It can be tough starting online, but I have 11 simple steps to share with you of you want to build your influence online, if you are brand new.
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Speaker 1: Welcome to the Freedom Business podcast, your host, Siddharth Rajsekar here.
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Speaker 1: Great to have you here. This is where we are
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Speaker 1: going to be talking about how we can redefine our
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Speaker 1: education system by building vibrant learning communities. Take your knowledge
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Speaker 1: out of the world and be awesome. Let's get in.
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Speaker 1: I totally get it. It's quite difficult when you're starting
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Speaker 1: off and you do not know how to build your
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Speaker 1: influence or build your brand. And you're starting from scratch,
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Speaker 1: this podcast will help you because the first part of
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Speaker 1: the podcast, I will talk about what are the three
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Speaker 1: pillars of influence. Second is I'll talk about 11 different
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Speaker 1: things or the 11 steps or ideas that can help
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Speaker 1: you build your influence online
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Speaker 1: even if you're just starting off today. And then the
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Speaker 1: last part is I'll talk about platforms like what is
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Speaker 1: linkedin ideally good for, what is Instagram good for. What
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Speaker 1: is youtube good for. Uh how do you use Twitter?
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Speaker 1: And how do you use Facebook? I'll keep it as
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Speaker 1: simple and to the point so that you can pick
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Speaker 1: any platform and start building your influence. Now, before I start,
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Speaker 1: I want you all to understand that today is my
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Speaker 1: seventh day
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Speaker 1: out of my 90 day challenge. And we are over
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Speaker 1: 200 episodes and counting. So, if you have not subscribed
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Speaker 1: to this podcast on app Plus, Spotify, please do that
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Speaker 1: because I'm going to go daily podcast and I'm going
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Speaker 1: to be giving value on all different topics to help
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Speaker 1: you take your knowledge, make that into a business, build
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Speaker 1: your influence, build communities and you know, basically live an
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Speaker 1: awesome life by helping others. So let's get into the
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Speaker 1: first part, what is influence? There are two kinds of
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Speaker 1: people who would see online, those who are attention seeking
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Speaker 1: and those are true influencers. Now, people who grab attention
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Speaker 1: are the ones who may seem to have influence, but
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Speaker 1: they actually don't influence people, they just get more eyeballs
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Speaker 1: and you know, they just get more people around their content.
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Speaker 1: But true influence is if the particular creator is able
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Speaker 1: to make people take action,
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Speaker 1: meaning if you are somebody who even has a small
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Speaker 1: youtube channel with say 5000 people, 5000 subscribers, but if
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Speaker 1: your subscribers are engaging really high and they are buying
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Speaker 1: your products and they are actually so loyal and they're
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Speaker 1: coming back all the time.
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Speaker 1: It does not matter. Even if you have millions of
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Speaker 1: views in that, in that particular channel, you are an influencer.
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Speaker 1: Whereas if you're somebody who has even millions of channels
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Speaker 1: of views or whatever on your subscribers on your channel,
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Speaker 1: but nobody's willing to buy from you, then you're just
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Speaker 1: somebody who's grabbing attention. You are able to entertain people,
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Speaker 1: but nobody is being actually influenced by you.
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Speaker 1: So this is how I look at influence. Now when
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Speaker 1: it comes to influence, there are three pillars. Number one
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Speaker 1: is authenticity. People need to see through you. You need
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Speaker 1: to remove those masks in those filters and just be
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Speaker 1: who you are. Second is logic, when you're presenting information,
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Speaker 1: it should connect with an audience at a deeper level.
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Speaker 1: And number three is empathy. You really need to care
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Speaker 1: for people because people don't care about how much you know,
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Speaker 1: until
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Speaker 1: they know how much you care. OK. Listen to this
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Speaker 1: podcast once again. So what are the 11 steps? If
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Speaker 1: I have to say if you have to literally build
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Speaker 1: your influence from scratch, considering that you have absolutely no
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Speaker 1: experience in this right now and you're going to be
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Speaker 1: starting today. Now, the first step is you got to
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Speaker 1: identify what is your niche or your topic that
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Speaker 1: uh
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Speaker 1: you want to be known for. Because if you do
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Speaker 1: just random stuff online, people will not engage with you,
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Speaker 1: they will not connect with you. And the best niche
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Speaker 1: is to scratch your own itch.
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Speaker 1: I'll repeat that the best niche is to scratch your
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Speaker 1: own itch. So if you are having a particular problem,
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Speaker 1: let's say you want to
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Speaker 1: really become better in analyzing the stock markets and trading
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Speaker 1: and stuff. Now that is your niche. So as you're
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Speaker 1: learning and going and you know, taking it on the go,
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Speaker 1: you will start to get better. So the second step
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Speaker 1: is if you want to build your influence online, you
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Speaker 1: got to start creating quality content. Now, quality content is
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Speaker 1: stuff like
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Speaker 1: I'm doing right now. I'm going in depth within a
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Speaker 1: few minutes. I'm sharing as much to the point information
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Speaker 1: that I can. There's also an entertainment factor if you
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Speaker 1: want to keep coming back for it. And it and
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Speaker 1: my audio format is slightly different from my video format,
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Speaker 1: different from my res different from my webinars. So each
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Speaker 1: content type,
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Speaker 1: I deal with it in a different way
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Speaker 1: and I ensure quality is maintained. Now third is platforms,
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Speaker 1: you don't have to be on every platform when you're starting,
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Speaker 1: pick any one platform or maximum two platforms to start
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Speaker 1: building your personal brand, which leads me to point number
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Speaker 1: four is you need to start branding yourself. If you
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Speaker 1: notice the best youtube channels in the world are all
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Speaker 1: personal branded channels. They have the name of the person,
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Speaker 1: even if it's a brand, but it's still the name
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Speaker 1: that is driving for the youtube channel.
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Speaker 1: Ok. It's very rare that you would see a a
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Speaker 1: company youtube channel doing very well, even if it is
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Speaker 1: a company or if it's a brand name, it is
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Speaker 1: a personal brand that is driving the youtube channel, same
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Speaker 1: with Instagram. All the top Instagram profiles are personal brands.
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Speaker 1: So personal branding is like putting yourself on the front,
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Speaker 1: the front face and actually doing it. That's why my,
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Speaker 1: all my ads that I run on Facebook are on
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Speaker 1: satik a fan page on youtube fan page. And uh
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Speaker 1: I don't have an internet lifestyle hub, youtube channel. I do,
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Speaker 1: I do have it but I don't do much on
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Speaker 1: it because I know that my personal youtube channel is
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Speaker 1: doing much better than others. And same thing even on linkedin,
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Speaker 1: it's my personal profile, my personal profile, Facebook, personal profile,
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Speaker 1: and that's how I've been growing. So the fourth step
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Speaker 1: is if you want to build your influence online is
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Speaker 1: brand yourself.
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Speaker 1: Number five is you got to learn the art of
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Speaker 1: networking and I'll share that a little bit later in
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Speaker 1: this particular podcast. Number six is value. OK.
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Speaker 1: How do you define value?
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Speaker 1: Value equals solving another person's problem. That's how I look
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Speaker 1: at it and solving it in a simple way. Like
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Speaker 1: you in this particular podcast, I'm trying to solve the
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Speaker 1: problem for many of you here who want to build
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Speaker 1: an influence online but you do not know where to start. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: so I want to solve that problem. So value equals
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Speaker 1: what people are looking for. Number seven is engagement. Now,
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Speaker 1: if you see on my podcast on sasha.com, there are
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Speaker 1: so many different, I have more than 12 comments. OK?
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Speaker 1: Over the years
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Speaker 1: and every time I publish a new podcast, a lot
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Speaker 1: of people engage. And I like the two way interaction.
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Speaker 1: Even when I send emails to people, I, you know,
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Speaker 1: I have a large database and I get tons of replies,
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Speaker 1: thousands of replies every single day because of the two
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Speaker 1: way interaction, engagement. And I also evoke that kind of
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Speaker 1: response and that I'm publishing content. I want people to
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Speaker 1: share below on what they learned. And even this particular podcast,
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Speaker 1: if you're listening to this on my blog, I want
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Speaker 1: you to share your notes below.
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Speaker 1: That engagement is important to build your influence.
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Speaker 1: Number eight, no matter what you do,
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Speaker 1: you have to be consistent.
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Speaker 1: Bruce Lee says, I'm not scared of the man who's
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Speaker 1: practiced 1000 kicks once he's scared of the person who's
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Speaker 1: practiced one kick 1000 times. So those of you who
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Speaker 1: want to be really good, you got to be consistent
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Speaker 1: every single day, put one piece of content. OK. Ninth idea.
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Speaker 1: If you want to build your influence when you're starting off,
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Speaker 1: let's say you don't have any influence, you can associate
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Speaker 1: yourself with other influencers,
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Speaker 1: maybe interview them or get them to interview you and
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Speaker 1: suddenly you get discovered and that's what is happening in
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Speaker 1: the online space right now. There are many people who
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Speaker 1: are totally unknown and they just come up because of
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Speaker 1: some influence are talking about them. OK. So how can
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Speaker 1: you get other influencers to talk about you? That's another
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Speaker 1: strategy altogether.
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Speaker 1: Number 10 is keep updating your knowledge on what is happening,
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Speaker 1: what was happening? 2345 years back on social media platforms
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Speaker 1: are very different right now. So you got to keep
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Speaker 1: updating yourself on what's working. And finally, number 10, number
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Speaker 1: 11 is if you want to build your influence online,
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Speaker 1: you got to start with this, but you got to
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Speaker 1: analyze and understand your data. What kind of topics are
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Speaker 1: your market resonating with? Uh which media are you more
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Speaker 1: comfortable with
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Speaker 1: audio or video or text,
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Speaker 1: analyze everything and then take it forward. So now I'm
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Speaker 1: gonna come to platforms, what are the platforms to focus
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Speaker 1: on and what is good in each platform? And as
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Speaker 1: a disclaimer, I'm gonna tell you that you don't have
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Speaker 1: to be on every platform, pick any one that suits
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Speaker 1: you and start with that. OK. Now, if you look
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Speaker 1: at linkedin as a platform, the good content type that works,
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Speaker 1: there are like image based content and even textual content.
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Speaker 1: If you go and see my, my linkedin, I'm only
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Speaker 1: posting textual content and linkedin is the best place to
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Speaker 1: outreach through messaging and networking.
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Speaker 1: So you open up a like a conversation with somebody.
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Speaker 1: Keep open loops. I mean, ask open ended questions, have
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Speaker 1: two way interactions, network, build relationships and the true power
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Speaker 1: of bring in is to get your return on relationships
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Speaker 1: that you build
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Speaker 1: Instagram. On the on the other hand, is very good
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Speaker 1: at getting into a new audience. You have a far
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Speaker 1: reach and wider reach and the best media type for
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Speaker 1: Instagram are posting reels under one minute reels. And of course,
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Speaker 1: you can also post stories and also share images. So
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Speaker 1: Instagram also recommends its users to try all different kinds
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Speaker 1: of media for you to get better reach.
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Speaker 1: But of course, you gotta find what your style when
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Speaker 1: it comes to youtube. It's very simple two videos per
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Speaker 1: week or even one video per week going above 10
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Speaker 1: minutes in duration. Ideally like 2030 minutes duration is good
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Speaker 1: and the metric for youtube is
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Speaker 1: average view duration, the more people watch your videos, the
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Speaker 1: higher ranking that you will actually get on those videos.
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Speaker 1: And again, it's not about how many views you get.
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Speaker 1: It's about how engaged are you keeping your audience. And
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Speaker 1: if it's a relevance that is there,
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Speaker 1: if you look at Twitter again, I know people who
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Speaker 1: post two or three times a day tweets, Twitter, the
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Speaker 1: quality of the audience is much more mature audience, meaning
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Speaker 1: that they are more tech savvy, they are more tuned
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Speaker 1: to the latest trends. You have, you know, people in
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Speaker 1: these influencers, you've got uh journalists, you've got actors, superstars, cricketers,
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Speaker 1: they are, most of them actually take charge of their
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Speaker 1: own Twitter handles and they, they keep voicing out their
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Speaker 1: opinions and stuff like that. So
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Speaker 1: Twitter, the good thing is if you're able to share
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Speaker 1: your own opinions 22 to 3 times a day and
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Speaker 1: you do strategic outreach with uh influencers or key decision makers.
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Speaker 1: And again, like linkedin have open ended conversations and networking
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Speaker 1: that will help you leverage Twitter better
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Speaker 1: and Facebook, even though people say Facebook is dead, uh
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Speaker 1: definitely this 3540 plus generation, they are more on Facebook.
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Speaker 1: I mean, they have started off on Facebook. They may
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Speaker 1: not be as active on Facebook as usual. But again,
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Speaker 1: when it comes to Facebook, start up with your personal profile,
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Speaker 1: then start to use Facebook groups. And then of course,
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Speaker 1: the Facebook page, you can do a whole bunch of
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Speaker 1: stuff over there.
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Speaker 1: So I hope I've been able to give you some
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Speaker 1: clarity on the three aspects. Like what are the three
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Speaker 1: pillars of influence? What are the 11 steps to grow
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Speaker 1: your influence when you're starting off? And what is each
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Speaker 1: platform good for? Of course, there are many other platforms
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Speaker 1: like Pinterest. You've got, you know, Tik Toks, which is
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Speaker 1: not so popular here in India. You've got many others
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Speaker 1: uh platforms that are coming every single day. But the
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Speaker 1: key here is irrespective of what platform you choose. Pick
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Speaker 1: one where your audience is, is there. And here is
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Speaker 1: the golden nugget. I want to give you,
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Speaker 1: you need to on your digital assets
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Speaker 1: by you just depending on Instagram or linkedin or youtube
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Speaker 1: or Twitter or Facebook for your audience. It does not
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Speaker 1: matter because the algorithms keep changing. And I know many
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Speaker 1: influencers have built huge influence and they've suddenly gone down
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Speaker 1: to zero. So right from day one, build your own
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Speaker 1: email list.
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Speaker 1: I have an email list of close to 300 people
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Speaker 1: that I've built over the last few years. This is
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Speaker 1: my clean list. Otherwise it's it, you know, I've generated
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Speaker 1: over a million leads.
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Speaker 1: Now, this is my own asset. I can promote whatever
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Speaker 1: I want to this list. I can communicate whatever I want.
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Speaker 1: And it's not, and it is very personal because you
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Speaker 1: may be thinking, ok, many people don't open an email,
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Speaker 1: but that's not true. It's about how you communicate an email.
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Speaker 1: If you're only promoting, promoting, promoting and pushing flyers, there,
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Speaker 1: people will not be engaged. But if you're actually sharing
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Speaker 1: valuable pieces of content, building a relationship with your list,
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Speaker 1: you will be able to pull money out of thin air.
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Speaker 1: You know, I can just send one email and generate
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Speaker 1: a lack two lacs, but I don't do that all
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Speaker 1: the time because I'm not there to just push and
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Speaker 1: sell to my list. I'm I'm there to build a,
00:11:46
Speaker 1: you know, a relationship with my list. And as I'm
00:11:48
Speaker 1: building the list, suppose as a festival offer or some offer,
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Speaker 1: I give people ready to respond and buy.
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Speaker 1: That is what will give you control over your influence.
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Speaker 1: True influence is not just grabbing attention online, but it
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Speaker 1: is by building a relationship with your list, building a
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Speaker 1: relationship with your audience and getting them to go, to
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Speaker 1: go through a journey with you where they're gonna be
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Speaker 1: a customer for life and they'll follow you, they'll do
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Speaker 1: whatever you do, then they will do whatever you ask
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Speaker 1: them to do once they know that you are in
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Speaker 1: it for them.
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Speaker 1: I hope you found this podcast useful. And if you'd
00:12:21
Speaker 1: like to know more on how you can get on
00:12:23
Speaker 1: a three year journey with me on certification, we have
00:12:26
Speaker 1: something called the Diamond Certification.
00:12:29
Speaker 1: There's a link below this podcast. You can go and
00:12:30
Speaker 1: check it out or you can go to S ID
00:12:32
Speaker 1: Z sids.co slash Diamond and jump on board my three
00:12:36
Speaker 1: Diamond certification where I'll help you build skills over the
00:12:39
Speaker 1: next three years to become a digital leader, a digital
00:12:41
Speaker 1: mentor to others that you will be able to create
00:12:44
Speaker 1: an impact on other people's lives. Wish you all the
00:12:46
Speaker 1: best catch you in the next episode.