#5 An Introduction to Social Media for Business

Podcast – An Introduction to Social Media for Business
Autopilot Your Business Podcast Transcription

Andrew McCauley: Okay. Welcome to another edition of Autopilot Your
Business. My name is Andrew McCauley and I am excited
to be on this particular session and of course joining me
today is the lovely Heather Porter.

Hello, Heather!

Heather Porter: Hello, hello, Andrew. Hello, everybody. Thanks for joining
listening us again and we are both very, very excited about
this episode because we are going to do something we love
and that is social media.

Andrew McCauley: Social media is everywhere in the news, it‟s in the movies,
it‟s in the bus ride to work, it‟s everywhere you go. So,
why not dive into social media and let‟s talk about how we
can use social media and how we can make it work for your
business because, let‟s face it, if you are not using social
media these days, you are sort of being left on the shelf.

Heather Porter: I pretty much say you don‟t exist. I mean, really, let‟s first
face it with YouTube as search engine no. 2 as far as how
many people go there and Facebook is the what, the second
largest or third largest country in the world by population or
people that use it?

Andrew McCauley: Currently at 850 million people as we go to air and they are
due to hit a billion people sometime this year in 2012.

Heather Porter: Love it. Huge. So, let‟s just kind of debunk the myths
about social media, talk about it in a really easy-to-
understand way today and just… like literally everybody,
you guys need it, you really do need this for your business.

Listen to the audio version of this document HERE
Get your FREE Online Survival guide at www.autopilotyourbusiness.com
© 2013 AutoPilot Your Business. All Rights Reserved.

Note: We of course can't promise that all links mentioned in this document will be live,
and if you stumble upon any that aren't, we apologize!
1


So, our intention today is to make it easy so you leave this
podcast and you say “Yep, I know what I am going to do
and why I am going to do it.”

And Andrew, you are the social media bloke, are you not?

Andrew McCauley: Well, that‟s what they call me, that‟s what they call me.

Heather Porter: So, I propose that we sort of turn the tables for this
podcast and I become more of the interviewer today. What
do you think?

Andrew McCauley: Alright, you got it, you got it.

Heather Porter: Cool, alright.

Andrew McCauley: We got to play.

Heather Porter: Alright. So, Mr. Andrew McCauley, here is your first
question. Actually, let‟s just talk basically about social
media as a whole. Tell me a little bit more about what is
social media and where is it going as a general
understanding. What is it, what is social media?

Andrew McCauley: I guess the term social media can be a little bit deceiving
for some people. We look at the word „social‟. Okay,
„social‟ is interacting with people and that‟s what we do; we
have been brought up to interact with people and deal with
people, build relationships but the word „media‟ I think


2


confuses a lot of people. The word „media‟ traditionally, as
we know it, is the media, whether it‟s TV media, whether
it‟s newspaper media, whether it‟s radio media and most of
those medias, up until early 200, most of those medias
weren‟t telling you what to do. It wasn‟t a conversation at
all. People were saying that you watch TV and it would be
a one-way conversation, it would be someone on TV giving
you information without you interacting at all back to the
TV. And then you have got radio where you are listening to
a radio DJ and you are listening to the music because there
is no interaction apart from when we call in on a talk-back
show. Most of the time it was one way traffic. Same with
newspapers and magazines, they are all one-way traffic.
There is no interaction going on. And then come along in
early 2000s when Facebook and MySpace and some of
those early social media sites popped up. That‟s when it
started seeing people having a voice and they could say
“Hey, I am here, I can listen, I can respond to what you are
saying and if I don‟t like you, you are going to know about
it.”

Heather Porter: Sure. So, it‟s two ways, basically a two-way conversation.

Andrew McCauley: Totally two-way and I don‟t know if the word „media‟ should
be in that whole thing when we are talking about social
media because it‟s probably stifling a lot of people. It
should be something like „social connection‟ or „social
relationship‟ more than „social media‟.

Heather Porter: Sure.

Andrew McCauley: Just so people can get their head around what it is because
what is also happening today – and we will go into this a
little bit deeper probably in another show but – people


3


getting that idea that as media we have to tell people what
to do, we have to tell them one-way conversation, we have
to sell them something and we see so many people on
social media platforms whether it‟s Facebook or Twitter or
any of those that all they are doing is telling people “Buy
my stuff, go here, do this” and they are losing that
connection with people because they are not doing it the
right way.

Heather Porter: You brought up a really interesting distinction, actually.
They are kind of hard wired into the old thinking of tell, tell,
tell people to buy, buy, buy where actually social media,
from what I understand it to be, is literally a place to hang
out with your friends, family, client and just be a little bit
more of who you are and give a little bit more value back
into the world.

Andrew McCauley: And that‟s exactly why I say it should be called „social
connection‟ or „social relationships‟ or something like that
because that‟s what it is – it‟s hanging out and
communicating two-way backwards and forwards about
what it is that you need to talk about, adding value to the
conversation. You hear this a lot of time – you don‟t go to
a pub, you don‟t go to a coffee shop with a friend and all
you do is tell them what they should be doing and buying
your stuff.

Heather Porter: Yeah.

Andrew McCauley: You build a relationship because it‟s a communication tool
and this is exactly what social media is all about.
Everything you have learned in business – now, the
business rules have never changed; it‟s just the way the


4


delivery platform has changed that people are not picking
up on.

Heather Porter: I have some of our clients and they say to me “So, what am
I supposed to say on Facebook, for example? What do I
actually say?” and I say “Basically, pretend like you have
walked into a networking event and whatever you would
say in that event is appropriate to say on your Facebook
page. So, you wouldn‟t actually go up to somebody you
have never met face to face and just say “Hi, have a free
report. Sign up now for it” or “Hey, 50% off. Go get it
now.” You have to build a relationship so they actually
understand who you are at first.

So, tell me a little bit more about the platforms that exist.
So, the big picture – what social media platforms are
actually out there right now?

Andrew McCauley: Okay. Well, there are probably around about… actually, I
don‟t even know the numbers but I am talking in the
hundreds… there are social media platforms in the
hundreds although most people think “Hey, what are you
talking about? I thought there are only two or three.” In
actual fact, there are hundreds of different platforms out
there and some of them are more directed for certain
individuals or certain groups of people but most of them are
accessible to everybody. It‟s just some do different things
over and above all this and then of course there are at least
probably the top five which I call the Big Five and I will give
you a quick rundown of what each of those top five are
because everyone‟s pretty much heard of them but the top
five at the moment, in no particular order, are Facebook,
obviously no. 1. If you are not on Facebook then, as you
said, you don‟t exist.


5



Andrew McCauley: A lot of people are still scared to be on Facebook too, by
the way, and I have gone through a couple of training
sessions with some people recently about that. They are
not sure what to do and how to interact and their biggest
fear is looking silly in front of other people but the one
thing I will say about these platforms is that you can‟t
break them, you can get on Facebook and you can get on
Twitter and LinkedIn and YouTube and all of these, you will
not be able to break them, let‟s face it. Facebook pay
people to try and break it. They are paying tens of people
to try and break it because they want to make it as safe as
possible. So, if you are worried about breaking things, you
will not be breaking anything, I can guarantee that.

The other thing that people are worried about is the fact
that “How do I use it if I am not very technically minded?”
and let me tell you 850 million out there are not all internet
gurus.

Heather Porter: Really?

Andrew McCauley: So, they design these things, they design these platforms
for people that have very low internet usability. They have
to make it as friendly as possible because if they don‟t, they
wouldn‟t have 850 million or a billion people using it. So,
they are generally pretty user friendly and it‟s not that hard
to get on board.

Heather Porter: You talked about Facebook. So, what are some of these
other ones, the big ones. You have just said “Well, there
are hundreds of them” and I am thinking “Oh my gosh!


6


Really?” I am not even using maybe a few of these right.
So, what are the ones I should focus on, I guess. So, there
is Facebook but what else?

Andrew McCauley: Facebook is the first one. Just a quick general review of
Facebook is on Facebook you find a lot of old friends, you
can connect with people, you can do all sorts of things like
post videos, post photos, put all sorts of links there and
that sort of stuff. So, it‟s a great platform just to share
your life, just to connect with people. You don‟t have to
share what you had for breakfast, you don‟t have to do all
that sort of stuff. Just share what you find interesting and
valuable and something that‟s going to add value to other
people as well.

Heather Porter: Yep.

Andrew McCauley: So, that‟s Facebook.

The nest one is Twitter. Now, Twitter confuses a lot of
people and the main point of confusion is that you have
only got 140 characters to convey your message. Now, 140
characters is a not a lot and many people think “Well, what
can you say in 140 characters.” Well, what we need to do
is jump on Twitter and you will see millions of results every
minute of what people can say in 140 characters or less.

Heather Porter: And that brings me actually to another question, another
point. A lot of people say “Well, isn‟t it just incessant
ramblings? What‟s so valuable about just little ramblings all
the time that they are having on Twitter? Why do you need
it? What is it for?”


7


Andrew McCauley: Totally. One of the greatest things I like about Twitter is
that it has one of the best real-time search engines. Now,
by that I mean if I am looking for… let‟s say we all heard
about Whitney Houston dying on the weekend. Now, if I
was to go to Google on Sunday morning, US time, and type
in “Whitney Houston”, I would have got a whole range of
different results from Google and we would have got her
history, her background. I might not have gotten much
about her death because it wasn‟t hitting the websites so
that Google could index those particular articles.

Heather Porter: Okay.

Andrew McCauley: Right? So, Google would have information about her songs,
her Grammy awards and all that sort of stuff and where she
grew up and fan pages and all that sort of stuff but the
current news, unless I have clicked on the news and found
some relevant sites, the current news actually didn‟t report
her death 27 minutes after Twitter started doing it and I
saw this today, this article today. If I was to go and find
current news about Whitney Houston‟s death, I would find
everything I needed to know within minutes of her dying
essentially because that‟s what people do – they are
sending the information that‟s current. The good thing
about Twitter is it grabs that information and gives it to you
within seconds. So, the search engine is accessing the data
within seconds of people posting it.

Heather Porter: Just like an amazing news source.

Andrew McCauley: It‟s phenomenal. Now, you can talk about a news source
and say “Well, that‟s good if I wanted to know the news but
I really don‟t care.”


8


Okay, great. So, here is way that I use Twitter just for
business and business purposes. Let‟s say that you are a
business coach, for instance, and you might do a search on
the term „business coach‟ or „business advice‟ or „need
business advice‟. Now, if I was to type in that term and
somebody just in an hour or two beforehand had written a
tweet that‟s saying something like “Hey, help, I need some
business advice, my business is going down” and I was a
business coach, I could easy contact that person within
minutes of them actually posting that tweet and say “Hey,
guess what, I am a business coach. I know you need some
business advice. How about we get together and I can give
you some advice?”

Heather Porter: I love it. So, basically, from more of a layman‟s
perspective, you are kind of looking at Facebook as a place
to almost develop your personality and your relationship
and what you can give and help people out with whereas
Twitter is more, what you say, for research and very timely
information of what‟s going on in your space and how to
find clients well.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly. And I think it‟s created a very good timely group
information source. So, as soon as someone says “Oh, I
need some business advice”, you are not missing the bus
by looking at a Google search that‟s maybe a couple of days
old. You are over there within minutes or hours saying
“Hey, I have got the answer for you” and all of a sudden,
that person says “Wow! Somebody‟s coming to my
rescue.” So, you can find all sorts of great information. If
you are looking for an answer to something you can‟t find
anywhere on the net, post it on Twitter and you will see
some great results.


9


Heather Porter: Love it. That‟s a very great distinction on the value of
Twitter because it is so much more than what people just
think it is – “Oh, it‟s a quick little tweet here and there” –
but it‟s an incredible market research tool, it‟s incredible
timeliness tool, finding clients.

Actually, another quick question on that before we move on
to the next platform. So, we have talked about researching
and finding people that are asking questions and maybe
potential new clients but I am still a little bit confused as to
what I as a user would post. What would I actually say on
it?

Andrew McCauley: Well, you can do similar sort of things as you would on
Facebook. The whole idea is adding value to the people
that are following you. So, if you have got a whole range of
followers, they are following you for a reason. Now, most
of the time, they are following you for a specific reason
because they have come to your profile through something
whether you posted in your bio that you are a business
coach with knowledge or something like that, whatever
happens to be in your bio, branding expert, people are
saying “Well, if you are a branding expert, I want to hear
what you have got to say.” So, I might find you on Twitter
and I will say “Okay, you are a branding expert. Cool! Let
me see what you have got to say.” So, you may post out
some tips like “First tip of the day” and you put a tip on
branding. So, I am looking at you to add value to what my
knowledge base already is.

Give me a branding tip, just give me a quick little tip, give
me a branding tip.

Heather Porter: How to ask the question what you do.


10


Andrew McCauley: Okay. So, you may have a blog post, for instance. Let‟s
say you have written a blog post because it‟s much more
than 140 characters long.

Heather Porter: Yes.

Andrew McCauley: So, you have written a blog post or you have done a video
or something like that on how to answer the question “What
do you do?” So, you may go to twitter and say “Just
written a post on how to answer “what do you do?”” and
you put a link in there to your blog.

Heather Porter: Got it. Okay, go it.

Andrew McCauley: Right. So, there you are putting links. So, what you can
with Twitter is not just answering in 140 characters but you
are putting links inside your tweets so that people can get
more information. It‟s almost like a teaser. It‟s almost like
“Hey, here is the headline. Now, come and read the full
story.”

Heather Porter: That‟s what I was going to say. Yeah, Twitter is more of a
headlines whereas Facebook is more about personality, isn‟t
it, because you obviously have so much more space to talk
about things. So, you kind of cut it down to quick, short
and sweet on Twitter and then you elaborate more on
Facebook.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly, exactly. Again, that‟s a good point. It‟s the quick
version, the headline version of the news and if you want to


11


read more about the headlines, click on the links that are
often in the tweets to find out more.

Heather Porter: Love it, great. Okay, I am clear, I am clear, Andrew. So,
what else? What else do we have to use in our social media
tool belt.

Andrew McCauley: Well, let‟s talk about YouTube, I guess it‟s the next one.


Andrew McCauley: YouTube is video sharing website just recently YouTube
announced that they now upload 60 hours of video to its
servers every minute.

Heather Porter: That‟s insane! Wow, wow, wow! Yeah.

Andrew McCauley: 60 hours of video every minute to YouTube. Now, why is it
so much video going on? Because, I will tell you why,
mobile phones or cell phones these days are getting better
and better with better quality videos that people are taking
videos of everything. Every single thing you see is being
videotaped now because everyone has a video camera in
their pocket and it‟s only going to get more prolific.


Andrew McCauley: So, the uptake of that is that video… I mean, a year or two
ago, you had a think called Flip camera and Flip went out of


12


business. Then they had the Kodak Zi8 which was a great
little camera. Kodak‟s going out of business now too.
These cameras aren‟t selling anymore because everything
that you need is inside your phone and the phones are only
getting better, as I said. So, there are more videos being
uploaded as we go through YouTube.

So, why should you be on YouTube? Because that‟s what
people are watching now. People are spending nights at a
time on YouTube rather than TV or videos.

Heather Porter: You know what else too? I was just teaching a group the
other day because I read something really interesting about
YouTube that people go to YouTube to find out how to learn
things, to get tutorials. So, they will go to YouTube as their
search engine like Google to type in “how to” and then fill in
the blank.

Andrew McCauley: Real time.

Heather Porter: That‟s the place… Yes, same, same. So, that‟s the place if
you are positioning yourself as an expert or your business
or your services. That‟s where you want to be to actually
show what your services can do for people, isn‟t it?

Andrew McCauley: Oh, totally, totally. And it‟s the best place to do it because
people know where to go now. They know that YouTube is
a „how to‟ place. It‟s a site full of funny cat videos and
„how-to‟s. So, you can do anything you want, you can learn
anything you want on YouTube pretty much and it‟s an
amazing amount of information for free. So, you want to
start using it. Now, YouTube has just changed a whole
range of their backend and their dashboard stuff and it‟s


13


becoming more and more social now. So, when you log
into YouTube, there are people recommending other videos
for you. There are connections being made similar to what
Twitter and Facebook are doing. So, you can post updates
and things like that. We are in the middle of doing an
entirely new product on YouTube right now because there
are so many changes to YouTube, so many cool features of
YouTube that people just don‟t know it because they are
not used to it just yet.

Heather Porter: Love it, love it. You know what else? I have to tell a quick
little story off in a little tangent. You know how in YouTube
you are watching videos in your space, the things that you
want to learn more about and then suddenly down the right
hand side you see a scary face or a scary clown video, like
a funny cat video and you start to kind of go down the
wormhole and you are clicking on all these videos. The
other day I went down a very freaky wormhole where there
were kind of deformed people videos and the one thing I
absolutely love to know and would always stay with me is
that one of the comments right up at the top underneath
the video was “Ooh! So, I have gone to that site of
YouTube, have I?” I just thought I should share that
because that story proves a point is that the way it‟s
designed is to have you click around and hang out there for
a while. So, there are all these great little tools that you
can have your videos showing up on the right hand side
that says “Suggested Videos” and all that.

Andrew McCauley: I think we will do an entire podcast about YouTube tricks
and tips because I have just come away from a place
where I have learned a whole range of new cool ones which
I am testing right now and getting some amazing results.
So, I think we will have to share them on a separate
podcast.


14


Heather Porter: Definitely. Actually, I am already feeling that there has to
be a separate podcast for each of these tools because there
is so much on each thing.

Andrew McCauley: I think we will do that too.

Heather Porter: Yes.

Andrew McCauley: Just for the listeners, I will give you a quick tip about
wormholes and how to avoid them or how to get go down
the safety road back to where you were. I often find myself
looking at those wormholes and if you are not sure what I
am talking about, a wormhole is essentially where you think
you are going to look at one video and somebody else
grabs your attention and you go and click on that and then
something else will grab your attention and, as you said,
the next thing you know you are down a really weird place.

Heather Porter: Yup.

Andrew McCauley: Often I open those videos with a right click of my mouse
and I open in a new tab. So, the original video that I am
watching, I keep it open in that tab and then I will open the
wormholes in separate tabs. So, I can easily step out of
those tabs and close them down as I go. So, I still
remember exactly what the original video was and why I
was there in the first place.

Heather Porter: It‟s a good little tip, Andrew. I like that.


15


Andrew McCauley: So, it saves me hours of time.

Heather Porter: So, I guess, on that note let‟s into another little more
serious social media tool and this one is LinkedIn and I will
just preface this with saying that most of the clients that
come us say “No, I don‟t do anything on LinkedIn. I don‟t
really understand why I need to. Isn‟t that where you just
put your CV or your resume. Isn‟t that just for
professionals? Blah, blah, blah.”

So, what is LinkedIn really and why is it such a great tool?

Andrew McCauley: I think LinkedIn is probably the best tool – I have got more
work out of LinkedIn than pretty much anything else and I
don‟t do enough on there and I am still getting more work
than anything else. So, LinkedIn is almost like a Facebook
for professional people. It‟s sparing the gamy apps. There
is no Farmville or that sort of stuff. There are people selling
those sort of things on there and that‟s going to happen
anywhere you go but it‟s not selling like ridiculous amounts
of selling. It‟s more of professional people connecting with
each other and sharing ideas and common knowledge.


Andrew McCauley: Your profile information will house a lot of information in it
than a profile on Twitter or a profile on say Facebook. So,
the great thing about LinkedIn is that you can pretty easily
become an expert in your area quite easily and all you need
to do is have a great profile filled out but there are others
things like joining groups – there is a whole range of groups
on LinkedIn that you can share common knowledge with
people from those groups. You can answer questions.


16


People will pose questions all day and you can answer
them. In fact, they often have 15, 20, 30 different people
answering the same question and what it does is it lets you
become the expert and people see “Wow! He has answered
another question or he has answered this question. I am
going to go and find out more about that person.” And just
by answering questions, I get people coming to me saying
“Hey, that‟s a great answer. I have never thought of doing
that” and because I have given them something or
something different or something even, dare I say, a little
bit secret of what I do, people want to find out more about
me and who I am. I just got one today even from LinkedIn
saying “Wow! I never knew that you could do that on that
particular topic. That‟s amazing. I never heard of anyone
doing that before. Hey, let‟s connect even more.”

Now, is that making you any money? No, probably not at
this stage but could it? Definitely, it could. It could be
something that leads to something else.

Heather Porter: Definitely. Then a question on that. So, I will be clear on
how to use both Facebook and LinkedIn. Do you post the
same sorts of things on both those platforms and if so, why
or if not, why not? So, what‟s the difference of really
positioning yourself on an expert of both of those?

Andrew McCauley: Once again, it‟s a platform for more professional people.
So, if you are on Facebook and you are posting some great
photos of a barbecue on the weekend, it‟s not going to
really cut it too much on LinkedIn. People want to know
professional information rather than trivial. But at the
same time you still should appear as a person rather than a
robot or a logo. So, if you want to give information about a
topic, what you are doing on LinkedIn just remember that
you are representing your brand in itself. So, you want to


17


keep it professional but also have a human element to it as
well.

Heather Porter: Okay. So, I am going to recap so far as how I understand
these platforms based on what you have said.

Andrew McCauley: Okay, good.

Heather Porter: Okay. So, Facebook is your holistic brand – you as a
person, your personality coming forward. It‟s bits of
photos, it‟s funny little facts, it‟s questions, it‟s
conversations.

Then you have Twitter which is your headlines. It‟s a quick
way of entering into new markets, doing research, and also
getting new blood into your business or into your funnel.

Then you have LinkedIn. This is where you get to kind of
show off your expertise. This is where you get to position
yourself as the expert. Although you may do that slightly in
other places like Facebook and Twitter, this is where you
really get to build your credibility and authority in your
space.

Then you have YouTube. That‟s where you get to teach
people what you do in videos, right? You actually get to
explain and show what you do.

Did I get that right?


18


Andrew McCauley: Yeah, spot on. On YouTube, it‟s not just what you do but
it‟s also what you have done for people too, like you can
show some results, show videos of testimonials. You can
show videos of how other people use your product or
service.

Heather Porter: So, very quickly, what we are learning here is that the
reason why you need all of this and all of it working
together because each thing does a very important thing
for your brand but left alone, if you are just using one of
these little pieces of the puzzle, it‟s not going to give the
whole picture of who you are and what you can do for
somebody.

Andrew McCauley: Totally, totally.


Andrew McCauley: That‟s exactly right. It‟s all about using all of these stuff
together so that your brand is being completed, so you are
not missing anybody. Now, people will say “What if I have
got friends on Twitter and they are also friends on
Facebook, won‟t they get sick of saying the same thing?”
Well, the simple fact is that you are not likely to have any
friends have Facebook and Twitter open at the same time
looking at that sort of information. And don‟t worry about if
someone says it‟s the same post twice. It‟s not a big deal.

Heather Porter: And it might actually just convince somebody because we
are all so busy sometimes, even if you see something twice,


19


you are actually going to click on to it on the second time,
maybe.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. And the other thing I says is “If you have ever been
on the radio or watch TV when news comes on” and let‟s
say the 7 a.m. news and you are listening to a radio report
about a news item and then at 8 o‟clock you listen to the
news again and it‟s not an original item; it‟s exactly the
same as the 7 o‟clock news. They repeat it, they have been
repeating it forever. It doesn‟t matter if you hear the same
thing over and over again. I mean, don‟t go overboard and
post the same tweet every 10 minutes but if you post it one
or two or three or four times, it‟s not going to ruin your
reputation. That‟s for sure.

Heather Porter: Very, very good point. Very good point. And there is a lot
of noise and a lot of information constantly surrounding all
of us nowadays. So, chances are like you said that
somebody‟s not going to be sitting in YouTube, Google… no,
we haven‟t got into Google yet, we are hitting that next…
YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, they are not going to be
hanging on all those at the same time. So, exactly right.
So, you don‟t really have a risk of overwhelming or giving
too much information to people.

Andrew McCauley: Totally, totally.

Heather Porter: Which brings me to Google which I just kind of slid in there
very quickly – the coveted Google+ which is all on
everybody‟s lips right now although no one really, really
understands what it is and do they need it and if they need
it, how much do they actually need of it right now.


20


So, what‟s Google+?

Andrew McCauley: Google+ or g+ as it‟s known is the new kid on the block
and the new kid on the block is growing really, really fast.

And why do you want to use it? Well, it‟s Google‟s third or
fourth attempt at social media and this time I think they
are on a winner and it‟s growing rapidly. Now, the reason
it‟s growing rapidly is it‟s letting people connect in a
different format. I mean, this is not the only thing that it‟s
good for. It does a lot of things that Facebook does
already. So, you can share videos, you can share
information but the power of Google is that it‟s linking all of
its information, its social information to Google search
results now and this is going to be one of the biggest things
because when you are doing a search for something on
Google, you will find that if somebody in your circles – they
call them „circles‟ rather than „friends‟ or „groups‟, they are
called „circles‟ – if somebody in your group has
recommended or what they call „+1‟ – It‟s the same as
what the „like‟ button is to Facebook; so, you +1 somebody,
so, if you go to a website, let‟s say I go to your blog site,
Heather, and you have written a blog about branding and I
click on the „+1‟ button, that means I have publicly told the
world that I like that post. So, all of my friends and all of
the people that are connected with me in my circles know
that I have actually endorsed that blog post.

Heather Porter: So…

Go ahead.


21


Andrew McCauley: Now, let‟s say your blog post is on branding for women.
Okay, the blog post is about branding for women and I
have given it a „+1‟. Now, let‟s say another friend of mine
on my Google circles goes to their computer and they type
in “branding for women” in Google. The very first result
that they are going to see is anything that‟s based on
essentially like word of mouth which means if any of their
friends in their Google circles, which I would be one of
them, has +1ed something that‟s relevant to their search
term, that is going to be their no. 1 result in the Google
search.

Heather Porter: Just because it was +1ed by one of their friends.

Andrew McCauley: Just because it has been +1ed by one of their friends.

Heather Porter: Wow!

Andrew McCauley: So, this is how powerful it‟s going to be. It‟s going to be
amazing.

Here is a little tip: The more you +1 things out in Google
world, the more your face will show up in all of your friends‟
results because you are out there telling the world you have
endorsed certain bits and pieces – certain blog posts,
certain sites.

Heather Porter: What an amazing way to position yourself as an expert,
right? It‟s somebody… the place to go.


22


Andrew McCauley: Totally. Every time you see something, go and +1 it if it‟s
in your industry because those search results are going to
start showing up and your face is going to be next to them
saying “Hey, remember me? I am the person who +1 this.”

Heather Porter: What an amazing tool. Okay, so the + stuff… but is it like
Facebook? I mean, do you have a profile and a photo
and…?

Andrew McCauley: Certainly, you do have a profile, you have a photo, you
have a section. We didn‟t talk about pages on Facebook
but Google also has their own business page as well now.
So, you can create a business page for your business which
I recommend you do. And just today, just today – this is
the first time I ever saw this and I am trying to see if I can
find another repeat of this and you probably haven‟t seen
this either – but when I did a Google search this morning
for something… Let me see if I can just replicate it as we
are speaking right now… when I did a Google search for a
particular topic… yep, there it is… the very first… So, I just
searched on Google „social media‟. Now, not only does the
„+1s‟ and that sort of things come up on the top of the
search results but on the right hand side where ads would
normally go, it‟s now giving me people and pages on
Google+.

Heather Porter: Oh my Gosh!

Andrew McCauley: Yeah – I have to send you a copy of this too – but now it‟s
coming on the pages on Google+ related to social media
and it‟s got the first person is Byron Smith, the second one
is somebody else and somebody else and it tells me what
circles they are in for me, how I am connected to them and
what is the information about this person. This is their


23


business pages popping up. It‟s not their websites, it‟s
their business pages…

So, that‟s new today, brand new, hot off the press, we are
doing a podcast as it rolls out today.

Heather Porter: So, imagine – and I love that because that‟s how fast the
stuff moves – but imagine getting in on this right now,
guys, with you listening to this right now and imagine going
out there and being one of the first people in your industry
to actually create these business pages and get out there
and suddenly you are quite easily being able to position
yourself as authority in that space because I have a feeling
that people are a little bit overwhelmed and a little bit kind
of “I don‟t know about this Google+ thing”. So, for those of
us who want to move quick and get in there first, there will
be big benefits for that.

Andrew McCauley: Totally, totally. So, I am not going to scare you too much
with Goggle+. All I am going to say is get on there and
have a play with it. Don‟t feel like you are going to break
it. Just go in and just what it‟s about. There are plenty of
places like YouTube where you can go and find out exactly
what‟s going on but go and check it out and see for yourself
how these things are working.

Heather Porter: And on the next episodes too we will actually walk you guys
through exactly how to do that. So, when Andrew says go
and have a play and get set up, we will show you where to
go, where to log in, how to create your account and all the
things that you need to keep in mind when you are doing.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly, exactly. So, yes, that‟s Google+ in a nutshell.


24


Heather Porter: So, there is something else that‟s kind of come up recently
that also seems to be like it‟s going to be quite big and I am
just curious and your thoughts on that as well. It‟s called –
and let me know if I pronounce this correct but is it
„Pinterest‟?

Andrew McCauley: Aha, Pinterest. Actually, Pinterest is like a rocket out of the
gates. In the last three weeks, Pinterest has gone from
zero to the fasting growing social site ever, ever.

Heather Porter: So, it only makes sense that we are going to talk about it
and we have got to talk about it if that‟s happening.

Andrew McCauley: I am going to give you a quick rundown on Pinterest. I am
going to put on the concept of Pinterest and how it got so
big so fast but here is what it‟s essentially about. Here is
my take on it because there is not much written out there
about it, so I am going to give you my take on it.


Andrew McCauley: Pinterest is like… it‟s like Twitter but with pictures. You
create pinboards, what they call pinboards or boards, and
you pin things to the board and often it‟s a picture, it will be
an image or something like that. So, you might have a
photo, some photos that you have taken for a party, and
you might want to create a board that‟s called „Family
Board‟ and you pin your photos to the board and you share
it with other people. Now, the reason Pinterest has taken
off so fast is that you can link up with your Twitter friends
and you can link up with your Facebook friends and that


25


sort of things. So, people in your circles can get know
pretty quickly that you are a part of Pinterest.

Heather Porter: Do you know, my sister actually used this the other day and
from my understanding, it sort of started out for women,
didn‟t it? Because women would post their wedding dress
ideas or recipes and because of how women work, we all
like to gossip and have a chat and share ideas. So, I think
that‟s probably why it‟s spread so quickly but what I loved
is she said she put up a photo of Gerard Butler, the actor,
and she said to me “I created an account, I stuck up a
photo of Gerard Butler and it got re-pinned about a hundred
times in less than an hour” and I said “What?” and she said
“Just because he is hot of course” but that is interesting in
and of itself that you can go in and create an account, put
your first photo up and have re-spread within an hour.

Andrew McCauley: Re-pinned, yeah, that‟s re-pinned real quick. The other
thing about this is there is a whole bunch of smart
marketers that are thinking about this and going “Well, how
can we do that?” So, they are putting product pictures up.
They are putting images of their logos and that sort of stuff
or things that have worked for them. I am going to start
using it for keynotes. When I am doing some keynotes, all
my PowerPoint slides, I am going to pin those up as an
image, each one of those PowerPoints will be an image.

Heather Porter: Ah, can‟t wait to hear the results of that.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. So, Pinterest – the word „interest‟ with the letter „P‟.
It‟s on fire, you will hear about it every way. It‟s going
crazy. There are some really cool stuff in there. The good
thing about Pinterest is people can pin something from your
website.


26


Let‟s say you have got a picture of your item. Somebody
comes on to your website and they want to pin the picture
to their pinboard. They can pin it but Pinterest will still give
you credit for your website.

Heather Porter: Wow!

Andrew McCauley: They will give you credit. So, you know people aren‟t
ripping your pictures off and claiming as their own. They
say “Hey, this is where the original came from”. So, if
people are putting your pictures on their boards and they
are getting re-pinned, then it‟s all of a sudden turning viral
for the people to see what‟s out there.

Heather Porter: So, right now, I am feeling two things. I am feeling very,
very excited about all this now that we have collectively
talked about what‟s available but I am also feeling
overwhelmed and I know that if I am feeling a little bit
overwhelmed that anybody listening to this that‟s kind of
new in this space is probably… their heads are about ready
to pop off or some might say they are feeling a little
lopsided. By the way, guys, that was a joke that Andrew
and I have. When we are very busy, we say “My head feels
lopsided”. So, it‟s okay if you are feeling that right now but
the question is what can you do about it? How do you use
these tools in a way where you are not spending 18 hours a
day just using these tools?

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, that‟s a great question and that comes up all the time
and it‟s like “You know what, how much do I have to learn?
Do I have to go and learn each one of these? Is it going to
take me hours and hours and hours to learn? And then
when I do learn, how am I going to even think about


27


spending all the time posting my information to all these
different sites?

So, one of the great things about all these is that there are
some tools out there which let you do a lot of it at once.
So, if you connect several different platforms together, so
you can post a similar subject out or you can use a
dashboard or things like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite – that‟s
Tweetdeck, we are going to stick that in the resource
section of the podcast – it lets you manage that sort of
stuff. So, if you find something you want to post, you can
post it out to one of the platforms or you can post it out to
all of the platforms that are connected. So, it lets you
control that sort of stuff easily without having to spend
hours and hours and hours in doing that sort of thing.

Heather Porter: And what about rating people or staying in touch with
people across all of your platforms? Does it also sort of
allow you to do that? How do you…?

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, totally, like with Hootsuite and Tweetdeck you can set
some alerts. So, if you have got… let‟s say you have got
some favorite people that are posting regularly and you
don‟t want to miss a tweet or a post because you find their
information is relevant and beneficial for you, you can
create a little alert for them so that you get a stream if you
like, what they call a stream of information, just from that
person. So, it‟s not being lost in the other noise that‟s
going on there.

Heather Porter: Wow! Okay. So, there is some good tools. Do they take a
long time to learn? Are they overwhelming?


28


Andrew McCauley: They are quite simple and the reason they are simple is
because a lot of people want to be users and a lot of people
don‟t have the best technical skills to go and learn
something complicated. So, they want to make sure that
it‟s easy for everybody to use.

Heather Porter: Got it. Okay, okay. We have talked about the big five and
maybe big six with Pinterest in there, we talked about the
tools that you can potentially use to automate and save
yourself some time. One question as we start to kind of
come closer to closing on this podcast episode is the best
practices. There are people spamming, there are people
that are adding forcefully or just without asking you first,
people add you into groups in Facebook. There are all sorts
of little things going around right now on social media that I
guess people are not very happy with, they feel like their
privacy is not protected as well. So, I guess as a
fundamentals rule, what are some rules that we can all
follow to use social media the best way?

Andrew McCauley: I guess the first one is don‟t spam people. So, don‟t go out
and just blast your list with something that‟s not valuable.
Go and give them information, make sure that the
information that you are giving them is going to add value
to your relationship with that person. After five or six
pieces of valuable information, then give them something to
go and look at on their own maybe your blog post or maybe
sales page or maybe video of yours but make sure that the
information you are giving people is not really pissing
people off. So, that‟s one of the first things.

The second one is just have a conversation with, just chat
as if you are talking at a coffee shop or a bar or something
like that.


29


As far as privacy goes, you want to make sure that your
own privacy settings, you should review those regularly so
that you are not getting a whole range because you will get
inundated with information from these sites. By default,
they will set your information so you get an e-mail every
time somebody does something on your sites. Go and
check the privacy settings and your account settings so that
people aren‟t bombarding you with irrelevant information.


Andrew McCauley: That‟s one of the first things I would do on those sites, just
check your social settings and account settings on those
sites as well.

Other best practices are if people ask you a question,
answer them back. Don‟t be rude. There is no point being
rude or obnoxious on any of these sites because it will only
go around and come back and bite you on the bum. So,
just be pleasant. If somebody is being nasty to you, just
walk away – de-friend them, leave them but don‟t just into
a slugging match. I have seen that all that often and I
have seen it regularly and lately of a slugging match and
it‟s just ugly. It‟s not good for anybody, it doesn‟t matter
who is right or wrong. At the end of the day, people are
going to look at you and go “Why is stooping down to that
particular level?”

Heather Porter: Good point.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah.


30


Heather Porter: Good point.

Andrew McCauley: And common sense is another one – just use common
sense.

Heather Porter: Yeah. And like we were saying before, just be yourself. I
mean, if you are quirky, be quirky; if you are funny, be
funny. Whatever you are, be that way online because
people love to do business with people… you build trust
slowly online and if you are trying to be something that you
are not, it does come out and it does look like you are being
wooden or trying something on. So, just be yourself.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. Don‟t be someone else you are not.

Heather Porter: Exactly, exactly.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly.

Heather Porter: So, I guess the next question on this would be what is the
best place to get started? What should I do next after
listening to this podcast and I know now that I want all of
these accounts, what do I do next to not overwhelm myself
but to actually take some baby steps to move forward?

Andrew McCauley: Not overwhelming yourself is the first step. Don‟t get
overwhelmed with it. If you are not on all of them by the
weekend, then that‟s okay as well. Just take it at one step
at a time. Just say “One week, I am getting a look at
Facebook” and then check it out if you haven‟t looked at


31


Facebook. If you haven‟t looked at YouTube, go and see
what YouTube is about, have a play with it. Go and let
yourself run in some rabbit warrens and just find out where
it takes you. Have a look at what people are doing. You
will be amazed at the quality of stuff that‟s out there and I
am talking not on the good end, I am talking on the low
end. We are talking about people that have got thousands
and hundreds of thousands of hits on their channels with
THE WORST videos ever on how-to but they are getting
hits, they are amazingly popular. So, don‟t let perfection
stop you. Whatever it is, don‟t stop there and go “I haven‟t
got the right qualities” or “I haven‟t got the right camera or
microphone or computer”. Don‟t let that stop you. Just get
out there and make something. Upload a video to YouTube
and see how it works and then rip it down, just delete it.

Heather Porter: Exactly and that‟s the key about perfection in the internet –
you can never be perfect online because online moves too
fast to let you to have practice enough to be perfect.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly. And let‟s face it, when you are starting out, you
are not going to have six billion people looking at your
website the first minute when you launch it. Unfortunately,
that‟s not the case. So, we are going to talk about how you
can get not six billion people but more than one person
looking at your website down the track when we talk about
some traffic strategies but get out there and just do it. No
one‟s going to find you, no one‟s going to see it, give an
attempt, make it as bad as you can so you can learn from
your mistakes.

Heather Porter: And another thing too that I think is great is to get started
easily on Facebook or Twitter is to go and find 10 people on
each of those, ten people or pages and just look at them in
the morning each day, spend 15 minutes just having a look
to see what they are doing – 10 people or businesses that


32


you like – and then you can kind of get an idea just by
watching people on what you would want to do when you
actually start to grow your presence using these tools.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, take notes. Use this smart file and take notes and
that sort of thing.

Heather Porter: Exactly.

Andrew McCauley: So, get started, just get on and have a play with them, look
for people that you know, connect with them, ask people
that you don‟t even know “Hey, how did you get started or
what was your best tip for getting started on this particular
item?”

Heather Porter: Or go to Twitter search and type in “how do I get started?”

Andrew McCauley: There you go, on YouTube search.

Heather Porter: Yeah, YouTube search.

Andrew McCauley: All of those.

Heather Porter: Another thing too then I guess would be, because we do
want to dive deep into each of these five and maybe even
Pinterest because there is a lot of movement there in the
future in our future episodes, so guys, when you are
listening to this and as you start to have a play with all
these different tools, write down your questions please and


33


visit us, go to www.AutopilotYourBusiness.com/Podcast and
our will see the episode – this is episode #5 – go on and
enter episode #5, we have a commenting space there,
leave us your questions please on anything – Facebook,
Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ and even Pinterest –
and what we would love to do is actually compile your
questions and as we go into each of these topics further, we
will actually answer these questions for our future episodes.

Andrew McCauley: Yes, totally, totally. Definitely.

Heather Porter: Anything else, Andrew „The Social Media Bloke‟ McCauley,
to add to the end of this generalized Social Media And Why
You Need It In Your Business And Life podcast?

Andrew McCauley: You know what, for now, I think we have fried enough
people‟s brains to go and do much more and we can keep
going and I do have other courses and stuff but for now,
the biggest takeaway is go have a play, go and get started,
start having a look around, you will have heaps of
questions. In fact, get those questions getting ready
because when we do our particular podcast on each of
these different platforms, we are going to be able to answer
them before you even get to the end of it. So, send those
questions in while you are having a play right now and we
will answer those while we are on the podcast.

Heather Porter: www.AutopilotYourBusiness.com/Podcast and just go to
episode #5 and leave your questions there. Right now,
while you are listening to us, go do it now and then we can
get back to you and let you know.


34


Andrew McCauley: And then you can „+1‟ it, re-tweet it, and send it on
LinkedIn and make a video and put it on YouTube.
Whatever you do, tell your friends, tell your friends.

Heather Porter: Yes, please. No, thanks so much, Andrew. This has been
great. I mean, I love your knowledge on social media. I
use it all the time myself but there is always so much more
that I could be doing and this once again has shown me
just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

Andrew McCauley: Oh yes. I think we have got the entire rabbit warren at our
fingertips.

Heather Porter: Thanks, guys, so much for hanging in there with us. We
appreciate you as always and we are very excited to go on
to our next podcast.

Actually, which one of these amazing five topics shall we
cover in the next one?

Andrew McCauley: We will do one of them.

Heather Porter: We will do one of them. You guys let us know which one
you want the most. Whatever one you ask the most
questions about, we will do that one.

Andrew McCauley: We will do that one. So, get your questions in and we will
do that podcast just for you.


35

#5 An Introduction to Social Media for Business

#5 An Introduction to Social Media for Business

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Featured

Featured (20)

#5 An Introduction to Social Media for Business