Speaker 1: 0:00

All right, well, welcome back to the Mindful Bytes podcast. Today we're going to talk about Could AI be your closest friend?

Speaker 2: 0:06

How?

Speaker 1: 0:06

to create deeper connections with your followers by becoming invisible.

Speaker 3: 0:11

Instagram focusing on DMs.

Speaker 1: 0:14

Let's go ahead and dive into today's episode. Everybody, welcome back to the Mindful Bytes podcast. Let's go ahead and introduce the panel. We'll start with Ashton.

Speaker 2: 0:26

I'm Ashton, your gadget guru.

Speaker 1: 0:29

I'm Brian, a Gen X entrepreneur, focused on strategy purpose and becoming more aware of the role that digital plays in our lives. That was a long intro for me.

Speaker 3: 0:38

That was a long intro. I'm Olivia, your social media savvy millennial with a title, not as long as a Gen Xer.

Speaker 4: 0:48

Mine's not as long as possible, but I am Shana, your technologically timid Xennial.

Speaker 1: 0:54

You know everybody that's tuned in. If you want to make sure, you check out the show notes, you can jump around to different chapters, different topics that we're talking about, and also don't forget to click that text message. We would love to hear your thoughts. You can text us directly. All right, so let's go ahead and start with Ashton Ashton. What do you mean about AI being your close friend? What does that look like? What are you even talking about? Is this a gadget thing? Are you bringing the gadget?

Speaker 2: 1:17

It is. It is a gadget.

Speaker 1: 1:27

So I've been doing some research, research, um, I've always been a fan of the little tamagotchis, and this is tamagotchi. What's tamagotchi?

Speaker 2: 1:30

I gen extra here little tamagotchi. I think that's like. Surely you know what tamagotchi is once you explain it, he'll probably remember it's like this little plastic toy. It's got a little screen and it has pets on it and you can, you take your little keychain around, your little Tamagotchi keychain, and you like, raise a pet.

Speaker 1: 1:48

Okay, gotcha, I remember. Now You've taken me back you.

Speaker 4: 1:51

Tamagotchi-it.

Speaker 1: 1:53

Tamagotchi.

Speaker 4: 1:54

It's about.

Speaker 1: 1:55

Tamagotchi-it or something like that.

Speaker 2: 1:57

But basically this is like an AI version of it. This guy named let's see if I can say this avi schiffman, I think I think that's how you say it went totally the wrong way. Made good job, made this little ai necklace and it's called the friend. If you want to do some research on it, you can literally just google friend ai necklace and it's really interesting. It like listens in on your conversations and kind of um, it talks to you. It like kind of butts in conversations and argues and like all the things that a friend would sounds more like an ai mother or an AI teenager Knows everything.

Speaker 2: 2:47

What would you guys guess? This thing's price would be, just to kind of give you a little bit of context. To give you a little bit of context, for example, the new Ray-Bans that has the AI in them is $300 base. Most pieces of hardware are in that $200, like 200 300 range. So how much do you think this necklace is? So do we each get a guess here? Yes, you all get a guess.

Speaker 4: 3:11

Okay, all right, go ahead is it still in like the um crowdfunding phase?

Speaker 2: 3:18

so it's out of crowdfunding. He's in pre-order right now, um, and it looks like the prototypes are pretty much like done, being modified. It seems like it's already a product. He's just prepping it for production is it a pretty simple design?

Speaker 4: 3:32

yeah?

Speaker 2: 3:33

it's pretty simple, doesn't have a screen, it's just just a pendant necklace with an led, and it has a bluetooth module, so it connects to a phone okay, we can guess in the order that we're presenting our I got questions.

Speaker 1: 3:47

I got questions can you get like like digital like? Do you get like little clothes you can put on your little ai friend too?

Speaker 2: 3:53

no, it's just a pendant. It's just a pendant, okay I like that idea you could probably get a little silicone protector for it, like you can phones, but I mean, I'm glad to hear that they didn't make your ai friend a rock.

Speaker 1: 4:06

You remember pet rocks?

Speaker 4: 4:07

so uh, but yeah, let's go and guess a millionaire of that yes, let's go and guess the price here.

Speaker 1: 4:13

Uh, okay, shana, what are you? What are you thinking?

Speaker 4: 4:16

hey, I said we go in the order of what we're presenting our topics.

Speaker 1: 4:18

I'm going last oh okay, so ashton's gotta go first no all right. So I would say, okay, so are they using chat gpt? Is that? I'm sure that's what they're using, probably with this. Do you know?

Speaker 2: 4:32

I'm actually not 100 sure, because a lot of the stuff they've coded is in-house, but it may be ran on that language model, so I'm not 100 sure on that, so I'm gonna.

Speaker 1: 4:42

I'm not 100% sure on that, so I'm going to guess. I'm going to guess $99.

Speaker 2: 4:48

Okay, what are you guessing?

Speaker 3: 4:51

I'm going to guess $1,000.

Speaker 1: 4:55

1,000, dang that's a wide range, man you really put a better price tag on friends than I do.

Speaker 4: 5:01

Oh, that's so true. I'm going to split the difference, or I don't know if that's really the right use of that term I'm going to say $500.

Speaker 2: 5:12

Well, it is $100. No way.

Speaker 3: 5:15

What.

Speaker 2: 5:16

It's one of the cheapest pieces of hardware AI hardware available right now.

Speaker 3: 5:23

That is shocking.

Speaker 2: 5:24

It's really cool. So can I tell you why I guessed?

Speaker 1: 5:26

really cool. So can I tell you why I guessed that price? Let me tell you why I guessed that price because you knew already. Yes, no, I'm just joking it wasn't because of that you know we talked about the plod note not too long ago. I just ordered the plod note pen, which is actually a pendant that hangs from a necklace or it can go on a bracelet for $169.

Speaker 4: 5:47

Oh, so you thought theirs would be cheaper.

Speaker 1: 5:50

So I was like it's got to be cheaper because I don't know what all this is going to do. But I'm like I'm going to go a little bit. Plus, ashton kind of gave us this vibe of these. Others are like $300, $203. I'm like, okay, it's got to be lower than that. Then.

Speaker 2: 6:11

It's like a sticker shock, right. So what's interesting, what's actually really interesting, is that's how this project started was a translator pendant, but from what I've read up on too much competition popped out and then he found this and was like well, this is way more fascinating, and then actually started chasing this. So it could even be the plod pendant that caused part of that so explain this to us, ashton.

Speaker 1: 6:33

You said that it butts in, like I just butted in on your conversation right there, like does it? Like? Just does it interrupt a conversation, or do you have to invite it into a conversation?

Speaker 2: 6:44

So that's something we're kind of seeing. Some people have talked about it having a speaker. So it could. It looks like in the prototypes most of the time it's actually texting. It'll be texting you. There has been there has been a lot of speculation around it about whether it will have a speaker, which would definitely be interesting because it would be able to do things like that, but it seems like it primarily right now is listening to what's happening around you. If you look at the commercial, its trailer is a perfect way to show what it's doing, but it showed somebody like watching a movie and then it shows like a little text pop up from it and it's like, yeah, this is such an underrated show and you know, just like conversation starters like that. So we'll see if it does. It may eventually have a feature where it can, but it's kind of hard telling with us only seeing prototypes.

Speaker 4: 7:51

I'm feeling so conflicted about this because on one hand I could see like how that would be helpful, like you're having trouble thinking of something to say to somebody you know. Sometimes you end up in situations like that where you're like can't find the common ground to have a conversation, but then also I'm thinking like that sounds so intrusive, like yeah, yeah, it can be turned on and off, I suppose yes, it can, but also there's like there's been a lot of talk from this guy, so his company is called based hardware.

Speaker 2: 8:20

uh, he's been talking a lot about how he wants to make sure it's private so their servers don't take any, at least currently, the servers won't take any information from the pendant. It's all stored on your phone and on the pendant.

Speaker 2: 8:35

So, that helps with some of the intrusiveness, but it also kind of comes to like what Brian has said before fake a connection, yeah it gives like an illusion of a connection, but it's really not that's true, except I can see that it could help you connect with somebody else if you use it properly I mean, yeah, I mean you've seen the movie.

Speaker 4: 8:59

I forgot exactly what it's called, but where someone falls in love with an AI, I mean it can happen.

Speaker 1: 9:04

Her.

Speaker 1: 9:06

It's her interesting yeah, you know, I am concerned too about, like the, the privacy side of it, because you know, there was, uh, many, many years ago I don't know if you remember this shaua.

Speaker 1: 9:16

There was a, a kickstarter about a product that it was a watch and it would memorize, like it would catch, like if somebody said something you're like, ooh, that was good.

Speaker 1: 9:28

I don't want to forget that you could hit the button and it it took, whatever the last 60 seconds was, and it saved it. So, and that was a big like. I don't think it actually ever took off because of those concerns, cause, like, even like the, the plod notepad ashton, that thing that's coming out you have to press a button for it to start listening and it has a red light that lights up. Because you have to somehow, you have to let the people all around you know that they're being listened to, even though I mean probably everybody on our phones, we're all being listened to anyways, um, but, but yeah, I don't know. That is definitely interesting, and I am concerned too, even with the fact that, if it stores it on the device for it to communicate back with an ai, unless the ai is programmed into that, which I don't even know how, like how the ai would be able to respond with the most updated information if it wasn't connected through some kind of api, through the internet and stuff like that, or why so?

Speaker 2: 10:31

that's something I think that they are kind of focusing on. Is it's not meant to do real-time weather, real-time information, such like, such things like that. I think it's more for the social side than asking it kind of like siri, where it's like can you get me the weather? Uh, can you check my calendar, stuff like that.

Speaker 1: 10:55

So it's not a tool. It is basically hey, I have a friend like you have a friend in me, you're pendant, you have a friend in me you're basically a siamese twin is what is going on?

Speaker 4: 11:08

I just want to say, um, something I learned in my research is about how careful you have to be when you read, like terms and conditions on apps and anything that's going to have anything to do with your privacy.

Speaker 4: 11:21

Um, is that I never thought of this before, but apparently you know, a lot of apps are like really pushing in their marketing about how they're safe. Your, your data is safe. You know it's private, nobody can get your information, but apparently you have to look and see if there's some sort of time limit on that, because they might change the way they use your data over time. And so if there's not some sort of specification that you know, I have no idea how it would actually be worded, but like you have to make sure that says something about that or in the future they can change the way they use your data. Sorry, I just hit my mic and so that's something that you have to learn to look into, which seems so overwhelming to me to think about checking all the apps you use and all the tech you're going to use, like let's go back to rotary phones you want to?

Speaker 2: 12:16

No, thank you. So one other thing going back, going back a little bit about what you were talking about, something else that some of these articles have like kind of mentioned is how useful it could be for, like, dementia patients and for note taking and like, when you're going to conferences, having it be able to hear everything around you and actively write down notes while you're actually trying to absorb the information, which would be interesting ways to use it.

Speaker 2: 12:49

But yeah, it'll be very interesting to see because if it got acquired by a big company, you're absolutely right, their policies and um end user license agreements and all that could very easily change and that would be pretty big, Like who is their target audience?

Speaker 1: 13:09

Is it kids, Is it adults or do they? Did they make a mention Like who?

Speaker 2: 13:19

like when you saw it, were they showing videos or photos of adults using it, or kids? So I don't have written information, but judging off the trailers they've released and stuff, it seems to be like 30 to 20-year-old adults, which makes sense because a lot of people that are currently dealing with loneliness is right about in that age range. So I believe that's what their target audience is.

Speaker 4: 13:43

Did they look in the commercial kind of like young professionals? Is that kind of what it looked like?

Speaker 2: 13:51

What do you mean by professional, like business?

Speaker 4: 13:53

people.

Speaker 2: 13:53

So young, professional, yeah, professional, yeah, they're dressed, yeah, yeah, business people I think there might have been one, but most of it was like more casual looking. It was like day to day. There was like a gamer and there was, um, like two people up on a roof and like, uh, one person was hiking. So it's more like for the adventure, kind of like through daily life.

Speaker 1: 14:15

Gotcha. So that is interesting. Yeah, you have to keep us posted on that. I've messed with different AI systems that are responding back to you and I know there might be some people in here that are X fans and some that aren't. But X is Grok, I think it's called Grok. They're AI. You can turn it on a funny mode, which I actually thought it's actually really fun to hear how it responds, so I could see something like Grok talking to you or texting you on there. That might add some humor in your day to you, especially if you're in a job that maybe you are more alone or you're craving those connections. But again, I think that ultimately it comes down to man. It's like you got to draw like where's the line and human, real, human connection, and you know this illusion of connection. So it definitely would be something I think I could see as a concern as well and I think, another one.

Speaker 3: 15:11

Oh God, sorry, no, you're good. I was just going to say, when you mentioned hiking in the trailer, that kind of like sparked a thought in a different way for this and thinking about could this be something? For example, a lot of people go hiking alone or whatever it may be Could this be helpful in like solving crimes or different things like that? Or like, if someone is found deceased in their home, could you see the last things that they did, even if it's not like a murder case, but like could kind of like you know, people don't know what happened.

Speaker 3: 15:52

So that's where I went with this so like, could this be a good tool in you in use for that?

Speaker 1: 15:59

so yeah, they could like listen to it and say the person that was hiking. The last thing they said was how can you outrun a bear? Yeah, like well, I think there might have been a bear chasing them ray bands do that.

Speaker 2: 16:11

The meta ray bands, uh, they keep a log in the app of a lot of the things you ask and the results you're given, so I imagine it would be decent at that, as long as it is keeping the logs local that'll be interesting.

Speaker 1: 16:26

I think you should next time maybe come in and talk about the meta ray band. So oh, yeah, I definitely am.

Speaker 2: 16:32

That was going to be this week, but after messing with it I decided I needed to do more research. I want to get a little bit more in depth for it awesome.

Speaker 1: 16:41

Well, hey, I would love to hear what anybody that's listening. We would love to hear your thoughts on this too. Uh, it would just be something that you could see using, or somebody in your life that you could use it for a lot, lot of great ideas. Libby, that was really interesting too. About the crime thing, I wasn't even thinking about that. Would you wear something like this? It'd be interesting to know. I think that when I get the new AI Plod notepad, that pendant we'll cover that too and maybe compare what you're looking at and what that does as well. Awesome, all right. Cool. Well, all right, let's go ahead and shift on over to hey, I'm not going to go last today. I'm going to go. I'm number two. Welcome to number two, all right.

Speaker 1: 17:23

So what I want to talk about today is how to create deeper connections with your followers by becoming invisible. Now, I kind of hinted toward this a couple of weeks ago and you know I have people that's always asking. You know new clients, people that we're coaching that's asking hey, what's next? Usually, when they're asking those questions, how do we stand out? That's probably one of the most popular questions. How do we stand out across digital platforms? They're always looking for the next big digital platform. That's kind of where the mind's always going.

Speaker 1: 17:56

But I just had a meeting the other day with a friend and we were talking and we're talking about how, like on social media, we're seeing less engagement, less interaction, and what that conversation turned into was you know, I really feel like people are becoming numb to social media. Sean, you and me were just talking about this. I feel like people are becoming numb to it because it's just something we see, even like stories. I can look at my stories and see I'm getting great views, but if I put a question in there, not many people will respond compared to how many people viewed it that I could actually see looked at it. And I'm like why? And my friend asked me, why aren't people like, why aren't people responding? I'm like, well, think about it. When you flip through stories, what do you do? And they're like why just click through the stories, just flip through it? I was like, well, that's what they're doing. I look at it like this the tools that we use to connect with people in real life and in digital are consistently changing. They're always changing. So why wouldn't our approach and our strategy need to change?

Speaker 1: 19:00

I think that's where I want to encourage people that's listening. If you're asking like, hey, maybe you've asked that question how can we stand out, how can we make what we do on marketing more effective, and I'm going to warn everybody that's listening and I want to hear your guys' thoughts on this too, as we start talking about this. But I want to warn everybody that, if you're listening, that this is a, this is not a quick strategy that's going to help you and you're gonna be like yep, tomorrow everything's changing. This is going to take more time and it's going to require you to be more intentional with every interaction that you have. It's going to require you to be more intentional with every interaction that you have. It's going to require more. And when I, when I share this with with people on zoom, that's one of the things they immediately, almost every time they say right afterwards, is well, that's, that's going to take a lot of time. Yes, it will.

Speaker 1: 19:48

So when I say, you know, deepening your connection by becoming invisible, I actually decided to say it that way because I have written here in my office I guess it was over a year ago during one of my reflectionist times that during that reflection time. The thought that came to me, that God showed me, was be okay with being invisible Not in a bad way, but be okay with becoming invisible. Being invisible not in a bad way, but be okay with becoming invisible. And what I mean by that? When it comes to what's the next big way to stand out, it is shifting from your public feeds to your private feeds, and I was glad that I was bringing this today because I know Olivia is going to tie in probably with a little bit what you're going to be talking about with Instagram, but everyone is focused so much on the public feed.

Speaker 1: 20:34

But what about the private feed, like our DMs, the inbox messages, messenger apps, text messages? What are your guys' thoughts about that? I guess? First, let me ask that question how many of you Ashton, shau

Speaker 1: 20:49

, olivia when you guys are on social media, do you guys? Do you guys get a lot of messages in your inbox and have you noticed a, maybe a what's the right word Like a? Have you guys noticed less engagement on post? You know personal and posts that you guys do for?

Speaker 2: 21:09

businesses. I get a lot of inbox messages, a lot of direct messages, primarily from friends, from personal people or from friends. This is mainly from friends. I do have a few businesses, but I usually ignore them, so oh, you're saying businesses, inbox you. Yes.

Speaker 4: 21:32

But it's not people you were looking for an interaction with.

Speaker 1: 21:34

They just randomly interesting yeah, so do you even know the businesses, or they just?

Speaker 2: 21:40

sometimes I know them, sometimes I don't. Uh, there's been one, maybe two, that has messaged me that I was actually following, but most of them are just brands I I either, straight up, don't know, or they're a brand that I know the name, but I don't follow them. I don't follow any of their products. I haven't looked at buying any of their products.

Speaker 1: 22:04

So let me follow up with another question the, the brands that you do follow, that you know. Did you look at their messages or did you ignore their messages?

Speaker 2: 22:13

Uh, the brands that I followed. I looked at their messages the one that or the few that have messaged me that I didn't follow them. I wasn't looking at their messages.

Speaker 3: 22:26

I have a follow-up for Ashton. What kind of messages are they sending you? What kind?

Speaker 2: 22:33

of messages are they sending you? The ones that I'm not familiar with is usually like, kind of like an advertisement. It's buy this product. Of course, everybody gets the scam of the what's a good way to say it Basically where they're asking you to like be a collaborator or an ambassador.

Speaker 2: 22:54

That's what they say I'm not using that as part of like the information I'm giving right now, so that's completely excluded. But usually it's like there's been a few that have legit, just messaged me a link to their website like, hey, buy a product here and okay, it's like so they're basically just sending you an ad yeah, um sales pitch, right, right, yeah, exactly so to answer your original question, brian, um, I do a lot of my social interactions and

Speaker 3: 23:29

dms for sure. Um, the the thing with businesses is that is kind of frustrating is now some of them are at the point where if they make a reel, they message you like everything that they've done, and that to me, is not actually sending like messages in an inbox, but you're spamming people and, exactly like what Ashton was talking about, that's spamming people. So you're not actually trying to have a conversation, you're just trying to spam them to get them to buy something, which is it will make you stand out out, but in the wrong way, yeah that's an easy way to get an unfollow or a block or something

Speaker 2: 24:22

like that, like very easily, so many people use those broadcast channels now as like a spam, that I don't accept any broadcast, like even even some things that I absolutely love, like formula one not in their broadcast channel because there is just so much junk that goes through that I'm like I I'm not interested in broadcast.

Speaker 3: 24:43

The whole feature is ruined for me now but um, yeah, we will be overlapping some with what I'm talking about today but, short answer. Yes, I'm all in the DMS so yes, how about you, shawna?

Speaker 4: 24:59

Yeah, so for my personal accounts. Um, I use DM pretty regularly. There's a lot of things that I want to say to people, even in response to their public posts, that I just would prefer to say privately, so I like to use it for that. Um, yeah, for, like, personally, when I'm interacting with a business, I don't want to DM unless I've reached out to them first. So that's exactly what I'll do, olivia is, I'll unfollow them if they're sending me DMs. It doesn't happen a lot for me, though, but when it does, I want to be the one to initiate. Now, if I initiate a DM and they answer me on that, I love it because it shows me like someone's there, someone cares, you know they're.

Speaker 1: 25:42

There's someone, like you know, paying attention to these things, so I like that and I'm guessing that's the key brian when it comes to businesses using dm is like really pay attention, somebody dms you as a business, you know yeah, pay attention to that and one of the things that I'm what I see as, as we continue to move forward and this is again like any businesses that are listening you have to be very cautious on how you use this approach, just like what Ashton is saying, what Olivia is saying and what Sean is saying, like if you're using this as a way to spam people, you're going to annoy them and this is not going to be your win Not at all. I know we've talked some about really shifting the mindset of one at a time, like a one at a time approach. So you know what you put on your public feed is for the entire public, for the world to see. You know, if the algorithm shows it to them, they're all going to see it. Public for the world to see. If the algorithm shows it to them, they're all going to see it. So what I'm thinking of when it comes to shifting to a private feed, it's not one or the other. It's both used strategically together at the right time and the right ways, and if this is something that you're interested in, you can click book a discovery call with me right there in the show notes. I would love to talk to you about it more. But here's like I want to give you a little bit of insight of what I'm thinking here, what this looks like.

Speaker 1: 27:05

For example, if you put a post out there, let's say you know, let's say it's a, let's say it's a Christian radio station. They put a quote out there and someone responds to it in the comments on the public feed. Uh, and they share something and you respond back to them on the public feed If they're like, maybe asking for a prayer. Well, now you can say, hey, yes, hey, we're praying for you. Do you mind if I send you a private message? Ask them for that permission. Maybe you have something you want to share with them, something you can give them, but you want to transition from a public conversation to a private conversation, because that now opens up the door for you to start building a deeper connection with that individual, that one at a time, like one at a time approach. Instead of trying to reach the masses, let's try to get the message out there what you're doing, what your business is doing, but then look for those opportunities to say, hey, this is someone that that we could help, whatever service we're providing, or or maybe we want to be there to support them. So let's try to take that conversation to the, to the private side.

Speaker 1: 28:12

But get the permission, ask them, you know, let them know. Like, hey, I got a video We'd love to send you that would relate to this. Like, right now I've got someone that continues to send me a lot of videos about the food that we eat. So, like you know, I'm glad it's not being blasted all over my, my feeds or anything that I write a comment on, but they're sending it to me in the private messengers so I can look at, review and we can have a conversation back there. But even, like, even to the place of where you, of where you want them to feel special.

Speaker 1: 28:44

So using the DMs, the inbox, messengers, the messenger apps, even text messaging, where it's more of that one-on-one conversation. But as soon as you transition that as a sales opportunity and that's what you're using it as only, you have to build those relationships first. So I see it on LinkedIn. You know, if someone sends me a DM on LinkedIn and their first approach is they're wanting to, you know, sell their services to me. Like, oh, we've been following you, we love your material, we should partner together, we should. I'm like I don't even know you. Who are you Like? There's got to be a relationship here before I start going down this path with you, and that's just the wrong way to use it. Again, it's a private feed, it's more personal. So you've got to build the personal connection first on the public. But B I've had better conversations on the private side.

Speaker 1: 29:34

Having those conversations in place and a business, you can have a strategy for that, but you have to have a plan and I think that the shift from viral content that can grab a lot of people's attention but it's not creating memorable connections. So we have to choose. Those type of connections require more of an intentional interaction, which is going to take time. Building those and taking those conversations to private is going to take time, uh, and it's going to take that one at a time approach. So that's what my thoughts were on it. I mean, we've, like we have. I have messed with it and used it, still using it more. Now you can look at my posts and I don't have a lot of comments, but, man, when I do, I will message people personally and it's. We have such a better conversation, but it's not like everybody's eyes on it. You actually have a more meaningful connection conversation, because not everybody's watching what's going on as well.

Speaker 3: 30:33

Um, I think the big struggle for a lot of business people especially well, just people in general with social, is they're addicted to those numbers, right? So when you go down to a one-on-one conversation, you're not getting that same dopamine hit of multiple likes or comments on a post. So that also has kind of been the indicator by lots of people on success on social right. So this is really, really, while it doesn't seem super crazy as far as, like, what you need to do, it really is outside of the box thinking and you have to completely shift your mentality on what success or you know, like you, you love to ask questions back to people, brian, and it's asking that question of well, if you're just all about getting those numbers, those fake numbers, those dopamine hits, then maybe you're not the best person to be running your business's social media.

Speaker 1: 31:50

Um, you know so yeah, and it really relates to what Ashton was saying earlier about the little AI. Friend, if you're focused so much on that, then really you're focused, more, you're more. Are you more happy with the image of connection or actually creating a meaningful connection?

Speaker 4: 32:07

It makes me think like it's definitely a conversation that needs to be had, because I think everybody can agree that you can see less and less meaningful engagement happening on social media. You know, when you were talking to me about that earlier today, brian, about you know you just scroll through stories until someone catches your attention. It looks to those people who posted like you looked at it but really you didn't Like.

Speaker 4: 32:34

you know you might have seen it go past your eyes, but you didn't absorb what it was about. And it's really like that in your newsfeed for the most part too. I mean, you know we're seeing fewer and fewer people liking, hearting all that commenting for sure. So, and I mean sometimes people tell you like well, just make your content that much more attention grabbing, but sometimes then that's going away from your purpose. So it's just something definitely needs to be done. You know, if people are going to be investing in social media, it needs to be a meaningful connection, it needs to be something that actually makes sense for them to be spending their time on. And fighting for that attention in the newsfeed is not usually a really useful, you know, investment of that time.

Speaker 1: 33:23

Yeah, I think that that's it. Like you know, again, it's to be memorable. You're going to have to really go deep, or not just tweak something to get somebody else's attention, because that doesn't mean they're going to remember it. There's a lot of things that have been viral, that probably a lot of us have watched because it was viral, it was funny, but most of those things we don't remember.

Speaker 1: 33:45

And if we want to stand out like, even like, I want to challenge you by listen to even think beyond, even think beyond social media. This is anything that you're doing to connect with your audience. How are you doing it in a way that's going to create a more meaningful connection? Because I feel like that is the future of how you're going to stand out is really taking the time to build a connection, a real connection with each one person, one at a time. And the thing is we never really know the ripple effect that that's going to have on your business or in people's lives. Your business or in people's lives, like if you're, if your whole business, is based around bringing hope to people and impacting lives, you have no idea the ripple effects that's going to happen when you focus on one at a time it helps people be seen, be heard and recognize. Like that they're not invisible, like this is us becoming invisible Isn't making others become invisible? That's the key there. It's like we want them to know and see like they are seen.

Speaker 1: 34:45

Let us know your thoughts. Click that text link in the show notes. I would love to hear everybody else's thoughts as well. All right, so, olivia, let's go ahead and transition over to your topic. I'm curious to know how this overlaps some here.

Speaker 3: 34:58

Yeah, so, yeah.

Speaker 3: 34:59

so, excuse me, by the way, allergies have gotten the best of me um so the head of instagram, adam masseri, whom I love, if he ever wants to collab, have his people call my people. Um no, he recently came out and said exactly what you just said, brian. Their data is showing that people are not actually in the feed anymore. They are more in stories and in DMs, so they're noticing that as well, which he didn't say this, but it got me to thinking. This again shows the popularity of Snapchat, because they do not have a feed, the whole thing is stories and DMs, and it continues to rise in popularity, but anyways. So, with that being said, they really are taking a focus on features when it comes to DMs, because they know people are there and so they want to give the best possible experience that they can. So I'm just actually going to be talking about some new things that they're bringing to your DMS, because they want you engaging more in your DMS.

Speaker 1: 36:26

So um, yeah, cause either way you're on their app.

Speaker 3: 36:29

So yeah, exactly. It's, it's, it's them talking about it more as well. You know cause people are probably freaking out if everyone's noticing like my posts are not getting a lot of comments or shares or whatever it may be. Um, there is no way of showing businesses or people someone's DMing that's going on. So they're coming out and saying we're seeing this as well. So you know, we want to provide you a better DM experience.

Speaker 1: 37:07

Before you go down the features. I think that's very interesting that you stated that too, because I think it was probably, maybe almost a year ago that we started seeing in our insights that Meadow is reporting your how many conversations were coming in through your messenger, your inboxes. They're giving you numbers on that, which I was like pay attention to that because they're trying to like, they're aware of it and everybody else needs to be aware of it because they're wanting to know you know how, as a business, they want to know how effective is it. We didn't have those numbers before. Now you can see those numbers.

Speaker 1: 37:45

So I'm excited to hear about these features.

Speaker 3: 37:46

Go for it. Sorry, I'll quit interrupting. You See, I'm your AI friend. No, that was a valid point and it'll be interesting to see if analytics with DMs get even more. You know what other things they start measuring with that.

Speaker 3: 38:00

So, again with Instagram, when it comes to rolling out features, they never tell you when it's going to happen, and one day you pop on Instagram and it's like whoa, I have access to all these things. So one of the new features that they're doing is birthday notifications. So I know this is already on Facebook, where you know it says so-and-so's birthday, but now, when it's your birthday on Instagram, they're apparently going to put like a little chat circle or bubble or something that says it's your birthday. That allows you to DM a birthday message and it like shoots confetti or something. Apparently. I actually had a coaching session this week with one of our clients and was talking to them about it and I was like that's a great way for you to start conversation, you know, with your followers and going even one step further and even recording some videos with Well, this was a station, but with DJ saying happy birthday, blah, blah, blah. So it's taking it one step further with those types of things.

Speaker 1: 39:18

I think that, like what you just said, there too, like I know, for a while we started seeing well, I've still seen it, not many people are using it, but, like, even on the public feed, you can respond to people's comments with a reel. So I'm like, like you said, like part of the private side, if you actually send a video on the private side. Like those are the things that I think we gotta be thinking about.

Speaker 3: 39:48

So are the things that I think we got to be thinking about. So I love that you brought that up, olivia. That's really cool idea, yeah. And then the next things that they're offering is being able to draw on your private DMs. So like if I wanted to send a picture I could put, like you know, brian blackout one of Brian's teeth, or something.

Speaker 1: 40:01

You just said that because I just came back from the dentist, right. Is that why you just said that yeah.

Speaker 3: 40:06

That's a fun idea I like that, yeah, so that's an option. You know, I'll just be drawing angel halos on top of all my pictures, but that and then the whole app if you do, thativia the whole internet if you do that this is fake.

Speaker 3: 40:26

These are fake posts um, so, along the lines of drawings, they're also giving you the ability to put like stickers on pictures in your DMs and cutouts. You know that's been a feature in stories for a while of being able to like, cut out, you know, a picture or whatever. So that's going to be a thing in DMs. And another feature which I checked, checked and I already do have it, and this again goes back to Snapchat, but you can change the themes on your, the way that your DM chat looks with individual people I saw that, so that is something that you have to pay for.

Speaker 3: 41:16

On Snapchat, with that subscription that I talked about, that was so popular. That is a thing now. Well, has been on Instagram, so interesting.

Speaker 1: 41:30

I think this is kind of like I mean, I think all these shifts and you know, anybody listening pay attention Like I hope that people are catching like what's what we're talking about here? Because this is going to be so important as we continue to move forward. Social media is changing. It is changing so much and it's going to continue to change and we have to be willing to make changes ourselves and say you know what? This might be harder, I might have to take a whole different approach. Doing this personal connections through these DMs and stuff is going to be a totally different approach. But they recognize it. That's why they're investing in those tools. So I love that this is a topic that you brought in today, olivia, because I know neither one of us knew what we're going to be talking about today until today. So this worked out great and I know you've got great ideas too on on how to utilize this private size too. So people definitely reach out to us for a discovery call.

Speaker 4: 42:25

So two things. If I see posts that have a ton of comments, my first thought is there must be an argument happening in there, and there almost always is or, you know, for businesses, half the time I think they're fake comments anyway.

Speaker 1: 42:39

Well, you know what, before we go down that whole road, next, next week when we meet, let's continue to go down this path, cause I know that we've had a conversation just recently about Amazon reviews. I think we need to talk about some things that we're seeing, so we've become more aware of it on a customer side and also as a business side.

Speaker 3: 42:57

Brian, I have a question back to you as a business owner. Like, okay, when we hear these things, you know business owners or upper management they want to see numbers and things like that. So I think that's going to be a huge hurdle for people and will be very frustrating for social media managers and digital people. So what would you say to a business owner or upper management? That's kind of like breathing down the neck of their team members.

Speaker 1: 43:35

I think that when it comes to the numbers, and not even just in social media, we've got to start transitioning our mindset. Sean and me have been looking at MailChimp numbers and looking at that and doing tests and realizing that even those numbers aren't adding up anymore, and I think a lot of this is happening because of the data privacy act. You know a lot of people are saying I don't want you tracking my numbers, I don't want you tracking that, I want you tracking my stats. When that stuff happens, we don't see all those numbers. So it's like using numbers you have. Don't let that be dependent on if this is successful or not.

Speaker 1: 44:09

We know it's easy to focus on the numbers, but it's important that we realize that data, that data isn't always the full picture, especially when it's not 100% accurate. Sometimes real impact comes through the feedback that isn't measurable, like those reviews or inbox responses, like those private messages we're talking about or personal stories that are shared with you. These are all signs that we're making deeper connections, that you're making deeper connections which can be just as valuable as hard data. I would actually say it's even more valuable. I think the future is looking beyond those numbers. We're not going to be able to see all the impact that's happening and ask yourself how are you truly engaging and interacting with your audience? Hey everybody, thank you guys for what you guys brought today. Everybody that's listening. Thank you for tuning in. If you enjoyed this podcast, make sure you click follow and leave us a review and, ultimately, we want to hear back from you. So click that text link, let us know your thoughts and send us some of your feedback. We would love to hear from you.