AP 1237: Use Social Media or Don’t Use Social Media? That’s the Question.

AP 1237: Use Social Media, or Don’t Use Social Media? That’s the Question.

Pat Flynn: What's up everybody, Pat Flynn here and welcome to episode 1237 of AskPat 2.0. You're about to listen to a coaching call between myself and an entrepreneur, just like you. And today we're speaking with Natasha Carrillo, host of the podcast Black and Brown Make Green. She'll tell you exactly what that means in just a second.

And I love it so much, but more than that, we're gonna talk about social media and she asks the question right up front. Do I even need it? Because in her experiments and what she's done already, it just hasn't really fit who she is. And it feels very disingenuine in many cases for a lot of us who are using social and she doesn't wanna do it that way.

It's kind of a waste of time. And if we were to do social, what should it look like? So that's what we're gonna talk about today. So let's not waste any time here she is Natasha Carrillo from the Black and Brown Make Green podcast.

Pat Flynn: Natasha. Welcome to AskPat. Thank you so, so much for joining me today.

Natasha Carrillo: Thank you for having me.

Pat Flynn: I'm really excited to get to know you a little bit and see what I can do to serve you and help you out. So why don't you first tell us about yourself and, and what you do?

Natasha Carrillo: Yeah, so I'm a former elementary teacher. I am a stay-at-home home mom. And I'm also a cohost of a podcast called Black and Brown Make Green.

And the purpose of the podcast is to help increase the financial education of people, specifically in the black and brown communities and others who wanna listen as well and to increase their net worth. There was a study that came out saying that net worth of black people could go down to zero by 2053.

And for Latinos, it could go down to zero shortly after that. That's where the podcast came from. Was that idea of how can we help to reverse this trend so that we can increase our net worth?

Pat Flynn: I love it. The why behind it is so clear and so important. Thank you for doing that. And you said the name was Black and Brown Make Green.

Natasha Carrillo: Yes, exactly.

Pat Flynn: What an awesome name. I love that. So everybody go and subscribe and, and check that out and support Natasha. You're also a former elementary school teacher, which is a very tough job. So thank you for what you've done there. And also a stay-at-home mom, which I know doesn't often get a lot of recognition, but is also hard and tough and you are a superwoman, so thank you for, for what you do.

So, okay. Black and Brown Make Green. Is that what you wanna talk about today? Where do you wanna direct this discussion? How can I help you?

Natasha Carrillo: Yeah, definitely. That's where I wanna talk about. So the part that I'm dealing with is using social media to provide that marketing aspect for the podcast. And I have not been on social media for 10 years.

It's not really something that aligns with who I am, but it's like social media is something that everyone's on. Like it's kind of necessary when you're running a business. And so I'm trying to figure out how can I incorporate the use of social media or is it necessary to incorporate it even though that's not really who I am as a person.

Pat Flynn: Right. Why do you think it's not who you are? I'd love to, to dive into that particular phrase a little bit.

Natasha Carrillo: I think it's mostly like the Facebook and the Instagram type thing. I grew up in the era of Facebook. I was in college when it came out and everything. And so I think it doesn't align with me just because of, I remember being on there and wasting a lot of time on there.

And, and yeah, I just wanna make sure the time that I'm using is used wisely.

Pat Flynn: Yes, absolutely. That's exactly what I think about certain platforms like Facebook as well. And obviously there's a lot of other platforms that are out there as well. LinkedIn, Twitter, TikTok, and YouTubes and YouTube shorts.

And like there's all the kinds of things. And it's often very overwhelming. So to your question, do you need to have social media in order to succeed? The answer is no. There's a lot of people who have very successful YouTube channels, very successful businesses, blogs without social. But there are brands and businesses that have been able to figure out social media in a way that supports their business and allows them to get their message more out there.

I'd love to ask you, if you were able to use social media and you were able to connect with more people, you were able to share your message and reach more people. Would it be of value to you then?

Natasha Carrillo: Yeah, I think that would definitely be of value because I mean, that's, the whole goal is to reach more people so that they can, can improve their own lives.

And, and if social media is the way to do that, then I think it's necessary to, to bring it in.

Pat Flynn: I mean, there are many different ways to connect with an audience and, and help, but social media does have some benefits, right? There are, there's a lot of pros and cons to a lot of things, but, you know, from the, the time that might be wasted to a lot of mental health related issues, you know, you see somebody who has this perfect life on their Instagram, and you're comparing your full life to their highlights. And that's just not often good for our mental health as well. And so there's a lot of negatives that come with. However, that being said, I know personally I've connected and made friends with people who are now a very vital part of my life in my family's life.

As a result of connecting on social media I know that a lot of people have said that they've gotten value from the work that I've done through social media. And for me as a person, who's always trying to figure out how to best serve my audience it's a great way to immediately connect with those listeners and those readers to see where I can help and what might their challenges be.

And I can hear that directly from them in a comfortable place, because a lot of people do communicate on social media because that they are comfortable with it. They are used to it. And so imagine asking somebody who is in the black community, who might be struggling well, what exactly are you struggling?

And then you get to invite them on your show to, to break that down and help them out. Right? There's those kinds of moments that can happen. So social media is what you make it. I think that we have to take a conscious approach to it or else it does become that time waster and that time suck. The other thing with relation to social media that a lot of creators do wrong is they use it to broadcast and broadcast is not social broadcast is, you know, you're at the top of the mountain.

You're just like, Hey, look at me here. And I check out my thing here and go here, click this, buy this transact with me here. That's not social media, that's just email in a different way. And I think that if you understand that it's a communication platform, it can be of benefit to you. So I'm sort of sharing both sides of this so that you can make the decision for yourself.

I'm not gonna tell you specifically what you should or shouldn't do, but we're just kind of, kind of break it down a little bit. And the other piece of advice I wanna offer you and everybody else listening, is that because there's so many, it feels like often that you have to, if you're gonna get into social media, do all of them, because that's where all of the people are.

And the truth is if you put your energy into all of them, none of them are gonna work for you. It's just gonna be an energy drain. And none of them are gonna give you that result that you're gonna kind of hope for. So the recommendation I often give is find the platform, they're all different that, is best in alignment with you.

And none might be perfectly in alignment, but there might be one in particular that you're gonna say, okay, this is the one, none of the other ones matter. And I'm gonna learn about this. I'm gonna connect with people here and yes, I might be leaving people out on Twitter or there's the other platforms.

But I'm going deeper with the relationship that I connect on this one platform. And then I think on top of that, being able to check in with yourself once a month, just to make sure that it is being utilized in a way that is of use to you and of value allows you to course correct should you feel that you're getting off course and it is becoming a time suck, cuz again, these platforms are meant to habitually get you to log in without you even thinking about.

Right. And that's, that's the scary thing. I mean, there's been like documentaries of this. Like even the people who work at these places, don't let their kids use them because they just know that they're built for that specific purpose, because truly they're there to make more money with ads and that's the truth.

But again, you can use these things for good and checking in with yourself every once in a while, once you start using them is a great thing so that you can make sure like, okay, I. Actually making connections. I mean, even to the point where you could say like, you know, every week I wanna connect with one new person in my audience or who fits my avatar and see how I might be able to help them.

And even like, as long as you don't fall into the trap of, I have 500 subscribers and followers and you know, next week I have to have a thousand and you know, so, and so has 10,000. I'm not good enough. And they're already, you know, owning this space, like screw that, that stuff actually doesn't matter.

Right. Those are byproducts. The, the vanity numbers are just byproducts of viewer connections with people on social and that's how to properly use it. So that's a lot. I'm sorry. I I had coffee. I have my cup right here, right before this call. But what are your initial reactions to sort of the analysis there?

Natasha Carrillo: I think what you said about using it to connect versus using it to broadcast is kind of a shift in thinking and kind of the key to this, because I think that's how I've thought about it as like a more of a broadcasting tool, like demonstrating some of the things we've recently done on the podcast or something like that versus how am I using this to connect with the people out there.

And, and so I think that's one way to kind of shift for me to start thinking about it. If I'm, as I'm deciding how to use it, the question that I have around that is like, is there a certain amount of time per day that you would recommend to commit to engaging in the social media use or something like that.

Pat Flynn: Very smart question, cuz again, these things are built to keep you hooked and going in. Right. I dedicate 15 to 30 minutes a day and it's not necessarily on my calendar. That's just kind of what I have time for. And I limit myself and I have boundaries around that. Right. That's all you might need. Actually. Now there are some people who their entire businesses run on and utilizes something like Instagram and they're on their four or five hours a day.

It is their marketing platform, but for a communication tool, it doesn't take very often because again, it's not a live communication tool, so it's not like when. Off of it. It's still not working for you. If you pose a question in the morning, for example, you might see answers when you come back on the next day or in the afternoon, for example.

And that's what I love about it. The sort of asynchronous social part of it, and then treating it, like you said, not as a broadcasting system, but a broad asking, asking system is something that could be really cool. And then what I also love about social is that, you know, there are gonna be times when people might respond to something that you might say or a question that you have. And then the direct messages are really where the magic happens when you connect to the individual that's on the other end, not necessarily the masses. So that's another sort of mindset shift. How can I connect with the individual human beings that are there, who are black, who are brown, who would benefit from the podcast that you have?

And that's not to say, you shouldn't say, Hey, I just released a new podcast. I mean, it's. A value to share that with people in case they don't know, but everything that you post should be for a specific reason, and to help grow that relationship and to help provide value in, in some way. But to your original question here, 15 to 30 minutes a day is, is all you might need.

And again, coming at it with purpose is, is gonna be the real big thing. I think a lot of businesses go, oh, everybody needs a Instagram. So I'm just gonna Instagram as well. And they're just like posting pictures of their products and that's it. Like there's no, there's no personality there. And the other part about this is, is bring your personality into it.

Like be as vulnerable as you're willing to be, or as you wanna be, but it's the human to human connections on these platforms that really make it special. And you don't need a lot. You don't need even a hundred subscribers or followers to be able to make and see these connections and really help people out because you have a podcast though, I do wanna say, and this is for everybody listening, who has a podcast, there's this myth that like being on social will directly grow your show. And this is not true. It can happen. People like to spend a lot of time taking their podcast episode, repurposing it into like a little clip and then sharing it.

And they're doing that. And that's taking a lot of time. Some people spend money on agencies to do that, and they're not getting a lot of growth. And the reason is because it's really tough to convince somebody who is on a platform like Facebook or Instagram or Twitter or LinkedIn. What have you, whichever one, you choose to stop what they're doing there to then go open up their podcast app.

And there's a lot of podcast apps, right? Spotify. Apple Google, like who knows. And then having them to stop what they were doing to listen to a few minutes and then be convinced to subscribe. It's a lot of friction to get to that point. So don't make that the primary goal, it can still happen and it will happen, but the primary goal should be, how can I take a clip or something that I learned from my podcast, and make it for those who are on Instagram, for example, as if they were never gonna listen to the podcast, but I could still provide value. Meaning you recorded this episode, there's this clip where you're talking about something that really was impactful. And you wanna share that with the Instagram audience on Instagram for Instagram.

Sure. Some of those people will be like, that's awesome. Where can I listen to the full episode? Cool. That's sort of like plan B. Plan A is though for people who are on that platform. How can I make sure that they can still get value from this larger format that I recorded over here? So again, just another sort of reframing of how to use social, too many podcasters are struggling on social because they want it to grow their podcast. That's not, or should not be the purpose of it.

Natasha Carrillo: That makes a lot of sense to start thinking about it from a different perspective of like, this is for this community of people. It's for Instagram, it's not for my podcast listeners. And I know I've definitely seen that as well. Whatever you post on social is not gonna transfer into listeners on your podcast.

So one of the questions I was thinking of was the consistency. You often hear people saying, you need to be really consistent if you're gonna be on social media, have you found that there is a, a sweet spot, so to speak once you are connecting with people on social media or not really.

Pat Flynn: A sweet spot, it's hard to tell.

I mean, different people have different experiences, but consistency is definitely important. That doesn't mean you have to post 10 times a day. I know some people who do that and they burn out, right. Even though they're getting numbers, it's like detrimental to their mental health and that's not good. But on certain platforms, they're kind of different for each platform, on Facebook and Instagram showing up once per day, just to be on top of mind is sort of the usual rhythm on Twitter. It's often more, three to five times a day, and you can share the same types of messages over and over again on that platform. You have a little bit more grace for that kind of thing.

Versus if you post the same thing over and over again on those other platforms, it's like, Hey, you're spamming my feed right now. And I don't want that, but I, I would say that if you. Consider not the algorithms, but again, the group of people that are there for you and are following you or who could discover you, how can you ensure that when they do come across your content, that you will continue to be there for them.

And that's kind of, again, the story that you wanna tell yourself. So if you have the ability to even show up once every other day, that's still of value when people see that feed and come across it. Unfortunately these platforms often will be driven by what the algorithm wants. Right. And it's like, the more people engage, the more that your stuff's gonna show up, therefore let's just post more.

And therefore I will be seen more. And if you fall into that, I mean, that is true. But if that becomes sort of the primary motive, just, I need to post more because I need to be found more. You often lose the quality of what it is you're posting, because you're just trying to keep up, keep up. So I think that to your original, original statement of, well, this just doesn't feel like me, I would say, insert it into your life in a way that's comfortable for you.

And remember that those are actual human beings on the other end. And like a friend you're like, Hey, you know, we haven't connected in a while then, you know, connect with them again. Or if it feels like it's been a while since something has happened or maybe, you know, some, some really amazing thing came across in your podcast where you discovered something right in that moment because you are wanting to share value with your community, share it. And maybe you did post twice a day. Well, okay. Fine. Like it doesn't have to be super strict. Hey, I already posted in the morning, I can't share this really fun tidbit. Right? Like imagine being with a person like at a coffee shop and they're like, Hey, I need help with this.

I know you help me out with this other thing earlier, but I need help with this thing. And you're like, oh, I know, I know a solution for you, but I'm not gonna tell you too tomorrow because the algorithm doesn't want me to post too often. Again, take a natural approach to it. Have it be sort of an extension of how you help your audience, who who is there, who discovers you from wherever, who now is interested in what you have to say. Again, a natural approach and that's a healthy approach. That's, that's a, a comfortable approach. And the more that we kind of step away from that, I have to do it this much. I only got this many views on this. I only, the more, it just doesn't become fun anymore.

And it starts to fit that well, this isn't for me. And, and then, then it is a waste of time.

Natasha Carrillo: So. Let's go kind of the opposite direction. Let's say I decide not to use social media. And I say, you know, this is not what I wanna do. What is the best way to still make that connection with your audience or with clients, if I choose not to use social media at all.

Pat Flynn: You're asking such great questions. So let's talk about this. If you choose not to do social, which again is not a bad thing, you still have to figure out how to make a connection, like you said. There's a couple ways you might do this. There are a lot of people today who are creating online communities, like, imagine your own Facebook that you own that's not called Facebook, but it's a group of people, community that you bring your podcast listeners to, who can now not just connect with you, but connect with each other. Right? That's one of the benefits of social is that other people can engage in these conversations. People can connect with each other and you can be sort of the authority who is connecting and bringing these people in, in the space together.

But outside of those social media platforms, you can have, for example, a community. Maybe it is a Facebook group and it's not treated like a broadcast, but just you are managing a community or it's a Circle community. Circle.so, you can build your own community and invite people into it and connect with them there.

And it has notes of Facebook, it has notes of Slack in terms of how the content and communication is organized. But those will take a lot of time and effort. I will say you, there, there is no easy community building platform because yes, they'll help you get set up easy, but the community comes from the conversations and the connections, not from the platform, so that still will require time and you can start out small and, and still, still make it work.

I know some people who actually use tools like WhatsApp. To do this. Hey, like if you're in my community and listen to the podcast, you know, join this WhatsApp group and connect with each other there that is more on the opposite spectrum. That's the easiest thing to sort of manage, to bring your community together.

But also it can provide a lot of noise and it's not as organized and all that kind of stuff. So if you're, again, starting out really small that can be a great place to start and then you can move them elsewhere. My best suggestion, I think, would be using something like email, right? Inviting people to join an email list so that they can hear from you, but also connect with you.

You might have, for example, a what we call a lead magnet to invite people in, to join your email list. And it might be a really helpful PDF or a really helpful video that helps a person immediate. They get a quick win from that, but now they're on your email list and they're hearing from you. And again, I like to use email, not just as a broadcast system.

I do use it as a broadcast system. We announce. But I also use it as a broad ask system. I ask questions, like, what are you struggling with right now? It's not the first question I ask. I often will make sure they get the thing that they subscribe for and help them get set up with show links in case they're not subscribed to the podcast yet, or give them access to certain parts of the website or, you know, I might recommend, Hey, you know, thank you for subscribing to the email list. Here are my top three episodes in case you missed these episodes, they're gonna help you do X, Y, and Z. And that's a value. Hey, there's a lot of stuff here. It might be overwhelming. Let me get you started on like the one or two things you should listen to first. That's a great value add too, because you're sort of collating things for people and, and organizing and, and directing. But the biggest thing is eventually you get to the point where you individually send an email and not in real time, these are autoresponder sequences, right?

Like the benefit of using these tools is you can set up an email like, Hey, you know, it's Natasha here, and I know that you might be going through some struggles right now. And I'd love to hear from you hit reply to this email and tell me what your biggest challenge is right now. And I'll do what I can to talk about similar topics on the podcast, or even I might have the opportunity to respond to you individually.

And that way you're not feeling bad if you don't, you've already said like, Hey, I'm not able to respond, but, but I'm, I'll try my best to serve you, but I really need your help in understanding what you're going through. And when you have that email sort of in your autoresponder, say it comes out a week after a person subscribes, then you have this constant incoming messages from your audience who is, you know, your warm audience, they've subscribed to your email list. Who's now literally telling. Hey, here's what I need help with. Or this is what I'm struggling with. And perhaps you aren't getting a ton upfront and then you can individually reply to them and get to know them a little bit more like you would in a direct message or maybe you do get a lot of them.

And you start noticing that like, Hey, everybody's asking about this one thing right now. That's, that's what my next podcast episode's gonna be. And I'm just gonna thank everybody sort of in mass on that episode. Hey everybody, you know, Have been learning a lot about you and your struggles lately. And many of you have told me that this is the biggest problem that you're suffering with right now.

So I invited my friend. So and so to come on so that we can have an expert discussion on this for you. And hopefully by the end of this, you'll be able to have some direction for you. And again, those episodes hit really well when you know, like you're taking the guesswork work out now, you know that they came from somebody in your audience and the email systems can help automate a lot of that.

So that's how I would approach it if I'm not gonna go social and actually, you know, some people have sort of both working in tandem, but if you're just starting out, pick one and just focus on learning that.

Natasha Carrillo: Okay. That sounds good. What else? Well, I'm trying to think. Do I have any other questions?

Pat Flynn: It's okay if not, we've talked about a lot for sure. And perhaps you now have some direction on and a decision to make, obviously on, on what you might wanna do with social. And again, take the pressure off of it for you to like have a certain number of followers or certain number of views. And it's just the connections.

And if you check in with yourself after a month, if you choose to go down that route and you haven't been able to connect with your audience, then we can make a decision to, okay, that's not working for me. It's just, I'm not able to utilize this. My personality just does not work with, with this. Let's try something else.

That's cool. Instead of I'm gonna do social and you're committing to it forever. Right? That's the thing about these decisions. You don't have to make it a permanent decision. You could try it out, do a little experiment, see what happens. The opposite might happen too. You might have the most fun with it and connect with the most people.

And it's like, oh, I wish I started this sooner. Right. It could go either way, but if you keep staying in, well, I don't know mode, well, guess what? Nothing's gonna happen, right?

Natasha Carrillo: Yeah. I think the big takeaways for me are to choose the social media. That's gonna align the most with me if I'm gonna do it and be okay with my system of doing it, versus trying to do what everyone else is doing.

And then I really like how you said, think of it as a broad ask versus a broadcast because. Broadcasting I think is what our brains naturally go to. And so trying to think of any communication, even when I'm thinking about emails that I send to our email subscribers is to think more about how can I engage them more through asking more questions versus just like announcing the podcast is here or announcing whatever is here.

Pat Flynn: My mentor and coach James Schramko told me once, you know, Pat, you gotta stop trying to be so interesting and start getting interested. When you start getting more interested. Guess what you will become more interesting, just that natural human to human connection starts to happen. And you can use social in, in that way.

You can use email in that way. I will also say, you know, like get inspired or motivated by others who are on those platforms and are doing things well, and you can borrow from them. You can put your own style onto it. And just make sure that you're still within who you are and what you believe in. So awesome.

Well, Natasha, this has been absolutely fantastic. Can you remind everybody else listening one more time where can they go to subscribe to your show and get some help from you?

Natasha Carrillo: Yeah. So you can find us on any podcast app it's Black and Brown Make Green. You can also visit our website, BlackAndBrownMakeGreen.com and you'll find links to the podcast.

And then also we'll have links to financial coaching services. If you're interested in that.

Pat Flynn: Awesome. I love it. And you have a perfect podcast voice by the way. So thank you. I hope you keep it up. Thank you, Natasha. You're awesome. Take care.

Natasha Carrillo: Thanks, Pat.

Pat Flynn: All right. I hope you enjoyed that conversation with Natasha.

Again, you can find her and her podcast at BlackAndBrownMakeGreen.com or wherever you listen to podcast. That's the show name and hope this episode helped you because it definitely is really, really smart to think about everything she was asking about. Right. Social media and not just kind of automatically doing it because other people are doing it, but doing it because you have purpose with it and you're doing it for the right reasons and to connect with the right people, which is how I prefer to use social and probably my most utilized or my most active parts of my social media are actually my direct messages.

That's where I get the most valuable feedback. That's where I can make the most connections. And yes, although I do some broadcasting on these platforms, which again is okay to do. But if you treat it just as a broadcasting system, it's not gonna work for you. Broad ask is what it's about. So thank you so much again, Natasha.

I appreciate you. And I appreciate all of you for listening in and making sure you hit that subscribe button wherever you're listening to podcast, because I want you to make sure you catch the next episodes that are coming. It is now September, 2022. We are approaching quarter four of the year and we got some amazing episodes to help you finish off the year strong.

So make sure you subscribe so you don't miss out. And again, thank you so much. Till next time, cheers, peace out. And as always Team Flynn for the win. Cheers.

Thanks for listening to AskPat at AskPat.com. I'm your host Pat Flynn. Our senior producer is Sarah Jane Hess. Our series producer is David Grabowski. And our executive producer is Matt Gartland. Sound editing by Duncan Brown. AskPat is a production of SPI Media.

We'll catch you in the next session.