Transcript
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Welcome back to BB growth. I'm
Dan Sanchez with sweetfish media, and today
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I'm joined with Steve Pocross, who
is the CEO of Verbalo. Man,
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I love the ring to that every
time I read it. So how are
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you doing today, Steve? I'm
doing great. Damn thanks for having me.
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That's great. Today we're going to
be talking about the three emerging trends
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to scale your content without sacrificing quality. But before we do, Steve,
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can you tell us a little bit
about what you and the team Everballyo been
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up to? Sure, we are
a content creation marketplace platform based in Denver,
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Colorado. So we have a distributed
team, about twenty five employees throughout
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Colorado and the world, and we
have three thousand writers who read on our
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platform. And so we have been
very active figuring out how to adjust to
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the new world order, just like
many of you have been as well,
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both on the the downside of the
the hard things that come out of this,
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and also on the opportunities that have
been immerging. So all lots happensteve,
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with the crisis taking place, a
lot is changed. But what were
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the some of the trends you were
seeing beforehand? With content. It's interesting.
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We a lot of trends we were
seeing before. We're gradual trends that
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were that only got many of them
just got accelerated with the crisis. So
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one of the big trends was the
the move towards long form content from short
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form. I think so many companies
short form just feels easier. You can
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really knock out a five hundred,
six hundred word blog a lot quicker than
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the amount of work it takes to
create a giant outline. For those of
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you who don't speak word count,
that is about five paragraphs. And so
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what we saw on our business over
the last three years, as we used
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to write less than seven percent of
our content was a thousand words and more
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three years ago and now it's over
sixty five percent and just three years.
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So I think it's been acknowledged that
long form is is important and what's works.
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And it makes sense because people are
writing more for people. They want
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higher level content and that's what they're
craving. So it's moved away from kind
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of trying to beat the SEO machine
to actually writing for people, which I
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think is a great trend. No, I think it's a great trend.
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I mean it's always obviously what Google's
looking for and that's what they say they're
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looking for. So as a content
creator myself, it's like you're trying to
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move more and more in that direction. Right exactly. So the other parts
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of the four trends are. So
that was the first one. The second
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was a market trends towards moving working
with experts. We also saw a big
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inversion of our our market places now
made of two thirds of our clients are
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digital marketing agencies. So a lot
of the marketers out there are looking towards
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Steo and content to be taken over
by agencies, experts who do this day
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and day out, to guide them. And that really flip from one third
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to two thirds in a very short
amount of time, over two years as
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well. The third big trend was
in enhancing content. So how do you
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make content more digestible, much as
higher quality, thought leadership, but also
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how is it more digestible consumable by
your audience? So we acquired a video
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company a couple of years ago.
Many of our clients are asking us to
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add videos to their to all of
their content, or to design it so
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it's broken up into pieces, which
is the way that most humans like to
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read. And then there was a
an emerging trend towards content. Is a
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competitive advantage. How do you use
a service like us that brings together a
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market place of three thousand writers with
technology to do new things that people haven't
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been able to do before? And
so marketers were getting really creative with programs
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like one, one hundred unique articles
every single month and things of that nature,
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which I'll talk about a little more. So the next section is like
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everything after the crisis, because the
crisis, the pandemic, everything that's going
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on around the world has changed the
game. So what does that mean for
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marketers moving forward? I think it
means we've seen four trends that have really
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emerged coming out of the crisis.
First of all, the first month and
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a half was just really different.
It was a month and a half of
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everybody pausing and shifting. We saw
just about twenty percent of our clients just
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hit the pause button, and then
the ones who came back with a larger
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clients, and so there's a big
move up market. Most of the clients
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that disappeared, unfortunately, were the
small business is and then the larger clients
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are looking for how to go bigger. So the first big trend is an
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x and escalation of content. So
I just wrote a blog post last week
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that was entitled content was always king, but then it got promoted, and
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I think that's really true. I
think there are very few other sources out
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there for marketers to work we all
know that we have to market through the
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recession, through through the crisis.
So there's a few options and it's only
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becoming more powerful as there's more people
consuming your content and looking for reasons to
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stop reading the news at the same
time. So I think that's number one
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are the first one was shifting up
market, the second was escalation of content.
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The third is really a change in
tone. First it started just with
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a general sense of empathy, of
writer of content having to be really thoughtful
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about what you're trying to convey,
being even more kind of entering on the
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concept of inbound that you're trying to
deliver something of value to your clients and
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to your audience, and just being
even more thoughtful that the sales tone is
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even less valuable at this moment.
And then over the last several weeks,
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as the racial kind of escalations have
and injustice has have been escalated. There's
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been a lot more focus on inclusiveness
and tone as well and how to change
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your your content to be inclusive.
I think that's another one of those advantages
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to have if you have a pool
of large pool of writers, as we
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have a really large minority group of
writers as well, who can really nailed
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that in addition to other thought for
writers, and the last is really a
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move towards thought leadership. It's amazing
how many companies have come to us and
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say, okay, we've been talking
about thought leadership content for a long time,
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but right now is is we're ready
to do it. Just as an
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example, verbalio has basically I've tripled
the amount of content that I've done.
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I probably did more content in the
last three months than I have in the
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last four years of this job.
So a big debate we've had. I
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can't say this is an internal debate. This is a big debate we've had
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with our, I don't know,
agency and content marketing peers, especially out
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on linkedin. Is this thing about
quality versus quantity. Where do you guys
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stand on that debate? Are you
a this or that both, or how
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do you think about that. Oh, I think I have a feeling I'm
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going to repeat the exact comments that
you guys have had in your debate.
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So to me there's a baseline for
both. You have to have a baseline
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of quality or it's not worth writing, and you have to have a baseline
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of quantity or it's not worth producing
much either because you won't get noticed.
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So on the concept of quality,
I think you have to have the right
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side, the right type of quality
for the right type of audience. So
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not every piece needs to be written
by a New York Times author and you
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should save that type of work for
your thought leadership. But you should always
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have good writers and always good subject
matter experts to at least understand what you're
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about. So I think it's the
it's the right size is, you know,
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the quality. And then on the
quantity side, this is this is
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a definitely a debate that has gone
on this industry. But the hub spot
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says that basically, in order to
hit a crew, you need to hit
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a critical mass in order to start
scoring your seo points. So you're writing
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for a couple reasons. You're writing
for U Seo. You want to get
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noticed by your audience, but we're
also writing for brand. You want to
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bring people through your funnel. They're
going to read at least fourteen pieces of
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your content before they actually make a
buying decision for you. So you want
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to have good quality so that once
you actually bring them to your site and
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you score point with Google, that
you actually score point with closing them as
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well. And so hub spot says
that's like twenty blogs a month. I
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don't really know what that is.
That's interesting. I didn't know that they
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said that. What do what do
you kind of put that? Because I
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get asked that all the time.
How many blogs do I need to write
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a month? And I'm like kind
of the round question, but if you
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could give an answer to that question, since you guys published so much,
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what have you seen we do?
So the thing that I can answer is
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what agencies do with as experts in
content marketing. And so the average agency
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is as having their clients. The
smaller clients are posting less less than ten
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and the larger clients are posting between
twenty and upwards, and so basically,
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those who can afford it, they're
giving more seo power to buy adding more
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content. My other thought on this
is there's kind of two concepts. There's
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how much you should publish per month
and how much you should just have in
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your arsenal of content for people to
find you. And so I've also read
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pieces along the way which, of
course, all of these are controversial,
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but that you need to have a
critical, massive content in order to as
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a starting point and which is,
you know, two hundred plus pieces in
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order for you to really be seen
as a thought leader and to start having
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those monthly blog post actually add value
to you. So did you say hub
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spot needed? Want was asking for
twenty pieces a week or a month?
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A month is with a month?
Okay, I think that's actually doable for
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most people. That comes down to, you know, just over two pieces
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a week. Now it's three,
about three to four pieces a week.
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So that's pretty doable. And my
experience we were publishing two blogs a week
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and just saw slow and steady growth. You know, you're picking up a
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few thousand more visits to your blog
every year by publishing that. Right when
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I was able to figure out how
to shift to ten to twenty a week,
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well that's that's game changing growth and
traffic we started seeing and I just
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I'm like I'll never go back.
Once I started seeing the games from posting
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that much more content, I was
like this is it. But I think
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twenty twenties a month is a good
baby like not a baby step, it's
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a huge milestone. It's a good
step towards publishing. That and two hundred
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pieces for not leadership really does ring
true in my mind. It takes quite
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a bit to be seen that way. You have to publish a lot.
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There's got to be all out out
there. I think so, and hence
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we get so I think so tubs
about called twenty kind of the inflection point
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in the article that I just read, which I think is really interesting,
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and I think it's a way to
think about your content strategy, which is
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if you want to produce four blogs
a month, to blogs a month,
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just something that's kind of keep the
lights on. And if you think of
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like the Classic Tea Marketing Diagram of
all the things that every marketer has to
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do, well, there's so many
of them, and so where do you
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want to go deep? So do
you want to just make a scratch and
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just keep the lights on, or
do you want to make this part of
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your competitive strategy? And I think
twenty is the point where you're basically investing
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and saying this is where my growth
is coming from. Another thing you said
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that really stood out to me that
I wrote down immediately and I hope everybody
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else really picks up on it,
is that you're essentially putting a quality scale
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to your your content pieces. You're
saying, okay, these types of pieces
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only need to be the list level
of quality, but these pieces need to
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be the highest quality we can possibly
make, and I think actually giving a
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grade or a level two different types
of pieces that you're producing really helps you
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produce the quantity, because then you're
not wasting effort on the wrong pieces.
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If you're doing a library style,
which generally if you're posting twenty plus blog
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post a month, you're creating a
library of content, because no one can
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really keep up with that. By
a newsletter, then there's going to be
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different kinds of content. Not all
of it needs to be your top quality,
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your best writers, your most funny
or the longest post that you write.
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So that to take away that,
I'm taking for sure to even start
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applying a sweet fish right away.
I'm glad to hear that. I think
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it's a it's a big one for
us to and so one of the the
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examples of that is how is companies
coming to us with ebooks in pillar pieces,
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kind of the and then turning those
into like a hubband spoke model,
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which is something that up about is
also been advocating for many years, which
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is like you get your best writer
or you get your thought leader in the
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company to write that Ebook, but
you can turn that into you fifty,
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a hundred pieces of supporting blogs,
one for each segment of it, by
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using a great group of writers who
are just great writers and understand you,
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but don't have to have anyone near
the level of subject matter expertise or depth
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that you have to do it.
That's right. We use pillar pieces all
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the time and in fact this podcast
is what we consider a pillar piece that
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we break up into smaller pieces.
So I've always been interested in figuring out
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now, how do you scale the
content, because when you're first starting out,
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even writing one blog post a week
is so intimidating. Now we can
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take a pillar piece and break it
up into smaller pieces, but how have
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you figured out how to leverage freelancers
and kind of the new I don't want
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to kind of the GIG economy,
but the new way like work is unfolding
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here in the world, especially after
the pandemic hit. How are you guys
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leveraging that to accelerate your content creation? So I think this is one of
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the most interesting opportunities out there and
I think that this concept of how do
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you bring so we think of it
is how do you bring together a marketplace
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of great talent with the all of
the positives that have come out of the
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SASS technology revolution, which was how
do you specialize in one work form,
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work one work type, put on
a platform and make it scalable and optimize
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that one work type? So the
way I think of it is how you
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do this with, for with skilled
labor? So the the trends bit of
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come out that. The I think, the GIG economy trends that most people
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are most familiar with. Our Uber, of course, which is all about
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how do you create a technology that
delivers a solution optimally, in a really
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efficient way, but using people more
as low end kind of commodity labor in
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order to get there? And then
you have your craigslist in your upworks,
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which are all about how do you
find the most skilled person, somebody who
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could have your exact same you know
your exact niche. You're looking for Swedish
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people who specialize and diesel mechanics,
like in the Arctic Ocean or something that
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you can find that person, but
then you just replicate all of the challenges
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of a one to one freelance relationship, of not being able to scale that
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talent. So where I think this
is we're moving above micro tasks. We're
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moving into skilled labor tasks on the
continuingum and I think this is going to
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be a trend bringing together that skilled
labor and different work types. That's going
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to parallel SASS and the way that
sales forth started all off. We started
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with marketing automation and then slowly we've
worked into HR and every other kind of
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vertical that was out there. So
that's kind of like the high level trends
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and then I'll tell you what we
actually do. So I basically think about
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our business as having three legs of
the stool. So we have this market
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place where we have three thousand writers
and I think having the right size market
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place is really critical. You want
to have a large enough to get a
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breath of voice, a breath of
availability so that you can scale and be
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flexible but also maintain the level of
quality where if your market place gets too
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big, you can't actually control it. So to me, the ideas how
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do you build a right size team
for your company as opposed to having an
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individual relationship? And then the SASS
platform is to make the experience is content
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creation is a very friction filled process
involves lots of back and forth. If
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you're creating twenty pieces of month.
We have clients that are creating twelve hundred
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pieces of a month of content,
giving feedback to every single writer and delivering
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it to post it on their cms. It has to be repe bust and
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has to be easy to use,
but it also has to basically get smarter
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as it goes, like any good
platform, and so what we're trying to
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do is get all of the feedback
that any client would give to any individual
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writer and give it to any writer
that would ever work for them. And
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so basically that means that the onboarding
process is like with any writer. You
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take a while to get your preferences, but once you get there you don't
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have to train our system again.
We have a pool of writers for you
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and the third leg of the stool
is professional services, which is that we
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started out as a selfserve market place. Come get your content, tell us
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what you want, or tell the
writer what you want and they'll get it
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to you. But the idea of
the the platform, takes a lot of
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the friction out of the transfer of
knowledge to the writer and we found that
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every company has different needs, like, in addition to needing flexible writing capacity,
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they need flexible content management capacity.
From the basics, like you know,
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can you SEO optimize this post?
Can you prove for you to?
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Can you post it on my cmsk? Can you add video to an all
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in? I don't even want to
look at your content or at your platform.
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I just need you to take over. Either I don't have those skills
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on my team or I need to
add this as an additional capacity. And
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so I think you put those three
things together, I'll go. That's the
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market place, this as platform and
professional services and you can do really compelling,
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interesting things, which will hit on
in a few so are you taking
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writers and then given them the content
they need, the right or you finding
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experts and then training them how to
write? So we are definitely taking writers
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in training them. Well, we're
not a training them point. We're taking
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experts you have already proven themselves in
verticals and we write for this one of
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my favorite stats. We write for
forty different verticals. Thirty nine of them
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are thirty nine of them are the
standard verticals and then the forty is other.
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And fifty two percent of our clients
say that they write for their and
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other. So what that means is
that we have to be able to write
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strong and most of the larger verticals, but also it's a key to that
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we can write from niche for niche
businesses as well, and so I think
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it's a lot easier to to give
subject matter to a great writer and teach
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them how to use their skills like
a good journalist. Our companies founded by
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a journalist, so this kind of
mentality has flown through. Then taking a
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mechanic or an engineer and teaching them
to to write a lifetime skill. So
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essentially, if you need a an
article about scuba diving, you go and
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find a dive master that actually knows
how to write exactly. So it's a
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lot easier. So if you're going
to do that your first we're going to
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find you a writer the most knows
kind of that's most aligned to their subjects.
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The way, we have a lot
of we've we thought a lot of
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the model about how to incent and
make a make make quality scale, which
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is one of the hardest challenges in
content. I think it's really easy to
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write quality content, but to right
it at scale is really challenging. The
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biggest concept that we have is that
we download your expertise into our platform for
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the writer to see. You're going
to always know your business more and training
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them in your business is going to
be a lot harder. But if they
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have familiar ready, like if they're
a legal writer or a medical writer and
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already written in that field, it's
a lot easier for them to figure out
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your medical device business. So it's
interesting. You're you have a market place,
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yet you're finding such niche writers that
I imagine it's pretty tough to go
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and find them all the time right. I mean it's hard enough to go
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find the expert you can go find
those guys on linked in, but finding
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ones that I can can actually write
well, I mean that's that's got to
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be a challenge. Is your market
place that big that it makes a little
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bit easier to find or you find
your having to hunt for these people all
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the time. So that's such an
interesting question. I hadn't really thought about
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it that way. So the way. So, first of all, very
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good quality GIG economy jobs. We
don't like to think of ourselves as the
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good gig economy as much, but
until there's a better term, will stick
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with that quality freelance jobs where you
have the ability to choose what you want
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to work on for a reasonable level
of pay, where for people who respect
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you are very hard to find.
And so I put this out there for
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anyone trying to go into a new
business. There's a great opportunity. We
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accept four point three percent of the
writers who take our application. So our
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challenge is really curating the writers that
are coming to US versus seeking them.
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We put almost no effort into into
seeking them, because the word of mouth
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gets around. And then the part
where we bring in the subject matter of
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expertise is it's all up to us
to segment those writers and to who has
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can already write about those things,
because all of these writers have expertise in
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something. It's a matter of our
technology and our system to make sure that
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we can segment them a boardingly so
that they're available for our clients. Well,
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it's certainly a competitive advantage. I've
I've hired out my my fair share
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of writers who don't know what that
are talking about. It, man,
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it can just be. It just
be brutally painful because they're using words that
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no industry inside or whatever whatever use. So I tend to take people who
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can write and then I just train
them in the industry. But your whole
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whole league ahead if you can find
someone who does both. One thing that
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people often struggle with when it comes
to hiring freelances it's integrating them with the
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team. How have you guys overcome
that challenge? One of my favorite examples
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of how to use the power of
the market place with skilled talent is we
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as one of our legal examples.
We have one of our larger clients called
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rankings DOTO. They specialize in legal
and legal left Seo only for personal injury
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attorneys. They work with the top
three firms and every metro area and they're
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trying to use seo as a competitive
advantage. But the only way they want
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to do that is to scale the
quality. They wanted to have legal oriented
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writers who are familiar with how to
write in in that style, but they
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also wanted to have every single piece
of content reviewed by a lawyer and do
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it at scale and affordably, and
so we were able to dig with into
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our group. We have eighty kind
of legal focused writers, but within there
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we also found that we had five
Gd's that were just like to write more
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on our platform, and so we
built a program for them a couple of
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years ago, with the JD's reviewing
every single piece of content. So you
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got the best of the the JD
oversight and quality, but also the scale
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of legal oriented writers who could basically
enable them to create a level of content
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that no other SEO agencies could do. So then they could go to their
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clients and basically say, look,
I'm going to give you an infusion of
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Seo juice into your business immediately.
I'm going to give you hundreds of pieces
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of SEO or of Legal Seo content
that you're all going to be proud of,
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and that's something that nobody else can
bring. And so over the last
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two years we've written forty four hundred
pieces of legal content reviewed by JD's for
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them, all in thirty days or
less. So, Steve, one of
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the things I know marketers worry about
when it comes to working with freelancers is
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learning how to take that outsider and
really integrate them into the team. How
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do you see marketing teams overcoming that
challenge with freelancers? So I see it
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as really similar to the bringing on
a new employee situation, which is and
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I think all of us are going
to have to get better this is we
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bring on more contract workers and more
platforms and freelancers into our ecosystem. It's
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not going to be just buinary freelancer
versus employee anymore. So one of them
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is treat them with empathy, treat
them well. So our clients that give
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fair feedback to our writers and respond
to them quickly. The writers just respond
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to that and it motivates them.
It gets them excited they want to work
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for you. That's the same thing
you would do with employee. The second
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is a period of time. There's
just a reasonable amount of time for a
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new freelancer or a new employee to
get your business. So usually the talk
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about the nine the day review.
Where you think about it when you come
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into Tivertleo, we're going to test
out a bunch of writers are going to
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try and you're going to tell us
which ones you like and you're going to
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share more preferences and you think you're
going to tell everyone what you wanted up
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front, but you're only going to
realize after you've done ten or fifteen rounds
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of feedback that there's just more and
more to share, and so it's to
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be honest with your feedback and then
have some patience of like, we're investing
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in you, so you should invest
in us. It's kind of an interesting,
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interesting thing to think about. As
more and more teams are I mean
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a good percentage of teams, even
without trying to grow like like a market
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place of freelancers to really scale up
tasks like like blogging, a lot of
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teams are like half or a quarter
or even maybe even a ten, but
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a good size of them are now
freelancers, contract workers. Almost makes me
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we have another podcast on crafting culture. I'm like, man, that'd be
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a good topic for that to talk
about. How do you craft culture when
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half your team's freelance? Right whole, another whole another conversation about how to
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hold your culture and how do you
build processes and systems for how to manage,
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manage that team yet still include them. But are they half included?
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Are they like half citizens? How
do you deal with it? It's like
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a whole another route we could go
go down, though I'd still love to
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hear any thoughts you have on it. I just I just have one,
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which is to create a human so
our company was founded by a journalist and
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so it's really important to us that
we do right by the writers and we
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become the preferred place that writers want
to be, and so I think one
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of there's a lot of examples of
how we go about that. One is
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that we think about them in the
product cycle. We're building things for the
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usually the freelance workers get the shortest
shrift of of the product cycles of how
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their lives improve. The second is
that we communicate very actively with them.
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We share as much as we can
frequently, and the third is that we
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have a forum which is kind of
like our water cooler for freelance workers who,
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if you think about it, this
is really hard place to have a
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community. You're kind of scrapping it
all together and now we're all just based
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at home trying to create our own
community, and so some of that is
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work based and a lot of it
is just threads about, you know,
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whatever a hobby they might be into
at the time, and so it's interesting.
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It's kind of like a it's like
a social media play, which is
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just like, if we make our
our platform in the place they want to
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be, then they'll want to work
with us even more. Make so much
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sense. What are some tips you
would give for those who aren't trying to
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build a market place like Verbalo,
who want to hire maybe, maybe,
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just a small handful of freelancers to
help them with our content efforts? What
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are some tips you would give to
businesses that are just trying to figure this
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out for the first time? I
think the most important thing is to have
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a point person who's in charge of
it. So if there's nobody leading the
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effort, who is Your Voice of
what is content sound like and what are
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your quality standards and what is your
strategy in your company, then your writers
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are going to be all over the
place. If if you're the CEO and
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you're listening to this conversation, my
number one recommendation is don't make that be
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you. The companies that are least
successful with us are where the senior person
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is the person reviewing the content.
They will always get too busy and it
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will be really hard for them to
convey what they're really looking for. So
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I think one that is the absolute
most important. And then you have to
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find the right balance of if you
want freelancers to stick with you aren't on
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a platform like ours, you need
to give them enough consistent work so that
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you're a big enough part of their
business and you're in they're big enough part
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of your business so that that they
want to stick with you. If you're
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not that significant to each other,
it's going to be hard to stay together.
402
00:25:26.890 --> 00:25:30.609
Yeah, that make so much sense. That's we're actually working on that
403
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and even trying to figure out how
to scale that. Here at sweet fish
404
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we have one guy who's in charge
of an intern program. We're trying to
405
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get student interns. Of course we're
recording all these podcasts. We're trying to
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train them how to take podcast episodes
and not just transcribe them but turn it
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into a blog post. That is
good for the user, but also is
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something Google's worth is looking at,
so we can try to scale content that
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00:25:52.869 --> 00:25:56.150
way. Of course, it's tricky
because the podcast has to be done and
410
00:25:56.430 --> 00:26:00.509
planned accordingly in order to match what
you need on the blog post. So
411
00:26:00.950 --> 00:26:04.019
that's a whole process and itself that
were internally trying to crack the code on,
412
00:26:04.099 --> 00:26:07.420
but we're getting pretty close. Okay, Steve. So now we've talked
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00:26:07.460 --> 00:26:14.579
about some of the trends that were
happening post pandemic and how you guys are
414
00:26:14.619 --> 00:26:18.650
utilizing freelancers to push content for it
at verbalio. But what are some emerging
415
00:26:18.730 --> 00:26:22.690
trends you see that marketers are taking
advantage of in this landscape that we see
416
00:26:22.730 --> 00:26:27.849
ourselves in now? So three exciting
trends that I'm seeing are all kind of
417
00:26:27.970 --> 00:26:32.960
fall under the under the bucket of
content. Of content is a competitive advantage.
418
00:26:33.039 --> 00:26:37.279
How do you make content make help
your company stand apart? And so
419
00:26:37.400 --> 00:26:40.839
we three see kind of a three
different trends, and one of them is
420
00:26:41.319 --> 00:26:45.160
I call them amplify, customize and
capture and release. We've been trying to
421
00:26:45.200 --> 00:26:48.390
find a way to put these all
together. So one of the big trans
422
00:26:48.509 --> 00:26:52.750
is come is that SEO now needs
to be more short term. So Seo
423
00:26:52.829 --> 00:26:55.750
is known as a longer term play. It's an investment that pays off in
424
00:26:55.789 --> 00:27:00.470
the end, but marketers need more
immediates immediate impact for there Roy this year,
425
00:27:00.509 --> 00:27:03.859
especially as so many budgets are down. And so how do you amplify
426
00:27:03.019 --> 00:27:07.779
the existing assets that you have in
your company? And so projects like this
427
00:27:07.940 --> 00:27:11.140
include the pillar content we were talking
about before. If you have those,
428
00:27:11.180 --> 00:27:15.369
how do you turn those into and
just amplify the voice of the thought leadership
429
00:27:15.369 --> 00:27:19.329
you've already done? And others are
are kind of like more of your your
430
00:27:19.329 --> 00:27:22.809
day to day, your twenty blogs
a week. How do you take the
431
00:27:22.890 --> 00:27:26.529
top ten percent of blogs you've been
writing for the last ten years, refresh
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00:27:26.650 --> 00:27:30.440
them with Seo, with new keywords, with new language so google recognizes them
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00:27:30.480 --> 00:27:34.240
as new, enhance them with video
and put them all out? So one
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00:27:34.279 --> 00:27:38.880
of the big trends is doing these
larger refresh projects so they're more project based
435
00:27:38.960 --> 00:27:45.670
work versus the ongoing subscription work we
generally do. The second is customized,
436
00:27:45.710 --> 00:27:48.230
and this falls in line with the
example I gave of the Legal Seo Agency
437
00:27:48.309 --> 00:27:52.509
rankings ioh, which is how can
you think of creating a content program that
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00:27:52.589 --> 00:27:56.750
nobody else has by using a platform
like ours? So I think, like
439
00:27:56.910 --> 00:28:00.380
many business owners, there's nothing more
exciting than when somebody else finds a way
440
00:28:00.420 --> 00:28:04.579
to use your platform better than you
had thought of, and so think bigger.
441
00:28:06.059 --> 00:28:08.460
Most marketers think of content is I
have two writers. What could I
442
00:28:08.539 --> 00:28:12.930
do with these two writers? So
it's all limited by capacity and have both
443
00:28:14.049 --> 00:28:18.529
quantity and quality as posed by what
is your potential? What if we could
444
00:28:18.569 --> 00:28:22.890
find five experts in your industry and
put a pool of fifty writers behind them
445
00:28:22.930 --> 00:28:26.849
that are all knowledgeable? What could
you do? And the third is capturing
446
00:28:26.009 --> 00:28:30.160
release, which is back to your
podcast question, which is one of the
447
00:28:30.240 --> 00:28:34.119
biggest struggles that CEO's that I talk
to have is where do I find time
448
00:28:34.359 --> 00:28:38.119
to write my thought leadership blog?
Marketing comes to me, tells me is
449
00:28:38.160 --> 00:28:42.470
my turn and I just panic again, which is very similar to amplify,
450
00:28:42.670 --> 00:28:47.549
but about thought leadership. How do
you take the thought leadership you've already done
451
00:28:47.789 --> 00:28:52.789
and turn that into written content and
Seo and brand power versus having to recreate
452
00:28:52.869 --> 00:28:56.380
them? And I know I so
the way that I do my system is
453
00:28:56.380 --> 00:29:00.299
basically I record podcasts and I have
my chosen writers that I work with and
454
00:29:00.380 --> 00:29:04.380
they help me break that into content
and then I can edit really quickly.
455
00:29:04.460 --> 00:29:07.460
I just just can't start with a
blank cursor, which makes me panic,
456
00:29:08.579 --> 00:29:11.369
and so we're work with a lot
of companies both how to take your existing
457
00:29:11.450 --> 00:29:15.410
podcast assets, but also you can
take a series of podcasts like you were
458
00:29:15.450 --> 00:29:19.690
talking about, turn that into an
Ebook, and then also just the content
459
00:29:19.809 --> 00:29:23.759
asn't have to go one way,
which is repurposing. Start with written content
460
00:29:23.960 --> 00:29:27.839
in and turn into other channels.
It can also go reverse. I think
461
00:29:27.880 --> 00:29:33.440
my favorite example on there is doing
that content refresh. It's just the most
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00:29:33.559 --> 00:29:37.079
lowest hanging fruit that a company can
do in order to actually get the most
463
00:29:37.119 --> 00:29:40.990
out of their content get the most
out of their writers. Going back,
464
00:29:41.069 --> 00:29:44.549
I know we like to go back
and systematically look like what's almost ranking,
465
00:29:45.509 --> 00:29:48.950
like what's on the bottom of page
one or on page two that we're like,
466
00:29:48.109 --> 00:29:52.150
hmmm, if we could just go
back and rethink about what people are
467
00:29:52.269 --> 00:29:56.380
looking for and just fill it with
more content to make it more in depth.
468
00:29:56.500 --> 00:29:59.660
Not that word count. I don't
know. Some types Google says word
469
00:29:59.700 --> 00:30:03.940
count doesn't count and I generally say
it's true, but it correlates so much
470
00:30:03.019 --> 00:30:06.700
with indepthness. It's like, how
can we get some more content in there
471
00:30:06.740 --> 00:30:10.289
in order to make it rank?
That's probably my favorite way to go back
472
00:30:10.329 --> 00:30:15.289
and utilize a writing team or or
getting the most out of what you've already
473
00:30:15.289 --> 00:30:18.089
done. One of the other things
that I thought was interesting is kind of
474
00:30:18.130 --> 00:30:22.759
following the pattern of product descriptions,
which this has been done in product descriptions
475
00:30:22.839 --> 00:30:26.119
for many years in order to help
you rank and ECOMMERCE and really is kind
476
00:30:26.160 --> 00:30:29.799
of catching fuel. Now. As
far as how does it help your Seo
477
00:30:29.880 --> 00:30:33.400
by using your blog content to do
the same thing? Absolutely so, Steve.
478
00:30:33.759 --> 00:30:38.710
What are some final thoughts you have
as we look at changes impacting marketing
479
00:30:38.750 --> 00:30:42.190
teams for the future? So let
me see two things, I think.
480
00:30:42.309 --> 00:30:48.509
One just want to reiterate what I
said about about marketing teams moving towards ecosystems.
481
00:30:48.710 --> 00:30:52.059
Our worlds are only going to get
more complicated as the number of the
482
00:30:52.220 --> 00:30:55.819
different types of of expertise a marketing
team needs to have. You need to
483
00:30:55.900 --> 00:30:59.259
figure out where you want to specialize
and where you want to find a strategic
484
00:30:59.339 --> 00:31:04.210
partner for. So finding those strategic
partners and seeing what new developments are happening
485
00:31:04.250 --> 00:31:08.289
in the market place for who can
provide you strategic advantages is almost as important
486
00:31:08.289 --> 00:31:12.210
to you as a marketer as your
own marketing skill. The second is thinking
487
00:31:12.250 --> 00:31:18.250
about how do you work with with
outside teams and bring them in, making
488
00:31:18.289 --> 00:31:21.119
them part of your teams. You
can do you want to have an all
489
00:31:21.160 --> 00:31:23.200
hands. This is back to your
culture discussion. When you have an all
490
00:31:23.240 --> 00:31:26.160
hands, how many of them are
going to be there? Do you want
491
00:31:26.160 --> 00:31:29.599
to think of them as an extension
of your team? Do you want to
492
00:31:29.640 --> 00:31:32.519
think them as as your team,
or do you want to think them as
493
00:31:32.599 --> 00:31:36.349
outsiders who support you and how to
do your work? And the third is
494
00:31:36.430 --> 00:31:41.549
just to be extremely conscious of and
changing tone and and changing needs at any
495
00:31:41.589 --> 00:31:45.710
given time. I think we've all
learned this in the last few months.
496
00:31:45.789 --> 00:31:48.259
But like it went from a crisis
where we all had to be incredibly empathetic
497
00:31:48.339 --> 00:31:52.819
within a day come up with a
message. We're here with you. Started
498
00:31:52.940 --> 00:31:56.980
out is like that sounded interesting for
a day and then became not. It
499
00:31:56.059 --> 00:32:00.890
became very cliche and not compelling in
two days and then we had all the
500
00:32:01.369 --> 00:32:07.089
kind of the Anti Racist Movement and
all the thoughts about now you have to
501
00:32:07.170 --> 00:32:09.690
be really even more thoughtful about inclusiveness. So used to be a nice to
502
00:32:09.769 --> 00:32:13.569
have and now it's a Muss to
have. And so having your finger on
503
00:32:13.609 --> 00:32:17.119
the pulse of changing themes of content
and how that moves into your marketing at
504
00:32:17.160 --> 00:32:22.400
all times. I think it is
just an extra layer of it's just a
505
00:32:22.640 --> 00:32:25.920
it's an exciting and intense time to
be a marketer, Gosh, because it's
506
00:32:25.960 --> 00:32:29.880
so hard. You want to be
able to create a whole system in process
507
00:32:29.920 --> 00:32:34.269
in order to scale and do things
well, scale the quantity and the quality,
508
00:32:34.829 --> 00:32:37.150
but at the same time you still
have to be flexible to be able
509
00:32:37.190 --> 00:32:40.549
to not sound like you're not listening
to anything that's going on in the world,
510
00:32:40.549 --> 00:32:44.779
because things change and some big things
have happened, so big and so
511
00:32:44.980 --> 00:32:50.740
fast that a lot of companies seemed
deaf, like they couldn't understand what the
512
00:32:50.779 --> 00:32:52.420
heck was going on, so kept
publishing the same things over and over again
513
00:32:52.460 --> 00:32:55.779
without talking about what was happening.
I give an example of how we had
514
00:32:55.819 --> 00:33:00.130
to pivot really quickly. So we
are our biggest campaign. We are finally
515
00:33:00.170 --> 00:33:04.210
going to do social marketing, which
we've been working on for a long time,
516
00:33:04.329 --> 00:33:07.450
and we had worked on a campaign
where I was in a pharmacy coat
517
00:33:07.609 --> 00:33:12.650
as a fake doctor, doing like
a you know, like a health drug
518
00:33:12.769 --> 00:33:15.599
that you would see on TV,
about how do you have problems with your
519
00:33:15.680 --> 00:33:20.000
content, which we thought was really
funny and then within a day it became
520
00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:23.240
not funny at all. We had
to scratch the entire time here. Oh
521
00:33:23.319 --> 00:33:27.869
Man, did you get it all
down in a day? We were actually
522
00:33:27.910 --> 00:33:30.029
really fortunate because it was going to
launch like in three days. Okay,
523
00:33:30.150 --> 00:33:35.750
our biggest investments for marketing where that
campaign and three huge conferences that we invested
524
00:33:35.789 --> 00:33:37.269
bigger in an all time. That
all got canceled. But, oh my
525
00:33:37.390 --> 00:33:42.779
goodness, you all know the thing. I'm not alone here and that's painful.
526
00:33:43.220 --> 00:33:45.819
Well, Steve, it's been great
to learn about what you guys are
527
00:33:45.859 --> 00:33:50.660
doing, how you're scaling contents and
some of the the trends you guys have
528
00:33:50.779 --> 00:33:54.099
been spotting as you've been working in
content marketing. What are some ways that
529
00:33:54.220 --> 00:33:59.650
people can follow you and learn more
about you and what verbalio are up to
530
00:34:00.529 --> 00:34:04.369
come? So, a couple ways. So our website is verbaliocom, the
531
00:34:04.769 --> 00:34:08.170
verb Varbll iocom. You can find
out a lot about us there. You
532
00:34:08.250 --> 00:34:12.880
can subscribe to my blog or to
our blog and any time. We launched
533
00:34:12.920 --> 00:34:19.159
our podcast officially after twenty two episodes
as a video interview podcast that we launched
534
00:34:19.239 --> 00:34:22.559
right after the the crisis began,
and so you can find us on the
535
00:34:22.599 --> 00:34:27.389
verblio show on itunes or any of
your favorite podcast platforms. Well. Thank
536
00:34:27.389 --> 00:34:29.909
you so much for joining me on
the show today. Steve Dan things so
537
00:34:29.949 --> 00:34:31.829
much. It's great to talk to
somebody who's an expert and content. It
538
00:34:31.989 --> 00:34:38.739
really changes the discussion. Thank you. Gary v says that all the time
539
00:34:39.219 --> 00:34:45.219
and we agree. Every company should
think of themselves as a media company first,
540
00:34:45.219 --> 00:34:49.860
then whatever it is they actually do. If you know this is true,
541
00:34:49.940 --> 00:34:52.610
but your team is already maxed out
and you can't produce any more content
542
00:34:52.610 --> 00:34:57.210
in house, we can help.
We produced podcast for some of the most
543
00:34:57.289 --> 00:35:00.409
innovative bb brands in the world and
we also help them turn the content from
544
00:35:00.409 --> 00:35:06.289
the podcast into blog posts, microvideos
and slide decks that work really well on
545
00:35:06.449 --> 00:35:08.559
linked in. If you want to
learn more, go to sweet fish Mediacom
546
00:35:09.119 --> 00:35:13.559
launch or email logan at sweet fish
mediacom.