Strategic Social Media Without the Hustle with Joel Comm

Interviews, Show Notes

It’s always about relationship, first.  You know, any time we approach social as selling, we’re likely going to fail, because even if you are selling, a solid 90-95% of your time should be content and relationship-building, and the selling is, you know, always, “Oh, also, we have this, if this interests you.”

— Joel Comm

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Tara:  Welcome to Profit. Power. Pursuit.  I’m your host, Tara Gentile, and together with my friends at CreativeLive, we talk to powerhouse small business owners about the nitty gritty details of running their businesses, making money, and pursuing what’s most important to them.  Each week, I deep dive with a thriving entrepreneur on topics like time management, team building, marketing, business models, and mindset.  Our goal each week is to expose you to something new that you can immediately apply to growing your own business.

This week, I’m joined by Joel Comm, whose been building businesses online for more than twenty years.  He’s the New York Times bestselling author of twelve books, including The AdSense Code, How to Run an Online Business That Pays, and Twitter Power.  He consults with businesses large and small, and speaks on social media and marketing.  I asked Joel about how he puts social media to use in his own business.  We talk about how he chooses new platforms, why he’s betting big on live video, and how his businesses have been impacted by social media.

Joel Comm, welcome to Profit. Power. Pursuit.  Thank you so much for joining me.

Joel:  It is my pleasure.  Thanks for having me.

Tara:  Absolutely.  So you have been using the internet to grow business for over twenty years now.  At what point did you start incorporating social media into your marketing strategy?

Joel:  Oh, gosh, it’s pretty early in the whole social media era.  You know, what we call social media now.  Because before social media, we had message boards with members.  We had chat rooms where people had to log in and be social, so you know, that was social media, and we’re talking as far back as 1995, but you know, what we’re talking about now when we say social media is kind of everything from Myspace forward, and it was really 2007 when I signed up for Twitter and Facebook, and that was the year that I started using the power of social media to attract people to my business.

Tara:  Awesome.  Actually, that’s a later date than I would have expected from you, so that’s really interesting, but I’m really glad that you brought up, like, message boards and the things that were social on the internet before this current era of social media, if you will.  Were you using message boards and that kind of technology or that kind of media on the internet to grow your business then as well?

Joel:  Yeah, you know, I’ve had different kinds of businesses online, and back before I became an author and speaker with, you know, a public face, my company built websites, content-oriented sites, such as a bargain side called DealofDay.com that I launched back in 1999, and one of the reasons Deal of Day was popular was because of the message forums, where people would share the various deals and coupons that they found from online and offline merchants, and we would have, you know, 100,000 or so people each month come through the member site there, and so I was using that form of social media back in 1999.

Tara:  Love that.  That’s awesome.  So speaking of which, social media has really changed a lot over, you know, the past 10-15 years or so.  At least in the time that you and I have been using social media for our businesses or this present wave.  Can you talk about how your social strategy in particular has changed over the last 9 or 10 years?

Joel:  Well, there’s a lot more sites and tools to choose from now.  Especially in the last couple years as I’ve moved strongly into live video and Snapchat and these types of applications.  They’re more of a rich medium that allow us to do more than just share words and pictures.  You know, there’s something about video that adds a whole new dimension and really, the live video sites are the new media.  Facebook Live and Periscope are the new television, and that’s the direction things are going, so that change has meant a lot to me, personally, because as an old-school broadcaster – I’m a former radio DJ, before I ever was online, I was doing radio, and before there was ever, you know, podcasts, I was doing shows, you know, audio shows on the internet – and so for me, just an opportunity to be able to leverage all the technologies we have now is giving me an opportunity to share my message to more people in real time.

Tara:  Got you.  Okay, so I want to come back to Facebook Live in a minute, because I’d love to find out how you’re using that, but before we get to that, I’d love to know how you decide whether you’ll jump on a new platform or not, because this is something that my clients are asking me about constantly.  “Well, should I try this or should I try that?”  How do you personally make that decision?

Joel:  Well, there’s too many choices to try them all, and so with me, the way it always begins is with curiosity.  If I’m curious about something, I want to go try it out and see, hey, what is this all about?  It looks interesting, it looks fun, would I enjoy using it?  If I would enjoy using it, and I discover that I do, then the next question is, “Will people engage with me on this platform?”  And that’s kind of how I end up wherever it is I end up.  It’s not because all the cool kids are doing it or because anybody else tells me I need to be, because I am not active on all the social platforms.

Tara:  Okay, so let’s talk about Facebook Live, because this is something that I am falling in love with, slowly but surely, and I’d love to hear how you’re using it specifically.

Joel:  Yeah, so all the live platforms, I use in different ways, and really, I’m involved in three of them on a regular basis, and then I dabble with some of the others.  Facebook Live is really about sharing very specific content.  It’s less about the conversation and more about broadcasting for me, and I usually use desktop software such as OBS Studio, which is a free tool that you can use, and then we also have Wirecast, which is a paid, more professional version, that allows me to do more than just use the native app.  It allows me to use desktop tools to put in lower thirds or picture-in-picture or show screenshares of what I’m talking about.  So typically, what you’ll see me doing on Facebook Live is demonstrating a new technology.  For example, I know people will hear this later, but today, Google came out with their new Duo Video Calling App, which competes with Facetime.  Of course, Facetime doesn’t work on Android devices, it’s an Apple product, and Google Duo works on both iOS and Android, and so I did a Facebook Live where I demonstrated how this worked.  It allowed me to do … show the screen of the application as I was demonstrating, and you really can’t do that with the native Facebook app.  You’ve just got the front and rear-facing cameras to play with.

Tara:  Got ya.  Okay, perfect.  So what’s … what kind of systems do you use to track social media?  How do you know whether what you’re doing is quote/unquote working or not?

Joel:  You know, I’m really basic.  You might be surprised to find that I’m not highly analytical.  I do use Buffer and Hootsuite for some of what I do online, but really, the best measurement for me is whether or not people are engaging.  On Facebook, it’s, you know, views of my videos.  It’s likes.  It’s comments.  It’s shares.  On Twitter, it’s, you know, hearts and retweets and replies.  On Periscopes, it’s the number, it’s looking at the graph when the broadcast is over and seeing did people stick around?  Did they engage with me?  You know, did they drop off?  Or did my audience grow over time?  Same thing with Snapchat.  If I’m watching and I see my stories, people are watching the first Snap and then dropping off, then I can see okay, what I’m doing here isn’t necessarily working.

Tara:  Okay, I’m really glad that you shared that, because that makes me feel better about how I run things as well.  You know, I know there’s lots of people out there that have, you know, big complicated spreadsheets for keeping track of that stuff, but I think what you talked about is …

Joel:  And maybe they like that.

Tara:  Yeah.

Joel:  Maybe that’s their thing.  You know, I’m not going to do what I don’t want to do, because then my, what I’m loving to do, starts to feel like work, and I think the moment we start separating our work and our play, right?  That which we love to do and enjoy from that which we have to do, that … that’s a chasm that then becomes real difficult to breach, and I just don’t want to live like that.  I would rather have a lifestyle of doing what I want to do, when I want to do, who I want to do it with, for whatever my reasons are, then amass more money.  I just … there’s not an end-game to that, whereas I feel like life is to be lived.

Tara:  Awesome.  So I’m wondering, then if that kind of bleeds over into how much you plan or don’t plan the content that you share as well, because it sounds like you’re probably pretty spontaneous with your social media usage.

Joel:  Well, I can be.  I’m very specific with the methods that I’ve fallen into of how I use them.  For example, Twitter is, you know, I don’t want to belittle Twitter, because I’m a fan.  I have a lot of followers, I think Twitter’s very powerful, obviously, I’ve written several books on the topic, but Tweets are kind of throwaways, right?  You put it out there, and then it goes out to the great Twitter ether, and some people engage and react, and then it goes away, and it’s gone.  There’s something about the Facebook timeline that feels more permanent.  It’s more … I take more care in what I post on Facebook, and this is just me personally.  Some people treat Facebook like Twitter, and if that works for them, then that’s fine, but you know, when it comes to Facebook Live, for example, I saw the Google app came out late last night, and I thought this morning, “Oh, I’m going to go Live with it,” so it was spontaneous.  My Periscopes, I do almost one a day, and depending upon where I am and what I’m doing, who I’m with, or what I’m thinking about, that time of day can change dramatically.  I go, oh, I’ll want to talk about this.  Whereas the shows that I produce, I do a show called the Joel Comm Show, that is an interview with business, social leaders, and the like, I do on Crowdcast, and it allows me to have that interview format where I can have up to four people, including myself, on screen at a time, and for those, I plan ahead.  I create a graphic banner to go with it, I schedule the show, I promote the show so that people can sign up, and know this is when to be there to enjoy this broadcast live.

Tara:  Mm.  So it sounds like it’s a real balance, then, between, you know, maybe the content itself being spontaneous, but the … the intention that you have behind each platform being really set depending on how you … how you feel about the platform, how people engage with you there.  Is that … would you say that’s accurate?

Joel:  Yeah, I think so.  The platforms are definitely different.  I don’t see Facebook Live, Periscope, Crowdcast, or you know, any of the others in the same way.  They all have their place, and I think for anybody learning to use them, the more they dabble with them and play with them and understand the features and functionality and find themselves using each of those platforms in a way that feels natural and authentic and organic to them, then you’ll find that it kind of ends up at a certain pocket there in your, you know, your multi-pocketed outfit.

Tara:  Love it.  And I’m so glad you brought up Crowdcast, too, because it is my new favorite thing.  Everyone in my community is loving it, and loving that I’m on it, and so I’m really glad that you gave them a shout out, too.

Joel:  Yeah, I’ve looked at all of the other platforms.  Of course, I was really, heavily into Blab.im.  They started just a little over a year ago, and they shut their doors just the other day without much fanfare.  They didn’t really give us a chance to say … tell our followers where to find us, and I was the most followed person on Blab with something like 85,000 people, so I’ve been looking at some of the other platforms, Firetalk, Huzzah, and Crowdcast, and I really feel like, for myself, Crowdcast provides the best solution at the moment.

Tara:  Yeah.

Joel:  Not to say that I’m getting married and sticking with it forever, but for right now, it’s a good place to my weekly shows.

Tara:  Yeah, exactly.  Things change so fast.  Do you have a team that’s involved at all in your social media strategy or the implementation of your social media?

Joel:  You know, very little of it is actually outside of myself.  I do have one person that checks in on my Twitter and lets me know if I have any DMs that need … I get so many of them.

Tara:  Yeah.

Joel:  And I just, I can’t look at them myself.  You know, the basic tweets that people tweet me, hi, nice to meet you, that type of thing, I have an approved list of things that she can, you know, say to those people, but nobody ever, other than that, I handle it all myself.  I feel like it needs to be really personal.  I post what I want, when I want, how I want, and I probably could benefit from having some more structure, but you know, I’ve made it to 52 years old, and 20, you know, almost 22 years in business doing this without having too much of that, and so I’m probably not going to change, now.

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Tara:  Your audience is pretty diverse.  I mean, I know there are small business owners that follow you.  There are entrepreneurs, people kind of in the startup scene that follow you, and there’s marketers at big corporations that follow you.  How has social media allowed you, or how has it helped you kind of build an audience that is that diverse?  How do you see those things kind of going together?

Joel:  Well, part of it is that I’ve danced in a lot of different arenas to begin with.  I’ve not been stuck in one vertical in building my businesses.  I’ve done everything from building sites and selling sites to affiliate marketing, internet marketing, information products, software, applications, speaking, authoring books, you know, and then the various social media tools, YouTube and then live video, so entrepreneurship, because I, you know, play in so many of these different sandboxes, it opens me up to be able to reach out to a lot of different audiences.  Which is one reason that when I write physical books, and I’ve just released my thirteenth book, I tend to pick different topics, unless it’s an updated edition of a previous book, like Twitter Power and Twitter Power 2 and Twitter Power 3, because they reach whole new audiences with whatever it is that I’m talking about at that time, and when you do that, it just gives you more opportunities to reach different, diverse groups of people.

Tara:  Mm.  Love that.  Okay, so that makes me then think about sales and selling, and I know one question that I get asked often is how social media affects your sales strategy, plays into your sales strategy.  So how do you approach that?  Do you … are you ever selling through social?  Or are you using social more to nurture relationships?

Joel:  It’s always about relationship, first.  You know, any time we approach social as selling, we’re likely going to fail, because even if you are selling, a solid 90-95% of your time should be content and relationship-building, and the selling is, you know, always, “Oh, also, we have this, if this interests you.”  But I do find myself offering my products and service very incidentally.  For example, I told you my thirteenth book just came out, and it’s based on my brand, Do Good Stuff, which I have the hashtag for, the website, I’ve got a t-shirt brand, and we just came out with some journals, blank books, with the Do Good Stuff logo on the front that are on Amazon, and so when I did a broadcast this morning on Busker, which is another live video application, I shared that with people, and you know, it’s fun to watch and see your numbers, because you can tell after you’ve done a broadcast and you’ve shared it with somebody, when the sales start going through, you watch your ranking on Amazon.  So I don’t really push anything hard, but I do offer opportunities for people to purchase products.  I have sometimes as an affiliate for other people’s products, and often, just to invite people to sign up for my list or my text notification system.

Tara:  Okay, perfect.  So then are you advertising on social at all?  Or have you kind of stuck with the more native use of social?

Joel:  Yeah, pretty native.  I don’t do much advertising on social.  I just share what I have, and I kind of trust the process that if I’m putting good content out there, that people will be drawn to me, and so far, it seems to be working.

Tara:  Yeah, I’d say so.  Okay, so for you personally, which platform has had the greatest impact on your success over the years?  And you know, feel free to kind of spread that out and really look at, you know, maybe it was in the past that you had a big platform perform well for you.

Joel:  Well, I think my blog has probably been the most important platform that I’ve been on, because you know, it’s my home, and it’s the only place that I control completely that can’t be taken from me, and it’s where I build my email list.  You know, as far as the social platforms go, I think I’m going to give credit to both Facebook and Twitter for playing an important role.  Facebook has a very engaged audience of people for me, more through my personal page than my fan page.  I’ve got about 40,000 people who like my fan page, but I’m not paying Facebook to, you know, to engage with people.  I want people to engage because they want to.  Because it’s organic.  So I get more on my personal page.  But career-wise, because I got involved in Twitter so early, I got asked to write a book, which John Wiley and Sons put out in 2009, Twitter Power, and we’ve done two editions since then, and the Twitter Power series has given me all kinds of open doors into corporate training, speaking, joint ventures, and partnerships, and so indirectly, I think that Twitter’s been just as powerful for me as Facebook.

Tara:  Okay.  You mentioned your blog, and I think, can you … You mentioned your blog, can you talk about the relationship between your blog and your social media usage?  How … are you promoting your blog?  Are you sharing complimentary content?  What does that relationship look like?

Joel:  Yeah, I publish a lot of content on my blog.  I write for Inc. and Entrepreneur, as well, and after a certain period of time, I can take that same content and repurpose it to my blog.  Other times, I’ll put original content on my blog, and when I put videos on my YouTube channel, I will write a blog entry and embed them on my site as well.  I always post those on to my Buffer account so that they get tweeted out on a regular basis, and that drives traffic to that site.  Depending upon the nature of the article I’ve posted, I may post it to Facebook, to LinkedIn, occasionally to Google+, because it probably does get a few clicks, and so, you know, I try to leverage the exposure I have in these other platforms to drive traffic back to my home.

Tara:  Got you.  You’re really known for kind of always being on the wave of the next big thing, or you know, always being someone who is an authority on what’s new.  Like you mentioned the Google app that you did the Facebook Live on this morning.  Have you ever felt yourself on, like, behind that wave?  Has there ever been something that you wish you would have gotten on sooner?

Joel:  Oh, gosh, yeah.  You know, Snapchat was one.  I … so I was kind of on the early wave of the entrepreneurs and business people.  I was on last November, which was before everybody was talking about Snapchat.  But I had heard some of my friends talk about it a year before then, and you know, I kind of poo-pooed it.  Snapchat, it’s for, you know, kids and perverts, and maybe at that time, it was more true, but I do wish that I’d gotten an earlier start on it.

Tara:  Yeah, does your strategy change when you’re coming at something a little later than when you’re at the bleeding edge of it?

Joel:  No.  I just use it, you know, in a way that feels right to me.  I think one of the reasons that people follow me is because what they see is what they get.  There’s … there’s no pretense, or at least there still might be some there, you know, we’re all so flawed and imperfect, but I just try to use it in a way that is interesting to me.  If it doesn’t intrigue me, if I don’t think it’s going to be fun or productive to do something with the platform, then I’m bored and I don’t want to do it.  I will go do something else that doesn’t make money, if need be, because I would rather enjoy my day, you know.  I’m not going to … whenever my deathbed happens, you know, hopefully many, many decades from now, I doubt that I’m going to look back and go, “Gee, I wish I spent more time working at (fill in the blank).”

Tara:  Yeah.

Joel:  I just … I don’t see that happening, and so I want to make sure that lifestyle is the most important.  That’s why I’m a … I am not a fan of the current messaging that is out there about hustling and grinding.  I just … I feel … and sorry for commandeering the conversation, but it kind of opened up that door if we can talk about that for a moment.

Tara:  I would love for you to talk about it, because we are totally on the same page, I think, on this.

Joel:  I just … I think that it can be dangerous.  Now, there’s certain audiences, and you know, let’s talk about some of the millennials, okay?  Not all of them, but there is a segment of millennials, there is … there’s some truth to the stereotype of entitlement and having everything handed to you, and I think for that group, sharing that message that says, hey, get off your butt and go work, and if you want it, go work hard, there’s nothing wrong with that.  But you know, when I see people saying, “Hey, you want a big house?  You want a fast car?  You know, you want a boat and never work again, then you’ve got to get up at 5:00 in the morning and you’ve got to work until 11:00 at night, and you’ve got to do it 7 days a week,” and I am just exhausted hearing them even say that, let alone thinking about what that looks like.  You know, you got to … you have to have a life.  You have to be doing what you like.  If your pursuit is just to build up and stockpile money and material goods, then when you get to the other side of that, you’re going to be like, “Oh, now what do I do?”  And meanwhile, you know, your kids are grown, your relationships are left untended to, and what have you got to show for it?  A cache of … you know, a stack of cash?  I’ve … listen, I’ve made millions, I’ve lost millions, I know how to make money, I know how to lose it, and it’s no longer my focus.  Now, don’t get me wrong, I like having money.  It’s, you know, but once I’m at a place where I have enough to enjoy my lifestyle and be able to do the things I want to do and hang out with the people I want to hang out with and travel when I want to travel, I don’t need to sock away this … you know, I don’t the big house and the fast car.  And if that’s, you know, if somebody’s passionate about fast cars, that’s fine, I’m not knocking that.  I’m just saying that chasing those things, at the altar of, losing out on what life is really about, and it’s about the people in our lives, then I think, you know, you’re going to wake up with a … it’s going to be a rude awakening when it hits you.  I want to have fun.

Tara:  Absolutely.

Joel:  You know, maybe it’s not very businessy to say that, but it is my attitude.  I see myself as a kid with a pail and a shovel looking for a sandbox to play in and to build something, and when you think about what that’s like when you were a child and you hit the beach and you were building castles in the sand, you were having fun, but here we are, doing it in the adult, grown-up world.  Well, I don’t know what this whole grown up thing is.  I’m adulting well, but I’m not doing the grown-up thing.  Whatever that is.  There’s somehow we’re supposed to lost that curiosity and wonder and playfulness.  Whoever sold us that, sold us a load of hooey, and I’m not going to subscribe to it now or ever.

Tara:  Yeah, well, you know, I think the … one of the other issues with this whole grind and hustle kind of messaging is that it actually forces people into really bad business decisions, because they’re not being smart about how they can make money and still have space, how they can make money and still have fun, and so it … what it sounds like is you’ve really identified these constraints of having time, enjoying your life, having a lot of fun, that actually lead you to making smarter business decisions, and that’s how, ultimately, you’ve gotten to the place that you are.  Would you agree?

Joel:  I would agree with that, and I think it pays to recognize there’s a huge difference between working hard and working smart.

Tara:  Mmhmm.

Joel:  And I’ve reverse engineered my successes throughout the past couple decades or so, and it’s really interesting, I can point to the one phone call, that simple connection, going to that one event, meeting this one person.  You know, taking the small risk that really led to all of the big successes, that much of what I did, and I learned about this the hard way, because I did, you know, I didn’t spend as much time with my kids when they were growing up as I wanted to.  I’m not saying I wasn’t a good dad, I did spend a lot of time, and you know, never missed birthdays or recitals or any of that stuff, but you could always spend more time, and I look at how much time I spent spinning my wheels, doing busywork that didn’t serve anything other than just to keep me busy, and so I choose to … to … rather than push a little mound of snow up the mountain to turn it into a big snowball, I look for the snowballs that are already at the top of the mountain, which ones do I just need to give a gentle push to, you know, to take off.  That’s kind of my philosophy.

Tara:  Yeah.  So I can hear our listeners in my head thinking, well, Joel, that’s great for you, because you’re Joel Comm, and you have these huge followings already, and you have made millions, and you know, you’ve got all of this reputation behind you, but it also sounds like you’re pretty much spending all day on social media.  How do you balance that?  Or how … what does that actually look like in your life?  How much time are you really spending?  How does that relate to results?  And how does that kind of allow you to live this life that you’re talking about?

Joel:  I’m not spending nearly as much time as it looks like I am, I’ll tell you that.  In fact, before we got on this interview today, I was playing a new game on Steam called No Man’s Sky.  I’m an old school computer gamer, and it is not unusual to walk into my office here and see me blowing things up and shooting, you know, other people online in a very non-threatening kind of way.  You know, and going out for my daily walks and making that as productive for me.  Staying up late or sleeping in, which is pretty much it’s a lifestyle for me.  Going with friends to a concert.  I’m going to Red Rocks tomorrow night for a show with, you know, one of my friends.  There is a lot of play in my life, and there’s a lot of projects, and there’s things that are sitting here undone that need to be done.  For example, I have a contract with my agent, he’s ready to pitch my next book to the big publishing houses, and for two months, I’ve been sitting on putting this together, and I don’t pressure myself to say, “Well, he’s waiting on this.  You have to do it.”  I trust that when it’s time, and when I’m all in on it, I will sit down and I will bang out a quality piece that he will then be able to take and sell and that will open up the next chapter for me.  But I don’t need to get it all done today.  That’s way too much pressure, way too much stress.  I want to have all the other good things that life has to offer.

Tara:  You don’t have to get it all done today.  I think that is a huge takeaway for people.

Joel:  No, because first of all, assuming you wake up tomorrow, there’s a tomorrow.  And if you don’t, you don’t have to worry about whether you got it done today or not, right?  Unless we’re talking about your will, you know.

Tara:  Yeah.

Joel:  Have that in place.  But other than that, it doesn’t really matter.  And you know what, the people listening that say, “Well, you’re Joel Comm, and you’ve got your following.”  I didn’t always.  In 1995, I was a guy working for a nationally syndicated radio ministry that was really, I brought home a little money from that.  You know, it was a … wasn’t getting paid a lot, and I was supplementing it with my first business, entrepreneurial venture, which I was a mobile DJ.  I started out in radio as a disc jockey, and started my own business, and I went out there, and I got gigs to do weddings and pool parties and class reunions and bar mitzvahs, and in 1995, when the web was a new thing, that’s what I was doing.  And I remember a year into it, just about being out of money.  You know, I asked my former wife the other day, I said, “In 1996, exactly how much do you recall that we had?”  She says it was less than $1 in the checking account, and I honestly can’t take credit for what happened next, and you know, not to over-spiritualize stuff, but I remember in that moment feeling very helpless, and I … I’m not a religious person, but I am a … I do have a faith, and at that moment, I prayed, and I said, “All right, God, if you want this thing to happen, and I thought that’s what you were leading me to do, you’re going to need to drop money out of the sky.” 

And I got to tell ya, within a week, I got an email from a guy I didn’t know in another state representing a Japanese multimedia conglomerate that I had never heard of, let alone couldn’t pronounce, and they wanted to license some of the content that I had created on one of my websites.  And from that moment on, everything changed.  And that’s why I talk about the small things that can move mountains, and it was simply following through on that call that came to me that opened the door for me to support my family and go onto the next venture.  And so, you know, I wasn’t always this guy, and I’m not the guy I was then, and I’m not the guy that I’ll be, you know, a few years from now.  It’s just a journey.

Tara:  Yeah.  So it sounds like the work that you are regularly doing is always building that foundation for those little things to happen that propel you forward.

Joel:  It’s showing up.  It really is.  That’s a great way to summarize it.  It’s going to an event when you don’t even necessarily know why you’re going, but you just feel drawn.  You’re curious.  You want to see who’s there.  What are they saying?  What’s the networking like?  Showing up and talking and listening and asking questions opens up all kinds of doors.  You know, and I get asked frequently, if you were starting over, what would you do?  Let’s say you weren’t you with your reputation, and you wanted to be in and you felt drawn to a certain business.  I would get my butt onto a plane or even locally, if they had it, and find events that are in that industry and go talk to people and ask them questions.  Don’t try to sell yourself.  Ask them what they … what they do and what they need, and how you can best serve them, and people will tell you the areas that they need help in, and you’ll know when somebody says they need something that you can provide the solution to, and that’s how you start.

Tara:  Awesome.  And that is such a fantastic metaphor, I think, for social media in general.  It’s a brilliant, you know, strategy for life and for networking and for building a business, but I think it’s also really specific to social media.  So to kind of bring it back full circle, then, as we start to wrap up here, I’d love to just ask you what do you see as kind of the next big thing, or the next big wave in this social media jungle that we’re all playing in?

Joel:  Well, I’m already in it, and people are starting to catch it right now, but it’s definitely live video.  Live video is the new TV.  This is something that I’ve been really preaching for the last couple years, and we’re starting … we’re coming to the end of the early adopter phase.  2017’s going to bring us into mass adoption, and so those who want to carve out a piece of the pie, this is the time to do it.  Find the platform that best suits you, your style, your message, where people engage with you, and start building up your audience and deliver your content through that method, because this thing is getting ready to blow up, and as viewership of traditional broadcast television and cable television falls, people are turning to the web, and soon, the two will be melded into one, where what’s popular on Facebook Live and maybe some other platforms will start appearing on your television screen.  And this is going to happen.  This is the wave that I’m riding and it’s a great deal of fun, so I’m trying to encourage as many other individuals, small businesses, corporations to do this, and trying to train as many on the hows as I can.

Tara:  I love it.  So what’s next for you personally?

Joel:  Oh, gosh, well, there’s the book that I’m ready to, just about ready, in fact, my laptop in my other room is open to the proposal document, so I’m posturing myself to get ready at some point to sit down to do it.  I’m working on putting together a new podcast.  Of course, I’ll be teaching at CreativeLive, which I’m really excited about on both live video and on how to use Snapchat, and I’m going to keep doing a lot more broadcasting.  I just … I really enjoy doing my own broadcasts and interviewing people and introducing my audience to some really amazing people.

Tara:  Awesome.  Wonderful.  Joel Comm, thank you so much for joining me.  This has been a great conversation.

Joel:  Love it.  Thanks for having me.

Tara:  Find out more about Joel Comm at JoelComm.com.  You can find his class, How to Leverage the Power of Live Online Broadcasts, at CreativeLive.com.

Next week, I talk to Dr. Michelle Mazur, founder of Communication Rebel and a coach for entrepreneurs, speakers, authors, and thought leaders who want to speak with impact.  Michelle and I talk about negotiating a new engagement, preparing for a talk, getting paid, and all the ways you can speak without ever stepping on stage.

CreativeLive is highly-curated classes from the world’s top experts.  Watch free, live video classes every day from acclaimed instructors in photography, design, audio, craft, business, and personal development, stream it now at CreativeLive.com.

This has been Tara Gentile.  Discover how to accelerate your earning as a small business owner with my free class, Revenue Catalyst, at QuietPowerStrategy.com/PPP.

That’s a wrap for this week’s episode of Profit. Power. Pursuit., a CreativeLive podcast.  Download more episodes of this podcast and subscribe on iTunes.  If you appreciate this kind of in-depth content, please leave us a review or share this podcast with a friend.  It means the world to us.

Our theme song was written by Daniel Peterson, who also edited this episode.  Our audio engineer was Kellen Shimizu.  This episode was produced by Michael Karsh.  We add a new episode of Profit. Power. Pursuit. every week.  Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you love to listen to podcasts so you never miss an episode.