Let’s talk about some simple “hacks” you can do to trick your own way into more action and activity in this digital social world. Want to start a Podcast? I’ve got hacks! Need to enrich your YouTube library? Hacks! Let’s go have some fun!

In this edition of LiveTime with Alec:

• You will get hacks for to create more for your brand.
• You have have to show up with a core message.
• What is your why?
• You can create tons of content from “one pillar content”.

Episode Transcribe

Hey friends, happy Tuesday. Oh man. What an insane day. I scheduled this fun conversation about hacking social media, hacking podcasts, all this fun stuff, giving tips and tricks. And then we find ourselves in the midst of massive civil unrest. I thought about following a lot of people today that are going blackout on their social media. And I love that because I think the messaging there is right. But the conversation I want to have today, and I was tricking all of you on this hacking tips and tricks. Because I think now the time for human connection is just more important than ever. And so I want to give you guys some foundational stuff to work on. Some things that I think will really help you, and hopefully help heal some of the pain that we’re all in right now, in this time of not only a pandemic, but this terrible crisis, terrible situation with George Floyd. Breaks my heart. And I know a lot of people that are affected by it.Look, the topic of today was hacking content, which is the way to trick people or trick yourself into making cool things. Give you tips and tricks in order to kind of push you into a new space, get you going into the areas that you know you need to be going in, but that you’re not going. And so I want to just totally give it to you straight right now, so that you have the opportunity to play in the space you need to play in. Because look, if you’re watching this, whether on the replay or now, you understand that you have to build a dynamic, personal, authentic brand on the Internets. You have to. You have to show up for your digital community. And you have to show up with a core message.This is, I think, the first thing that everyone is afraid of, or not lining into. You’re not realizing, or not tapping into, the power of why you’re doing this. Because let’s be honest, if you don’t have a strong why, then you’re going to get really bogged down by all your insecurities, all your fears, all your excuses. And you won’t create amazing content. You won’t get your message out if you don’t have a strong why. Because it’s not just about doing loans. It’s about making an impact. Right? Why do you do what you do?So let’s talk about how to hack the podcast game. So you want to start a podcast. First of all, you should start a podcast. Why? Because podcasts are awesome. They’re great pieces of content. They connect human beings. What should your podcast be on? I don’t care. Whatever you’re passionate about. And I see a lot of loan people jumping into podcasts and they’re making them about the entrepreneurial spirit and all that stuff. And great if that’s your passion. Great! But I watched one guy start a podcast on baseball. And not just what you would think, not Major League Baseball. On adult league baseball. Adults who love to play baseball. And apparently there’s huge leagues all over the country, and this guy made a podcast about it, connecting all the people there in that space. That to me is incredible. Number one, he found a passion he cares about, and then he’s connecting other humans together with it. Trust me, he will get loans, but it’s not about loans, it’s about the love of the game. And that’s the power of that special hack. Finding what’s your why and connecting to it.But let’s go one step deeper, one step deeper guys. Let me turn my phone off. Interview people. There it is. That’s the trick. That’s the hack. That’s the podcast hack. Interview people. Look, if you’ve ever read the amazing book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, you know that everyone loves to talk about themselves. And what a time where you can give people a platform and a voice. I mean, think about that for a second. Think about how many small businesses are suffering. Think about how many people, right now, are trying to navigate this crazy time. And you in your community can give them a digital voice. And then you just shut up. You just ask questions. They answer the questions. Life is good. You just did a podcast. Now everyone’s freaking out and going, “Well, how do I cut the audio? And where do I put it?” And all that stuff. Guys, that’s the Google. You can figure that out. You can type in anything and figure it out. It’s not hard.But what’s holding you back is just the content, the actual strategy, the actual, “What am I going to say” thing is holding you back. It’s not how to Google where to upload my audio for my podcast. By the way, so look right now. Can you use zoom? Yes. Yes, I know you can. Yes, I know you can. And can you hit the record button on the Zoom? Yes. You just did a podcast. That’s it. Send the zoom link, bring in a business owner, bring in a realtor, bring in a friend, bring in anybody that has a compelling story to share. Hello? Now you have a podcast. Everything else from there is an excuse. “I don’t know how to take the audio out,” blah blah. Yeah, it’s fine. Google. You’ll solve it. But now you have a podcast. And now you know exactly what to do with it. Because right now I’m telling you the ability to drive human connection is going to drive your success in this world. And I think right now, on this crazy Tuesday, we need more human connection than ever before.By the way, your video that you just recorded on Zoom, your interview that you just recorded, is now a YouTube video on your channel. Absolutely. On your podcast playlist on your YouTube channel. So now you did the Zoom … By the way, don’t even do it live. That’s fine. Don’t even do the Zoom live if that’s too scary for you. You should do it, you should step into the space. Come on. The water’s warm, get in here and swim around. But even if that’s too terrifying, you can still record it, upload it to your YouTube channel, upload the audio to your podcast, and then share it back with the person that you interviewed. Guess what they’re going to do? They’re going to share it. And all of a sudden your messaging is starting to build. It’s starting to build.And now if I reverse engineer this and you look back and you go, “How do I hack the social media game?” Can you imagine? One interview, we’re going to call it pillar content for all of you that are paying attention, can be 45 minutes long, right? 30 to 45 minutes long, maybe an hour, maybe an hour because you’re pushing it. And let me just play this out for you. Let’s say you find a local restaurant. I got one here, three brothers from Italy who opened a pizza place because there was no good pizza in Costa Mesa. I was like, “Yes, bring your vision to life.” COVID’s here. They can’t do what they wanted to do. They’re having to figure out how to get pizza out more, people can’t come to the restaurant.Imagine, you grab those brothers, you get them on a Zoom call. And you say, “Why did you open a pizza place? What’s your favorite pizza? What’s the difference between Italian pizza and other pizzas? What’s your vision for your restaurant? What’s your favorite thing on the menu?” You just let them tell their story. From there, they can talk for 45 minutes to an hour easy, and share their story to everyone. Then you take that Zoom video. You drop it into YouTube under your playlist podcast. You take the audio, you upload into the pod stream feed, which you can Google. Trust me, it’s not hard. And then you share it on social media.Now, let’s go one step further in that 45 minutes of pillar content, you’re going to have snippets that are awesome. Little one minute, 30 second snippets. Or quotes. Repurpose that. Take the quote, put it into a graphic and a picture. Send it out, tweet it. I guarantee you, you can probably have 40 to 50 pieces of content from one piece of pillar content. If you do that once a month, so you just do one interview and now you have 40 things to play with for the rest of the month. You’re easily posting over once a day. And all you did was interview a small business owner. Here’s my favorite part about this too. Grab those small business owners or those realtors or whoever, at the end of the podcast, ask this one question. “How can anybody who listens to this help your business?”You’re welcome. There’s the hack. Just talk to cool people and connect people. If we can become great connectors of human beings, you could become great wielders of influence. It’s not about bragging about what you do, and how much business you do, and how fast you close loans. It’s about connecting other human beings. Now, we’re at the 10 minute mark. And I’ve got some more stuff for you guys. If you’re watching this now, or if you’re going to watch this in the future, I want you to type in hashtag bypassed, and a comment. If you’re watching it now or watching this later type in hashtag bypassed, and you’re going to get talking to the Al bot. That’s right, I have a bot. I birthed the bot. That’s not good. We made a bot. That’s all terrible.But the bot has one specific thing he wants to do. Number one, he wants to connect with you and connect you to me so I can share things with you. Right now, I created nine tutorials on how to do all of this stuff. All the stuff. From the banners, to GIFs, to hacking Canva, to all the stuff. By the way, how to GIF yourself, that’s a gold mine. I know you want to be a GIF. Blake over on LinkedIn wants to be a GIF for sure. Bypassed, Ira, Bypassed. Like the book. It’s a shameless plug. It’s super shameless. It’s right there.Oh, everyone’s doing bypass, duh, duh. I love you guys. This stupid bot that I made is going to send you nine tutorials that I made for you for free. Nothing. No, I don’t want anything. Just, I’m going to just give it to you, and it’s all yours. Oh, by the way on LinkedIn, if you’re on LinkedIn, you’ve got to click the link that I posted. Bypassed will not take you to the bot. Only on Facebook, my friends. Sorry, Ira, it’s my fault. It’s my fault. You did it right, dude. You killed it. And then I failed you. Because you’ve got to click this link. This link is on LinkedIn, click this and it’ll go there. It’ll take you to Al bot. Otherwise, you’ve got to be on Facebook.Sorry. It’s a Facebook messenger bot. I don’t know. LinkedIn doesn’t have any cool bots. I don’t know what to tell you. But click this link if you’re on LinkedIn, and I will send you nine tutorials, and here they are. I’ll just tell them to you right now. Video basics 101. Video basics, 2.0. Into editing, and music, and adding graphics and overlays, and all that fun stuff. How to turn yourself into a GIF, which is my personal favorite, because then everyone needs to be a GIF, that’s amazing. Let me go back to my YouTube channel and make sure I get them all right. Do, do, do. Yes, here we go. How to improve your YouTube channel, how to make it show up in the way that is incredible and how you want it. How to grow your social media. If your audience isn’t there and listening, then you’re not getting influence. How to graphic design like a pro without using Photoshop, because I can’t do Photoshop. Nope, not smart.How to multi stream live. Now that one’s going to be pushing some people to their own comfort zone, but that’s fine. You’ve got to go. How to hack your Instagram carousel. If you don’t know what an Instagram carousel is, you now will, they get more attention, and I’ll show you how to hack it and make them. And then finally, and this one’s a little stupid, I know. But I like it, so deal with it. How to turn yourself into a potato. This is worth it. This is worth all the videos. If you just download … I’m sorry. It’s that good. So click this link if you’re on LinkedIn, or type in hashtag bypassed, with an E-D at the end, if you’re on Facebook, and I will send you those nine tutorials because I love you. Because I’m trying to get better with you. I’m trying to figure this out the same time everyone else is figuring this out.And I hope that you come with me on the journey. That’s the whole point here guys, is that we’ve got to figure out these new skills together. So, I want to go back. I want to recap this hacking strategy to get you guys prepped and rocking in the social media game. By the way, if you don’t have enough followers, type in hashtag bypassed, I’ll show you how to get more connections and followers. All right. How to hack the podcast game. Don’t come up with any original content. Interview small business owners. Can you find 12? Yes, for sure. A fitness studio guy, a life insurance guy, a restaurant, another restaurant. You guys, you can come up with 12. Come on, that’s one a month. That’s incredible.Do a Zoom call with them and record it. Go live if you’re feeling a little saucy, right? Record it. Then upload it to YouTube in your podcast playlist, upload the audio into the podcast world. You can Google how to do that, it’s not hard. Once you have the video and audio you’re already there. And then from there, you probably can take 30 to 40 pieces of that conversation and make new pieces of content to share. Tweets, graphics, social media images, Instagram images, little 10 second video clips. And you’re rocking. You are rocking the social media landscape. And all you’re doing is having people tell their stories. Does that make sense? It makes a lot of sense up here. Making sure it makes sense to you guys.This is how you do it. This is how you do it. You do not need to come up with your own original content. You can, and you should, and you will, but just interview people. If you’re making excuses, just interview people. I’ve seen so many loan officers and professionals who are starting their podcast, just say, “Yeah, I just interviewed people and it kind of tricked my way into it.” Yes! You do not need to stand up here for a 45 minute rant and just deliver content off the top of your head. You’re probably not comfortable with that yet. But you can sure as hell interview somebody, and let them tell their story, and you’re rocking.So again, if you want the free content, if you want the free tutorials, if you’re on LinkedIn, click this. It’s always a mirror, so I want it like, it’s … Anyway, you get it. Click it, or if you’re on Facebook, hashtag bypassed, and we’re rocking guys. And I’ll get you all the free tutorials and all the fun stuff. And that’s really all I got for your day. I think it ties in nicely to the message I think we all need to lean into today.You have the incredible opportunity to be a connector of people. And right now we need connection more than ever before. So be bold, be brave, and go out and let other people share their stories. And you magnify it. Magnify their story with your efforts, and you will find business at the other end of that, opportunities at that the other end of that, leads, loans, relationships. All that will be at the end of the opportunity of that connection of other human beings. Dead serious. Wanting to keep it short and sweet today, guys. 15, 16 minutes. I hope this is helpful. If you’re chatting with a bot right now, I hope it’s hilarious. And I’ll see you guys on the Internets. Coming up Thursday, time to have another podcast. We’re live every Tuesday 9:30 AM, and live every Thursday … Try to be alive around 10 with our podcast. Hope you guys have a wonderful day. Go connect and hug, at least virtually, some more humans today.

Take care, everybody.