Twitter and Podcasting – with Jennifer Longworth

According to her social media bios, Jennifer is an executive producer of awesomeness. She’s a geeky, Catholic, married podcast producer who has kids and cats. Jennifer oversees all things podcasting for UpMyInfluence.com; from finding interview opportunities for clients and networking with industry professionals to hosting & producing “The Thoughtful Entrepreneur.” In addition to podcasting, Jennifer coaches UpMyInfluence clients in developing their Twitter profiles to grow their audiences. When not working, she can be found hanging out with her teenage daughters or napping with one or more of her four cats.

Thank you for being here on the e-commerce marketing podcast, since you are definitely a Twitter expert, you know, our topic at hand today is going to be. Twitter and podcasting which are areas that you are heavily involved in these days and I’m really excited to talk to you about that because I haven’t really talked to anyone specifically about Twitter specifically or protesting believe it or not.

But before we get into all of that, why don’t you tell our audience a little bit more about your background and how you specifically got into what you’re doing today? Well back when I graduated high school in the 90s, I went to college but what I do now didn’t exist then so I didn’t really know what I wanted to do.

Because it didn’t exist. So I ended up, you know doing these day at home. Mom thing for many years got married had kids. They’re awesome stayed at home. And then once social media and podcasting became a thing, I went back to school and got my degree in New Media from Southern New Hampshire University and podcasting was one of the topics I chose to do a lot of projects on and learned a lot more about that.

In the meantime. I got involved in Twitter chats online and started learning a lot about that. So I literally taught the class on Twitter chats in my social media marketing class because the professor he was a marketing God but not a social media guy. As well. This is one of the assignments we have to do this Twitter chat, but I don’t know.

I don’t care whatever just show up. I’m like dude. I got this. I know how this works. I got you. So I don’t fun being the one person in the class who knew and cared about 200 shots. And dr. Bob. He’s like well, okay fine. You got this go for it. Of course I a pass but you well, that sounds awesome.

Yeah. It’s. Really it. Did, you know that you kind of saw where things were going and did that transition there because you know these days it’s like I mean social media it really is almost a whole separate industry. Really? Yeah, we think about it as much money is generated through it. Yeah, you can really consider to you know, separate industry.

And so yeah, I love to hear that. You really don’t write into it for sure now, you know a lot of the listeners out here, of course our e-commerce businesses that are you know, Weekly listeners are eCommerce businesses and people that are somehow involved in e-commerce marketing and you know as we mentioned.

Social media is the name of the game these days. If you’re not doing something within social media year, you’re kind of leaving some leaving some food on the table. So as far as Twitter is concerned how really does an average e-commerce business use Twitter to increase sales because I know a lot of businesses are really just thinking that you know, I’ve got a Twitter account got a Twitter profile.

I post occasionally, but you know, I’m not generating any money from it. How can they increase their sales with it? So I have a client who a podcast. England who came to me directly from Twitter so I can use her as my example and it’s because. We developed the relationship on Twitter before she needed me.

Okay, and we were in the same Twitter chat that I mentioned and Twitter chats are a scheduled our once a week or once a month around a specific hashtag and a standard questions are asked like q1 is how to do the table and everyone answers Q2 then goes on for an hour and Community such as Twitter smarter.

So same people every week and such. So Alicia and I were both in Twitter smarter and we developed a relationship there. When she was looking for podcasts editor, then she reached out to me and has been a paying client since then now all that to say is that it’s a relationship tool a lot of people think of Twitter as a broadcast tool and just throw stuff out there throw stuff out there throw stuff out other get reactions don’t whatever or just do it because you have to but.

The beauty and Twitter lies in actually the engagement and being to access people who maybe wouldn’t be able to reach otherwise, but you can tweet at them and they’ll respond and I use Twitter recently to communicate with Delta and American Airlines each of them with different issues or questions.

I had about upcoming flights and they’re real quick to respond. So understanding this not simply a broadcast tool but it’s an engagement tool will go a long way it really. Extends. I know there are a lot of people and even businesses that use it as a broadcasting tool which, you know, it can be done for that and it can be effective too.

Going to blast things out to your followers into your your social media audience and that’s it is effective in a way to doing for that. But you know, like you said it also is a really big relationship to land. That’s that’s what I’ve seen also in my business here with with army star. We form relationships with it, and it’s really just a great way for you to be able to connect.

With others in really almost from anyone in the world pretty much no matter what Niche or what industry you’re in it can be done. Now. There’s a lot of businesses. I talk to e-commerce businesses all the time, you know daily pretty much and advise them on different things with regards to marketing and the main question that I lot of business owners have started businesses and businesses that have been running for a while is you know, everybody these days is.

Everybody’s plate is for everybody’s doing a million and one things trying to manage their business grow their business, you know support customers and just kind of keep the lights on and then so a big question is going to be. Okay sounds great. I know Twitter lot of people are successful with it.

I can build relationships and I can use it as a tool to increase my sales. But you know, how would I really do this in-house? Can I do this in-house on my own? Do I need to hire a separate person? What are your thoughts on that? You can do it on your own but it does take time. You can’t set it and forget it.

Twitter’s not it doesn’t work like that Twitter is also about providing value to people to increase your Authority and influence and so it comes back around to content marketing. In thinking about that. So if you’re already doing content marketing on a Blog on other platforms, you can start there with your Twitter.

So if you already have people write it on the bed, you’re going to repurpose that for Twitter and then you can use tools such as HootSuite buffer social jukebox. There’s a ton of them out there and sit down one day a week or whatever works for you based on what you’re putting out there and just schedule it all out and chunks of time because ideally you should be tweeting and engaging on Twitter five times a day.

It’s continually updating and always in the moment always in the moment. They’ve changed how they present things to you. So it’s not always the most recent but still if you want to gain traction, you got to be there doing it five times a day now people go and I don’t sit around Beyond 25. Okay, then don’t take a day of the week or have a person or team or whatever and just do it in a chunk of time.

If you have Evergreen content, you can recycle it Twitter won’t let you post the same thing two days in a row or whatever. You think I have to spread things out a little bit but you can do it in-house a dedicated person with a dedicated block of time and just do it and then be mindful of checking your notification because if someone does choose to engage with you and you never actually go to Twitter.

Find out you may be missing out on key opportunity. So remember to check in on Twitter once a day just to clean up your notifications your new followers and thank-yous react to other people’s stuff because you have to engage with other people in your industry or your potential clients and people who you want to work with.

You need to seek them out and work on that too. So it’s about scheduling time to actually do it. Yeah, you can do it in-house gotcha. Gotcha. Well, it sounds good. That’s definitely good to hear because I know a lot of businesses are always leery with with managing. These things and these tools because you know things are moving so quick technology-wise.

It’s like you got to keep up with so much and so I know that’s a bet really a big concern one of the things that I do see as Twitter being really powerful for doing as you mentioned you you may already have content and say business owners got a Blog and it’s pretty active. Of course, you can easily repurpose that or you know, come up with.

Awaited to drive traffic to your blog from your Twitter account and that that’s definitely a way to do it. But it also is a great way to specifically Empower your audience with regards to you know, just overall inbound marketing, you know, for example, if you are, you know, let’s say you are a fashion brand and you’re selling let’s say women’s Fashions and you could, you know not being so salesy where you’re just kind of promoting all your.

With Twitter. It’s also a great vehicle to like you said and power people with some really good information. And so maybe a good tweet would be something like linking to a blog or maybe just a quick tweet saying, you know the top fashion fails of. [20:18], you know right now, we’re at the beginning of the 2019.

So people are still kind of holding onto the best of lists and the top lists and so everybody’s kind of looking back at what happened in 2018 and how they can move beyond that and how they can do better. So, I think that’s another another way that Twitter is really powerful. Absolutely, and people are you gave like a clickbait type headline?

They’re all the best things worse thing 28 T know people click on that stuff all the time. It’s great for in marketing and you know and you go only have like a second or less to capture people’s attention on Twitter because it’s gross gross gross because there’s so much information there. So if you’re able to have a.

Catchy headline or eye-catching image graphic whatever to point people to your content. That’s definitely effective. Yeah, for sure. Now, I’m Switching gears a little bit going into the podcasting realm now podcasting. Of course since I do run a podcast, I don’t you know little it’s really a podcast of really exploded over the past few years.

And so. The question that I know many business owners that are listening and marketing professionals are listing is really they see that these podcasts have exploded in all types of genres and niches and you know, so many businesses have it. So the question that they have is, you know, really does it make sense for you know, just any e-commerce business to start a podcast and if so, how can they use it to increase sales?

Well, I work with up my influence.com as you mentioned and our mission statements. We turned top entrepreneurs in the media celebrities earning them more Authority influence and revenue and it’s that Authority and influence the lead to your revenue and a good way to build your Authority. Is there a podcast you set yourself up as the expert on affiliate software in e-commerce marketing you know, that’s your thing.

You are the expert on that. If someone has a question they come to your podcast. If you are a nurse practitioner and a special field you do with geriatrics. Okay, start a podcast where you focus on that specific field, you pull another expert so you’re building your Authority. And then becoming a thought leader influencer, possibly from that podcast, which will lead to revenue because you want to work with somebody who knows what they’re talking about.

Right? Right, right. For sure now. Yeah, that’s some great advice and those are some good examples of different types of podcast. But as far as podcast formats are concerned because you know, it’s the possibilities really are endless and that’s the power of it. You can really put out there it really literally almost anything that you want.

But what are some. Common types of formats that are successful at different businesses have done that may not be. That typical but our businesses have had success with well, one of the show’s I work with does case studies of different projects in their Industries digital signage stories. I just finished working on one of their shows.

So their top of mind and they bring on industry leaders and present what these people have done and so it’s an interview based show and I think it gains traction and the what they’re promoting is their conference as digital signage Expo, so they’re bringing on these. Experts to drive traffic to digital signage connections get people to come to their trade show.

So that’s what their purpose is. And so my other kinds are bloggers trying to drive people to there’s but they’re also speakers so there again building their Authority and influence and so I show formats gold like you said, there’s a billion kajillion ways to do it. You can have a five-minute show.

You can have a five-hour show. There’s no rule on that. You can do it all by yourself on behind the microphone. That’s fine. You can bring on guess as Phi you can sit there with a co-host. That’s fine. It’s really flexible. Most of the ones I work with our interview based, but I have one. And it’s two guys and they’re very professional and it’s scripted which makes it easy for editing and they’re providing value that’s their thing and setting those of as a Authority and fluency.

There’s a theme here, they’ll take this all about. It really is. It’s just becoming an authority and setting yourself up, you know to be an influencer in whatever Niche you’re in and the podcast for iPhone. Perfect for that because you know over time as you if you do launched a podcast and you start getting kind of a resume.

So to speak of episodes, you know, people definitely was kind of think of you as an authority of when your particular topic and the one of the things that you mentioned earlier is that we were talking about Twitter actually its content and Evergreen content and that’s actually something that your podcast episode.

Will actually become and when I say Evergreen content, I mean it’s content that literally will never die because you can always refer back to past episodes no matter what year it is, you know, even if it’s two years ago if it is timely and it’s relevant to whatever it is that you are talking about or referencing in your content on your website.

You can always point to it and you know, just definitely you know lives on pretty much forever. So yeah, that’s a positive thing for sure. There’s a term we use in the podcast and recalled pod fading when you started a podcast and then you just haven’t stuck with it for whatever reason you have kind of fallen off and but these shows like you said, they’re still on Apple podcast.

There’s you know iTunes us like you could still go back these people haven’t put out a show in two years, but it’s still living out there. It doesn’t go away dog is still being hosted out there. Where you can still get to it, so it’s a little bit different than other forms of medium promotion as well because with a Blog.

It can be there forever as well. Right but it probably lost five years ago. Yeah, and if you stop blogging people aren’t coming to your site anymore and it’s not as searchable. I guess. I don’t know. I’m not a blogger but I’m guessing yeah as you search for a topic and we’ll figure might not have had a show for five years, but there it is and your search.

Yeah, exactly, even though it’s there’s more and more podcasts everyday popping up there. It’s not quite like a just a Google search. If you’re searching in podcast categories is not quite that saturated with with information and data. So you’re like you said you can you can remain out there and have a pretty good standing in your particular category for quite a while.

Even if you only put out a few episodes and you kind of took a Hiatus or so people can still find you and listen to those past shows for sure. Yeah, so as far as Twitter’s concerned kind of linking the two Twitter and podcasting. What do you think as far as the outlook for both of these? I guess you could say channels are concerned do you think.

These are just some of the latest trends where they’re here today gone tomorrow, or do you really see a huge bright future with both of them? I see a bright future for both of them as people understand your Twitter has been around for a while now, but people still have it all figured out how to use it.

I talk to folks. Regularly like well, I’m on Twitter but I don’t know there’s so much negativity. Like don’t follow those people you hate you have complete control over what you see on Twitter or something. You don’t like unfollow that person to another time. So he doesn’t have to be a negative place.

You have control over this. Yeah, they’re sponsored posts that come up every once in a while. But okay, whatever that’s everything you do. So learn how to use it properly and it goes far. So I have a lot of friends and. Action steps I have developed on Twitter. I don’t see it going anywhere right podcasting definitely not it.

There’s just grow grow grow Facebook recently launched a podcast. Well, welcome to the party Facebook. Okay, where you been to the game? But like Trader Joe’s has launched a pike. I see as some of the bigger names and companies are starting to get into the podcast game with oh wait. This is a thing.

This isn’t going anywhere. My heart is doing their podcast Awards and. Being more recognized of course Academy of podcasters and had podcasts awards for years, but I hardly like, oh we need to do this thing and make it an award show and live stream it on Twitter. See there you go. There’s a tie-in my heart’s Alliance aiming their a podcast Awards on Twitter.

Yeah. It’s just the that’s definitely true. And I agree. I really don’t see them going anywhere Twitter or podcasting. You know, this is the way that the growth has been. And with podcasting, you know, it’s the Netflix of audios as what I tell people and we see how Netflix has exploded and people are dropping cable because they’re going to get Netflix and Hulu and sling it.

All those things are streaming on demand everything. Whereas I think the once technology in vehicles catches up then you know, because right now but where do you listen the ready you listen to in your car because just get it and it’s there because it’s more difficult to listen to a podcast in the car for me.

I have to. Set up my Bluetooth get on my phone hit the buttons that Attitude Era but podcaster now, it’s Spotify podcaster getting on Pandora podcaster. I heart and when automobiles have these things integrated in or you can just turn on Pandora. So listen to my podcast you’re going to see an uptick.

In podcast consumption, that’s what I’m thinking. Yeah, I think you’re so right about that. As soon as the accessibility like you said in these cars were there just be like a podcast button or option then I mean this just the rest is really history. It’s just gonna. Really just explode from there.

And you know, one of the last things I wanted to kind of close out as far as podcasting or concerned is I know listeners are wondering okay sounds great. You know, we see all of these companies jumping in there doing podcasts all these people with different sites different brands bloggers. You name it, you know anybody at home just wanting them to put some out there can put a podcast out there.

So, I guess one of the questions that I know many people are wondering is from a technical aspect. How hard is it to actually put something together and then get it out there on at least iTunes, you know, I know all the ins and outs, but why don’t you kind of let our audience know a little bit about what it takes to do that and I guess what’s the the MVP the minimum viable product that you can actually put out there.

So what I think is you get a decent microphone I use the ATR 2100. It’s USB or XLR. So I plug my ATR 2100 into my computer. But boom I have. Mission Adobe Audition is my recording software, but there’s lots of different recording software is out there audacity is free. So you get your affordable microphone plug it in your computer record into audacity or if you have Creative Cloud.

Anyway, you already have audition then after you do that you hopefully edit it. And if you don’t want to do that, you call me podcasts with Jennifer.com. And then after you do that you save as MP3 and you upload it to what we call a media host like lips and blew. Ray pod Bean those types of places which creates an RSS feed an RSS feed is what sends everything out to Apple podcasts Spotify Stitcher everything like that.

So once you have your feed your RSS feed going then you have to manually submit it to iTunes connect and then tell you are a podcaster. It’s not that complicated. I know what I’m doing. Okay. Well, I kind of know what I’m doing. So I don’t think it’s complicated really isn’t it? And thanks for that for someone it up and that really comes down to really all you need is you know, like I said, I might you know something to create the RSS file and then actually these days there are several apps actually out there where you can publish a podcast just from your iPhone and.

They actually make it super simple when I publish this show notes all I actually include some links but the names are escaping me right now, but I came across who they are, but I don’t want to mention them because I don’t like them. So, okay, I’ll let you put him in isn’t sure it is possible to do it just with an app.

So the quality may not be the best but it is doable. It’s definitely well. I have a friend. He’s a professional editor and he spoke in a pod person. Podcast movement and such and he uses his iPad for the whole process. Okay. Wow. Okay. Yeah record into his iPad. He edits his own and other people’s shows in his iPad.

Okay. That’s awesome. I think he has a microphone that goes into the iPad. He’s on tissues in the internal mic. Sure sure, but. Okay, thank you don’t have to spend lots of money on equipment to do it. Yeah, that’s that’s the bottom line. Yeah, that’s that’s awesome. We appreciate your insight into Twitter and podcasting Jennifer.

Like I said at the beginning we hadn’t really I haven’t really delved too much into Twitter specifically or podcasting at all. On this podcast so I know this is going to be a refreshing episode for sure that I know our listeners are going to get a lot out of but before I let you go, I always like to ask my guests one final question.

And what is one thing that our audience would be surprised to know about you? Everything this is the first time I’ve been on your show. Boom. No, I guess what is that? I sold Avon for over 10 years when I was a young mom and staying at home and I signed up for Avon the day. My husband got laid off from his job.

I had no idea that was going to be the thing but I did the direct sales thing for quite a while and now I’m podcast editor, so that sounds good. I can make a career out of it. That is for sure. Yeah, I did for a while, but you weren’t in it for the long haul. Well, I was homeschooling my kids and it kind of got to be too much to do both right I can imagine those my kids over the products and whatever right?

I think that’s a good choice. Well, I was thanks for sharing that I appreciate that Jennifer and definitely thanks again for being on the e-commerce marketing podcast really appreciate it. And if any of our listeners want to get ahold of you, what is the best way for them to contact you? Spanner contact me is podcast with Jennifer.com.

Or you can find me at up my influence.com podcast. Okay, great. Yeah, that’s that’s an awesome domain makes it makes it super simple to get to you for sure. So great. Well, thanks again for being on the e-commerce marketing podcast. We appreciate everything that you’ve shared with us. And yeah, it’s been awesome talking to you Jennifer.

Well, thanks so much for having me.  Thank you for listening to the e-commerce marketing. You need to get more feedback and reviews from your customers and improve your customer retention. We have made it easy to do all of this with our Advanced customer feedback software just visit get OS i.com forward slash feedback and sign up for a free trial today.

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Podcast Guest Info

Jennifer Longworth
Executive Producer of UpMyInfluence.com Podcast