Inclusive Cyber - Growth Mindset #4

In this episode of Inclusive Cyber, Danny explores the role of influencers, discussing their impact on society, IT, and cybersecurity. He emphasizes the importance of critical thinking when consuming influencer content, whether it's about technology, lifestyle, or professional advice. He shares his own viewing habits, mentioning influencers like MKBHD and iJustine, while highlighting the need for due diligence before acting on their recommendations.

Danny critiques the motives behind influencer content, pointing out how algorithms reward engagement regardless of accuracy. He addresses misleading claims in the cybersecurity space, such as inflated salary figures and oversimplified career advice, urging viewers to question the validity of such information.

In addition, Danny reflects on the influencer phenomenon on LinkedIn, where professionals market their expertise for clicks and visibility. He advocates for authenticity and meaningful engagement over superficial metrics like follower counts.

Concluding the episode, Danny explains his personal approach to content creation, focusing on sharing genuine stories and insights from amazing individuals rather than chasing trends or maximizing views. He encourages viewers to evaluate influencers critically, understanding their motivations and validating their claims.

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction - Influencer Episode
• 1:38 Due Diligence is Necessary
• 3:23 Motivations
• 6:19 Fraud, Flexing or both?
• 9:08 Just Be Authentic
• 12:12 Conclusion

Transcript

Introduction - Influencer Episode
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[00:00:00] Danny: welcome to another episode of inclusive cyber, specifically the growth mindset episode. Again, changing things up. Now I'm a little bit further away and now the camera's not up on my face. But one thing I wanted to talk about is influencers as a whole.

The good or bad for society, good or bad for cybersecurity and IT but with anything, there's always a middle ground or things are not always black and white. So with that being said, from a macro perspective, I watch a lot of influencers on YouTube. So I watch MKHB, MKB, MKB, MKB, MKB, MKB, MKB. MKBHD, can't say his name, iJustine, and other kind of EVs, solar technology, and even another one called Outdoor Boys.

This individual is always camping in the wilderness in Alaska, pretty entertaining. It should be a cooking show because he's always cooking awesome food out when he's in the wilderness. Anyway, so you have that type of influencers, but for me personally, I don't look at whatever they're telling me as foolproof or correct.


Due Diligence is Necessary
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[00:01:38] Danny: I have to do my due diligence of MKBHD says, Hey, this new phone is awesome. I don't drop my current phone and go straight to the store and buy it. I'm like, okay, well, based on what he had mentioned. You know, there might be some use case where I can say, yeah, I think I'll change in my phone, but I'm not a big innovator when it comes to phones.

I tend to hold them for five, six, seven years. But that being said, that's kind of more informational. Then you have the individuals that are vying for clicks and they say outlandish things. And they get a reaction, both positive and negative. And the way these algorithms work, at least from my understanding, is they reward the creator that, Hey, you're getting engagement.

We're going to showcase this particular video or social media post to more of our followers. And then that creates more buzz. And I think ultimately the company makes money when more people are commenting both good or bad on whatever thing so What i'm ultimately trying to say from a macro perspective The influencers and I know they're hard to spot you have to do a little bit digging or better yet No matter who's presenting Any type of information you have to fact check them is it valid?


Motivations
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[00:03:23] Danny: Does it make sense on the surface? And if you still don't know, well, let me do some research to ascertain whether or not what they're telling us is something that we should be following and or doing, but good or bad. And then I'll definitely get into the cybersecurity at the end of the day, even the informational ones, like iJustine, the outdoor Boys They're looking for our clicks. They're looking for our subscriptions, our follows, and sharing that with our network because that's how they make money. And I'm not criticizing them, but we have to understand that is their motivation. They're doing all this work and it's a lot of work doing video editing.

So props to them, but you know, they have a team because they're making lots of money for the most part. But now when you start looking at particular influencers in cybersecurity space, you're looking at individuals that, it's funny, as an example, two weeks, an individual, which they will not be named, talks about how difficult the job market within IT and cybersecurity is, with a lot of layoffs.

And a lot of people wanting to gain in, uh, access to the industry or into the industry, transitioning professionals, people straight out of college, and have three, four or five videos on how bad it is. And then the following week, all of a sudden a new video saying, this is how to get your cyber security career started and talking about how positive or how easy or tips and tricks.

To get into the industry, but I start questioning that. Okay. Well, did something change? because after two weeks of constant videos of saying The economy and the job market in cyber security is bad now the next week. It's all rosy, you know Guaranteed that you're able to get a job. Well guaranteed by whom what do they know that we don't know?

Are they just doing it? To get those likes and get those clicks You So we need to be cognizant of where we're getting our information and if there's any validity to what they're saying. The biggest one, I think it's on TikTok or Instagram, or maybe a combination of all of them, where you have individuals going up to so called random folks.


Fraud, Flexing or both? 
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[00:06:19] Danny: Hey, what do you do? Oh, I'm in cybersecurity. Oh, what particular role do you have? Oh, I'm a network engineer. Oh, how much do you make? Oh, I make 600, 000. Would you recommend anybody to go into cybersecurity? Yes, definitely. Do you have an education? Nope. I have no education. Pure certification or vice versa.

That is pure and simple fraud. They're telling you what you want to hear. We don't know who those individuals are. We don't know if they're part of the, I wouldn't say scam, but just incorrect information. Now, let me add additional context. Are there some engineers making 600, 000? Yes, but that's at the very top.

When these videos or these influencers are telling you, this is how much you can make. Oh, I'm making 200, 000, 300, 000 with no college education and, or. Certifications. We need to pause and say, okay, wait a minute. And moreover, and I think this might be the biggest controversy is LinkedIn is a social media platform filled with influencers.

You have the same, not the same people, but the same underlying mechanism that we want people to click our posts to share our posts. From our professional careers, which again, there's nothing wrong with that, but there's some influence in there to buy my service, buy my product, buy my subject matter expertise.

And again, nothing wrong with that, but we need to do our due diligence. Remember, they're looking for clicks, just like everyone. And you can tell The influencers there's one influencer that I clicked on and it didn't allow me to follow them because they already had so many I'm like Doesn't that defeat the purpose of?

LinkedIn so now they're all in my feed seeing all this data, but it looks so superficial What Gary Vaynerchuk Gary Vee would say they're flexing their backgrounds their material things And it's like, okay. And for me, that is the best way to get me to stop engaging. So when a lot of folks come to me and say, well, what should I do when it comes to LinkedIn?


Just Be Authentic
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[00:09:08] Danny: Just be authentic. If you're brand new to the industry, read some books. And just provide a book review, get chat GPT to help you out with that and post it and there. Now you're gaining traction, but again, your angle should not be 20, 50, 60, 000 followers, but just enough that you're making an impact where you're actually connecting with folks.

I started a couple of years back to starting getting rid of folks. And I, in my LinkedIn, not for any nefarious purpose, but I'm like, I don't communicate. It might have been a previous coworker? I'll probably keep, but somebody that I met just on LinkedIn, I'm like, Oh, sure. Except, but we've had no interactions. And when I started doing that, people were saying, no, no, no.

Don't remove followers. That's bad. But again, that's if I. really cared about that metric. The other thing, and this is probably for transitioning professionals I think the sweet spot, and this is my personal opinion, you want to target people between 2, 500 followers and the max, maybe 4, 000 because I would argue you're getting into the influencer category.

So, Whether LinkedIn approaches them and say, Hey, you've been selected because of your subject matter on X to write about something, Hey, your subject matter expert based on your content, all of a sudden

to provide training. And one other aspect, and I know I'm all over the place. I'm just kind of winging it. I don't have a script, so I'm just having fun with this, but trying to be informative. There was one, I got a newsletter from somebody, that I followed. And they're not shy about Influencer, and this is their speciality.

You look into their profile, there's no background. I don't know what it was. I'm just going to throw a particular topic up there. Governance, Risk, and Compliance. And they haven't been doing that for more than a year. And all of a sudden, they're an Influencer and providing training on Governance, Risk, and Compliance.

For me, those are red flags. In a sense that, well, is this person going to give me value? Are they going to help me out when I ask questions on how to get into GRC? Or are they going to try and sell me or get my email so I can get their newsletter or try to sell me a product and or service. So again, there's a lot of good when it comes to influencers, educational, but you've got to be careful on where that information is coming from.

At the end of the day, LinkedIn is a social media, right? They're paying influencers to boost up their brand again.


Conclusion
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[00:12:12] Danny: So the camera's battery. Died on me and that's why I have a different set of clothes different hair, but I wanted to finalize this particular video. So I know a lot of you are going to start, you know, pushing back and say, well, aren't you doing it for the money, for the likes, for the subscribers? And short answer is, no and I'll give you an example. One of my most popular videos from a viewership stand for. I'm not talking about thousands. I'm just talking about hundreds since I'm still getting started. I wasn't interviewing anyone, but it was more on just kind of the status. I actually forgot the type of video. It might've been life skills or, uh, education versus, um, certifications, but that did extremely well more so than my interviews with all the amazing people that I've had the opportunity to interview.

One thing that, um, Gary Vee would say is you lean into that, right? Based on, your, uh, feedback that you're getting, which I've gotten very minimal feedback, at least on YouTube. Um, you focus on what people are looking for and asking for, and you kind of tailor that, and it makes sense.

But in this case, I didn't have it. Any feedback. So the only feedback that I had was the amount of viewership. So he would say, lean into that. So that is going to be the type of video you should be making. But then that goes against my complete premise on why I started this show, because I want to interview just amazing people in and out of cybersecurity and develop kind of a best practices blueprint that.

Whatever industry that they worked at, trying to understand what challenges they, they encountered and how they overcame them, , how they got into their particular trade, uh, what life lessons they can share. And I think with me, that resonates more than. Those other quick videos that, you know, again. at the time, uh, was my most viewed show.

So I'm kind of pushing back on, on the trend. Gary Vee would probably be angry with me and say, no, you're doing it wrong. Because the end user or the viewers have spoken with my, with my channel. With that being said, if the channel gets super successful, I'm able to monetize it. Um, is that going to change things?

No, because at the end of the day, I want to interview just amazing people, which I recorded a video just, uh, about an hour ago with an amazing person. Can't wait for everybody to hear it. And those are the stories that I really want to focus on. But in conclusion for this particular episode, influencers, just.

start asking critical questions about, okay, what's their motivation? What are they trying to say? And just trying to find, additional information that validates what they're saying at the end of the day. But with that being said, that concludes This episode. Until next time.

[00:15:20] Inclusive Cyber - Cybernetix: Transcript. This is the