Meet Andy Crestodina

Andy Crestodina is the co-founder and Chief Marketing Officer of Orbit Media, an award-winning 50-person digital agency in Chicago. Over the past 20 years, Andy has provided digital marketing advice to1000+ businesses.

Andy has written 500+ articles on content strategy, search engine optimization, influencer marketing, visitor psychology and Analytics. These articles reach more than three million readers each year. He’s also the author of Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing.

Andy gives up to 100 webinars and presentations per year and is a frequent repeat speaker at many of the top national marketing conferences.

What kind of content can't be created by an AI? 

I love this because I strongly believe that AI will reduce the cost of creating lots of content and especially specific types of content. But there are still types of content that it's not going to be very good at. AI, in my experience, doesn't really have a strong perspective. The technology is really just predicting the next chunk of language in a series. It's not trying to succeed at a goal per se. It's trying to create a piece of language that satisfies the prompt. So, if you want it to create some true thought leadership content or make a stand, have an opinion, it doesn't really do that. I've never seen AI throw a punch. It just isn't built for that. So, if you want to differentiate your content there are several great opportunities to do that.

What is the wrong way to be social online? 

I think from a business perspective, it's constant selling at 100%. You're not going to have a following. You're going to lose any sort of followers that you did have. But if you're constantly pitching your service or, or product, you're going to lose interest right away. It's not sell me media. It's social media.

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Content Chemistry: The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing Sixth Edition

Social Capital Episode 375

Lori Highby: Hey everybody, Lori Highby here. Welcome to the Social Capital podcast. Our show notes are found at socialcapitalpodcast. com. To you, the listener, I want you to know that I appreciate you and I'm thrilled to have you here for another episode. If there's ever anything that I can do to support you, please reach out.

I can't wait to hear from you. Social Capital podcast is sponsored by Keystone Click, a strategic digital marketing agency that believes in order to successfully market to your ideal customer, you have to first understand that customer. You can learn more about understanding the customer journey at KeystoneClick. com. The topic of relationships ties very closely with marketing. That's why I'm bringing on marketing experts with a variety of backgrounds for you to learn from. Today's guest is Andy Crestodina. He is the co-founder and chief marketing officer of Orbit Media, an award winning 50 person digital agency in Chicago.

Andy gives up to 100 webinars and presentations per year and is a frequent repeat speaker at many of the top national marketing conferences. Andy, welcome to the show.

Andy Crestodina: Lori, I'm glad to be here. What an intro. I'll, I'll try to live up to it.

Lori Highby: Yeah, no, I mean, fantastic content. I shared this already, but I'll share it with our listeners.

I've heard you speak. I've seen you speak. I've read your content. And every single time I learned something new. And you have a fantastic way of educating the audience and making it make sense. So you take some complex topics and really simplify it. And I appreciate that a time.

Andy Crestodina: Thank you. Try and do my best.

Andy Crestodina: That is such a fun question because AI is not human.

And yet so much of our success comes from connecting with real people in the real world. So one of the things that AI is really good at is understanding data. And if you give it a data set, it can analyze that data and crunch through numbers. So recently I've been taking data out of Google Analytics and uploading it into AI.

It will suggest to you people that you hadn't thought of. Identifying influencers and subject matter experts that are your future friends. So I think that's another fun way to use it, which is to kind of put it at the top of the process for networking and just see what it comes up with because there's a lot of people out there that might love exactly what you're making, but you might not know them yet.

AI can help.

Lori Highby: I love that. It's a great way to find new ambassadors, influencers yeah, I, I didn't even think about using it for that purpose. See, I already learned something new from you today.

Andy Crestodina: It works. It's fun.

Andy Crestodina: I love this because I, I strongly believe that there are AI will reduce the cost of creating

lots of content and especially specific types of content. But there are, there are still types of content that really, it's not going to be very good at. AI in my experience doesn't really have a strong perspective. The technology is really just predicting the next chunk of language in a series, you know, it's, it's not trying to succeed at a goal per se, it's trying to

you know, create a piece of language that sort of satisfies the prompt. So if, if you want it to create some true thought leadership content or some make a, make a stand, you know have an opinion, it doesn't really do that. I've never seen AI throw a punch. It just isn't built for that. So if you want to differentiate your content there are several great opportunities to do that.

AI can't write that sentence, right? It does not really know how to do that, you know, or well, there's lots of them. They're all kind of triggering topics. I've got sort of a list, but, it opens a big cans of worm when I start to give examples of like, you know, strong statements and strong opinion and op ed.

But that is something where all of us can differentiate just by being a little bit more forthright and direct and sticking our neck out and being, and, and being a bit more opinionated. I think that is, will always be a huge way to differentiate content. It, when you see it, you know it, it sounds different.

Andy Crestodina: Yeah. You know, just now, as you were saying that you reminded me of a scene from a movie. Do you remember Good Will Hunting?

Lori Highby: Yes.

Andy Crestodina: Remember when the therapist, played by Robin Williams, is sort of intimidated and then sort of becomes depressed once he realizes the genius of of the savant of Matt Damon's character, Good Will Hunting?

It's like, wow, this thing could totally take my job until you say, wait a minute. It actually is very limited. It's not, it's not a, a threat to all types of content or any kind of writing. There's things that it really can't do. It does not have a point of view. You can push it into having one, but then you're basically adding, you know, telling it to add perspective or giving it more of a perspective.

So yeah, that is completely differentiated. It is a big opportunity. One of several we could discuss, but I think that there are let's keep in mind that, that, that this technology is generating language but does not have a point of view. It just doesn't.

Yeah. And that, that is. That is the differentiator.

Andy Crestodina: Well, I've reserved the term thought leadership for this kind of rarified class of content where, and this is partly from a, a Q and A set. I got to see Seth Godin speak once.

Oh, cool. Yeah, it was great. And, and in the Q and a session, I was like the first person to shoot my hand up. And I asked him this question and he got excited before I even finished the question. It's like thought leadership, you know, is that really a thing? And he was just, ready to start, you know, share his, his ideas.

Basically what Seth said was thought leadership always creates tension. And you can be certain that someone will disagree. It's about taking chances. So, if that becomes your criteria for the definition of thought leadership content, like someone has to be able to disagree with it, then you reserve that word for content where literally people can follow the idea.

If you write, how to export your GA4 data into Chat GPT to get into like, no. That's how to that's education. Thought leadership is what a lot of people sort of just substitute the word content marketing for thought leadership. Or some people just kind of say like, Oh, our goal is thought leadership, and without ever really defining the term. I believe that thought leadership is differentiated content because it is strong perspective and that it is something that AI can't do. So my friend Chris Carr says yeah, now because of AI, now we all have to do thought leadership, but for real this time.

Like we weren't doing it before. Yeah.

I, I had this conversation with a client yesterday where they do home remodeling and he had a really strong opinion on how something should be done specifically. And he was really hesitant to share that publicly in, you know, his, his social media and his messaging. And I, I turned them the right path.

Like this will make you stand out by publicly saying you believe this is the right way and other people are doing it the wrong way. So it is hard for people to feel comfortable doing that sometimes though.

Andy Crestodina: It is. That's why it's not a very popular tactic or a strategy. And, and I, it's not necessary.

But you, you just mentioned something really powerful about the the approach in general which is social and that's our, we're on the podcast, right? So in social media. This is exactly what overperforms compared to other regular stuff in search. Sure. How to things it's on demand people, you know, look and find it, look for it and find it when they need it.

Lori Highby: Absolutely. I agree with that a hundred percent.

Andy Crestodina: Yeah. Anyone can do it, right? It's weird that it's, it's not expensive or difficult. It just takes guts.

Lori Highby: That's really what it is. Just being comfortable with, you know, being saying the uncomfortable thing basically, or, you know, what may be uncomfortable to you, or, I mean, it's something you believe in, but may create uncomfort for others.

That's really what it comes down to.

Andy Crestodina: Yeah. And, and again, it's optional. You don't have to do it. I don't really do it. It's not my strategy. I'm still focused mostly on the detailed step by step how to article, but. Another way. So here's and I've, I've published things that sound, you know, that, that come close to thought leadership.

Which is like the conversation, you can simply invite people who have strong points of view on a topic that's relevant to your audience and then talk to them about their point of view. And that's still, you know, you're not the thought leader in that, but you can still end up with the content and the headlines and the social stream with strong perspective for your audience. So there's, you know, if you're thinking about a topic that's kind of controversial or where there's lots of different perspectives, maybe do a roundup or, or, or organize a little panel of people who have opinions there. That's certainly not [00:15:00] difficult or expensive or as risky.

Lori Highby: Yeah. And then it's your name just sharing the different perspectives as opposed to if you have fear around taking a stance. Yeah. Yeah. That's a good strategy for sure.

Andy Crestodina: Yeah.

Lori Highby: All right. Here's a fun one for you. If you could go back to your 20 year old self, what would you, what would you tell yourself to do more of, less of or differently with regards to your professional career?

Andy Crestodina: Well, my 20 year old self was very unfocused and kind of a bad student with no plans. That, that, that guy needed a lot of help. He had no clue what he was doing. There are, I teach a, a marketing course to master's students in Spain every year. So I, I sort of regret majoring in Mandarin Chinese because I don't use it. I wish I'd learned Spanish. That, that would be step one.

So I spent years kind of doing what people do instead of you know, doing less in content for sure. Right. It's like, you know, I should have published original research much earlier. I should have gone deeper into video much earlier. I should have been publishing long form detailed how- to analytic stuff much earlier. Or collaborating with influencers much earlier because I've been doing content marketing since 2007, but I never published original research until, you know, 2012 or something like. The people who did that earlier ended up with much, much larger audiences, much better relevance and impact. Yeah. Yeah.

Andy Crestodina: Oh, Lori, what is the wrong way to be a social online?

Lori Highby: Oh, I think from a business perspective, it's a constant selling a 100%. You're not going to have a following. You're going to lose any sort of followers that you did have. But if you're, you're constantly pitching your service or, or product, , you're going to lose interest right away.

So that's, that's definitely not, it's not sell me media. It's social media.

Andy Crestodina: That's a perfect summary. How about this follow up? Is it possible to not sell enough?

Lori Highby: Yes. I do believe that sometimes brands go really heavy on the value add, and they don't add the strong call to action to move people through the different stages of the customer journey.

Lori Highby: Likewise.

Andy Crestodina: But you don't know how because you don't know what they're up to.

Lori Highby: Yep. Yep.

Andy Crestodina: So LinkedIn is your strongest channel? Mine too. What, what's what's working in LinkedIn today?

Lori Highby: I really like the polls actually. I think I get the most engagement when there's a poll, but it also is kind of like doing a little mini research, you know. So just gauging, you know, the temperature on a certain topic or what tools and technology are hot at the moment and that kind of gives me some fuel for future content to create as well.

Andy Crestodina: That's a great tip. I never do those.

Lori Highby: Oh, it's fun.

Andy Crestodina: What's the, what's the most common problem on people's LinkedIn profiles?

Lori Highby: They're not telling a story. They have it positioned just like a resume.

Lori Highby: You know, what's one of the funnest things to really, you really want to use LinkedIn to find a way for someone to make it easy to connect with you. So on my bio and it's kind of dug in the middle of the bio. It says that I play hockey and it says that I'm a Batman fan and have quite a collection.

And you'd be surprised how many people actually reach out and comment to me on that privately. And that, that tells me that they're reading, they're interested, they're curious, but it's, it was like a soft opening for them as opposed to the normal pitch to connect. So I appreciate that. And it's fun.

Andy Crestodina: This, this may be, this question may lead to some perspective and opinion. LinkedIn has been a place for professional content forever. But in recent years, there's been more kind of social posts and people's personal kind of personal life coming through in posts. And there's sometimes a backlash against that.

Lori Highby: Yeah, you know, that's an interesting question because I've struggled with that myself. I don't have a definite answer because I appreciate the you're sharing your story, your backstory, and you're kind of giving people a bigger picture view of who you are as a human.

But I also believe that I'm personally on there for my own business, professional development, connectivity, networking. And if I wanted to connect with you to see your behind the scenes, personal life, then that's where I would connect with you on Facebook. So I, I'm not the biggest fan of the personal. You know, here's what I'm eating for dinner tonight kind of posts on LinkedIn.

But I'll admit sometimes I'll throw some of that out there, but I try to tie it to business actually.

If it was an article, I'm not writing this article. I'm, I'm going to be deliberately provocative for a second. Not on LinkedIn, you don't, that's the wrong place. For a personal post, be very cautious about oversharing because it's not the correct context. LinkedIn is a professional network. People are doing personal branding, professional networking, and social media marketing.

It's not a general social media platform. There's a place in a time for that. It's not here. LinkedIn is more for you at work, and just like at work, we shouldn't be oversharing a lot of personal details, it's not the purpose of the context. So, I was just trying to spin that in a way that made it feel like, you know, tying back to that earlier example.

Lori Highby: Yeah, a little bolder, yeah.

Andy Crestodina: Yeah, which is stronger than I believe, actually.

Lori Highby: I was tiptoeing a little bit, but yeah.

And I like, and, and I don't share them, but I, I inter engage with, with personal posts in LinkedIn, because a lot of these people, I really know them and I'm not on Facebook, but if I did want to trigger an audience, I could throw a punch on my Chat GPT. Yeah.

Lori Highby: No, that that's great. Those are fun questions. Thank you for asking them. Any final word or wisdom you want to share with our listeners with regards to leaning into AI a little bit?

Andy Crestodina: I think that. One thing I've noticed is that well, two quick perspectives. AI is expectations are extreme. And there are people who try it once and say that did not blow my mind.

But also I, you have to learn to use it. It is, even though there's no UX really to figure out, it is still something where you expect to put in 20 to 40 hours of experimentation and, and, and research before you know how to get good value from it. And you're going to discover what kind of prompts, how to subsequent prompts, how to save different chats, how to give it certain insights and expect different things.

Lori Highby: No, that's, that's sound advice for sure. Andy, if anyone was interested in getting in contact with you, what's the best way they can reach you?

Andy Crestodina: LinkedIn would be my top network. I'm very active there. I publish a newsletter every week on LinkedIn. I gave it a, a very clever name. It's called digital marketing tips.

But really Orbit Media. com is where you can find everything of mine. And we have over the years been repackaging our best posts there into a an actual book. It's a physical printed book called Content Chemistry, The Illustrated Handbook for Content Marketing, which you can get anywhere it's in its sixth edition.

Lori Highby: Cool.

Andy Crestodina: And that's, that's like my entire brain between two covers.

Lori Highby: Awesome. We will include all that information in our show notes. Thank you so much for being on the show today, Andy.

Andy Crestodina: My pleasure.

Lori Highby: All right. This wraps up our episode of Social Capital. A huge thank you to Andy for taking the time to connect with us.

Speaker: That's all for this episode of the Social Capital podcast, visit socialcapitalpodcast. com for

show notes, more episodes, and to see who will be on the show next. Thank you for listening, and we'll see you next episode.