facebook is visual content so photos graphics are huge but to take that a step further video and now with live video it allows users to create video quickly easily with your mobile device and the fact that it's live means it doesn't have to be perfect you know not everything has to be completely you know in place it's not scripted and you're doing two things number when you're providing great live content people can interact with you in real time which I think is very beneficial for an industry whether it's still sometimes a lack of trust it's being able to build that trust and then second of all once you create a piece of live content it becomes it then becomes a video that stays on your Facebook page it can be repurposed you can add it up on the youtube or add it to your website and and it it really extends the shelf life of that piece of content and you're absolutely right that the reach is incredible I mean I've been doing a few Facebook lives every week and without even putting money behind it and paying for it we're seeing I mean I'm seeing thousands of people who are seeing that compared to other posts on my Facebook page which is not in the thousands yeah it's interesting as a matter of fact I just released a podcast earlier this week and it was just a static image my usual podcast image and I noticed like you know for whatever reason over the last several weeks to reach on that and there's been really dramatically decreasing and so it caused me to think it was like geez you know now do I have to put together a Facebook live kind of video to promote the podcast to keep that reach up there you know right yeah I think there's I think there's there's definitely opportunities for that you know you could do kind of a behind the scenes or you know things that weren't you know they didn't make the cut you know of your podcast or something which by the way that's a good it's a couple of things now first of all um I don't know how you are with this where you know I didn't I didn't kind of prep you for this but I know you have a Facebook live cheat sheet available on your site and I'm just wondering if you wouldn't mind directing some people there I've got the URL handy if you if you don't mind yeah absolutely I actually have a whole post on my website about sort of Facebook live and within that you can download it it's just um katylands.com for its slash fb live okay and that'll take you to the post on my website and then there's the link to download it but yeah we we created this cheat sheet to uh to just you know give agents and and Margaret's professor professionals uh some ideas of what you know if if I were to go live with the heck would I talk about yeah right well that's that's the whole big question and by the way the reason why I wanted to direct users there is or listeners is because right there's 30 different ideas there that you talk about so we can't dive into them all today but it's a great resource for them to take away but um in the context of let's let's say mortgage because these are my although I do want the listeners my my listeners in the mortgage space to share this uh recording with their agents because you know it covers both areas but any suggestions you would have for a mortgage professional perhaps on how they would use Facebook live to drive audience engagement on Facebook to build following credibility you know all the usual stuff yeah I think there's a few things I think um I think it's a huge opportunity and mortgage to do some sort of either weekly or monthly some sort of live Facebook uh I'll use the word show for lack of a better word but it's be able to come on and do a mortgage Q&A or to talk about what's happening in the market you know what's the latest things what should uh you know realtors be aware but also what should you know if you're uh thinking of getting a mortgage maybe you're looking to refinance maybe your first time home buyer and being a really valuable source of information we're actually seeing some of the credit bureau starting to do that um experience for example has got a great presence on periscope which is another another live streaming platform and they do a show a few uh once a week or so um you know basically coming on they've got a topic where they're sharing uh information and their answering questions and you know I think that there's a big opportunity in mortgage to be able to do that to be able to answer questions uh to just talk about you know uh maybe specific loan products obviously mortgage you want to be careful there's compliance issues but if you can come from a place of you know here's a few questions I get asked all the time or here's the top you know top five things you want to think about before you reach out to a mortgage professional and I would recommend you know and anybody in mortgage just just kind of brainstorm one of the questions you get asked all the time um who are the people you love to work with uh and being that source of of knowledge and and coming from a place of abundance I talked about this at Inman versus oh I'm not going to share anything you know uh that's that makes that makes the big difference and then being consistent with them you know so maybe it's every Tuesday tip Tuesday or uh you know whatever that might be but what's exciting is that when you start to consistently do that and consistently start to create content it doesn't take years and years and years I mean within a matter of weeks people will notice and those you know you'll find people reaching out saying I love your show or I think that's great you're doing that and you start to just build this traction really quickly that generates that turns into referrals and business which is exciting and what do you say to the people who don't like the way I look on video yes well I mean you kind of have to get over it to be honest right and it's sort of a harsh truth but it is what it is you know we're not all models uh I'm certainly not but the and the other thing I'll say is doing live video or video of any kind it's a muscle the first time you do it you'll feel awkward nobody you'll tune in you'll think it was the worst thing ever had that happen right and then you do it again and then you do it again and I don't think anyone's ever completely comfortable with how they look on camera but the more you do it the better you get and I will also say the more you do live video sort of an added perk is you become a better communicator right you know you become better at thinking on your feet uh and just in general I think just you just become you know a better communicator so it definitely gets better with uh with practice you just got to work that muscle and and also when it comes to you know you mentioned a show Facebook live show um and the great tips you shared there I'm thinking this because you know I help mortgage loan officers add value to real estate agents um what about some type of a weekly show specifically for agents kind of like on the loan officers you know business page or what not are the realtor dedicated page where they're sharing helpful tips for agents absolutely I think that could be a huge benefit for anybody in mortgage who you know if you you can share those tips either either it's a real estate focus and you're targeting um you know your realtor partners and colleagues or it's uh you know more client base but I think that's a great idea and what I would recommend if a mortgage professional is going to do that is is just is to think a little bit about promoting it ahead of time and it doesn't require a whole lot of promotion but maybe the day before or the morning of you send an email to you know the realtor's who are on your database just had a quick email hey you know just you know I'm doing this tomorrow at 10 o'clock here's the link we'd love for you to tune in and then maybe you put up a you know a little blurb on your Facebook page an hour before hey an hour I'm gonna be doing this and it's just a little bit of pre promotion and then you do the Facebook live and then once it's over again I would later in the day or the next day send an email back out and say hey you can case you missed it here's the recording here's some of the the tips we shared and you know that we kind of you kind of created an event versus just okay I want to do this you know so a little bit of pre promotion and post promotion can make a big difference yeah absolutely and then I guess the other thing too I know you make a point of this is social media is a marathon not a sprint is like in your example of you know your host of Facebook live and its crickets nobody shows up well you both of us have had that happen you gotta start somehow right and you first ride that bike hey you're gonna fall but just realize in order for this to really pay off you know too many people I think are looking for the quick hit they expect like oh my gosh I'm on some on social media and I should be getting these massive amounts of leads it doesn't work like that and you mentioned consistency and there's a few reasons why one of them is and maybe you can help convey some ideas on you know rising above the noise right because there's a lot of noise and distraction on social media so what's I think what why video Facebook live in particular standing out right now is because it is right different than what's been on there for so long and it's capturing people's attention and like you said video we're humans we've grown up in this video TV generation you know we love it absolutely yeah there is a inordinate amount of noise out there and you know more so than ever before I think there's been more content created in the last you know a few years since like you know compared to the beginning of time it's ridiculous so I think video is a huge opportunity Facebook live you know for sure but it definitely is a marathon and not a sprint and and that's why I always say you know you can't just look at Facebook and go well I'll squeeze it in here and I'll do two minutes here two minutes there and not that it needs to take over your whole life because obviously I'm a business and and that's you know why you're in business but it's we're at a point now in 2016 where it's not it's not a new shiny object it's not even really an option in my opinion it's it's the way it's it's one other way of how we're doing business it's one other really valuable way to generate new business and to keep in touch with with clients and and realtors so you know it can't be looked at as like this little add-on like a bolt-on it's really you really got to think about it how does this make sense and you overall you know scheme of your business just like with you know I always use the example of imagine you know imagine as a mortgage professional you told yourself okay I'm only going to answer the phone for five minutes today because I don't want to be on the phone all day right but that's sort of the advice we hear about social media and again I don't think anybody should be on Facebook all day long but just understand it it's it's not just cat videos and you know people playing candy crush it's a it's a really valuable way to build your business yeah if you're smart about it right let's be in tell you which is obviously you know what you're doing out there it's helping people be smart about it okay so let's let's switch into then the the talk or one of the talks I guess you gave at in men I'm kind of intrigued with this concept of traditional marketing plus new tech equals new and lasting relationships and you talked about that at in men what what do you set that up for us what does that mean yeah so you know for for years and years obviously there was there was traditional marketing and that's that's where I got my started marketing right doing newspaper ads and magazines and and what they would what they would call interruption marketing right today right right billboards and commercials commercials that we fast forward we don't watch and all of that right and now we have you know quote unquote new technology the internet and social media digital marketing and everything and so where I really believe is that I I don't necessarily think it's one of the other I think traditional marketing still works in some regard it depends on on what it is obviously but I think we're the the magic or the secret sauce is when you can bridge the two and so an example of that is you know for example on Facebook we we all know when it's someone's birthday right and we can be one of the 300 people that writes on their wall and says happy birthday or we could take it a step further and be one of the three people that calls them on their birthday or two days ahead of time sends them a carb in the mail and I really believe in this philosophy of taking the online offline right where we see things that happen in real life whether it's you know happy things you know not so happy things whatever it might be and you know and connecting with people beyond just writing on their Facebook page there's so much I know it sounds corny but there's a lot of magic in the one-to-one when you can reach out to someone personally and say hey you know I saw what you posted and just thinking of you or congratulations it doesn't take a whole lot it's just this extra effort to sort of surprise and delight people and bridge that gap between traditional and new technology and and because of what we do is such a relationship business you know for most people I talked about this at Inman for most people buying and selling a home is an extremely personal emotional stressful process and when we think beyond oh they're just the lead it's just another transaction and you know get into that philosophy of understanding that that's I think such a big opportunity and when you can share that especially on social media and how you have helped clients or whatever the story is it's it's such a powerful thing yeah and I think one of the things you talk about there is surprise and delight right that's what you're alluding to yeah definitely no there's I don't think we talk enough about that in social media we talk a lot about how often to post and what platforms to be on which and by the way that's all an important conversation I'm not just kidding that but you know when you can surprise someone I mean I'll give you a real actionable tip here because I know I'm sure you're looking for actionable items but one of my favorite things to do is within Facebook so within Facebook there's the Facebook Messenger app which I'm sure you're familiar with Facebook Messenger well what a lot of people don't know with Facebook Messenger is you can actually leave voice messages for people you can call them you can also leave a voice message so one of the ways I try to surprise and delight people on their birthday is instead of just writing on their wall I'll now of course if it's my mom I'll call my mom right but you know clients or whatever I I will a lot of times really they may Facebook voice message using Facebook Messenger and it's as simple as hey Jeff I thought was your birthday today just want to reach out hope you're having an awesome day today and they're looking forward to seeing you soon and I have to say every time I do that almost every time I do that the reaction is oh my gosh that was so cool how did you do that thank you so much and it's a little way to surprise and delight delight somebody they don't expect it right and they hear your voice and so just just just one small example of just like taking it to the next level to do the unexpected if that makes sense can you give us a quick walk through on how you actually use that functionality yeah so when you're in Facebook Messenger basically Facebook Messenger for people who don't know is the Facebook app which will allow you to send private messages to people but within the app I'm just opening it up as I'm talking you really quick you basically you you compose a new message and as you're composing a new message there's at the bottom of your screen there's a number of different icons you can you can type you get an emoji right and there's a little there's a little microphone icon and so when you click the microphone icon then you'll you'll see a big red button that says record and I'm using an iPhone so an Android it might look a little bit different but once you click the microphone icon there's a record button you hit record and you only have a minute which I learned the hard way so you can't go on and on you hit record and then you talk just talking your phone and then you let go of the button and it just sends it to to whoever you sent it to and they don't need the app to listen to it they can listen to it on regular Facebook or or whatever it may be it'll just show up as a kind of a little audio file that they just click on and they can listen to that's really cool that's has a lot of different applications when it comes to various ways we need to communicate with different clients and partners you know millennials of course being one would be interesting one to test very cool all right so that's a great application especially great too if you if you don't want to get on camera just yet you just want to leave an audio message that's a great way to to start yeah very interesting we also do a whole separate session just on video alone okay so traditional marketing plus new tech so how you know advice for people on building relationships you talk about relationships are built with small interactions let's say I'm a loan officer I've got a page I've got some realtors following me you know and I want to be able to convert some of those realtors that are following me to some coffee meetings or whatever to see if we can have a referral partner relationship sure how would I you recommend I go about doing that so there's there's a couple things first of all and I'll just talk about in the context of Facebook because I do think Facebook's one of the best ways to do this so what I would recommend is first of all you do have a business page so you'd want to have a business page where you're you know being consistent about posting content being helpful my year doing Facebook lives and you're putting out good content on your business page but where the relationship building piece of it especially for a mortgage professional who's trying to build those relationships with realtors in my opinion one of the best places to do that is actually on your personal profile on Facebook so your personal profile obviously can't be all about business it's actually against Facebook's terms of service to you know completely have your personal profile be all about business but what you can do one of the things I recommend is on your personal profile if your friends with 10 or 20 agents whatever it might might be Facebook has a great functionality where you can create a list you can go to facebook.com forward slash bookmarks forward slash lists and you can create a list now you could you know organize all your friends in the list if you really wanted to but at a minimum you can create a list and the lists are private so the agents aren't going to know they're on a list but you might create a list of and just call it you know local agents or whatever you want to call it and once you've put you know 510 20 of those agents into a list one of the best things that you can do is when you're on Facebook maybe you'll maybe you only do have a few minutes today go to your list of agents spend five or 10 minutes look through that list and what you'll see is instead of your noisy news feed of 500 people you'll see the 20 agents you want to connect with and then you take a few minutes to like or comment interact on what they're talking about maybe they're talking about their their kids or their dogs or whatever they're talking about and you take a few minutes to comment and interact and obviously don't click like on everything don't be creepy don't be that person right no stalkers no stalkers exactly and maybe there's an opportunity to reach out they happy birthday whatever and the reason why that's so important is every like every share every comment it adds up and that's how we build these relationships over the course of time so when you can get really intentional about connecting and engaging with people on that personal level over the course of time it makes a lot of sense you know after a few weeks or a few months to reach out and say it's been so great keeping in touch with you well you know gosh it looks like it's such a great time in Hawaii I'd love to catch a coffee with you and to see how we could collaborate you know how does your week has a you know next week look for you and and that's a kind of an easy transition you know from versus just a you know out of the blue hey how's it going you know so I think that's that's one of the things and we see that with you know a lot of the people who are part of our academy that's honestly one of the number one things that they're doing to get new business and to build relationships is they're creating this list within Facebook you can do it on Twitter too so if you prefer Twitter you can create Twitter lists but if you find most of your agents are on Facebook it's a really simple thing to do so that would be a big thing wow great tips yeah I'm gonna dive into that experiment with that for sure I like it yeah absolutely okay um so some great tips there and and now I'm thinking of these various when I talked to a lot of loan officers you know I hear a lot of you know good and bad stuff about social media it depends on where people are out about that they've got their own beliefs what is your thought on automating your social media meaning you know as you know there's companies out there that will automate posts for you where essentially you're not posting anything at all and then there's the hybrid where you got some that are doing it for you and you chime in and personalize some you know what are your thoughts on that well where do I start so I think some automation when it's done right and by the way just I'm just not to interrupt you sorry but I think you already know I'm not talking about like buffer right that that's different than what I'm talking about I'm talking about if I wasn't clear on that just for the listeners I'm talking about platforms that will actually publish content that they produce for you on your behalf versus using something like buffer which is going to automatically post your own posts for example so sorry for that just wanted to be clear but go ahead no I I appreciate that that makes a difference um well at the risk of sending controversial all right controversy I'm honestly not a really not a big fan of companies that create all the content and post everything for you and I think I think they have the best of intentions I think there there is some great content that's out there I've seen some some companies do it well but the problem is is that social media is social right and so you know the example I can give is imagine having a dinner party with your 10 most important clients and instead of you being there you send your assistant great example I like that so that's kind of how I view it now you know like you said there's nothing wrong with using buffer or I I love using hoot sweet to schedule out some of your content I mean I'm a huge believer in thinking ahead and you know planning out your social just like you would do with any other marketing or maybe you have an assistant or a you know a freelance copywriter who's helping you with some of that there's nothing wrong with that part of it especially from a content perspective but if you're I just I see too often you know mortgage professionals and and realtors who who understand that they want to solve this kind of you know quote-unquote problem with social media and they just turn they turn over the keys to the kingdom and they're like great I'll pay this person or this company you know 50 bucks a month or whatever it is to post for me and it to in my opinion it's just putting a bandaid over it it's not actually like taking advantage of the opportunity that that is with social so I understand why a lot of people do it because they think it's helping but it's not it's not really helping I think something is better than nothing right right and and I disagree I think you know if you if you're not going to do it if you really really you know don't like it and it's just not your thing I get that I mean in some ways it might be better to not be there you know to be there but not really be there if that makes sense no totally a couple of thoughts I have on that one is you know it's like you alluded to with sending your assistant to the the dinner party you can't outsource your relationships exactly nobody can build those but you and so you know automating someone else writing your content for you if it's not in your if it's not you that's going to show up right exactly exactly and there and and I want to be clear to and say that there is there's nothing wrong with having you know if you have the the budget to have a marketing person or an assistant or someone who can help with certain things for example I know a lot of mortgage professionals who who hire a copywriter and they help them write create blog content or they have a videographer who helps them you know edit video or and that's perfectly fine right you you know not every mortgage person is a writer I get that right but it's the personal side you can't outsource that you can have your assistant looking at your you know client list on Facebook going happy birthday right I'm gonna guess you could but you just you're you're you're missing a huge opportunity there so right okay yeah so so back to like you said scheduling makes sense using something like who'd sweet or or buffer and you know I know you're talking to a big part of your focus is getting smart with social media and stop wasting time so what other best practices do you recommend for people to be able to manage this right okay I bought into it I know I need to be on social media and I got some ideas on what I could be doing but how I just haven't have the time how do I fit this into my schedule well I think I think there's a couple things I think one of the big things to think about is is content you know is thinking about how can I tell the story of what does it feel like to work with me where is there what kind of value how am I different than every other mortgage professional in town and so what I would recommend if someone's at the starting place or maybe they've been on social while they're kind of trying to take it to the next level honestly where I think the best place to start is with a calendar and whether that's a physical calendar or google calendar or spreadsheet and start to think about what are the what are the topics that you could talk about that you could start to create content for the next few weeks few months you know next 30 60 days and start to kind of plug things in so it might be as simple as okay back to schools coming up I can talk about that with the holidays coming up like tax time you start to kind of plug in things that are you know that are relevant and you start to kind of to plan ahead and to think about that and then you can go okay well these are the topics I'm going to talk about how is that going to happen am I going to do it on Facebook live am I going to create a blog you know and figure out how how that's actually going to to be created but kind of taking a step back and sort of creating an editorial calendar if you will I think that makes that makes a big difference and then after you thought about that really putting in your schedule when that's going to happen so whether it's every Friday at 10 a.m. you're going to do a Facebook live or maybe preferred to to you know write a blog post or you're going to schedule some of your content for most agents and brokers and mortgage professionals if it's not on their calendar it's not going to happen you know so just carving a carving out some time and I mean the good news is it doesn't necessarily have to take an inordinate amount of time I would say that the a lot of the academy members that that we're working with they are spending anywhere from about five to eight hours a week on scheduling creating content engaging with people it's not a lot of time it's just making the time to do it hmm no that's great advice and you know just just personally speaking I can relate to that so much in terms of building out an editorial or a content calendar you've it's not going to happen unless you do that because I'm sure you've been there you know we're also there in front of our machines are like okay gosh it's Wednesday at 8 a.m. what the heck am I going to post today exactly exactly and I sometimes when you say like editorial calendar it just sounds like this oh this is a huge project but the advice I can give everybody is you know when it's late at night or early in the morning depending if you're a night owl or an early bird just shut everything down take out a piece of paper and just for 10 minutes just brainstorm on you know I 10 20 30 things what are things that people ask you all the time what are things that you just know so easily and I think for a lot of people especially mortgage and real estate they're like gosh does everybody know that you know when things are so easy to you that you just you just know them those are great topics yes right so just brainstorm and that's where you start okay real quickly then let's let's um talk a little bit about educate our listeners on um curating content because there's obviously your own content you know create it but then there's this thing called curate content um break that down a little bit if you wouldn't mind yeah absolutely so my opinion is that I think one of the best best things you can do for social media is obviously there's a relationship piece of it which we already talked about and then there's the content piece of it so you know unless you are a you know a full on media company it's very hard to create every single piece of content uh that you're going to put out there so obviously you've got created content and the other part of that is curated which means you're you're finding really great content um and there's a couple a couple ways that that I like to do it one of my favorite tools uh is a it's a paid subscription but I I think it's really really helpful to tool called buzz sumo dot com um buzz sumo dot com you know you pay a monthly fee or whatever it is but what's great about that you can actually put in search terms and it'll pull up for you trending topics things that are most relevant uh you know so for me I talk a lot about social media and it's always great to be able to go there first to see what's the latest thing that's happening with Facebook what's the latest thing with Snapchat or or or real estate or mortgage and it's really a simple way to curate great content quickly so I'll find links and articles um and by the way curating as you know but I always like to clarify this curating doesn't mean you're copying and pasting content and putting it on your site it simply means you're sharing a link you're sharing a video and saying this is a great read or this is you know what a great video and you're you're giving your two cents and you're sharing that on Facebook or any of your other social networks you're by the way that's a great kind of um distinction there because a lot of people just just you know blankly share links and content with no comment no personalization on it but I think I think that's a great point I don't want to overlook is why are you even sharing this video or this piece of content with your audience you need to add your two cents so to speak about that right exactly and it doesn't have to be a whole long thing it can just be you know this is a great read you know I definitely recommend you know checking this out whatever it is mm-hmm or pose a question to your audience hey you know found some good points in here what do you think exactly yep absolutely okay the other quick tip I'll just give really quick for curating um sort of secret tip for whatever reason a lot of people don't realize that you can do this um but also on Facebook you know we talked about Facebook lists for friends but you can also create what's called Facebook interests lists mm-hmm which I find to be really great for curating content and basically what an interest list is is you can create a list where you put in some of your favorite business pages and for example so if if I'm a realtor in the San Francisco Bay area I could create an interest list based on things around San Francisco so maybe the interest list would be you know SF gate or the SF Chronicle or local reporters or my favorite coffee shop and I could put in you know five 10 20 pages that have to do with my local area and then when I'm looking to curate content maybe a couple times a week when I'm looking to schedule out some of that some of that content I could pull up that interest list and it'll show me sort of a newsfeed of just those pages so again it's kind of a way to sort of segment you probably already like a number of business pages and things in your area but for real estate and mortgage it's great to be able to put out that really local relevant content and creating an interest list is a really easy way to do that wow that's really cool I didn't know about that good tip yeah thank you I'll be saving myself some time on curating content exactly and then of course there's like you know in terms of best practices there's like a balance right of self-generated content versus curated what what do you say to that you know the more original content you can put out the better and that's just kind of the the cold hard truth when possible but where I think there's a big opportunity is you don't necessarily need to reinvent the wheel all the time so for just as an example we we publish a blog post once a week that blog post is our pillar piece of content and out of that blog post we create a lot of little individual pieces of content that might end up being you know a few snaps on Snapchat it might end up being a few graphics on Instagram it might be a you know a few tweets on Twitter and so although you're creating content it's it's a way of kind of slicing and dicing it you know 10 or 15 different ways and I think honestly in a in an ideal world you know if you can have half created content half curated content like sort of that nice 50 50 balance the better but I really think one of the big opportunities is to be able to take like your show right here you know this is a great example you could take this show and break it up into you know 10 little teeny you know quotes that you put out on Instagram over the course of three months right and it's all directing back to this one piece of pillar content so you know just kind of thinking through that process and there's some great tools out there to to do that as well you got a couple yes of course is a good segue right one of my favorite tools is Canva okay yeah love Canva Canva is awesome and what I really like about Canva there's Canva for for work so Canva.com is free Canva for work I think it's like 10 or 15 bucks a month or something and it's really easy to add in your logos your colors your fonts make it really easy to be able to to create quotes and graphics you know if you're not a if you're not a graphic designer you don't have Photoshop's super easy to do there's also an app now there's the Canva iPhone and Android app which makes it really easy if you're like me and you're on the go you know it just create it really fast on your phone which which is really great there's there's some other great apps that are out there also one of my favorite iPhone apps is an app called word swag which is a fun app to create you know quotes and graphics really quickly and easily from your phone yeah and this is a great point because again I know the listeners right hearing this are like it goes back to that oh well how do I have time to do that and and this is how you have time to do that is number one right have a plan map out kind of your content strategy even if it's just a week at a time in your whatever your schedule is if it's once a week great if it's twice you know whatever you can fit into that and then identify those the platforms I'm just doing a recap for you here identify the platforms you want to be on if it's Facebook or something else and then what are the tools you're going to use to share that content is it something like a hoot suite or buffer or some of the other tools out there I know you're a fan of I think me dead girl as well yeah and then right how you're going to repurpose that because I think it's a great point you shared and a lot of people overlook this is is taking that existing content and repurposing in that and yeah that's going to maybe it takes a half hour right to be able to slice and dice that one blog poster that one Facebook share but the value the mileage you get from that is well worth you fitting that time in I guess as compared to what else would you be doing you know right yeah it makes big difference I mean if you're creating really great content like doing a podcast is a great example I mean it takes time to organize it to put it together and that's the big piece of content you know so being able to take it to the next level and really get the most mileage out of it I think makes a lot of sense and my my tip by the way for doing this is I'm a big fan of batching my content which means if I'm going to sit down for 20 minutes and do a video if I can do one video I can do four right or if I can do one graphic I can do six so you just you know it's a matter of not getting distracted which is sometimes difficult but you know you just kind of batch your content I believe the same thing with scheduling you know generally every Friday I sit down and I schedule the next five to seven days right and you you're thinking ahead and you start to get in this process of of thinking ahead and and creating multiple pieces of content and it just the more you do it the faster it gets you know you'll for me I can write a blog post in 30 minutes you should take me half a day you just get better that's awesome okay cool so we're almost at the end of our time here but I did want to I promise to talk about some highlights done the from the in-man connect conference in San Francisco and I'm assuming you know the more folks that are listening to this know what in-man is I'm trying to think how do I articulate or describe in men what did you refer to that as the Wall Street Journal of Real Estate it kind of is yeah it's sort of the Wall Street Journal for real estate right and they do all these conferences and everything they have like the best of the best for speakers and thought leaders there and obviously you you've been part of that for a long long time but I'm looking through the thread here of like you know uh what did you call this takeaways from from in-man and and there's one I do want to talk about just because I thought it was a great example uh and of course Gary Vee gets all the attention uh so he had that comment and this is why this is why I think this is relevant why I'm sharing it for those that are hearing this going you know that's funny because you know I my wife and I were talking about my mom the other day and it's like well you know I mean you could be on social media on Facebook whatever and you know you ever hear those phrases it's like oh you kids today and oh I'm not on social and all this kind of stuff and it stood out for me because I just had that conversation and Gary shared something um which was I think you know I may be paraphrasing here but basically he's like yeah at one point you didn't know how to ride a bike but you learned how to do that too right exactly just see Gary saying that's exactly yes that's exactly what he said in fact he might he might he said it about a bike or a car you know it's like at one point car yeah you didn't know how to do it but you figured it out right and you figured it out and his point around that's just because something you didn't grow up with something doesn't mean it doesn't have value exactly and it's fine it's interesting because I have a few friends I don't know if you do but I've got a few friends who are still like you know I'm not on Facebook yeah and and they're like well what do you get out of being and I know there's it's a mixed bag right there's all especially with the political stuff going on oh my gosh crazy people feel like they can just vent and be somebody who they're not right in person right that's very annoying I'll give it that but uh there's so much other benefits I get from that I'm like you know I share these little news tips with him or did you know this has happened or that and I'm like what where are you live are you living under a rock man how else do you get your news you CNN I don't think so exactly no it's it's true I think a lot of people I don't wouldn't say a lot but there's still definitely people of all different generations it's not it you know it's not a generational thing I mean there's I'm in my 40s and there's people who are my age you're like oh you know I'm I'm not on it at all and uh you know and then and then I talk to people you know in their 80s and they're all over Facebook so I just think you know you're you you're my opinion is is that you're if you're not on you're you are kind of missing out on you know it's just it's the way we like it or not it's the way the world is communicating right now and you know one of the things Gary Vaynerchik talked about is he's I wish I thought he made a really good point he said you know how many of you in the room he said you know raise your hand if you if you DVR you're or you Tivo you're your television shows and just about everybody raises their hand and he said and think about it you know when you're do you watch your commercials no we fast forward through the commercials and then what do you do you pick up your phone right and that's where the digital eyeballs all are right now is they're on your mobile device so you know will that be true to us for years from now probably if you know you know who knows it'll be the next big thing but it's true right now and you know you're missing out if you're not there yeah so that was my personal rant um but um anyway to kind of bring it bring it back to a close here what is besides the Gary Vay you know I'm sure that was wonderful um what is one or two things that stand out for you for maybe what's what's coming around the bend and obviously real estate specific really just that you walked away just going like wow you know okay I need to tell my people about this well I think the big thing one of the big things which we were to kind of touch on a little bit was just this whole you know movement towards live you know whether it's Snapchat which is very kind of raw and in the moment um Facebook live you know which rolled out a few uh earlier this year and we are really kind of going through a another big shift you know first there was the internet first everybody had to get websites and then we thought you know just gonna really last and then there was my space and then there was Facebook and now it's like that's not going away and now we sort of come to this next era of not just video but live video and in the moment and you know for I think a lot of us and you kind of touch on this with some of your comments sometimes I think we are we're kind of tired of of those perfect perfect posts right everything's perfect my life is perfect everything is great right on Facebook and Instagram and I think we're we're kind of craving a little bit more of that authenticity that's um realness and I know authenticity such a buzzword but uh that's where I think we're going when it comes to uh to Facebook live and Snapchat and I just think the opportunity is so wide open right now in real estate and mortgage and if you you know if you want to differentiate yourself like now it's a time to do it you know you know what's coming up for me when I hear you say that and this is just you know this as well it's been true since the dawn of time uh we're just looking for additional connections yeah right we want to connect with other human beings that's what we do and I know you've heard it said this way as well in the past social media is just another way to connect now I will add my personal caveat that it will never replace in person right and particularly in a business sense you need to be face to face um which a lot of my followers know however it's an extension of that and it gives kind of a really cool unique and different way um to engage and connect and build those relationships but to kind of your point of the talk you gave it in is you know having that traditional marketing be married up with new tech that's the ideal scenario yeah absolutely there is nothing like meeting face to face there's nothing like uh you know sitting across the table from somebody or you know connecting them at Starbucks or or anything like that it's just social media makes the face to face so much better right because you just you've built that relationship and you know in the past we would do things like send masks you know we would do that this chain email newsletters or you know whatever we did to sort of keep in touch with people and now we we can scale it you know we used to be too hard to keep in touch with everybody went to high school with and all of our college friends and and what's interesting about that by the way is that there's been a lot of studies done about where business comes from with social media and ironically most of the business that comes from social media isn't necessarily from our best friends on Facebook but it's from people who are on the fringe of our lives the people who we normally wouldn't have kept kept in touch with 10 years ago like our you know college roommate or you know a friend of a friend of a friend that's where according to Facebook most of the business comes from is that friend of a friend those fringe relationships which is uh it's really interesting wow that is so we are out of time I know you're busy we've actually gone a little bit over so I'm grateful for that you know um I would love to have you back if you're open to it at some point to maybe take a deep dive on Facebook ads because I do think there's a great opportunity for loan officers there and realtors of course absolutely so if you you're open to that I'm sure the audience would love to have you back so before we wrap though um for those who want to learn more I know we talked about your new academy get social smart which is awesome and really takes a deep dive for people but how where do you want to direct people listening right now to you know want to learn more about you and connect absolutely and I would love to come back by the way there's so much we could talk we could talk so much more about Facebook ads and everything um I'll give the listeners two links so first of all my website katilance.com it's a great place to connect you can sign it for my email newsletter there um when you sign up for the email newsletter you'll get a free copy of my content grid so if you're you know we talked a little bit about editorial calendars and planning and that's a great free resource at katilance.com and then yes our academy if you're really ready to take things to the next level and you're looking for social media education specifically for real estate and mortgage we've got an amazing online academy it's just get socialsmart.com where real estate professionals mortgage professionals they can log in any time of day they've got access to a complete library which teaches social media training content training everything we talk about so that's a really exciting opportunity. Awesome well thank you so much for your time for your experience I got a lot out of it and I'm sure the listeners did as well so you know can't say enough thank you so much and we appreciate it and look forward to the next one. Thank you so much Jeff and thank you everyone who listens today really appreciate being on. All right listeners once again this is Jeff Zimper your host of mortgage marketing radio thanks for tuning in and by the way if you like today's episode or the other ones make sure to take a moment and subscribe on iTunes leave us a rating you don't want to miss out on the next up in coming episodes and just let you know I appreciate you being here we'll see you on the next one. Thanks for listening to mortgage marketing radio one more truth in mortgage marketing get more free training and resources at mortgagemarketinginstitute.com you've heard about the mortgage marketing pro membership before and you just want to quickly remind you if that you're in a place in your business where you simply need more purchased loans you need to fill your pipeline with purchase business let's just face it agents are still a solid pillar of business and sources of purchase business for you well good news our mortgage marketing pro membership helps loan officers like you close more loans without the hassle of chasing agents or cold calling done for you agent classes expert training videos a marketing automation platform that automates the entire process for you everything you need to build your personal brand in your local market attracting convert agents into referral partners plus done for you proven marketing materials and plug and play content to make promoting your class getting agents butts and seats partnering with affiliates real easy but that's not all you'll also get access to our weekly mastermind calls with top elbows authors speakers and coaches to learn the best strategies to grow your business right now in today's market and as an extra bonus for limited time for all new members you'll get access to a database of 200 agents in your local market that have closed anywhere to from eight to 50 transactions in the last 12 months and we'll provide that list uploaded into our platform for you so you can get off to a fast start in reaching actually productive agents so what are you waiting for you can check out more at mortgage marketing dot pro see more of the success stories there and if you feel compelled to do so book a call will have a chat we'll see if it's a fit don't miss out on this opportunity to take your mortgage business to the next level right now head over to mortgage marketing dot pro