Colin Kelly returns to provide an insightful update on the evolution of social media over the past three years, highlighting the increasing complexities and uncertainties that entrepreneurs face in this digital landscape. As we delve into the current state of platforms such as Twitter, LinkedIn, and TikTok, it becomes evident that the previously established norms have been irrevocably altered. Colin elucidates the dangers inherent in navigating social media for business purposes, emphasizing the need for entrepreneurs to exercise caution and discernment in their online engagements. Additionally, the conversation addresses the resurgence of traditional marketing strategies and the importance of genuine human connection in fostering trust and credibility in a world dominated by digital interactions. Ultimately, this episode serves as a crucial reminder that while the tools may change, the fundamental principles of effective business remain steadfast. The discourse surrounding social media has undergone a notable transformation since our previous engagement with Colin Kelly, an esteemed connoisseur in social media and public relations. The conversation delves into the profound changes that have transpired over the past three years, particularly in relation to the evolving landscape of social media platforms. As we explore the present state of social media, we reflect upon the initial perceptions we held in 2022, when platforms like Twitter and TikTok were in their nascent stages of development. The hosts, Alan Clarke and Bhairav Patel, alongside Colin, scrutinize the chaotic nature of contemporary social media, highlighting the increasing complexity and unpredictability that entrepreneurs must navigate. The discussion elucidates the notion that the once clear demarcations between personal and professional interactions on social media have blurred, resulting in a more precarious environment for businesses seeking to establish their brand identity. Colin articulates the necessity for entrepreneurs to adopt a more cautious approach in their social media strategies, emphasizing the importance of authenticity and the potential pitfalls associated with projecting a curated image that may not align with reality. Moreover, the conversation offers insights into how businesses can leverage social media not as a primary tool for engagement, but rather as a supplementary avenue to amplify their core values and connect meaningfully with their audience. As we traverse the complexities of the current social media landscape, we are confronted with the stark realization that the previous paradigms of engagement have been irrevocably altered. The hosts and Colin discuss the implications of this shift, particularly the dangers associated with over-reliance on social media for brand establishment. The dialogue underscores the importance of fostering genuine connections and the potential consequences of failing to navigate the turbulent waters of online discourse. Colin's expertise shines through as he articulates the significance of understanding the audience's expectations and the necessity for businesses to adapt their messaging accordingly. Through this comprehensive examination, we glean valuable insights into the evolving nature of social media and the imperative for entrepreneurs to recalibrate their strategies in an effort to maintain relevance in an increasingly fragmented digital landscape.

Takeaways:

1. The landscape of social media has transformed dramatically over the past three years, necessitating that entrepreneurs adapt their strategies accordingly.
2. It is imperative for business owners to recognize the increasing dangers associated with social media platforms, which have become unpredictable and often hostile environments.
3. Entrepreneurs are advised to exercise caution when navigating social media, as the previous certainties that guided online engagement have dissolved, leading to greater risk.
4. A more profound reliance on grassroots engagement and authentic interactions is essential for businesses to thrive in the current social media climate.
5. Traditional marketing methods are experiencing a resurgence, as businesses seek to establish real-world connections to complement their online presence.
6. The overarching principle remains that successful engagement is founded upon genuine value creation, rather than superficial or algorithm-driven interactions.

The real world entrepreneurship podcast with bhairav.

Patel and alan clark.

Welcome to the Real World Entrepreneurship Podcast where we tackle the practical challenges that startup founders and small business owners face and give our own unvarnished opinions.

My name is Bhairav Patel.

I'm the Managing Director of Atom Ventures and Atom CTO where we partner with small businesses and startup founders to help them define and build their tech vision.

And I'm Alan Clark.

I'm the founder of the Business Growth Partnership and we work with high potential businesses who help them unblock the blockages that are preventing them from reaching their full potential.

Hi everybody.

Welcome to this episode of the Real World Entrepreneurship Podcast.

And I talked to me that one of the things is quite a lot has changed over the years and maybe some of the previous episodes we are aren't quite as current as they could be.

And I thought let's get him back on and get an expert's inside view on what really has been happening and what's the state of the nation now.

So Colin, welcome along to your return to the.

Very it's lovely to be back.

Thank you for the nice introduction and yeah, good to see you both.

So I still think of LinkedIn as a professional networking site.

Facebook is for middle aged people who want to talk about their grandchildren and Instagram is where all the goods hang out.

What has been happening in social media in the meantime?

I think it's like the world itself, it's become quite chaotic and quite uncertain.

I think if you think about all that too much, I think you could get quite down about it all and I think the old rules are gone and I think that's not just social media.

I think that is just the world we're in.

And I think, you know, I see people and I hear people giving businesses advice, and some people, they give them rules.

They say, this is how it is.

This is what you should do, this is what you shouldn't do.

This is how it's going to be.

And I just always say, like, anyone that claims to know for sure or anyone that has these absolute rules, be very careful about trusting them, because I honestly, I don't think anybody knows at all.

Just last week, the President of the United States was seriously threatening force if he couldn't get his hands on Greenland.

And here we are a few days later, and that all seems to have been smoothed over and forgotten, and we're on to the next thing.

And I just think there's so much upheaval, there's so much uncertainty in the world, and I think that's really been reflected on social media and what it all means.

I don't think I know anymore the.

Reason why social media is a more dangerous place to be if you're in business, because you're never quite sure what that.

And I know they're not.

Well, no, they're not publishers, actually.

They're not publishers.

But being able to say, back in the day, I was on Twitter because it's an authority place, like this intellectual debate.

And I was on Facebook because it's a fun place to hang out and have fun.

And I was on Insta because it was a great place to connect with cool young people doing happening things.

Now that neither you say that all rules are gone, it is a bit more scary, I'm going to say terrifying.

I'm not sure that's it.

But it's easier to make mistakes.

I think it.

Yeah, I think it is a more dangerous place.

It's interesting that all these things that you just said about, you know, maybe the negative things about TikTok Twitter, or the negative things about Instagram.

There are some people who always thought that, like we.

We navigated Twitter, we figured out a way that we could make Twitter work for us and our businesses, and we felt safe.

But there are a lot of people who.

Who never felt that way.

They never liked it.

They always thought it was a cesspit.

And I think the thing that's changed, certainly the thing that's changed for me with Twitter and a lot of people I speak to is, well, we can't do that anymore.

We can't justify it.

We can't figure out a way where it feels safe for us.

I deleted my personal Twitter.

I just deleted it last week.

And the final straw for me was I could share, I could take a picture of somebody on X and anyone could come along and ask the grok AI show me this person with, you know, no clothes on.

And that's now on a comment thread under my name.

Now, thank goodness that didn't happen.

But I thought, how can I possibly justify being here?

How can I tell people that I use this.

This platform regardless of whether there are any benefits in it for me?

So I think everybody's got their kind of red lines, haven't they?

And it's just becoming harder and harder, certainly with X to justify being there.

And I guess everybody's having to make these decisions.

It's attracted.

I think three years ago, there's no doubt it had a hooligan element.

I think there's really now an element on it with real evil intent.

There's bots on it and so on.

So, yes, it's a dangerous place, no question.

So just on that.

Right.

I think one of the things that I feel I'm noticing is that they, each of the different social medias have their, obviously their own strengths and weaknesses.

Right.

And so you could justify being on like an Instagram or Facebook or whatever it is, because it's a honeypot, you know, the demographics.

You can go and target your ads there.

But that polarization that's come along in our personal lives has kind of filtered into the work arena.

Right.

So again, as Alan said, LinkedIn is now just a weird place.

It's kind of.

Everyone is crushing it or everyone is complaining about some political issue.

It's just not become a place for business information.

You can't really find any information now about businesses.

It's just all about how everyone's doing amazingly well.

And.

And also what's happened is that we've popped up like the written word has come back.

Right.

Substack is.

Is huge.

Yeah.

But what you're seeing is previously, you know, people would be in little in different places and they would kind of be mixing and they would have a bit.

A broader view of the world in front of them.

Now we're finding social media is making things a little bit more tunnel vision, especially around Twitter.

Right.

I see my.

My feed has just gone bizarre, right?

From.

From what it was before.

And so now I'm not seeing the things I would want to see.

So you.

That's frustrating.

So taking this back from like an entrepreneur or business perspective, you know, how can you really stand out?

Like, where can you get a message through that actually resonates with people when people are so cocooned in their own worlds?

Right.

Well, I think businesses have to.

You know, some businesses can only really blame themselves because what they did was they used these social platforms to try and give themselves a point of difference.

And what they did was they went on and on and on about values and that raised an expectation.

That is great when everything's hunky dory and everybody's happy and is going well.

But when you start getting really complex geopolitical issues, and we've seen plenty of examples of these and they're still ongoing, and you, the business owner, you were, your marketing, it's all preaching all these values.

Well, now I've got an expectation then that your business will take a particular stance on a geopolitical issue or a European conflict.

And then you might say, oh, well, but what?

We can't get involved in anything political.

And I'll say, well, that's not politics to me, that's a humanitarian issue and it causes such division.

And I'm not going to debate the rights and wrongs of it, but I just see the division.

And I think that businesses, many businesses have themselves to blame for that because they thought that was an easy way to attract talent.

And I think many of them now bitterly regret it.

And also, we've become very, very intolerant of each other's views.

You've got the left wing and the right wing each think that they are morally superior.

And yeah, discourse is breaking down, but I don't think it's breaking down so much outside of social media.

I think you're seeing the absolute worst of it on digital.

There are lots of other places you mentioned substack, you know, and I think businesses need to start deciding how will we, if, you know, if we want a point of difference or we want to stand for something, where will we, where will we go?

How will we do that?

And personally, I think it should be led from the grassroots, the staff up rather than the founder down.

That's a really interesting point because at the heart of every brand is its values.

What does it stand for?

What does it believe in?

What hell would that die on?

And I think there's been some great examples over the years of brands who have gone very public and said, this is just a red line that we will not do.

And they have very successful in the past saying on social media that this is our position.

I think one of the things that I guess was always inevitable in my life, almost the crescendo of was that as people as the world got better at becoming citizen journalists, those who want to express a point of view have got better at using the available media and social media being one of those.

And as a result the noisy people have gotten, people who wanted to be more noisy have gotten noisier.

I'm bringing it back to the kind of core element what real world entrepreneurship is about.

This podcast is thinking about early stage startups and small businesses that are trying to grow.

Back in the day it was easy.

I remember going and seeing you and Sally talking about get on there, establish a presence.

All that stuff about have a point of view, have beliefs and values.

Are we now at the point where the advice should be go with great caution and probably better say nothing and be thought a fool than open your mouth and have it abuse?

Well, yeah, I mean I did say all these things.

I did encourage people stand for something.

I didn't mean say it explicitly.

And I think that would be my argument with some of these businesses and startups and founders is, you know, don't say it explicitly.

These are our values.

Just be nice, just be that person, just treat people well.

And I think there are some founders and brands that think there's a shortcut.

I also think that there's quite a lot of hypocrisy.

You know, like there's people that will, oh, I stand for this, this and this and these are my values.

But then they'll go and buy a brand of toothpaste and they don't care, oh, that's Colgate and Procter and Gamble and they don't go looking at that.

They're not giving up Netflix because BlackRock owns a ton of it.

So I think when we talk about values, I think people are hypocrites.

I think there's a lot of businesses use it as a shortcut.

I actually feel quite sorry for and I guess what you're talking about is the genuine, ethical, values driven founder who's thinking, God, we're doing all this good stuff here, how, how can we get noticed?

And I, I, I don't think social media really is the way to do that anymore.

It used to give you that route I suppose, but now I don't think it does.

And I, I guess you just, I don't know what do you do, do you start writing essays on substack?

Do you make a short film and you know, put it on Vimeo or something?

So, so difficult.

So this is actually where it's good, good point you made and actually I.

Think leads on to the point I'm.

About to make now.

Right?

Where do you think that traditional old school sales channels are coming back?

That just this morning I got a letter from one of the, from a crypto company that I have an account with, right.

And it told me about their new product and I was like, wow, that's a bit random because I was never expecting a, that like this thing that is meant to be a high tech business would send me a letter telling me about the latest product when I've already got the app.

I get emails from them the whole time, but I've actually got a physical piece of paper and I'm seeing that more and more now.

I'm actually getting more and more flyers coming through from especially brands and retail.

Right.

More of that stuff's coming back and more businesses are wanting events, right.

Whether they can connect with local communities and build that up.

Because I think Covid obviously killed a lot of it people and people are missing that, that contact.

And even when I look at the new business I'm at a lot of what we do is cold calling, right.

A lot of it is just picking up the phone, talking to people, asking about the needs, finding the right person in the organization to talk to.

You know, is that something that you're saying with the companies you work with is that, I mean, coming back, of course you have an online presence, but to get out there, you really need to be physically out there or talking to people.

Yeah.

And I think where digital and online continues to work for me is the online introduction and then a real world follow up, an in person follow up or you know, maybe a referral.

Somebody mentions, oh, you should, you know, and I think that that goes on and I think that that's very positive and I think that digital and online and maybe social media can fuel that, right?

It's easy to find someone, you can identify someone, oh, now I've got that name, I learn a bit about them.

Well, I can take that into a face to face meeting or whatever.

So yeah, I think so.

But.

So I think that is good and that's healthy.

I think people realize social media is no longer a shortcut or an easy, an easy route.

But where I think there's a challenge is with these old school techniques, as you said.

I think there's still a trust issue with that.

If it is a cold call and you say something, I mean, I get these emails, Colin, could your business handle 10 new leads every month?

I'm not replying to that because I don't know anything about these people.

But if we met and talked and you demonstrated the value that you bring, then yeah, but I think trust is difficult.

This is really interesting because maybe I'm just a naive optimist, but I actually genuinely believe that most people in businesses I meet have got a pretty decent moral compass, that they actually do want to be kind and helpful and know that are ever going to succeed.

Actually realize their job is to serve their customer and help their customer address whatever problem they don't want that they have.

Sadly, they're often the quiet majority.

And Tony, as you mentioned, the guy that comes in and says, you want eating your lunch tomorrow, I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm not lucky.

But are we now in a position where the online part is actually the second level?

It's the evidence and support for that more natural offline introduction.

So we can't just say, I'm not doing social, I'm not doing online, but it's there to back up.

Interesting one on that.

My son's 23, just started a job, then a whole lot of new applicants in and they were given CVs.

And the officer said, go check these people out online and see what they're really like.

And I thought that was quite fascinating because that was real evidences in a very normal business that this is now being used to check what you see is true and you live the reality.

Yeah.

And I think with that, that's why we're seeing more people in our business.

Quite a lot of this social content is videos.

It's me speaking, it's my wife Emma speaking, who's in the business with me.

Because I think that people say, okay, I've heard about this person, I might work with them.

What are they really like?

And I think when they want to see what you really like, it's how do you speak?

What's your manner, what's your tone of voice, what's your energy?

Am I going to enjoy being in a room with you or even being on a zoom call with you?

And so I think that's the other real piece of advice I would give to anyone starting a business or trying to build a brand is use the human site.

Don't hide behind the logo.

If it is just you, then get out there and be you.

And let me see you and let me hear you.

And I think that's where, like, as you said, is supporting.

It's providing that evidence.

Yeah, I think there's definitely something in.

That, but just on that, right?

I mean, I think that's where we've kind of hit the.

Hit a problem with LinkedIn.

Because people are trying to be the real you on LinkedIn.

Right.

And obviously they're not because you hear all, I mean, breakfast routines.

Why on earth do I want to know why?

What you're eating for breakfast?

So it's, it's become kind of that weird hybrid of people are trying to be authentic, but by being authentic, they're coming across as very inauthentic.

So, you know, if you were to give advice to an entrepreneur around that, like, how do you balance this, how do you make sure that you're not.

You're putting out there stuff that doesn't say, I'm crushing it or I'm up at 5am or sorry, 3am and doing 15 different things before I start work.

You know, how do you kind of do that?

Well, I think what you've got to try and do is get people as quickly as you can get them away from the algorithm, right?

So that stuff you're talking about, that's people blasting out content, feeding it, Feeding the algorithm in the hope that they show up, in the hope that they get seen.

So I think with LinkedIn, I was working with a client down south last week and encouraging them to try and start a LinkedIn newsletter, right?

Where if I subscribe to that newsletter, it comes into my email.

And I think that means then that you can.

You're not kind of enthralled to the algorithm.

You can create something of substance.

You've carved out this little space yourself.

Obviously, it's difficult to get the numbers, but certainly the clients I work with in our business, I try not to play the numbers game.

It's a small number of people that there's a proper connection with and hopefully that grows through recommendations and repeat business and so on.

And I think if you are playing the numbers game, then make a good video and pay for an ad.

Why do what you've just described, which is, here's what I had for breakfast, or here's five things I learned about leadership by watching, you know, the guy that climbed up that building in Taiwan, like, it's like, oh, my God, it's so desperate.

Just make something, pay for an ad and then blast it out.

Don't try and use organic content when all you, when you're being that cynical, you know, so that I think to me, there's got to be a separation between substance and relationship building and try and get away from the algorithm and do it that way.

Great.

Or if it is just blasting stuff out, then pony up, pay your money and blast it out.

And that raises a lovely point, which is this idea that I think many people who are not actively involved in using social media for business purposes, they don't realize that it is the most valuable paid advertising media in the world now.

And if you're not paying, you're not getting very good.

A hundred percent, Very, very good point.

They.

Well, that's what they are.

They're very sophisticated targeted advertising platforms.

So you so use them, you know.

Absolutely.

And if you're not paying, you're probably not getting.

Yeah.

So, so don't moan about it.

And so if you just want, I mean, I, the way I use it, It's a little.

LinkedIn is a place where I go to connect with a small business community, many of them existing or previous clients, the people I know, the people that I like.

And occasionally I'll think, oh, wouldn't it be good if that person knows I existed?

And I'll go and I'll ask them to connect and meet them and chat, but I'm not blasting out, you know, big, big numbers.

So, yeah, I think absolutely, they're sophisticated, real good quality paid advertising platforms.

And if you've got good content that you can run as an ad, which, you know, everybody should be able to produce that now, then absolutely, go for it.

I think one of the.

I think people are still falling into the trap of being lazy when they do connect to people.

Because as you say, right, you don't need to connect to hundreds of people every day.

You just need to have two or three quality connections and meaningful ones.

I mean, I get them all the time now after I sold Atom, where people are still assuming I'm running Atom, right.

And it just is annoying because why are you, why are you trying to sell me something that I, you know, is obviously not relevant to me?

If you looked at my profile.

And so I think that's where I still think, going back to what I said before, around, you know, traditional ways of doing things, I think the basics don't.

They don't really.

They haven't gone away, right.

It, you still have to have a useful conversation, you still have to bring some value, as you said.

But before, you know, we, we move on and maybe draw this to close, I have to bring up the dreaded two letters, right, of AI.

And so I was talking to a friend of mine and she's.

She's got a.

A website that is dealing in.

In education, right?

And so she was saying to me, what do I do with SEO?

And I said, well, I haven't got a clue really, nowadays.

So I threw it out to the network, and the CTO network came back and said, we don't really know.

We've asked people, but there's no one who can give us a firm answer on what you need to do other than put out good content.

You know, be fresh, be relevant, hit the odd keywords, make it, you know, two sentence paragraphs, type things right, which is the same advice as we've always had.

So, you know, I don't know if you've got any thoughts on.

On what's going on, where the world will be.

I think I might be about to fall flat in my face here, but I think I made a discovery and I've not told anybody this yet, so you can.

One trick, one last thing.

I have.

By the time this podcast is edited and published, probably everybody knows this, but I didn't know this until yesterday, and I.

This is.

This is true.

Individual Instagram posts are returned or can be returned in Google's AI overview, right?

So a lot of people ask, how do I do my SEO?

And all that.

Individual Instagram posts can make that.

That AI overview.

So it'll pick out detail from Instagram posts, which.

So there's a.

There's a clear relationship now between a social media channel and actually getting into.

Into AI right at the top of Google.

Even if you don't have a website or your website doesn't have these keywords, getting them in social media posts can.

Can work.

I've gone through, like, the whole variety of emotion about AI.

There's bits of it I really don't like, and there's actually bits of it that I do.

I think the one thing I'd say is it can't simultaneously be slop, as a lot of people call.

Can't be that.

And at the same time turning the world of work upside down because it's so amazing and we can't tell the difference between what's real and what's not.

It can't be both.

And I think as much as people would hate to admit it, the bottom line is a lot of it is actually okay.

And then I saw somebody say on LinkedIn, AI give.

They went, what you need to realize is AI gives you the average of the Internet who Wants the average.

And I said, well, whether we like it or not, probably quite a lot of people, you know, And I think that's, that's the interesting thing with, with AI.

Yeah.

And I think you're very right.

And I think that again, it goes back to what I said before.

Basic principles, right.

If you're making a video, like, you need to have content in different formats to appeal to different people in different places.

Right.

And when you bring it all together, that gives you that big enough footprint that allows you to come up in.

In searches and AI will pick you up naturally anywhere as part of it.

So to me, a lot of it, even though, you know, we, we said a lot has changed in many ways, I don't think the basics have changed.

And I know we've talked about this on this podcast over many years, right, where it's the same old thing.

Right.

Where people, you've got to find the value, people want to trade things, you've got to talk to people, you've got to give them something that they want, they've got to feel that there's a value in it and it's affordable, blah, blah, blah.

Right?

Yeah.

And be nice to each other, get on trust, find that common ground, help each other.

Absolutely.

I think that's such, such a good point.

So it's an optimistic point.

You know, I think we could go on for hours on this conversation now, but this is a podcast, not an encyclopedia.

I think that's such an optimistic point.

I often think back to good old Andrew Carnegie and think what another world that man lives in.

Would he be successful now?

And I believe absolutely.

They're just different tools.

The fundamentals haven't changed.

He was a man with vision, passion, drive and creative ability, and so are the guys now.

Now we might question more closely some of the moral compass, but hey.

Oh.

So just to summarize, I think the main things I've taken three years down the line is social media is a more dangerous place to be operating than it was in the past, and it's no longer the place to go to establish our business and our brand.

Rather, if we now consider it part of a broader mix, it's probably a good area to have our evidence and our own voice available for those that go and seek out some substance.

On what do you actually.

What is your position?

What do you believe in?

I think there's another interesting point you made there very much about we now need to go further than just relying on the algorithms to do the work for us.

And actually we need to be more customer centric, audience centric, and actually give them things that they will really value or else why would they want to engage with us?

And that final point, I think this is one that Bhairav and I, we certainly would get one in the can and we've probably got another 150 to do on the whole area of is the AI good or bad.

Regardless, it's here to stay and we better make the most of it.

So, Colin, thank you so much for joining us today.

My pleasure.

Thank you.

Thanks.

Yeah.

Hopefully we're all still, all still kicking around and doing well.

Yes, I'd be delighted to chat to you again.

And we'll put that one in right now.

Any final parting comments from you want to watch them?

No.

Again, as we say, I think even though everything changed, many things stay the same.

Right.

So keep on keeping on.

Yeah.

Great.

Thank you for having me and all the very best for this year.

Thank you.

Thanks everyone that joined us for this episode.

We'll see you next time on our next episode of the Real World Entrepreneurship Podcast.

Many thanks for taking the time to.

Listen to the podcast today.

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And if you'd like to learn more from us, you can Contact Alan, he's alanbgp.co.uk and you can find me at info atomcto.com.