Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:17] Speaker B: Welcome to Ever Changing Technology.
I'm Jim Bradfield and every week we decode the innovations shaking up business.
If you're a small business owner watching software, AI and social media sprint ahead while you jog in place tonight is your playbook.
Can we start over?
4, 3, 2, 1.
Welcome to ever Changing Technology. I'm Jim Bradfield and every week we decode the innovations shift shaking up business.
If you're a small business owner watching software, AI and social media sprint ahead while you jog in place tonight is your playbook. My guest Mark Lamplugh turned a local treatment center into a digitally powered success story and wrote best selling playbooks on social media and AI marketing. Mark, great to have you on the show, man.
[00:01:19] Speaker A: Hey, Jim, thanks for having me.
[00:01:21] Speaker B: Yeah. So the problem facing many in the audience is that they know they need to upgrade their technology and it often feels like they're too far behind to catch up. So, Mark, why is it so scary for small business owners to adopt new technology?
[00:01:40] Speaker A: Well, one of the reasons I think is it's overwhelming.
And I mean, I'm in, I'm in this space and sometimes I get overwhelmed. You know, you start looking at the different tools and everything that becomes available to you with like all these AI technologies coming out.
And every day you start seeing this one does this and that one does this and this one connects with this. And you're like, where do I even start?
You know, so it's very easy to get overwhelmed.
You just really got to kind of like take a step back, plan out, you know, the areas that make the most sense for your business, you know, and, and make that transition.
[00:02:26] Speaker B: So Mark, what are the biggest mistakes people make when they're trying to catch up?
[00:02:33] Speaker A: I think it's trying to do too much at once.
You know, you have Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, LinkedIn, you have all these different social media accounts and, you know, there's so many different ways that you can go. I think the most important thing at first is take a look at your business, take a look at your customer base and try to make a determination of what makes the most sense for you to start on social media.
Are a lot of your customers, you have a younger customer base, are they going to be on TikTok? You know, are you a more B2B Avenue business? Maybe you should start on LinkedIn.
Facebook's like a middle of the road.
It also depends on the type of, you know, content you're going to be putting out, you know, so you want to kind of take a Look at your customer base. You know, you can run those searches in AI, like, you know, break down the segments of where I can find my customers best on social media and, you know, let Chat GBT give you some answers and some guidance on where you should start and which ones interconnect. You know, you create a post for Facebook, you might be able to use that in other areas and other platforms.
[00:03:51] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, it's funny, my wife always tells me to use Chat GTP or whatever, you know, and AI and I'm going, yeah, hey, let's, let's give that a try, you know, but I mean, where, where do you start upgrading? You know, I mean, are you over, are people typically feeling overwhelmed and they just don't know where to start?
[00:04:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I personally, I use Chat GBT and Google AI Studio for any type of searching or curies I want to do on with AI, you know, to help with anything that I'm, I'm working on, you know, so I would maybe start there. I like Google because if you're, you're doing searches that you gotta get a lot of feedback from the web and maybe answer specific to the web and stuff like that, Google's the biggest, so I would think that their AI platform would have the best results or answers that you may be looking for.
But it's, you know, it's just a website you go to, you sign up for it, you can pay a fee, you know, small fee a month. I think it's like 15 or something like that for chat gbt and it's a little search prompt you type in, hey, can you help?
Just for instance, you're, you're a plumber.
Chat gbt.
What, what platform as a plumber would I be able to target my customers? And it'll help give you some answers. Hey, a lot of your customers will probably be in this age group. They're homeowners. You know, you might want to use Facebook. You know, it's little searches like that.
[00:05:39] Speaker B: Yeah. So again, simple tools every small business should be using. You're talking about chat, you're talking about Facebook and those kind of things, right? Is that, is that what you typically recommend to your clientele?
[00:05:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. Facebook, you know, Twitter, B2B customers. I would use LinkedIn.
And then for a younger generation crowd, you know, right now, Tick tock's the big thing.
[00:06:09] Speaker B: Tick tock is a big deal.
Yeah. You know, so is there an issue with Tick Tock and, and some of those kind of things? You know, people are concerned about that being secure. Is that one of those things that people are looking, need to look out for or is that a.
[00:06:26] Speaker A: Okay, I, even me personally, I, I got a big social media following and I just signed up for Tick Tock about a month ago for that same reason. I, you know, you heard a lot of stuff about the privacy concerns and, and things of that nature.
I would say, you know, be cautious of what kind of information you're, you're using on there.
Pretty much all of them. Now once you put your information in, they got your data, you know, it's not really kind of, it doesn't really matter anymore what platform you're on. You have so many apps on your phone that you have accepted permissions for that you don't even realize what you gave permissions for, you know, listening on your microphone, you know, and all that, you know, so just be cautious on what you keep or store on your devices, you know, when you're using those type of platforms, you know.
[00:07:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that's, you know, I've heard a lot of, you know, stories about it and people are really concerned. So.
[00:07:32] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:07:33] Speaker B: Now, when you get it right, what does success look like for a small business?
[00:07:40] Speaker A: You know, I would say in the beginning is always the toughest because that's when you're building an audience or building a following. So it takes time, especially if you don't have a budget and you're doing this all organically, meaning you're posting every day and, and just trying to get followers to your pages and trying to get people to interact with the stuff that you post.
You have to be frequent and you have to post a lot. The, the attention span of the US consumer is very small.
There's so much content being put out now with AI and these tools, people are exploding with the stuff they're putting out, you know, on these platforms. So you have to post frequently, consistently, and you have to do it and keep doing it and keep doing it, you know, and then, you know, you'll start seeing the, that, the benefits from that.
[00:08:37] Speaker B: Yeah. So, you know, typically are, are you seeing that people are posting their message, you know, four or five times a day, morning, afternoon, evening, you know, midnight kind of thing or.
[00:08:51] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, the guidance I give my team and I, I, my, you know, I'm the CMO of a few automotive dealerships is you can never post enough, you know, three, four times a day. You got about a 10 chance of an individual maybe seeing that particular post that's following you. So if you have 100 followers, maybe 10 people will see that one post. So if you want to start reaching them all, you got to post very frequently to catch at, you know, different times. People are on the platform, platforms, the algorithms, you know, and what's trending. It's, you know.
[00:09:33] Speaker B: Yeah. So that's really kind of interesting because, you know, I'm seeing a lot of, lot of likes and a lot of looks and a lot of views, but we're only posting every once in a while, and, And I see other people posting all the time. So I think, you know, I think that's probably really good information to have. I, I know that we're not doing it right. So, you know, that's where.
[00:10:01] Speaker A: And it's hard. I mean, I, I have a team here to help complete those tasks. You're a small business.
You're running your business during the day. I mean, you don't, you don't have time to create content five times a day and put new posts out and come up with, you know, and I always. This is another kind of big thing I explained to people with.
It's not called sales media, it's called social media. If you're just posting offers and things you're selling all the time, you're not going to get really good engagement. You got to interact and be social with your following, you know, so you're not gonna, you're not gonna see sales from every single post that you create, but you're building a connection with the people that are following you. So when they do think of the service or the thing that you are providing, you're, you know, they think of you first.
[00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I guess that's the big deal is, is really engagement. You know, people are. People are kind of tired of seeing ads. Just ads. Just ads. Right. So I think the engagement is good. So you make a combination of engagement kinds of things and then put some ads following that or something like that.
[00:11:13] Speaker A: Right, Correct. You know, we might do a sale post, a particular post created just for, like an offer or sale that we're doing.
We'll, we'll share articles, you know, of information that might help the consumer, you know, decide whether to lease or buy.
You know, the difference between ev and combustion. You know, what sort of things to look for when you're making these buying decisions, you know, things like that. And then we'll post just videos having fun at, you know, the staff doing different things behind the scenes and, you know, just make it fun.
[00:11:49] Speaker B: Well, now, that's awesome.
So, you know, that's a really terrific Start to the day here.
So if viewers want more guidance right now, where can they find you? You like your website, LinkedIn, other socials, that kind of thing?
[00:12:05] Speaker A: I, I have a personal website, it's marklamplu.com and then I'm on LinkedIn, Instagram under it's marketing whiz, underscore whiz, Twitter, you know, all the Facebook account as well, you know, page as well.
[00:12:22] Speaker B: Awesome.
Well great, appreciate it.
[00:12:26] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:12:35] Speaker B: Foreign and we're back. I'm Jim Bradfield and this is Ever Changing Technology here on NOW Media Television. You guys loving what you're watching? Don't miss a moment of Ever Changing technology or any of your favorite NOW Media TV shows.
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Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and enjoy instant access to our full lineup of bilingual programming in both English and Spanish. Prefer to listen on the go catch the podcast version of the show right now on Now Media TV website at www.nowmedia.tv.
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So welcome back to Ever Changing Technology.
I'm still with Mark Lamphu.
Before he was scaling companies and writing marketing playbooks, Mark spent years running into burning buildings as a career firefighter.
That dramatic pivot from public service to private enterprise gives him unique insight into the emotional and practical hurdles first responders face when they leave the front lines and enter the business arena.
Let's unpack that journey and the lessons every career changer can borrow.
So the problem facing many in the audience is that they're leaving a service career and it often feels like they have no idea.
So Mark, thank you for your service. And how did you personally make the leap from firefighter to entrepreneur?
[00:14:39] Speaker A: So it actually the, the start of my marketing career started with working with non profits and programs that help first responders with like PTSD and, and mental health issues.
So that's how I, I started, you know, learning marketing and you know, business development. And I would go all over the country to different like conferences, to fire departments and get these agencies to send or help treat their public safety people with these problems.
Suicide's really rampant in the first responder community.
Mental health issues, there's a big stigma attached. It's a lot better than it used to be. But you know, because of work like these non profits that I talk about.
So that's how I got started. And I grew up in a fire department. I'm like fourth or fifth generation Firefighter. You know, my dad's still the president of the fire department. Now. My grandfather was fire chief. My great grandfather, they have an award name after him they give to the firefighter every year.
So it's kind of something I grew up in. Everybody I knew are fire, you know, first responders and firefighters, and it was volunteer, you know, where we grew up. And.
Yeah, so it's kind of been a thing. So I've been involved with the career and volunteer aspects. And one of the things with firefighters specifically is, well, a lot of first responders, they, they, they can retire after 20 years and rightfully so. They have a very strenuous job. So they can be retiring with a full pension, you know, at 40 years old, if they started when they're 20.
So they have a lot of time. And then also a lot of first responders, excuse me, have second careers because they have a lot of time off. You don't make that much money as a first responder. You do it more for the dedication and the job, you know, So a lot of them got to work second jobs or, you know, they pick up a skill. They have a, you know, skill, whether it be painting or doing roofing or drywall, and then they'll do jobs during their time off to, you know, help supplement their income.
[00:17:04] Speaker B: Yeah. You know, what's kind of interesting is when I was a little kid, my family in Baldwin, Illinois, a town of 170 people, right?
They were all volunteer firemen and they, they had a special group and, you know, the special phone number and all that kind of stuff back in the old days. So that was kind of cool, you know, so I, I can, I can relate to all this. So, you know, why is that transition, though, so hard for a lot of the fire firemen and, and you know, those kind of people, I mean, what, what happens?
[00:17:41] Speaker A: Well, they got it, they got a job that's very stressful. They see death, carnage and destruction. They're going to the worst day of people's lives every day. You know, if you're going, you know, that's the interactions they're having with the community on a daily basis. And, you know, so they're, they're, it's always like a 0 to 100. You know, you're sitting, you're relaxing, you're eating. The fire alarm goes off and boom, you're 100 miles an hour running a burning building, pulling people out, going to an accident, cutting people out of cars, doing CPR on somebody. You know, the list goes on and on and Then when you stop, that all goes away and you don't know what to do with yourself. A lot of first responders, that's their identity, they're tied to that.
It's the only career or job that you have where it becomes like a way of life in a sense, you know, so when you stop doing that and you retire, your, your time is filled.
You sometimes a lot have regrets that they retired because they are young. There's still a lot of life ahead of them in most cases.
So, you know, there's things now that they do and programs available to help with that transition.
[00:19:01] Speaker B: Well, you know, and, and that's kind of cool. What, what skills from the service roles carry over into business?
[00:19:09] Speaker A: Oh, man, I, you know, especially in the volunteer aspect, you know, you're running a company, it's essentially a business.
You know, you have to raise money to run these. You know, a lot of people don't realize that, but most volunteer fire departments are self funded. They don't get money from the government.
Like Pennsylvania, for instance, where my department that I, I grew up in, they got like $18,000 a year from the state. All the rest of the money to run the fire department. A fire truck's a million dollars.
[00:19:41] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:19:42] Speaker A: You know, comes from running bingos on Friday nights, tag days, running penny parties, selling Christmas trees.
You know, a lot of the work that you do inside the firehouse, like painting and fixing stuff you do, the people do themselves, fixing the trucks and, you know, changing the oil and the fire trucks and managing the equipment, it's done by the engineers, you know, so there's a lot of skills that you pick up in these departments over the years that you can transition in the different areas, you know, and, and make a side income.
[00:20:23] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, you know, it's. I, I always remember going to the Friday night fish fry over at the fire departments in the small towns. Right. And that was. We kind of drive through the towns and look for those, you know, that's pretty cool. That's something that's.
I guess I didn't realize how much they had to try to raise to help keep their system running.
[00:20:49] Speaker A: Yes, I mean, some, some states are better than others.
Like Delaware, for instance, they treat their volunteer fire departments pretty well, but they are. A lot of them are now also combination departments which have volunteer and paid, and that's a lot of volunteer fire departments across the United States are currently having retention issues and are now transitioning to paid type volunteer because they just know who want. Nobody wants to do anything for free anymore. It's hard to get young kids to, you know, hang out at the weekend at the fire department and work bingo and not get paid, you know, it's a shame.
[00:21:35] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I, I mean, I, I, I can understand that. And, and you know, for guys who are trying to transition into, you know, out of the fire service, you know, how do they start, what do they do, what are they looking for? And how do they get to entre entrepreneurship safely? I mean, how.
Give me a little bit of a clue as to how you recommend they do that.
[00:21:58] Speaker A: Definitely. I, I would say for like really long, high level career firefighters that may have been officers and they have a lot of real world firefighting knowledge and expertise.
They can create training companies, you know, that go to these volunteer fire departments and train, you know, these other agencies that need that type of training.
That's one area.
There's also equipment manufacturers that look for sales reps because they want, they got to sell fire trucks now and they, they like to have people that know what they're talking about, about this equipment, you know, and if they have picked up some sort of trade or skill, you know, they can create a small business on the side, you know, and a lot of people are, that's a selling aspect. You know, you have somebody that created a business that was a firefighter or a police officer or a veteran for many years and now are transitioning in a business aspect of some sort of service.
You know, you can promote that in your business and people will probably choose your business over another just for that fact because they want to support you.
[00:23:18] Speaker B: Wow. Well, I mean, and so advice you'd give to someone who's trying to, trying to go somewhere else and feel stuck after leaving their career. What would you recommend?
[00:23:32] Speaker A: I would say, you know, really take, you know, an inner look at yourself and try to figure out stuff that you're good at and see if you have the ability to share that and what, you know, whatever that is, it could be. It's different for everyone.
And then, you know, if you go online, there's different resources. Like the National Volunteer Fire Council has a lot of programs and resources that you can go to that can help you.
[00:24:02] Speaker B: Yeah, that's, that's pretty awesome. I mean, it's, it, it's really, it's really a big deal, I think, for people to really support their service providers. And I think people don't understand, you know, what those guys give up. Right? Because, you know, they're like you said, they're in the middle of a dinner and boom, they've got a head to a fire, you know, and, you know, and it's, I'm, I'm sure that, you know, other kinds of issues like PTSD come into play and other things like that happen to them. So, so anyway, you know, I think what you're doing is just absolutely awesome and it's a really powerful story for everybody. So for first responders who are going to want that roadmap, where should they connect with you online? How do they connect with you and get your service?
[00:24:55] Speaker A: I, I always have first responders emailing me. A lot of times it's for when they're struggling with ptsd, mental health issues because I thought I did that type of help for so long.
But yeah, go to my website, marklamplu.com you know, you can Google my name, you'll find my social media.
My email address is contact marklamplu.com and I get emails, you know, all the time from people that are just, you know, might be looking for services, looking for help.
I also get a lot of contact from non profits in the responder space that are looking to, to grow because I did that for so long.
[00:25:36] Speaker B: Wow. Hey, you know, that's, this has been great. I really do appreciate your service and you know, this is, I really hope you can help a lot of these guys out. So, you know, good luck with all that. We appreciate it.
[00:25:50] Speaker A: Thanks.
[00:26:08] Speaker B: And we're back. I'm Jim Bradfield and this is ever changing technology here on NOW Media Media Television.
Loving what you're watching. Don't miss a moment of ever changing technology or any of your favorite NOW Media TV shows live or on demand, anytime, anywhere.
Download the free Now Media TV app on Roku or iOS and enjoy instant access to our full lineup of bilingual programming in both English and Spanish. You prefer to listen on the go catch the podcast version of the show right now on the Now Media TV website at www.nowmedia tv.
From business and breaking news to lifestyle, culture and everything in between, now media TV is streaming 247 ready whenever you are.
So glad you're still with us. Our next challenge is one most entrepreneurs whisper about, but they rarely solve. It's digital exhaustion.
From non stop notifications to an ever growing stack of productivity apps.
Technology that was supposed to free us often change us to our desks.
Mark coaches teams through this maze every day. So we're tapping into his best advice on pruning tech clutter without sacrificing performance. Mark, welcome back.
[00:27:41] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: The problem facing many in the audience is they feel Burned out by too many apps, right? I mean messages and tech tools and all those kind of things and it often feels like they're just drowning. So why are so many people feeling overwhelmed by technology?
[00:28:00] Speaker A: That's a good question. And it's something I, I with currently to this day. I just had a conversation with, you know, one of my cohorts and I'm in the automotive space and I probably in the last month have done 10 to 15 hours a week in different demos from different third party vendors that sell different tools. This one will sell more cars. Plug this into your website, it gets more data and it's all stuff that we are looking to do. But I'm spending all my time on these demos looking at the stuff that they do that I already can do it myself, you know, so it's like it, it's a double edged sword. You know, even once you start looking at all these tools and you try to get answers online for, you know, different applications that might help you solve problems in your business, then you start seeing a non stop feed in your Facebook or your social media of all these different services that can solve that problem. You click this and then you sign up to do this and you know, it's, it's non stop. So it is, it's, it's tough.
[00:29:10] Speaker B: Yeah. So what are some easy ways to reduce the digital stress at work?
[00:29:16] Speaker A: I would say I like personally for me, I, I try not to take too many meetings on those things.
You know, you, you got to have a plan, you got to have a marketing plan, you got to stick to your plan and you know, and follow that.
Sometimes it's going to take longer than maybe the initial kick or jolt that you might see from some third party vendor app that can potentially solve a problem.
So you have to really kind of plan out what you need, you have to look at what you provide and try to look at the services that these tools can answer and sometimes, you know, figure out if maybe one application can solve multiple things, you know, so you're not burned, burdened with too many, or, you know, running down too many rabbit holes.
[00:30:13] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean the digital stress is really something. I know that people are really overwhelmed by it because I see it all the time and people trying to get their companies moving ahead like we talked about previously about figuring out how to do Facebook and how to do X and how to do Y and Z and all the other kinds of things that are out there, you know, and trying to get on the right platforms, I mean, is that, you know, what which tools? And, and how do they, how do they really make it happen?
[00:30:47] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean like I said, you just gotta really kind of, you gotta, you gotta know what you're trying to do, what solution you're trying to fix or fill and decide which tool is going to fix that solution and you know, and stick with it. There's always going to be that next better thing.
And then after a few months when you try something and you're implementing it and you're getting it working and figuring out the nuances of it, you know, if you're seeing positive results, stick with it.
But if it's not working, you know, you might have to go back to the drawing board.
[00:31:25] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And you know, we see that time and time again. Now what are your favorite time saving apps and hacks and things like that to, you know, help not only help save time, but it helps reduce the stress, I would imagine for all this problem. Right?
[00:31:44] Speaker A: Yeah. So I use one of them I found to be a really great tool for, for meetings is an app called Firefly.
And you add it as a person on all your meetings and it not takes, analyzes the meeting and, and gives you all the key points and it gives you next steps from everything you discussed in the meeting so you don't have to go back and look at your notes. And it gives you timelines, it breaks down your meeting for you with AI. It's amazing.
That's one thing I recommend because it's going to save you a ton of time on note taken trying to recall and remember what you had me, you know, you, you discussed on a particular meeting or Zoom Call and it's going to give you actionable next steps based on the conversations you had in the meeting. So that saves time.
You know, I use apps to generate content like canva, Chat, gbt. I use to edit stuff so that makes sure stuff's going out correctly.
And then I use app, an app to kind of go through my unread emails and give me a really quick synopsis and I can't remember it off the top of my head of that email. And you know, it gives me suggested responses so I don't have to go. You know, if you start backing up on emails.
[00:33:19] Speaker B: That seems like something really, something really very valuable. Now how does that work?
[00:33:29] Speaker A: It plugs into your email.
I use Gmail, an application that plugs into your Gmail and it helps you keep up with your emails.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: Wow.
Okay, I'm gonna have to try that. I haven't tried that before. The only thing I get is a little notification on my text from, you know, my Apple iPhone that says a little bit of this, a little bit of that, what maybe was talking about in the text. But yeah. Wow. To be able to do that in an email, that is. Seems like it's a real time saver and it seems like it's, it's awesome.
[00:34:08] Speaker A: Another, another. A lot of these applications like Excel and Word are building AI tools in the applications like Excel for instance, where it might take you an hour to create a, to analyze the data that you put in and put it into a chart. You can actually just type into the little box in the corner of Excel.
It looks like a little star that's blue.
What you're looking to do with the data that you input it and it'll create it for you.
You know, there's a lot of stuff with AI being built into applications now that could save you a lot of time.
[00:34:48] Speaker B: Wow. So that, I mean that's, that's a real eye opener. I mean it is for me. I would imagine it is for a whole lot of other people. You know, all the younger guys who are just starting out, you know, they, they know every little trick and trade because they sit on their phone all day and look at it and do all those things. And you know, guys like me, we've been working and working and working and we, you know, we never even heard of these kind of things. So that is a really awesome kind of thing to have. Now how do business owners, you know, find peace without going off the grid with all of this stuff going around?
[00:35:26] Speaker A: You know, I, I asked Chat gbt, give me five, you know, a productivity tools for, to help me answer my emails better and it'll give you, you know, five suggestions and, and also break down what's the, the positives, what's the negatives, what they do and you can make them selections right now through that.
[00:35:52] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:35:52] Speaker A: Yeah.
Crazy.
[00:35:55] Speaker B: Yeah. That is just amazing. I mean, now is this just a question, you know, is this gonna get rid of people, you know, in the jobs or.
[00:36:05] Speaker A: I get this question on my show, like I, we talk about it at least once a week and I don't think so. I mean, yeah, I think, I think it's, it probably is in a sense, but it's gonna morph into the way we do our roles better.
I think if you're a marketer and you're not learning how to use these tools to be more productive, you are going to be a dinosaur and you're probably going to be out of work. But if you can use them to your advantage, you know you're going to be. Because I mean, how I see it like now with the tools that are available, there's an opportunity for small businesses that can't afford very large marketing budgets and marketing teams to do things that they wouldn't have been able to do without these applications being available. But now you can. You know, maybe when it took you a week to create a video for a client, it takes you an hour to create one with AI but you can do it cheaper for more businesses instead of just one large one, you know, So I, I think it's how you work these tools into your workflow is going to determine whether you keep your job or not.
[00:37:22] Speaker B: Wow. I, I mean that's actually quite amazing. I, I'm, I think that's going to be very valuable. And it seems like these hacks are gonna save a lot of time for a lot of people. I mean you're talking about a week versus an hour. That's, yeah, that, that's almost, you know, un. Unbelievable.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:44] Speaker B: So, so where can viewers follow you for more stress busting tips?
[00:37:50] Speaker A: My website, marklamplu.com and find me on LinkedIn. Mark Lamplu, Twitter. I'm on there. Mark W. Lamplu, Instagram Marketing Underscore Whiz and Facebook Marketing Underscore Whiz.
[00:38:05] Speaker B: Awesome. Well, we really appreciate it and that's been very enlightening today. I appreciate it.
[00:38:12] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:38:31] Speaker B: And we're back. I'm Jim Bradfield and this is ever changing technology here. Here on NOW Media Television.
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So we've covered hardware, software and mindset. Now let's tackle the digital megaphone social media.
In a world flooded with AI generated posts and clickbait, authentication has become the scarcest commodity.
Mark's content philosophy turns likes into loyalty and followers into clients.
If you're tired of shouting into the void, this segment is your reset. Welcome back, Mark.
[00:39:58] Speaker A: Thank you.
[00:40:00] Speaker B: So the problems facing many of the audience is they're posting all the time and it often feels like no one cares or believes what they say. So what makes social media feel fake to people today?
[00:40:15] Speaker A: I, I think we're seeing this now with all these AI generated videos.
Meta is going to be releasing an AI in their ad service to where any business can run ads and it'll create the creative for the business, you know, v. Video, graphics, whatever, to run the advertising. So, you know, Joe's ice cream shop can have the same type of creative as Ben and Jerry's.
You know, I think it's probably, I'm, I'm kind of excited to see how it works and what it does because the one thing in my mind is when you have one type of, type of platform creating all the creative for everyone, you're going to start seeing a generalized theme in all of that and it's not going to be unique.
And I, I think what's going to, it's almost going to be a complete turnaround to where the businesses that stay really unique and authentic to themselves are going to stand out in, in a field to where everybody looks the same and it's gonna, it's gonna be a selling or a business, you know, aspect of it.
[00:41:34] Speaker B: Wow, that's, you know, that's kind of enlightening, isn't it?
So how do you build trust instead of just chasing likes?
[00:41:45] Speaker A: You know, it really comes down to just being yourself and you know, and, and not trying to just create content just for the share or you know, just for the next best thing. You can create valuable content by being yourself, being authentic, being, being honest. You know, I, we have a, I have a kind of a rule and we have a rule here on the stuff that we create, whether it's, it's meant to be funny, meant to be salesy, meant to be, whatever is. Nothing should offend anybody.
Don't, don't insult people.
Don't do anything that's offensive.
Don't belittle anybody. We had a, a particular post that was created of making a joke of somebody's height and it was innocent and other pages may have probably done it and it would have did well and successful, but that's not something we do here, you know.
[00:42:52] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, I actually have one of those issues, you know, where I'm a little height challenged myself.
[00:43:00] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:43:01] Speaker B: So, but I, but I actually don't mind those kind of things. But yeah, I definitely understand.
[00:43:08] Speaker A: Yeah, it's not, it's not even meant to be insulting in a sense. You know, it's, it's Just meant for fun.
But what one person thinks is fun and funny, another person may not, you know, and you just got to be really careful about what you put out there because you don't know, you don't know what you're going to say that could insult somebody. And, and you want to kind of, you want to be the, the be all or the, the, the, the business for everyone.
[00:43:35] Speaker B: Yeah. And, and that's a really good point. I, I really appreciate you bringing that up now. So the kinds of posts that actually connect with people, what do you recommend there?
[00:43:45] Speaker A: I, I would just, you know, be creative.
I like, we like doing behind the scenes, you know, having a little fun with the staff and what they do at their day to day.
Kind of gives a little bit of a, an, a customer view of the day to day of the business.
We, you know, we create generalized sales offers, you know, that go out and then like I, I think I explained in the segment earlier, we'll do educational information for customers or potential customers to help them make better buying decisions.
[00:44:20] Speaker B: Awesome.
Yeah. So, you know, this question is a little bit interesting. I think. You know, how do you balance being professional and being human? Because you mentioned, you know, people like to make jokes and we all, you know, we all snicker and whatever about, you know, something and it's a different thing when you've got a broad group of people you're talking to versus, you know, your four friends that you guys, you know, grew up with. So what do you, how do you balance that?
[00:44:56] Speaker A: You know, like, like I said, it's just, it really comes down to looking at, you know, kind of analyzing what you are going to put out and just ask yourself, could somebody look at this and be offended?
You know, and, and, and if you're unsure, ask a few people first. You know, you don't, you don't have to be so quick to put something out that you don't get a, you know, kind of.
We, we also have a legal team that we, you know, send posts to, to just review to make sure we're, we have to be compliant with regulations because we're dealing with financial stuff like leases and you know, financing and things like that. So you know, we'll have posts reviewed as well just to make sure that we're compliant. And you know, a lot of people are very, very polarized right now in the political climate.
You know, so my philosophy and how we, we, we don't, we, we try not to lean one way or the other.
Everything sticks to a generalized theme.
We don't want to insult people that are left leaning and we don't want to insult people that are right leaning, you know, because you don't know who your customer is or what their beliefs are and that, that goes with religion and, you know, and things like that.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: Yeah, that's like, you know, the rule. Don't sit around the table and talk about religion and politics.
[00:46:25] Speaker A: Right. Yeah, you're bound, you're bound to upset somebody, you know, so, so should you.
[00:46:29] Speaker B: Run a proof of concept before you do A large, large offering, you know, a large, large scale, depending on, depending.
[00:46:38] Speaker A: On the topic or what the, you know, what the post is?
I would not everyone. You do, you know, you're gonna kind of know what's edgy and what may not be, you know, based on what your, your content plan is or what you're posting on a daily basis. But if you're unsure. Yeah, I would run a proof. I would send it to 10 staff members and get their feedback.
[00:47:06] Speaker B: Oh, there's an excellent idea. Yeah, I thought maybe a proof of concept might be a good idea here.
[00:47:11] Speaker A: That's.
[00:47:13] Speaker B: So what mistakes should people stop making on social media that they're making? Obviously everybody makes these mistakes all day long, but what should they really pay attention to not doing?
[00:47:25] Speaker A: I, Everybody's gonna make mistakes. I, I do it especially, you know, I'm posting On, you know, 20 different accounts or 20, you know, three stores, a social media account for each platform for each store. You know, every store has got unique content because one's a Hyundai store, one's a Ford store, one's a Chevy, you know, so there's going to be times there's grammatical errors in there. Something might go out where I didn't really put thought into it, you know, and you know, if you make a mistake, you own up to it, you know, hey, sorry, posts do edit, you know, so if you notice an error or mistake in your post, you can go back and edit it.
And like I said, like we talked about before, if it was me, I would stay away from politics. I would stay away from any type of religious posts.
Be as general as possible, you know, even in hollow, you know, holidays, some people don't mind yet you might have a business that runs on being polarizing and that's another. Yeah. Area you have to look into, you know.
Yeah, following is going to be, you know, the following you build and create also is going to probably be geared toward what you're providing.
So you have to know your audience. That's another thing.
[00:48:49] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, There, there is a thing out there that says, you know, everything is good publicity no matter whether it's good or bad, you know, but so listen, man, that was really invaluable guidance for deeper dives into your social media marketing playbook and AI marketing playbook. Remind viewers where to find you everything.
[00:49:17] Speaker A: Yeah, so you can Find my website, marklamplu.com My Instagram is marketing underscore wiz.
My Twitter is Mark W. Lamplu. My Facebook is marketing wizard. And then you can see me on Now Media TV every Tuesday at 4pm Central Standard Time on street level marketing. And we have a show where I bring marketing guests on every week. And you know, we talk about a lot of these subjects that, that we're talking about on your show now and you get lots of great insights, lots of valuable guests and experts in different areas of marketing that you can pick up on.
[00:49:59] Speaker B: Well, that's awesome, man. So from upgrading outdated systems to navigating career reinvention, defeating digital burnout and earning trust online, tonight's conversation proves that technology is only as powerful as the purpose behind it.
Mark Lampleu, thank you for distilling two decades of real world wins and lessons into practical steps our viewers can act on immediately. That was really awesome. I really appreciate it.
So to everyone watching, choose one tactic from each segment, whether it's adopting a single new tool, blocking notification overload, or posting one authentic story and put it to work this week. Small, consistent shifts turn chaos into clarity.
I'm Jim Bradfield and this has been ever changing technology on NOW Media tv.
Keep questioning, keep experimenting, and most of all, keep leading the tech instead of letting the tech lead you.
