#5 An Introduction to Social Media for Business

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

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Andrew McCauley: Okay. Welcome to another edition of Autopilot Your

Business. My name is Andrew McCauley and I am excited

to be on this particular session and of course joining me

today is the lovely Heather Porter.

Hello, Heather!

Heather Porter: Hello, hello, Andrew. Hello, everybody. Thanks for joining

listening us again and we are both very, very excited about

this episode because we are going to do something we love

and that is social media.

Andrew McCauley: Social media is everywhere in the news, it‟s in the movies,

it‟s in the bus ride to work, it‟s everywhere you go. So,

why not dive into social media and let‟s talk about how we

can use social media and how we can make it work for your

business because, let‟s face it, if you are not using social

media these days, you are sort of being left on the shelf.

Heather Porter: I pretty much say you don‟t exist. I mean, really, let‟s first

face it with YouTube as search engine no. 2 as far as how

many people go there and Facebook is the what, the second

largest or third largest country in the world by population or

people that use it?

Andrew McCauley: Currently at 850 million people as we go to air and they are

due to hit a billion people sometime this year in 2012.

Heather Porter: Love it. Huge. So, let‟s just kind of debunk the myths

about social media, talk about it in a really easy-to-

understand way today and just… like literally everybody,

you guys need it, you really do need this for your business.

http://autopilotyourbusiness.com/podcasts/introduction-to-social-media-for-business/

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http://www.socialmediamasterplanseries.com/






So, our intention today is to make it easy so you leave this

podcast and you say “Yep, I know what I am going to do

and why I am going to do it.”

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

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

Heather Porter: So, I propose that we sort of turn the tables for this

podcast and I become more of the interviewer today. What

do you think?

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

Heather Porter: Cool, alright.

Andrew McCauley: We got to play.

Heather Porter: Alright. So, Mr. Andrew McCauley, here is your first

question. Actually, let‟s just talk basically about social

media as a whole. Tell me a little bit more about what is

social media and where is it going as a general

understanding. What is it, what is social media?

Andrew McCauley: I guess the term social media can be a little bit deceiving

for some people. We look at the word „social‟. Okay,

„social‟ is interacting with people and that‟s what we do; we

have been brought up to interact with people and deal with

people, build relationships but the word „media‟ I think








confuses a lot of people. The word „media‟ traditionally, as

we know it, is the media, whether it‟s TV media, whether

it‟s newspaper media, whether it‟s radio media and most of

those medias, up until early 200, most of those medias

weren‟t telling you what to do. It wasn‟t a conversation at

all. People were saying that you watch TV and it would be

a one-way conversation, it would be someone on TV giving

you information without you interacting at all back to the

TV. And then you have got radio where you are listening to

a radio DJ and you are listening to the music because there

is no interaction apart from when we call in on a talk-back

show. Most of the time it was one way traffic. Same with

newspapers and magazines, they are all one-way traffic.

There is no interaction going on. And then come along in

early 2000s when Facebook and MySpace and some of

those early social media sites popped up. That‟s when it

started seeing people having a voice and they could say

“Hey, I am here, I can listen, I can respond to what you are

saying and if I don‟t like you, you are going to know about

it.”

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

Andrew McCauley: Totally two-way and I don‟t know if the word „media‟ should

be in that whole thing when we are talking about social

media because it‟s probably stifling a lot of people. It

should be something like „social connection‟ or „social

relationship‟ more than „social media‟.

Heather Porter: Sure.

Andrew McCauley: Just so people can get their head around what it is because

what is also happening today – and we will go into this a

little bit deeper probably in another show but – people








getting that idea that as media we have to tell people what

to do, we have to tell them one-way conversation, we have

to sell them something and we see so many people on

social media platforms whether it‟s Facebook or Twitter or

any of those that all they are doing is telling people “Buy

my stuff, go here, do this” and they are losing that

connection with people because they are not doing it the

right way.

Heather Porter: You brought up a really interesting distinction, actually.

They are kind of hard wired into the old thinking of tell, tell,

tell people to buy, buy, buy where actually social media,

from what I understand it to be, is literally a place to hang

out with your friends, family, client and just be a little bit

more of who you are and give a little bit more value back

into the world.

Andrew McCauley: And that‟s exactly why I say it should be called „social

connection‟ or „social relationships‟ or something like that

because that‟s what it is – it‟s hanging out and

communicating two-way backwards and forwards about

what it is that you need to talk about, adding value to the

conversation. You hear this a lot of time – you don‟t go to

a pub, you don‟t go to a coffee shop with a friend and all

you do is tell them what they should be doing and buying

your stuff.

Heather Porter: Yeah.

Andrew McCauley: You build a relationship because it‟s a communication tool

and this is exactly what social media is all about.

Everything you have learned in business – now, the

business rules have never changed; it‟s just the way the








delivery platform has changed that people are not picking

up on.

Heather Porter: I have some of our clients and they say to me “So, what am

I supposed to say on Facebook, for example? What do I

actually say?” and I say “Basically, pretend like you have

walked into a networking event and whatever you would

say in that event is appropriate to say on your Facebook

page. So, you wouldn‟t actually go up to somebody you

have never met face to face and just say “Hi, have a free

report. Sign up now for it” or “Hey, 50% off. Go get it

now.” You have to build a relationship so they actually

understand who you are at first.

So, tell me a little bit more about the platforms that exist.

So, the big picture – what social media platforms are

actually out there right now?

Andrew McCauley: Okay. Well, there are probably around about… actually, I

don‟t even know the numbers but I am talking in the

hundreds… there are social media platforms in the

hundreds although most people think “Hey, what are you

talking about? I thought there are only two or three.” In

actual fact, there are hundreds of different platforms out

there and some of them are more directed for certain

individuals or certain groups of people but most of them are

accessible to everybody. It‟s just some do different things

over and above all this and then of course there are at least

probably the top five which I call the Big Five and I will give

you a quick rundown of what each of those top five are

because everyone‟s pretty much heard of them but the top

five at the moment, in no particular order, are Facebook,

obviously no. 1. If you are not on Facebook then, as you

said, you don‟t exist.









Andrew McCauley: A lot of people are still scared to be on Facebook too, by

the way, and I have gone through a couple of training

sessions with some people recently about that. They are

not sure what to do and how to interact and their biggest

fear is looking silly in front of other people but the one

thing I will say about these platforms is that you can‟t

break them, you can get on Facebook and you can get on

Twitter and LinkedIn and YouTube and all of these, you will

not be able to break them, let‟s face it. Facebook pay

people to try and break it. They are paying tens of people

to try and break it because they want to make it as safe as

possible. So, if you are worried about breaking things, you

will not be breaking anything, I can guarantee that.

The other thing that people are worried about is the fact

that “How do I use it if I am not very technically minded?”

and let me tell you 850 million out there are not all internet

gurus.

Heather Porter: Really?

Andrew McCauley: So, they design these things, they design these platforms

for people that have very low internet usability. They have

to make it as friendly as possible because if they don‟t, they

wouldn‟t have 850 million or a billion people using it. So,

they are generally pretty user friendly and it‟s not that hard

to get on board.

Heather Porter: You talked about Facebook. So, what are some of these

other ones, the big ones. You have just said “Well, there

are hundreds of them” and I am thinking “Oh my gosh!








Really?” I am not even using maybe a few of these right.

So, what are the ones I should focus on, I guess. So, there

is Facebook but what else?

Andrew McCauley: Facebook is the first one. Just a quick general review of

Facebook is on Facebook you find a lot of old friends, you

can connect with people, you can do all sorts of things like

post videos, post photos, put all sorts of links there and

that sort of stuff. So, it‟s a great platform just to share

your life, just to connect with people. You don‟t have to

share what you had for breakfast, you don‟t have to do all

that sort of stuff. Just share what you find interesting and

valuable and something that‟s going to add value to other

people as well.

Heather Porter: Yep.

Andrew McCauley: So, that‟s Facebook.

The nest one is Twitter. Now, Twitter confuses a lot of

people and the main point of confusion is that you have

only got 140 characters to convey your message. Now, 140

characters is a not a lot and many people think “Well, what

can you say in 140 characters.” Well, what we need to do

is jump on Twitter and you will see millions of results every

minute of what people can say in 140 characters or less.

Heather Porter: And that brings me actually to another question, another

point. A lot of people say “Well, isn‟t it just incessant

ramblings? What‟s so valuable about just little ramblings all

the time that they are having on Twitter? Why do you need

it? What is it for?”








Andrew McCauley: Totally. One of the greatest things I like about Twitter is

that it has one of the best real-time search engines. Now,

by that I mean if I am looking for… let‟s say we all heard

about Whitney Houston dying on the weekend. Now, if I

was to go to Google on Sunday morning, US time, and type

in “Whitney Houston”, I would have got a whole range of

different results from Google and we would have got her

history, her background. I might not have gotten much

about her death because it wasn‟t hitting the websites so

that Google could index those particular articles.

Heather Porter: Okay.

Andrew McCauley: Right? So, Google would have information about her songs,

her Grammy awards and all that sort of stuff and where she

grew up and fan pages and all that sort of stuff but the

current news, unless I have clicked on the news and found

some relevant sites, the current news actually didn‟t report

her death 27 minutes after Twitter started doing it and I

saw this today, this article today. If I was to go and find

current news about Whitney Houston‟s death, I would find

everything I needed to know within minutes of her dying

essentially because that‟s what people do – they are

sending the information that‟s current. The good thing

about Twitter is it grabs that information and gives it to you

within seconds. So, the search engine is accessing the data

within seconds of people posting it.

Heather Porter: Just like an amazing news source.

Andrew McCauley: It‟s phenomenal. Now, you can talk about a news source

and say “Well, that‟s good if I wanted to know the news but

I really don‟t care.”








Okay, great. So, here is way that I use Twitter just for

business and business purposes. Let‟s say that you are a

business coach, for instance, and you might do a search on

the term „business coach‟ or „business advice‟ or „need

business advice‟. Now, if I was to type in that term and

somebody just in an hour or two beforehand had written a

tweet that‟s saying something like “Hey, help, I need some

business advice, my business is going down” and I was a

business coach, I could easy contact that person within

minutes of them actually posting that tweet and say “Hey,

guess what, I am a business coach. I know you need some

business advice. How about we get together and I can give

you some advice?”

Heather Porter: I love it. So, basically, from more of a layman‟s

perspective, you are kind of looking at Facebook as a place

to almost develop your personality and your relationship

and what you can give and help people out with whereas

Twitter is more, what you say, for research and very timely

information of what‟s going on in your space and how to

find clients well.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly. And I think it‟s created a very good timely group

information source. So, as soon as someone says “Oh, I

need some business advice”, you are not missing the bus

by looking at a Google search that‟s maybe a couple of days

old. You are over there within minutes or hours saying

“Hey, I have got the answer for you” and all of a sudden,

that person says “Wow! Somebody‟s coming to my

rescue.” So, you can find all sorts of great information. If

you are looking for an answer to something you can‟t find

anywhere on the net, post it on Twitter and you will see

some great results.








Heather Porter: Love it. That‟s a very great distinction on the value of

Twitter because it is so much more than what people just

think it is – “Oh, it‟s a quick little tweet here and there” –

but it‟s an incredible market research tool, it‟s incredible

timeliness tool, finding clients.

Actually, another quick question on that before we move on

to the next platform. So, we have talked about researching

and finding people that are asking questions and maybe

potential new clients but I am still a little bit confused as to

what I as a user would post. What would I actually say on

it?

Andrew McCauley: Well, you can do similar sort of things as you would on

Facebook. The whole idea is adding value to the people

that are following you. So, if you have got a whole range of

followers, they are following you for a reason. Now, most

of the time, they are following you for a specific reason

because they have come to your profile through something

whether you posted in your bio that you are a business

coach with knowledge or something like that, whatever

happens to be in your bio, branding expert, people are

saying “Well, if you are a branding expert, I want to hear

what you have got to say.” So, I might find you on Twitter

and I will say “Okay, you are a branding expert. Cool! Let

me see what you have got to say.” So, you may post out

some tips like “First tip of the day” and you put a tip on

branding. So, I am looking at you to add value to what my

knowledge base already is.

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

me a branding tip.

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








Andrew McCauley: Okay. So, you may have a blog post, for instance. Let‟s

say you have written a blog post because it‟s much more

than 140 characters long.

Heather Porter: Yes.

Andrew McCauley: So, you have written a blog post or you have done a video

or something like that on how to answer the question “What

do you do?” So, you may go to twitter and say “Just

written a post on how to answer “what do you do?”” and

you put a link in there to your blog.

Heather Porter: Got it. Okay, go it.

Andrew McCauley: Right. So, there you are putting links. So, what you can

with Twitter is not just answering in 140 characters but you

are putting links inside your tweets so that people can get

more information. It‟s almost like a teaser. It‟s almost like

“Hey, here is the headline. Now, come and read the full

story.”

Heather Porter: That‟s what I was going to say. Yeah, Twitter is more of a

headlines whereas Facebook is more about personality, isn‟t

it, because you obviously have so much more space to talk

about things. So, you kind of cut it down to quick, short

and sweet on Twitter and then you elaborate more on

Facebook.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly, exactly. Again, that‟s a good point. It‟s the quick

version, the headline version of the news and if you want to








read more about the headlines, click on the links that are

often in the tweets to find out more.

Heather Porter: Love it, great. Okay, I am clear, I am clear, Andrew. So,

what else? What else do we have to use in our social media

tool belt.

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


Andrew McCauley: YouTube is video sharing website just recently YouTube

announced that they now upload 60 hours of video to its

servers every minute.

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

Andrew McCauley: 60 hours of video every minute to YouTube. Now, why is it

so much video going on? Because, I will tell you why,

mobile phones or cell phones these days are getting better

and better with better quality videos that people are taking

videos of everything. Every single thing you see is being

videotaped now because everyone has a video camera in

their pocket and it‟s only going to get more prolific.


Andrew McCauley: So, the uptake of that is that video… I mean, a year or two

ago, you had a think called Flip camera and Flip went out of








business. Then they had the Kodak Zi8 which was a great

little camera. Kodak‟s going out of business now too.

These cameras aren‟t selling anymore because everything

that you need is inside your phone and the phones are only

getting better, as I said. So, there are more videos being

uploaded as we go through YouTube.

So, why should you be on YouTube? Because that‟s what

people are watching now. People are spending nights at a

time on YouTube rather than TV or videos.

Heather Porter: You know what else too? I was just teaching a group the

other day because I read something really interesting about

YouTube that people go to YouTube to find out how to learn

things, to get tutorials. So, they will go to YouTube as their

search engine like Google to type in “how to” and then fill in

the blank.

Andrew McCauley: Real time.

Heather Porter: That‟s the place… Yes, same, same. So, that‟s the place if

you are positioning yourself as an expert or your business

or your services. That‟s where you want to be to actually

show what your services can do for people, isn‟t it?

Andrew McCauley: Oh, totally, totally. And it‟s the best place to do it because

people know where to go now. They know that YouTube is

a „how to‟ place. It‟s a site full of funny cat videos and

„how-to‟s. So, you can do anything you want, you can learn

anything you want on YouTube pretty much and it‟s an

amazing amount of information for free. So, you want to

start using it. Now, YouTube has just changed a whole

range of their backend and their dashboard stuff and it‟s








becoming more and more social now. So, when you log

into YouTube, there are people recommending other videos

for you. There are connections being made similar to what

Twitter and Facebook are doing. So, you can post updates

and things like that. We are in the middle of doing an

entirely new product on YouTube right now because there

are so many changes to YouTube, so many cool features of

YouTube that people just don‟t know it because they are

not used to it just yet.

Heather Porter: Love it, love it. You know what else? I have to tell a quick

little story off in a little tangent. You know how in YouTube

you are watching videos in your space, the things that you

want to learn more about and then suddenly down the right

hand side you see a scary face or a scary clown video, like

a funny cat video and you start to kind of go down the

wormhole and you are clicking on all these videos. The

other day I went down a very freaky wormhole where there

were kind of deformed people videos and the one thing I

absolutely love to know and would always stay with me is

that one of the comments right up at the top underneath

the video was “Ooh! So, I have gone to that site of

YouTube, have I?” I just thought I should share that

because that story proves a point is that the way it‟s

designed is to have you click around and hang out there for

a while. So, there are all these great little tools that you

can have your videos showing up on the right hand side

that says “Suggested Videos” and all that.

Andrew McCauley: I think we will do an entire podcast about YouTube tricks

and tips because I have just come away from a place

where I have learned a whole range of new cool ones which

I am testing right now and getting some amazing results.

So, I think we will have to share them on a separate

podcast.








Heather Porter: Definitely. Actually, I am already feeling that there has to

be a separate podcast for each of these tools because there

is so much on each thing.

Andrew McCauley: I think we will do that too.

Heather Porter: Yes.

Andrew McCauley: Just for the listeners, I will give you a quick tip about

wormholes and how to avoid them or how to get go down

the safety road back to where you were. I often find myself

looking at those wormholes and if you are not sure what I

am talking about, a wormhole is essentially where you think

you are going to look at one video and somebody else

grabs your attention and you go and click on that and then

something else will grab your attention and, as you said,

the next thing you know you are down a really weird place.

Heather Porter: Yup.

Andrew McCauley: Often I open those videos with a right click of my mouse

and I open in a new tab. So, the original video that I am

watching, I keep it open in that tab and then I will open the

wormholes in separate tabs. So, I can easily step out of

those tabs and close them down as I go. So, I still

remember exactly what the original video was and why I

was there in the first place.

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








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

Heather Porter: So, I guess, on that note let‟s into another little more

serious social media tool and this one is LinkedIn and I will

just preface this with saying that most of the clients that

come us say “No, I don‟t do anything on LinkedIn. I don‟t

really understand why I need to. Isn‟t that where you just

put your CV or your resume. Isn‟t that just for

professionals? Blah, blah, blah.”

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

Andrew McCauley: I think LinkedIn is probably the best tool – I have got more

work out of LinkedIn than pretty much anything else and I

don‟t do enough on there and I am still getting more work

than anything else. So, LinkedIn is almost like a Facebook

for professional people. It‟s sparing the gamy apps. There

is no Farmville or that sort of stuff. There are people selling

those sort of things on there and that‟s going to happen

anywhere you go but it‟s not selling like ridiculous amounts

of selling. It‟s more of professional people connecting with

each other and sharing ideas and common knowledge.


Andrew McCauley: Your profile information will house a lot of information in it

than a profile on Twitter or a profile on say Facebook. So,

the great thing about LinkedIn is that you can pretty easily

become an expert in your area quite easily and all you need

to do is have a great profile filled out but there are others

things like joining groups – there is a whole range of groups

on LinkedIn that you can share common knowledge with

people from those groups. You can answer questions.









People will pose questions all day and you can answer

them. In fact, they often have 15, 20, 30 different people

answering the same question and what it does is it lets you

become the expert and people see “Wow! He has answered

another question or he has answered this question. I am

going to go and find out more about that person.” And just

by answering questions, I get people coming to me saying

“Hey, that‟s a great answer. I have never thought of doing

that” and because I have given them something or

something different or something even, dare I say, a little

bit secret of what I do, people want to find out more about

me and who I am. I just got one today even from LinkedIn

saying “Wow! I never knew that you could do that on that

particular topic. That‟s amazing. I never heard of anyone

doing that before. Hey, let‟s connect even more.”

Now, is that making you any money? No, probably not at

this stage but could it? Definitely, it could. It could be

something that leads to something else.

Heather Porter: Definitely. Then a question on that. So, I will be clear on

how to use both Facebook and LinkedIn. Do you post the

same sorts of things on both those platforms and if so, why

or if not, why not? So, what‟s the difference of really

positioning yourself on an expert of both of those?

Andrew McCauley: Once again, it‟s a platform for more professional people.

So, if you are on Facebook and you are posting some great

photos of a barbecue on the weekend, it‟s not going to

really cut it too much on LinkedIn. People want to know

professional information rather than trivial. But at the

same time you still should appear as a person rather than a

robot or a logo. So, if you want to give information about a

topic, what you are doing on LinkedIn just remember that

you are representing your brand in itself. So, you want to








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

well.

Heather Porter: Okay. So, I am going to recap so far as how I understand

these platforms based on what you have said.

Andrew McCauley: Okay, good.

Heather Porter: Okay. So, Facebook is your holistic brand – you as a

person, your personality coming forward. It‟s bits of

photos, it‟s funny little facts, it‟s questions, it‟s

conversations.

Then you have Twitter which is your headlines. It‟s a quick

way of entering into new markets, doing research, and also

getting new blood into your business or into your funnel.

Then you have LinkedIn. This is where you get to kind of

show off your expertise. This is where you get to position

yourself as the expert. Although you may do that slightly in

other places like Facebook and Twitter, this is where you

really get to build your credibility and authority in your

space.

Then you have YouTube. That‟s where you get to teach

people what you do in videos, right? You actually get to

explain and show what you do.

Did I get that right?








Andrew McCauley: Yeah, spot on. On YouTube, it‟s not just what you do but

it‟s also what you have done for people too, like you can

show some results, show videos of testimonials. You can

show videos of how other people use your product or

service.

Heather Porter: So, very quickly, what we are learning here is that the

reason why you need all of this and all of it working

together because each thing does a very important thing

for your brand but left alone, if you are just using one of

these little pieces of the puzzle, it‟s not going to give the

whole picture of who you are and what you can do for

somebody.

Andrew McCauley: Totally, totally.


Andrew McCauley: That‟s exactly right. It‟s all about using all of these stuff

together so that your brand is being completed, so you are

not missing anybody. Now, people will say “What if I have

got friends on Twitter and they are also friends on

Facebook, won‟t they get sick of saying the same thing?”

Well, the simple fact is that you are not likely to have any

friends have Facebook and Twitter open at the same time

looking at that sort of information. And don‟t worry about if

someone says it‟s the same post twice. It‟s not a big deal.

Heather Porter: And it might actually just convince somebody because we

are all so busy sometimes, even if you see something twice,








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

maybe.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. And the other thing I says is “If you have ever been

on the radio or watch TV when news comes on” and let‟s

say the 7 a.m. news and you are listening to a radio report

about a news item and then at 8 o‟clock you listen to the

news again and it‟s not an original item; it‟s exactly the

same as the 7 o‟clock news. They repeat it, they have been

repeating it forever. It doesn‟t matter if you hear the same

thing over and over again. I mean, don‟t go overboard and

post the same tweet every 10 minutes but if you post it one

or two or three or four times, it‟s not going to ruin your

reputation. That‟s for sure.

Heather Porter: Very, very good point. Very good point. And there is a lot

of noise and a lot of information constantly surrounding all

of us nowadays. So, chances are like you said that

somebody‟s not going to be sitting in YouTube, Google… no,

we haven‟t got into Google yet, we are hitting that next…

YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, they are not going to be

hanging on all those at the same time. So, exactly right.

So, you don‟t really have a risk of overwhelming or giving

too much information to people.

Andrew McCauley: Totally, totally.

Heather Porter: Which brings me to Google which I just kind of slid in there

very quickly – the coveted Google+ which is all on

everybody‟s lips right now although no one really, really

understands what it is and do they need it and if they need

it, how much do they actually need of it right now.








So, what‟s Google+?

Andrew McCauley: Google+ or g+ as it‟s known is the new kid on the block

and the new kid on the block is growing really, really fast.

And why do you want to use it? Well, it‟s Google‟s third or

fourth attempt at social media and this time I think they

are on a winner and it‟s growing rapidly. Now, the reason

it‟s growing rapidly is it‟s letting people connect in a

different format. I mean, this is not the only thing that it‟s

good for. It does a lot of things that Facebook does

already. So, you can share videos, you can share

information but the power of Google is that it‟s linking all of

its information, its social information to Google search

results now and this is going to be one of the biggest things

because when you are doing a search for something on

Google, you will find that if somebody in your circles – they

call them „circles‟ rather than „friends‟ or „groups‟, they are

called „circles‟ – if somebody in your group has

recommended or what they call „+1‟ – It‟s the same as

what the „like‟ button is to Facebook; so, you +1 somebody,

so, if you go to a website, let‟s say I go to your blog site,

Heather, and you have written a blog about branding and I

click on the „+1‟ button, that means I have publicly told the

world that I like that post. So, all of my friends and all of

the people that are connected with me in my circles know

that I have actually endorsed that blog post.

Heather Porter: So…

Go ahead.








Andrew McCauley: Now, let‟s say your blog post is on branding for women.

Okay, the blog post is about branding for women and I

have given it a „+1‟. Now, let‟s say another friend of mine

on my Google circles goes to their computer and they type

in “branding for women” in Google. The very first result

that they are going to see is anything that‟s based on

essentially like word of mouth which means if any of their

friends in their Google circles, which I would be one of

them, has +1ed something that‟s relevant to their search

term, that is going to be their no. 1 result in the Google

search.

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

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

Heather Porter: Wow!

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

amazing.

Here is a little tip: The more you +1 things out in Google

world, the more your face will show up in all of your friends‟

results because you are out there telling the world you have

endorsed certain bits and pieces – certain blog posts,

certain sites.

Heather Porter: What an amazing way to position yourself as an expert,

right? It‟s somebody… the place to go.








Andrew McCauley: Totally. Every time you see something, go and +1 it if it‟s

in your industry because those search results are going to

start showing up and your face is going to be next to them

saying “Hey, remember me? I am the person who +1 this.”

Heather Porter: What an amazing tool. Okay, so the + stuff… but is it like

Facebook? I mean, do you have a profile and a photo

and…?

Andrew McCauley: Certainly, you do have a profile, you have a photo, you

have a section. We didn‟t talk about pages on Facebook

but Google also has their own business page as well now.

So, you can create a business page for your business which

I recommend you do. And just today, just today – this is

the first time I ever saw this and I am trying to see if I can

find another repeat of this and you probably haven‟t seen

this either – but when I did a Google search this morning

for something… Let me see if I can just replicate it as we

are speaking right now… when I did a Google search for a

particular topic… yep, there it is… the very first… So, I just

searched on Google „social media‟. Now, not only does the

„+1s‟ and that sort of things come up on the top of the

search results but on the right hand side where ads would

normally go, it‟s now giving me people and pages on

Google+.

Heather Porter: Oh my Gosh!

Andrew McCauley: Yeah – I have to send you a copy of this too – but now it‟s

coming on the pages on Google+ related to social media

and it‟s got the first person is Byron Smith, the second one

is somebody else and somebody else and it tells me what

circles they are in for me, how I am connected to them and

what is the information about this person. This is their








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

their business pages…

So, that‟s new today, brand new, hot off the press, we are

doing a podcast as it rolls out today.

Heather Porter: So, imagine – and I love that because that‟s how fast the

stuff moves – but imagine getting in on this right now,

guys, with you listening to this right now and imagine going

out there and being one of the first people in your industry

to actually create these business pages and get out there

and suddenly you are quite easily being able to position

yourself as authority in that space because I have a feeling

that people are a little bit overwhelmed and a little bit kind

of “I don‟t know about this Google+ thing”. So, for those of

us who want to move quick and get in there first, there will

be big benefits for that.

Andrew McCauley: Totally, totally. So, I am not going to scare you too much

with Goggle+. All I am going to say is get on there and

have a play with it. Don‟t feel like you are going to break

it. Just go in and just what it‟s about. There are plenty of

places like YouTube where you can go and find out exactly

what‟s going on but go and check it out and see for yourself

how these things are working.

Heather Porter: And on the next episodes too we will actually walk you guys

through exactly how to do that. So, when Andrew says go

and have a play and get set up, we will show you where to

go, where to log in, how to create your account and all the

things that you need to keep in mind when you are doing.

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








Heather Porter: So, there is something else that‟s kind of come up recently

that also seems to be like it‟s going to be quite big and I am

just curious and your thoughts on that as well. It‟s called –

and let me know if I pronounce this correct but is it

„Pinterest‟?

Andrew McCauley: Aha, Pinterest. Actually, Pinterest is like a rocket out of the

gates. In the last three weeks, Pinterest has gone from

zero to the fasting growing social site ever, ever.

Heather Porter: So, it only makes sense that we are going to talk about it

and we have got to talk about it if that‟s happening.

Andrew McCauley: I am going to give you a quick rundown on Pinterest. I am

going to put on the concept of Pinterest and how it got so

big so fast but here is what it‟s essentially about. Here is

my take on it because there is not much written out there

about it, so I am going to give you my take on it.


Andrew McCauley: Pinterest is like… it‟s like Twitter but with pictures. You

create pinboards, what they call pinboards or boards, and

you pin things to the board and often it‟s a picture, it will be

an image or something like that. So, you might have a

photo, some photos that you have taken for a party, and

you might want to create a board that‟s called „Family

Board‟ and you pin your photos to the board and you share

it with other people. Now, the reason Pinterest has taken

off so fast is that you can link up with your Twitter friends

and you can link up with your Facebook friends and that








sort of things. So, people in your circles can get know

pretty quickly that you are a part of Pinterest.

Heather Porter: Do you know, my sister actually used this the other day and

from my understanding, it sort of started out for women,

didn‟t it? Because women would post their wedding dress

ideas or recipes and because of how women work, we all

like to gossip and have a chat and share ideas. So, I think

that‟s probably why it‟s spread so quickly but what I loved

is she said she put up a photo of Gerard Butler, the actor,

and she said to me “I created an account, I stuck up a

photo of Gerard Butler and it got re-pinned about a hundred

times in less than an hour” and I said “What?” and she said

“Just because he is hot of course” but that is interesting in

and of itself that you can go in and create an account, put

your first photo up and have re-spread within an hour.

Andrew McCauley: Re-pinned, yeah, that‟s re-pinned real quick. The other

thing about this is there is a whole bunch of smart

marketers that are thinking about this and going “Well, how

can we do that?” So, they are putting product pictures up.

They are putting images of their logos and that sort of stuff

or things that have worked for them. I am going to start

using it for keynotes. When I am doing some keynotes, all

my PowerPoint slides, I am going to pin those up as an

image, each one of those PowerPoints will be an image.

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

Andrew McCauley: Yeah. So, Pinterest – the word „interest‟ with the letter „P‟.

It‟s on fire, you will hear about it every way. It‟s going

crazy. There are some really cool stuff in there. The good

thing about Pinterest is people can pin something from your

website.








Let‟s say you have got a picture of your item. Somebody

comes on to your website and they want to pin the picture

to their pinboard. They can pin it but Pinterest will still give

you credit for your website.

Heather Porter: Wow!

Andrew McCauley: They will give you credit. So, you know people aren‟t

ripping your pictures off and claiming as their own. They

say “Hey, this is where the original came from”. So, if

people are putting your pictures on their boards and they

are getting re-pinned, then it‟s all of a sudden turning viral

for the people to see what‟s out there.

Heather Porter: So, right now, I am feeling two things. I am feeling very,

very excited about all this now that we have collectively

talked about what‟s available but I am also feeling

overwhelmed and I know that if I am feeling a little bit

overwhelmed that anybody listening to this that‟s kind of

new in this space is probably… their heads are about ready

to pop off or some might say they are feeling a little

lopsided. By the way, guys, that was a joke that Andrew

and I have. When we are very busy, we say “My head feels

lopsided”. So, it‟s okay if you are feeling that right now but

the question is what can you do about it? How do you use

these tools in a way where you are not spending 18 hours a

day just using these tools?

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, that‟s a great question and that comes up all the time

and it‟s like “You know what, how much do I have to learn?

Do I have to go and learn each one of these? Is it going to

take me hours and hours and hours to learn? And then

when I do learn, how am I going to even think about








spending all the time posting my information to all these

different sites?

So, one of the great things about all these is that there are

some tools out there which let you do a lot of it at once.

So, if you connect several different platforms together, so

you can post a similar subject out or you can use a

dashboard or things like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite – that‟s

Tweetdeck, we are going to stick that in the resource

section of the podcast – it lets you manage that sort of

stuff. So, if you find something you want to post, you can

post it out to one of the platforms or you can post it out to

all of the platforms that are connected. So, it lets you

control that sort of stuff easily without having to spend

hours and hours and hours in doing that sort of thing.

Heather Porter: And what about rating people or staying in touch with

people across all of your platforms? Does it also sort of

allow you to do that? How do you…?

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, totally, like with Hootsuite and Tweetdeck you can set

some alerts. So, if you have got… let‟s say you have got

some favorite people that are posting regularly and you

don‟t want to miss a tweet or a post because you find their

information is relevant and beneficial for you, you can

create a little alert for them so that you get a stream if you

like, what they call a stream of information, just from that

person. So, it‟s not being lost in the other noise that‟s

going on there.

Heather Porter: Wow! Okay. So, there is some good tools. Do they take a

long time to learn? Are they overwhelming?








Andrew McCauley: They are quite simple and the reason they are simple is

because a lot of people want to be users and a lot of people

don‟t have the best technical skills to go and learn

something complicated. So, they want to make sure that

it‟s easy for everybody to use.

Heather Porter: Got it. Okay, okay. We have talked about the big five and

maybe big six with Pinterest in there, we talked about the

tools that you can potentially use to automate and save

yourself some time. One question as we start to kind of

come closer to closing on this podcast episode is the best

practices. There are people spamming, there are people

that are adding forcefully or just without asking you first,

people add you into groups in Facebook. There are all sorts

of little things going around right now on social media that I

guess people are not very happy with, they feel like their

privacy is not protected as well. So, I guess as a

fundamentals rule, what are some rules that we can all

follow to use social media the best way?

Andrew McCauley: I guess the first one is don‟t spam people. So, don‟t go out

and just blast your list with something that‟s not valuable.

Go and give them information, make sure that the

information that you are giving them is going to add value

to your relationship with that person. After five or six

pieces of valuable information, then give them something to

go and look at on their own maybe your blog post or maybe

sales page or maybe video of yours but make sure that the

information you are giving people is not really pissing

people off. So, that‟s one of the first things.

The second one is just have a conversation with, just chat

as if you are talking at a coffee shop or a bar or something

like that.








As far as privacy goes, you want to make sure that your

own privacy settings, you should review those regularly so

that you are not getting a whole range because you will get

inundated with information from these sites. By default,

they will set your information so you get an e-mail every

time somebody does something on your sites. Go and

check the privacy settings and your account settings so that

people aren‟t bombarding you with irrelevant information.


Andrew McCauley: That‟s one of the first things I would do on those sites, just

check your social settings and account settings on those

sites as well.

Other best practices are if people ask you a question,

answer them back. Don‟t be rude. There is no point being

rude or obnoxious on any of these sites because it will only

go around and come back and bite you on the bum. So,

just be pleasant. If somebody is being nasty to you, just

walk away – de-friend them, leave them but don‟t just into

a slugging match. I have seen that all that often and I

have seen it regularly and lately of a slugging match and

it‟s just ugly. It‟s not good for anybody, it doesn‟t matter

who is right or wrong. At the end of the day, people are

going to look at you and go “Why is stooping down to that

particular level?”

Heather Porter: Good point.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah.








Heather Porter: Good point.

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

sense.

Heather Porter: Yeah. And like we were saying before, just be yourself. I

mean, if you are quirky, be quirky; if you are funny, be

funny. Whatever you are, be that way online because

people love to do business with people… you build trust

slowly online and if you are trying to be something that you

are not, it does come out and it does look like you are being

wooden or trying something on. So, just be yourself.

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

Heather Porter: Exactly, exactly.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly.

Heather Porter: So, I guess the next question on this would be what is the

best place to get started? What should I do next after

listening to this podcast and I know now that I want all of

these accounts, what do I do next to not overwhelm myself

but to actually take some baby steps to move forward?

Andrew McCauley: Not overwhelming yourself is the first step. Don‟t get

overwhelmed with it. If you are not on all of them by the

weekend, then that‟s okay as well. Just take it at one step

at a time. Just say “One week, I am getting a look at

Facebook” and then check it out if you haven‟t looked at








Facebook. If you haven‟t looked at YouTube, go and see

what YouTube is about, have a play with it. Go and let

yourself run in some rabbit warrens and just find out where

it takes you. Have a look at what people are doing. You

will be amazed at the quality of stuff that‟s out there and I

am talking not on the good end, I am talking on the low

end. We are talking about people that have got thousands

and hundreds of thousands of hits on their channels with

THE WORST videos ever on how-to but they are getting

hits, they are amazingly popular. So, don‟t let perfection

stop you. Whatever it is, don‟t stop there and go “I haven‟t

got the right qualities” or “I haven‟t got the right camera or

microphone or computer”. Don‟t let that stop you. Just get

out there and make something. Upload a video to YouTube

and see how it works and then rip it down, just delete it.

Heather Porter: Exactly and that‟s the key about perfection in the internet –

you can never be perfect online because online moves too

fast to let you to have practice enough to be perfect.

Andrew McCauley: Exactly. And let‟s face it, when you are starting out, you

are not going to have six billion people looking at your

website the first minute when you launch it. Unfortunately,

that‟s not the case. So, we are going to talk about how you

can get not six billion people but more than one person

looking at your website down the track when we talk about

some traffic strategies but get out there and just do it. No

one‟s going to find you, no one‟s going to see it, give an

attempt, make it as bad as you can so you can learn from

your mistakes.

Heather Porter: And another thing too that I think is great is to get started

easily on Facebook or Twitter is to go and find 10 people on

each of those, ten people or pages and just look at them in

the morning each day, spend 15 minutes just having a look

to see what they are doing – 10 people or businesses that








you like – and then you can kind of get an idea just by

watching people on what you would want to do when you

actually start to grow your presence using these tools.

Andrew McCauley: Yeah, take notes. Use this smart file and take notes and

that sort of thing.

Heather Porter: Exactly.

Andrew McCauley: So, get started, just get on and have a play with them, look

for people that you know, connect with them, ask people

that you don‟t even know “Hey, how did you get started or

what was your best tip for getting started on this particular

item?”

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

Andrew McCauley: There you go, on YouTube search.

Heather Porter: Yeah, YouTube search.

Andrew McCauley: All of those.

Heather Porter: Another thing too then I guess would be, because we do

want to dive deep into each of these five and maybe even

Pinterest because there is a lot of movement there in the

future in our future episodes, so guys, when you are

listening to this and as you start to have a play with all

these different tools, write down your questions please and








visit us, go to www.AutopilotYourBusiness.com/Podcast and

our will see the episode – this is episode #5 – go on and

enter episode #5, we have a commenting space there,

leave us your questions please on anything – Facebook,

Twitter, LinkedIn, YouTube, Google+ and even Pinterest –

and what we would love to do is actually compile your

questions and as we go into each of these topics further, we

will actually answer these questions for our future episodes.

Andrew McCauley: Yes, totally, totally. Definitely.

Heather Porter: Anything else, Andrew „The Social Media Bloke‟ McCauley,

to add to the end of this generalized Social Media And Why

You Need It In Your Business And Life podcast?

Andrew McCauley: You know what, for now, I think we have fried enough

people‟s brains to go and do much more and we can keep

going and I do have other courses and stuff but for now,

the biggest takeaway is go have a play, go and get started,

start having a look around, you will have heaps of

questions. In fact, get those questions getting ready

because when we do our particular podcast on each of

these different platforms, we are going to be able to answer

them before you even get to the end of it. So, send those

questions in while you are having a play right now and we

will answer those while we are on the podcast.

Heather Porter: www.AutopilotYourBusiness.com/Podcast and just go to

episode #5 and leave your questions there. Right now,

while you are listening to us, go do it now and then we can

get back to you and let you know.



http://www.autopilotyourbusiness.com/Podcast

http://www.autopilotyourbusiness.com/Podcast






Andrew McCauley: And then you can „+1‟ it, re-tweet it, and send it on

LinkedIn and make a video and put it on YouTube.

Whatever you do, tell your friends, tell your friends.

Heather Porter: Yes, please. No, thanks so much, Andrew. This has been

great. I mean, I love your knowledge on social media. I

use it all the time myself but there is always so much more

that I could be doing and this once again has shown me

just how deep the rabbit hole goes.

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

fingertips.

Heather Porter: Thanks, guys, so much for hanging in there with us. We

appreciate you as always and we are very excited to go on

to our next podcast.

Actually, which one of these amazing five topics shall we

cover in the next one?

Andrew McCauley: We will do one of them.

Heather Porter: We will do one of them. You guys let us know which one

you want the most. Whatever one you ask the most

questions about, we will do that one.

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

do that podcast just for you.









Heather Porter: Yes, perfect.

Andrew McCauley: Thank you, Heather. It‟s been great.

Heather Porter: Thanks, Andrew.

Andrew McCauley: And I look forward to the next one.

Heather Porter: Thanks, guys. Thanks, everybody.

Andrew McCauley: Bye.

Heather Porter: Bye, bye.

**End of Audio**



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#5 An Introduction to Social Media for Business