- In this video,
I interview Mari Smith, The Queen of Facebook
and she shares her three biggest tips
for crushing it on Facebook this year,
her favorite Facebook video tool,
and the biggest mistakes you could be
making on Facebook and how to fix them.
Coming up.
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Hey what's up guys Sean here with Video Influencers
help you build your influence,
income, and impact with online video.
And I'm so excited to have Mari Smith
the Facebook and social media,
really one of the premiere experts,
really globally in this space.
How's it going Mari?
- It's going awesome, thanks for having me.
It's good to see you.
- Great to see you as well, thanks for being on the show.
And we're here at Social Media Marketing World
in San Diego.
It's been a great conference, you've been speaking
and sharing your tips on Facebook.
Now, for the one person in our
audience who doesn't know you yet,
just talk a little bit about your background
and how you've been on this journey
to learning about social media
and sharing your answers
and really building your influence
into the person you are today.
- Oh sure, yeah. I'd be happy to.
So they call me The Queen of Facebook,
I didn't give myself that name
but I'm quite happy to have that moniker.
And I call myself the premiere Facebook Marketing Expert.
I got on Facebook in May of 2007
and I just fell in love with the platform.
I just thought it was brilliant,
I thought it was an amazing opportunity
to be able to connect
and build relationships in a business way.
Really, of people that you might not
normally have been able to reach.
And so I, before that, actually I was an internet marketer,
I did information products, email marketing,
copywriting, and webinars, daily seminars
and then it was just a natural evolution of my career
when Facebook just kinda fell on my lap in 2007 like I say.
And within about three short weeks,
I just was so passionate,
became an evangelist for the company.
Everybody I met I'm like,
"Are you on Facebook? Let me show you how to get on."
- That is awesome.
And now today, we're here in a brand new year,
and of course the landscape of this space
is always changing.
So I'm curious, what are your tips for 2018
when it comes to Facebook?
There's new rules, there's new strategies,
let's talk about it.
- Okay, three key points.
That I actually was just speaking here
at this event about that.
Number one, certainly video.
I love what you're doing here Sean,
this is beautiful, this is,
obviously you're a pro, your walk and your talk here.
You must do more video.
Now then, that's gonna look like
for some people recorded, for some people live,
for some people, they're not comfortable on camera.
So they wanna use a tool
that has stock video, stock footage.
Or photos to put together slideshows,
or you know, just some way to be able to have the footage,
on the platform, Facebook and Instagram
that's the movement that catches the eye.
So doing that, so focusing on video,
also looking to see, have a show.
So, episodic content.
That means that you're going live
or you schedule and you drop, you publish your content
same day, same time, each week.
And that's basically what Facebook's looking for
is episodic content.
So that you are more likely to have a show
featured on Watch, on the Watch platform.
Facebook is absolutely determined to become
a leading, digital streaming, television destination.
So they're actually a platform
competing with YouTube yes,
but also really Amazon, and Hulu and Netflix.
- Wow.
- They're paying for much more original content.
They're getting exclusive streaming rights,
and we're gonna see more and more
in the way of sports for sure.
So video of course, I've talked to that,
and I know you talk about video a lot.
Second thing is Messenger.
And this is really the year of Messenger automation
but I gotta tell you Sean,
I have a slide in my deck that says,
"Marketers may ruin Messenger."
And what do I mean by that?
Basically that if we as marketers if we get too caught up
in going for the sale and going for the conversion
and going for numbers and clicks
and forgetting there's a human being
looking at that Messenger inbox
and you've gotta develop that
more intimate, personal relationship.
You've got to respect their inbox.
I should do that as a hashtag.
So having the automation but for sure
blending it with the human.
And then the third element is Groups.
And Groups have been around for a while
but Facebook's putting a huge emphasis on Groups
and communities and they have this whole fellowship program,
there's tens of millions of dollars
to help offline communities and online,
you know to build their online and visa versa,
to really bring that together.
So you have a wonderful offline community here,
that you know you can continue that relationship
online through the power of Facebook Groups.
- Now that's powerful, so I love that.
So if people want to be building
their influence on Facebook,
definitely paying attention to video and live video,
- Yes. - Messenger and conversation.
Not just pushing, - Yes.
- Not trying to sell, but engaging with people.
- Yes.
- And then Facebook Groups
and starting your Facebook Groups,
those are some power tips and focuses for this year.
Now you also mentioned like a video tool,
and I was at another event you recently spoke at.
You have a favorite video tool that's pretty easy to use,
that can really get results.
What's that tool? - I do.
It's Wave, wave.video and they have,
actually they just recently added MoarVideo.
They partnered up with another library
so they have hundreds of millions of assets
and I love being able to just think of a concept,
of have an article or have a point I wanna make,
and I can find every possible permutation of that point
to illustrate in the video, with a professional click.
And then I can output it in a variety of different formats.
I can do portrait, I could do a story format.
- [Sean] Wow.
- Story ads by the way are gonna become huge,
right now with basically,
marketers are kind of like not realizing yet,
the power of stories and especially on Instagram.
And so being able to create in the wave.video
you've got the story format right there,
and you can go ahead and create your ad,
and pop it right in through the ads manager,
onto Instagram Stories.
- That is so powerful.
Now, one of, a lot of our audience
is actually focusing a lot on YouTube
and they're wanting to diversify their audience,
especially 'cause things are always changing everywhere.
- Yes.
- But you know, one of the things we talk about too
is people make mistakes,
if they just think about trying to use Facebook
to go to their YouTube channel for example,
- Yes.
- if you just link to a YouTube video,
Facebook just destroys your reach right?
- Yeah, totally, totally.
- And so if you link out from Facebook,
that's not really the strategy.
You wanna keep people native in Facebook
with the content you're uploading,
- Yep.
- So that would be a mistake to try to link away.
Is there any others you see,
maybe marketers and content creators make,
that you think are some fixes?
The biggest mistakes they make when it comes to Facebook.
- In addition to the one you just said about YouTube,
I've had several people come up to me,
at these different conferences and
they're not as happy with how things are going on YouTube,
or they're just deciding to
add Facebook to their YouTube marketing.
And they talk about, they'll say things like,
"How do I get my YouTube audience over to Facebook?"
No, don't think about that.
Meet people where they're at,
continue building your YouTube audience,
they love that platform.
You can let them know, by the way I'm also on Facebook.
I'm also, it's both and,
you wanna be building both platforms and not thinking
you're gonna migrate your YouTubers over to Facebook,
or even the other way around.
Some other mistakes I would say,
I mean from an advertising standpoint,
is not using Pixel, using the boost button too much.
It's amazing to me how many marketers--
- Using it too much. - Too much,
'Cause I'll tell you why.
Facebook sees that there's ad algorithms right?
There's the newfeed algorithms,
and there's the ad algorithms and the ad algorithms know
that you are a newbie, novice advertiser
if all you ever do is hit that boost button.
It's seen as a lightweight interface.
So if you can go ahead and use the ads manager
for about 90% of your budget,
and the other 10%, only 10% on the boost button.
- That's a power tip right there.
- Yeah. - That's awesome.
Well Mari, are you ready for the lightning round?
- Okay go for it.
- Okay here we go, the lightning round.
Show us what lightning looks like, let's get that energy.
Choo, choo, choo, you go for it.
- Oh, choo, choo, choo. (laughing)
- Alright lightning round, lightning round,
three, two, one, coffee or tea?
- Tea.
- Cat or dog? - Cat.
- You have cat?
- I did, I'm gonna get another one.
- Okay awesome. - She's in heaven.
She's in kitty heaven.
- NYC or LA?
If you had to pick one, just to visit.
- (laughs) Neither.
- Okay. - Okay maybe NYC.
- If you could only grab, this is interesting,
one thing during a zombie apocalypse, one item,
you know to protect yourself,
or it can be anything at all, what would you go for?
- One item, have to be my phone.
- Your phone, (laughing)
that's right, you could call,
plus you still need to be on Facebook.
- Yeah. - Let people know
what's happening with the zombies.
- Assuming I could have internet right?
(laughing) - Right.
Last song that you had on repeat?
- It's called Sound of His Insanity
and it's a piano song, it's a piano tune,
I don't remember the artist.
- No miss morning ritual that you do everyday?
- Exercise, I workout.
- Everyday? - No.
- Oh. (laughing)
Book every influencer watching should read?
- I love Story Brand by Donald Miller.
- Such a great book, we've just been diving into that one.
It is amazing.
For you, I'm not sure if you watch Netflix,
or any kind of streaming service,
but what's one of your bingable favorite shows?
- (laughs) I am watching right now is Schitt's Creek.
It's a Canadian one and it's S-c-h-i-t-t
and it's name of a little town.
- [Sean] Yeah.
- I forget their names right now,
but it's a father and son that wrote it
and a father and son that are starring in it.
It is so funny, so funny.
Binge watch. - I love that.
Now we've all heard the phrase,
if I knew then what I know now,
I probably would've done things differently.
What advice would you like to
go back and give to your 20 year old self?
- I would say, to never be afraid, to just you know,
that there's a greater power, God, universe, great spirit,
has your back and things always happen for a reason.
You never realize that in the moment
but they always really truly do.
And things work out in a beautiful way, they always do.
- I love it.
And finally, what is like a quote or maybe a phase
that you like to think about often?
Or kind of a favorite quote?
- What is my deepest intent?
I find when I ask myself that,
especially when it comes to social media,
before you hit the send, or the publish,
or the tweet, or the update, you say to yourself,
"What is my deepest intent?"
is a wonderful way to keep your ego in check.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause if you're like well I wanna show them
or oh wait a minute, this is about me,
no, let's reword this, let's get back to
how I can serve and be humble and add value
and put the spotlight on others.
- So powerful. - Yeah.
- I love it.
Well that was the lightning round.
Choo, choo, choo, choo, choo, choo.
Alright. (laughs)
So finally, of course,
we'll link everything up in the description below
but for people who wanna check out
more about what you're doing,
what kind of resources do you have available?
And where should everybody go to connect with you?
- I have a wonderful chatbot,
they can go to Mari Smith Facebook, m.me/MariSmith
or Facebook.MariSmith and the one with the blue check,
and then can just get started with my little bot in there.
I have a free video gear list, I have courses,
I have all kinds of wonderful goodies
that they can download and great tools that I love,
and crowd source information
that will really help them with their business.
- Excellent, awesome and finally,
for the influencers watching,
you have not just built such a you know, a great influence,
but you've also done business with integrity.
You have this great reputation,
but you've been through every season,
as an entrepreneur, I'm sure you've had ups and downs
and you know how hard it is to get through,
building your influence, trying to get followers,
trying to figure out how all this stuff works.
- Right.
- Can you just share a few words of encouragement
for those in the Video Influencers community
for whatever they're building to just keep going,
and maybe some wisdom for the journey?
- Oh sure.
There's absolutely, there are days, I'll confess,
I haven't ever said this but there are days when I'm like,
oh my God, I've been an entrepreneur,
been my own boss for 20 years,
and was an employee before that when I lived in Scotland.
But there's days where I'm, darn it,
I wish I just had a job at Starbucks,
I just gonna go and make coffee
and I'll just punch a clock right?
'Cause it's just like this is too hard.
And then I'm like, I get a hold of myself
and, or my partner gives me some encouraging words.
I'm like c'mon Mari, you can do this.
And so, self talk is key,
but so important, 'cause environment is stronger than will,
you can't will yourself,
you can if you're super disciplined but most people,
environment is gonna draw them back down
into where they were with those thinkings.
So surround yourself,
you have your wonderful community here.
Reach out, be willing to be vulnerable,
go and watch Brene Brown's Ted Talk on vulnerability
and be willing to open up a bit and say
"Hey folks, I'm going through something right now,
"I could use some help."
and it's absolutely amazing what happens.
I really, it actually just touches me when I think about it,
that human beings want to help others, you know?
And so but I think we're often afraid to ask for that help.
So if you know, I would say that
God, great power, great source,
never put a dream in your heart that you can't manifest.
If you have a dream in there, it's meant to come forward.
So if you need to get help, if you're stuck,
don't allow that to stop you,
go ahead and get the help you need.
- Thank you so much Mari, that's such great advice.
And influencers, definitely check out links
in the show notes below.
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Until next time,
this channel's all about helping build your
influence, income, and impact with online video.
Keep crushing it and we will talk soon.