What does it take to build a loyal following of 4.8 million, create a #1 New York Times bestseller, and redefine how we connect online? It requires more than just viral moments—it’s about creating deep, authentic connections with your audience. Jonathan Graziano, a seasoned marketer and content creator, shares the proven strategies he used to cultivate a dedicated and engaged community.

From understanding the power of emotional storytelling to staying consistent and vulnerable, Jonathan reveals the secrets behind building trust and loyalty in a crowded digital world. He also shares the key metrics that matter most on social media and calls out the common mistakes that can derail even the savviest creators.  His success with “Noodle and the No Bones Day" phenomenon shows how being authentic, relatable, and engaging can turn followers into a thriving, supportive community. 

In this episode, Jonathan dives deep into how he fostered lasting loyalty, navigated challenges, and built a loyal following by staying true to his voice and values. Whether you’re just starting out or already building your brand, Jonathan’s insights will inspire and empower you to grow your own loyal audience.

Key Takeaways in this Episode:

• Customer Care That Builds Loyalty: Discover how addressing customer concerns quickly and authentically can turn even negative experiences into long-term advocacy.
• Emerging Platforms to Watch: Learn why platforms like Blue Sky are game-changers for community-driven brands—and how to get in early.
• Master Short-Form Content: From TikTok to Instagram Reels, Jonathan shares expert tips to create high-impact, bite-sized content that resonates with today’s fast-scrolling audiences.
• Authentic Storytelling: Hear the real story behind No Bones Day and why simply being genuine became a cultural phenomenon.
• Community Over Hard Selling: Understand how shifting your focus from transactions to relationships builds a customer base that supports you for life.

"If you're a business on social, people know you're selling, they know you have a product. They're following you because they probably like your product or service. But what's going to help invite people in and get them sharing your content is when they think, 'I'm not just part of a store. I'm part of a community.' And that's where those left hook posts come in." – Jonathan Graziano

About our Guest: 

Jonathan Graziano is not just a social media strategist—he’s a master storyteller with an unparalleled ability to humanize brands and build lasting connections. With a deep understanding of digital marketing, Jonathan has become a leading voice in the social media landscape, renowned for his insights into authentic engagement and content creation. He’s a firm believer in the power of intention and authenticity, particularly for small businesses looking to carve out a meaningful niche in an increasingly crowded digital world.

Rather than chasing fleeting viral trends, Jonathan teaches brands to focus on genuine connections that resonate with their audience at a deeper level. His approach isn’t about superficial virality—it’s about creating content that speaks to real people, cultivating trust, and fostering a community that believes in your brand. Whether he’s crafting viral moments or guiding businesses through the evolving landscape of emerging platforms, Jonathan’s message is clear: Be real, and the right people will follow.

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Hello everyone, and welcome to this week's episode of The Marketing, Media and Money podcast. And I am so excited, because today, not only do we have somebody funny, interesting, a good community builder, but he's also famous. So let me share a little bit, because what we really are going to talk about today is what does it take to build a loyal following of 4.8 million. Created number one New York Times bestseller and redefined how we connect online. Well, today I have the pleasure to share with you Jonathan Graziano, a season marketer, content creator, community builder and pug father who has spent over a decade crafting social media strategies that resonate and inspire and as the creative mind behind the viral sensation noodle and the no bones day, he's proven how authentic storytelling can spark joy and drive meaningful engagement, and he brings a unique blend of humor, strategy and heart to show you how To transform followers into a thriving community and leverage those connections to grow your business authentically. So Jonathan, thank you so much for being here with me today.

My gosh, thank you, Patty. I'm so happy to be here. I love that with so so many nice things were said and I do i I'm so grateful there's I love the opportunities that I've been given, and with how long I've known you, and with the work that we do together, it's been a long time coming that we've done this. So I'm so grateful to be here and again, to anyone, everyone listening here, like you guys know how great patty is. So just, I'm very happy to be a part of the A part of the fold.

Oh so great. So let's just jump in, because I know everybody's going, Wow, 4.8 million, right? So let's start there. So you build a following of over 4.8 million people across social media. So what's the first step creators or businesses should take when they're trying to build a loyal online community from scratch? And how can they ensure that their message really resonates? Because I think it's really all about the messaging,

Right? Absolutely. And what it really boils down to is intention, I think, really important, because people on social media, especially when you know you think about yourself like, when I'm on social media, what do I go on Instagram to do? What do I go on Tiktok to do? And what gets my attention like, what is the kind of thing that makes me care about the content put in front of me. So I would say the very first thing, if before, if you're starting from scratch, if you're absolutely but you are a business, I'm assuming you have an audience. You know who your target market is. You know you have your product. So I think the most important thing that you can do on social especially if you are a small business, if you've created your own, you know, your own product, or you're saying, like, I'm satisfying a niche that other people don't know about. It's you've gotta, you've gotta share yourself authentically. And I understand if that sounds a little redundant. I understand if that's something that a kind of a piece of advice that I feel like people are given often. But I think what a lot of people think is that means to follow trends that are popular and show up authentically, being like, Oh, well, this is a viral meme, and this is a viral format, and I can do all these things, and that's going to keep me in the fold. What it really boils down to is like, it's people learning from and embracing other people and with noodle, particularly with my community, and how I started to build what I built was I just started sharing something I loved. I started sharing something I loved, and I started sharing some of the things that I learned along the way. So I had never taken care of a dog before. I just adopted this dog. And, you know, for years, we had developed this really funny personality around him, and he had a bit of a follow, about 42,000 followers on Instagram. So not by no means nothing, but, you know, nothing compared to what happened with bones or no bones and tick tock. But we had such a loyal community there, because I was just sharing my day to day, and people would look at me and they'd say, Okay, this is just a person like I am. But then when I when I come forward with a product, or I would come forward with a recommendation, people would really take what I had to say seriously, because my content was about me going about my day to day life and just interacting normally with my dog. And that's something that's applicable to all small business owners and and anyone building a business like there was so obviously your product and sharing the value of your product and your service and what you have to offer is so potent, but having people see that you are a person, right? It's having people see that you are a person and being able to be comfortable. I'm not just sharing what I know, I'm sharing what I've learned. I'm sharing how long it took me to get there, and really letting people in. And this might be a little bit of a long winded answer, but I'll tell you one of my favorite quotes, long winded answer. You guys. Bucha up. I was listening to a different podcast with Mark Marin, a mark Marin podcast, and he had Ru Paul on his podcast. I love RuPaul. And he asked, he asked rue. He said, rue. When did you know you made it? When did you feel like you were successful? And you know, obviously, being an entertainer is very do. Right, but, but rude told to him. He said, I realized I was successful when it hit me that there was no wizard in the Emerald City, and it's just a man with a megaphone, and it's up to me to make it whatever, whatever success is is that's where there's no emerald there's no wizard in the Emerald City. Like success is when you feel you have become successful when you recognize that you have achieved something you've wanted to That's it. That's that's success. That's what it is. And I think that's really, really powerful.

It's different for everybody, too. But you know, with what you were saying, I really feel like because you did share and let people in behind the scenes, and what it looked like to get there, and it wasn't like, Oh, yes, let me show you how to make, you know, six figures in a week, right? You know, because it wasn't that. That's what makes people trust you exactly because, because that's what their life is like. They know that you don't just get from here to here, and it's this straight line, right? Yeah, if you're an entrepreneur, I mean, you know, the life of an entrepreneur, business owner is like meandering, and it goes here and it goes there, luckily,

And that resonates with people like, again, I got very fortunate. I was very fortunate because I I earned a lot of the attention I did and the opportunities, because I got to connect with people over my dog, right? It was my sweet little dog. So it's not, by no means was, is that a business? But like, I never set out to make money with this. I set out to build community and to see what showed up along the way. And businesses can go about that exact same thing, right? When you're creating content, it's about accessing community. It's about letting people see, like, Oh no, this is these are people who are just, you know, creating content because they want to provide value to my day. They want me to learn something. They don't. They're not doing a hard sell. But then a lot of times, when you're are a small business on social media, and you're showing people the passion you have for what you do. And you know, there's a very popular trend where people will share their price points, and you know, they'll get a comment where people say, I can't believe you charged you $400 for a cake. How could you Well, what's crazy? And then they'll create a video where they break down exactly. This is the full cost of production. This is my cost of labor, and this is my profit margin. And you see all the comments are people being like, Thank you for sharing what it really looks like behind the scenes, and that that kind of thing would work with any small business.

And I think it really does make a lot of sense too, because I know that one of the pushback that I get sometimes that you know, my magazine and podcaster, marketing, media, money, but in the magazine, per se, I share every time a marketing and media and a money tip, right every single time. And the thing that people say to me all the time is like, Patty, we love the tips. Well, why are all the photos in the graphics children, like they're always babies and kids and stuff. And I'm like, well, for the obvious reason, because it stops the scroll, that's the obvious reason, yeah. But the fact of the matter is, anybody who knows me knows I talk about it all the time. I have six daughters and 13 grandkids, and my audience is mostly women. So the fact of the matter is, they love them. So does everything have to be like this whole boring little, you know, just have a marketing tip with a quote mark, right? No, it lets them into part of who I am and what's important to me.

Yes, you Yeah, I think love it. You've differentiated yourself in a way that is obviously, you have all of your professional indicators that differentiate yourself. Just like, I mean, there are lots of dogs on the internet. There are lots of plenty of adorable you know, every pug is the best pug I've ever met. I mean, mine is, and then I'll meet one on the street. I'm like, Well, gosh, you're perfect. But what it really boiled down to is people just started to realize that, oh, he's not here to try and like, he's not being inauthentic, like he this is, he's selling a product. He's trying to sell a thing, but also, like, this is him. He's not trying to change who he is, to try and make this more believable. And that's what I love. That's what I think you've done so well as well. And when I see people who I think are successful, it's the people who I sit there and I go, I know who you are. I feel like I know what you're capable of as a business person, and I also know that you are someone who I could have a very honest conversation with, because you've already shown me this little bit of truth about yourself. And you know, as we know, trust is something you can't you can't buy, you can't put, you can put as many dollars behind an ad as you want. You cannot buy. Trust and community is fundamentally rooted in trust, right? It's not, it doesn't have to be a high snake trust, but it's, I know I'm not going to get ridiculed. I know I'm going to be able to ask a comment, I'm going to be able to post a comment, and I'm going to get a kind answer, I'm going to get a thoughtful response, and it is going to your website and sitting there and going, okay, hey, first of all, people are going to ask me about babies. First of all, first and foremost, this could just be a red herring, and people want to know more about that, and that's just fabulous. But then the fact that you can open that conversation and have that dialog and sit there and go, Oh, well, maybe the first 10 minutes of our conversation, we just talked about how much we love our grandkids, and then I felt so much more comfortable telling her about the real problems I was having right this I was. They weren't just a client and a business partner anymore. This was a real personal relationship. And it can be as simple as that. It can be as simple as that

I think so. And I think also I've been, I think of all the things that I've ever had anybody say about me, probably the number one brand.

And I think are beautiful particulate a comment,

Besides those things, those things exactly, besides those things. But the thing that I hear that I love and means the most to me, and I feel like this kind of resonates where we're going, is that when people say to me, You know what Patty, when I hear you on the stage, or I hear you on your podcast and then I meet you in person, you're exactly the same, and that's what we want, right? We want, right? We want people to think this isn't like glamor shots back in the day when you meet somebody and oh my gosh, there they were with the BOA around their neck, and Hackney brand went,

Yeah. And that's what's that's where I feel like we're kind of in this really, almost like this. It's, you know, it's been around for less than 20 years, but it's almost like there's almost this kind of social media Renaissance happening. And I think to think Tiktok is one of the more contributing factors to that, because people just as far as just because of how emerging platforms work. But what it really boils down to is people know that they're that someone's filming content and posting it like there is, you know what? I mean, there's the fourth wall is broken. We know that every brand page is run by people, and we know that they have goals, and that the goals are not necessarily dictated by, you know, it's their KPIs. It's I my content needs to be fun and engaging, but ultimately, I gotta try and sell something like, ultimately, the goal is sales. The goal is products. But what's really great about the where social media is going and where, I think, you know, so many people have so much opportunity, regardless of what kind of business you have, whether you work in consulting, whether you work in, you know, I've lost all thought of any other kind of job anyone could have, but when no there are no other fields of employment, anywhere but when you, when You show up, and when you really let people see, like there's a person here, there was someone on the other side of it, and we're not going to pretend anymore. I can be I can film something on my phone. It doesn't have to be in 4k I don't have to have a script written. It can be a little off the cuff. People are much more attracted to people who are sitting there going, I'm showing up authentically, because I can't show up any other way. You know what I mean? If I do this whole dog and pony and I make people think that I am this perfect, articulate and that's where, that's where I get a little bit of trouble sometimes, is all of the videos I have are, like, pretty positive, and they're all you know about helping people and encouraging people. You know, they're silly, but the bones are no bones got to be very much about, you know, emotion and having our day. And this little dog is helping people keep, you know, I it was, it was people thought I was so positive and that I was just this, like beacon of optimism and hope. And, you know, that could, that can be me sometimes, but like, word, there were some days where I really was like, I don't know if I can share, I can post this right now, because I don't feel this isn't how I'm feeling. And if someone catches me on that, that just breaks so much of this, you know, trust that we felt.

But that's really true, because I think most people in life, they don't get to just show up like that, because that's not what their life is like, too. But it's almost like, you know, when people feel like, when they get on social media, it has to be like, always this perfect thing, you know, I always like to say Facebook money is like Monopoly money, right? You know, and these things. But the fact of the matter is, people are going to relate a lot more to you, because they have those bad days too, and they're asking themselves, should I not show up? So sometimes, when somebody shows up, you know how? Sometimes somebody will do like that mini rant or whatever they or they'll say, oh, they'll be vulnerable or whatever. No, I don't think that should be a marketing strategy. But if it's real and authentic, there are times that that just really is how it is, and people want to know, oh my gosh. Like, I don't have to be this perfect. Only have something to say when it can be polished and and beautiful and all that stuff, because that's not real. That's not white.

Oh no. That's not how you are in an everyday conversation. What you said, people see you and they say, Oh, I'm they're surprised that you are how you show up on social media. And that alone is very interesting. The idea that they automatic, they the automatic assumption is that you there is this barrier to who you are, right? There's this inaccessibility, and that's something that you have to work against, that's something you almost have to work against and sort of dispel, right? And this idea of, like, I love, this idea that people think they have these optics of like, oh, we want Patty farmer to come and speak at this and we wanted to run all these things. But how nice when you can still have a one on one conversation with people. And they, they do, they they're surprised, and then they relax so quickly when they're just like, Oh, I am talking to another human being. They have all this going for them. But. First and foremost, they are another person. And that's again, that's the fundamentals of community, and that's what I love. I love to follow even when I like to follow brands on social media, even when I know they're trying to sell to me. If I'm looking at content and I sit there and I go, these people are just trying to have they're trying to do something. They're trying to make this work, there's a lot of noise. They love this product they have, and they're really, really going for it. That always resonates,

Always to always, always success of noodles and a known yellow bones day. It highlights the power of storytelling, right? And I think storytelling is so important, not just as social media, but everywhere. But what do you think are the key elements of a story, right, that resonates with the audience? Because I have to tell you, when I first became a speaker and when I really started, you know, doing more video and stuff, storytelling was the one thing that I really struggled with. I had to it wasn't telling a story. In my personal life, it's super easy to just tell a story, yeah. And in business, it always feels like, Oh, now you have to tell a story, and you have to tie the story to a business principle and and like, why are you telling that story? So there's all these whole elements involved. What do you think makes it so that what's the most important part of the story so it resonates with the audience and makes your content stand out.

I again, I don't mean to sort of it's emotion. I think it's emotion. I think it's anytime you can go and whether that's what that can be a good emotion or a sad emotion, but anytime you are able to really move somebody in any direction, that is, that is when you're able to be really powerful. And I think the only way that that comes is when you're super honest, right? Is when you're super honest. And that doesn't mean you have to, you know, you know, bleed out on a page, but it's one of the things that I like. Again, I wrote a book about my little dog and how he had these little he had these days where he didn't want to go on walks. He didn't want to go on these walks. And the thing that resonated with people was the idea that there was this concern over that, that I'm I'm feeling a certain kind of way, and that's wrong. There's something wrong about, you know this, I'm not having a bones day, every day should. What do you mean? I'm grateful to be here. I'm alive, I'm healthy. Every day is a bone stay. But it's this idea that, like, No, you could still, yeah, everything could be great. Everything can be fine, but sometimes you just need to take care of yourselves. And I can't tell you how many times I would get messages from people that were especially because this got really big during lockdown from Doctor like doctors and EMTs and people, you know, the essential, true essential, were teachers and people who would just say, I I'll never forget. There was one time this woman sent me a message. He said, My 80 year old mother is, is feeling, has been feeling very sick lately, but she saw that noodle had a bones day today, and she wanted to go on a walk. And that was it. That was the only message she sent me. And I sat there and I just went, how amazing that this little, tiny, little connection that you can make with someone about we're all having a hard time right now, but this little dog is going to make you feel a little something that's the most power. I think, if you can figure out a way to make that happen, that is the most powerful thing, the easiest way to make that connection, the easiest, easiest way to do that is through emotion.

That is so true, and I feel like, especially, you know, how it's connecting to life, but one of the things I do want to say is, like on social media and in communities too, right? Sometimes we do have challenges, and sometimes we get negative feedback, right, you know, and stuff. How do you manage negative feedback so that you can address like diverse audience needs, right? You know? And what strategies do you recommend for maintaining a positive and inclusive space when you have that community, because the negative stuff does come up, you know, close people, they just love to, you know,

Well, yeah, and there's so many things that, you know, people, I'm, I'm gay people, I get stuff about that, about my voice. People hate pugs, like lot of people, just like, you know, very breed specific stuff like that. And the one thing about leap ahead that's actually quite interesting, I have, I have quite a bad temper. I have quite a bad time, really. And, yes, I ha, ha. This is the thing I've I've been, I've been in therapy for a very long time, and I've learned a lot of tools and strategies. But there will be, there will be times where I have said the thing I shouldn't have said, or I've left the comment I shouldn't have left, because I I just let myself go. And the first thing, the first thing that I say, in order to handle the negativity, is to give yourself some grace. Give yourself some grace and keep the optics of this is on social media. It's very easy to leave a nasty comment. It's very easy to do that. It's much harder to say something to someone's face. So the first thing I say is give yourself some grace and just know that if someone is saying something negative about your content. Percent it means that they did take something away. First of all, you can't you got an engagement out of it. The second thing I would say is to try really hard to not be precious about your content. Try so hard not to be precious about it. You can be precious about your process and the way you come up with ideas. But when you post something online, especially if, obviously, you know, look at it as feedback. I will always sit here and say social media is a few that focus group every single comment, every single post you put up, and you look at the threads, and not every post hits as hard, but some, if something goes viral, you read those comments and you listen to what people are saying. So the whole bones are no bones. I just started sharing whether you have a single bones day or a no bones day. The comments people started talking about, well, it's a no bones day, I'm gonna stay in bed. It's a bones day. I'm gonna get that came from the comments. That whole thing came from what other people took from this. So then I would get comments all the time where people say, Oh, Is he sick? Like, Oh, this dog is old. You should just leave him alone. You should just leave him alone. He's sick, he's old. I can't believe you would handle your dog that way. I can't and I did. It would hurt. Sometimes I'd sit there and I go, my gosh, do people really think that I do people do people really think that I'm hurting my dog? Do they think that he's not comfortable? Like, what? How is this happening?

And I let my people alive.

He's my old blog. We've been doing this for years. Like, how on earth could this? Could I been so blind to sharing this, and think people would think this was positive? And then I really did. I took a step back, and I just stopped being precious about it, and I looked at it objectively, as someone who was critiquing it. And I learned a lot. I learned a lot from it. That's the biggest thing I could say. Separate yourself. Do not be precious about your content. Look at the comments and sit there and go, You know what? I clicked on this post. This person has two followers, and they have no post. I'm not gonna listen to a damn thing they said, because they haven't made an impact on their they haven't made an impact on their own in any way. I'm certainly not going to take you know what I mean, like you will not be giving me notes, sir. But if you look and you look and you see this person has their own community, and they leave something thoughtful. Really, listen to it. I think it's very people are very quick to get angry on social. They're very quick to like, come up with a with a little a comeback or something. There have been many times where people have left thoughtful comments that have been like, you know, I'll get nasty ones, and then all of a sudden someone will say, I would really appreciate it. If you put captions in your videos. I really want to watch these videos, and there are no captions. I'm quite disappointed in that. And I sat there and I went up. This is an accessibility thing that I did not consider, and this is a negative thing that I can then sit there, and instead of thinking, Oh, who is this person to tell me what to do? It doesn't fit the esthetic, I can go, nope. This serves my audience. This adds value and is a good thing to do. And you know

Less people you're listening to, right? You know, they see that like, you know, we're invested in you, and they see that you're invested in them because you're listening. And I think really, even when people do leave negative contents, more than I know for me, and I've had conversations with people about it before, but I think more than the comment itself is how you handle exactly

everything. And there's another not to keep pulling from drag queen Patty, but there is a very famous saying from one that it's not what you're called, it's what you answer to. And that's good, yeah, it's that one that I've kind of kept in my back pocket for a while where I will, I'll read some of these nasty comments, and I'll just be like, you're incorrect, and I won't need to respond. But you can really, people can just be wrong. That's the other thing. Is, you could also just be very confident in concluding that strangers on the internet are wrong,

And you could just, yeah, that's okay. That's okay. Go a little bit deeper, like there's a lot of talk down, a lot of talk in social media, right? And because of all the things that people are trying to do with them, we talk a lot about data, behaviors, analytics, right? These are all important things, especially because we're talking about sales, right, so, ultimately, right. And so folks, so how do you use data analytics and behaviors to guide your content strategy and to make decisions about where and what to post?

So one of my favorite things to do is in on this is something important for everyone to know. Each social media platform has a native analytics function. So even if you don't know where it is, Tiktok, Instagram, LinkedIn, every single platform has a native metrics functionality so anyone can track this stuff. What I've done is I sort of the first thing I ask myself, no matter what, whenever I'm creating anything and I want to do it again, is, did this add value, even if I'm doing a brand post, and I'm saying, you're going, my audience is my you know, I have kids following this, and I'm doing a brand sponsorship for a hotel, like they're not booking a hotel. But I sit to and I go, is this piece of content valuable if you are not looking to buy something, is this still valuable to you? That is the first thing I will do with any piece of content. And. After I've done that, and I think that post has kind of crossed that threshold. The metrics I will look for comments are great. Comments are great. I will look for shares. I will look for saves. So those are the metrics that I will look at that helped me to dictate whether or not something was effective. Because the algorithm, especially in places like Tiktok and reels posts that go viral. Listen to that. If you put up a post and it gets a couple 100,000 views, or it's a real outlier to something else that you've done, sit there and analyze why that was. You can go to the metrics, and you can see, Oh, it got a lot of comments, or it got a lot of shares, and then you kind of take a step back, and this is, this is where. And again, this is, it's kind of obvious, but this is where you take a step back, and you kind of think really strategically, and you go, Okay, what is the difference between a comment and a share? A comment is when someone wants to publicly engage in a conversation and a share, whether, if it's a share to their own personal profile that says that someone likes your content. So I'm assuming they left a little nice thing. They like your content so much, they want to claim ownership of it. They want to associate themselves with the entire piece of content. So that is the one of the biggest indicators that I will look for. And when bullets or no bones took off, I saw a lot of the comments, and they were all super fun. The shares were out of the shares were was out of control. And I sat there and I knew, Okay, so what's happening is people are scrolling through this content, and before they're even watching all of it, they want to make sure someone else in their community is brought in. And so why? It's the key metric. It's the key metric I look for when I'm trying to measure this, even in at GoDaddy, on my person, like my professional job, when I'm trying to measure the success of anything, true success. I look at shares because also not for nothing. You can put paid behind anything. You can put paid behind absolutely anything. You can buy comments, you can buy likes, you can buy buy being you can put content in front of so many you know you're going to get more. You cannot buy. You cannot do anything to get someone to share something on the back end. You can't do anything to make that happen. So that is my key metric that I look for.

No, I think that's really important, because people get really hung up on vanity metrics, right? So,

Yeah, oh, yeah. And it counts for a lot like, especially if you think like certain platforms where you okay, like this, okay, I'm gonna now I want to listen to this for they got a lot of followers. What do they have to say? And that's where you have to sit there and go, Okay, if I have a bunch of followers, but I'm getting five millions of followers, and I'm getting five comments on my posts. What are the optics of that, right? What are the actual optics of that? And then if that's the case, you have to stand back and really, again, look at this value prop and go, Well, what am I sharing? And it's clearly not resonating with the people who follow me. Why is that? And then you look at the metrics, and you can see,

And I think there's other points of view on that too, because one of the things, what I find interesting for me is on LinkedIn, specifically for me, I will, you know, always when somebody contacts me and, you know, they want to talk about working with me or hiring me for whatever, whether it's for speaking or marketing or whatever, one of the things I find that's interesting is when I ask them, you know, in the conversation, you know, how to come across me or find me, or whatever, if they say LinkedIn, so that in this specific example, I will always go back and look, and I'll say, Well, they didn't really engage with me. And I'll ask them. And here's one of the things that it says a lot about what's happening right now. Yeah, and what they say is that they're finding that on social media, until they made their decision whether they want to hire you, or at least have a conversation, they don't want to engage with you, because they have so many people reach out to them to start selling them so until they make their decision. So what I have found is a lot of times people will hire me, they'll work with me, and then they're engaging all over my stuff, but then they'll tell me that they were following me for months and months before that, and didn't engage. They signed up and stopped you, so to speak, to see if you were that person. And so actually, that's so interesting, right? You know, to find out that, oh, oh. Oh. So you never really know whether even people who aren't engaging with you are watching and paying attention Exactly.

Well, think about it. You have a competitor on social media, and you both posting great content. It looks fabulous. It's well done. One of you is responding to comments and one of you is not. Who are you going to go with if you if everything else is the same. What is the big differentiation? And that's, again, one of the things about GoDaddy, and what makes me so proud to work here is like the customer care, the way that people, the way that they it is a fundamental piece that is baked into everything that you do. And that's, that's a gospel that I followed before I even worked here, my first job out of college, when I when everything started to get really big with noodle and everything it was the idea of, like I I can reap the benefits of this, but I must not lose sight of who I am catering to and and why this is happening.

And speaking of that, I think I read somewhere, or heard it somewhere, that when you were first starting out, you actually worked for Gary V right?

I did my first job out of college was at VaynerMedia in 2013 my very first job, and that, and that actually so much of what I implement in my strategy, it's my strategy and social is what I've learned at VaynerMedia. He had some absolute, you know, yeah, he's a bull, and he's continued to do so much and never stop. But he always had this one. There was this one saying written on the wall right when I walked into work, and it said, content is king, context is God. And that is, that is something that that is like the scripture that I live by. And it's so important to remember if you're doing anything on social especially if you're trying to jump on like a piece of real time content or something that's trending, a lot of times, people will do that without knowing the context. And if you do that and the context is not in your favor, you have just opened yourself up to be on the very wrong side of a viral social media trial. Never forget it was DiGiorno, DiGiorno Pizza. It was during there was a hashtag, hashtag, why I stayed. It was during Domestic Violence Awareness Week, and people were sharing. Survivors were sharing why they stay right. It was to break that stigma. Will just leave. And DiGiorno, their social media person did not check the context, and they posted hashtag, why I stayed, because he had DiGiorno, and it absolutely blew up. They got so much flack for it. And again, you sit there and you go, this is, this was obviously like, you know, I can't imagine there was nefarious thinking behind that, but it's social media that doesn't that you could become, you are the fodder of the day. You're the fodder of the day. But, you know,

Sometimes people have used it really positively. I remember years ago that when the blackout happened at a Super Bowl, remember when that blackout happened a Super Bowl, and that's the Oreo, Oreo, right? Sit down Oreo in the dark. I was like, Oh my gosh. That was like, so good. And when that airline that time, they had to pull somebody off the plane for something, and then their social media person got on there without mentioning names and actually said, Oh, we beat up on prices, not our customers. I mean, you gotta know how to use it really well. It's news jacking at its best,

Absolutely. And it's also like it's leveraging. It's taking something that is already happening, right? It's as if you're like, I have to make an ad talking about how I'm better than my competitors. I can use this news story and just be like, Wow, this is crazy, like this, and it's even just recognizing, like, the big thing about Oreo, and that was sort of, I think that was probably the first, I think that is the Rosetta Stone, like viral content marketing, it was like, it's the cost. It cost them nothing to do that. You think of the you think of the impressions we're talking about it, how many years later we're talking about this, how many years later it cost them pennies to create that content. But it was a way for a cookie company, a corporate cookie company, to become an integral part of a of a the most popular conversation happening throughout the entire year, simply because they sat there and they went, well, everyone's thinking about this, but that's it. That was it. They just knew this is where every, what everyone is thinking about, and we're going to jump on that. And you know, whether it's again, when it goes to sales, if you're thinking of how to sell through your business, think of how to bring in clients, it's such a good idea to jump in on real time content and participate in these moments, right? You don't have to. And this is the thing I think a lot of people also think, is they think I have to be, you know, I have to be a Gary Vee, right? I have to be someone who is able to just be on camera and share my knowledge and be like you. You don't, you don't. You can. You can learn from that. And you can love that kind of person and that kind of personality. And you can be someone who likes to create content that's just voiceover stuff, that's just, you know, like you don't have to. I think people, a lot of times, they really do. They think they have to be this extroverted, certain kind of person to create social content, and that's just not the case. It's really, really, not.

I love really, you know, that's kind of like paying attention to what's happened. I remember, like, about a year and a half ago. It was the last set of hurricanes in Florida, not the least recent ones, but the ones before. And, you know, I think one of the things that people forget is, you know, we hear the journalists say the same thing over and over. People complain, Oh my gosh, why don't they have anything new to say? They're saying the same thing. Well, they would love to have something exactly, if somebody would give them something new to say exactly. I remember watching this one time this newscaster was talking, and she was saying about how, you know, people should be prepared for the emergency. If you live in Florida, they have hurricanes all the time. What's the prep that they do in hurricanes? So they know, if they have the evacuator, what do they have to do? What is the emergency prep that they do? And they were talking about it, and I was listening, and I was like, Oh my gosh. And I called my client up, who was a financial advisor, and I said, Oh, listen, we're going to jump all over this. And she. Was like, what does being a financial advisor have to do with the hurricane? I said, Well, I don't know. Do you teach your clients that they should always be prepared for emergencies, you know, with their money, like, because you never know when something's going to happen. And she said, Oh, no, I talk about that all the time. I'm like, great. So I literally started pitching that tied it into that stuff. I got her all the way to Capitol Hill. She was like, all over TV and everything with that, those two things seemed like they didn't have anything to do with each other, but in reality, they actually did

Absolutely, absolutely. And then again, and it wasn't that I had to do. It's the it's the power of social media, right? It's an idea of like, I don't have to do this huge I can do it on my own. I know I Patty farmer, am recognizing this, and I am going to help. I see this message. I see this message. I'm connecting the dots, and I can make this happen, and I can now start sharing this story, or perpetuating this story, because I know that it resonates with people, because I know it's what people are thinking about, I know it's what people are worried about, and I have a solution. And the thing about that Patty that's so great is you didn't say I want someone to go and have a great, you know, two minute sales pitch on them purchasing this awesome new package we've created for them. It's, we're going to educate them on the necessity of this, and then they're just going to know they have to buy this. And what's great about that is, it's the sale. Was the value prop. All we did was tell you the value of this thing, and you yourself decided you need it, because it's so obvious that you do that is such an that's such an important way to go about introducing your content, your story, your your product, your service to people. I think that's such an important thing to shout out and to recognize Patty to really have taken advantage of that. Was so smart, so smart. Another stroke consumer,

You're so funny, so social media algorithms, right? And trends, right? They change all the time, right, you know. And so people are so worried about that. But how do you stay ahead of the changes? But you want to make sure that your content stays authentic and true to your voice, right? But we do have all of those algorithms and and trends like, how much should we be paying attention to them? Really, totally, or is it really?

So that's a really good question. So it's important. It's important in ways, as far as if you are trying to stay very active in the day to day conversation on social, you really do want to be involved. You really, really do. If you are someone who is thinking a little bit more Patty, can you repeat the question one more time? So

I just wanted to, like, how would you with algorithms and the trends? How do you keep your content authentic inside of your voice?

Forgive me, it totally left my head. So the algorithm is it's important to recognize. Because, first and foremost, these platforms are, especially places like Instagram and Tiktok. The algorithms are the things that will decide what goes by, right? Those are the things that say like and the rules that predicate that are very different. But one of the reasons why Tiktok got so popular during its emergence was because the factors that were dictating popular videos were engagements, likes, comments and shares. So the videos that were getting popular were the ones people were watching. It wasn't necessarily wasn't necessarily the ones that were getting paid for. It wasn't necessarily the ones that were using, you know, the most strategic hashtags and all the right SEO terminology and, you know, the correct images. It was just the content that was resonating. People was working. It was the pug who didn't have bones. That's what it was. The hashtag was bones, like, you know what? I there was no hashtag follow for follow, a hashtag reach, like those hashtags that are very strategic, those I didn't even bother to use, because that was never something I was trying to do. Now, if you, if you take the algorithm too seriously, you're never going to create anything that people want to see. Is the big thing is, like you cannot. That's the little dance is you have to create content that the quote, unquote algorithm, the machine is going to like, but the people you have to impress are the ones seeing the content. So the best way I found to go about doing that is, if you're going to use hashtags, try and keep it between three and five hashtags, trying to what platform. Yeah, no matter what platform there still have they do have value. They don't have the same kind of value on every platform like LinkedIn, they still have a lot of value because you can search a tab Instagram, they still have a lot of value, but the Discover feed is much more popular, so it's like the shift, but hashtags are still a great way to get your content seen by people, even on places like Tiktok. That's a great one. And then one of the things I learned from Gary, this is another thing I'll take from Gary, a way to appease the algorithm and to try and build your audience and drive sales, is to remember he wrote a book. He wrote a book. It's called Jab, Jab, Jab, Right Hook, and it's a great book. But the Cornerstone is the content strategy is three jabs to one right. Hook. And the idea is a right hook is like a a hard sell post, a hard CTA. This is the Pro. This is what I'm selling, and this is what it'll do for you. The right hooks are all of those sort of community posts that you have, right? Those are the ones that are like, this is how I've built my business. This is sort of the evergreen content, right? The stuff that's very much like this is what this is what people are doing. This is, you know, the kind of content I'm seeing that I like to share. So building out a strategy like that, when you're balancing out thinking, Okay, if I just put up a post where I'm selling something a really hard sale, or I'm driving to a link to sign up and register, I can still put up content afterwards. That's about that, but it should be gamified. It should be something you can just watch. It shouldn't be something where I'm asking you to do something, because then what happens is I'm just following someone who's just trying to get me to buy something that either I've already purchased from them, and now I have no need to follow them anymore, because that's all they do, or I was trying to learn something from them, and now all they're doing is selling to me, and now I don't know what the value so that think that makes sense. Yeah, that's the strategy that I really try and implement. Because people, again, if you're a business on social, they know you're selling, they know you have a product, they're following you because they probably like your product, or they like your service. What's going to help them invite people in and share your content is when they sit there and go, I'm not part of a store, I'm part of a community. And that's where those left hook posts come in.

That's a good line right there value. I'm not part of a store, I'm part of a community. I love that so much. So now let's kind of switch a little bit here, because I know every district wants to talk about, Oh, what, how can we monetize, right? It's all about monetizing, not all about monetizing, but a lot of times they want to know, right? But I also think that while it's important to know what to do, it's also important to know what else you get. A lot of value. Just kind of touched on that. So what would you say, really, that? What should they be thinking? What are some indicators that it's time or that a creator or business could monetize that community? Right to could monetize the community. They've done a good note job now, they could monetize it. But what are a few common mistakes they need to make sure that they don't do so they don't alienate that right?

So it's a really good question, and there were a lot of documented examples of this kind of thing happening. And this is something I was really keen about with, like the noodle book and the merch was we got, we were very popular. Big, shiny thing. What are the big the big things people will do, especially if they get kind of viral, or their product, or their service gets a lot of attention, they'll set the price point wrong. So the biggest thing you can do, the biggest thing you could do is remember, like, I people are not walking into a store, right? If I am in a Gucci, we know how much stuff costs in the store. The assumption is that if you are going to shop in the store, you can afford the thing that they're buying. You can afford the things that they're selling. Social media is very different, right? You could be you could be posting about a product that people can't afford or people don't need, that gets right in front of them. But the problem is, you sit there and you're like, okay, there was this one perfect example of a tiktoker who got really, really popular and did some cheap, wonderful cook, lots of great she, she did a partnership with a company and created a tote bag for like she was always went to the farmers market, the tote bag was $120 it was $120 it was like a tote bag. It was a canvas tote bag, like it was. There was nothing particularly special about it, but this person got really popular. This person had a lot of they had a lot of businesses reach out and say, Hey, we think we can, we think we can make a lot of money off of this. Or this is, you know, this is a nice product. This is aspirational. People forget. A lot of like, this is, this is not where a lot of people are coming from. Like, I made a children's book. This book did not ever cost more than $20 I knew for sure that, like, obviously, you know, it was, it was noodle, it was popular. But like, I am not going to isolate this audience by people, by saying, hey, you know, we put a lot of work into this, and we know we can probably sell it for more. Like, no, it's making it accessible to people. Is the is an advertising element. It's a value prop. Is sitting, you're going, I remember where I came from, like, this is a, this is a dog who got viral. This is a dog who got viral. And I am not going to try and price for popularity, I'm going to price for longevity. And I think that's a really important thing that a lot of businesses can remember, is obviously you know the value of your product and your service. But if it boils down to you are getting comments from people who are saying, I would love to do this, but I can't afford x, or I can't afford y, maybe sit there and think, Okay, it's not that I have to break down my service. Maybe there's a lower tier of something that I offer. Maybe there's a way that I can scale out my business. Say, Okay, if all of you need this one thing but you're not ready to afford the full service, maybe there's a, maybe there's a webinar I can start hosting, right? Maybe there is, maybe there is, like, a Patreon or something I can set up. Maybe there's some kind of. A purchasable way I can get them to maybe it's a maybe it's a newsletter that I can get people to sign up for. So I think that's a really important thing to remember, is to remember pricing. Never forget to engage with your community. That's another really big thing, especially with people when they because a lot of times it'll happen with with like, they're called micro influencers. So there's a, there's definitely a level of followers when you've got like five or 10k followers, it's been studied that you're when you are that small of a creator, but you have that many followers. Your word is law. People believe those influencers are the ones who have the highest conversions, because they're still really small, and people feel like they're part of the beginning of something when a creator gets really, really big, or a business gets really, really big, it it stops being yours. It stops being mine, right? My little thing that I found and discovered, and I was there from you from the start, like, I'll get comments still on my tick. Tock says, Oh, I followed you during your Bark Box days. And I'll sit there, and I'll go, Oh, so you've, you've known the entire iteration of noodles life and his journey, and knowing that these people who still get big, still get successful, still sell the products, are able to sit there and respond to comments and be like, No, it's me. Like I posted this, like, I'm so glad that you you know you love this product, feel free to give out coupon codes right engage with the community and really, really, really be you know, you can build an engagement doc around it, but like, this is where I am so adamant about breaking the fourth wall. Nobody is fooled into thinking that like, you can have the best customer service language in the world. You can have it like, either I'm talking to a computer or I'm talking to someone who is writing to me from a script. I don't want either of those things. And having that kind of community, like people come and they say, Oh, my book came. The book came. And sometimes what will happen in publishing is the cover will be upside down, so it'll just publish. The whole print will be upside down. And people would comment that, and I would sit there, and I would respond and say, oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened. Please let me know. And then from there, I saw six other people commented and said the same thing, and I was able to get all of their emails and wrap that up. And then what happened is all of those people commented on following videos and posted their own video saying, Thank you so much, Jonathan, I can't believe you were able to remedy this. And it wasn't that I did some fabulous, heroic thing. I righted it wrong, but because I had this was so, you know, this being and I listened, any company can do this, any business can do this, no matter what size you are, if you are able to address those little things and help the optics of that, the earned value that you get from giving that time, it might not be direct sales, but the earned value you get from nurturing that community is immeasurable.

And I think that people can get new followers from that too. When people are watching, I remember the one time this major flower company sent my husband bought me flowers, right? My husband bought me flowers, and when I got them, they, like, died, like, the same day, like, literally, by that day they died, and I was so mad, one of those things, yeah, and I was so worried, and I got on social media. I got on social media, I didn't get really nasty. I just know that sometimes that's the best way to get attention, because so many people now don't even put their phone numbers on their website for customer service, right? So I got on social media and I said, Well, I love my flowers. They died, like, four hours after I got them, didn't even make it to my anniversary. Hours didn't even make it to my anniversary. Yeah, that company, literally, two hours later said, Oh, contact our customer service, you know, blah, blah, blah, and we'll make it right. However, their competitor, however, sent live right on social media said, Oh, well, we would love to take care of that for you. Contact us, and they sent me three dozen roses. Three dozen roses Like, who do you think my husband orders flowers from? What about all the other people that saw that too? They couldn't pay for something from exactly

And even even the idea that you posted about how their product was something was wrong with it, and they said, Oh, go through our customer if you want this remedy, you're going to have to go through our customer service process instead of just saying, Oh my gosh. How can we help? Let it replace this with you? Right away, this other company, this other company, jumped in and they said, Hey, we're not gonna, we're not gonna, we're we'd love to your contact information so we can send this to you, but we're not gonna try and make you go through a a full formal process when it's something very clearly has gone wrong. The again, the optics of that are so, so powerful, and to sit there and go, Oh, the reason I'm returning to this company is not because they sent me three extra bouquets of flowers. It's because they took the initiative to care about me when I was posting about this issue that I had, and that, again, is the. Humanization of a brand, financially, that probably didn't make a whole lot of sense for that company on the bottom line, but in the big picture, it did, because now you're returning, and you post

Probably how many other people I thought, Oh, wow, look at how they jumped in. And maybe now they're buying flowers.

That's where you sit there, and you go, Hey, I'm trying to tell my boss that there's a lot I'm trying to justify the financial cost of sending these flowers to someone who is actively not a customer of ours. And you sit there, you go, No, this. This is why you do those things. This is why. Because not everyone's going to convert, but the ones that do, it's going to mean so much more than just a flower company. It's the story I'm going to tell on my podcast and the recommendation I'm going to give to anyone who ever asked me about these it's so little, tiny thing, little, tiny gesture is such a huge, huge thing.

And I think that what we're sharing right now really ties back to trends. It ties back to storytelling, right? It ties back to being authentic and real and saying the real life stuff that happened. So all of these things, these are the things that happen, yeah, but we're talking about platforms too, right? And technology and all of those things. So I have to ask you, Jonathan, sure, what emerging platforms or technologies are you excited about? And how do you see spin shaping the future of content creation? I mean, this is really what you do, and you are like, you've already talked about Tiktok, this and that, but we can do things all the time, you know, all the AI technology that's happening right now. So what are you excited about, and how do you see it shaping the future of content

So the things, the one thing that I'm most excited about the platform, most excited about right now is blue sky. And most excited about blue sky, I think it's a very I mean, everyone, you know, the things that are happening at Twitter is everyone, everyone is entitled to their opinion on that, as a marketer, as a as someone who has used that platform many, many times, it has lost a lot of value. To me, personally, has lost a lot of value, as far as like, well, I It's truly just a different space, blue sky. Not only is it backed by Jack Dorsey, which is a really big confidence booster for a lot of people, because it's not another meta platform. Like people use meta platforms, left right up, down and center, but there is a lot of stigma that comes with, you know, threads, like threads was launched, and people had so much promise over threads, but ultimately it boiled down to just being like, this is just another Facebook. Like, they already have Facebook. They already have Instagram. I'm just going to stay where I am. Blue Sky is really differentiated itself, and I think it's going to be a super popular but it's just going to be a space where brands must be. It's going to be a place where brands must be, because it's going to be where the real time conversation is happening. I don't think Twitter is going any or, excuse me, X, I don't think X is going anywhere, per se, but I do believe, as far as I mean, when it boils down to it, you think about, like, which of these platforms are actual social networks, right? Like, Share. Facebook's a marketing platform. It's a marketplace. It's where you go to shop. It's where I'm going to look for a car. Like Facebook is a marketplace, Instagram is very much still a photo sharing space. Like X is a social network. It really is a social network. And blue sky is it's not a competing social media platform, it's a competing social network. So that is going to be where people go to get their news. It's going to be a competitor to tick tock. It's going to be a competitor to Instagram. I think that's the platform that I personally most excited about. I'm also really excited about Snapchat. Snapchat is a very it's a platform that works really skews very young. It skews very young. So if your product or your business is anything that serves where you do, you know catering for parties? You do? You have a balloon company? Whatever it might be, Snapchat is a really insanely popular platform with younger generations, specifically because adults aren't there, like adults aren't there, kind of makes sense exactly the brand, but the brands that are there still hold that very sacred, and that is a wonderful space for people to be in when they're starting if they're trying to do like, more nuanced sort of B to B marketing. That's a really great platform to build out. Blue Sky is the up and coming social platform. I would also highly recommend people continue to share content on tick tock, Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. YouTube is not necessarily. YouTube's not really a social media platform. It's a media platform, but they have. Google has done a lot to try and begin competing with tick tock and Instagram, with their with reels and that kind of short form video function, and their editing functionalities, which is what people like most about them, YouTube shorts is going to be emerging. It's our it's YouTube, like, it's YouTube, but that's going to become a very popular format on the platform. It already is. It's a great way to take long form content, and then also, kind of these platforms are really good Tiktok Instagram reels, because you can take, like, longer form videos that you've made, and you can splice them up into bite sized pieces of content. So you can, like, again, if you Pat. If you give a speech, right? You can sit there go, No, I'm going to record the whole 60 minutes of this, and I'm going to take five really solid sound clips, and I'm going to make the whole five piece of content just from that. You can upload those individually as reels, but yeah, if you don't have a blue sky account yet, you don't have to be active on it right away. Get your secure your handle. Secure your handle as soon as you can. That is what I would

I think that is so important. You know, back in the Twitter day, right? You know, when I used to say this to people, they were like, really petty. But I'm going to tell you, Jonathan, 84% that's a large number. 84% of my closed business originated on Twitter. I believe that now, then I took it to wherever it needed to be for the appropriate place to be, right, you know, but it originated on Twitter and stuff, though. So you're right. I think blue sky is going to be like the thing. And I am really, really excited about it, so I agree with you, yeah,

Okay, and you don't have to be ever at once. Is the other thing that I'll say is, I think a lot of people also think, well, if I'm going to do social media, I have to do Facebook and Instagram and Tiktok. If you just want to do one, pick one. If you want to do two, pick two. My advice is, only do the amount of platforms you have the bandwidth to manage Correct.

Oh, I love that. You know, April always said to me, So Patty, which social media platforms should I be on? I wish I had $1 for every time I've been Yeah, yeah, right. And my answer is, I was like, what were your the one where your idea why and so that's gonna be awesome.

I think the advice I just gave is advice you gave me. I think this is just a patty farmer, original. I just regurgitated, but it's fine, because the bottom line is, I mean, the worst thing that you could it's almost worse than not having a platform, right? Is the idea that I have a platform, and it's a ghost town, right? If you're saying I'm I have a business and I'm open for business, but I haven't posted in three months, and no one's responding to this. Now, long list. What are the comments that are going to pile up? Right customer service questions, right people that are having issues with your content. If you're not posting actively to give people new places to post, it's all going to go on the most recent one, and then you'll go, okay, this person, this last post, has 50 comments of people who are just unhappy with their product and they haven't responded to anything. I don't care how active their call center is. I don't believe it.

I don't believe I totally agree with you. It's kind of like, you know, they have this cliche that says, oh, build it and they will come Yeah, my answer to that is, but first I have to know you built it Right,

Exactly, exactly you got a box of

Mail for sure. Okay, Jonathan, so here's what I want to know. What they want to know of all of this. I mean, this has been the most amazing conversation.

All right, let's talk. Oh,

I love it. What's the most valuable lesson you've learned as a content creator that you wish that you'd known when you first start

Closed mouths don't get fed? I fucking guessed myself for so long before I started posting content, I second guess myself for so long because it wasn't it didn't look good enough. I am a, I consider myself not a perfectionist, but I'm so close, and I'm very fussy and I'm very picky, and the videos wouldn't look good or I post it, and it wouldn't get enough views right away, and I would just go, oh, this means it's a bad piece of content. You when you are creating content, the one thing that I learned along the way is to trust my gut and not not listen to the metrics, right? You look at you look at how things are performing, and you learn from them. But if you're posting on a regular basis, you have to be fearless, and you have to let yourself fail. You have to let yourself post videos that don't perform well when you really wanted them to. And you have to sit there and remind yourself, this isn't because I'm bad. This isn't because I did something bad. It's exactly what I wanted it to be. And then you move on from that. So that was my that was my biggest one is there are so many people who want to achieve this certain level of success, and they but they just won't. They're too scared to do it. They or they're the excuses. I don't have the equipment yet. I don't have I don't have the right vision yet. I don't have the team yet. And I totally get that. I totally get it. But they have a phone. You have a phone, and again, close mouths. Don't get set. If you want a pizza, you gotta, you gotta just do it. And that's scary to do, and it's making yourself very vulnerable. But one of the things that I love about social media right now, especially with small businesses and things and this is and not even small businesses, any business, either, whether, again, anything that you do, if you are willing to show up and be vulnerable with people and say, Hey, this is something I love doing, and I want to show you why, and take you along on this journey, and this is what people will root for you then. And that is a that is something that we don't always get, and that is something that a lot of entrepreneurs have going for them they don't even. Nice is, even if you do not see yourself as a success, the fact that you had the balls to do this makes you 100 times more successful than so many of the people in your comments and that that really, really, really matters.

Oh, I love that. Okay, so here's my last question, Jonathan, you've turned this platform into a movement with millions of followers and a best selling book. What's next

I would love So what's next for me is I have really enjoyed being able to connect with people on this level. I would love to write another book. I adopted another dog. I adopt another dog, and he has another wonderful story. He is not, you know, the perfect ideal international villain that noodle was, but he's got his own lovely little story. And the the joy that I found in just creating these little, these little legacy stories, has meant the world to me. So I'd love to create another book. I'm also planning to launch a podcast soon, my own podcast. I'm planning my own podcast coming up. I have no idea what I want to call it, but I love talking too much, and I have the equipment, and I've tick tock is such a great space for me, and I've absolutely loved it. And I have every intention of continuing to share all of my dog stuff and all the love, oh my gosh, Milton's life and nutmeg life and all this stuff that I love doing, which got me to this place in the first place. But I'm finding that one of the things I really want to do is push myself to bet more on me. I rely on the dog a lot, and I sit there and I do a lot of like, oh, but people only want to see him. And it's like, that's possible, but you also improbable? Yeah, we want to create this other stuff. You want to create this other stuff, and you are the only one who can give yourself permission to do it. And it's amazing how I can have all of this success in this way. But I'm still nervous to to launch this podcast, because I'm like, Who's going to care? Who's going to care, who's going to listen to this isn't even gonna be successful. What's the point of doing this? How many like all? It's all.

Person who's ever started a podcast thinks so same exact black one. It's then, oh, because you're a content creator, which you're going to be able to take all of those things that you're feeling, and again, this whole journey that you're doing right, and view it. Share that too, and I love that.

And it's that, let's do it. I'm still have the thoughts like, those thoughts are not gonna you're not gonna stop second guessing yourself. You just have to have the courage to be like, I'm gonna do it anyway. Exactly big thing, that's the big thing.

So, Jonathan, thank you so much for being here with me. Now I have to tell you, we talked about these different platforms. I know my audience loved you. I know they love this episode, and I'm sure they took lots of notes, I'm sure. And of course, they can just push the button below, and whether they want to listen to it or watch it, that'll be great. Yeah. Where should they come to connect with you? What is the best way, your favorite way to have people connect to you? Where should they go?

So people, if they want to connect with me, I would love if you were to follow me on Tiktok. Or Instagram. My handle is John gross, J O, N, G, R, A, Z, that's where I post most of my stuff. And again, it's very just day to day things. But I'm also very active on LinkedIn, so if you are have any interest in connecting with me, especially about this podcast, especially about like, if you want to talk to me about dog stuff, like social media, the Instagram and Tiktok is probably the way to do it. But this in particular, I am on LinkedIn, and that's how Patty and I first connected, was on that platform, and I have a very special relationship with it, because I think it's such a great I think it's such an undervalued social media platform. I've got a lot, I've got my own feedback for LinkedIn, for sure, but it is a really undervalued platform. So if you want to, if you want to send me a message there, it's just my name. I'm connected with Patty, so you'll find me there, but that's the best way to go about doing it.

That is awesome. So again, thank you so much, Jonathan, for being here with me. It was an absolute pleasure. Phenomenal anytime.

It was such a joy. Thank you for having me. Thank you for having me as a part of your community. I so appreciate everyone who's listening to this point and anyone who's again, the support that I've gotten from all of this has is the only reason why I'm where I am, and you are a big part of that. I so appreciate that.

Thank you so much. So for my audience, if you enjoyed today's episode, please like subscribe and review it on your favorite listening platform. And if you haven't checked out our magazine, make sure that you check that out too. You can go to m3 digital mag.com, I'd give you a little sneak peek coming up. You haven't seen or heard the there's more to say. There's more to share about Jonathan, so stay tuned with that as well. Mortgages.

Brevity, is just not a gift. I was born with Patty no so

Thank you so much. You all have a wonderful week. We'll talk again next.

Bye. Thank you.