Jeff is in the business of building icons. Jeff is the chief growth officer of Branded Media where he creates solid, recognizable, legacy-driven personal brands for legitimate companies and influencers. And one of the ways he helps businesses grow is with social media, which is what we discuss in this podcast interview.

Resources mentioned

Social Copy Secrets: https://tinyurl.com/socialcopysecrets
Put in the coupon code “Ellen” to save $500!

How to Crush it in Business Without Crushing Your Spirit, How Entrepreneurs Can Overcome Depression and Find Success!  http://ellenlikes.com/crush-it or on the book page at: www.BooksBusinessAbundance.com/books

3 Key Points

Writing copy for social media is different from direct marketing copy because in direct marketing copy you are writing to one person and no one can see the reaction of that person while in social media there is group psychology, which can affect how people react.

Comments are more important that likes so you want to write posts in a way that gets people to engage and comment whenever possible.

You want to write posts that people can relate to and/or give people hope.

Show Notes

[0:51] Today my guest is Jeff Hunter. Jeff is in the business of building icons. Jeff is the chief growth officer of Branded Media where he creates solid, recognizable, legacy-driven personal brands for legitimate companies and influencers.

Branded Media is on its way to being the number one branding agency in the world. Jeff and the Branded-Media team build personal brands for CEOs and founders of companies who are ready to leverage their business accomplishments to become a true influencer. And people may not know this, but Jeff and Ellen have been partners for years doing number one bestseller launches her clients.

[1:56] Today the topic is social media copy and how people can improve and really use social media to make a difference in their business and in their lives, because a lot of people use it, but they don’t use it well. It just ends up being a waste of time.

Jeff said “It’s kind of like the toolset in your garage that’s sitting there. It can do all sorts of stuff, but you don’t know how to use it”.   Many people use it the wrong way, so Jeff devoted almost two years to study copywriting on social media because it’s so much different than copywriting anywhere else.

[3:11] How is it different?

Usually, when you write, let’s say, a landing page or a book or an email, you’re writing to one person. In other words, no one else can see the reactions of those people, but on social media when you write a post, and people are liking it and engaging with it, it actually affects the group psychology of the people that are reading your posts.

Think about this: if you make a Facebook post, and you got one ‘like”, and it’s your mom, versus someone who writes something and gets 50, 75, 100+ likes, and people commenting a bunch on it, which one do you think is going to have more traction?

It’s like the two clubs across the street (from each other). You’ve got one club that’s empty. You’ve got the other club, has a line of people trying to get in. Which one do you want to go in?

[4:24] What are the trends in social media?

You’ve got Facebook. That’s a huge one. You’ve got Instagram, which is owned by Facebook. That’s huge. But what’s really interesting and that people don’t explore is LinkedIn.

LinkedIn right now is probably one of the most opportune networks to get on, especially for business owners, especially B2B. If you’re marketing business to business, if you’re not on LinkedIn, you are literally just throwing money away,

Jeff did a video branding workshop and one of his client

[5:14]  Cathy Karabetsos … She’s the owner of a call center in Chicago. She’s never done a video for her company ever. Her very first video that Jeff shot, she talked about how she was fired when she was twenty-three years old after working at a call center for four years. It was a really touching story. And how she decided that she was going to do things differently, started her own call center. Now, twenty-eight years later, she still has the call center. She’s very successful working with Fortune 500 companies. They posted that on LinkedIn. 93,000 views, over 2,000 likes, and hundreds and hundreds … Jeff think 400-and-something plus comments. All organically, not paid.

[6:02] Why do you think that was? A  lot of people tell their stories.

Jeff thought it was because it was a captivating story that people could relate to. Everyone has been in a spot … She talked about the reason she was fired was because she went into her boss’s office and was asked to share her opinion about some things that were happening at work, and told him that she didn’t agree with some things that were happening. Her boss got offended and basically walked her out of the building.

A lot of people can relate to that-  when you stand up for your team or yourself at work and maybe it doesn’t go over well.

[6:46]  The other thing is, too, what people don’t understand about LinkedIn is any time that you like a post on LinkedIn, all of your friends see that you liked a post on LinkedIn. On Facebook, it doesn’t work that way.

Right now, on LinkedIn, you have a huge ability to get mass reach, because all it does is take a few people to like your post, and all of those people are going to see that post. It has a really high-what Jeff calls “virality factor”. You can get viral fast.  Jeff shared that he was jealous because he had never gotten 90,000 likes and Ellen agreed that she was jealous too.

Jeff’s had a few 10,000 and a few hundred likes, but never anything close to that so he thought maybe he needed to be more vulnerable.

Ellen added that there are also people who do focus on their business like  Kimanzi Constable and his wife, Cindy. They’re constantly talking about sharing different places where you can get (corporate) consulting gigs, and they’re getting people to go, “God, I really want that.” So, that works too.

Jeff agreed. He said that everybody dreams of sending out that $25,000 invoice to a corporation. Kimanzi and Cindy give people hope and it excites a lot of people. So, there  are two ways of doing it.

[9:44] Jeff is a huge data geek. In 2018, his team collected all the data from all the posts he did for the year-3,768 posts- like 10 posts a day.

That included Facebook, LinkedIn, and Facebook Groups. (Jeff had a copywriting team, but he was still proud of their output:  he probably wrote written two to three posts a day himself.)

He did extensive research to find out what post got the most likes, what got the most comments, and what got the most shares. What types of posts were they? Were they images? Were they video? Were they with nothing? They tried to find all the factors that they possibly could.

Every like was one point. Every comment was two points because comments to me are way more valuable to Jeff than likes because they create engagement to the extreme. When you have comments on your stuff, that’s starting conversations. It stops people, and you’re disrupting their pattern of life of scrolling to where it actually makes them physically engage with your content, and it makes them speak or comment on your post then that’s really a huge show of the impact that that post has made.

[11:58]  Which did the best?

It was an opt-in for a guide Jeff released last year called The Linked Goldmine: LinkedIn Profile Template Optimization Guide. It got 1,613 points, which meant  it got 116 likes and 746 comments.

He posted the following, “Hey guys. I have a new LinkedIn guide,” and he gave a screenshot of the guide. He added, “If you guys want this, if you guys want to learn how to turn your LinkedIn profile in a sales funnel, comment LinkedIn below.”

[12:53] Was it on your own profile?

Ellen asked because you can’t really do that on other people’s;  they don’t like it when you put links in there. But Jeff reminded Ellen that he didn’t put a link in it. He told people to comment below, then sent them a link.

[13:14] Jeff said, “Here’s a big ass tip for you.”

“Anybody listening to this right now, this is going to change the way you do any social media. If you’re a putting a link in your social-media posts, you are killing your engagement. You’re killing your reach, because Facebook, LinkedIn, all these platforms- if you put a link inside your posts- it deprioritizes them in the feed. They do not like you to post links. Links deteriorate your organic reach.”

Change your mindset. Switch it from posting a link and saying, “Click here to go to the link,” to saying, “Hey, comment whatever term you want below,” and say something very specific. For example, when he put out the LinkedIn guide, he had them type in “LinkedIn” below.

If he were putting out a book template for me he would have them type in  “book template” or “book”. You want them to type in what they want, or the result that they want to get.

[14:37] ] What that does is when you get engagement, when people are commenting and liking on your stuff on Facebook or LinkedIn, what happens is Facebook and LinkedIn say, “Hey, people are really reacting to this content. This is really good content. Let’s see if it’s good for other people,” and then it gets pushed out to other people; Facebook is testing to see if the content’s still good. And if people are still commenting and liking on it, then it just keeps reaching more and more people in your own personal network.

That’s why it’s so important to have a really strong personal network.

[15:33] The way that Ellen was taught was (to use) the email list, but then Jeff came along, and Ellen saw that when he dropped the Social Copy Secrets program that he did it in social media.

Jeff said that he did; he took everything that he discovered and put it all into a program with seven modules going over from starting from the basics, like just how to prepare yourself, so that you can become that social media person everybody likes. That’s actually a really important part is are you that person on social media that people like to follow, that like to read your stuff, that like to engage, that feel that there’s a lot of value in it?

Sometimes Jeff posts controversial posts about Trump or the minimum wage or business stuff to get people riled up. And Ellen and Jeff never agree. But they think it’s important to have different opinions.

[17:02]   For social media, it’s actually a good thing to be a little polarizing. You want to get people to tell their opinions, whether they agree with you or not. The more the people engage with you, the more that people comment on your stuff, guess what? The more Facebook says, “Hey, this is a person that they like to engage with,” and you show up more on their feed.

[17:24] So it doesn’t matter what it’s about, it still works?

Jeff said that it does then he shared what the second-highest engaging post was:. with 1,291 points, which got 729 likes and  276 comments. It was the announcement of when they had a baby. Ellen added that people love pictures like that.

But Jeff added that most of it were likes. because he wasn’t giving them anything. He didn’t say, “Comment “baby” below.” That would kind of be like weird,

[18:29] Back to Social Copy Secrets. Jeff released Social Copy Secrets, which was basically him sharing everything that he learned from social media, putting together templates and posts etc. They even analyzed the best posts from other influencers and they analyzed thousands of posts to find out what was the common similarity between all of these posts that had incredible engagement.

[19:07]    Now Jeff’s got it into an actual format; he calls it the CLEAR Copywriting Method. CLEAR stands for five elements that we found are very important inside of a post. And when you put them in the right order, and you use them the way that they’ve learned and taught their clients and students, you pique their curiosity. Then you lead them into why they should keep reading. “Why should I keep reading this post? What value am I going to get?”

Then, you also have to make them feel emotionally invested in your story. And afterward, you have to analyze something; that’s so important. People like to get your opinion. They like to see the research. They like to understand what you’re talking about and give your real experiences. Then, the last one is to react. You want to make sure that you’re driving people to react to your posts. Instead of a call to action, it’s a call to reaction.

Ellen added that Jeff really understands his audience because she knows sometimes he does it just to get a rise out of people.

Jeff agreed. He said he also does it to prove points.

[20:55]  Does it work with doing political posts as well?

Jeff said it does. The thing that Jeff cautions on social media about politics is that you always have to remember that there’s going to be a percentage of people who are opinionated. Especially, if you’re a conservative, you just have to understand if you’re a conservative on social media, you have literally three times more likely to lose people.

[21:33]  Ellen thinks it’s more about the people who are super passionate on both ends of the spectrum.

[22:00] Also don’t expect to change minds. People are entrenched into their belief system. That’s why Jeff  highly recommends that if you’re going to “poke the bear”, just know it’s probably not going to change lives, but it will cause for some really fun discussions,

Ellen thinks what it really comes down to is getting rid of the people who are just angry and name-calling. If you can keep it to where you’re dealing with people who are being civil and willing to engage, then it’s okay.

Civility is really important. That’s the currency now.

[23:12]  Were you going to tell us more about Social Copy Secrets?

There’s a very specific formula that you can use to actually create winning posts all the time. People were excited about it, they were getting a lot of engagement but not making sales.

[24:05]  They asked, ” What do I do with it?”

So, Jeff started figuring out the best methods to sell on social media and how to do it without being salesy.

It’s literally learning how to craft the perfect post so that you can get that exponential engagement and generate leads on social media using those psychological triggers. Like, when other people are outside of the club and they’re trying to get in and everyone else wants in, how can you replicate that on social media?

Another is how do you dominate the newsfeed?  Jeff knew that Ellen saw his posts at least one to three times a day.

And he had a hundred comments from people saying that.

[25:36] Then Jeff did a poll. He asked, “What do people actually want to do?” It turns out a lot of people wanted to learn how to turn those Facebook posts into conversations, how to close a deal through something that you write on Facebook. So, that’s when he came up with his methods to start predictively turn his social media networks into a reliable income source. That’s when the magic happened. Knowing the best call to actions, how to make people actually take action on your post, and having the right type of content to post without being salesy.

[26:21] What about video versus posting or text?

Suprisingly, video did not perform as well. It seems like written stories and images … they still seem to outperform.

All of the top posts were long-form copy of, at least, 1,300 characters or more. So, to layman’s terms, that’s writing about maybe 10 to 15 sentences or more. Then most of them were images-pictures of Jeff or his family or a program screenshot.

[27:12]   Jeff is also known for his pictures in his underwear.

He’s known as the underwear entrepreneur.  He admitted he was in his underwear during this interview.

[27:52]  Social Copy Secret tips

That first step is really having the CLEAR Copywriting Method down. How do you actually write a post, so that it gets proper engagement? This is the problem Jeff believes people have the most, which is why inside the Social Copy Secrets he put together what I call a Target Audience Workshop to dial in your audience and really understand exactly how to write copy that’s dialed into them so that you make them pull out their wallets.

You can’t sell to somebody until you really dial in who you’re talking to. And that changes, because … For example, if he’s on a podcast …like for a Filipino freelancer summit….

[29:15]  Learning how to write copy and understanding your audience is probably one of the most valuable skills that you will ever need. He’s talking to them a lot differently-about the opportunities out there to become copywriters, how they can learn these skills, and they can pick up clients here in America who don’t like to write or don’t know how to write, and you can get them really great results on social media as in cost-benefit, because that’s what they are looking at it from.

[29:54]  But ]to his American counterparts here, most of them are business owners or experts, and they already know their stuff. He would tell an expert here in America, “Hey, are you tired of getting crickets on your social media? You’re getting a couple of likes here and there or maybe it’s falling on deaf ears? How would you like your Facebook posts to get dozens and dozens of reactions and comments and people talking about you through social media?” So, there are two different angles there.

[30:28] The other thing in Social Copy Secrets is people have a hard time coming up with content. Like, “What the heck should I write about?

Or, like Ellen, they ask themselves,  “Haven’t I already said that like a hundred times?”

So, inside the program, they’ll find an Evergreen Content Workshop where it’s basically like how to come up with a really effective topic wheel so that you can create months and months of content. You can basically strategize that in a single day.

That’s what’s really important for Jeff too, so he gave an example:

[31:09] Jeff uses something called the five pillars of expertise. The five pillars of expertise are, if I’m an expert in branding, copywriting, social media, whatever it is, what are the five pillars that I have to stand on to really be an expert in my industry? One of them is branding, personal branding. One of them is social media. One is copywriting, and the other one is inbound marketing and building virtual teams and project management. Those are like the five, core elements that make Jeff an expert in his industry.

Then each one of those you can break out into subtopics. So, for project management, he can talk about the law of constraints. He can talk about team-building. He can talk about the hiring process for overseas versus America. He can talk about working with contractors versus W-2 employees. These are all things that he’s very well versed in. And on social media, he can talk about the differences between the social media platforms and the new things that are coming out and when to use videos and pictures and videos and whatever else.

And then, he can branch off into lots of little subtopics in each category.

[32:23] Jeff then segued into telling Ellen that she’s very smart to have a podcast because it gives you free content generated by somebody else.

Ellen thanked Jeff and added that she usually creates at least one article, from each podcast, but you can actually transcribe them and make several more.

Then Jeff said, “You can get them chopped up into one-minute video value bomb clips. I mean, there are so many different things that you can possibly do having a podcast or a show.”

[33:07] Jeff decided to open up the Social Copy Secrets program even though it is technically closed right now. It’s going to be relaunched probably in the next 30 to 60 days. It’s got a private Facebook group, and he loves the group because everyone in there is like an action-taker- posting their successes and failures and saying, “Hey, why isn’t this working?” And it’s people that have really taken social media copy seriously. One of the guys who is in the group …  Beau Henderson,  a financial consultant,  told Jeff that the very first time he applied Social Copy Secrets and wrote his first Facebook post using it, he got three client inquiries and a paid speaking gig.

[34:22]  Ellen said she really liked the five pillars, because she thinks that’s a really good way to create content. It’s kind of like how she teaches people to write books-do the outline first so you can see what goes in the book. But here, you can see what should go in social media. So, it’s kind of the same idea. You go, “If I’ve got these different topics,” and then you can brainstorm on each one and how many different things can you write about that.

Jeff added that when you break it down into simple steps like that, it’s just clear. A lot of people don’t do anything because they don’t know how or they have analysis problems.So, when you get down to it and say, “Okay, well what are five things that you’re an expert at or that you know that make you an expert? What are the five pillars that you stand on that really elevate you to be an expert in your industry?” That’s why they use that analogy of a pillar, because if you’re higher up, if you are truly working to become an icon in your industry, then you have to have these core expertise that separates you from everyone else.

[36:15] Ellen asked if they were going to give the link to the course. Jeff said he would and he would give a coupon so they could get a $500 discount on it.

It’s https://tinyurl.com/socialcopysecrets
Put in the coupon code “Ellen” to save $500

And then put in the coupon code “Ellen”.  The program is usually $997, but you’ll get it for $497, which is what the beta group got before it was released to the public.

[37:00]  When you register, you’ll get access to it in Jeff’s Facebook group.  You’ll see seven different modules starting from the very beginning of learning the basics of social media all the way down to how to build your very first offer, in other words, how to actually create something that people will want to sign up for and pay money using your Facebook posts or using your LinkedIn posts.

The first step is getting your CLEAR Copywriting Workshop. There’s also a bonus workshop in there called Emojis for Profit. Believe it or not, you can actually use emojis to reinforce what you’re doing. And then, the second phase is your Evergreen Content Worksho-developing out your five pillars of expertise and how to create content for each of those.

Then there’s the Comment Tree. The Comment Tree: how to get people to comment those hundreds and hundreds of comments that Jeff gets on his posts, and it’s by a very specific strategy that’s really getting people excited to comment on your stuff. Jeff calls it the “Social Post to Paycheck”. It’s literally the exact method that he uses to close deals on social media.

[38:34] Ellen added that she was asking Jeff the other day what she should do next and he told her the same thing. He said, “You’ve got to take the Social Copy Secrets next to take your social media to the next level.” So, Ellen said, “I’m in. I never recommend things I don’t believe in.”

The other thing that you’re going to learn is the Top 10 Proven Posts for Engagement. You’re going to really have templates for 10 posts that work every time. So, you guys can think about how you can monetize your audience and get that engagement, and then get them excited. There’s all sorts of templates in there too, like the five key elements questionnaire, like how to think about your audience and really how to write to them and put the pain points.

If you guys know anything about direct response marketing, social media is like direct response marketing to the third power.

[39:22] ] The thing is about direct response marketing versus social media marketing is social media marketing … when you’re actually writing copy for social media, it’s about instant reactions. In no other time ever in the world, have you been able to get instant feedback and show up in people’s feeds right away.

So, if you’re not taking advantage of social media in that way to where you’re actually creating conversations, you’re creating revenue, you’re creating consistent likes and comments on your stuff, you’re just missing out.

[40:07] Let me give that again. It’s https://tinyurl.com/socialcopysecrets
(Put in the coupon code “Ellen” to save $500)

[40:32] What do you think about groups in LinkedIn?

Jeff thinks they’re coming up; they gave a  lot of work to do; it’s not where it should be but they’re committed to it. Facebook Groups has been the number one promoted product for Facebook for quite some time.

Groups and community, in general, are just huge, because,  if you aren’t leveraging social media on Facebook, if you’re not using Facebook Groups … Facebook Groups is the number one promoted thing in your notifications tab. If you click your notifications on Facebook, most of them are going to be from Facebook Groups. And the question is, is it your group that they’re getting notified about?

[41:43]  What do you think some of the best ways authors can use the groups or Facebook?

if you have a book, and you can have a community for each of your books … You could talk about that. Or, you could have an overall community if you’re an author of multiple books. Where they can have exclusive access to the authors to ask questions, etc. … for non-fiction writers, they are in business and about strategy. Then Jeff mentioned Ellen’s book, How to Crush it in Business Without Crushing Your Spirit, How Entrepreneurs can Overcome Depression and Find Success http://ellenlikes.com/crush-it and said it was an important topic and there are other important topics people need to think about.

If you have a community where you’re able to foster them in and give them some sort of value in being there and continuing the conversation from the book, see, that’s the important piece. A book is one-sided. They’re only reading what you’re doing. When you give people the opportunity to become part of you and your book and your group and community,    you empower them to have the ability to say something back and share their experiences, that’s a win/win for everybody.

[42:59] Ellen said that Jeff had been talking about images and graphics, so having the book cover seems like it would be a big deal. Jeff agreed.

Make sure you have your book covers up on the top of the page.

[43:11] ] That led Jeff to talk about personal branding and how it’s one of the most valuable things that you could do online period.d. So, if people see you, people search you on Facebook or LinkedIn or whatever, they immediately know that it’s you. That’s why it’s so important, more than ever right now, to make sure on the back of your book cover there’s at least a portrait of you so that people can find you on social media.

[43:33]  How does having a picture of you help them find you on social media?

When they go on Facebook and they type in your name and they see the same picture from the back.

They  can say, “Oh, that’s Ellen right there.”

[43:51] Then Ellen wanted to give Jeff a shout out for the great work he and his team do on her bestseller launches and how much easier they have made her job. (They run the back office.)

Jeff said that was good to hear.

[44:45] Jeff added that it’s great to work with Ellen because of her passion for what she does. He said, ” It’s palpable.”

“You can tell. Every time we’ve got on a phone call and worked on my stuff, and seeing how you work with your other clients, It’s refreshing. Because I think that I really only like to work with people that are obsessed with what they do.”

[45:16] Closing Thoughts

Jeff said that important piece here is there’s going to be two types of people. There’s going to be people that use social media to create wealth. There’s going to be people that use social media to build a following and build a strong brand and build a community and really destroy the internet with their social media presence. Then there’s going to be people that don’t. You guys have the ability to choose if you’re going to use social media and actually create an awesome environment for people to really dig into and grow and build your own personal brand into something awesome. Or, are you going to be someone who goes on Facebook and scrolls cat videos?

If you’re going to be in social media, it’s not a really huge time investment to get on there and make a big difference and start becoming something. Jeff didn’t get 5,000 followers on Facebook and friends, 6,000 followers on LinkedIn, and 12,000 on Instagram overnight. It just starts by posting really great content and getting people to engage with you on a consistent basis. You will be surprised how fast you’ll be able to grow your credibility, your authority, your influence, and of course your profits just by using social media.

https://tinyurl.com/socialcopysecrets
(Put in the coupon code “Ellen” to save $500)

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