Do you spend time creating content on social media networks that you actually enjoy, or are you simply checking a box? Creating content for your firm should bring you value and joy and allow you to push boundaries based on what your audience wants to hear.

In this episode of Bridging the Gap, Matt Reiner sits down with social media genius Phil Pallen, Founder & Brand Strategist of Phil Pallen Collective. Phil shares his insights on navigating social media, the online marketing landscape, and building a solid online brand. In addition, he stresses the importance of understanding industry rules and regulations for financial services firms, prioritizing social media platforms that align with your goals, and repurposing content to reach a wider audience. 

Later in the episode, Matt and Phil discuss omnichannel content creation and the importance of being authentic in content strategy. Lastly, Phil shares his thoughts on entrepreneurship and positioning yourself to win in the industry. Tune in to this episode for valuable insights on building a strong digital presence.

About Phil Pallen: 

Phil Pallen is a personal branding expert and keynote speaker. His non-conventional approach to digital marketing and talent for social media has built him a global audience.

As a brand strategist, Phil has advised hundreds of brands from over 30 countries, including a Shark on Shark Tank, a Nobel Peace Prize winner, politicians, and some of the most important names in entertainment. A digital nomad and globetrotter, Phil has delivered speeches on five different continents and frequently appears as an expert contributor in media outlets around the world, including CNN, Access Hollywood, and The Daily Mail.

Follow Us And Find More Content For Financial Advisors and Wealth Management Firms At:

www.mattreiner.com

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So the social platform that you should focus on, at least

to start, is the one that you open

on your phone when you're in line at the grocery store.

Gone are the days where you need to be on a certain platform to attract

a certain audience. Everyone is everywhere nowadays.

I prioritize the platforms that I actually enjoy spending

time on. Joining me from the sunny state of Florida,

it's Phil Palan. Phil is the founder and brand strategist

of Phil Palan Collective, where he helps people and companies

position, build, and promote their brands.

This was an insightful conversation, especially as an industry

where we're looking to continue to evolve how we build

our own personal brands, given the relationship orientation of this

business. Phil is a social media genius, and we take a deep

dive into his strategies behind his social media

platforms and understanding the importance of remembering

what our audience actually wants, what they want to read,

what they want to learn about what they want to hear, not necessarily hear it

in a positive way, but what do they want to know more about? Phil also

expresses the importance of exploring and experimenting on what your boundaries

look like from the perspective of your audience when you are creating a strategy

around producing content. This is for the advisor that's looking

to grow their business, to build their brand, utilizing one

of the most powerful tools out there that we can all use, which is social

media. So, this episode was filled with so much insight,

and I personally took so many tips from Phil in just this hour

episode. So without further ado, let's jump into this episode

of Bridging The Gap with Phil Palan.

This is Bridging the Gap with your host,

Matt Reiner. Phil Palan. Welcome to Bridging

the Gap, my friend. How are you? How's everything happening

in the Phil Palan world these days?

It's good. It's so nice to meet you and to be on

this podcast and to spend the valuable minutes that we have together. I think it's

going to be fun for both of us and for the listener. Things are good.

You know what? I had a rough day yesterday. I was on my flight back

from Colombia, and I got food poisoning from the airport lounge.

That made for a very unpleasant day. But I'm back bouncing

back better than ever today. So I'm happy that we're chatting today and not yesterday.

Hey, I have to tell you, I mean, you bounce back better than anybody I

know. It's like nothing ever happened. I can't even tell anything happened

if you didn't tell me. I'd be like, gosh, phil is just happy,

he's healthy, nothing's wrong, looking good.

And look at that. Yesterday was totally different. Thank you. That's awesome.

Yeah. Phil and like you were saying, it's great to meet you. That's one of

the reasons I love a podcast, is because you just get to meet really

interesting people, and it gives us an opportunity to have a conversation like we would

over coffee, and hopefully we share some insight that other people can take away.

And this conversation, I was telling you, before we start recording, I was

researching, listening to your podcast a little bit and doing some research on

you, and I just find your background super

intriguing and super valuable to this industry. I think

you've got tons of perspective that I'm really looking forward to digging into. And I've

got a ton of questions that we're going to go down, but we're just going

to have it as a conversation. But before we even get into that,

I always like to just learn about the person, right? Phil Palin

himself. And I always like to ask the question, you have your

own collective, your own agency. You're helping individuals

from marketing to branding to content to social to everything of

that nature. I always like to ask though, what did the 13

year old Phil Palan want to be? Was this

what he wanted to do, own his own agency and focus on marketing?

Or was it something different? Good question.

So I wasn't entirely

sure. At age 13, I remember high school, I guess that would

have been early days of high school, I shout out an architect because

I thought that would be a cool job. I used to love looking at floor

plans, almost like this structured design,

which does make sense, what I ended up pursuing. But I

remember shadowing an architect for a day and I thought, you know what, this is

not as cool as I thought. I thought it was like decorating houses

and making cool buildings and stuff, but it was so much

math and so much like engineering, and I was like, no,

that's not me. High school

into university, I did theater and I did more

media. So actually studied media in university and

hosted a lot of events and did some radio stuff and

did some television and so media, for me,

that was definitely a no brainer that I wanted to do something in that

world, in that space. I left Canada, where I grew up,

for the US. 2010 I think it was,

studied at Fullsale University in Florida, which is an entertainment

specific school. Same day, graduated, moved out to La. And pursued

actually TV hosting for about a month because I was

like, this is my chance, this is my shot.

And discovered very quickly, Matt, that a lot

of people wanted those jobs. A lot of people were willing to wait in a

line of 100 people, 1000 people,

to get one job for a month or two months and then be

unemployed again and then rinse and repeat actors and hosts.

That's a tough life unless you're super successful, which doesn't

happen overnight. So instead of pursuing hosting,

I thought, I can support the people

in this world. And so my first niche as a brand strategist was

actually TV hosts, helping people build their brands and their

social media strategy to try and win a

job in an audition. And that was kind of how it all started.

I love that. Now, you said you were a TV host for one month.

Were you actually on a TV show, or were you just in training

to be a TV host? I was in training to be a TV host,

but I actually was a host when I was not 13.

I think I was 14. I may have been 13. I have to go

back and look at the years. I think I was 14 when I was a

host on actually a reality show on

a kids show in Canada, and it aired across the

country. It's so vintage now. If you go back, I had, like, long,

shaggy hair, but it introduced me to media. It introduced me to

storytelling. It wasn't just, like, saying lines to the

camera. It was also working with the producers to create a story arc

and figure out what's the most interesting aspect of

what happened. How do we capture that? How do we distill it down

into a really poignant, exciting message? Those are all themes

of what I do day to day now, and certainly that was my first kind

of exposure to it. That's incredible.

And, I mean, I think that it shows from your time of wanting to be

an architect and then seeing I had too much engineering. It was like your creative

side, right? Like the creativity that's needed to excel

in what you're doing day to day is so necessary. And it just

showed that you had that at 13, whether you're an architect or not.

And I love that you wanted to be a TV host. And it reminds

me of when I was growing up, I always had a desire to

either play professional baseball or be a sports broadcaster. I wanted to be like

Stuart Scott, and then I realized that in order. And one of my

buddies from growing up is now he's a TV anchor.

He wanted to be a sports broadcaster, too, and he actually did it. I did

not. I realized that you had to go to these really small little

towns and work there for long periods of time. And you

don't just get the call up to Bristol, Connecticut, to go work for Sports Center.

It's like, you got to go to, I don't even know, a small little town

like Tifton, Georgia, and work there for

six years and then move your way up. And I was like, I'm out.

I don't know about that. And so it's the same thing with

TV. TV is so hard. These people that get on there, it's so

long and such a time commitment to get there. How did you

help these individuals I'm curious, build their brand?

Did you help them accelerate that path, or was it just a matter of helping

to get exposure but I would think that that accelerates it in general over time.

Definitely the acceleration piece, I think an interesting for this conversation

in your brand, I decided it's almost

exactly the same story. Even my best friend that I studied with is now

a news anchor in the US. And she did the small

market, worked her way up, and I thought, wow,

I'll always admire her. But I couldn't

imagine myself doing the same thing. I think for me, moving out

to La. For me also part of this was financial.

I didn't imagine a world where I could live month

to month or live with that uncertainty of not knowing

when my next paycheck will come. And so for me, I thought, well,

I still want to have a foot in that world. I still want to be

connected. But I need something that's a bit more structured

and a bit more reliable. And how funny that I

ended up becoming an entrepreneur, not even really intentionally,

but I've always seen entrepreneurship as more reliable than going

and working for someone. Because as long as your

brand or business, I use those terms interchangeably,

as long as they're positioned around something people need

and are willing to spend money on, then that's really your

ticket to security versus going and working for someone

else. And ultimately that person could fire you. And that's not secure

anymore. Right. To have such an important thing in someone else's hands,

that stresses me out. But I think my approach with host

at the time was similar. It's like, okay, if you want to win

a spot on the show, you need to bring a

strong argument to the table. You need to argue like

a lawyer would. Here's the case of my client. This is why they're not only

skilled to host your show, but they also bring an audience to the

table. They have access or they have what we would call the privilege of platform.

Someone who has followers on social media or Instagram,

someone that has proven success in an area of expertise.

Even if the host that they're up to

host, even if that brand is slightly different than what their expertise is in,

it's still what we would call proof of concept. You've proved

that you know how to share your expertise, inspire others,

build community. And having that proof of concept makes it a

stronger argument for someone to say,

you know what? This person is perfect. Not only are they a

great host, but they also know how to promote and sell

and engage and grow the audience. And so it's

kind of a two for one deal. That's super

interesting because it also leads into kind of the next kind of set of questions

that I have, because building a brand is so difficult,

right? And especially in this business. This is a relationship

business within wealth management, right? People don't buy the brand.

They buy the person trust and belief in that individual,

and that individual has to build a brand. And so often in this industry,

how it's been? Is it's been that you rely on the brand of

the company you're working for to bring people in and then you sell them.

And to your point, there's a high risk to that. There's a high

risk if there's something that happens

with that brand name. It impacts you and your livelihood and your families.

And so the best thing that you can do is go build your own personal

brand to create security for you. You still can work for

a business. So I'm curious, let's just get into the

guts of it. What are some of the key aspects and things to

think about when building a personal brand? Right? Where do people

go right? And where do people go wrong when it comes to

building a personal brand, which sometimes

seems easy, but I think is really difficult. Yeah, I think it's

interesting also to hear you've said twice

now that building a brand is hard. I think it's less hard when

you know the steps you're supposed to take. And the steps for

me don't change regardless of industry. I find it really

exciting to be on a podcast like this, to talk to a specific audience that

maybe I'm less familiar with day to day.

Because the process for building a brand doesn't change

company or person, regardless of industry, regardless of platform.

As it stands now, the process is exactly the

same. I was actually thinking between the time that

I booked this interview with you and the time that we're actually chatting today,

I switched over where I had my investments in my

401k, roth, IRA, all of this stuff to

a new banker and a new bank. Because of the relationship

that I had with that banker, the trust I felt

that relationship, that access that I have,

So it's funny you mentioned this, and I love how it says on your homepage,

it's like the people aspect of banking is

never going to change, right? So as we think about building a brand,

remember, it's a little bit like online dating,

okay? So we're trying to achieve consistency between the

in person experience and the online version of ourselves.

So to bring it back to this example of online dating, let's say you're

on one of the apps and you're swiping left and right and you go

to meet someone in real life. You've consumed their profile,

their little bio, their photos, little description about them,

and then you go to meet that person in real life. And they're nothing like

how they've portrayed themselves. That's never

a positive experience. So when it comes to branding,

I accept your challenge of thinking that it's hard. I don't think it's hard if

you have the steps. The goal here is

to achieve consistency between the in person experience

and the online version of ourselves. The best branding

recreates the in person experience

and so typically I break this into three stages. Position your

brand, build something to show for it. So photography,

brand identity or logo a website, potentially social

media profiles, right, that's under the build.

Finally, promote stick a for sale sign out front of

that house and take that house to market and sell it.

And you ask what are some of the mistakes that people make? The mistake

I see the most is people jump too quickly to that final stage,

promoting your brand until you've done the necessary work

to build or to revisit the positioning and the build

of a brand. Those are absolutely essential.

And I love your challenge. And I think that there is an unfortunate

I think it's a cop out to say it's hard to build a brand,

so I'm just not going to do it because it's not worth the time.

Which I think that that's where it comes to. It's like a cop out of

saying, well gosh, it just takes so much time. I'm not going

to get the results right away. I don't

have enough time, so I'm just not going to do it. Which I think is

a cop out as well because I think it's so necessary. But to

the point of the positioning and the building,

like the website and the photography and all that type of stuff,

what does someone need to do? What are some of those steps

that people can do? Because I think that the challenge is that wealth management,

individuals, they know how to analyze and they know how to sell,

but they don't necessarily know how to sell themselves.

Themselves. Which is so crazy, right? But we

are selling ourselves every day, but we don't know how to sell ourselves in a

social environment. And I think that we're always trying to put a veil

over us when we are public because we're

very concerned about because we're dealing with people's money. So people are very scared about

being authentic and vulnerable, et cetera,

which is one of some of those aspects that you have to be to create

that consistency, as you said, of in person versus online.

Yeah, well, you bring up some good points. There's also some additional

layers of approval that just happen to exist

in this industry and other professional industries. Lawyers, doctors,

et cetera. So I would say step number one is make sure you're fully aware

of what you're allowed to say and what you're not allowed to say.

I don't necessarily know those things. As a brand strategist,

I'll typically push the limit. Like I'll get to the edge of

trademark, copyright, et cetera, when it gets into some of the legal

stuff. But it's important to know what

the rules are for your industry. Rules and regulations. I'd say step number one.

Step number two is really thinking about social media

and building an online brand from a selfish standpoint. And I'll explain

what I mean. This is going to make sense for you, Matt, because you already

do it, even if you don't realize it. But social media

and content creation are opportunities

to really be discovered by brand new people that could become clients,

they could become friends, they could be passive consumers of whatever you create.

They could also ignore your brand if what you create doesn't resonate with them.

And that's fine. It's exactly like real life. You're not going to hit it off

with everyone, but you are going to hit it off with someone.

And social media still to this day, even though algorithms are changing and it

becomes harder and harder to be discovered, there's still huge

opportunity to create something from scratch that becomes

something, can become something that complements your business.

An example for me is yes. I've been

a brand strategist for over ten years now, but only in the last two

years only in the last two years have I created a separate vertical

within my business, which is based on content creation. Essentially working

as a creator to support brands like Adobe and Adobe

Express is my biggest partnership. But these brands hire me to create content that

promotes their platforms totally separate from my agency.

I've also seen tons of people on TikTok,

Instagram, LinkedIn in the financial world that have

landed similar opportunities. If you build a base,

you use social media as an opportunity to showcase your expertise.

That can become very powerful and it doesn't necessarily need to promote

you do one on one. I don't find branding clients through social media. Actually,

that's not true. I have found a few, but that's not my goal. But I

certainly have grown an audience sharing tips for branding,

reviews on the latest AI tools and tips design

social media. I've built my own brand

that coexists as a separate vertical, but it

interconnected with what I do and that's been really interesting.

So I think be open to

how those opportunities can unfold in a way that you might not expect be

selfish. So I feel like it won't take a lot

of time in your head. It's not going to seem like it takes a lot

of time if you get a lot from the process

of creating. And a podcast, Matt, is the perfect example.

You gave this example already in our conversation,

had you emailed me and said, phil, I found you on the Internet and you

seem awesome. I want to pick your brain to learn your strategies.

Can we schedule it? I'd say, honestly, I'm really busy. I probably can't.

I mean, unless it's a referral or unless you said, I want to

become a client of yours, then that changes the dynamic. But yet you email

me and say, let's connect and record an episode

of my podcast. You all of a sudden became my lowest priority

and my highest priority because you are giving me platform.

You are sharing your audience with me

and we are connecting and who knows

where this relationship that starts today can go.

You might refer clients to me. I might refer clients to you.

Podcasting has been an amazing way that I've reconnected with old clients

of mine. Hey, come on and share your expertise. And the client at the end

of the call goes, by the way, I need to hire you to redo my

website. Fantastic. One podcast episode,

I have a co host on mine. She writes a blog post,

Notes. Before the podcast even ends,

she has notes that we can then shoot into an AI

tool to at least get a draft that we'll then edit. I take

those notes, that blog post that goes live on our website and

turn it into a YouTube video. I post twice a week on YouTube.

I'll then by that point, very familiar with the content, can turn it into two

or three Instagram posts. Then we very quickly create some pins to

put it on Pinterest where it lives for a long time and can continue

to send traffic years later. So be selfish about

this. It's not about putting all this time and effort into hopefully being

found online. Use this as a way to complement your

business. Use it as a way that is rewarding for you,

something that brings you value in the process.

So much gold there. I love what you were

just alluding to in my mind. And I think that how you're referring to is

like this omnichannel of content, right? How do I take one piece of content and

turn it into multiple pieces where I don't have to work so hard to create

everybody's? Like, I don't know how to think about content. Well, just go find people

you're talking to. It can be clients, it can be cois, it can

be whoever, and just have a conversation that you would have. And likely there's

going to be some really rich content from there that then you can create into

bite size and put onto multiple mediums. But I think that the other avenue

that you mentioned earlier in that comment was how

I inferred it or took it is this idea that I don't

do social to try to drive clients. I do it to grow awareness

and there's multiple channels. You have to understand what is the

goal that you're having with social. And I think too many people come

into content creation and brand building of saying,

I'm going to go start an Instagram channel or be more

prolific on LinkedIn and I'm going to just all of a sudden generate

more leads. It's kind of like the old adage when websites were like

brand new and everybody was trying to build a cool website. Once I

launched the website, the old joke was like, you launch a website, you just sit

by the phone waiting for it to ring, all the clients are going to find

you. That's not happening. There has to be a middle ground I was actually just

talking with a coaching client about this, saying, what is your social strategy to

drive to a newsletter that you can then nurture them to then drive

them to a course, then drive them to become a client? What is

that funnel from that standpoint? And I think that having that different

perspective is so key from that standpoint. I love the idea of

being selfish. Like, I do this because it's selfish. I love learning from smart people.

This is selfish to me because I'm learning every

day. Like, I research our guests, I have a conversation with

them, I get to ask them questions that I want to know about that others

I think want to know about. And it's shown that they do. And so

then it gets into content creation, right? We're talking about omnichannel being selfish,

and I think that authentic is a part of it. But when you

think about building a content strategy, right, we talk about it.

You and I know it because we do it a lot every day, but a

wealth manager may not do it a lot, and it seems overwhelming. So what are

some of those steps that we can help start people right

at the beginner stage to build really engaging content

and get away from being afraid of doing it because they don't know people want

to hear it and just doing it because they selfishly, think it's really

interesting, and other people will too. I can't

think of a better job than wealth management as

a conduit for listening and learning your

customers pain points. I mean, that's got to be in this

year. That's got to be still one of the

highest touch jobs. My banker called

me yesterday just to touch base on a few things, like who

else calls me, maybe my accountant, but otherwise they

would just send an email. But my banker, for the

reasons that you describe it's, like he's going to pick up the phone and call

me versus send an email. It's a little bit I don't know.

He wants me to feel confident in that relationship and that to remind

me with his voice that he's thinking about me. Honestly, I don't

think there are that many higher touch occupations

nowadays. So the reason that's so valuable is

that your listener is literally

having conversations every day with

their clients, but also with their ideal audience.

So the questions that your clients are

asking you are the questions that a lot

of other people are asking on the internet and going to the

internet for resources on. And don't let technology

confuse this. So what I mean is, like, you don't

need to be using chat GPT by tomorrow to generate your caption

ideas and all of this nonsense. Honestly, I'm a fan of analog.

I'm a fan of simple methods of

tracking those ideas, those conversations. I'll give

you an example. I have blank pieces of white paper

on my desk that I will literally in the middle of a

call or in the middle of an interview with you, I will jot down an

idea in my Scribble penmanship. It's not great, but I can

read it. And I literally that is how I will remember something

from a conversation that can become a great social media

post or a podcast episode. So this one says

real about creating on the road. I travel

a lot, so people are always like, phil, how do you pump out 4K,

like, high quality videos while you're traveling? Good question,

and I can probably answer that better in a little video that 100 other

people are wondering. And by creating that content, I get to use hashtags

that are relevant in that industry. And it means that I'm going to be discovered

as someone who talks about those things.

Don't let technology get in the way of this or become an excuse or

a distraction. Keep it simple. The core

of this is listening to your audience and taking inventory

quickly, getting your ideas from here. Your brain is not for storing ideas.

Your brain is for generating them. Right. You want

to write down those ideas or you want to jot them down on your phone

or get them into your inbox. There's a few ways of doing that. You want

to get those ideas out of your brain and somewhere that you can take

action on them. Yeah, I'm a huge fan of that,

and I've been kind of a big proponent and cheerleader

to the Second Brain idea that Tiago Forte in

his book Building a Second Brain has come out that has changed the ability for

me to get ideas on the paper and then organize them later. Everybody feels

they have to have this perfect process to get your ideas out,

to process those ideas, to build those ideas before ever getting

started. And it's just a matter of just like, get started. Have a note card

or a sticky note or a piece of paper like you're saying now.

I have one more question on this, and I want to get into platforms because

I also want to touch on some of the guests that you had on your

Brand Therapy podcast, and they're talking about some platforms, and I have some

questions on that side. But before we get there to

wrap this up, being selfish is doing

things that make intrigue you. You write about, you research things that

you like, but then you also have this aspect of vulnerability. And I

mentioned it a little bit earlier that you still have to be vulnerable.

Like you have to be authentic and vulnerable. I think that they are kind of

meshed together our industry,

you know, our industry a little bit, but we've been very shy

about being vulnerable because we have to be the ones that know it all.

Because people come to us about their life savings. They need us to provide them.

That insight. So in your mind, are there boundaries

of where you hold yourself back, when you think about that, of building

a personal brand, being authentic,

what are those boundaries that you put in, of like, whoa, you're becoming

too vulnerable or too authentic, or is that ever reached

or where you're just not being yourself. What do

those boundaries look like to get to authenticity

that really resonates as opposed to maybe crease people out or

freaks people out and scares them away? That's a really good

question. And I think the boundaries let's

explore this because I don't want to give an answer that's not satisfying. The not

satisfying answer would be that those boundaries are different for everyone. The more

satisfying answer I'd say is,

I guess, encouraging people to explore and experiment

with what those boundaries look like from the perspective

of your audience. So it's really important to not go into

this going, okay, this person gave me advice, so this

is the strategy that I'm going to implement. Even the person giving you advice doesn't

necessarily know the answer. We don't know the answer on what

kind of content is going to perform the best. We'll come to you with ideas

on what we think you should experiment with. Put your own spin on,

try it a few times, see how people respond and adjust accordingly.

The thing that you should always root back to is what

is it your audience wants from you? And I know for a fact

I want a financial advisor, for example, that is confident,

but I also want them to be human. I don't want them to be robotic.

So I would say as we're exploring this concept of vulnerability,

we have to think about your personality when we break this down into a

science. Content is what you say.

Personality is the unique way that you and

only you deliver that content you see.

So whenever we think things are hard, do you notice how I always have a

way of breaking them down into a way that we can totally understand them,

so it feels less.

It'S an incredible skill I love. Thank you. It's a

way that I'm able to teach. And I also am sensitive

or I guess empathetic to the idea of this feeling

overwhelming, particularly for busy working professionals.

So I've had a few years at coming up with these things,

and if we can just make it feel a little more doable, a little

less overwhelming, it can become really powerful.

I would say that the exploration of vulnerability as

we think about content, what you say, personality, the unique way that you and only

you deliver that content. And then we

route this back to what are their goals, right?

What is your audience's goals, what are your goals? How do we

balance that? How do we deliver them an experience online and

off that yes, gives them confidence that you're the right person to

be managing their money or giving advice. But also remember

we value human to human interaction.

So those little moments of vulnerability, of admitting,

I don't know, maybe things didn't unfold the way you expected, but here's the

positive or here's an interesting opportunity

if you can always kind of experiment with that delicate balance

I think would be my advice. I couldn't

in that case say do it exactly this way. You're going to know, you're going

to feel more confident as you build that self awareness

of how you communicate online and off.

I think the one thing I can say is those experiences can be the same

and should be the same. Achieving consistency between the

in person experience and the online version. Yeah,

not trying to be someone different online because like you said, that creates a disconnect

and it makes for the initial interaction to be really impactful

in a bad way. And I think that there's this

wealth management professionals are very analytical

and this gives you an opportunity to really kind of dive into that because

you should be constantly looking to iterate. There is no perfect solution,

there's no perfect investment allocation, there's no perfect marketing

allocation or brand building strategy and you should iterate I

get ridiculed in our firm because I talk about the process

of let's just do this and iterate on it, let's learn and let's move on.

But that gives me the ability of analyzing, let's get data,

let's analyze it and let's go then make another decision. And that's how they should

be thinking about their brand side of it. So I think that that's something you

just have to get comfortable with. Now, switching gears for

a second, I want to talk about platforms, the platforms

to utilize. And I want to give you a scenario

kind of like maybe I would give to chat GPT and you give me back

the specific strategy that would work. The ideal client profile

is an individual or a couple nearing

retirement, working another five to ten

years. And they have a 401,

they own a home and they have a family.

And I am an advisor that wants to go and attract this individual net

worth, whatever their net worth, let's just say their net worth is,

including their house, is a million dollars plus.

Great. I want to get into a social strategy.

Which of all the social platforms should I be most focused on

to start with for attracting that demographic?

So the social platform that you should focus on at least

to start is the one that you open

on your phone when you're in line at the grocery store.

And I'll explain so gone are the days where you

need to be on a certain platform to attract a certain

audience. Everyone is everywhere nowadays.

And so, yeah, sure, there might be more of a certain

audience, in this case on LinkedIn than on a platform like

TikTok, but at the same time, I could challenge that and

say, you're more likely to grow on TikTok, which has greater discoverability

than LinkedIn at the moment, because there's less of you over

there. And you also might be shocked

by who responds to your content and your personality.

Remember that content personality ratio. You might be shocked.

I find myself I actually don't open TikTok that often. I'm more of a YouTube

guy. But I was on TikTok yesterday because a friend had forwarded

me something and I found myself scrolling and watching bizarre

but so interesting video. Like people making these really amazingly

designed cakes and other people doing,

like, plumbing and stuff like that. I'm like, I'm so fascinated

that I'm watching and engaging with this type of content. I would have never expected

to whereas when I go over on LinkedIn, I'm there with a little bit more

purpose. I'm connecting professionally. I'm maintaining those relationships

that I have. I prioritize the platforms that I actually enjoy spending

time on. So for me, that's YouTube. I watch a lot of YouTube videos.

I know one of your questions coming up is, what book would you recommend?

And I'm so happy you asked that ahead of time because even though I have

books in the frame of my video, I'm like, absolutely not a reader.

But don't worry, I haven't answered the question only because you told me ahead of

time. I'm a video watcher. I'm a video watcher and

a blog reader. YouTube I

absolutely love. And I built an audience and it's growing every day on

YouTube. And I really enjoy the process of creating content. So less

worried about where you should be based on where your audience is,

more worried about where are you going

to enjoy creating content

sustainably. I love that.

I just think that idea of, again, being authentic to yourself,

being selfish, like, if you don't like Facebook, then you probably shouldn't

be posting on Facebook, despite what everybody's telling you.

I'm a LinkedIn person. I love LinkedIn, I think that's great.

But I'm trying to get into my second realm of it, whether it's Instagram or

Twitter. And to be honest, I deleted Instagram for personal reasons,

but now my wife is on it all the time, so I think I

need to get back in it and I'm missing out, I feel like a little

bit of FOMO from it. But my question on

Twitter I want to ask about specifically because I just read a headline in an

article from someone that basically said that Twitter is going to be gone in six

months. What's your thought? Is Twitter dead now?

Is it even worthwhile spending time building a Twitter

strategy? Or is it like, that platform is so past

its day that it's not even worth it?

Yeah, good question. I don't necessarily know the answer

to this. I guess only from a personal anecdote position.

I seem like the right person to ask about this.

2014 actually wrote and published a book called shut

up and tweet. And so Twitter used to be my social media platform of

choice, and over the years, as visual platforms

became a little more prevalent, then my time

on Twitter started to dwindle, and I dedicated that time

to Instagram and then YouTube.

And for now, those two platforms definitely occupy the majority of my time as

a content creator. That being said, I'll hop over to Twitter

now, very passively. I get a lot of just information on

news and culture, and technology is

something I post about on YouTube a lot. So I'll go over to Twitter

to sit in on the latest threads and conversations around what's happening

in emerging technology, AI, stuff like that.

But I tweet far less than I used to. Now I'm mostly

just listening in on the conversations other people are having. I have another friend who's

a very entrepreneurial and really just didn't

find his flow on social media until he

landed on Twitter and has grown quickly on Twitter because he's engaging,

very authentically in a lot of conversations that in his

case, other tech bros are having. But I said it's just so perfect

for him. He's found his kind of purpose.

And again, I would argue that social media is

selfish. In his case, he's getting more from it than he's putting in, and that's

really cool. So, I don't know, I guess I

gave you two different perspectives. There a friend of mine that absolutely loves it

and spends more time there than any other social media platform. For me,

I don't find it quite as exciting. I am nervous about

the investment. If we're going to bring it back to your terms,

I'm nervous about the investment right now. If you're investing from scratch

based on how volatile it is with Elon and with just

changing trends, I'd say I think Twitter

in media and entertainment and culture still has its

role, but not quite of a

stronghold that it once had.

That's a good answer. And I'm going to be that

pushy nudgy host, and I'm going to put you on the spot because

one day we can come back to and say you called

it. Because, I mean, there's no better person to ask than someone that wrote a

book that says shut up and tweet. Right? That's called shut up and tweet.

There's no better word. So yes or no?

Twitter makes it. In the next five years.

I would be more likely to say no than yes.

Wow. All right, you heard it here first.

I'm bridging the gap. Long time in the entertainment world and media

world, social media, I mean, five years is a lifetime.

So when you look at the trends,

I don't know, I thought when they banned Donald Trump,

I actually thought that would create the demise of Twitter because

he was so just captivating, for better

or for worse, I thought that would be the end.

So that plus Elon Musk, it's kind of like I

think people will gradually migrate away. Yeah, five years is a long time.

So if I had to bet, I would say no. All right.

What's the over under two years? Would you take the over or the under?

I might take the over barely at two

years. I love this game. I may bring some of these types of games back

in. I like it, too. Going to game shows. I like

this because what's the risk, right? There's no risk. All right. I want to

ask one more question on platforms, and then we're going to wrap this up,

and I'm going to let you get back to making the impact, the positive impact

you're making in this world. I was listening to your podcast, Brand Therapy,

which if you haven't listened to it, you should go listen. It's a phenomenal podcast,

and it's short. It's to the point, and it's so

much rich of value. And I think short isn't a bad thing.

It's rich with value and content. You can listen to a lot of them really

quickly. It's like you can binge listen. Like you just binge watch Netflix

30 minutes episodes like Ted Lasso I can binge watch because they're only 30 minutes.

You had Daniella and I'm not even going to try to pronounce her last name.

It's a long last name, but she's from Elast marketing.

Elast Marketing. And you all were talking about Instagram. And I love

the positioning that you I think it was your co host, Lauren, I think is

her name, posed the question of saying hypothetically,

there's someone that has a brand and it's not getting any growth, but they're

still posting. And you were talking about why

would that be? And Daniella was talking how it's about the content is right,

is the bio up to speed? And so I want to ask

this because I'm a believer in Instagram. I think that there's so much value,

and I think that a lot of our clients live there because they want to

follow their grandkids, they want to follow their kids, et cetera. There's a lot of

pictures. As a brand builder,

content creator, what are some of those ways that you

took away from Daniella and from your own personal experience,

along with, is the content right, and is your bio right that we can utilize

to create a great, thriving invaluable impactful brand

on Instagram? Yeah. Well, I'm so happy

you caught that episode. I brought Daniella on.

She's in, I would say, kind of like this little circle of

friends and really inspirational Instagram

creators. So she's a creator on Instagram about

Instagram. Danielle is one of those at

the Lucas O'Keefe at Marketing.

Harry I'd say those three are kind of my go to for all

of living and breathing Instagram strategy for

growth. Daniella, specifically, is the best person

I know at creating community. So that's why I had her

on, because I thought how it's amazing she has

over 100,000 followers. And yet almost every single time little old me

posts on Instagram, she comments, and she does it really

thoughtfully, and she just amazes

me. And so I needed to know from her, like, how do you structure your

day? How do you have time for this? And basically her answer was,

Phil, I make time for the people that matter to me.

And I just thought that was really amazing.

And I think she's disciplined. I think she thrives on structure.

I think that probably goes the same for any of my friends that have experienced

really huge growth on Instagram. Also,

I would say be realistic about your goals.

Like, yes, I would love to grow on Instagram, but the actions

that I'm taking in my life will not lead

to growth in the hundreds of thousands of followers

on the platform. Because matt I prioritize. YouTube YouTube is

more important for me as a platform in my business than Instagram is.

Instagram really is split between, hey, let me give you some advice and

some thoughts derived from content I'm already creating for

a few other places mixed with, hey, this is

my life. I got food poisoning yesterday. This is my life. I've been working

out a little more. Here are my results. Hey, I'm traveling next month.

If I limited some of the personal stuff and leaned more into 100%

strategy or 90% strategy, I could probably grow faster.

But that's not really how I use Instagram or want to use Instagram.

I kind of like how I'm using it right now by staying on the

radar of people that are really important to me. Last thought on this

anyways, Daniella, that episode is a really good one to listen to. Another one of

my friends I mentioned. V lucas O'Keefe. He and I just did a collab post

recently where we both published together a

post. And I always say to Lucas, I say, oh, my God, I'm jealous.

It's 235,000 followers. So you're absolutely incredible

when you think about the reach, the number of people that will see one post

that he publishes is more than a town or a city in some cases.

It blows my mind, but he'll always say to me, phil, I feel that way

about you. Even if you don't have the numbers, you have a

really valuable audience. He knows from any time we collaborate,

he'll get followers. He'll get people that will say, I found you through Phil.

I love really just high quality and people that are willing to buy

people that are willing to take action, really loyal followers.

And that's true. I do have those people. So it's always like, grass seems greener

on the other side. It's not just about numbers. It's really about knowing

your goals on how you want to use that platform. And that can be totally

different. You don't need to have hundreds

of thousands of followers to make that platform worthwhile.

You can have ten followers, but if they're always buying everything that you're selling,

then you've got ten great quality people from that standpoint.

When I think about this as seen as a wealth manager

or wealth management professional, I think about you talked about

structure and schedule and focus on the people I care for, right.

Some ideas that advisors can think about is follow your

clients, follow your vendors that

you're utilizing, follow your cois and interact

with them. Right. Your clients, if they're on a trip, post a very thoughtful comment

and then their friends see that you're commenting, and then that's building a brand.

Right. That you're now expanding your reach and you're

surprising and delighting your clients on a platform where they live and showing

them that you care about them. And it means a lot. It just means a

lot. If you can schedule and structure your day to put 10,

15, 20 minutes on it that is worthwhile, and then share something

about you and your trip and everything of that nature. And that's how you

build a brand in this specific business using these

networks. And it's different than LinkedIn and it's different than Instagram.

And just understanding that is really key. Phil I

committed to us sticking true to a time, and I've

got questions I didn't even get to. I had another podcast of yours

that I listened to with Lucy Werner,

The Hype Queen, which is incredible. I mean, so many that I want

to get into, but we'll say that for having you on again. Maybe we'll

do like an Instagram, I don't know, they call them Instagram Lives or whatever they

do. We can do Facebook Live or whatever. Maybe we'll do something cool. We'll think

about it. But before I let you go ask my two questions I asked all

my guests, and the first one you alluded to it. I'm actually going to ask

you what is one of those favorite books of yours that you've read?

That's coming from me being selfish because I'm a lifelong learner

and I love to read. That's one of the ways I do it. So what's

one of those books that you think everybody can read? I have a one

B question to this one, a one that I always ask. Great.

Well, let's see what your b question is, because I

decided that it wouldn't be fair for me to give a book recommendation

if it's something I haven't read. I have a few books where I've gone in

and read certain chapters or pulled little excerpts. The book

that sits on my desk every single day that I look at and

I use is not a book that you read, but it is a book

that helps you self reflect and become self aware,

which I think is one of the most important parts of Building a

brand. That is the five minute journal.

The Five Minute Journal is one of my very favorite brands offline.

So the physical journal that you can buy, and it gives you these really

simple, amazing prompts. I'm skipping ahead so you can just see it

at least on the video here. But like, questions like, what would make today great

daily affirmation I am grateful for. And then you fill it in.

It's just a really good prompt, little thing

that gets you thinking. Also, their brand on Instagram is

absolutely incredible. It's probably my number one hero brand.

So I told you I had an answer ready, and it wasn't the traditional

answer because I honestly don't read. I read blogs. I read short form content.

But for a book, I'll pack it. I'll buy it on Amazon,

and then I'll sit it on the shelf and I just like how it looks.

I'm terrible. But I love that answer that

is like outside the box, creative answer. I'm a huge journaler.

Journaling has changed my life drastically.

I'm going to do a presentation, a podcast on it eventually, and video

material. But journaling, I mean, I've got three journals here because I've got multiple

things I journal about. Journal, two people. I journal to everything. It's life changing.

So I love that. My one B, which I didn't prepare you with, but you

mentioned that you're a big blog reader. What is the best blog out

there? What's your favorite blog you're reading today? Yeah,

so a lot of times I'm looking for specific

answers on, for example, what has Instagram updated this month?

My best performing video every month is

typically related to Instagram updates, so those have to be very

timely. A lot of times I'm updating that video and what goes into it the

day before it gets published. So I have a handful of social media

blogs probably relevant to what we've been talking about that I like later is

a scheduling, a social media scheduling platform. I actually don't

love the app. You can tell they don't pay me.

I don't love the app, but I absolutely love

their blog. I think it's one of the best blogs ever done on social

media. Later app their blog is really awesome for

Instagram content. What else? Social Media Marketing

world or Social Media examiner? That's the conference.

But Social Media examiner blog is another really good one.

Those are the ones I'd say I frequent the most when I'm looking for updates

on social media on Instagram and other platforms.

Love that. Love that last question that I ask all my guests.

We talked for a long time, talked about a lot of things here. If there's

one thing that you want our listeners to walk away with, one actual

piece of advice from our conversation that you hope they can go and they can

execute tomorrow to make them better and their strategy

better, what would that be? I'm going to make up

a quote based on this conversation. Branding or

the process of branding is not difficult if

you know the tangible process

or the tangible steps. Position your brand,

build something to show for it and then promote it. Stick the

for sale sign out front of that house and take it to market.

Love it. All right, before we let you go, how can people continue

to follow you, stay in touch with you, maybe work with

you? Because I know there's going to be plenty of people out there that want

to continue to learn from everything that you've got going on.

That's very kind. I've also really enjoyed this conversation. So Philpallen Co

freebies. I have ten free digital

downloads. There ebooks worksheets, all geared towards

building, identifying your brand content ideas.

My most downloaded freebie is 100 Evergreen

content ideas. It's been downloaded over 25,000 times.

Blows my mind. Yeah, that's a great place to

go just to start to explore some of those resources that

I've made available for free for people. We have a podcast, as you

mentioned. Thank you so much for listening to it. Brand Therapy,

we learn same as you. We learn so much by having conversations with

experts. And sometimes Lauren and I, my co host,

just talk together, just the two of us, about a certain topic. And we

have a lot of fun with that. My website, Philpallen Co

Projects, has over 65 personal branding,

company branding, startup branding examples, clients we've worked with

in over a decade. So even if you're wanting to get some inspiration for

your own brand, you're welcome to hop over to our website to get

that. Phil pound, man, this was awesome.

You're a rock star. You're incredible. So I

appreciate you taking such valuable time to spend it with us here

on Bridging The Gap. I'm super appreciative and hope to be able to repay the

favor in the future. So thanks so much, man. And you stay well,

right? Thank you so much for having me. I've enjoyed every minute of

this. It's been a pleasure and I appreciate it. Thanks for

tuning into this week's episode of Bridging The Gap. Don't forget to give us a