In this illuminating episode, Bill and Will share their expertise on navigating the ever-changing world of B2B social media marketing. They emphasize the importance of moving away from generic, company-centric messaging and instead focusing on creating content that truly resonates with your target audience.
Will, our 2024 summer intern, has spent several years unpacking the world of digital marketing. From his own personal brand to college organizations, Will's experience has provided expert-level knowledge of everything social media.
Bill and Will explore the the shift from old-school marketing strategies to modern content creation methods, how to build scalable content systems that enhance creativity, and overcoming the fear of using fresh and eye-catching strategies within the B2B sphere.
Bill: So we always tell our clients, and it's kind of part of our philosophy around here to say, don't ever say social media. Don't ever say video. Don't ever say these big words. That means so much. We have to get down into the details of social media if we're going to develop an effective plan.
Will: Yeah I agree. I think every social media outlet and channel is different. It's exactly that. It's there's LinkedIn, there's Instagram, there's TikTok, there's YouTube. They're all completely different. It's almost like talking about ads on the different channels. You don't talk. You don't clump together Google and Facebook ads. Neither should you clump together Instagram or LinkedIn content, specifically organic.
Intro
Bill: Welcome to the Missing Half podcast where we're discovering what's missing in manufacturing and B2B marketing. Today I have a very special guest with me, Will Woods.
Will: Thank you for having me.
Bill: Thank you. So, Will, you've been with this now, I think you're going on your eighth year.
Will: Seven.
Bill: Seven, seven. Okay. Time flies. Right? As I get older. working here at the agency. And recently we've been focusing on 50 marketing's on marketing and really doing a lot of R&D in the B2B space, specifically, I would say in content and social media.
Will: Yeah. Yeah. I'd say this is my first, like, marketing internship year at 50, where it was a specific internship. And my priorities are really R&D for LinkedIn. That was probably the biggest part of it. and then working with our overall internal marketing and sales strategy of how can we combine LinkedIn to a good custom web page through our podcast and using all the content from clips and texts as the top of the funnel, all the way down to the bottom of the funnel, which is the web page, which is the actual, full length podcast episodes.
Bill: Yeah. So one of the things I think that you really brought and the approach we took when we started on this basically back in November, was let's start with a clean slate. Let's not bring, any of my preconceived notions or 20 years of experience to bear. Let's look at, social media and content as they exist today and as they are engaging markets today. And I feel like we've been able to really adopt a much more aggressive, cutting edge approach, as opposed to maybe the old school ways that, are more, appropriate for my generation and our approaches to social media. Specifically, Instagram clips, reels, shorts, and really thinking about hooks and that attraction and attention grabbing phase more so than a long form, PowerPoint poisoned framework.
Will: Yeah, I agree, I mean, the beauty and Gary Vee talks about this a lot is you can just test stuff now in the public, like it's not the old school way, quote unquote, where you're running ads and you're testing it behind closed doors. Nobody's really seen that. You're doing A-B testing within your own company with the organic. It will tell you you post something it does well or doesn't, and that can tell you whether or not it'll be a good ad so the best way to like do ads is you post something organically, post a bunch of stuff organically, whatever one does the best. That's the one you run ads on. So it might not be an actual ad that promotes you. It's really whatever creative you find gets the most reach organically is the ones that will do the best as ads. Because even though it might not be promoting you and your services directly, as long as it's bringing value to your customers, they will see you as something that brings value and they'll search you and look you up more likely.
Bill: So this is an area where we're seeing the past and, the present collide. So, Adam Smith talked about the invisible hand when he did his original, kind of, text on capitalism. And here we have Gary Vee now, with day trading attention and some of his other, publications and certainly his, plethora of content that we’re seeing all the time talking about how you don't have to have it perfect, but you need to get out there and try things and like you're saying, go out there organically, see what gets, choose what gets activity, and then accelerate that with boosting with ads, with, more penetration in the market, developing additional content on those subjects because there's activity and you're getting good feedback from the market on those things.
Will: Yeah, yeah. It's the testing is the biggest thing. I mean, YouTube's rolled out different, services where you can test stuff or it's like AB testing for thumbnails. AB testing a people will do the same video on TikTok five different times with five different hooks, because it's like there's a difference between on Instagram you have like a grid and you look at it and you want the grid to look cool and fancy. TikTok and nobody looks at your grid. It's all the TikTok, TikTok-ification of social media, where it's all algorithm based. so people will just see the video first and not, like go to your profile first and find it so that that applies everywhere, whether it's LinkedIn, YouTube or Instagram. the coined TikTok-ification of social media is where the algorithm takes stuff first and feeds it to you, instead of the old way of where you just build a kind of like email list. How many subscribers you get is how many people are going to view it. That's no longer really the case. People are actually starting to fall off from following people because they know the algorithm will get them what they want.
Bill: Let's talk about following for a second, because I think one of the misconceptions that exists in the market today is that your company page is everything, and we're certainly seeing here at 50 Marketing, from people we follow, benchmarking, etc. and some of our clients that people follow people. They don't follow brands as much, at least in the space we’re representing. I'm sure they're Nike and Coca-Cola and household names. They are following Prime. They're following those brands. But when we come down to this level, which is more of the middle market, non fortune 500 companies, the folks are following people more quickly than they're following brands. And that was something we had to recognize and something I struggled with early on. But you helped, kind of push me and 50 Marketing in that direction to really move into that new way, that new digital media, that new social media economy and attract leads. So what are you seeing as far as people following people as opposed to brands?
Will: Yeah, I mean, people are personal and relational. So they don't want really just a blank face brand. So even with Nike, they're paying these athletes. They’re paying LeBron James, they’re paying Cristiano Ronaldo these icons to be the faces of their brand. So even though like Michael Jordan, the origin of basically Nike booming is because of Michael Jordan, it was because of a person. So I don't think that's ever changed as as they built their brands so high because of that. So you can build a brand where people actually go to the brand, but it's because of the people. So it's the same thing now in the B2B space where, they want to see your face and the, the name of the person of the company basically, or the people of the company. So whether it's just one person and it's them and their company or whether it's the team that drives the company, people want to interact with them, they want to see content of them. And even just BTS, like behind the scenes, seeing what people are doing. So then it's like an idea of authenticity and transparency in what you're doing, and people connect with that. So they don't. The old school like super polished stuff works in some cases, but the whole idea is authentic, so it's figuring out the balance between quality, like high scale production, and being authentic in that high scale production is balancing the two because any more people are expecting you, we all have, iPhones or Samsung or whatever phones we have to do 4K video. So they expect us to be able to do somewhat decent quality of video. So the idea is being good and authentic while providing quality content to put our faces forward and be personable.
Bill: So when we think about, you know, developing really great, organic, candid, authentic content, and we talk about being on the forefront and making sure that we're able to deliver social media across multiple channels and then layer in, you know, boosting and ads and those type of things. Maybe let's take a step back and let's recognize that a lot of our audience and a lot probably the bulk of companies, 90% of companies and individuals are struggling to post consistently. I mean, we're talking about, right, where we want to be and we're getting there. Five posts a week for myself, five posts a week for the company, consistent, effective content that is well produced, organic, authentic. But maybe let's go back. And if a company comes to us as, hey, we want to do social media, right, the first thing we're going to ask them is, okay, well, let's really talk about what your goals are and what you want to do, but what do you think are some of the best first steps, and these are things that you've implemented help to implement here. You've also implemented them in some of your other responsibility for the other social media channels you manage. For some of the organizations you have leadership in, what do you think are some good first steps that anyone can take if they're kind of starting from zero or very far behind?
Will: Yeah, I mean, going first to the personal spot because I think even if you have a company you want to post, you have to have someone to post about themselves. The person. And really, it's starting about telling your brand story like you are a brand. Like this book story brand is the idea of you are your own personal brand. As you treat yourself as if you're almost like a company that's putting your face out there, telling your brand story. So people know who you are. And even if it's not the best quality production in the beginning, realistically nobody's going to see it because it's like you're not like 0 to 100 right away. The first few things you’re going to post, not many people are going to see it, but you have to get it out there. You have to have like if someone goes and looks at your feed, it looks like, oh, they've been active for a while. Even if it wasn't the best stuff, they aren't going to scroll all the way down and look at the old stuff. They're just going to see that, oh, you've been doing it for a while. So the first idea is just getting stuff out there, whether it's telling about yourself, even though people don't want to hear about yourself, having it there. So then they could learn about you bottom of the funnel if they want to. and then just continue working on what you're learning, post about what you're learning, whether it's in your business or just personal life. Cool stuff. I think, the journey that you're on, people will just gradually go along with you on your journey. So there's a lot of like the Instagram followers that all are doing and the old vloggers, all they did was just show what they were doing, and people followed along because they related to it. So someone else was like, I like that. So it's the same in the business world where if you start posting about, hey, my company's doing this, this is what we're learning, this is what we're improving on. This is what we're doing. And other people will be like, oh, I'm kind of doing the same thing. This could help us so that even if it's like a marketing agency talking about what they've done and then a, a manufacturer or another B2B companies like, oh, they're learning this stuff, this is what we're struggling with in our small marketing department compared to their whole agency. Maybe they can help us. So I think it's just sharing your story. as someone I saw, I can't remember their name. Exactly. Heather Parodi, I think she mentioned it in one of her posts. It was you're a transfer of energy. Whenever you're doing a post where it's like, if you're excited, that excitement might go into that person and that might be what they're looking for. If they're looking for information that's just helpful to them, you're transferring that energy of information pretty much. So I think, figuring out like what your energy becomes after posting awhile will really help you to find your audience, figure out who they are, and then, deliver the value that they need after a while. Once you're actually good at the the consistency and the creating.
Bill: One of the things I think that's a myth and a mistake for many marketing managers as they start to think about social media is I think a lot of people assume that the companies that have really good social media and the people that have really good social media as individuals in the business world, they just get up every morning and figure it out. We have found that not to be true, you have to have a content plan, you have to have a content calendar, you have to have these fundamental things in place. Because if you're seeing a competitor, a market leader, another company or a business leader who has a good social media ground game, it has a game plan. It has a playbook. It has all of the, you know, it has all of those things you to talk about how you've been involved, not only for 50 Marketing or for a number of other organizations. You have built those social media calendars, you've done this content audit, you've helped to kind of craft those plans that can be successfully executed and, take the guesswork. And I would say a lot of the pressure away from waking up every morning and hoping to figure out what you're going to post.
Will: Yeah, I think the biggest myth when it comes to planning and being a creative is that planning removes the creative. And I would look at it in the way of planning allows you to be creative. So, like having a content calendar and having the ability to stay consistent allows you to be creative in those times. Or maybe you want to put out extra content. I think, it's good to have a base where it's like, okay, there's always five posts that we're putting out there, always a plan. We always do them 2 or 3 weeks ahead. So that allows me to then be creative with extra content. So you put more out instead of it being like, I'm only going to plan two, and then I become creative with three of them. Most likely you're not going to get those out, and having less content is much worse than having more. So I think the biggest thing is don't fall into the myth of planning is like at the turn of creativity. So if you're looking at it from that sense, a content calendar allows you to actually have time to create stuff. There's like the true quote unquote creative of social media. It takes time for something like the really, really good stuff, but you need some other stuff that's just kind of set in stone and systemized to be posted constantly. so having a content calendar, whether you do it directly in a service like Sprout Social, Metrical, Hootsuite, whatever works for your brand, I think, is essential. Or if you have it and a Google Sheet that works as well. I and all the different groups I've worked with, it's different for every single one of them, just depending on the team. And so that system that we built, I think is not dependent on the team, which is nice. It allows the people within the system to boost their creativity more because they don't have to try to figure out the system. I think some of the systems that are put together are based around the team. And so that means you can't bring someone in. They're so worried about working on, like the left brain system and math aspect of it, that they don't allow the creative side to come in. Whereas if you have a system set in place where there's a calendar, we know what we're doing for the two weeks. It doesn't change. It allows you to be creative within those things. It's creating a box, and it allows you to do whatever you can within that box, which is more freeing than I'd say, just having openness.
Bill: Yes. I think if you have a wise, fair approach to it, you're going to get so much variability and you want there to be creative variability, but you want there to be a true North star, a direction. One of the other things I think, that you guys were able to do as a team, you and Johanna and Manuel and Char and just, there were a couple other folks who contributed. You were able to build a scalable, repeatable system within the tool. We're using Sprout right now. Our project management system, Wrike, our proofing software, all of those things were able to be built together and systematize reports, workflows, dashboards, so that we could really dial this thing in. And, I think that was, important because not only do you need a content calendar, you need to run it like it's a true system, like it's a factory, like it's a conveyor belt. And it, you know, it starts here with ideas and out pops amazing social media. And there's lots of little touch points and, workstations throughout the whole process. Because you have to involved video editing. You have to involve proofing, copywriting, graphic design. There's a lot of different pieces that really make social media work today. Can you maybe talk a little bit about that journey and understanding some of those components, and why you would recommend, what you would recommend to a marketing manager or someone who's just starting on their social media journey?
Will: Yeah, I think the planning ahead and having the ability to take the time you need on a piece of content or creative is what makes it good. If you're always back against the wall, like, oh, I'm trying to put this together in an hour before you're supposed to post it, you're going to say, this is good enough. That's going to be the sentiment. Whereas if you have 2 or 3 weeks, are you going to if you're a week late with that creative, you're still ahead.
Bill: Yes.
Will: So that for the quality standpoint, the planning is what allows you to have the creative quality necessary for whatever profession you are in. And I think having a workflow, there's almost a journey that comes with creative. There's the ideation stage, which is where you do R&D and research determining what's the topic even going to be, what, value are we going to create for our audience? And then determining how we're going to put that together into a visual? Is it going to be a video? Is it going to be a podcast clip? Because those are two different things. Scripted versus a podcast clip. Is it going to be a single image? Is it going to be a carousel? Is it going to be text only, all different variables. And then once you figure that out, you get to the next stage, which is actually creating it. So we write creative briefs and send it to the design team. so we're writing it, putting it down on paper, and then that's where we let the people who are good at it, good at creating the creative, do their magic, send it back. That's where you can review it, once you've reviewed it and either sent it back for revisions or decided that this is quality and meets our standard, that's where you can get in the next phase of matching the copy with the creative, because you're going to have a copy set up, but then the creative might have changed a little bit to where you might have to edit, and then that's where you can plan it, put it in the publisher, review it, and then send it out finally. So that's a full process. It's a more in-depth process. So that can be done by multiple people on a team, or it can be done by one person just doing each individual step, which is why you need the content calendar to give you the time and space to go through that process. Because, if you skip some parts of this process, quality and issues will occur throughout that whole journey.
Bill: Excellent. Yeah. So I think that's one thing that can't be underestimated is the number of steps in the process. And like anything, I don't care whether you're running a factory or you're an athlete training for a big competition or just running your own daily life, you cannot skip steps. It's a lot of hard work. You have to go through the process. And I think when I look back at 50 Marketing's own marketing and we decide to go on this journey, we underestimated how many people we would need and how many resources we would need to allocate to this process. There's no doubt about it. Now we basically have three full time and 2 to 3 part time folks, working just on 50 Marketing's marketing.And I'd like to add some more, but the results were generating, which were you talking about a little bit, are exceptional, and we're really going to continue to lean into that strategy. One of the things I think that's very important, so we've talked a lot about tactical things, about planning and getting things done within platforms and preparing the creative and those type of things. I want to take a step back and talk about maybe something that is often overlooked because people just want to go. Who's our audience? And what do we want to say to them? It feels to me, when I look at a lot of social media and when, when companies contact us and say, hey, will you take a look? I feel like they're telling a story. They're pushing information out, they're capturing moments. But if I was to look at a month or two of their posts and their content, I really don't know who they are. I really don't know what they do and I don't know who they're speaking to. I can't say, oh, if I was this such and such ideal client profile, I would really resonate with that story and that would help me move along this buyer's journey. So maybe can you talk a little bit about identifying your target audience and then making sure that your message resonates with them and how important that is to the process?
Will: I think that's where, whenever you talk about starting your content creation journey or your social media journey is starting with the brand story, starting with the story of your company or yourself. That can help you kind of visualize who you are and then help you determine who your audience is. Who are all the clients that you have currently? Who are the people that, like, of your client base? Who do you serve the best? So it might be some that you have just because you need revenue, but there might be some clients where it's like, man, we're really good. We do really well with them. They're really satisfied with us. And maybe you interview them. You can do an interview with them, determine like, hey, what has resonated with you guys working with us? And then interview all the other clients and say, who is really connecting with us the most? That might be your ideal audience. And then it's within the company. How do you reach them? So then if it's the marketing manager or if it's a CEO, your company should be formed for those specific people. It can't just be specific companies, it has to be specific people within the company. If it's a big manufacturing company, you don't want to make content for the people in the factory if they're not going to be the decision makers actually reaching out to you and working with you on the day to day you want, it's the marketing people or the leadership people that once you figure that out, you figure out what they need, what they want. It's like the five framework what, where, when, why, and how. Pretty much. And going through that framework will help you kind of form your message and then determine what value you can create. So then you shouldn't really be promoting yourself much at all. So either 80/20, 95/5 whatever formula works best within your niche is what should determine how your content should be. But it should always be value focused, providing value to those people because that's when they'll resonate with you and feel like you actually care to serve them instead of serving yourself on social media.
Bill: Because the goal B2B social media for manufacturers and B2B companies is not becoming viral like, we're not trying to become that next latest, greatest sensation. The goal is for us to be able to represent our brand and represent our story to our ideal clients and attract them to us, right? So, you know, one of the philosophies we have here at 50 Marketing with our own social media and the social media that we, execute for our clients is we would rather have fewer ideal clients being attracted to, engaging with, and consuming our brand story than we would care to go viral. Because going viral doesn't pay the bills. It doesn't lead to good quality leads that are going to buy from you. So I think that, that target market identification, that ideal client identification is so important. You brought up a great point. Voice of customer interviews are so very, very important. We need to, interview our best clients. And some some folks feel really uncomfortable interviewing their own clients. So that's a place where our staff can jump in and interview someone else's client for them, to help them develop their social media plan. And just make sure that we're dialing that in and having that right, one, we identify who we are, we identify our ideal client, and then we make sure our brand story is relevant and, consumable for that ideal client. So I think that's a very important aspect that we have to really look at. Another thing we want to look at. So we talked about some of the tactical things. Talked about planning. We've talked about making sure we have the right target audience. One of the things that I think is missing in a lot of B2B social media is we are afraid as a group to be creative. Whenever I look at some of my feeds and some of the people I follow who are outside of the B2B channels, outside of the manufacturing channels, they're doing all these creative things, all these cutting edge things like, recently, in the Olympics, there were these, these posts about the, the person who was, a shooting athlete who, had all this gear on. And then there was this other fellow who was a little bit older, and he just basically pulled the gun up and shot, and he basically got a silver, and he was like, like, I think in your generation they call it chill or whatever. So, when we look at that approach, we need to start using those memes or those, trending items. Trending, pop cultural references. We're like, sometimes I'll see a film, I see a lot of films of like Will Ferrell in a car driving and being really cool and happy, and that's like, after you do something and we can say, oh, it's after you got this SaaS product or whatever. What do you, talk about that movement. One, why shouldn't we be afraid? Why should we be doing it? And maybe why are we unwilling to do it?
Will: Yeah, I think pop culture needs to be in B2B. B2B people, professionals and even marketing agencies are afraid to integrate pop culture and meme culture because it looks unprofessional. I would argue that professional is not necessarily the look of a creative or anything like that, it's just more of a mannerism. And so that doesn't mean that if you use memes or if you use pop cultural references within your creative that you're being unprofessional, you're just being relatable and authentic. It's not like we all go home. And if we're on TikTok, if we're on Instagram, we aren't seeing that, consuming that and connecting with it. It's no different within the business world. And I think that will help us connect with these ideas of like SaaS or some of these business words that do mean things, but they don't have to be separate from pop culture. So I think, understanding when it's appropriate, integrate it, it's helpful, whatever. It's top of the funnel type of content that's really just connecting with people. Value, connection, relatability, authenticity. When you get to the bottom of the funnel, that's where you get the really authentic, even more professional, because that's when you get into the weeds about topics. That's where you can be a little more quote unquote professional. You don't have to use pop culture stuff because you've already made the connection to the top of the funnel with the pop culture, with the meme culture, to connect it with your whatever your message is. So then you don't have to worry about it as much. But whenever you're at the top, it's really just trying to make sure people understand what you're saying. And that's with connecting with stuff that's going on right now. So whatever topics are going on, whether it's that, Turkish shooter in the Olympics or whether it's, something related to old films with Will Ferrell and all those very popular well known memes. All of that can be applied. It's just really determining your message or brand and then what level and stage. Because if you're, quote unquote, talking to CEOs that are in their later ages, they're not going to connect with some of the stuff that is quote unquote popular on TikTok or whatever, because different demographic says determining your audience and then and what they connect with, and that's what you use.
Bill: I think that's a great point. And I just want to call this out. So you just reference old films by Will Ferrell. So your youngest brother will often ask me in or about old movies from the 1990s. And I think the point there, though, is if my generation would recognize a pop culture situation, we do need to make sure that those pop culture references are relevant. For instance, some of the times, if someone from your demographic would reference something in pop culture, I would have zero idea of what's happening with it. I recently understood who Mr. Beast is. I still don’t know who cutie pie is, or some of these other people who are super big and you know, I know The Hunger Games from my generation and there's something new with, like, some squids, or something. I don't know what that's all about, but the point there is don't fight it. And don't try and be the one who introduces that pop cultural reference to your demographic. Go back to the same old tried and true for my generation, sitcoms were a big thing, and, like Friends and some older folks, Cheers and MASH. Your generation, I don't even know if they have sitcoms that you guys really watch because you guys are in a whole new situation. But, we need to make sure that as we're looking at those references that either they're so relevant, i.e. the Olympics, everybody, I think everybody at this point knows about the Turkish shooter and his, the, comparison to the other athletes. Right. So that works for everybody and all age groups. Whereas if we look at some of the more, iconic things, they have to be very focused on the specific demographic to make sure they're effective.
Will: Yeah, there's transcendent cultural things that almost everyone of every demographic will see. The Olympics, if there's ever moments that occur in the Olympics, they usually will transcend demographic and they will just hit all populations. But then there's certain things that will hit, specific demographics dependent on life stage or what happened. And that's where you can get, very defined in your messaging where if you want to reach really wide to start, you can use those transcendent marketing opportunities and messaging. And then once you start to get down into the weeds, that's where you really fine tune it to the people that you want to reach. And that will make it really helpful. And I think the biggest thing too, is just don't overthink it too much. I mean, a lot of the stuff that you consume, and if you're in the same demographic you're trying to reach, just kind of redo the same thing. Or if you find out, what has connected with people with trying a bunch of different stuff, dive into that. It's that's the testing idea with the organic, you have to test what you're doing whenever you start. You really shouldn't just do one thing and triple down on it. You should dip your toe in everything. And once you find those few things that really work, that's when you triple down. But you have to test it first to find out if it really works. And so that's the most important thing, is to have the bravery and the willingness to test a bunch of different things, allow some ideas, pieces of content to fail and get zero views, and allow some that will allow some to then skyrocket and get to whatever numbers that you want to reach, depending on what your niche or audience is.
Bill: So I think when we look at your personal content and your journey, developing your own podcast, your own videos, your own, channels on Instagram, and, Facebook and all the different channels, YouTube, you have gone in that journey and that is, I think, somewhat more natural for your generation. But certainly you kind of had to drag me along kicking and screaming to try it out. Let's, let's go backwards in time. Last November, we're heading out to a video shoot. You were at college. You and I were chatting, and you're like, well, why don't I just show up with my podcast gear and we'll shoot a podcast for 50 Marketing. And, 28, 29 episodes later. We're here. And that was very uncomfortable for me. I mean, for me to, be on a podcast to announce my podcast, right? I'm supposed to be the person talking, running it, doing all this stuff. And then, whenever I would see the freeze frames of me for the different images, it's like, oh, my gosh, I look terrible. I think, maybe it's just a generational thing, but I think a lot of people in my age group and demographic are more concerned and just need to get over themselves that they talk about imposter syndrome. They talk like I don't even I'm not going to watch this episode. The team will take it, they'll produce it, they'll publish it. I won't see any of it. Because I just stopped looking. Because it doesn't matter. Can you maybe talk about, how you went through that process for yourself, how you were able to get me through that process? And what you would tell anybody else who's considering just jumping in, or maybe they just need to do that. They just need to jump in.
Will: Yeah, I do, starting with the generational thing. I do agree that there is a difference in the generations when it comes to digital media being on camera and talking on camera. whenever I see the difference between, older generations versus my generations, when I ask them if they want to be on a podcast because I've had different, I've had professors, and then I've also had students on my podcast. The students think that is a cool thing, even if they're what you would argue is more insecure about themselves. They look at the opportunity to fight that insecurity with like, okay, a podcast, I can really try for this. Even I had a shoot last weekend, podcast shoot, and there was little kids like ten and under, like really little kids, and they were all jumping around wanting to be on camera, wanting to talk into the microphone like the streamers and the YouTubers. And all the parents were like, not about it as much. Like they were willing to do it, but they felt more uncomfortable than the kids. It's a little different because kids have no shame at times with that stuff. But, I think that's a generational thing. But then go into the starting into your own podcast realm, content creation realm. it takes a while to get used to it. I mean, I've edited since I was 12, so it’s been 7 or 8 years now of editing stuff, watching myself over and over and over again when I'm editing my own podcast. So that's a whole different level than just talking and seeing yourself. I get to edit that moment where my voice looked weird, but I have to keep it in there because it's just a part of it. So getting over that, is pretty tough as well. Starting, whenever we started this podcast and there was that day, like after finals, my roommate and I, we left, went up to do that shoot, and we started it, and it was probably one of the better interviews we had all day. We did like the traditional old school style, really high quality interviews that all were great, but then the few podcasts we did, I think everyone was just comfortable. And then once they realized what it was after that first episode, you're like, whoa, it wasn't that bad. It's always like, oh, was that like ten minutes? No, you did it for 45 minutes. And that's always the case I deal with students. Whenever I interview people my age, it's like, man, that felt like a 15 minute conversation. It was 45 minutes. It was an hour. So just it's that personable relationship side of a human where you're just talking with someone and the cameras happened to be on. They happened to be there because once you're locked in, once you're connecting, you kind of forget about it, you kind of forget that they're on. It might take you a little while to kind of get in the flow of a podcast. That's where some editing can help at times, or that's just where people who are watching, they realize that and they kind of connect with that as well. So yeah, getting you to finally start the podcast was a big thing because I, we already know that B2B is a few years behind what's going on in the the world and pop culture, and you didn't realize it was the time for that. But once we kind of dove into it, we realize, like, this is what's needed and this is what does it. And so kind of applying all the things I learned from my podcast, which I started a year and a half ago, April of 2023, learned a lot. It's a great way to network, even just with my own peers. It's like, oh, you're the podcast guy. And it helps share other people's stories as well because it, has helped students I interview get out there more. My podcast was included in an article for a girl on K-Love and radio stations about her story and her business, and so just having that that long form conversation, bottom of the funnel conversation, really just explaining yourself and being authentic, people connect with it. And that's where media is right now. I mean, they, on ads, ads are people don't really like them as much. You don't really like having ads, you don't like being marketed to. But if an ad is a podcast clip, people are more likely to watch it. They're more likely to listen to it, and they're more likely to trust it. Because if you have a podcast in the back of our minds, we are now thinking, okay, they're they are credible. It feels like they're credible. And whatever they're talking about, they might not be at all, like the AI deepfakes that are going on now. It's like people are on Joe Rogan podcast. They're not really, but those who actually create content, that's why we don't do a green screen or a black background.You make your own background, so it's your brand and you know it's really you. So then people can connect with it and trust it.