Authenticity and connection are the cornerstones of leadership in the digital age. Embrace your uniqueness, maximize human connections, and let AI be your ally, not your replacement. Join us in this episode as Dorien Morin-Van Dam, organic social media specialist, leads the way in harnessing the incredible potential of social platforms and its interplay with leadership. As she reveals her strategies to building an influential brand, she emphasizes the critical role of authenticity and connection in our digital age. More than that, Dorien discusses the importance of embracing AI as a tool, not a replacement, to enhance productivity and redefine our roles. She explains that by applying AI intelligently, we can have more quality time and human connection. Tune in now and learn how to leave a lasting impression in leadership and social media.
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In this episode, we're going to be talking about leadership, social media, and importantly, how we become more effective as leaders in terms of utilizing social media and all the different platforms that are out there. We're going to be talking with Dorien Morin-van Dam, who is a LinkedIn top social media voice. She's an expert in this area, and we're going to talk about what are the right platforms to be on. We're also going to talk about how to use the various AI platforms that are out there, especially ChatGPT, to make yourself more effective. I use it quite a bit now, and I find it to be an assistant to help me. Not talk about things that I don't know about, but to use it as a tool to help me to become more effective. Let's jump into it.
Dorien, I want to thank you for being on the show. I appreciate you taking the time, especially for such an important topic, social media. I think of it even for my own business in regards to, as a leader, how do I get my message out there in a way that instills confidence and gets other people to take an interest in what I'm doing? Also, what platforms do I use and what type of content do I decide is probably most relevant for what I'm doing? I know you're an expert in that area, so I was hoping we could talk about that as well. I know one of the hot topics that you mentioned and we mentioned prior to the interview is around how leaders are interacting with AI, challenges, benefits, and all of that stuff. Again, thanks for taking the time.
I'm excited to be here.
Where do you want to start?
We're thinking about message.
I want to do that.
Yes. I know you want to, and I know everybody else who’s reading wants to do that. The first thing you want to do is, what is the message you want people to know? What is the message you want to put out about your brand, about your awesomeness, and about your uniqueness? What is your unique selling proposition? What do people need to know in order to choose you over somebody else? Once you understand that part, you still don't go to the platforms. You then go to what piece of content you can create on a regular basis, a long-form piece of content that is going to be the backbone of everything you do. It used to be a blogger video, but now I would add a podcast to that. it's either audio, a podcast, writing a blog, or a long-form video for YouTube.
Every single social media or content marketing plan should start with the backbone of a long piece of content once a week, once every other week, or once a month even if that's all you have time for. Once you have the long piece of content, you take that and clip it, snip it, repurpose it, condense it, and then you go and create short-form pieces of content that go to the platforms where you want to go. That guarantees that you're going to talk on every platform about the same thing and have the same message in a different form.
For those who might not know, what is considered long-form? What constitutes long-form versus short-form?
A short-form would be creating a story, a TikTok, or a picture and putting that on social media. Long-form would be a podcast or a live show where you're at least talking for 10 to 15 minutes where you share your thoughts as a thought leader. It could be an article that you write. It could be a video that you make about how to do five ways to X, Y, Z. It's a piece of content that you as the expert in whatever you have expertise in. It's your thought leadership. It could be a 10-minute video. It's not necessarily the length of it, but it has to have some content to it.
That's where I was confused if it becomes long-form after eight minutes or before that.
Five minutes. You could do I would say at least a five-minute video on YouTube that gives you three bullet points and gives you three reasons to do X, Y, and Z that could be a five-minute video. If you just give one reason, then cut it. You can't do much with it. You want to be able to segment it. You want to have 3 reasons, 5 reasons, 7 ways, or 9 things because then you can cut it, or you have to have those bullets first, second, and third. That content is, you are able to shorten it into short-form content.
With that said, how do I decide what is relevant to create for long-form?
That's a whole big strategy, but we can start with this. You know your customer best so you know what you're selling. Whether it's a service or a product, you know what people are saying about your product, but you also know the questions they're asking about your products or services. What does it mean to work with you? What can I stand to gain by buying this product? Can I have a demo of your product? How long will our contract be? Anything, that's the first step. What questions do people ask? Those are going to be great pieces of content that you could start with.
You know your customer best.
Another one is what their pain points are. Are they short on time? What are you solving for them with the product or service that you offer? For example, I offer content marketing. This whole thing that we're talking about now, I can solve that for you. If you don't know what to say on your podcast but you want to have a podcast, hire somebody like me. That's the pain point. When I talk on social media, I talk about what it's like to create a content strategy, and those can go twenty different ways.
You start with the questions that people ask and the pain points that your customers have, and then you can do some educational industry-type content. You can talk about trends in your industry, things that are happening, etiquette, best practices, things that happened in the past, or case studies. All of those could become long pieces of content.
The case study is a good one. I haven't done those yet. I do it in the work that I do. I do case studies when I'm working with clients, but that's something that could have a lot of benefits to it.
What happens is when people recognize themselves in the case study, I had that same problem. Now, I see that Patrick fixed it, this is the process that he used. I could use that same process to also fix that same problem that I have maybe a little bit different, but this is great. I want to have those same results. It shows your expertise. It shows that you can help people, but it also shows the people who are reading, watching, or listening to the case study that there is a way out because it's already been proven. That's insightful.
Platform, are we there yet?
Yes, so then we're at platforms. You've got a podcast, you've got a YouTube video, or you have a blog. Now, the world's your oyster. Where does your ideal customer hang out? Most of your customers are going to be dispersed. Some will be on Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn, or Pinterest. Usually, even if you have an ideal customer, people are on 2 or 3 platforms, but you don't have to meet them on every single platform. I usually say to people, “Where do you hang out?” Let's see if we can find that intersection of where you hang out as a business owner, social media manager, or CEO and where your customers hang out. You want to meet them where they hang out, but you also want to be comfortable.
If all of your customers are on TikTok because they're all between 18 and 24 years old, even if you're in your 50s, you should go to TikTok. You should learn, you should go hang out there. If most of your customers, 75% are on LinkedIn, 10% are on Instagram, and 5% are on TikTok, don't go to TikTok now. It depends. You have to know that buyer persona. You have to know who you're talking to, and then start with 1 or 2 platforms. We are sucked into that. We have to be everywhere all the time, and you don't, because it's hard to be present on every platform. It's not just about posting. It's about engaging, talking, and getting feedback because social media is a two-way conversation. We want to put information out and we get information back.
Social Media: It's really hard to be present on every platform because it's not just about posting. It's about engaging and about talking and about getting feedback because social media is a two-way conversation.
Social Media: Build true conversations into your day because that's where the value comes in.
If the leader does something then jumps on and spreads the love and piles on the love too and just doesn't expect only the employees to do it, but they show by example, then everybody else will too. And that's how you can grow that.
You mentioned AI. It’s obviously a huge topic right now. Where do you see this?
I see this going everywhere. I'm very excited about it. It's the new revolution. Think back to when email first was a thing. I'm an immigrant. I moved from the Netherlands to the US in 1988. It was $3.50 to call. Letters took about two weeks to send. That was the only communication I had. When my oldest son was born in 1996, email started. It was out. I think I had an email address, but I didn't have a digital camera. I had to go take pictures of the regular camera and get them developed, and I don't think I could scan them. I didn't have a home scanner. I think by the time my second son was born, I was able to email pictures to Europe when my son was born. By the time the last one was born, it was instant. It was FaceTime. “Here you go. Here's the baby.”
The development of technology has been huge. I look at the time that I've spent in this country, but AI from January, even until now is developing at a fast pace. In the marketing industry, we think that everybody else is using AI, but a lot of people still aren't using AI or they are using it and don't realize that. I sometimes feel like I'm in this bubble. I talk to people about AI and they're looking at me. I have a friend who's in sales and she's still writing it up on a piece of paper. She doesn't even have it on her computer yet. She does that once she gets to the office. AI is huge. I know people are worried, especially in marketing about their jobs. This is what I've heard people say and I totally agree with that. AI is not going to take your job. People who use AI might take your job.
AI is not going to take your job. But people who use AI might.
I truly believe that.
If you are an artist and you're a graphic designer, still do what you do, but start using the tools to do the things that you do better, faster, and more efficient. Experiment with them. You might have to change your business model, but that's okay. You can gain back time by using AI. You can do some amazing things. Think about copywriting, graphic design, and research. All of those things that we used to have to outsource to other people. If you have all the right tools, you can do all of those on your own.
I do want to say the distinction between automation and AI, I think we automate a lot of things. You get an email, “You're scheduled for this podcast here and there. You schedule out an invoice every month.” Those are automation. I would say that that's been in business already for a while. If you attach the AI tool to it, that's exciting to get them to write the stuff for you and do that. In marketing, if you're using it for copywriting, make sure that you feed the beast. You can't use AI and put in one little prompt and expect it to spit out what you want. You have to set up these personas.
“For every client that I have, this is their website. This is their ideal customer. This is who they want to talk to. These are the products they sell. These are blog articles that are written. This is the content that did well on social media, so this is their voice.” I then say, “Now, write a social post based on all of this information with a call to action.” You have to feed it first.
If you're tuning in to this and you've never done that, you're like, “I ask it to write a post that says Happy Labor Day.” It's going to be very generic and probably 10,000 other people have that same post going out. You want to focus on feeding it the right information and then feeding it the right prompts. That's important.
I agree with that. I believe that as it relates to that, the better you are at asking questions, the better you'll be able to utilize this tool. I think that's where people struggle right now. Not really understanding how to prompt it like you did. All of a sudden, you keep refining what this is going to look like. I have found it very beneficial and I use a new one or a relatively new one called Claude because it has a larger character limit of 1,000. I'm able to get full studies where I will take the full study, cut and paste it, put it into it, and ask it to refine it based on a model that I'm using. It will pair it down. The important thing is I still need to understand the material. I asked it to write articles for me on quantum physics when I didn't know quantum physics. It doesn't work that way.
I've used it for SEO updates. For example, I do a lot of blog writing. Now that I have AI, I use these tools that say, “Improve this article by adding these eight keywords.” If you've written an article based on content, but now you need to add SEO to it by adding these keywords. I'll go copy and paste it into AI and say, “This article is sound. It's doing well, but I need to add these eight keywords.” Pretend this customer, and you would be reading this, add these eight keywords in a natural way. Don't stuff them in there. If you have to add a paragraph, go ahead. I prefer you keep the paragraphs that is and put the keywords in there where you can. It does well, and then I could update my articles and not have to keyword stuff something that looks silly. I am using it in so many different ways. It's fantastic.
In terms of leadership development work that I do, I will take a couple of the models that I work with and I'll be able to take examples of the companies that I'm with. I will say, “Here's the scenario. Here's the company that I'm working with. Here are the models that I want to use. I'd like you to create a case study that highlights this.” It's done in fifteen seconds. It would take me three hours to put it all together.
It's been great. For social, people are using it to do those comments on LinkedIn. You can detect them. You can see them immediately. People use that. When we say, “Make five comments in one post.” People are using extensions and we're like, “That's an AI comment. You're not even there.” Know when to use it and know when to be present as a human. That's going to be another soft skill. AI is not going to take over and have that empathy that we need to have as leaders or as humans, but it can take some of the work from us for sure.
AI is not going to take over and have that empathy that we need to have as leaders and as humans, but it can take some of the work from us for sure.
I fully agree with that. I've heard that before. It's not going to replace you. You're going to be replaced by people who know how to use it. I fully believe that. I think of Gary Vaynerchuk. One of his comments is along the lines of, “Technology doesn't care what you think. Technology is moving ahead. You can resist it, fight it, and demonize it, but it doesn't care. It's just going to continue. What's your choice? You either figure out how to use it or you're going to be left behind.” I truly believe that.
For people of different ages, we're talking about the Millennials who have fully embraced AI for the most part at work. There’s Gen Z who is growing up with it. We have this new generation now who's in school, who are talking to teachers, and who are trying to resist it. They have headmasters, directors, and school administrators who don't want them to use AI. It's already happening. There are debates about copyright. Are we dumbing down this next generation? Again, you can tell AI to code stuff, but you still need to understand what you're coding and how to prompt things. I liken it to when the calculators came out. A calculator is nothing in your hand. If you don't know how to program the formulas in there. You don't even know what to put in. It's kind of like that. It's an extension of technology.
Goggle’s no different. You talk about cheating. You can pull up all of this information now with Google before. If I was a teacher, I would be embracing this. I would write my curriculum around having kids have to read articles, and then use chat or some other form to ask follow-up questions. To me, that's the critical part of this, is to say, “What do you ask it for question?” Then to have to present that.
That is right, book reports and make sure that there is that component of human. Yes, you can use AI to write the book reports, but now you have to stand up there. AI is not going to talk for you. You have to understand it. I believe the same thing. My kids are out of school. I have one left in college, but he sees it. He sees his college peers using AI in a way that's not very smart and he's noticing it. The kids are aware of what it looks like when it's AI-generated. They don't even change the formatting. You can see that it's ChatGPT, which is so silly.
As leaders, I read this article where hospital leaders and directors were very excited about AI and that doctors and nurses were terrified. Everybody should be embracing it. Can AI predict illnesses? Maybe it can help sort you through something faster, diagnose people faster, or maybe come up with an excellent treatment plan. Those are all shortcuts you can take. You still need a doctor or a nurse to perform the operation, to have the aftercare, and to have the wound care to have that empathy. I think that with AI, we can treat more people faster. Maybe we can treat them better. Instead of thinking of it as a bad thing, we should all embrace it, especially leaders. Tell people it's okay to use it. I do think that this full disclosure, especially in marketing, that we're using it and how we're using it is important.
Social Media: Instead of thinking AI as a bad thing, we really should all embrace it.
Social Media: Branding is not just your logo. It's not just your tagline. It's really what the brand stands for.
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