Joe Casabona: …it’s like two friends from Grammar School talking. His name is Jean Perpillant and he is an excellent guy. We’re going to be talking about how your content strategy can grow your audience and your business, which seems like… Yeah, of course, it can. But we get a masterclass from Jean in this episode. He talks about some really important things that you need to realize when creating your content, and then some actions that you should take around your whole strategy.
A few things to look out for in this episode. First of all, he talks about how to decide which channels to be on, so don’t just be on everything but be on ones that work best for you, how to pick a worthy goal, and then how to come up with and execute a content strategy to grow your audience. He even uses me and my goals because he knows them. So I get a little one on one consulting with Jean here. So I think you’ll really enjoy this episode. Be sure to listen to the whole thing because it’s really good. And thanks so much. So now let’s get on with my interview with Jean Perpillant.
Hey, everybody, I am here with Jean Perpillant. Oh, man, I got real nervous saying it even though I rehearsed it with you before we started recording. Jean’s a good friend of mine. We met a CaboPress and immediately became friends, I would say. I think my fondest memory—I’ll let him talk in a minute—my fondest memory, besides our affinity for photography gear, is we got food poisoning. I was on the end of it. I saw the light at the end of the tunnel. I feel like you’re in the thick of it and you still came to the workout that we were doing that morning. So on top of being a genuinely good person, he is a champion among men. Jean, how are you
Jean Perpillant: I’m literally crying right now. That was great. I forgot. I put that memory away.
Joe Casabona: I understand.
Jean Perpillant: So for me to pull that back out of the cabinet where I closed it up and locked it up is hilarious.
Joe Casabona: I think there was a handful of us, but I think I was patient zero because I got it after lunch and most people got it after dinner. So by the time I was done with it, everybody else was just kind of getting started with it.
Jean Perpillant: Yeah, man. Oh, boy did it hit! Man. But it was so funny how fast it went through because typically, that’d be something that you’d be down for like a good 24 hours. Because somebody was down for 24 hours. They didn’t make it.
Joe Casabona: Oh, man, who was it? It was Jeremy Moore, right?
Jean Perpillant: Maybe.
Joe Casabona: I know Chris, my roommate, he was down for the count for a while.
Jean Perpillant: But you’re right. It was a great opportunity for us to meet and actually catch up. It was a great opportunity for us to meet. And let me tell you, man, I’ve been a fan of yours obviously since then. I know you’re the same with me. And I think that we’ve got a lifetime bond now. Because of not just the conference itself. Definitely for that night. That came to be. But that workout was bananas. We got to hit up Joy and ask her she’s the one who [inaudible 00:03:39] that.
Joe Casabona: I know for sure. They were running it. Back when this pandemic started, I did a virtual workout group with them. But then because of pandemic stuff, I kind of fell off. But since the pandemic started, I’ve lost 25 pounds, which is insane-
Jean Perpillant: Nice.
Joe Casabona: …because I don’t feel like I’ve been trying that hard. All the scales tell me that and my shirts fit better but I’m like, “What are you doing?” I’m like, “I don’t know.” I have two children to chase around now and I’m drinking more water. So I guess if you want to lose weight have kids. If you’re a guy.
Jean Perpillant: And then water. Yeah, absolutely.
Joe Casabona: And water.
Jean Perpillant: I was going to say if anybody’s asking you what are you doing, I’m going to guess it’s probably more women because for us as men, for some reason, it seems to be easier for us to lose weight, whereas women really have to work hard and be so diligent about it. And for us, it’s like, “Hey, just drink water for a week and it’s like 20 pound off.”
Joe Casabona: My wife hates me a little bit. I mean, whatever. She’s like popping out kids and doing hard stuff. I don’t know.
Jean Perpillant: [inaudible 00:04:53] a lot.
Joe Casabona: Exactly. She’s like, “I’m the heaviest I’ve ever been or whatever.” And I’m like, “I don’t know. I didn’t notice. I don’t care.”
Jean Perpillant: Right.
Joe Casabona: Exactly, right? Because we’re good husbands. I’m probably a bad husband for saying that on the air. So I’ll leave out that part.
Jean Perpillant: Be like, “Commercial edit right here.”
Joe Casabona: Just right there. First of all, Jean is a strategy architect at Design Theory and we’re going to be talking about social media and content distribution, because I am bad at social media, I think. But I’ve been trying to be better. And so I’m just really excited to get your take. But before we get into all of that, why don’t you tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do?
Jean Perpillant: Cool, man. Cool. Okay. Wow, there’s so much, I’m going to try to condense it. It all started back in the mid-80s with a Tandy 1000 from Radio Shack that my parents got that they didn’t know how to use. And so I jumped in there and learned command line and learned how to launch applications through DOS and whatnot. And then I just fell in love with computers all throughout. And technology was always a thing for me.
I started my first business unknowingly, fixing computers and building computers. And then that’s how I kind of met my wife, and she helped me to take that official. From there, it was all great. Then all of a sudden, Walmart started selling computers and I couldn’t compete. And then I started getting questions about web design. And then I was like, “I’ll jump into it.” Self-taught, fell into WordPress, fell into the community, and then fell into a bigger community of developers and designers and creators and everything to where I am now, where I’ve had so many years working with different businesses.
I never really niched down in my approach with anything that I did to any specific sector or industry. Everybody that we’ve brought along the way as clients and customers have been through all different types of industries and walks of life. So I got a chance to really learn a lot of what made people unique in what they were bringing to their marketplace.
And so I’ve turned that into what I call being a strategy architect, where I’m able to create and construct a strategy for people to be able to help their business or help their brand see more reach, especially with using content and different ways of using content, which I know we’re going to talk about it a little bit. But that’s where I find more joy. I still do photography and I love that. I still do that professionally as one of the hats that I wear. But this is something that I have a lot of passion about. So that’s where I’m at.
Joe Casabona: That’s awesome. It sounds like we have very similar paths because it was kind of like that for me. My dad brought home an IBM ThinkPad from work, and I was messing around with it and really excited about it. And then we got our own first computer, and I started fixing people’s computers and burning, mix CDs. That made me like 100 bucks a week for a while. It was good money.
Jean Perpillant: Allegedly.
Joe Casabona: Allegedly. Allegedly, of course, for educational purposes. And then, same, I got into web design. So I was fixing computers in college, and I wanted to start charging people. And college kids have no money, so nobody wanted to do that. So then I started getting into doing more website stuff. I mean, I’m still pretty much doing it to this day along with the podcasting. Awesome. Awesome.
I love your pivot, create and construct a strategy to help people see more reach. That is I think where I struggle the most. I’m a very Field of Dreams kind of guy. You know, if you build it, they will come, I learned in the last couple of years, thanks to CaboPress. Also, let me just say, we talked about the food poisoning part of CaboPess but that’s a tiny little sliver of an amazing event where I’ve grown my business every time I’ve gone to it. So it was unfortunate and rare.
Jean Perpillant: Absolutely.
Joe Casabona: I don’t want everybody to think every time that CaboPress-
Jean Perpillant: No, no. Let me just say, for me, it was one of my first… if you call it a getaway mastermind into the… to have a conference in a pool is something that as many times as Chris tries to explain it, it sounds crazy, but when you actually experience it, it’s like, “This is brilliant.” You’re able to let everything else go, you’re able to focus, you’re able to be around people who kind of like what we talked about before pre-show about how Twitter was like I can meet people that I might not have been able to actually get in the room with and actually have a conversation with them, learn from them. And they’re willing to help me, they’re willing to see me see success or they’re willing to give me the light bulb that I may have been stumbling on for the past year two, years five years. Or a new light just something of where I should pivot to. It’s nothing like it, man. I don’t know. I don’t know he came up with it. All credit to him.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, for sure. I’ve gone every year for a few years. I would have applied pre-pandemic too but it was very close to the birth of my son. But as soon as I can go again, I will absolutely because my business has changed for the better, thanks to it.
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And now let’s get back to it.
Joe Casabona: Anyway, I take a very Field of Dreams approach up until the last couple of years. I’ve been doing a lot of content over the last year, basically since the pandemic started. I’ve been doing a lot of content and I’m starting to see the fruit the fruit of those labors. But I just kind of started recently connecting the dots and doing a strategy for it. I don’t know if it’s good because you’re in your own head and it’s probably good to bounce things off people. Tell me a little bit more about that. So if I came to you as a client, what does that process look like for you?
Jean Perpillant: No, no, no, you gotta give me the ball. It’s a common question that I get. A lot of times people just don’t know where to start. It was like, “I have an idea but I don’t even know if it’s the right idea. I don’t know if it’s the idea because I got it from somebody else, from a competitor, from a friend and they seem to be doing okay or doing well.” So, yeah, that’s kind of question I get all the time.
And really for me, it all comes down to goals. What do you really want to see as a goal at the end? What’s going to make you happy at the end? And then we create the steps, the milestones, the tasks, all the granular things down from that to say, “This is how we get there.”
What I also try to do is realize, okay, is this a worthy goal? So for example, a lot of times people will say, “Oh, I want to have more followers on social” or “I want to have more visits to my website,” or “I want to have more sales to my website,” or “I want to get more customers that convert or visitors that convert.” All of those, great goals. Let’s pick one though. Because what we can’t do is say, “Hey, let’s tackle every single one of these things.” It’ll drive all of us crazy.
And so what means more important to you? Is it the bottom line of getting your visitors to converting? Is it more getting the visitors so that we have the opportunity to convert? Or is it just to get people that are already there to continue to buy more, come back? Or is there not enough people that know about you to become visitors to then convert to then buy? You know what I mean? So it’s like, “All of those things, let’s kind of talk through and let’s be honest about it.”
You end up kind of being a little bit of a coach, if you will. And you’re in their corner because it’s like, “I want to be invested. So tell me more. Tell me how you’re unique. Tell me what you bring, what you offer. Tell me what’s different about what you’re offering? Is it because of the price? Is it because of your location? Is it because your products are more durable, your services are more unique.” Whatever that it is, let’s pull all that, let’s put it on the table. All right, cool.
Now you have your goal, we’ve agreed on this goal. Okay, now we have your assets, and then let’s see how we can position these so that way we can get to your goal. And that may be using podcasting to get to your audience. Or I should say before I even say that, now let’s talk about where is your audience, who’s your audience, let’s identify your avatar. We all hear that your avatar, your customer avatar, your profile, dah, dah, dah. It’s important.
And I hate that it’s such a coined phrase now of saying that, but it’s so important because you can’t just throw spaghetti at the wall and hope that everything sticks, and everybody’s going to love your spaghetti and pick it up and run with it. No. The stuff that you offer, products or services, whatever that it is, it should be as niche as you possibly can get it or should be as siloed as you possibly can get it.
So that way, when you talk about it, and you present it to those people, it makes sense to them immediately. They’re like, “Oh, my gosh, this solves the challenge that I’ve been dealing with for the last year, five months, this just came up, whatever that it is. This product that I used to buy, they’re no longer producing it, and now you’re stepping in and you’re producing it better, and you’re going to be able to continue, fantastic. Now that makes sense to me.
Instead of saying, “Hey, did you know that this is missing? It has nothing to do with me. I don’t even shoot film anymore. So who cares that you’re creating new film projects. Instax is no longer be around. I don’t care. It doesn’t mean anything to me. But if you talk about it in a way and in an area of where people who are consuming content that they can appreciate that, it’s going to ring, and then they’re going to be able to come back to your landing page, and then they’re going to see more information.
They’re going to be like, “I need to get involved. How do I get involved? Oh, there’s a mailing list. Great. I’m going to sign up for that.” And then there’s your campaign. So then now I get more information. It give me more and more. It’s like, “Who do I need to talk to? I need to talk to somebody.” “Well, guess what? We have a phone number. Well, we do a live. We do a live every week. So before you even buy, guess what? We do a live every week. Come meet us. I do IAmA on Reddit or whatever.”
So all these things are just examples but those are things that we have to kind of work through before we can actually get to success and defining what success is.
Joe Casabona: God, I love that. I think that’s so important. And you’re right, ideal customer avatar, that thing that everybody says, it sounds like marketing mumbo jumbo. But it’s not. Even in my Field of Dreams example, if you build it, they will come, it was a specific thing. It was a baseball stadium. And they were baseball fans. It’s not like you just like mowed down a whole field and like, “Come see my no longer field or whatever.” Right?
Jean Perpillant: Swimmers didn’t show up.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, right. Exactly. Describing the problem when you know who you’re talking to. Because again, how many times have you seen a WordPress plugin that was like, “This plugin uses React.” I’m like, “No one cares. No one cares that it uses React.” I care that I don’t need to build a membership portion of my site now because of this plugin. The language it’s written in… most people who buy a car don’t care about the end. Like, I don’t even know. What’s the difference between four and six cylinders? Like I don’t know.
Jean Perpillant: Yeah, I know. It’s more like, “Hey, does it have Bluetooth? Does it have CarPlay?”
Joe Casabona: Yeah, exactly. Does it have CarPlay?
Jean Perpillant: Fantastic.
Joe Casabona: Number one, that’s all I want. We’re buying a minivan this year, it’s got to have CarPlay. I’ve got to be safe. But it’s got to have CarPlay.
Jean Perpillant: See. See.
Joe Casabona: This is great. So pick one goal. Again, that’s so important. That’s really important. Because, again, if you don’t know where you’re going, you’re not going to have a clear path to get there.
Jean Perpillant: Let me define that even further. So whether you’re in business with an organization, it’s you and 10 people, you and 100 people, you’re by yourself, you really have to have a heading on where you want to go. And even for people who have been in business with an organization or by themselves, so many people, a lot of times we get lost in it.
For example, there’s so many businesses that were out there that were focused solely on making sure that their restaurants were intact and they were offering new places every week, or new breweries are come up with new recipes for their beers that were custom and craft and focused on their employees. And maybe insurance and health care and things like that. And then the pandemic comes in and it’s no one was thinking about what it would look like if no one could come in the door for months. You know what I’m saying? No one. You know what I mean? It just wasn’t something to prepare for.
A lot of times, that’s kind of what you need is someone to say, “Hey, can I poke holes in what you’re thinking about doing or even what you’ve been doing to say, hey, if 100 people showed up tomorrow, could you support them? If three of your top five salespeople or developers left tomorrow, where would you be? What does that do to the goals that you set up that we’re in the roadmap? And then it’s like triage control too.
All of these are just things that they’re in business and they happen. This happens to all of us at some point. It gives us an opportunity to learn. But you’ve got to have someone in your corner to kind of have these conversations. It’s good when you have opportunities to be in networking events or in situations where you’re in the room and someone says, “Oh, my gosh, this happened to me.” And then you say back and you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, I never thought that would happen. What if that happens to me?”
So all of these are good things to… it’s all part of strategy, but we won’t get it all. But it is things that we have to try to mitigate for or think about and have a plan for, so that we can get off the book and be like, “Okay, page 73 says this. All right, here’s what we’re going to do, folks.” You know?
Joe Casabona: Yeah. And you’re right. Because there’s that group thing. Like everybody in the same industry kind of thinks the same way. But you’re sitting at a networking event, and someone raises their hand and says, “Oh, this happened to me.” And then you’re like, “What if that happened to me?” No one had that opportunity at the beginning of the pandemic. It all happened to everyone at the same time. So I think you’re right. You need somebody to help you work through… in big companies it’s – what’s it called? Risk assessment. And then you have disaster recovery. It’s weird to think about that as a solo business owner, but what if-
Jean Perpillant: You have to.
Joe Casabona: …I got COVID and I couldn’t run my business for a month? I don’t have a co-host for my podcast.
Jean Perpillant: Right. Right. That’s the thing. We’d like to believe that things are within our control. So long as we’re thinking about what we’re thinking about, that’s all that could possibly happen, right, within the cone of error that we put around ourselves, if you think about dogs. It’s totally not your fault. For me, I feel like it’s human nature. But it also depends on how open you are or how exposed you are to other people. And that’s why I go back to my history, where it’s like I’ve never really niched in my area, if you will. I’ve been around so many different people in so many different industries and professions where it’s like I wouldn’t have known this tidbit about what it is to be a singer or an opera singer in New York versus what it is to be an opera singer in Oklahoma or a dentist in Tennessee or whatever.
Joe Casabona: Again, I think you raised some really good points there. I think we all fall into the fallacy of when things are good for me, they’re always going to be good for me. You don’t want to think about what’s going to happen, if it’s bad That’s why we have insurance. That’s why we have backup plans.
So I’ve come to you, we’ve determined my goal is to get more people to sign up for my podcast membership, which by the way, Jean and I had a very, very good pre-show conversation. I suspect we’ll have a good post-show conversation too That will be available to members. You can sign up over a buildsomething.club for $5 a month. So that’s my goal. How do we build that strategy now? And more importantly, I guess, because this is about social media and content, where does the content come into it?
Jean Perpillant: Let’s jump into that. Let’s use your example. So let’s say podcasting. I want to grow my audience, grow my awareness with my podcast that I’ve been so diligently working on and nurturing and contributing to and creating content for. What I would do is I would say, okay, what types of topics do we talk about on this podcast? And then it’s like, well, let’s see who would be interested in those topics? Where do they consume more information? So do they do Google searches for this? Do they read blog posts about this? Do they consume other podcasts with other people that also speak about what you’re doing?
Because one of the things that I love doing, I’ll use as a tactic to jump into would be to say, “Hey, who else is talking about some of these things that has a bigger audience than you do? Because chances are that podcast host may be looking for someone to bounce some ideas off of, to have a conversation about a certain thing that is common in your industry.
Now, they approached as a “Hey, listen, I noticed that you haven’t talked about this subject matter. I noticed that you haven’t talked about how, and this is late, but how Spotify has been buying all these different podcasting companies like Gimlet and some of the others and we’re not seeing things come out of that. What’s happening to those companies? How is that really playing out? You haven’t really talked about that. I’d love to get on your show. I have some talking points. I’d love to get on your show and talk about it.
This person, let’s say is Joe Rogan, one of the biggest guys out there, right? And Joe Rogan says, “You know what? Joe, that’s a fantastic idea. Why don’t I have you on. I’d love to hear what you have to say about it.” Now what happens is you get on the show, Joe Rogan has millions of listeners, you get exposed to all of those listeners as at least a subject matter expert on this minute point within this bigger macro space of podcasting, and what the business is doing with it, what’s happening in the industry, things are changing.
So now the questions that you bring up or the points that you bring up to Joe, again, he hasn’t talked about it before. So it’s new to him. And then you’re someone who’s new to the show, so that’s great flavor. Now, you get exposure from his massive audience to a degree where it’s like, “Wow, now these people are going to start looking at you and it’s like, “We want to consume more of this. Joe has some really good insight on something that I’d never really thought about. I wonder what else he’s talking about within this space.” So now they jump over and they start to see, well, what’s your catalogue look like?
Now, again, strategy-wise and content-wise, you want to make sure before you get on the show, obviously, because this is such a big one, you want to have some kind of backlog of things that you’ve talked about as well as things you’re about to talk about so that we when this comes out it falls in line.
Now we’ve got like a series of stuff that people who are going to be interested, they can consume. So they’re great. Maybe we even tie that into some blog posts with some data, maybe we tie that into some videos that you’ve done short videos, that you’ve done maybe on Instagram, and things like that, where people can reference and they can consume. Or maybe they catch it there, then they get to the bigger podcast, and then it gets to your other ones, maybe they because they didn’t catch it before.
So now it’s like all of these areas where I just talked about this one thing but I’ve sparked an interest with people that probably wouldn’t have been introduced to me in another way than now they can. And I’ve already got this funnel, or this… not a network, but all of these content pieces around this that people can consume because they’re going to be wanting it to get more of me, and I’ve proven that I’m worth to talk about this thing and other things. Now, I’m not saying that it’s going to be out of let’s say 100,000 people that may be introduced to you, all 100,000 are going to stay. But what if 1,000 did? That ratio is fantastic.
Joe Casabona: Right.
Jean Perpillant: Right? And then now the next thing is, you know, someone could say, “Well, how do I get to Joe Rogan?” You don’t have to get to Joe Rogan. You can get to somebody who has an audience of 100 or an audience of 1,000. Just so long is so that way, it’s like, “Hey, how can we… we’re in the same space. We talk about this. Or maybe they’re in associated space. Maybe they’re not in podcasting, maybe they’re in video, but their videos are also podcasts or shared in another way or their content shared in another way but what they’re talking about is tech in particular. Well, that’s fine. I talk about tech all the time. I’m a techie.
So what if I get on with them and I talk about what’s going on, or I invite them on. Now, they’re going to talk about me because they’re going to say, “Hey, I’m going to be on this show, dah, dah, dah, tune in.” Maybe it’s a live, “Subscribe.” And then their audience is going to want to consume. And so like we have all of these different ways to do it in that way. So before I get into my segment, let me know what you think about that.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. I mean, we just got a masterclass here, listeners. I’m not even joking. First of all, you described perfectly how to pitch yourself to other podcasts. Because people or their people pitch guests to me by saying, “Hey, I want to introduce you to this person. They’re so great you should have them on your show.” And I’m like, “Why does this help my audience?” “I noticed, you’re not talking about this. I think this would be good for your audience. Let me talk about this with you.” Perfect.
And then this is where part of the strategy comes in my friends. And this is what I think a mistake a lot of people make before they go on podcasts. They don’t have a clear call to action, and they don’t have anything ready. Anytime I go on a podcast. I always have “go to casabona/org/nameofthehost. On that page, I’ve got the offer or whatever or related content. And Jean takes it even a step further than that. Make sure to have that related content. Backfill it a little bit. Get ready. Be prepped. Because you’re getting in front of an audience that’s not yours. And you want those people to stick around. I love it. I love it.
Jean Perpillant: I mean, if you think about it this way. And remind me to get back to episodic content. I want to get into that. But if you think about it this way, how many times have we got introduced to a trailer, where it’s like, “Oh, my gosh, I didn’t know this was coming out.” It’s got maybe one or two actresses and actors that I know, that I know about and I didn’t think that they would play some type of role. And so you see these trailers and it’s like, “Oh, when is this coming out?” And you’re excited about it.
Then you start to research a little bit, like, well, who’s the director? And then who’s the studio? What platform is going to come out on because they’re doing all streaming now? So what platform is it? Okay, I have that. Well, then I don’t have that. Maybe I need to sign up, because I definitely need to see this. All of this stuff happens… not to say that they’re not prepared for this, the studios aren’t prepared for it, but this is what the consumer does.
Same thing with a product. It’s like, “Oh, this is going to fix…” If there’s a machine that was out there that would fold my fitted sheets and it would do it for me without me having to get all messed up or whatever, I would buy that in a heartbeat. And I would also say, “Well, why is? Where is it? Can I go to the store and go get it right now? Do I have to order it online? Which I can’t get it from? Can I get from Amazon? Can I get it in two days? Can I get it tomorrow? Can I pay the extra 35 or whatever.” You know what I’m saying?
I would do all of these different things to get this in my hands because it serves a purpose for me that I didn’t realize that someone was addressing. And now that you addressed it, tell me more. Tell me where, tell me how. Don’t leave me hanging. Because now if you left me hanging, it leaves me a bad taste in my mouth. And if I ever see you again, I don’t want to talk to you, I don’t want to hear you, I don’t want to see you.
Joe Casabona: Oh, man. That’s such a great point. It’s like, “What if you had this? All right, bye.”
Jean Perpillant: It’s like, “What?”
Joe Casabona: Like what?
[crosstalk]
I’ll just tell you. I’ll take it one step before that. I buy a specific brand of sheets because they have a label that says this is the bottom left corner of the fitted sheet. I’m like, “That’s all I want. I don’t want to have to rotate it.” And we have a king-size bed. I don’t want to rotate that a million times.
Jean Perpillant: I didn’t even know they had that. So yeah, I’m learning.
Joe Casabona: The Sheets & Giggles. Very comfortable. It’s like sleeping in-
Jean Perpillant: Is that the name seriously?
Joe Casabona: Yeah, Sheets & Giggles. Sponsor my podcast, please.
Jean Perpillant: I’m so mad at that. Yeah, that’s a great name.
Joe Casabona: It’s like Eucalyptus sheets. Hashtag not a sponsor, but they should be. It’s like sleeping in lotion. It’s so good. And they have a label in the bottom left that says, “This is the bottom left” or whatever it says. Like, “Bottom left corner. Winky face.”
Jean Perpillant: I’m literally writing it down.
Joe Casabona: Winky face because we know that no one really knows what the bottom left corner of the sheet is.
Jean Perpillant: No. Oh, man. That was really more for me. I hope your listeners enjoyed that too. But that was really more for me. Let me talk really quickly about episodic. And you can use episodic in written form, video form, audio form, it doesn’t really matter.
Joe Casabona: Episodic. Just to stop you right there, that is pieces of discrete content where serial is like a series?
Jean Perpillant: Right, exactly. And that’s what I was going to bring it down to. So if we think about our favorite TV shows, we know what time they come on. We know that depending on what network it’s on, we’re going to get 12 episodes, 24 episodes, we’re going to get 10 episodes. We know exactly what to expect. We know what time it’s going to come on. We know what date of the week is going to come on.
There’s been times that I used to run home to make sure that I was home in time to watch something live because I wanted to live tweet it or live whatever with it or see it so that way, as it was being talked about, I was ready. So when we think about our content distribution, whatever that is, like I said, written audio, whatever, there’s a really good opportunity, especially with the pandemic and how we’re all seeking…
There’s a void with traditional media creating content and the way that we’re used to it. Especially with releases, whether it’s from shows or movies, where creators like you are filling the void by putting out content in areas where people are like, “Oh, my gosh, I didn’t know this was out here.” Like so many people are in the podcast now, where they didn’t know that it’s been around for decades. And it’s like, it’s fine. It’s fine. We’ve been here. No worries. Glad you joined.
Joe Casabona: Welcome.
Jean Perpillant: But now that you’re here, welcome. So creating episodic content is a really good way to introduce yourself to an audience, whether they’re brand new, whether they wouldn’t have seen you, or they’re introduced to you from somebody else, referral. It doesn’t matter. And the way that you do it is this. Say you have a topic and maybe the topic is, I don’t know, how to how to clean your car the right way without using harmful chemicals or whatever.
We’re going to go through this step by step, how you clean this. This is what you’re going to use to clean the seats, then say clean floors is how you do the events, then this next episode is going to be the trunk. Next episode is going to be the wheel wells and the rims, and tires, whatever, whatever. And so it’s like, every week, you’re going to get something more to the overall thing, which is the car and making sure that your car is nice and kept and whatever. But throughout the process, I’m going to give you a really in-depth way of how to do this step by step so that we get the same results.
And maybe even at the beginning, I might do something where we’ve seen shows where it’s like, “I’m going to give you the end.” And then I’m going to take you through how I got to the end. And so it’s like, oh, my gosh. He asked me, how did you do it? I need to see it. So I need to see the next one, and I need the next one. And then what happens is, is that because we’re going to release this in an episodic form on this date, let me take it even bigger than that.
Maybe I’m going to give you teasers for the next episode, through my Instagram stories that are only going to last you for so long. So you have to be following me and you have to know that I’m going to drop this on Tuesdays at you 12:53 and not at 1 or not at 4. And if you don’t get on between the next 24 hours, you miss it, and people are going to be talking about it, there’s going to be comments and dah, dah, dah.
And then before the next week, my next teaser is going to be on, I don’t know, on Tik Tok. And then I’m going to show you behind the scenes or something else. I’m still talking about the same thing, but now I’m using all these other areas not only to spark interest but also to engage with my viewers in areas that they’re already familiar with.
Yes, it takes time. And we can talk about how much time it’s going to take and how much effort and what you’re going to need and resources and people or whatever. But at the very, very least, I can tell you that. I know we’re going to talk about Tik Tok at some point, but I’m seeing people create stuff on Instagram on Tik Tok, and obviously Facebook with just their phones and it works. They catch on virality, or they’re catching thousands of impressions and views. It doesn’t need to be the lights and the studio lights and the mics and all that other stuff. It just needs to be something that is engaging, it needs to be something that speaks to your audience in a way that they understand, and then put it in something to where they can expect it.
Even if you’re doing seasons. “I’m to do this series for 12 weeks, and then I’m going to take a break. And then I’m going to do this for six weeks and come back for the winter season.” All of those are just ways that you can captivate people. They’re going to talk about you, they’re going to share it, they’re going to talk about it, they might even come up with their own concepts for like, “Oh, I see why they did it this way.
And then they will dissect it themselves. And then before you know it, you created a Facebook group and they’re in your Facebook group as a fan, and they’re having conversations about how the next season should go, or the next series of things should go or whatever, whatever. You’re not even there. You’re just liking stuff and just smiling or whatever. And it’s like they’re having this whole thing because they’re now fans and they’ve come to expect the way that you’ve delivered content in all these different ways and they love it. And there’s a way to monetize that we can talk about that. But nonetheless, the thing is, put the content out there for people to be able to consume it in a way that they enjoy.
Joe Casabona: God, I love that. I love that. People, we’re getting such great advice. We’ve been talking for a long time and we are coming up on time. But put the content out there. It just needs to be engaging. Today as we record this, Chris Lema put out a post about—he’s been mentioned three times on the show he’s about to show up—about the best thing that you can do for your video is good audio. And I piggybacked on that. I said, “You don’t need 4k video. I’m the sucker who has a 4k camera because I’m into it. But you don’t need that to create engaging content. You need a phone and just good content.” So, man, what you’re saying is absolutely right.
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And now let’s get back to it.
Joe Casabona: Now, you teased Tik Tok. I do want to talk a little bit about social networks. So let’s have a quick chat about that and then let’s give our listeners like a one, two, three, here’s how you get started with a good content strategy. Sound good?
Jean Perpillant: Sure. Sure. Yeah, yeah, sure. I will be honest. I know that Tik Tok has been around for a little while. I just really got into it I’d say about a month ago. I went ahead and created my profile just as a placeholder a month ago. And then I had a couple people follow, like some people that I core knew. That’s about it. If you looked at my thing, it’s probably like five people.
But the reason why I got in about a month ago is I saw a video, it was really funny and I was like, “Oh my gosh, this is hilarious.” My daughter has been on there, she creates these dances. I thought it was all about dances and music, and I was like, “I’m too old to be doing these little dances that the kids are doing.” But anyway.
Joe Casabona: Your New York accent just came out really hard there for a minute. By the way.
Jean Perpillant: You see it?
Joe Casabona: Yeah.
Jean Perpillant: You got it.
Joe Casabona: I’m from New York too so I heard it immediately.
Jean Perpillant: Listen, we were both wearing New York hats when we were at CaboPress.
Joe Casabona: That’s right. That’s right.
Jean Perpillant: So the cool thing about what’s happening in Tik Tok is that there’s so much more. I know that a lot of the times we’ve seen the headlines or the things that bubbled up to the other networks. Like the dancing and the music and things like that. There are some comedians that are on there that are creating content that is just fantastic. There are people that are on there that are creating solutions for how to do everyday things. And they’re catching virality.
There are people that are on there talking about stocks, and finances, and crypto and they’re doing fantastic. And they’re all doing it within a short under what is it a minute or something, under a minute worth of time. And in some cases, some of them are doing it even episodically to where it’s like, “I can’t wait for them to put out another one.”
And the way that the algorithm is kind of giving you these things, if you were to get into it and just… let me step all the way back for a second and say that for your content, and we’ll talk about this to wrap up, but for your content and strategy to work, there needs to be consistency. Now, a lot of the people that are really successful on here, they’re creating consistent content on this platform.
And what’s happening is that the more that you’re consistent, the more that their content is being pushed to more and more viewers. The way that algorithm works with Tik Tok is a little different than how it is on Facebook and Twitter and Instagram, especially to where it’s like you literally could see five posts from maybe people that have like 1 million likes or so many million viewers and then all of a sudden see a post from somebody who has three likes or five likes and It’s like, “I didn’t ask for this. How did I get this?” The way that that it’s picking…anyway.
I highly recommend that everybody get in there because the land grab is still available even today for you to jump into. It’s not something that you should feel that you have to be super polished for or that you have to come up with. Just get out there and experiment. A lot of times just creating those initial ones to kind of find yourself, I would say do like a hundred before you figure out where it is that you want to go with it.
Those first ten that you’re going to do are probably going to be horrible, they’re probably going to be poor or whatever. That’s fine. Stay in there, create your first hundred. After about 100 of them, I’m sure that you’re going to find a groove and is like, “Okay, I like this style of doing it, at this desk, or outside or whatever that it is,” and you’ll really start to see success. But then at the same time, like I said, get consistent with it. There still is a land grab, there’s the opportunity for you to grow your audience on that platform still very much.
Joe Casabona: Oh, wow. That’s great. And you know what? I think I said this in the pre-show. I used it for like 10 minutes and totally lost track of time. And I was like, “I gotta get rid of it.” But you make a strong argument. There’s lots of niches out there. I’ve been doing YouTube shorts. Have you seen the YouTube shorts?
Jean Perpillant: I have. I have. And I think that’s their answers.
Joe Casabona: Yeah, that’s their answer to Tik Tok. So I already have a bunch of content. I think the contents good. I mean, it does really well on reels. I don’t understand Instagram reels. It’s so frustrating, because my reels get like 2,000 views or whatever, which is way more than the rest of my content. And I’m like, “I don’t know how to take advantage of this at all.” Just like theoretical dollars, like South Park.
Jean Perpillant: I will tell you that unfortunately, it’s really more of Facebook machine. It’s a newer product that they’ve released. And they released it because of how good Tik Tok is doing. And so they prioritized it. If you remember when Facebook Live came out, as soon as you went on live, they pushed your personal location to everybody that was following you. And they were prioritizing that content, because they wanted people to adopt it, they wanted people to use it more and spend more time on the site, and so on and so forth. So that’s what’s happening there.
And there, I would say, if at all possible with your reels, if you can lead people to where they can consume more as a call to action, do that. Not do it all the time, right? Definitely not. Maybe more of a 20% over 80%. You know what I mean?
Joe Casabona: So they don’t feel like they are being sold to.
Jean Perpillant: Exactly. “For those of you that are out there that are enjoying these, I see you and I really appreciate you engaging. Thank you so much. By the way, I have longer content or I have more content about these things over here on YouTube, or on my website,” or whatever that it is, or subscribing, whatever. Whatever that you want them to do that they can take another step to get closer to you or get more of you, 20% of the time that you’re out there, do that. Give them the opportunity, because a lot of times—man, this is someone I learned from Chris—and he’s got to be on here.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. Where is?
Jean Perpillant: Give them the opportunity. Give them the opportunity. If we don’t give them the opportunity, we’re stuck trying to figure out or trying to guess why they haven’t taken the next step. Give them the step. Don’t bombard them with it, but give them the step nurturingly.
Again, those that are on there that are consuming your content, especially in that platform in that way, they enjoy it. And they enjoy that in what it is. But there’s going to be… let’s say, if it’s 1,000, if you got 10 of those to step out of that and then subscribe to your Patreon or subscribe to something of a more offering, chances are if you’re giving them the opportunity to do it that they didn’t know, they would probably do it. They’re like, “Yeah, this is great.” Now I feel closer to you. I get a little bit more of exclusivity with you. And people love that.
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Joe Casabona: People have been listening, I assume they love what you’re saying as much as I do. Let’s talk about two or three things that people can do to get started with their own content strategy.
Jean Perpillant: Here’s what I would say. If you’re just getting started, try everything. Try everything 10 times. And the reason why I say that is because if you try it once, chances are you’re probably not going to like it. And then you’re going to base you’re not liking it on the whole thing, maybe the whole platform, the whole medium, the whole whatever, and you’re going to write it all the way off. And then you’re going to try something else and chances are, you’re not going to like it.
Try anything, try it all. And when I say it all. If you’re going to do video, try a 15 minute something. Maybe it’s pre-recorded instead of live or maybe try a 15 minute live and see how that works for you. Now, I like doing the lives more because there’s less preparation. It is what it is. And I don’t have to worry about going back to do any post-editing, pre-rolls, and mid-rolls or anything like that, bumpers. I’m not doing that. I’m just getting on, hitting record and I’m going on live. I’m talking about what I’m talking about till I’m done. There’s not opportunities for me to cut, paste, cut, and bring on or whatever.
But what I say is try these because if you do them for at least 10 times, it’ll give you some inkling to say, okay, I’m getting the hang of this, or I can see where I could be better or I can see why I like this overdoing maybe just audio-only, or maybe just doing video on this platform only, or I like doing longer-form video. Or maybe after I’ve done 10 at 15 minutes or 10 at 20 minutes, as I got too close to the eighth, ninth and tenth, I was able to convey my points and subjects with emphasis and.. how do you say? Not just authority, but with effectiveness in maybe five minutes. Maybe it’s just the five-minute thing, and maybe I call it Five Minute Breakdowns. And then that’s the thing, it’s five-minute Fridays, boom.
Joe Casabona: Love it.
Jean Perpillant: Now, I know. When I first got started, I know what it was going to be. I just called it whatever. And then now that I’ve done it so many times, I’ve kind of wiggled my way into something where I really like. But I’ve tried all these other things. So now the less chances for me to get, you know, was it the shiny object syndrome?
Joe Casabona: Mm-hmm.
Jean Perpillant: It was like, “Oh, yeah, they’re doing really well over there. I’m seeing these ads about really doing good on whatever platform. I should go over there. I’ve been over here, but forget this. Go over there.” No, I’ve tried all that, I tried, I didn’t really like it. But this I like. I can see me growing. I can see where I can start to maybe get some used equipment to do better, or I can see where I need to position my room or my desk or my phone and get a camera, borrow one, whatever that it is. And then now I’m good.
Now, once you’ve got that set, then it’s just a matter of I would say repurposing that content in any way that you possibly can, especially if it’s video. So if it’s a five-minute segment, you can maybe cut that down to 30-minute segments, use it on reels, use it on LinkedIn, use it on Twitter. You can cut those sound bites out. Or if it’s video bites out, if you will, and then put them in those areas. Maybe you pull out some sound bites, put them together as a …how do you say? In succession, and then that ends up being like a quick little podcast, little hit.
Joe Casabona: Yeah. What is that called? A compilation.
Jean Perpillant: Compilation. [inaudible 00:54:06] like monologue, but that’s not as compilation. So maybe you put a compilation. So like it’s a week compilation that gets sent out as a podcast, boom. It gets sent out, boom. And then maybe you use that in your emails and say, “Hey, by the way, here’s what’s going on. But then, if you missed it, here’s the quick hits. You can listen to it on the go.” So all those are just different ways.
But whatever that you choose, spend a lot of time in analytics. Write down and document what’s going on, what’s working, what’s not working. Because there’s so many times that we get into things and we think that… you know, at the very beginning and I would say for your first 100 of anything, you’re not going to see much traction. You’ll see a little bit but you’re not going to see much.
Nonetheless, document because what you want to see is how do people react to this thing that I talked about, versus how did people react to this? And if people reacted to this subject a little bit better than the others, maybe I should talk about this a little bit more. Maybe I got two comments instead of no comments. And maybe those comments that I got were so constructive, where it’s like, maybe if I talk about this a bit more, do I get more?
Or did I share this in this platform. And because I shared this in this platform, I did a lot better there in terms of engagement, in terms of reactions, in terms of likes, and things like that. All of those are things that you have to document. Create a spreadsheet, don’t do anything complicated. Create a couple rows. Each row is a different platform, or a different medium, or whatever. And then that way, at the end of it, you can easily tabulate and say, here’s what’s working.
And then now that you’ve got all of that, and you’re documenting things, now you can say, okay, so if I did this every week, every day, every month, so many times or once a day, and it took me this long to do it, I can build this into my content strategy, or my content delivery strategy. Or maybe I’m going to do it only to this degree, I’m just going to put this out on this platform, then after three months, I will have enough maybe an ad revenue or whatever, whatever to then hire a virtual assistant and virtual assistant can then take this or they can use otter.io and they’ll transcribe it for me and then they’ll put it into a blog post. And that goes out.
Or maybe they’ll transcribe it for me and then put it into captions. And then that goes out into something to where you consume it without the video on because we all know that more video gets watched without the sound on because the captions than not because people are at work, or they’re in the car, or whatever, whatever. So maybe I use that. And then that’s a process I outsource.
And then now I can kind of watch those things and I can continue just creating the content, and not so much on all the ancillary things because now I’ve got a process for how those are disseminated and being used. And ultimately, bringing people back to the main which is maybe my website or my whatever or whatever that the platform you want them to come back to, to then subscribe and pay or whatever that it is you want them to do. Does that make sense?
Joe Casabona: You gave me so many ideas. In Build Something More in the post-show, the post-show will be short because the pre-show was long and there’s a lot to unpack here. But in the post-show, I will share with you how I am able to repurpose my YouTube shorts for Instagram reels. But I think I’m going to have to send those shorts over to Tik Tok too.
Again, I try everything 10 times, see what you and what works for you. Repurpose your content, spend time in analytics. Once you do that, you can create your content delivery strategy. Jean there’s one more thing I need to ask you, and I ask everybody this, do you have any trade secrets for us?
Jean Perpillant: Yeah, I do. Please don’t try to recreate the wheel when it comes to finding assets for your content. There are websites out there, there’s a lot of free ones like Pexels. I think Pexels does like royalty-free images that you can download and use for free with contributions to the creators. And they also have video content. And I have some others. But there are areas out there and I’ll send you the links you can add to the show notes, so that way people can catch it after.
But there’s one site that I use called… it’s from Envato. It’s called Elements. And for 19 bucks a month, they’ve got PowerPoint assets, keynote assets, 4k video assets, assets for final cut, and for premiere. You could do your own intros and outros and all types of cut. They’ve got you royalty-free music that you can use for your intros and outros, or whatever. They’ve got all this stuff for 20 bucks a month.
Now, it saves so much time and effort. I’m not saying that you can’t create on your own. By all means, if you have the time to do it, do it, and then whatever. But if you don’t, go to one of these sites, get a subscription. Some of them are free, some of them are minimal subscription. Go do that. It’ll save you so much time and effort.
And then if the barrier for you to create content will be where it’s like, “Oh, but I now need to learn how to do this and I’ve had to learn how to do this and I’ve learned… I just want to put it…” No, come up with your content, create, and put it out there, use these other things that are already created to then add to it. But at the very least, like I said, grab your phone, talk to it to a talking voice and then put it out there consistently.
Joe Casabona: I love that. On that same token, I will just mention Envato Elements sounds great. I use Design Pickle as well. I’m not a graphic designer, but I have a lot of custom graphics. Price is a different price. It’s like 500 bucks a month, but you basically get a dedicated graphic designer. And so my graphic designer saves me hours every month creating podcast graphics, YouTube Graphics, artwork for all sorts of things.
There’s a good value prop there because I would spend an hour trying to figure out Affinity Designer, and then trying to design something that won’t look as good. Whereas my designer knows how to use that stuff and he makes it look good and makes it editable.
Jean Perpillant: That’s awesome. I never heard about that. Design Pickle?
Joe Casabona: Use my affiliate link.
Jean Perpillant: Please put that in the show notes. That’s awesome.
Joe Casabona: I should say everything will be in the show notes over at howibuilt.it/226. And, Jean, always a pleasure to talk to you.
Jean Perpillant: What? Please have me back.
Joe Casabona: 100%. We’re going to make this like a quarterly thing.
Jean Perpillant: Good.
Joe Casabona: If people want to learn more about you, where can they find you?
Jean Perpillant: You can find me at JPdesigntheory on just about everything. Obviously, my website at JPdesigntheory.com. Catch me on LinkedIn, and Twitter. I’m trying to be more active again on Twitter. But you definitely catch me there. And if you have any further questions, we do have a Facebook group called the Hero Academy. It’s free to join. You could join us there and love to chat with you.
Joe Casabona: Awesome. Again, I will link all of that and everything over at howibuilt.it/226. In the pre-show, we talked about parenting at length and it was incredible. It was real talk with Jean and Joe. In the post-show, I’m going to tell you how I repurpose content. I’m also going to ask Jean about how I pronounce his last name because of my Italianness. So if you are interested in that, you can head over to buildsomething.club and sign up for five bucks a month.
Thanks so much to this episode’s sponsors. They are Linode, The Events Calendar, and TextExpander. Jean, thanks so much for your time today. I really appreciate it.
Jean Perpillant: Oh, man, are you kidding me? It was a blast. We definitely have to do this again.
Joe Casabona: For sure. Thank you for listening. And until next time, get out there and build something.