#110: The Art of Capturing Live Content

Episode: 110

Title: Norman Farrar introduces Cassandra Craven, a Social Media Maven, an Influencer, Content Creator and Acts as the Liaison Officer in Facebook Groups of Helium 10.

Subtitle: Why Go Live?

Final Show Link: https://lunchwithnorm.com/episode-110-the-art-of-capturing-live-content-w-cassandra-craven/

In this episode of Lunch With Norm…, Norman Farrar introduces Cassandra Craven, a Social Media Maven, an Influencer, Content Creator and Acts as the Liaison Officer in Facebook Groups of Helium 10.

Cassandra is a social media maven. In this episode, she talks about the benefits of going live and how it can help businesses become an authority in their field.

If you are a new listener to Lunch With Norm… we would love to hear from you. Please visit our Facebook Page and join in on episode discussion or simply let us know what you think of the episode!

In this episode, we discuss:

• 2:30 : Cassandra Craven is Here!
• 7:34 : How To Make The Most Spontaneous Live Content
• 10:22 : How To Prepare Going Live
• 12:58 : Why Go Live?
• 16:48 : Going Live On Clubhouse
• 23:48 : Scheduling Live Content
• 26:37 : Repurposing Live Content
• 33:12 : Why Should Amazon Sellers Go Live?
• 38:59 : Best Platform For Beginners To Go Live
• 44:20 : Making Consistent and Quality Content
• 49:09 : Biggest Concerns When Going Live
• 51:20 : Starting An Online Community
• 53:50 : Ideal Live Duration

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Explore these Resources

In this episode, we mentioned the following resources:

• https://www.helium10.com/
• cassandra.c@helium10.com
• https://www.facebook.com/cassandracravenr|
• https://www.facebook.com/Helium10Software
• https://www.instagram.com/cassandra_craven
• https://www.instagram.com/helium10software/Clubhouse 
• TACoS Tuesday with Vince Montero
• Helium 10
• repurpose.io
• Digital Blacksmith
• AMPM Podcast
• Canva
• Ask the Public
• Tube Buddy

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Norman  0:01  

Hey everyone, it’s Norman Farrar, a.k.a The Beard Guy here and welcome to another Lunch with Norm, The Rise of the Micro Brands.

Norman  0:19  

Okay. So on today’s episode, we are having Helium 10s very own Cassandra Craven and we’ll be talking about the power of going live. Now, this is going to be cool because we’re going to be talking about the do’s, the don’ts and everything in between. I can tell you, I’ve probably done everything in between and most of the don’ts, including pens in the beard, toothpaste in my lips, but you just gotta get through it. You can only go into the fetal position so many times. Anyway, Kelsey, where are you?

Kelsey 0:56  

Do you like the new setup I got?

Norman  0:58  

I liked the new setup. You look kind of stressed though. 

Kelsey 1:03  

Just a little bit. I have quite the last five minutes of power outages and yeah, getting kicked off of the streaming service we have here but that’s what it’s going live is all about. Right?

Norman  1:16  

But you made it and you know what? Isn’t that fitting for today’s topic?

Kelsey 1:21  

It is. Yeah. My laptop is on a microwave right now.

Norman  1:25  

In a microwave. That’s good. Fantastic. Yep and you were completely dark a couple of minutes ago. But yeah, you pulled through good for you and that’s perfect for today. But before we get to that, remember your job?

Kelsey 1:41  

Like those smash or.

Norman  1:43  

Like them smashes

Kelsey 1:45  

Smash those like buttons.

Norman  1:48  

Bell the ring.

Kelsey 1:51  

You guys know what to do. Welcome guys. Give me some likes. Give me some sympathy likes please. Join our Facebook group. Amazon FBA & eCommerce collective and yeah, I’m just out of it. I’m so sick.

Norman  2:11  

Have a coffee.

Kelsey 2:13  

That’s a little dude.

Norman  2:14  

There’s a corner over there. Have a timeout. Yeah. All right. So if you have any questions, just throw them over into the right and we’ll get to them. I can’t wait to talk to Cassandra. So let’s sit back, relax, grab that cup of coffee and enjoy the podcast.

Cassandra 2:30  

Hi Norm.

Norman 2:31

Hey.

Cassandra 2:37  

I always crack up backstage, I feel like maybe you need like, some behind the scenes or something like a react video while you and Kelsey are like.

Norman  2:47  

That was funny. Oh my god.

Cassandra 2:49  

Oh, good. I feel like this is perfect, this couldn’t have worked out better. I do think that the power outage for Kelsey, he was so strategic he planned this out the day we’re talking about live content on a live stream. He’s a genius.

Norman  3:06  

He logged himself out by accident of Stream Yard. So two minutes before this was going to happen. It wasn’t gonna happen.

Cassandra 3:16  

But we made it happen. See, that’s the art of the live. You always come through, you make it happen. I think we’ve learned Norm, it’s been a year now. Right? We really mastered this art of anything can happen on a live stream at this point.

Norman  3:33  

Oh, yeah. Yeah and I mean, it could be anything from just a simple brain fart, just you’re in the middle of something and what did I just say? Or a dog coming in, or, and this has happened, the light tipping over, because my dog is leaning up against it and all sorts of things can happen. So I think this is gonna be a really fun topic. I know you’re ready for anything.

Cassandra 4:00  

I know. You guys don’t know either. Like, ah, yeah, behind the scenes. I’m always just kind of like Oh, I got this and we’re on.

Norman  4:10  

There we go.

Cassandra 4:12  

 It comes off looking polished for the most part. But I think that sometimes our lives, our lunches, have gotten better. But also far more off the cuff. I think we’re far more structured and less structured than we were maybe six months ago.

Norman  4:32  

Oh man, I can’t even look at the first podcast. So

Cassandra 4:38  

Like, we just go now and I think it’s much better content. I think we’re just laughing. It’s a genuine conversation. Yeah, I could talk to you about anything.

Norman  4:47  

Yeah, I mean, it’s just easy. It’s relaxed, it’s more casual and it’s hard because, let’s talk about live. The very first thing at least for me, I really am a true introvert and for me to come out and to Oh, yeah, I am and for me to like either talk on stage or to do this, talk to Kelsey, like, I literally had to take stage fright pills. I think it’s called propylene or something like that.

Cassandra 5:20  

I thought it’s like a euphemism for something.

Norman  5:23  

Yeah, crack works.

Cassandra 5:29  

You open the door for that one. Okay.

Norman  5:32  

I was so nervous that I literally had this bottle that I took 45 minutes before because I got that nervous. Well, for sure, especially for public speaking. Like, I hated it. Now, it’s a lot more, it’s a lot easier. But the fear was just going public and screwing up and well, that happens. Yeah and what I found was a lot of people like, that’s what they expect. If it’s too scripted, it’s just a script. Right?

Cassandra 6:08  

Yeah, I feel that I messed up more when I tried to, like adhere to notes, or really be structured or follow this cue or make sure I say this, it kind of I think any in person or even just virtual live stream has always gone better when I just know, okay, these are my talking points, go with it. Be conversational and if you mess up, you mess up and laugh about it. You know what I mean? It’s the moment you try to like, it’s almost like if you take yourself too seriously, you’re setting yourself up for failure. But I think it is also very interesting. I’m not, but I’ve met so many people in our industry, especially those who say they’re introverts and we’re so nervous about going on stage or even doing live chats and now, everyone I talked to is like, we’re all naturals. I mean, you could put us on the morning news, if we wanted to. I do really believe that. I think we’re all so good now, and we watch our cues and everything. It’s like, put me on NBC or something.

Norman  7:15  

Melissa Simonson is another real big introvert and yeah, that’s hard to believe.

Cassandra 7:20  

Yeah.

Norman  7:21  

Yeah. So she covers it up really good. All right. So let’s talk about this live stream content thing. So how do you make the most out of spontaneous live content?

Cassandra 7:34  

Oh my goodness. Well, I really think there is no formula that you have to follow. I think it’s kind of about following your niche and I think Norm you are, I’ve always said this, you’re a trailblazer, you’re a great example of this. You leaned into who you are, what you’re all about, you got healthy and it works and it’s authentic and I think that’s what people first and foremost need to bring to the table when they’re going live. I also think that you need something that’s going to stand out, you leaned into branding, you have your color scheme, you have Lunch with Norm, you’ve got a tagline. I mean, you’re also very attractive, so anyone’s gonna stop.

Norman  8:15  

Tell me more.

Cassandra 8:19  

A good looking man behind the camera doesn’t hurt, but you have a look, you have something synonymous with your brand and people know, they know what they’re getting into. But they’re also intrigued to learn more, and you’re always keeping people interested and I think especially now like we said, We’re going I mean, we’re almost through our quarantine anniversary coming up here and I think the quality is you mentioned earlier of live streams that everyone’s done has just gone exponentially better. We’ve just gotten so much better. Quality is there, we know the drill, you know when to bring some comments on board, highlight those during the live stream, etc and I’m kind of putting out a lot of feelers that we can touch on moving forward, but also coming up with something unique. Like I think, for a while there, we all were kind of looking the same and it was kind of like okay, yeah the same people were talking and it’s over and over again, but coming up with like a unique, I say it’s thumb stopper, something to stop the scroll, something to get you intrigued. What are you doing, whether that’s turning it into some sort of game show, or gamifying. You guys have the giveaways, things like that. I think leaning into something new and unique is always beneficial.

Norman  9:40  

Right. So I’m kind of curious, because a lot of the times when you come on, we might say okay, Cassandra, what would you like to talk about? You might send over a talking point or two, but for the most part, it is 100% just talking. How do you prepare for talking about what we talked about last time? I forget. But if we’re talking about the new trends of 2021. All right, I think that’s what it was. Okay, you only know so much you don’t know what I’m going to come at you with, we don’t know what rabbit hole. So how do you prepare for something like that?

Cassandra 10:22  

Well first of all, knowing that you have a good interviewer is always reassuring and comforting. So because I know it’s you, I know that we have a good conversation, we can kind of rip off each other. So right there, I feel like 50% of the work is already done. You feel comfortable with who you’re speaking with, we have a good rapport and all that happens even before the livestream so that’s already something we need to check off your boxes in general. But when it comes down to getting the cold, hard facts, as much as an expert as I am Norm, there are still things I mean, and I’m pretty perfect, but there are some things I don’t know, I’ll be honest. So yes, research is key, especially with social media I’ve mentioned I go to social media today is kind of my social media guidebook slash updated Bible, if you will, in real time and I always am looking for what are the trends, what’s changing, what’s going on with algorithms, what are the experts talking about, and then especially as you’re going through more research, seeing what more than one publication is talking about. So if I’m seeing Facebook on the back end there Instagram blog, plus Forbes, and technology today, etc. Talking about, oh live streaming video is going to be the next big thing or gamifying your apps or whatever it may be, when I start seeing that recurring theme happening across the board, from tastemakers if you will, that’s when I know, okay, gotta bring this to the forefront and even if it doesn’t necessarily, it may be just the prediction, even if it doesn’t pan out, it’s good to know that that’s kind of the think tank of where these industry insiders are taking it, this is what they’re already kind of leaning into. If it’s holograms or AR, whatever it may be. You can kind of deduce that that’s what people are thinking of on the back end, and where, if it’s not this year, it may be next year or beyond. So something to kind of just get in the mindset, you got to get in the mindset of what the big brands are doing, the big companies, big tech, and how it relates to your brand and what you can prepare for.

Norman  12:34  

So even if we go back one step, we’ve got service providers, probably the majority of the people on here are private label sellers, the micro brands, and then Shopify, or online sellers. Why go live?

Cassandra 12:53  

Well, first of all, why not?

Norman  12:55  

There we go.

Cassandra 12:58  

I get that also, that’s kind of come up a lot of people saying, Oh like, we were just talking about, I’m not an on camera person, I’m a behind the scenes person, I run my brand. Maybe that’s why in some of our previous conversations Norm, people have leaned into influencers and bloggers and things like that, because they’re just like, hmm, no, no, I just want to run my business and be behind the screen and call today. But I really think it reinforces a community bond. I think it keeps people on like you mentioned on their toes, they’re seeing something spontaneous, they don’t know what’s about to happen, for the most part, and you’re getting some very genuine, authentic conversation. I think, like I said, we’re a great example of that. We have some bullet points, but we’re just kind of talking off the cuff and really sharing our insight and our detail. We also mentioned last time Clubhouse obviously is taken off like crazy, but that’s part of it. People just kind of chatter and say what’s on their mind and their insight and what they know and how they can apply it to their brands, or what they’ve learned from other insiders in the industry and what they’ve done in the past as well and how it’s worked for them.

Norman  14:11  

Going live, it was just kind of okay, hit that on button and go but what I’m finding is Clubhouse is really a stepping stone to that. Because first of all, you don’t have to go live on video. I know second of all the big, like Paul comes on with me because I’m not a great moderator at all. So like I’ll get him into a Clubhouse meeting and go Hey Paul, you have the moderator you want to take care of all this and he’ll do that and then you can add other people. So now, it really does take the pressure off. Like I don’t have a live talk just talking. I really suck at just talking. Having you here, I put all that pressure on you.

Cassandra 15:03  

This is all surprising to me though Norm, because you’re like the person I love to talk to you, you’re such a good conversationalist.

Norman  15:09  

Well, I like talking to people. But like, if this was just a one, like just me talking, yeah look, I talk enough to myself, I confused myself. So

Cassandra 15:26  

Let me ask you something because I kind of, this what I’ve done, live streams with Danny and things like that as well and Danny McMillan shout out to you, is that I wonder and I’ve asked Karen Thomas also at Helium 10, kind of similar things, like kind of just getting insight is I’m always thinking, Oh, people don’t want to hear me like you just said yammering on, you know what I mean? Maybe they want a short and concise answer, or let’s move on to the next. I try to be brevity is kind of my thing. But then I found that especially the interviewers, it’s like they’re looking for more me, if you will, they’re kind of like, No, no, please keep going. Keep talking. I’m with and then when I’ve been on the flip side of it. We recently did an in house promotion for Branded by Women and we had Athena on, we had Isabella and we had Anne Ferris and as well as being Karen and it was kind of nice. We did like a full hour and I was like, Oh man, there’s four or five other girls on here and a lot of the pressure was off me like and none of us we all kind of had this minimal timeframe of speaking. You didn’t have to feel this, like you needed to fill up an hour. Yeah and I kind of forgot, like, oh, when you’re on the flip side of it. Yeah. Like you said, the pressures on the person you’re interviewing, not you.

Norman  16:48  

So I don’t mind that at all. But again, going back to Clubhouse, it really is a really great like, if there’s anybody listening, and you only want to do audio, if that helps you out or like we’ve asked many times, Hey, Would anybody like to join us live? Do you have a question? We’ve had a few people come on, but for the most part people rather chat, and that’s fine. In Clubhouse, you kind of go that one step. You’re not on video, you’re on audio, there’s lots of people in the audience, for me, Hey, if I mess up a question or something, then nobody can see me. If I mess it up here, people see my face, people see my reaction, that could be a deterrent. But that being said, I can only and I said this, when this first started the very first podcast we had, we were late, we couldn’t get things going and I literally was in the corner in a fetal position and always like shaking back and forth. Oh my god, what do we have to do? Kelsey, Hayden, get this thing up and running. Now if we don’t if we’re running late, a minute or two late it’s okay. Well, we’re running a minute too late. We’re doing this, we’re doing that, oh, this has happened. Oh, we’ve had a block up Oh, my internet the other day went out. Things happen and it’s not that hard. But it also helps you so much to promote your brand. Clubhouse, nobody’s really doing this on Clubhouse yet. So if you’ve got a great product, why not become the authority and start to build the following and drive traffic from Facebook over to Clubhouse and become that. If you’ve got cooking utensils, get chefs on talking about great recipes. If you’re selling hot sauce, talk to people who love hot sauce. That’s how the whole hot hot hot hedonism started, right? They were just interviewing people that loved hot sauce.

Cassandra 18:46  

Norm, you always have a great branding and PR perspective. I always love hearing you like your ideas about this and that’s just off the top of your head and I just thought it’s so true. It’s so good. I completely agree with you. You definitely want to get that traffic going and then I think it’s also some things, even your suggestions right now. I’ve met people who are kind of like, Oh my gosh, I never thought about that and I think sometimes it is a niche like of how you think and how you can promote your brand and how you promote yourself.

Norman  19:14  

Once you start promoting or marketing, you start thinking that way. It’s a thought process, right? It’s like anything is like putting together an SOP. You can put together an SOP or you can put together a policy, which explains the SOP. That’s the difference and that’s all it is. Right? So and again let’s go back to that brand, if you’re going live, and Kelsey taught me this. So Kelsey said, Oh take a picture of your breakfast. Who wants to see my breakfast?

Cassandra 19:51  

Everyone. I wait for it every day. If you don’t post it Norm, I’m assuming you didn’t have breakfast.

Norman  19:58  

There we go, or the desk and again, it’s not me but what happens is I really like I’m not that person that likes to say, Oh, I’m a seven figure seller, I’m a six figure seller and that’s not me and I feel like when you when you do that, it’s like, oh, you’re either you’ve got this huge ego, or you’re bragging, or you’re arrogant, or you’re something and you’ve got to erase that for social media. 

Cassandra  20:36  

It’s kind of a bragging culture. It’s kind of the, yes, I would say, especially on Instagram. I would say that’s where that’s really a big lifestyle, look at me, I took a private jet to Miami, or here’s my mansion, or I’m building a pool or something. I don’t know. But I think it’s also I think that’s where aspirational content thrives. Because even if right now, you’re starting out your business and maybe being a six or seven figure seller is completely out of reach. Seeing someone else do it inspires people, and I think they almost want you to go bigger and better. I think that’s even why celebrities have gotten caught a couple times with flashing fake hundreds or something, or caught Oh, that’s not your private jet. You just took that out and found some airport or something. That’s not your Bugatti or something. But I think it is aspirational. I think people still want it, even if it’s almost kind of a, I don’t want to say fake it to make it but I think it’s almost like a not lie to me, but aspirational. I want to be that. I want to see someone living that and I can do it too, whether it’s the next step, or 10 steps away. So I think that’s really powerful, especially on that platform. But I think and recently, I’ve also become quite the TikToker Norm, quite the TikToker and I feel like TikTok went the opposite and it was like, show me your house that’s not, show me your laundry that’s not folded. Show me your bed that’s not made. Show me that you ran out of milk this morning when you were making your cereal or whatever it is, because there’s that relatability of, oh, we’re all the same. There’s certain characteristics that we all share and yes, there’s still that place on that platform as well for the glammed up, hair and makeup is perfect, you’ve nailed the Whoa, or the dance of the Carole Baskin dance or something. I’m probably dating myself, I probably sound like a boomer. But you know what I mean, so there’s a place for it and I think that also comes with live streaming is that keeping it, having an element of production, but also keeping it real, it’s a very fine line and I think that’s what people gravitate towards, they want to see a nice setup. They want to see that you have a quality camera, you’re dressed, whatever it may be, but you’re also just like a real person and you’re just chatting and it’s like a bird’s eye view. It’s that fly on the wall mentality. So I think that’s what people are kind of looking for and it’s kind of a niche, I think it takes some practice to or or it takes a couple rodeos to get it down.

Norman  23:24  

Yeah, it does. There’s all sorts of content that you can go live with, and different platforms, and it’s tough to maintain. So how do you even schedule going on to Instagram, doing a story, going over doing a Facebook Live. Do you have some sort of content schedule that you have that you can kind of manage all of this?

Cassandra 23:48  

Well, I’m gonna plug everyone’s favorite Vince Montero aka Mr. TACoS Tuesday. So join us every other Tuesday, 10am TACoS Tuesday. So that one has really been, I’ll tell you I’m actually very proud of that, though, from a branding perspective, a social media perspective of we really wanted to land to PPC and have recurring content that people know similar to you. Where’s the conversation taking place? That as I’m going through this, I can talk with like minded people and I can talk with an expert and we decided TACoS Tuesday, it’s fun, it’s catchy. Let’s make it a thing. Let’s take it off and what goes into that is I do have content calendars for Helium 10 on the back end. We schedule those out each day I work with our creative team to make sure we have the thumbnails. I’m sure the same is similar to you for promotional content. If we have a guest, we have those ready to go and send out to them as well to promote on their end and we make sure there’s this regular cadence and Vince and I chat about the agenda. He’s obviously the expert Think Tank behind all things PPC for Helium 10. But he’s coming up with, Hey, this is something I’ve seen trending. This is coming up in the market for sellers, they’re gonna want to know more about this, or I’ve seen a lot of questions coming through that people are having problems accessing this or learning how to do this and the steps and he leans into that, and he has chatter, and he connects with the audience. That’s kind of how he warms it up and then he goes into what’s coming up. He goes into a demo, and then he takes questions and I think people like that there’s that recurring format coming through, him and I have also talked about so hopefully, you’ll see soon in the future, doing some Instagram Live as well. I’ve also heard Norm and speaking of going back to how you research for a live chat, I’ve heard Instagram is going to start doing so you can put multiple people on the live as opposed to just like the two split screen and I think that could be really cool. I think that could kind of bring back a reinvigoration of the Instagram Live, if you will and so I’ve seen some cool things on there. So hopefully that’s coming through. I know people can go live on TikTok, I was actually watching one last night. But I didn’t keep, I didn’t stay tuned. I’ll be honest, I was kind of like, yeah, I’m here for TikTok all about the like, okay, entertain me for 15 to 60 seconds and I’m gonna keep going, I want to keep seeing more. So I don’t know that every platform thrives off that. But I’m making sure you have a cadence scheduling, planning accordingly. But then the fun of it is once you’ve kind of checked all your boxes, having people come through and seeing what the spontaneity is, I think that’s where you’re gonna really hook people.

Norman  26:37  

Right. Sometimes you can do this with an influencer. You don’t have to be the person going live. So you could get brand ambassadors that will go out and talk about your product live on your behalf, which is great. You just have to establish that presence and I’d say consistency. So when we started doing this, then Danny was the one that got I’m sitting there going, Oh, like, we’re just doing this for content. He goes No, make it a podcast. I said, Who’s going to listen and he said no, he, like, literally, we turned this on and we started talking and I didn’t know if I was talking to myself. I didn’t know the next time I was talking to myself, people started to come on and it kind of grew from there, which is fantastic. But there is a starting point and that’s zero. Don’t be afraid of zero. It only gets better. Then what you do with this content. So now you are going live, you go live, Facebook, LinkedIn, wherever you want to go live. What do you do afterwards? Well, you repurpose it and you can repurpose this, I’m going to give this a shout out out to repurpose.io. So repurpose.io is an app that we use to just take small clips of what we do and put it on to Instagram or put it on to TikTok or over to YouTube. 

Cassandra 28:11  

I’m taking notes. I’m using that now.

Norman  28:13  

Are you using repurpose.io? 

Cassandra 28:15

Yeah. 

Norman 28:16

They’re awesome and the guy behind it is also a really great guy. So solid product, we’ve been using it, that’s what we use and you get so much content, you don’t know what to do, because remember, just like a post, people don’t see your post. Everybody doesn’t look at a certain time and say, Oh Norm posted. So I’ll repost it, and I’ll repost it, up to about seven times. So there’s only so many things you can post in a queue. But it’s unique content and the rate that at least what I found, is it’s seven times and then forget it and that seven times can be over a period of three months, six months, a year. But as long as we post that information.

Cassandra 29:05  

Yeah. I also think there’s something I mean, similar to like you said, People aren’t gonna see it the first time. I think that’s where placing it in different locations also comes into play. Because you can do an in food, let’s say Instagram, if we promoted Okay, today Lunch with Norm and compose, well based on algorithms and just when people are online and depending on what their schedules are, etc, time zones, maybe they’re not going to see it. But Instagram Stories go right to the top of your feed. People are generally clicking through it kind of goes on from one to the next, there’s a higher likelihood they’re going to see it. So really, even if you’ve already posted it, if you want to say, Hey, if you missed me on Lunch with Norm tune in, here’s the link, or here’s a snippet. Yeah, there’s just a lot of opportunity to repurpose what you have and don’t assume that everyone just because you posted it and hit publish that everyone has seen it and because I see things too oftentime where it’s 24 hours or so delayed and I was like, Oh my gosh, when did this come out, come up when did this happen and yeah, keep putting it out there, especially the highlight reels. I think that’s a good moment, quality quote, tip, strategy tactic etc. Definitely repurpose that and put that out there because there’s a high likelihood that people did not see you the first time, unfortunately. I mean, probably yours, though Norm because you’re a big celebrity. So they probably saw that. Yeah, it was probably like Kim Kardashian, Norman Farrar, that’s how it usually is.

Norman  30:36  

Then Norm the Gnome.

Cassandra 30:39  

He needs to have, like a traveling gnome, or something or like, Where is he today kind of thing? Like, I don’t know, maybe like an elephant type concept? I don’t know. There’s still something for him kind of that we should start getting an Instagram account for him

Norman  30:55  

Got it. Got to do something with them. Yeah. So one of the other things is to set Kels, but because I’m old, and I’ll forget this thought, one of the other things that we can do with live content, and because it’s recorded, you can use it in Amazon live.

Cassandra 31:12  

Exciting.

Norman  31:12  

Yeah. So it’s not live, people like to ask questions, but if you put it up there, you will definitely get people interested and Amazon loves content. What were you gonna say, sir?

Cassandra 31:28

Hi Kelsey.

Kelsey 31:29  

Hello, hello. I was just going to mention our little giveaway today.

Norman  31:33  

Oh, yeah.

Kelsey 31:34  

We kind of forgot about that, I think. So first off, what is the giveaway and are there any restrictions or is it open to everyone?

Cassandra 31:46  

Open to everyone, we’re giving away two Helium 10 t shirts. But I will say Kelsey, and here, I’m throwing you for a loop. If somebody wins a recurring winner, maybe they already have a T shirt, we will pivot and I will speak with the team and get you something new and fresh to show off to all your friends on Instagram. So whether that I don’t know what that may be, actually, I don’t want to say, I don’t know what it might be. But we have alternative swag items as well. But yes, I think that’d be cool. We’ll do it. But if it’s a repeat, we’ll find something else

Kelsey 32:19  

The hashtag that I threw was #go live.

Norman  32:21  

All right, very appropriate

Kelsey 32:23  

We got two people already. So yes, this is open to everyone. So just comment, #go live in the comment section, and we’ll throw you into the Wheel of Kelsey and spin it around.

Norman  32:34  

Wheel of Kelsey

Kelsey 32:38  

I think one of the most important questions that a lot of people here probably gonna have is like, why does an Amazon seller need to go live? Is it just going to be junk? Like, Simon had a comment here? There’s already way too much other junk online. Who the heck wants to see Amazon sellers jabbering on about the stuff three times a week? 

Cassandra 33:04  

We want to see ourselves. I mean, how dare you? We like each other.

Norman  33:08  

So why don’t we start with that one, though Kels?

Kelsey 33:11  

Yeah, for sure.

Cassandra 33:12  

I mean, I think there’s insight to be shared and I mean, that would be my thought my first instinct is, and from what I’ve seen in like, our Facebook groups. People are really wanting to know not Yes, you can google how to sell on Amazon. Yes, you can google how to source a product or whatever it may be. But I think there is a connection in this industry and people like to hear insight, and what are the tips? What are the things they’re doing? What’s something they’re doing that maybe no one else is doing that you can learn from? I think especially Norm with COVID-19, and a lot of people pivoting to the online eCommerce space, there’s a big question mark some people are trying to fast track this, and they don’t know all the insights. So they want to see someone they can relate to who talks the talk and walks the walk, and they can talk with them and listen and learn from the best. So that’s why I would say Amazon sellers should go live, although we’re also a very cool group of people and you should just tune in.

Norman  34:09  

There you go. I agree. One of the other reasons is when people, we’re all about micro brands. Yeah, we’re all micro brands. I was talking in Clubhouse the other day and I said is bulletproof coffee? Are they a micro brand? In my eyes, they are. They’re still a micro brand and micro brand is outside of that corporate looking brand, right? But anyways, you see, you go and you get searched on Amazon. What are people gonna do? They’re gonna click off of Amazon. They’re gonna go over to Google, they’re gonna see if you’re a real brand. How are they going to do that? It’ll be consistency, it’ll be your social media. It’ll be your website. It’ll be any other forms of content, press releases, whatever it is, but at the end of the day, it’s authority and then all of a sudden, you can convince that person that you’re the authority in that niche. They’re going to have trust, and you’re going to get sales and if you don’t have that, they’re going to go to your competitor and I’ll give you an example.

Cassandra 35:16  

Well said, by the way.

Norman  35:17  

Awesome. Thank you so much. But an example would be let’s say your either knives. Okay, knife company, talking to chefs, chefs talking about different types of recipes, you could be a soap company, talking to different soapers around the world, talking about different recipes.

Norman  35:37  

Different sellers. Yeah,

Cassandra 35:41  

I like that. Okay. 

Norman  35:42  

I’m a soaper. I’m a senior soaper.

Cassandra 35:44  

Oh, yeah. Way back in the day. Yeah.

Norman  35:48  

But you could talk about different recipes, what to do, what not to do, safety and Simon, it’s really incredible. But all of a sudden, there’ll be a niche and Wilfried Ligthart, so I used to be a partner with him in Digital Blacksmith and he had these communities and he said, yeah, it’s not tough. Pet community, dog community, Schnauzer community, we had 175,000 people in the Schnauzer community. So now if you want it to St. Bernard’s, but they’re like minded people and that’s what I’m trying to say. If you can get like minded people, a captivated audience talking about and tuning into your brand, you’re halfway there and you can pluck those people to become your brand ambassadors to promote your brand afterwards.

Cassandra 36:44  

Yep, agreed and I love to see Norm, that’s why I always enjoy talking to you because you see a full 360 approach and I think sometimes in our industry, but even outside of our industry, sometimes people only it’s kind of tunnel vision, they see one lane or they see one aspect and you always see a full 360 and so I love everything you said I couldn’t agree more. I’m exactly 100%. 

Norman  37:08  

Well, thank you so much.

Norman  37:11  

Jeez, I wish my teachers agreed with me like that back in high school. Maybe I would have passed the grade. But no, my tests were never that good.

Cassandra 37:20  

I feel like most of the people that became entrepreneurs, though, are the ones that thought outside the box, or maybe weren’t the best students sometimes, those are always the people that are making the big bucks now.

Norman  37:34  

The worst students. So once again, because we’ve got about 20 minutes left. Just want to make sure that #go live and you can get some of that Helium 10 swag. Let’s go on. Simon, did I answer that question? Yeah, now you’re talking about. Okay, got it. Got it. Got it. Alright. Kels, where are you?

Cassandra 37:57  

Hi, Kelsey back.

Kelsey 37:59  

I’m back. Yes. So I also just want to touch on like, I think people think like when we say live that they might think like a podcast or like having this big thing that we’ll do monthly, or weekly, three times a week. Like, that’s not exactly what you’d need to do to do a live, this can be a once a month thing. You can start off as however small you want and kind of work yourself up to whatever you want it to be. This wasn’t supposed to be a podcast, it just kind of ended up a podcast after we’ve found some.

Norman 38:37

Danny.

Cassandra 38:38  

Motivator. We’ll get you to do things you never thought you could or what, so yeah, shout out to Danny.

Kelsey 38:45  

Yeah. So let me see. There was a question about where to start. Okay, thank you. Which platform would you recommend for a beginner to start going live? Tiktok, Facebook, Instagram?

Cassandra 38:59  

I mean, I would definitely say Facebook is your first go to. YouTube, if you have a substantial YouTube following. That’s also a good one. I think Instagram is great because it goes right to the top of the feed. It’s with all the stories. Like I said, I don’t know that TikTok is the best. I think I would do a little more research on that platform. I think there’s, we’ve talked about this before, there’s a great chance of virality on TikTok, but I don’t know if that translates over to live and I think a lot of people who are thriving with live are celebrity focused, they already have a following. But that’s more about the , I would say TikTok is more about pre curated content. Stick to the lives on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, LinkedIn is there too, but I think that depends on your brand and your business and what the topic is that you’re going live for.

Norman  39:57  

Yeah. If you asked me a few weeks ago probably would have been a different answer. But what I would suggest before you go live on anything, get an Instagram account and Kelsey, like my Instagram account last year was a surfboard. Like, that’s what it was. It was like I think a dog or a surfboard and I don’t even surf. But Kelsey came up and he said, Yeah, we got to create a profile and we got to at least fill up one swipe so of content. So we did that. Now, here’s why I’m saying it and this all depends on your brand, by the way, but put it onto Instagram. This is one strategy, have the one swipe so it looks like you’ve got some content there. Then what I was shocked about was go over to Clubhouse, participate in a room, ask a question, or give a comment. We all of a sudden started to see 20,30 people come over, like, odd, like random days and I was saying Kelsey, what’s going on? I have no idea what’s happening with Instagram. Why? Why are we getting so many followers and it turned out whenever you were talking in a Clubhouse room, and people liked you, they went to your profile and they hit Instagram.

Cassandra 41:26  

Genius and that also goes back to normal. You were talking about validity. If you have a quality Instagram, here’s one instance where people are driving back to that channel and now they’re invested in you. Now they’re connected and now they see they’ve heard from you in a live stream in Clubhouse and now they’re seeing the visual and it’s all connecting and coming full circle.

Norman  41:50  

Yeah, it’s really cool. So going back to Clubhouse again, that stepping stone for going live is simple. You can talk about anything.

Cassandra 41:59  

You don’t have to be as fabulous as you and I Norm.

Norman  42:03  

Well, at least you.

Cassandra 42:07  

We need a glam squad every time, you wear makeup for hours. But yeah, it is a quick barrier to entry, like you said there’s not a lot of it’s not as much prep. You can kind of be far more off the cuff things like that. I do have a question for you Norm. I know we’re coming up and Helium 10 got me in these meetings, but I saw something come through. Did you do an AMPM Podcast with our friend Tim Jordan, you and Kelsey?

Norman  42:41  

And Kelsey?

Cassandra 42:43  

I just saw that come through literally before I jumped on here and I want to ask you about it.

Norman  42:50  

Yeah. So Tim reached out and reached out to Kelsey and asked if he wanted to be on the AMPM podcast and all it’s really cool because it’s about working with family, and what’s it like? Man. I don’t know if he meant to, but he kept kicking me between the legs. Like, every question was okay, what about this? What about that and asking Kelsey, what’s your dad’s worst qualities?

Cassandra 43:20  

That’s Tim, I feel like Tim can get away with that. He’s a hard hitting news journalist.

Norman  43:26  

That’s what he is.

Cassandra 43:27  

He’s there for the scoop. He wants the insider dirt.

Norman  43:30  

But it was cool, because it was Kelsey’s first podcast and I wanted to see how he would handle himself and he did a great job.

Cassandra 43:41  

Kelsey;s amazing. I love Kelsey, it’s the smartest thing you could have done, bringing him on and I’m not even saying this cuz I know he’s seeing me on the backend. He’s so smart and healthy props to you for taking this all going even in, not only a pandemic, but power outages. There’s so many things.

Norman  43:57  

Did you hear that? Did you hear that Kelsey?

Cassandra 44:00  

Kelsey, are you there? 

Norman  44:02  

Oh, I heard this pop. I thought it was your head. But thank God you’re here. All right.

Kelsey 44:10

Thank you Cassandra. You’re so kind. 

Cassandra 44:12  

You deserve all this. You’re the next influencer. You’re the next Kylie Jenner Kardashian. Oh, this is the Kardashian family. This is like the industry.

Norman  44:20  

There we go. But you know what? So everybody listening this is exactly what, how do we put this all together? You can think this brand was because we do this with the brand. You don’t have to spend a ton of money. Okay, but we tried to customize everything. So it looked like it was not from $2 an hour people. Now, how do you do that without just fully like 100% customization every day? Well, we created templates to start with and as you can see, if you go to YouTube, they all have a theme, Kelsey came up with a theme. It’s all as the theme. But at least it gives that VA, the certain ability to go out, and just Okay, I’m going to go to Canva, I’m going to do this, here’s the template, it has to be this, it has to be this font, it has to be this type of picture and this is how it’s set up. So it’s consistent and now when you go to YouTube which we repurpose, and we go live, people are on YouTube right now, I can see like Simon’s on YouTube, but that will be repurposed with one of these thumbnails. So it’s all about consistency, but it’s the quality. I can put out a lot of crap on my social media or on my brand, and people are going to perceive that as crap. Yeah

Cassandra 45:45  

This isn’t crap. This is quality, quality right here.

Norman  45:51  

Alright, Kels. Next question.

Kelsey 45:53  

I don’t know if we have one. I guess Simon has this one. So you mean you don’t pitch your product, but you should talk to your audience about them and what their pains are. Right?

Norman  46:05  

Interesting question. Because if you were to talk to Wilfried, he would come back and say, value value, value, you have to get engaged before you get married and once you’re at that point, then you could do almost anything you want. So I would probably, I’m speaking for myself, I would be talking to the chefs about the food, food prep, food safety, whatever that is and as I started to see people and build out that group, then the odd time. There would either be contacting them to see if they want to join the group, personal invite, or you can just promote and it shouldn’t be like, if you look down your timeline, I would not say one and 10 would be a promotion. I mean, it’s got to look unobvious.

Cassandra 47:06  

Yep. Agreed.

Norman  47:09  

Yeah. Any other thoughts on that Cassandra?

Cassandra 47:12  

No, I completely agree. I also think you’re kind of saying you’re not pitching your brand, you’re not on there. It’s really about a conversation, you kind of become synonymous with it. It’s kind of that subconscious intertwined recognizability. So I think we have a lot of people who get on these chats, and they’re chatting about not particularly their product, or what they’re selling, but the injury as a whole. But people know and recognize who they are, what they do and they like you said they become thought leaders. So I always agree, and defer you Norm. 

Norman  47:45  

Oh thank you. I own a few businesses. They’re never promoted, but people have reached out and said, Hey what about this and great if they think that I might know the answer, and we answer when people ask questions, we definitely get back to everybody. But we don’t do any promotion at all.

Cassandra 48:13  

Exactly. Yeah, that’s kind of that recognizability it’s kind of similar, I always gonna bring up celebrities, but like, a Meryl Streep doesn’t really need to campaign or people kind of know it’s one of those, they just kind of have that recognizability and they know what’s going on and I think it’s more about you, leveraging yourself and representing who you are and then the rest follows, it kind of comes in conjunction.

Norman  48:39  

At the end of the day, I don’t want to cheapen what I think would cheapen the show by saying, Oh, and by the way check out our website.

Cassandra 48:50  

Yeah, exactly and also be sponsored by. Exactly. I get you. 

Norman  48:58  

Okay, let’s see, is there anything else? I can’t believe there’s a lot, a lot more questions. Come on, guys. I’ll start picking on people in the audience that I see. No, I won’t. 

Kelsey 49:09  

I think if people want to just talk about what maybe their biggest concern is with going live, and why you think you shouldn’t go live? Put it in the comments, and maybe we can do that.

Cassandra 49:20  

I’m pretty sure power outages will be top of mind for Kelsey. That’s probably why.

Kelsey 49:24  

That’s number one.

Cassandra 49:27  

I say mine with that is just like background and little things like that are things that are unpredictable, just like power outages of course. But like, I’ve had spotty Wi Fi connections. I’ve had Zoom calls that just like, tapped me out and I’m gone and I’m like, I don’t know what happened. It’s stuff that I can’t control. I can prep all day and be camera ready and everything but there’s always this element of what’s going on, what’s happening. So I think that could really detour you but I think  It’s unlikely for the most part, except with the exception of today of Kelsey’s power. It’s unlikely that that’s going to happen again.

Norman  50:08  

Well, let’s talk about content. So the different types of content. People are not expecting polished content. Just like if you think of your Amazon listing in the slide deck there, think of what you’re putting in there. You’re putting in your primary image. Okay, so whatever you want to talk about. You’re putting in benefits, what are all what’s your five bullet points? Address them. What are those benefits, and you can go live talking about one benefit at a time. You could talk about different ways. For us, it could be ingredients. Okay, what’s so important about the ingredients? Well, the aromatherapy side of the ingredient, oh, what is lavender oil? Why is it so important to have lavender oils infused into the soap and you could just go down. Check out your A plus content, go to Ask the Public, type in a question about your product, see what people are asking and then you can start to build out the content that way.

Cassandra 51:20  

What people want to see, what do they want to talk about? What are they already questioning or interested in and now how do you provide that outlet for them to either get the insider information or discuss it as a group? So yeah, I think that’s a great approach Norm.

Norman  51:35  

Yeah. Group discussion. Yeah, if you can start doing that. So okay, so you’ve got this live that you’re going to it might be on your page, start a group, start a group about soap. Start a group about bully sticks, or dogs or whatever. Now you’re taking the live and you’re bringing it over to a group who it’s a captivated audience, and there’s so many people that I can’t believe the different groups there. I bet you if I had plastic shoe stretchers, you can make a group about how to stretch shoes.

Cassandra 52:10  

Okay, now that you’re saying that, too, I think a huge value add is when you ask questions ahead of time, have some pre plan, what are again, like you’re saying you’re in a group, what are people already talking about? Encourage that Hey, tell us what you want to know now. So we can make sure you get to it. I think some of the problems with these bigger live streams is that people have so many questions. They don’t always get to them. But if you can already kind of not pre plan, if you will, I was gonna say, but pre plan some questions. Or oftentimes when I do TACoS Tuesday with Vince, we take what wasn’t answered the previous week, and then answer the next week just to make sure we have, everyone’s getting equal airtime kind of thing, or, because it can it can get so lost and inundated in the chat.

Norman  52:57  

Yep. For sure.

Cassandra 52:59  

All right. Are we gonna play Kelsey, what’s going on?

Kelsey 53:02  

We got three questions that came on. 

Norman  53:05  

You got five minutes, don’t you?

Cassandra 53:07  

Yeah, I got five minutes. Okay. Rapid Fire.

Kelsey 53:11  

Okay, number one, can we put our video advertisement on live broadcast?

Cassandra 53:16  

Yeah, like a pre roll.

Norman  53:21  

You can definitely do like a pre roll or, like any video advertisement that you have on Amazon. You can definitely use that Radd.

Cassandra 53:31  

Yeah, Stream yard has it. It’s great. I mean, we’re using it now.

Norman  53:34  

Oh, yeah. See, okay and by the way, if you have a video advertisement that doesn’t break TOS, you can use that also on your Amazon live.

Cassandra 53:44  

There you go.

Kelsey 53:46  

What is the ideal time to stay on live?

Cassandra 53:50  

I mean, I would say 30 minutes to an hour. I think sometimes the first 15 to 20 is just getting going. That’s my experience. I think people are coming online. They’re getting notifications, that so and whose live coming up on Facebook or Instagram. But I also think you don’t want to go too long to where people are like, Okay, well, I gotta go now.

Kelsey 54:12  

They say the first are at the 18 minute mark, that’s when you’re going to have that kind of peak of people. Like everyone’s still getting these notifications and joining. 

Norman  54:24  

So here’s a quick thing you can do with that. So when you go and post it on YouTube, you can use something called Tube Buddy and you could just break it out into where the questions were asked, people can see the question and go directly to it.

Cassandra 54:37  

I’m a fan of Tube Buddy.

Kelsey 54:39  

Okay, so I believe that’s it. 

Cassandra 54:47

Okay. Let’s do it. 

Kelsey 54:49

Right. So I believe I got everyone.

Norman  54:52  

Kelsey’s so good at watching the time. There we go. 

Kelsey 54:58  

Yeah, I don’t want to miss anyone. Okay, Tony, here we go. 321

Norman  55:10  

Everybody say it. Come on, I wasn’t gonna lead. Oh, here we go. Clive.

Kelsey 55:20  

Number one and number two.

Norman  55:26  

Wheel of Kelsey. Okay. I was like, yeah, yeah. Big money. Big money. Big money. Lisa.

Kelsey 55:34  

Lisa Kinski from Noviland.

Norman  55:37  

Okay, very good. We’re on time. Look at that.

Cassandra 55:43  

Look, that’s another celebration.

Norman  55:44  

Yep, there we go.

Cassandra 55:47  

I am looking forward to hearing your AMPM podcast. Just so you know, I want to hear from you and Kelsey, I want to get all the insider scoop. Because I’ve been able to come on these live chats with us and I want to hear the flip side of everything. 

Norman  56:01  

I can just imagine how it’s edited.

Cassandra 56:06  

We are, we are.

Norman  56:09  

None of that.

Cassandra 56:13  

You’re hilarious. You’re kind of like Oh, the real deal, but I will be definitely tuning in. Norm, it’s always a pleasure to hang out with you. I love this. You brighten up my day. This is morning breakfast with Norm for me.

Norman  56:26  

There we go. Cassandra, thanks again for coming on. I can’t wait till we meet again next month. All right. Well, I’ll let you go grab your call. Hey, everybody. So thank you so much and see you. Okay, and we will talk to everybody. Well, I guess we have to just do a little quick spiel, right, Kelsey? 

Kelsey 56:48

That’s right. 

Norman 56:49

About what? What are you going to do? 

Kelsey 56:51

Smashing the like button.

Norman 56:53

Not liking this smashes?

Kelsey 56:56  

Bell the ring. I think it cooled down a little bit. 

Norman  57:01  

Very good. Good.

Kelsey 57:03  

Yeah. Okay. So first off, we did have a question coming from Simon, which I think we can answer. What additional time do you guys put into promoting and prepping for each live show? It is more than just one hour of live, right? 

Norman  57:19  

Well, it depends on the person, the individual can just like Kelsey, for example, he can turn on his camera and just talk. I need to prep. So I’ve got to kind of figure out what I’m going to say, if I’m just going alive, like let’s say I’m going to do an Instagram story. I got to make sure that I have the time limit. So actually, Kelsey creates a calendar for me and says, okay, you need 30, these 30 seconds, five 30 second ones, you need these 45 second ones and then I’ve got to just think of the content. Going live just off the top of my head is a little bit harder for me. But Kelsey like nobody, he doesn’t have to worry about that. So it just depends on the individual. Prep time, so it could take minutes, it could take a little bit longer depending on how many of them that you want to do and then when you’re promoting it, Kels why don’t you take that?

Kelsey 58:18  

Yes, when you first started promoting it, the show was fairly small. So it kind of, we focus more on doing promotions, and running ads, like in the morning, or posting in the morning and so we can get traction. But right now, now that we kind of have a group and we have a bit more of a following, we can just not promote it because people know our consistency that we’re on every Monday, Wednesday, Friday at 12 o’clock and so now we don’t have to remind people so much, but it kind of takes over but then we have like a bigger guest. Or maybe if we really want to do a big push, then we start doing ads around a certain week or person but at the beginning, it is a bit more time consuming. Once you’re starting to get everything kind of going but after that, then I would say it kind of eases down a little bit. Also I want to add, for people that have maybe a Facebook page for their Amazon business. If you guys don’t know, if you are only posting like curated content, like articles, or YouTube videos, Facebook kind of limits your reach on that kind of stuff. But if you start uploading like lives, repurposing the live content as video content and then posting it onto your Facebook, from Facebook, so not posting a link from YouTube, but an actual post from Facebook. It extends your reach quite a bit, considering if you’re just doing a link out because Facebook doesn’t want you to leave the page they want you to stay on. So that’s another big reason that I think you people should start uploading their own content onto Facebook and you can direct it. It doesn’t need to be a podcast around the topic, you can sit down and do like a list of five benefits for something. 

Norman  1:00:15  

Yeah, the other nugget is afterwards for content and ranking. So you can do a live like this. You can use an app like otter.ai, otter.ai transcribe everything, transcribe it, put it into your post and now your posts, you put it on your platform or on your website is also being ranked. So you kind of get a double whammy that way. All right. So is it that time

Kelsey 1:00:49  

I think it’s that time. The next guest next.

Norman  1:00:51  

Yes. I’ll get to that if you allow me. All right. So you know what, this is kind of interesting, because we’ve got another Helium 10. Guys, and I think you might know him, this is gonna be the first time on the podcast. So Bradley Sutton, I’ve had the pleasure of being interviewed by Bradley a few times. Now I get to put him on the hot seat and we’re going to just be talking about a bunch of different things. So this is on Friday, so I can’t wait to talk to Bradley. I’ve been trying to get him onto the podcast for some time now and Friday, we’re going to do that. So until that time, thank you for joining us today. Join us every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, Eastern Standard Time at noon and that’s it. Thank you. Thank you for being part of the community and we appreciate it.

Kelsey 1:01:46  

All right. Thanks, guys.