No serious business owner would ever use TikTok to market their business… or would they?

Episode Transcription

Den Lennie (1s):
G’day, my videographer friends. Now, we spoke last week about creating content and how creating content can make you an authority and attract people to want to do business with you, rather than chasing them to try and engage them in some kind of conversation to do business. But creating content at scale takes some systems. And my guest today is Stephen G. Pope, who has amassed an enormous following on TikTok and is using content across all social media platforms, has built this technology, a system that he is gonna share with you today, how it works, and how it is able to take one piece of content and distribute it across different platforms.

Den Lennie (48s):
We also go into what that looks like in terms of a process, and there are four stages. And then what kind of size team do you need to be able to pull this off? Now I know you might be thinking, but then, you know, I, I’m, I don’t wanna be building a team for, for creating content, but I want you to think about this. And once you run out of friends, family, and anyone foolish enough to get close to you to sell to, you’ve got to go out to a cold audience. And there’s two or three ways you can do that. One is running ads, two is going to networking events, and three is to make content. In an ideal world, some of all, some of all of that can be achieved with creating content. So dig into this episode, Stephen is an absolute authority.

Den Lennie (1m 30s):
I think you’ll find a ton of value in this. Enjoy.

Welcome to the Video Business Accelerator podcast. Each week we uncover the secrets to creating a wildly successful and scalable video production business with your host, Den Lennie. Discover how the accelerator program is transforming the lives of our members at www.videobusinessaccelerator.com. Enjoy this episode.

Den Lennie (2m 4s):
Stephen, thanks for for coming back. And we just split this, this conversation up because I wanna move from the conversation we had last week about creating content and some of the ideas behind that to doing it at scale. How do you take cause cuz it’s very, it’s very labor intensive. It can be labor intensive to create content and start posting at different platforms. And you mentioned last week about the difference between a networking platform like a LinkedIn and maybe a scale platform like TikTok. And I suppose TikTok is a good place to start before we just get into the mechanics of how you as an engineer have, have created a system for how to deliver this kind of content.

Den Lennie (2m 48s):
But until I met you, I was like, you know, TikTok schick muck, you know, it’s like, it’s for the kids. Yeah. And I think that’s something that maybe a lot of of people think of.

Stephen Pope (3m 1s):
Yeah, for sure.

Den Lennie (3m 2s):
Tell me about your journey with TikTok and why, why that platform and what, what you see the value to be.

Stephen Pope (3m 8s):
Yeah, so even like last, in the last last week when we were talking, I mentioned how I, I had seen Gary Vee and he was the prompt to get me on video in the first place. And then, I heard this rumbling of TikTok and then I was like, Oh yeah, okay, that’s a new platform. And then Gary Vee was like, You should get on there. And I was like, well, I listened to him the last time and it worked. And then there, here’s another thing is that when I first got onto LinkedIn, that was my first platform. I had seen a bunch of people that had been there for like years and solely because of that they had built big audiences and were monetizing them. And so I was like, and just, you’re always kind of, you know, just like, man, I wish I had done that, right?

Stephen Pope (3m 49s):
So I saw that opportunity on face or on TikTok and then there were times like, it was like 2020, I was just like scanning it and I was like, Oh wait, if I’m like, I’m like my customer, like if I’m here, they’re here maybe like, maybe I’m early, but they’re here too. And so if it’s just content and it’s just my video showing up, if I’m saying something relevant to them, like it doesn’t matter, like whether they came there to see whatever they came to see, like it’s now me and I’m saying something that’s relevant to them and I call them out. I’m like, Hey, are you, are you this?

Stephen Pope (4m 30s):
Are you this? Do you wanna do this? Right, Right outta the gate. So I’m not like, Hey, hey, I’m Stephen Pope, let me tell you a little story. Like I just, you call the person out so like when they’re flipping through. So that was my, that was me. I was just like, and I was like, Hey, and I’ve been doing a bunch of video on LinkedIn. I think I could probably be pretty good at this. So I jumped on there and it was just like one of the best decisions I ever made. Cuz it’s like that’s my primary lead source at this point. All, all like mature business owners. Like I don’t have any kids as clients.

Den Lennie (4m 59s):
Yeah. I think that’s the thing that’s, that’s, that’s enlightening for me is it may have started as kids doing crazy dances, but it’s evolved. And we think back to YouTube 10 years ago, it was, you know, we, we used to kind of sniffle at it and say, Oh, you know, where people put funny cat videos now it’s, it’s my main source of entertainment and education, right? I won’t allow anything. I don’t even Google stuff anymore. I go straight to YouTube. So I think that that point about, you know, trusting sources that have been reliable in the past, like we’ve both been fans of Gary Vee and, and we’ve taken on his advice and it’s worked and getting in early.

Den Lennie (5m 42s):
Are we still in the alley stages of TikTok?

Stephen Pope (5m 46s):
I think so, yeah. And here’s the other thing about TikTok that people don’t understand as well is that most of these other platforms are social graphs. So it’s based off of who you’re connected to. And so like if you have more followers on Instagram, you get more views. Same with LinkedIn. TikTok is an interest graph. So the algorithms based off of what you find interesting. So as it learns what you like to look at, it’s looking for content to feed it to you. And you could, So if you happen to jump on the platform and create something that’s interesting to enough people, it’ll just, you could have three followers and it would show it to a million people. I mean it’s, it had to have like, they had to have watched it, but it will scale it out that way.

Stephen Pope (6m 26s):
So they’ll show it to 10 people, then a hundred, then a thousand, then 10,000. So that’s the way their algorithm works. So yeah, I think it’s early and I think it will be like that for a long time because that’s their competitive advantage, right? They’re the place you go to to have instant growth and now you see all the other platforms trying to copy them. So I don’t really have any doubt that it’ll, I think it’ll be like, I think the competition for the good, this is where it’s interesting, right? The competition for creating good content will go up there, right? But it won’t, I don’t think it will always, I think they’ll continue to, to base it off of how good the content is.

Stephen Pope (7m 12s):
So it’s more of a race of who’s the, who’s gonna be the best creator versus who’s gonna amass the biggest following.

Den Lennie (7m 19s):
And, and you know, one of the, I guess just from my own perspective is, is is looking at TikTok and thinking, well, I can take a piece of content, I can write a piece of content very quickly on LinkedIn, or I can record a video, upload it, write a few words, and it’s done with TikTok. I’m seeing, you know, I mean it’s, it’s all nine by six, right? Nine by 16. So it’s all vertical. But I see these graphics and emojis. Is, is that something that you have to do on TikTok? No. Is that something that, Why do people do that? What is that stylistic thing?

Stephen Pope (7m 58s):
Well it does, it does help. So like, these are all, like, I I, what I like to tell people is like if you try to achieve all that in the beginning, it can be overwhelming. So I just, those are all micro improvements that you can make, right? So if you get, if you just get on camera and go, right, there are a lot of tools that will make that stuff easier and the more little things that are popping up and keeping people’s interest, but you know, it’s probably going algorithmically it probably will help. But the, the, the main currency is still the good content, right? So I think people have to keep a perspective. It’s like, what’s gonna get you the biggest bang for the buck at your current level?

Stephen Pope (8m 40s):
It’s not gonna be all the emojis and stuff. Like, you put a bunch of emojis on like a bunch, like a really bad video, it’s not gonna help it. You know what I mean? Yeah. So you have to just, you have to have the sense and the awareness to like prioritize what you need to do. And if you, you’ve never made a video, well you gotta make a good video first, and then if you get good at that, then you can sprinkle in all that stuff. Cuz you’ve probably seen like, like somebody where it’s like a real, like they’re really awkward on camera, but like all the bells and whistles are there and it, it’s almost kind of like, wait a minute, this something’s some

Den Lennie (9m 16s):
Well is that you can’t polish a turn, right?

Stephen Pope (9m 21s):
Something’s not quite right here. Like the, the video quality is off the charts, but like, this person can’t like say a word yet. So like, it’s just priorities.

Den Lennie (9m 31s):
And how do you, someone like who’s just starting out, I mean, I, I’m pretty comfortable just getting on camera and, and talking and uploading. How do you, how do you get discovered on TikTok? How does, how does your content on the stop the topic that you’re specializing in get in front of the right audience? Is, is a question of hashtags. Do you, how do you, how do you get that content in front of, or is it, is it analyzing the content and kind of transcribing it and then pushing it out to, to the

Stephen Pope (9m 59s):
Audience? It’s more about like who ends up watching it, right? And so how do you get the right person to watch it? Like you, you call them out,

Den Lennie (10m 8s):
Right?

Stephen Pope (10m 9s):
So it’s just like, are you a plumber? Well, like plumbers are gonna stop for at least the second. Yeah. Are you a consultant? Are you a are you a six figure consultant? Are you a seven figure consultant? You know, so like you just target it right? With your words and like the watch time is going to be, their algorithm is good enough, it’s gonna start to like, it’s gonna, they, I I’m their algorithm’s gonna put you in a pool, you know, and like start to learn how to do that. Yes. So it’s literally just calling these people out. I mean there’s probably like hashtags and other things, but I think those are like secondary. So like if you, you asked me if I’m starting out, starting out priority, call the person out.

Stephen Pope (10m 53s):
Who are you talking to? Do you wanna make a million dollars? Do you wanna make $10 million if you make $10 million? And I said, Do you wanna make a million? If you already make a million, you’re not gonna watch. Cuz you’re like, I already do that. Right? Yeah.

Den Lennie (11m 5s):
Right, right. Interesting. So now let’s move on to, you know, so we, now we’ve got, we’ve got a bit of an insight to tick, most of us think understand how LinkedIn works, but, but what impressed me is, is how omnipresent you are across all channels. And, and you were sharing with me how you do that. I wonder if you might talk a little bit about, and I guess it’s where your, your engineering and backgrounds and how do you, how do you build this to work at scale? Yeah. Without employing 10 people.

Stephen Pope (11m 39s):
Yeah. And so mentally you want to, you wanna break it down by the creation process, the repurposing process and the distribution process and then your team. So there’s like four things. And regardless if you’re using technology, you wanna optimize those four things regardless, right? Like with systems and frameworks, even if you’re doing it on a piece of paper, like at each one of those phases, you wanted to have it dialed in. So if I go on a podcast or, or because you wanna make the content creation process easy, you want to, you wanna be able to record easily and you want that content to be positioned in such a way that it can be repurposed very easily.

Stephen Pope (12m 23s):
So sometimes people start, start a podcast and they find themselves not talking a lot. Well that’s not gonna make it easy for you to make clips from it. So number one, just theoretically, and like practically the recording process has to be simple and thoughtful and like, I’m sure you’re the same, I think you even showed it to me, but I just hit one button and the whole thing pops on, right? Yeah. So little things like that. Yeah. And then what happens as I start to step through this, if I start to then layer on the engineering technology part is that right after the creation process is done, it’s recorded. Like you wanna start to be able to keep everything really tightly organized.

Stephen Pope (13m 7s):
And so for me, the way I did that is that as soon as I have any kind of recording, whether it’s a, a video or a collection of videos, like a folder of videos, I drop it into Google Drive and my system pulls that in, immediately gives it an id, it creates all the folders and the structure around that. And then essentially it’s a row and a database. The database happens to be Airtable. So right out of the gate right now, I’m like, I just finished recording and now I have a, a way to now facilitate the organization of whatever’s gonna happen.

Stephen Pope (13m 47s):
And there’s a bunch of things that will happen. But like now I’m, I’m just in the best place possible. Whereas like a lot of people, Cause here’s what happens if you don’t do that, you’re, you’re, you’re either gonna do all that manually and most people will just give up on that at some point they’ll get lazy. And so then all the other processes down the line start to break down or you, or you do that, but you just don’t have it quite as systematized. So you can’t do all the like, the really cool things. Like in that same process I’ll, I’ll grab the meta data around the video, like width and height and all those things, which I can do more interesting things with.

Stephen Pope (14m 30s):
But that’s the beginning of the creation process. And then whether or not you have questions here, I can kind of just continue to go down that, those other four kind of pillars of the content creation process.

Den Lennie (14m 43s):
Yeah, I mean I think this is interesting because, you know, for filmmakers who are watching this or listening to this, they’re used to creating content and they’ve got post production workflows, for the client work they do.

Stephen Pope (14m 54s):
I’ve seen.

Den Lennie (14m 55s):
But I think it’s really helpful to understand the steps that you’re, you’re implementing to be omnipresent.

Stephen Pope (15m 1s):
Yeah. And I’ve seen those too. Like I’m connected with several videographers and photographers solely because they showed me like, they’re like, Here’s what you do, and they create all these folders and I’m like, that’s what I do, but I do it automatically. Yeah. So, so then, then the next piece is like, okay, so now that it’s categorized, now we go into repurposing. So where a lot of people go wrong is that because they don’t have it systemized because when they create the content, they didn’t really think about how is this gonna get repurposed? It’s like every time the the next video comes, it’s like, okay, now what do we do with it? And so they’re always reinventing the wheel. And so what ends up happening is they have this big, they sometimes people come, I’ve got 40 videos that I’ve never done anything with.

Stephen Pope (15m 45s):
And that’s what happens, right? Yeah. Because you never had a system to like, okay, what are we literally gonna do with this? Because as soon as a video comes in, you wanna attack it and get it done and get it out the door, or you just develop this backlog that never gets touched. So I developed this concept of a playbook, which is with this type of content, if it’s a podcast, what are all the things that need to get done, like in, in, in great detail. Like, okay, I’m gonna send it to my newsletter. I’m gonna publish it to YouTube. I mean, when I say it out loud, it sounds very simple, but like, just making sure that you’re outlining these things.

Stephen Pope (16m 25s):
And then like, so for instance, like if I do a YouTube video, I’ll turn it into a square for LinkedIn cuz LinkedIn is a square platform. So I’ve got a guideline that tells my video editor what to do and he’s gotta like, he’s gotta think a little bit when he does that, right? Because something might be off on the, the side. Yeah. Right. So it’s articulating in great detail what needs to happen. It’s like a playbook, right? Like this happened, now let’s run the play on this and execute all of visa’s tasks and what are in, in granular detail what needs to happen. And so my system will create, essentially will create all those tasks from that and will give places for people to put this content when it’s ready.

Stephen Pope (17m 11s):
So it’s, it’s creating the little container and telling somebody exactly where to put the, where to put the video and the con like, so like my video editor doesn’t have to think, he’s like, Oh, I need that square video and when I’m done with it, I’m gonna drop it right here. And that’s,

Den Lennie (17m 27s):
And it removes the ambiguity. So in this, for anyone who’s watching this when it’s on YouTube, we are recording this in a 16 by nine frame, side by side to turn this into square. There’s a number of ways you can do that, right? And what you don’t wanna do is have an editor say, Well, I’ll do it the way I think I would do it. You wanna have a system that says, this is how we do things around here. So you’ve got that consistency.

Stephen Pope (17m 50s):
Yeah. And the, like, the ambiguity is the biggest thing, right? Because you don’t like, the ambiguity is a rock in your shoe. That’s the best way I can put it. And you’re not gonna go hiking if you have a rock in your shoe. So if, if you wanna have a tight process where your, your podcast is going out every week and then a bunch of things happen in between that you can’t have like a thousand rocks in your shoe. So the ambiguity is a deal breaker in your, in your flow because people are just gonna get annoyed. Like, you’re gonna email your editor and you, and you’re gonna be like, Hey, you, you were supposed to put it in this folder. And he’ll be like, You didn’t tell me that. And you’ll be like, Yeah, I did. I told you that. Yeah. And then he’s getting annoyed at you because you’re kind of just being annoying.

Stephen Pope (18m 34s):
Like you may, maybe you did tell him that, but like, it’s not reasonable to think that people are gonna perform in this like, high performance workflow if it’s not a high performing workflow. Right. So I’ve been in that process with my video editor a million times where I was like, Dude, I told you like you’re supposed to do it like this. And so instead of getting mad at him, I was like, well, I’m just gonna design this so that never happens again. Yeah. And make it so dead simple for him that he actually enjoys working with me. Yeah. Because if you have a good editor, you don’t wanna lose him because you’re trying to scale to like the moon, right? That’s right. It’s your job. Not only you’re, you, you want a bunch of content, but you also want people to enjoy working with you.

Stephen Pope (19m 17s):
So it’s like a, it’s like optimizing this flow is like how you’re actually gonna achieve that level of scale without going mad yourself and without pissing everybody off on your team

Den Lennie (19m 27s):
And, and, and, and ev and in every engagement situation with a team member when there’s a problem of which they’re always countless and you blame the system, not the person. Because as the business owner and the extreme ownership embracing that notion that it’s all on us Yeah. Is that we haven’t, you know, sometimes what we say is not what people hear, Right. And what a system does is it articulates an an instructional format, this is how it’s done, and here’s the example of what done looks like. And it makes it much easier for everyone because no one has to do any thinking and the brain is lazy. The brain doesn’t wanna try and figure out how to make something work. The brain wants to go and do step one and then step two and then step three and four and five and then that’s it.

Den Lennie (20m 9s):
Done move on to the next one. So, so that’s the, the, the part where you’re, you know, creating all the different formats and then I’m guessing it, it then allows the edit to put them in certain places. And then I’m guessing the final stage is, is the distribution part. How does, how does that look?

Stephen Pope (20m 25s):
Yeah, so there’s the distribution part, but one cool thing about the repurposing is that, so there’s a couple of added benefits to the organization is that number one, as a video comes in, I automatically transcribe it. So like if I do a TikTok video, it transcribes it, puts it into a document, which then a copywriter can go through and create a text post out of it. And then that can also take that text post and inject it into a template that creates like those really cool looking carousels. So I get too added. I get now, I now, now, besides just hyper organization and making people’s life easier, I just created two assets that didn’t exist before that now are gonna like, go out on LinkedIn.

Stephen Pope (21m 7s):
Like pretty much like without me having to think too much about it. And then because I’m super organized, everything is like in this. So if you imagine in this system, everything is linked. The, the image, the file, the media, the image, I have metadata around these things. I know what, what piece is done or not done. I have published dates, I have titles. So when we move into this next phase, which is distribution in that repurposing phase, when I applied a playbook, part of that playbook is also where does this go? And so the system also keeps track of channels and brands.

Stephen Pope (21m 48s):
So I know like, like down to like the very, like there’s the den LinkedIn page, but then you have, you might have a company page. And so all of these playbooks are literally pushing content to these places. And so now either, whether it’s somebody manually posting it because the platform requires that, or integrating with a, I have this, there’s a platform called air share, which is basically a buffer.com for Yeah. People like me developers. And so I can just literally from Air table, I can just push the content. I either make it really easy for someone to publish manually because they have to, or I can just push it straight through on the, through one of those automated platforms to just publish the content and nobody had to really think about it.

Stephen Pope (22m 35s):
So yeah. And then, and then I’m also able to pull the analytics back down and because I have all this data around the stuff, I can then start to compare the, the content and I can also do reporting on like how, how well is the machine actually functioning, How much content is literally going out the door? And if it’s not hitting the standard that I want, I can reverse engineer it because I have the data to say is, is the copywriting taking too long? Is the video editing taking too long? Yeah. So it’s, it gives me the ability to just li literally like refine the machine cuz a machine, like sometimes things are going in too fast, some things aren’t, you know, like it’s not as simple as you might think.

Den Lennie (23m 20s):
No. And and in terms of like, I mean team size, what, what would you say is the, the minimum size team and and what are those roles? You mentioned copywriter and editor to cause cause your, your system and I’ve seen it so I know it’s, it’s very involved and does a lot of automation within it. But you still need the, the end, you know, the driver to to, to steer.

Stephen Pope (23m 47s):
I call it manning the machine. Somebody has to like go into Yeah. Somebody has to man it. So, so what my team looks like at this point is there’s me obviously I do most of the recordings. Yeah. I call that the subject matter expert. And then you’re gonna need someone that can man the machine. And that just essentially is like just checking in on it every day. Like what content is out there, what needs an image, what needs copywriting, checking in with those team members. And I, the machine also facilitates a lot of that communication through Slack. Yeah. Like it just tells people what, what’s outstanding. Somebody still needs to pay a little of attention to that though. So you’re gonna need someone to do that.

Stephen Pope (24m 28s):
That’s not really a, that full-time job that, but it’s just a thoughtful, like

Den Lennie (24m 34s):
It’s a daily commitment to –

Stephen Pope (24m 36s):
It’s a daily commitment, 10 to 15 minute check in on the machine and then just putting out the, the notices and just checking in with people. And then I just hired on somebody and I define this role, it’s, I call it content operations. And this is somebody that I hired, I happened to hire this person from the Philippines and they’re gonna be working full time 40 hours a week just pumping out videos for the most part on, on a tool called script. Yeah. Which can people would, if you use script, you know what I’m talking about, you know how cool it is. But a lot of people don’t realize that you can train somebody from not being an editor to a really good editor and not so much time.

Stephen Pope (25m 20s):
Yeah. And that’s what we did. And so they’re gonna be able to pump out really good quality videos that will perform well on places like TikTok and they can also jump into Canva and you know, you know, make thumbnails and stuff for YouTube. They can clean up carousel stuff. So if the automation wasn’t perfect, they can clean up little things, add some post emojis to make it better or like icons Yeah. To do the finishing touches. Right. Cause automation’s always gonna be a little bit like automated, right.

Den Lennie (25m 52s):
It’ll get you, it will be 80% of the way that,

Stephen Pope (25m 54s):
Right. So you gotta have somebody come

Den Lennie (25m 55s):
In it slightly.

Stephen Pope (25m 56s):
Yeah. You gotta have somebody come in and just like put that flare back. And then I have a part-time editor who does probably 20% of the video editing in Adobe to do that high grade stuff that the script just can’t do. So that’s how I, that’s how I do it is like subject matter expert, someone demand the machine, I call it the machine architect so to speak. Then content operations full-time has a variety of skills. Who, when and I, when I looked for that person, I mostly, the, the highest criteria was like, are you passionate around making content? Cause I was like, if you like content in social media, you’ll be able to learn these things, no doubt.

Stephen Pope (26m 36s):
Yeah.

Den Lennie (26m 36s):
They’re gonna be consuming content, therefore they’re gonna be like, Hey, I saw a colors cool thing, let’s, let’s try it here.

Stephen Pope (26m 42s):
Yeah. I was less concerned that they had like specific experience cuz I sometimes, like there’s a lot of old terms that get thrown around like social media manager and these, I don’t even like think that way. Like I don’t want a social media manager, I just want good content and a system to do it. Yeah. Like I, like, I like my, my thinking is like, how do you become a media company? That’s my, the way

Den Lennie (27m 4s):
I think because then, then what what we’re talking about here is, and, and this, this will seem like a big deal for someone who’s not doing any content at the moment, but I think one of the things that we have to preface this with is in any business, once you’ve got rid of the threes, friends, family, and anyone foolish enough to get close enough to, so you can pitch to, you need to go out to a wider market who are cold, who don’t know who you are and don’t care. Right. And there’s two kind of real ways, three wheels to do that. You go and you, you run the streets and you network and you shake as many hands as you possibly can, which is difficult beyond a geographical constraint. The second way is you run paid ads.

Den Lennie (27m 47s):
And paid ads is a, is a commitment with financially and perhaps you up with an agency and you have to, you know, test and get your offer in front of people. But once a paid ad’s been delivered, it’s a numbers game, you’re, you’re, you’re looking at percentage conversions. But once that paid ad’s been shown, it’s kind of dead. There’s no long tail, there’s no lifetime value. Content is a probably a bigger machine to set up, but that content can last for decades. Right. Yeah. I’ve got videos that I made back in 2012 on making a camera work that still get views every single week. So it’s, it’s a, it’s a mindset isn’t it? It it is a different mindset approach to a longer term play.

Den Lennie (28m 30s):
But to build your audience to a point. And, and what I think we’ve discovered is when you have an audience who really trusts you, as long as you’re consistent, they’ll continue to trust you. And then you have this massive opportunity to expose products and services to that audience and convert them into customers.

Stephen Pope (28m 49s):
Yeah. It’s a scalability thing. And like you just end up touching a lot of people over a lot a, a long period of time and yeah, it is a mindset. Like, but that’s why I say it’s like become like have the mindset of becoming a media company. Hmm. You’re an educational force and part, and partly for me, like becoming an educator, helping people and building this out for me is a lot more fun than having a networking plan. Like Yeah. Like, and it’s a lot more scalable

Den Lennie (29m 20s):
And it’s a lot more fun than ads because ads you’re constantly pulling your hair out going, okay, what can we change to try and get a percentage point difference in engagement and result? But I think as Sam said to us during the mastermind, he said, you know, running ads is like you’re scrolling through your feed and someone interrupts you to try and sell you something. Whereas with content, you’re scrolling through your feed and you see some content which you find helpful, interesting, engaging. So you scroll and you watch it, you’re actually, you’re actually not interrupting someone’s reason for being there. Exactly. And, and it’s, it’s something that I’m fascinated by. Cause I actually, I enjoy creating content.

Den Lennie (30m 1s):
It’s way more than I do writing ads or, or or networking.

Stephen Pope (30m 6s):
Yeah. I mean I think that’s the thing is like, we’re like, we’re all kind of creators in a way. We have these ideas and that’s the way I look at it too is like, I was just like, this is gonna be more fun. And so like what I tell other people is like, luckily I had, luckily I just was like, if somebody, if I see that person doing it, I know I can do it. Yeah. And I, and I just went with it. So what I tell people is just like, have a belief that this will work and just really go for it cuz it is the best way to build your business. And if you have the right mindset, if you think long term you will get short term benefits.

Den Lennie (30m 46s):
And something that I’ve found, and we didn’t talk about this last week, but when it comes to TikTok, you’ve had some pretty insane numbers Yeah. Watching your ticks. Yeah. I mean, talk to me about that.

Stephen Pope (30m 57s):
Yeah, so I mean I’ve had, you know, videos that have three, 400,000 do or 300,000 views and, and that’s actually low for TikTok. So like, you know, people that are really experienced with TikTok be like, that’s it. You know, like, but to me I was like, that’s a lot. And so, and I, and I, I get large numbers on a variety of types of videos. Like even from like podcast clips and stuff, it’s all just that, that art and how you clip up the clip. Like, can you pull the context, can you pull the value, can you pull the energy into these clips? And yeah, so I mean, you know, and I, you know, I have like 34,000 followers or something like that. And the best thing about it is just like the people that do follow me and interact with me, they’re just, we’re very aligned, you know?

Stephen Pope (31m 43s):
And, and I, you know, and I can tell because I also have a lot of people on there that’ll be like, whoa, like that what you’re doing is crazy. That’s overwhelming. I would never do that. That’s ridiculous. So when you, when you start to see that polarizing kind of behavior, I think that’s actually a really good sign on social media because you know now that like you, it’s hard to stand out if you’re not saying something polarizing.

Den Lennie (32m 7s):
Yes.

Stephen Pope (32m 8s):
I don’t mean, you know.

Den Lennie (32m 8s):
Yeah.

Stephen Pope (32m 9s):
And I don’t mean, like mean guess controversial, but like polarizing just means you have a stance, right? Because if you go out and you copy what other people are saying, like that’s the fastest way to blend in. Like you have to be the elephant in the room to have a good marketing positioning.

Den Lennie (32m 28s):
A friend of mine, a friend of my wife’s actually married to the chairman of Satchi and Satchi in London and we were together some time having, having lunch and we were talking about Twitter and this was probably 10 years ago and we, I had more Twitter followers than him and he was, we were having a bit of kind of fun with it and I said, Oh I just, I can’t really figure it out Twitter. And he said, then just take a stance. Yeah. It’s good to polarize people. And, and I think that’s something that really stuck with me when you do take a stance and I think it’s, it’s a balance between, you don’t need to be a shock jock. No. But you can take a stance and that will create a, a nice balance of people who love what you’re saying and people who disagree with what you’re saying.

Den Lennie (33m 13s):
And I think that is, you say, makes you stand out and, and something that, you know, for the filmmaking world, you know, I, I don’t want people watching this or listening to this to think they’ve gotta suddenly become this like shock jock DJ in like, you know, controversial create controversy. But it’s, it’s like your way of doing things may not be the standard way, but if you’re willing to stand up and talk about it, you’ll find people who will be with you, drawn to you and you’ll repel others. And and that’s really healthy.

Stephen Pope (33m 44s):
Yeah. Yeah, exactly. I think you are, most people already have it, They already have the topic, but they probably, when they go to talk about it, they soften it or they dilute it because they haven’t seen somebody else say it so that they’re not, they don’t feel validated yet. So you already have it, just say what’s on your mind like without the filter. Cuz you probably already have a lot of those ideas.

Den Lennie (34m 11s):
Definitely. Stephen, this is so, so interesting.

Stephen Pope (34m 15s):
This is fun.

Den Lennie (34m 16s):
Where, you know, we’ve talked a bit about the platform that you’ve created. How can people connect with you? What’s the best way for them to do that if they wanna learn more about that?

Stephen Pope (34m 28s):
Yeah, so you could check me out on YouTube or TikTok and if you, if you go to google.com and you just type Stephen with a PH G P,O,P,E. I’m pretty sure my TikTok and my YouTube will pop up. That’s the best way to just like get a bunch more content about the stuff we’re talking about. Like, quite literally I’m like showing people how to build these frameworks and the technology and then from there if you, if you really want to talk with me, you can either drop a comment on the content, I respond myself. Or if you’re like, this is, I want to actually talk to you, there’s a place that you could from either one of those channels to like book a call and we can chat and talk about like if it makes sense to work together or not.

Den Lennie (35m 8s):
That’s very, very cool. Well, may it was, it was an absolute pleasure meeting you at that event.

Stephen Pope (35m 12s):
I’m glad we did.

Den Lennie (35m 14s):
And this is awesome and I’d love to come back and revisit this cause I think, I think this is a topic that’s not gonna go away is only gonna evolve and you’re, you’re like the Gary Vee of this, of this, of this genres. So I feel very fortunate that we get a chance to tap in and ask you things directly.

Stephen Pope (35m 29s):
Well, I appreciate that and I and as a testament to how content works is that, I like the fact that, that you say that means that the content can work, right? Cause like I’m going down a path and people are starting to say those things. Like when you hear people repeating back to you the things that you’re saying, you know that it’s sticking. And that’s why, like you mentioned, the keeping to your pillars, that’s important. Cause if you talk about everything, people won’t know how to identify you.

You’ve been listening to the Video Business Accelerator podcast with your host, Den Lennie. If you are a video business owner who is tired of going it alone and would benefit from mentorship, support and weekly accountability, then mouse over to www.videobusinessaccelerator.com to learn more about how the accelerator program can help you today. Don’t forget to subscribe and rate the show over on iTunes and we’d really appreciate you taking a few minutes to leave a review.