Jason Falls is one of those guys in digital marketing I have had a ton of respect for many years. Imagine how surprised he was - and then how I was - that we both found out we were writing books on influencer marketing at the same time!
I beat Jason to the punch, but for anyone who read The Age of Influence, Jason's new book, Winfluence, is a must-read. We discuss the background for his book as well as Jason's uniquely holistic perspective on the value of influencer marketing.
Key Highlights
[01:39] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jason Falls
[05:55] Who is Jason and What He Does?
[08:43] How Jason Introduce Influencer Marketing to His Clients
[12:21] The Story Behind "Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand"
[15:02] What Jason's Book Covers?
[20:46] How Does Jason Measure Success Of The Metrics?
[22:07] The Process of Content Creation
[24:17] Jason's Recommendation on Creating Influencer Marketing Campaigns
[26:32] Why Finding the Right Influencer Matters
[31:52] You Need to Get Different Perspectives In Whatever You Do!
[33:53] Connect with Jason Falls
[26:39] Jason's Last Advice
Notable Quotes
Reference Links for Jason Falls:
Learn More:
Jason Falls is one of those guys in digital marketing I have had a ton of respect for many years. Imagine how surprised he was - and then how I was - that we both found out we were writing books on influencer marketing at the same time!
I beat Jason to the punch, but for anyone who read The Age of Influence, Jason's new book, Winfluence, is a must-read. We discuss the background for his book as well as Jason's uniquely holistic perspective on the value of influencer marketing.
Key Highlights
[01:39] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Jason Falls
[05:55] Who is Jason and What He Does?
[08:43] How Jason Introduce Influencer Marketing to His Clients
[12:21] The Story Behind "Winfluence: Reframing Influencer Marketing to Ignite Your Brand"
[15:02] What Jason's Book Covers?
[20:46] How Does Jason Measure Success Of The Metrics?
[22:07] The Process of Content Creation
[24:17] Jason's Recommendation on Creating Influencer Marketing Campaigns
[26:32] Why Finding the Right Influencer Matters
[31:52] You Need to Get Different Perspectives In Whatever You Do!
[33:53] Connect with Jason Falls
[26:39] Jason's Last Advice
Notable Quotes
Reference Links for Jason Falls:
Learn More:
So for those of you who read the age of influence, you understand how digital influence and influencer marketing works in digital and social media. I'm really excited today to have on a very special guest and a good friend who is going to talk about influencer marketing, not just digitally, but also offline, and more importantly, how we can weave the two components together. So if you're looking for real holistic overview of how your business can leverage influencers, stay tuned for this next episode of The maximize your social influence podcast. Welcome to the maximize your social influence podcast with Neal Schaffer, where I help marketers, entrepreneurs, and business owners grow their businesses using innovative marketing techniques, leveraging the concept of digital influence throughout digital and social media. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The maximize your social influence podcast, Neal Schaffer here. And this is episode number 201. For those of you who listen to episode number 200, I hope that this group coaching membership community is something that you're interested in applying for, I am going to be ending the applications on March 15. So just a gentle reminder, if you're interested, go to Neal schaffer.com, slash membership, fill out a real simple application form. And we'll be in touch after the 15th. So on to today's show, where I have a special guest and someone that I've known for more than a decade since the very, very first social media marketing conference that I went to called BlogWorld. And it's amazing. The people that I met at that conference for the first time how I still have relationships with them, we've kept in touch. And I think that a lot of people have very fond memories of that event, those that were able to go to that event in Las Vegas. And I remember one night we were at a strip mall there Las Vegas just looking for networking opportunities me and my friend, Tim tyrael Smith from Tim strategy, man, he isn't even a blogger anymore, but maybe some of you remember he's more of a he was a career strategist, but you know, good friends here in Orange County. And there were a bunch of people hanging out that were had the BlogWorld passes on and, and there is Jason Paul is saying, hey, let's you know, go get a beer and, and from then I've really admired and you know, not only as a person, but also his work. He's written a few books. He wrote the book, no BS social media back in the day. And serendipitously, he is someone that I reached out to when I was looking to be on 100 different podcasts. And he goes no way, Neil, I'm writing a book on influencer marketing, too. So we have Amanda Russell, who wrote the influencer code who you heard back a few episodes. And she's now my co host for the school of influence podcast. And now we have Jason falls, who just in February, just a few weeks ago, came out with his book with influence on entrepreneur press. It is a fantastic book. It's really brand new in the market. And we share so much in common in the way that we look at influencer marketing, but we all have very different perspectives on it based on our own professional backgrounds. Jason delivers a really, really unique perspective, that is even, I dare say, more holistic than the perspective that I bring. So I think, you know, I have a smile on my face as I talk about Jason. In the interview, I think you're really gonna like this, and get a few more nuggets of wisdom for better understanding digital and non digital influence, and how to best leverage influences for your business. So without further ado, here's my interview with Jason falls. Hey, everybody, welcome to another episode of The maximize your social influence podcast. There are very few other people that write about influencing influencer marketing. Recently, you've had Amanda Russell on the show as a guest. And well, for those of you that don't know, actually, I've launched a second podcast with Amanda called the School of influence, because there's just so much to talk about. And that's why I'm really excited today to bring you a guest who is now joining myself and Amanda in contributing a lot of value around the subject of influencer marketing, but comes at it from a different perspective that I think you're going to find really valuable. And by the end of this podcast, I guarantee you're gonna want to go out there and pick up this book. So he is the author. Well, let's play a little game here. He's the author of no bull. So social media, I'd say the whole name but this podcast does have a clean rating on Apple. And as I was preparing for the podcast, I see he also wrote the rebels guide to email marketing, which maybe we'll hear about as well. But fast forward, nine and 10 years after those two books, he is now back with When Fluence framing influencer marketing to or reframing influencer marketing to ignite your brand, no other than Jason falls Jason welcome my friend.
Jason Falls:Neil, thank you so much for having me, man. It's good to be back on the show. I think I was on this years ago maybe or something like that. But it's good to good to reconnect,
Neal Schaffer:something like that. And you know, I appreciate I was on your show as well. And I always tell people that first meeting you outside of BlogWorld, back in the day in Las Vegas at some random Las Vegas strip mall, and you're there saying, hey, let's all go out for a beer. So always had, you know, good memories. And you know, no, bless social media. And man, I mean, you started with those books back then I think you went to corporate for a while. I think you're a corporate again, right. So you've, you've gone sort of back and forth and work with a lot of brands. And I'm excited to hear what what you got for us today. But for those that don't know you for the very few. Can you give just a brief snapshot of how do you describe yourself?
Jason Falls:Sure. So I usually just describe myself as a digital strategist. But I mean, I'm, I'm a PR guy by trade. I worked actually in college athletics as a PR guy for 15 years before I got into the whole mainstream marketing thing. I had no idea. Yeah, so I basically was the guy who ran the press conferences, after ballgames and made sure the media had seats on press row and stuff. That's what I did. And so I cut my teeth on PR and which, quite frankly, is influenced marketing in a lot of different ways. And so that's kind of always been what I did, from a professional standpoint, when I made the transition into agency life in the mid 2000s. That was when social media marketing was kind of coming to the forefront for brands and I happened to be someone who was kind of an internet geek, self taught, I knew blogs, I knew forums and message boards. And so I got in and started talking to our clients about it. And they were interested in doing things. And so that kind of snowballed itself. And basically over the course the last 15 years or so, I've been primarily an agency guy slash consultant, you are right, I did step out. And I was the VP for digital strategy at Cafe press, which is an online retailer, you can order you know, custom products from from cafe press with your own pictures and art on them. I remember Yeah, yeah. And so I was there for a little while. But I basically been back on the agency consultant side of things since I left cafe press, and I believe 2014, or 15, I don't remember now, the years all kind of blur together. But I'm back at an agency. Now I've been at cornet, which is an ad agency in Lexington, Kentucky for the past three and a half, almost four years now. And one of the things that I've been really focused on is building influence marketing programs for our clients, primarily because A, that's where consumers are getting a lot of information these days. And be because our clients are like, Hey, we want to be on the leading edge of things. So you're supposed to be someone who can take us there. So let's go.
Neal Schaffer:That's awesome. And I literally, I had no idea you had that PR background. It's really interesting, because I always tell people at the beginning, I mean, it really was PR that was driving social media programs, right. And even today, there are still companies where it is, believe it or not PR not marketing. So a lot of respect for that. And yes, the more I work in influencer marketing, the more I'm like, you know what, this is probably more of a role for PR than marketing right now. Sure, we're gonna talk about that. But I find it very interesting. I mean, I want to hear how you came around with the book, but working at an ad agency, that there are clients that want to work with you for influencer marketing, I would think when companies come for ads, they're willing to spend a lot of money, they might get some depending on a lot of different factors. But you know, they're they're driven towards ROI or obviously with paid media. How has that shifted into influencer marketing for your clients.
Jason Falls:So it's, it's interesting because the cornet is a, you know, full service ad agency. But for the last 10 years or so, we've been very anchored in the digital space. And so that can mean online media that can mean social media, we do a lot of social content for our clients as well. And influencers, I think, are an extension of that. Now, I will say that there are there's a wide spectrum of, of how our clients view influence marketing, we have a couple that look at influence marketing as a paid media channel, where you're going to buy an ad on an influencers channel, and they just treat it like an ad, which is not the way I like to think of it philosophically. But you know, what, if the client just wants impressions? Alright, let's go out and see how much it'll cost to get impressions with this particular influencer. So that's what we do. I try to counsel them otherwise try to you know, bring some sanity into what they're trying to do there. But at the same time, if that's their goal, and that's what they want to accomplish, we go after that. On the other end of the spectrum is kind of the PR perspective of this if we want to build relationships with influencers over time, so that there's a true partnership there's a value exchange, we provide value to them sometimes in in in monetary means with with Buying and paying for content that they create for us or with us. Sometimes we provide them value with resources or access to information that they wouldn't otherwise have a lot of influencers that we work with love to be partners of the brands that we represent. And so sometimes just having the relationship is enough to say, Well, I want to do content with you guys, I'm not worried about, you know, you write me a big check will will iron all that stuff out later. But let's just figure out how to partner together. So there's value in it for them. there's value in it for us, obviously, because we are getting our clients in front of the audiences that they want to get in front of. But there's also value in it for us in the content that the influencer creates. Because in most of the stuff we do, the influencer may post it on their channels, but we may post it on our channels too. And so it's almost as if these content creators are literally freelance talent, that we're engaging to create great content on social channels that maybe we don't necessarily have that level of skill. I'm not someone who's gonna go out and create an engaging tik tok video, because that's not my thing. I might engage someone who can and we can use that content on our channels too.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, no, I hear. I mean, that was my first aha moment. Maybe like five, six years ago, I was working with a brand and they were focusing on basically, it was a a health item for newborn mothers. So we were obviously focusing on mommy bloggers, and the photos, and this is before Instagram, but the photos that they made of the product in action with mothers with babies, the creatives that they just put in the blog post were way better than anything this brand was creating to promote their own products, right. And that's when it's like, well, wait a minute here. Why are we you know, working with them to create content. So I think a lot more companies have woken up to that today, thankfully, but I hear you. So at some point, though, because I when I reached out to you, and I wrote the age of influence, it's funny, because Amanda Russell said the same thing. She goes, damn, you beat me to the market. I'm writing a book too. And then you're like, Hey, I'm writing a book, too. So what was the trigger point being that you hadn't written a book in so long? What was the trigger point that said, you know, what, and you probably came to the same I mean, Amanda, and I had the same thing. Like, this is so misunderstood. We have to write a book about this. And I'm assuming you came to the same conclusion. But was it was there a trigger point? Or, you know, tell us about that story?
Jason Falls:Yeah, it's almost exactly the same story in a lot of ways. I mean, there was the misperception of influencers by the clients that we work with, and a lot of the business owners and whatnot, the marketing executives that I was talking to, I got a lot of eye rolls and influencers or I call them the pisan duck lips crowd, you know, they, they're superficial, there's not a whole lot of value in what they do. You can't really drive success. And that's a gross misperception of what influence marketing and influencers can bring to the table. And so when Fluence the subtitle, reframing influencer marketing to ignite your brand, it really is a calls back to that moment where I said, Look, we're looking at influencer marketing all wrong. And my sort of premise in the book is, if you take the AR off of that word, influencer, now you're now you're talking about your goal, you're trying to influence an audience to take action. And so if we just reframe and rethink, stop calling it influencer marketing, start calling and influence marketing. Now, all of a sudden, you're not predisposed to think of selfie takers on Instagram or goofy ass people on YouTube. You're now saying, Oh, it's influenced marketing, I'm trying to influence not I'm trying to influence her which has a preconceived notion. When you look at it that way, all of a sudden, your your horizons are broadened? Well, I can use political lobbyists to influence laws and policies, I can use Parent Teacher Association hands to influence the way the local PTA and the local school board makes decisions. You can think about influence in a much broader level. And now all of a sudden, you're like, wait a minute, if I want to influence an audience to take action for this brand. Yeah, there's people online that have big social media followings that I can engage. But if it's a local business, there might be a lot of people in the community that I want to use for that. And so that kind of widens the perspective a bit and helps you focus more on what you're trying to do not the channel in which you're trying to do it.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, that's awesome. I do find when you talk about influence, the reception is very, very different. You have books like Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People. The concept of influence in business is very evergreen, and those at the top get it but influencer marketing, you're right, that perception is just completely different. So I love how you have literally reframed it. And that's just a brilliant subtitle for the book, I think so. Your book then obviously, you had mentioned this when I was in your podcast, it's not just I focus really on on the digital social side, but there's a lot more to it in terms of relationships and you had mentioned that your book off covers offline influence. So can you give us an introduction as to you know, how you look at that?
Jason Falls:Sure. So kind of what I was referring to a minute ago, you know, when I tell people in the book and I've answered this question of our clients a couple times, if you want to use influence marketing, rather than influencer marketing, just a subtle change in how you say things, what you're doing is you're ultimately saying, Okay, what is the audience we're trying to reach? And what do we know about them? Who influences them? How are they impacted to make decisions to change buying behaviors? And that might that answer might be that they spend a lot of time on Instagram. So we need to engage people that post interesting content in that particular vertical, and we can perhaps sway their thinking, especially with Instagram influencers who are really good at engaging their audience and drawing people in doing more than just posting pictures. But it might also be that for instance, I'll give you a case study example that we've done at cornet. A couple of years ago, the University of Kentucky healthcare system, which is basically the public hospital system in Lexington, Kentucky, in central Kentucky, we did a big sort of rebranding or a branding campaign for them. And it all kind of kicked off with a brand film not really a sizzle reel, but a brand film a two minute kind of Mini Movie that sort of walked you through these kind of dramatic storylines, that tied to the various areas of care that UK healthcare is known for. The target audience in that instance, was what we call the Sunday audience. So people who don't need UK health care for cancer or heart or orthopedic treatment now, but they might someday. So we're talking to mostly moms, parents, people who are caring for elderly parents, so that that's kind of the group that we're looking at. So what we decided to do was they said, Well, we need to get a lot of people to watch this brand film to start off. Well, knowing that our target audience was were basically 30 4050 year old women primarily in central Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, you know, a YouTuber, or an instagramer with you know, half a million followers and go do me any good if I'm very geo focused. But we do know that we have some very geographically focused influential people in and around Lexington, Kentucky. So we got john calipari, the head coach, basketball coach at university Kentucky works for UK so that was kind of an easy one. And he's arguably the most influential person in the state of Kentucky. So he was kind of check that box. Yeah. And I would always consider him a celebrity, not just an influencer anyway. So we have him. We have a couple of local sort of business reviewers event people called the Kentucky tastebuds his two young ladies who have a morning radio show on the weekends. And they also do a blog and a podcast, but they go to local businesses and review restaurants and stuff like that. And so they're going to impact that it. So we found that 43 people who impacted that audience from an online and from a Fluence perspective. But we knew that that wasn't the only thing that was going to drive buzz around this brand film, we knew that the internal audience at the University of Kentucky healthcare system, the nurses, the doctors, the administrators, that was an important audience for us. So before the day before the film debuted on Facebook, which I'll get into why we use Facebook in a minute, we actually debuted the film internally to the internal team and said tomorrow, this is going to go public, we want you to go to the Facebook page, we want you to watch the video, comment on it like it etc. We engage the influencers, the online influencers to do the same thing on the day that the film launched. But then we thought, Wait a minute. These are not the only people who are influential for this audience. You've also got a local dentist who is very popular, the the music director at the local Presbyterian Church, who has a huge congregation, the CEO of the Urban League, the mayor of Lexington, Linda Gordon was involved. So we got the local state representative, we got all these local people who had a big impact on the community and had influence over the community but weren't necessarily tied to a social network or a big following online. What we did with those three audiences is we coordinated the timing of the video is going to launch it this time. And then within the first two hours, we want to feed engagement into that we want people to watch it, we want people to like it, we want people to comment on it and tell their UK healthcare story. And we knew if we did that we were hitting those triggers of reach, relevance and resonance that the Facebook algorithm looks at and uses to prioritize content in people's newsfeeds. Lexington Kentucky has a population of 320,000 people. By the end of the 30 day period after thing launch, we had over 800,000 views of the video. So we had more than 100% market penetration at least from a numbers perspective. And everybody you know was talking about this video is really good film. We did a nice job with it. If I do say so myself. My team did a great job with it. So the film was great. The engagement we got was great. And what happened was so many people came and told their UK healthcare story that we actually Flip that into a new content site where we told the UK stories online and now it when search and it's great content for the brand. And so it just kind of one thing led to another led to another. And that's because we didn't look at it through the silo of online influencers, we looked at it through the wider lens of people who influence our audience.
Neal Schaffer:That's an amazing case study my friend. And it brings together all those elements of really holistically looking at who has influence in the community, online and offline, but also adding the fact that because everybody is on Facebook, I figured you were gonna lose it a point that that's the natural place where you're going to drive people to say, Hey, this is where you can comment, you brought up the the internal team, that employee advocacy, for lack of a better word of getting them to share it. And there's, I was gonna ask, Well, how do you measure this? Well, if you get more, if you get 2.5x impressions compared to your population, you know, you've done a good job. So and obviously, I assume, was that pure organic, was there a paid component, or a just in case paid component, or they just 100% organic, the
Jason Falls:only paid component was we did have, we paid a few of the online influencers, who we use to engage around the content. Gotcha. But there wasn't a paid advertising component to the video that I don't believe. And, you know, we just, we got really good organic lift out of this thing, if there was a pain component of it, it was probably, you know, after the first day was over, because we had a really nice impact. I think within a few hours, we had like 40,000 views of the video. So it was just really good metrics. And again, you mentioned measurement, you know, there's the, the measurement of success of how many views of how many engagements and whatnot. But again, the value of it all the way we were really, really measuring success was where are we aligning the community with the brand, you know, sort of messaging of we are proof that was the name of the film, the UK, healthcare is proof that we are a part of your community, we're invested in you, we want you to be invested in us. And seeing all of the sort of surveys and other research that they do for the brand throughout the year, the numbers all up into the right, because it resonated with people and we got so many people involved.
Neal Schaffer:So I want to ask about the video itself or influencers involved in the creation of the content, or the content was purely created. Between Corbett and UK.
Jason Falls:The the content was purely created by UK and cornet, it was it was basically it wasn't a TV commercial, but we treated it that way. It was a brand film, we cast it, it was scripted, you know, and it was a cinema, that cinematic graphic, that's a word, it was a cinematic graphic effort, you know, it was treated like a movie. And it was really kind of a mood setter for the entire advertising campaign that followed. And then so that we our proof message was launched there and moved into an ad campaign, but then also moved into different social components and different other ways that that UK healthcare talks to his audience, and reinforces that notion that you know, where we are, this is proof that we are as much a part of your community as you are. And we are here for you when you need us. And again, the information that the content that we captured, from people telling their UK healthcare story continues to feed this, you know, sort of online magazine content engine, which is essentially a bunch of ratings and reviews for UK healthcare hanging out there on the internet for people to go see what it's like to trust them for your health care services. So it's just a really powerful story of how a really cool inspired idea with some what I would call, you know, pretty innovative uses of the concept of influencers, was able to manufacture you know, things that are still reaping benefits for the brand a couple years later.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, the gift that keeps giving him I'm almost reminded of the Ice Bucket Challenge. This wasn't a challenge, per se, but it was so impactful that it it got people talking about and people are still talking about their experiences, that content just keeps flowing. That's amazing. So I'm curious, some of the people listening this podcast, some might be marketers for larger brands, where they have the resources to engage with with so many different touchpoints in their community. Others might be more small business owners or digital entrepreneurs. But I know that they can leverage these same concepts on a smaller scale, whether it be case studies or advice from your book, how would you recommend people go about, you know, creating their own trust us or you have k type of campaign?
Jason Falls:Sure. Well, I mean, it all it really again, all goes back to you know, what's your goal? What are you trying to accomplish? And then and then once you know that, what Who's your audience? And what do you want them to do? What's the goal for that audience? When you identify the audience really well, then you're able to ask the question, okay, who or what influences them? How do they make buying decisions? How do they make decisions on you know, changing their mind on certain issues? Is it they have conversations with family and friends, which it probably is that to a degree but do they also go online to look for information about the products or services that we sell and so it's really kind of identifying Okay, Who or what channels do they look to, for that type of information? And so there's actually a case study I point out in the book there, it's a UBS, the financial services company. They one of the primary product lines that they have are annuities. Right. And so it's an a kind of a retirement investment thing. It's a, you invest a little bit of money and then over, you know, basically when you get to retirement, it basically pays you a salary or something. And that's the gist of an annuity. Right. And so they had a gentleman UBS had a gentleman that was kind of had some content and was an expert in annuities and understanding what they were. They literally used one influencer, they reached out to one guy's name was Nick Bamford, or no, sir Martin Bamford. Martin Bamford, the other guy's name was Nick. So Martin Bamford, and Martin Bamford is a financial services guy at a firm in Great Britain. And he had a podcast, the podcast didn't have you know, hundreds and 1000s of downloads a month, it might have had a couple 1000 downloads a month. And it was very niche, and it was very focused. So UBS pitched this, Nick, whatever his name was the executive who had an expertise about annuities to be a guest on this guy's podcast. And based on that one appearance, they were able to measure a 4x uptick in leads to buy annuities. If you know anything about an annuity, this is like $100,000 investment or more, a lot of money. And they multiplied it by four, one influencer one podcast appearance. So anybody can do this, if you identify the right person who impacts the audience you're trying to persuade? And if you find that one influencer, and you just reach out and start a relationship, and make friends with them, and say, Okay, what value can I provide to them, so that I might get value back from them and their audience in return? What value can I provide to their audience, which is another trigger for influencers, if you're, if you're not able to pitch, here's what I can do for you pitch what you can do for their audience, because that's going to turn a lot of them on. As long as you can identify that and reach out and provide them with value, you have an avenue to using influence marketing to persuade, you know, someone to take action. I will also go further to say that UK healthcare case study, by the way costs less than $15,000. Wow. So it's not like we went out and paid hundreds of $1,000 for these 43 influencers went out that was using internal employees. It was reaching out to people in the community who we knew like the mayor was gonna say, no, yeah, you know, so we reached out the people who had impact on the community and had obviously a good affinity for the brand. And when you're the biggest, one of the biggest employers in town, and you say, hey, we'd like your help with stuff, elected officials and whatnot like to pitch in. Sure. And then we found influencers and we had a very small budgets. And look, I don't have a big budget, but I'm not asking you to do something crazy. I'm not asking you to go out and create the Kentucky tastebuds are a great example. I'm not asking you to create a bunch of blog posts and videos and whatnot, all I want you to do is go watch this video and react to it the way you would normally. So it's not like we were spending a bunch of money to do that.
Neal Schaffer:It's a small ask, and you've already created the content. But because of the employer and the community, there's just natural affinity for you, okay, because they're, you know, everyone has to go there if God forbid, something happens. So, but that's those are two great stories. And I think I agree 100% with that notion that what can you offer the influencer? And there's so many things that brands can offer influencers or even small companies that they often forget about, I mean, information, obviously, is one of them. But it's really that, you know, I'm not gonna say karma. But the more you invest in the relationship, obviously, the higher the return, I know that you've seen that as well. So yeah, I'm, I'm curious now. So the book was published books already been published correctors it's still,
Jason Falls:technically it comes out when we're recording this. It comes out a week from today. The launch date, okay. But Amazon apparently got their shipment early and hit since people have the books in their hands as we're recording this. So it's out there. And by the time you hear this, it will be in bookstores and on online retailers everywhere.
Neal Schaffer:Awesome. That's when influenced by Jason fall. So now with an I was the same way my book came out in March of 2020. And you're obviously February of 2021. We're still in the midst of Coronavirus What, what and obviously you work for an ad agency but what are your sort of promotion plans in the next few months? Well,
Jason Falls:I think that I have pitched myself and or am scheduled on over 250 podcasts
Neal Schaffer:eat me my friend. I was only 100 Dang. Well, I'm
Jason Falls:going crazy on it because you know, no events really for us to go speak at or get in front of a couple 100 couple 1000 people at a time. Yeah, so I'm going to be doing that. I'm very fortunate in that my publisher is entrepreneur press and obviously, you know entrepreneur man magazine is a nice platform. So I have an additional sort of marketing engine behind what's happening. In fact, tomorrow I'm recording a live reading of a chapter that's promoted along the entrepreneur network. So I have that working for me, which is a great plus to have a publisher like that behind you. But I'm just gonna continue to hustle and talk about the book I've got the influence the influence marketing podcast, which is a companion podcast to it that you've been on. And Amanda's been on by the way, and I'm, I'm gonna continue to sing the song of the influencer and defend the reputation of influencers against the mainstream media trying to put them in a corner and my friend, and hopefully enough people find out about it that the book will be a success.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, no, it's great. And I hear just from your description, that that background that you have rooted in PR has really given you the C league holistic perspective on influence. And just like Amanda herself, Bini former fitness influencer, turned entrepreneur, and myself looking at it really from the social media, digital marketing, you know, strategy perspective, that we all have our own unique perspective. Sometimes the three of us have to come together and do something and just own the entire market. But well, no, that's really,
Jason Falls:it. I was just gonna say it was really funny, because when I, when I started, when I sat down and said, Well, I'm gonna do a podcast about influence marketing. And you were one of the first names I wrote down on my list of having on the show. And it wasn't a couple days later that I realized that Amanda had written a book, too. And so I'm like, this isn't competition, man. We're all in this thing together. So let's just get them both on. So I was glad to have both of you on the show. And I'm glad there's other people out there championing championing the cause.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, you know, I think that it's so misunderstood that someone reading multiple books on the subject from multiple perspectives is going to get three 410 X the value? Yeah.
Jason Falls:So and when I was when I was coming up in in PR, I remember, I went out and bought every book on VR that I could find and every book on marketing to, you know, kind of get, get my head wrapped around things and the different perspectives, like you say, I mean, having Amanda's perspective on the table, as someone who has built influence from a personal profile perspective, the way she has, is incredibly valuable for your podcast for the content that she does for the brands that she works with. Yeah, I mean, having that insider perspective is really unique. I mean, you and I have a little bit of that, because sometimes the marketing software companies reach out to us and want to use us as influencers, but we don't have it nearly at the scale that she does,
Neal Schaffer:ya know, without a doubt. So and it is such, it's more of like an art than a science, when you look at the different things you can do in marketing, like, like ad units, right? I mean, programmable ad units, you know, when I go to some social media conferences, and they're all about Facebook ads, and like, that's not social media, that's paid media, right? It's it's more of a technology of science. Sure, there's some psychology behind the creatives and what have you, but but influence its people, at the end of the day. It's people and it's relationships. And it's what you can provide them what they can provide you, and they can do so much. It's really what are you going to ask them to do? And I love you know, a lot of what you said is very, is very basic that everybody should understand. But people forget, what do you want them to do for you and add you in it? It's like a call to action. What's that going to be? When when you partner with an influencer? What is it that you want to get out of that relationship? And I think it's much deeper. It sounds simple, but there's just so much possibilities. So I love the fact that you have case studies in your book that talk about those possibilities, because without seeing it like that people just don't see it, right. So that's awesome. And I hope everyone listening, at least if you've read the age of influence, you owe it to yourself to read wave influence, so make sure you go out there and get it.
Jason Falls:I've read them both, and they're both awfully good. So you should do that.
Neal Schaffer:All right, Jason. So obviously, people want to find out more about you. They buy your book available wherever fine books are sold, they subscribe to the wind Fluence podcast. Did you rebrand your website or what's your URL these days?
Jason Falls:Jason falls calm I'm really easy to find. There's a politician in North Carolina with the same name who does not like me at all, because I got all handles and the first three or four pages of a Google search so that's Asad county commissioner down in Cleveland County, North Carolina. If you ever seen him I said hello.
Neal Schaffer:Yeah, you know there's another Neal Schaffer out there but he spells his first name and e L. He's a engineer out of Baltimore and sometimes people mistake him for me on Twitter and what have you but seems like a cool guy I doubt he's listening to podcasts but anyway
Jason Falls:well it's it's it's not nearly as bad as there's a comedian out there named Dan levy. Okay. Who is not Daniel Levy, the star of shits Creek and Jean levy son but he's a great comedian and he's got a really funny bit about when that when the Daniel levy does something crazy that the media goes nuts about Dan levy gets his hate me. So And his hate tweets and trolls. So it's it could be worse.
Neal Schaffer:Okay, so Jason Falls is in Lexington, Kentucky, not in Cleveland County, North Carolina. And obviously, if you listen to a lot of podcasts like I do, you're sure to hear him on one of those other 250 podcasts, you're gonna have to, just like I recorded an episode of why I'm on 100 podcasts, you're gonna have to create your own episode of why you're on 250 episodes. But I think that's really smart. And I agree when, you know, podcasts are a great way to talk about I know a lot of business people, entrepreneurs, even a lot of executives that religiously, listen to podcasts, it is a great medium. And it's amazing. And I think you're gonna find this Jason, once your book gets into more and more hands it, there's so many ways you can influence when it becomes a platform, there's so many different angles, you can talk about the subject, that you're going to find a lot of interesting opportunities. come your way. So I'm really excited for you. Congratulations again. I know it was a long time in the making. And we're a week well, I guess Amazon's already started but yeah, your your baby is going to be out in the world and taking their first baby steps. And I know that baby's going to be successful. So congrats, my friend. Well,
Jason Falls:I appreciate it, man. And I love your book, too. And I'm glad that it's been successful as well. Hey, any
Neal Schaffer:last minute advice, just to end the show for you know, marketers, business owners, entrepreneurs, looking to really, you know, when at influence a marketer when Fluence any last advice that we might not have covered?
Jason Falls:I think we covered most of it. But I think what the last thing I would say to people out there is this is not complicated. And people who have influence are probably thirsty to work with you. It's just finding the right one to approach to say, hey, what can we do together? Let's Let's partner, let's collaborate on something that's really cool for you, and really cool for your audience. But that is also really cool for me and my audience, too. And I think if you approach just about anybody out there who has influenced whether it's online or off, you're probably going to start a relationship that's going to be really fruitful for both of you.
Neal Schaffer:That's great advice. And I would add, just make sure that you're personalizing that and let them know, it's like, you're not going to go it no matter what sex you're interested in, and you're at the bar, you're not going to say the same that well, you might say the same thing to 10 different people. I don't know. I mean, I would assume you try to personalize the message. But just because the first to turn your way doesn't mean that everyone's going to turn your way. And I think that's, you know, the same way working with influencers. So thank you so much. This has been Jason falls with influence, reframing influencer marketing to ignite your brand by that book right now, because by the time this episode is out, the book is out. And Jason, once again, thanks so much for joining us. Best of luck, and I'm sure we'll be in touch. Neil, thank you so much, man. Hey, thanks for listening to the episode. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I do did. And I hope it reaffirms this value of influencer marketing for your own marketing, regardless of the type or size of business that you have. As always, I want to thank you all for listening to the end here. And a reminder that this podcast really wouldn't exist without your support your subscriptions and your reviews. So if you have a second and you got value from this, I'd really appreciate if you could go into apple or Spotify or wherever you heard this and just leave a real simple review would mean the world to me, I'd love to give you a shout out on social media. So make sure you leave a name that is recognizable. I also as always want to thank so many different countries of the world where this podcast ranks and it sort of changes from week to week. Obviously, we have the whole United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, but it really excites me when I see countries like Colombia and Thailand, Netherlands, Japan, Ireland, Mexico, Sweden, seen a lot of you there in those countries listen to this podcast. So thank you so much. And another reminder that I do have a blog, Neal Schaffer calm. And I do have more than like 400 different blog posts there. Some of them I have authored, some of them, I have had guests authors. So you can go through the archives of this podcast and find a lot of great evergreen information. But equally, my website has a lot of great blog content that's completely free for you to look at as well. So I hope you'll give it a chance if you haven't been there recently, I completely revamped the user interface. And I think you'll you'll like what you see and it should be a lot more user friendly. So go check that out at Neal schaffer.com. As always, thank you for your support. Wherever you are in the world, make it a great social day. Make it a great virtual social day, actually, and we'll be back at you next week. Bye bye everybody, and SEO nada