Episode 140 - Social Media and Human Connection with Robin Nathaniel

[00:00:06] Speaker A: Welcome to the Leadership window podcast with Dr. Patrick Jenks. [00:00:10] Speaker B: Each week through a social sector lens, Patrick interviews leaders and experts and puts us in touch with trends and tips for leading effectively. Patrick is a board certified executive coach, a member of the Forbes Coaches Council, a best selling author, award winning photographer. [00:00:24] Speaker A: And a professional speaker. [00:00:26] Speaker B: And now, here's Dr. Patrick Jenks. [00:00:30] Speaker A: Hey everyone, welcome. Welcome to episode 140 of the Leadership Window. We've been talking a good bit on this show and on our YouTube show, the Perspectives in Nonprofit Leadership about human connection, empathy, empathy markers, the virtual world today, how everyone is using zoom for merch, virtual meetings. And if you've been around me for very long, you know I hate, hate, hate them. I know hate's a strong word, but I don't like virtual meetings now. I do them all the time. We have to do it. We are in this world. I can't, I, as much as I want to fight about it here from my little hometown in Columbia, South Carolina, that's all fine, but it's here and I know it's here. And by the way, I'm good at it. I mean, I've got experience with it. I've got teams of leaders that I'm coaching from all over the country. Like one team, they're from Phoenix to Orlando to, you know, they're all over. And so yes, it's wonderful. I love the technology, I love the capabilities of doing it. What I don't like is when we use it, when we don't have to, when we use it in place of a human connection, when we use it as. I don't know, I've said this before, it's strong language. Please don't be offended by it if you think this might apply to you at all. But when Covid took over and everyone went virtual, that was wonderful technology to have, wasn't it? Problem is when it came out of, when we came out of COVID we didn't go back and I mean we kind of went back. But what I see now is I see virtual meetings almost as cop outs. Like I just don't want to get up and get in my car and go to a meeting. Let's just, I'll just zoom in. And I've got board members and staff members who say, ah, I'm not going to be able to make it. Can I call in, can I zoom in? And sometimes to pretty big meetings like day long retreats where human interaction and engagement and activities are happening. And the hybrid, that's, that's the, that's the One that really drives me crazy. Again, we do it and we do it when there's really no other choice. I say all of this to say that the point is not do I like zoom or not. The point is human connection. That's what I fear we're losing with all of the virtual stuff. And we've got our guest today is Robin Nathaniel, who we're not, we're not going to talk much about Zoom and Zoom meetings. Actually, it's a little off topic, but it's related. Robin works to help organizations in their social media work, which is a big body of work. It's, it's, it's their own discipline and profession and skill set. And he helps organizations and businesses use social media in a way that makes a better human connection than just using all of the automated algorithms and AI to create social media posts for you. And he helps take. Robin will clean this up if I mess this up. But, but from, from what I can see and what I love is that he takes communication mindset from. I just need a bunch of AI posts so that I get lots of. I know I supposed to post frequently and I know that I want likes and views and etc. Robin's metrics are different than that. They include those. But his metrics are deeper than how many thumbs up, how many clicks did I get or how many views did I get? And this is why I'm interested in talking with you, Robin, today about this because it's all about human connection. So what I'm talking about is we need more actual human, physical connection. What you're talking about is yes but or yes and where we are digital, how can we bring that closer to an actual human connection? So that, that's the setup. Robin's done this. He's got over 20 years of experience. His education is in communication and media studies. He's a gold winner at the Telly Awards. Look those up if you don't know what those are. But it honors excellence in video television from all screens, including your computer screen in your phone platforms, to social media. And it's judged leaders from places like ESPN, NASA, Pixar, LinkedIn. It's a big deal. And so he knows what he's talking about. His book, which I'm not finished with, but I've got a good start on it, is called Social Media Sync. Sync Sync. Social Media Sync. A Framework for Human Connection in the AI Era. If that title didn't get you just hang it up, you're done. Go to Amazon, get the book, go to his Website land the talk. You can also go to robinnathaniel.com all those links are going to be on our episode page on our [email protected] but I want to take this episode and just dive into a little bit and learn a little bit about what Robin's doing, how he kind of came to this. Robin, thank you for carving this out. We adjusted our schedules a little bit because you got a lot going on with the family and school starting. And I got a lot going on with some travel and we worked it out. I'm so glad that we connected. I appreciated you reaching out. Welcome to the show. [00:06:10] Speaker B: Yes, Patrick, thank you so much. Super grateful to be here. Enjoying the intro, man. I love the music. I was over here just vibing to the music and then when you started talking about Zoom, I do have some takes on Zoom that I could tie in. So if it's okay, if I could just add my two cents to that. Yeah, yeah. So, you know, I feel you. I feel the people using Zoom as almost like a cop out, specifically. One thing that kills me is when we're in an office setting, we're all together in the building. [00:06:46] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:06:47] Speaker B: Six of us, seven of us. And like people are sitting next to each other on the computer. That trips me out. That. [00:06:56] Speaker A: And their videos are off. There's just a black screen and there's. They're there in the building and their videos are off. Like you wouldn't walk into a room in an actual meeting with a bag over your face. Yeah, those things. Those things drive me crazy too. I mean, I get it sometimes. You know, I mean, I know we're in different environments, but. Yeah, you're talking about people that are sitting right next to each other. And now, Rob, I will say this. I have. I do know Zoom has some pretty cool tools with whiteboarding, for example. And so when you're in a room and you want everybody logged into the Zoom so that they can you can co create on a screen. That's cool. [00:07:37] Speaker B: Yes, that is cool. That what's not cool, Patrick, is people having their camera off. Right. Sound off, and just doing other work. [00:07:49] Speaker A: They're not really there. [00:07:50] Speaker B: They're not really there. And that's the part about it that I believe is a challenge, especially when you're trying to build something special. So for me, with my team, best practices, cameras are on. If there's a reason that you can't be on, just. Just let's talk about it. Like, hey, you know, my kids are running in the background. So sorry, I'm gonna just be off camera. But that courtesy and that step shows at least, hey, I'm gonna acknowledge that I'm here and present. And another thing that I like to do is to keep our sound on. Like when we're in a room together talking, sometimes people jump in. You know, we don't. Like if you're not speaking, Patrick, you're not gonna cover your mouth. And you know, it's the same thing in a zoom meeting. So. And honestly, you talk about the mute. Yes, the mute button. Yeah. So like the, the actual size of the meeting depends. You know, if it's a 50 person meeting, I wouldn't recommend that. But if you're having a small four or five person meeting, everyone, cameras on, Mike's on. Let's like, let's have a live conversation. So, yeah, I feel, I feel you're paying there pack. [00:08:52] Speaker A: I like that. That's a, that's really a great point. I often encourage people, turn your videos on. I haven't really thought about encouraging people to leave their mics off mute now. But I do like that because if you think about it, and everybody listening to this show has seen this, everybody where somebody starts talking and they forgot they were on mute. And yeah, you're on mute and they go, or they didn't forget, but you can see them on the screen looking around for their mute key before they say something and it breaks up. Float. That's not how a conversation goes. So that's a great tip to ask people, turn your videos on if at all possible and leave your mutes off so that we can just interact. I mean, we interrupt each other, you know, like you cross over each other. That's kind of what makes an organic conversation. And I like that tip. That's a good one. [00:09:50] Speaker B: Yeah. And on that note, one thing that I've noticed in this space, our, our common practice is the opposite. We're like, okay, everybody mute. So you don't talk. It's like, no, it's like walking in a room and say, okay, everyone just cover your mouth. I'm gonna speak when I'm done. Raise your hand to speak. [00:10:07] Speaker A: Like, what the heck? [00:10:09] Speaker B: Like, what's happening? What I do, Patrick, often I don't use like the raise your hand button. [00:10:14] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:10:14] Speaker B: Like, especially if we're doing like a podcast interview, when I'm ready to go, like, I wanna respond, I'll kind of snap my fingers almost and be like, I got you. And then I have a clean, you know, exchange in the conversation. There's ways for us to communicate on a human level without. And so, you know, without us being in person, you know, we can. We can do it on. On a remote call too. But that's. I wanted to just add my 2 cents. [00:10:37] Speaker A: I appreciate it. I think we're aligned. And I think it does have to do with the size of the. Of the group. I mean, I've been in. I've been recently. I participated in, like, a global cohort of coaches. There's hundreds of us. You know, you don't want everybody's mutes off and just talking when you want to talk. I mean, there. There's a. There's a structure to some things when you've got size and scale. We were in a meeting the other day nationwide, you know, people from all over the place. And people were being polite and raising their hands with the. With the raise hand icon. And our facilitator was great. She said, hey, you know, I appreciate everyone wanting to raise your hands, but this group is smart. There was like maybe seven or eight people on the call. Just jump in. If you got something to say, just say, Just like, step in. Let us hear you. And so anyway, anyway, that's not what this episode really is about. It's not about zoom, but it is about human connection. And I'm really interested in this. Robin, your work is around social media. I think mostly social media, maybe your other platforms too, like websites, your sort of domain real estate that you have online. But first of all, tell us, everybody has a story. How did you get here? Why are you doing this? [00:11:47] Speaker B: Yeah. So I started my career actually as a hip hop musician in the early 2000s, when hip hop was really at one of its peaks. This is the beginning of artists like Jay Z coming to the scene. This is a really exciting time. And I took a book bag and a bag of CD with a bag of CDs in it and a suitcase, and I moved to Europe to go set up events. I was just like, I'm going, I'm out of here. And I lived in Europe for a couple of years, all over, specifically in Paris. I spent about two years in Paris just organizing events. And it was a really cool life. It was like a starving artist kind of a life. At the time, I hadn't completed my degree. This was like my option A. There was no B, C or D. And then in 2010, my son was born. And when my son was born, I said, well, you know what? I don't know if this lifestyle is going to work for him. So I got a Job in the nonprofit sector. I started working for the YMCA of Greater New York as one of their activity specialists. I used to try to do poetry and music with teenagers. No one wanted to come to my programs. I would stand in the hallway with a pizza and say, do you guys. Do you guys want to write some poetry? Anyone? Like, it was sad, right? Fast forward 10 years later. I was second in command at one of the largest YMCAs in the country. 23, 23 million dollar budget every. Every service under the sun that we can think of, from housing to aquatics to. To youth development programs, from K all the way up to young adults. And then the pandemic hit. And when that hit, me and my family looked around. We saw what was happening in New York City and we decided to get out of town and we, we moved down to Atlanta where I pivoted into. Leaned into my marketing background and my education. By that point, I had already, you know, earned my degree and had. I was doing marketing in nonprofit, but it wasn't my primary focus. But I just did a hard switch and just locked in and led me here today. [00:13:54] Speaker A: Wow, what a cool story. But just want to pause. And for those of you that. That may not know, CD is compact disc. We used to have these things. Right. You dating yourself a little bit there, Robin? Yeah. What a great. I see. This is why I love to ask about the story is, you know, you see someone's go, this is a social media guy. Yeah. But there's a story behind all of that that to me gives you more credibility than any, you know, than your degree. I love that. It really does. Because you want someone who understands the heart of this, who has an understanding of how it connects. So let me, let me just. If I can dive into the book for a minute. [00:14:39] Speaker B: Sure. [00:14:40] Speaker A: Social media sync. First of all, I'm curious as to what the sync is. What are we synchronizing with? I think I know, but the subtitle is A Framework for Human Connection in the A Area AI era. And it's a little bit almost of an oxymoron, isn't it? Maybe that was intentional in the title. It's like, well, it's social media human connection, but we're talking about a digital space, a virtual space. So start by telling us the title. What's the sync mean? How are we connecting human connection to digital media? [00:15:16] Speaker B: So the sync is in sync with each other, with humans, right? [00:15:19] Speaker A: Yeah. Okay. [00:15:19] Speaker B: And the reason I chose that word sync when I gave my TED talk in 2024 the framework that I Built. My talk around was the sync method. It was for intentional human connection in person. And I just, you know, translated that into the digital version. In terms of the oxymoronic, you know, piece with digital versus in person or human, that's something that was not intentional. However, very early on in promoting and talking about the book, I realized that that something was there. And that's the beauty of creativity, in my opinion. You can paint a picture and think that it is what you created, but people will. Will have their own interpretations and add new layers to it. So I think it's actually quite poetic that this oxymoron exists within the subtitle. So, yes, that's. That's what it is. It's like this thing that we assume is supposed to be robotic, mechanical, automated, in fact, can be a vessel to actually magnify our humanity if we leverage it the right way. And that's why I wanted to tackle it, because I found, especially in my work, right, like, this is like, I have a boutique agency where I support nonprofits and mission driven organizations. I also work full time for a government agency. So I'm like, I'm doing public sector social, nonprofit social. I started my career with private, you know, sector social media. So I have this unique lens that allows me to see what people say. And social media gets a bad rap. Patrick. It's like, it's. It's kind of like a thing. When people say the algorithm, it has a negative connotation. It's not like the algorithm. It's always like the algorithm. Like it's out to get you and it's going to destroy the world. Where my work and my position is that, yes, any tool leveraged in a negative way can hurt us. We've seen elections impacted. We've seen misinformation dispersed. But we've also seen families reunited. We've also seen lost children found. And if we in fact leverage it the right way, it can be a positive tool for good man. [00:17:37] Speaker A: We could stop the episode right now and have gotten a tremendous amount of value in that bit. Yeah, I loved what you said. I don't know why this hit me. But you said seeing what people say, that's another interesting term, isn't it? Not hearing what they say, but seeing what they say. And we do, we see what they say on social media. Sometimes we hear it if it's an audio clip or a video clip or, you know, they've, they've. It's. It's more animated than the static post, but that you've really Got me thinking with that phrase, we see what they say, but do we hear what they say? I want to. I'm gonna jump to this right now. I had this for a question to ask a little bit later because I want to come to the book and the premise of the book, but I don't want to forget this. There's a concept I heard 10, 12 years ago, maybe 11 or 12 years ago, called social listening. Yeah. Yeah. I had not heard that term. And there was a university in Pennsylvania that was partnering with our United Way. Actually, that was my background before I launched my coaching business. And they partnered with us to do some social listening research. And I can't, I'm not going to be able to articulate it well, what it is. But it was fascinating to think that we are always telling on social media, right? We learn how to tell, how to tell our story, how to get our voice out, say get. Put our message out. It's all about one directional thing. But are we listening back? Are we listening to what people are saying and thinking and being interested in in their own social media? I mean, this is where it gets really complicated, where you can, you can do the, you know, the digital advertising where you profile people based on what are the sites they visit and what are they listening to and what are they saying that we're listening to to get a sense of what message then might resonate with them. Are you into that world at all about the. On the social media, on the social listening side? What do you know about that? [00:19:48] Speaker B: I know a lot about it. Especially in the public sector, right. When you're dealing with local municipalities and local government and stuff, there's a ton of that that needs to be done. Some of it is done manually, depending on what kind of tools you have, but there are specific software tools that you can use to kind of do that research. One place in particular where we see a lot of that, not just in the public sector, but across all sectors, is Reddit. So on Reddit, you can get a very good post of what's happening in your industry, in your space, in your city, and you can kind of paint a picture of what the community is saying, what that group of people believes, and you can kind of figure out those segments of information because you have multiple people using keywords align with your brand, your company or your mission. So it's a powerful concept. It's something in social media that is quite common, especially with larger organizations or businesses, so they can get an idea of what the population that they're trying to Serve whatever that looks like, what they're saying, thinking, believing and yeah. Something that we. We. We're doing right now at. At work. And also I'm helping some clients with as well. [00:21:07] Speaker A: And that's at a macro level. So when we say social media and I mean social listening in that context, we're sort of broadly, let's listen in on the interwebs. But there's also the micro version of are we listening to our own followers? Is there a dialogue happening? [00:21:29] Speaker B: That's good. [00:21:30] Speaker A: Does social media create a dialogue or is it. I could be wrong. My sense is based on my experience just knowing, particularly in the nonprofit sector, most social media, marketing, communications staff and work is around us talking and less dialogue of how am I using digital media to also get interaction and have conversation. If we're trying to make it real human connection. It's like in emotional intelligence, we use the concept of holistic communication, which is not just I'm good at writing, I'm good at speaking. I can write a news release, and I'm great at office memos. It's am I really connecting with the person I'm connecting with and am I downloading and uploading at the same time? So I'd love to know. And maybe this is in the book a little bit later. But I'd love your thoughts on the use of social media for dialogue, not monologue. Man. [00:22:39] Speaker B: Patrick, you. We say you dropped some bars there. Like, that was really good. I have a lot for that. And you're like talking my language. So thank you. [00:22:49] Speaker A: Right on. [00:22:50] Speaker B: Yeah. So I'll start with the one way, right? The broadcast. You're right. Most folks on social, especially people who are treating social media like checking a box on a list. And that's what we hear and see quite often. It's like, hey, we got it. We have an event coming up. We have a fundraiser. Okay, who's doing social media? Check. Who's doing the flyer? Check. Like. And it's not that it's posted. It's posted. Done. Okay. Next thing. When's the next event? Do the same thing, right? So it's a broadcast mentality we're sharing with you so you can take action. End of story. We set, we forget. If someone comments, we don't even respond to that because we're already on to the next one. [00:23:32] Speaker A: No, we don't. All we do is count. If someone comments, that's good. But we want to count how many people come and that's it. It's the count that's important, not what they're actually saying to us now, again. [00:23:44] Speaker B: Depending on the space that you're in, it's very different. Right. There's certain laws and rules around public information. For a public sector organization, for nonprofits and privates, you have a lot more flexibility. Right. So one thing. I'll share a quick story. I recently partnered with someone to create some content. Was a mutual partnership. It wasn't necessarily me serving a client. Almost like I was working with someone on a project. And we got some negative comments on one of the pieces of content that we released. So the person's first instinct was like, oh, my God, we got to delete that. That's gonna, like, damage our brand. And I was like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I did. I told him, I disagree. This is an opportunity for us to connect with the audience so we hear what the audience is saying. In saying that the quality of the content that we put out was not good. So they left very fast. They only watched a certain amount of the video. So my response was something like, hey, thanks for watching, first of all, and thank you for your input. We're creating tons of content. It's early. Please stick around. And if you want to join us and be a part of one of our next live streams, here's a link where you can join us. The person hasn't responded yet, but the idea of, like, hey, if something is negative, it's bad on social, for me, that's not the way I operate. It's the same way in a customer service space. If people walk up with complaints, I'm not gonna be like, no, no, no, leave. We don't do complaints here. You gotta walk out and I'm deleting you. It's like, nah, let's have a conversation. Let's go back and forth on it in. In this in the spirit of progress and try to find a solution. So I do believe that there's a broadcast mentality, There is a monologue mentality. However, what I am, all of my work is, is the opposite of that. It's about creating way street, a two way street, so we can build the connection that we need to grow whatever our mission is. And most importantly, serve our customers or the people that are in our organizations. [00:25:51] Speaker A: Beautiful, Beautiful. What's the construct of this book? What's the premise or the general framework? And obviously can't read the book online, but what can people expect to get out of the book? Give them a little taste of the framework that you're giving. [00:26:11] Speaker B: Yep. I'll start with one of the big concepts in the book for me that I wanted to make sure I was very clear about up front is that the book is meant to be a timeless resource as long as social media and digital existing in a similar form to what it is regardless of the platforms, regardless of algorithm changes. We focus in on an idea of algorithm proof content where tested strategies and frameworks that work to build true human connection not necessarily create viral moments but create impact through human connection that these frameworks will help people to do that. So that's the big thing is like hey, this book should work in five to six years unless the Internet goes down, right? Like let me knock on wood, right? So. So unless the Internet goes down, this book should work as as social media continues to evolve the the primary framework is the sync method. S is for simple really telling people that when you're creating online for whatever kind of organization that it's okay to simplify your message. Far too often I find especially in my space. My space. I love what I did there. If you guys don't know social media more dating. Yeah, yeah. Especially in the social media industry, simple sometimes has a negative connotation where people are like, oh, that's basic. That's simple. Where for me, one of the best compliments that I ever received, Patrick, is when someone said, robin, you really know how to get a message through. It's so simple and easy to understand. Easy and simple. Sometimes people are looking at it like it's bad for me. That's a way for you to connect deeper with your audience. So that's s. Simple. [00:27:59] Speaker A: Ye. I'm going to pause just to say that's the one that resonates the most with me. Part of our brand construct at the leader's perspective is clarity, simplicity and alignment. And they all go together. Of course, clarity and simplicity are very, very related. But just a quick note here. The differentiation between simple and easy is a really important one, but I'll even offer a further nuance. There's a difference between simple and simplistic. You know, if simplistic is like, oh, that's just too like. It insults my intelligence. It's too elementary. It's too. It's not. It's not giving me anything I don't already know. Simple is different than simplistic, at least in maybe I'm just inferring it that way in the terms. But I think your. Your point is well made that simple. I think you even say in the book, you know, less is more oftentimes I I like the question you ask is Can I say this in fewer words? [00:29:05] Speaker B: Yes. Can we trim the fat? You know, at. Because, you know, Patrick, and this is a lot of the, the rooms that I'm in, people want to be the smartest person in the room. People come in and they throw around $200 words and they got a five cent message. And it's like dexterity of photosynthesis, you know, like, dude, like, just tell me that, that, you know, the sun makes the plants green and people don't talk like that. [00:29:31] Speaker A: That's great. [00:29:32] Speaker B: We don't talk like that. Right, Patrick, like you are literally a doctor. Right. And I'm, and I'm having a conversation with you and we're connecting on a human level. And, and if it's your normal, you know, you know, language to use big words, that's okay, but just as long as it's authentic so we don't have to walk into spaces and be more than what we are. We can just be. [00:29:54] Speaker A: That's so good. And in fact, you can have a $200. What did you say? A $200 vocabulary and a 5 cent message. You can have a $200 vocabulary and a $200 message. [00:30:07] Speaker B: You can. [00:30:07] Speaker A: The right audience, but nobody will understand it. Like it's. Yes, maybe there is real sub. My son and I talk about this peer reviewed journal articles that you do a lot of in academia. Certainly in my doctoral program. Right. It's like, like you get just inundated with peer reviewed journal academic articles. And doctor or no doctor, I've read so many of these things that I'm just like, nobody knows what you're saying, dude. I mean this, you might have impressed some academic panel with this, but unless I'm literally at the level of specialty science that you're in, most people reading an article for research purposes aren't going to understand it. I mean, today I collect articles, journal articles on things like coaching and coaching psychology and the evidence of coaching and training versus education, all those things. And I'll dump them into, you know, NotebookLM or, you know, some AI platform. And I'll just ask it, what the heck is this article about? And they'll break it down in five points. The research shows the following things, like, yeah, why don't you just say that? That it just drives me crazy. And we do. Yeah, I love what you're saying. We don't. That's not what makes us. That's not what gets people's attention, let's put it that way. [00:31:33] Speaker B: Yeah. And you know, a lot of the work our teams with social media often live within PR and marketing departments or workforce sections. So we're taught in that space to write at a middle school level. [00:31:49] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:31:49] Speaker B: So, you know, to take a complex concept and then to boil it down into a sixth, seventh grade level so a middle schooler could understand is a unique talent. And that's why, you know, we prioritize s in the sync method. [00:32:05] Speaker A: That's good. [00:32:06] Speaker B: I'll move to the next one if that's okay. [00:32:07] Speaker A: Yep. [00:32:08] Speaker B: So why is one of my favorites it's yield to your intention. So we find on social that folks create just to create. We talked about checking the box earlier. Sometimes people have conversations that start like this. Patrick, what are we going to post this week? For me, it's more about what's our intention for this week? What are the needs of our audience this week? What can we do to serve the people that are in our community this week? And once we can flip that script from like, hey, what do we need to do to get this box checked and move on as opposed to, hey, what can we create and be really thoughtful about to get these people the kind of results they want? And again, depending on which sector you're in, it can look very different. If you have a sock company, it might look very different than if you have a company that builds wells in Africa. Right. But at the end of the day, putting your customer or the people you serve first and think about, okay, what message do I need to relay on them so they can relate to them, so they can get to where they need to get? That's the intention. Part n is for natural. [00:33:22] Speaker A: Let me pause on the wire for just real quickly. The intentionality. So both of these, the simplicity and the intentionality, you could take social media out of this conversation. [00:33:37] Speaker B: Yes, very much so. [00:33:38] Speaker A: We're just talking about communicating with people and we're talking about, you know, we see it in strategic planning. You know, boards get in a room, they go, okay, what do we want to do the next three years? That's not really where you want to start. It's why are we here? Again, let's remind ourselves of why we're here, what this organization's about, what are our intentions, what are our hopes, what are our aspirations, what are our dreams, what are our challenges? What are we trying to accomplish over the next three years? Not what are the five strategies we want to put on our page. So what you're describing, yes, it absolutely relates to us. It's great social media framework. But again, this is the other side of the equation. It's the human framework. So I just wanted to pause on that. This is all resonating unbelievably with me. Simplicity, intentionality. Why are we doing this? Start with why. [00:34:35] Speaker B: I think that bridge too, Patrick, is important to note because the foundation of my work is making sure that how we operate in physical spaces and human spaces, we can. Some of that stuff is transferable to the digital space. And that's what I think people miss. They're like, just like when we talked about zoom, right? The things like we don't walk into rooms and cover our mouths. We don't like cover your eyes so you can't see us. You know what I mean? And approaching it like that, I think is a way for us to kind of crack this code. Because as AI continues to evolve, people will continue get further disconnected from each other. Man. It's like it's happening very fast and I'm watching it happen, happen in real time. And this ramp up has just really been in the last two to three years, but it's accelerated at a rate that we haven't seen before. People are able to put out more stuff, people are able to, you know, reach more people, but they're doing it in a lot of spaces in an inauthentic way. It's not them, it's a machine. And, and the results that they're trying to get are, for lack of a better term, selfish results. It's not like, hey, like you said, it's like how many comments, how many likes, not how many lives, how many voices. And that's kind of where the work is for me, is like this human space that we live in and we exist in real life. How can we take elements of that to improve our connections online? [00:36:07] Speaker A: The term you use, and I've heard this before, but just to introduce it again, the term you use in the book is vanity metrics. [00:36:14] Speaker B: Yes. [00:36:15] Speaker A: And so when you talk about the self, you know, it's selfish. That's the vanity part. It's. We want to show how many likes and view just for the sake of that. [00:36:25] Speaker B: Yes. Yeah. [00:36:26] Speaker A: It's not what it indicates to us. Our message is actually doing in terms of resonating with people. [00:36:32] Speaker B: Yeah. And it's value there in our, in my work. Right. Sure. I have to report out or numbers. It's important. Right. However, I think the work that I'm doing now while I'm living in this like metrics driven space, I'm trying for us to identify other metrics that maybe have more impact and serve people better and Actually is really the meaning and foundation and the purpose of our work. And that's hard for people to understand. They're like, what? I don't care how many lives I saved. I want to know how many views I got. Like, was it viral? Like, wait a minute. I'll tell you a quick story, Patrick. I had a video in 2020 that went viral. I think it had like 2 million views. And then shortly after that, another video went off.2 million views. Really, really big videos. The videos were like reaction videos to random stuff. But I was very excited. Tons of comments, good ones, bad ones. And it was flowing. People were reaching out to me. How'd you do that? It helped my business in some ways. [00:37:35] Speaker A: However. [00:37:35] Speaker B: However, it never turned into, like a strong human connection or even a business relationship. Fast forward two years later, I released a very simple video on Facebook, of all places. It was still a vertical TikTok format, and the video really broke down one of my methods. It's called the Fitty method. F I T Y which is about repurposing social media content on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Tock and YouTube. Fitty. Right? And it was. Somebody liked it. 200 views. But one person reached out to me with a dm. Led to a long lasting friendship, but also business relationship. Right. Somebody that I no longer do business with now. But we. We had a good run and we're still friends to this day. So the point is that there are other ways for us to determine what success is online. It's just we have to be open to it and understand that the value that we provide to humans. Right. Our contributions to humanity. It's worth documenting and taking score on that. [00:38:45] Speaker A: This is so good. [00:38:47] Speaker B: We. [00:38:47] Speaker A: I would frame that whole conversation in the context of goals versus indicators and we get them confused. You know, if my goal in my nonprofit is I need to raise more money, I just. I need more unrestricted money so that we can expand our mission. The goal is not, how many new donors did we get? The goal is not, we raised our per capita gift. We raised our average gift. We. We had greater donor retention. We had. Those are all indicators, meaningful ones, important ones. But that's. Those aren't the goals. The goals raise more money. And if. If I'm putting out, you know, a. If I have a social media campaign, I've got to ask, what do I want this to accomplish? And the answer is not, I know we're repeating ourselves. Or at least I. The answer is not, hey, let's get up and let's get a Thousand likes. That's our goal. Let's get a thousand likes to this Facebook post. The likes is an indicator. It should be indicating that because you can't get the result. I gotta give you a perfect example. Done. I've done marketing campaigns. Not me, but outsourced marketing campaigns, email marketing campaigns, for example, where I got no results. None, zero. Not a single lead. So I'm led to believe this is a. This is not a good email marketing campaign. But the marketers are telling me, Patrick, we had. I mean, your unsubscribe rate is so low. We prospected your list and nobody's unsubscribing that. Just. That says they're interested. Or, Patrick, you know, you had. Your Click rate is 32%. That's double the national average. And then, okay, the click rate and open rate and the. And the unsubscribe rate, those all might be beating global averages, but if they're not converting, they don't mean squat to me, you know, and that's. So I'm fooled into a false success thinking, man, I'm really doing a great marketing email marketing campaign. But I'm not. It's not. It's not creating the value I needed to create anyway. I'm rambling now, but it's. I just want to drive it home. It's so important what you're saying here. And it's. It's related to social media, but not, not exclusively. [00:41:19] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And I love that, you know, a lot of your work has been for and with nonprofits and. Because that's like, right up my alley. So I appreciate your insight. It helps to make the conversation a lot more fluid because I find a lot of times when I get on shows, Patrick, I'm broadcasting because that's the way the host kind of goes with the flow. It's like question one, response, question two. So this is a fluid conversation, and I'm grateful. Let me clean up the. The sync method. So back to so N is for natural. This is very similar to showing up in a room and being the smartest person. Show up in a room and just be yourself, right? Like if. If you communicate online with your audience the way that they want to receive information, the way that they speak, you know, whether it's terms or just, you know, certain relatable topics, then that's how you build that true human connection. And then C, finally, is change it up. Don't just keep checking the box. If you guys have always done, done, let's say written post on LinkedIn has been your content strategy. It's okay to experiment and try photos, to try images. It's okay to switch platforms, to experiment on other platforms. And also, most importantly, it's okay to change up the way you create content and what you create. For example, if you always promote the next event, that might be an indicator that you need to switch it up. It might not be talking about the event. It might be. Be. Let's highlight our volunteers. Let's create a welcome series for new employees. Let's, you know, let's. Let's do some kind of statistic graphics to show the impact that we've had over the last year. So that's a quick and dirty version of the sync method. [00:43:09] Speaker A: Well, we'll certainly leave them wanting more. I'll say this. There's a. There's a phrase in the book. There's a sentence in the book that I think sums it all up, up, and it says your most powerful social media asset is not your content strategy or your posting schedule. It's your humanity that you wrote. That sounds great, doesn't it? [00:43:32] Speaker B: So good. Because, you know, you write a book I wrote. Right. It's like, it's like with the songs that I wrote. Patrick, I know you're an author, so you could probably relate to this. Right? So I wrote all of these songs, and sometimes people say my songs back to me. I'm like, I said that with the book. I'm feeling that sometimes I go into interviews. I'm like, I'm almost like I'm studying for my own test. [00:43:50] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:43:51] Speaker B: Like, I want to make sure I know my book. But that one, I don't. That one is not at the top of my mind. [00:43:56] Speaker A: That's good. Yeah, that's. That's really good stuff. And I think that. I think that is the. The sum of the book. It's. It's about your humanity. And if we can just back up and go, what. What are we doing? Why are we doing this kind of connection? Are we making. You know, another thing you had in the book we talked about earlier. You said we've been trained to broadcast rather than converse. And that's kind of how we opened up this conversation about. Is it a dialogue versus a monologue? So, yeah, man, I really appreciate it. Anything else you want to share about the. The book or the general concept? What's. What's the main thing people just need to really have in their heads when they, they. When they engage in social media for their businesses? [00:44:44] Speaker B: I think the biggest thing is to give it some tlc. I. I find, like, I. I know it's been a constant theme, the check in the box, but it's something that I see every day where folks have a marketing budget and within their marketing budget, they're doing what they've done to get results, but they haven't made it. They haven't made it a priority to change things up, to maybe increase. It's like, we're stable, we're good. We're seeing a 5% increase every day. And whatever the, the goal is, let's not tinker with it too much because we might mess it up. So if we're gonna do newspaper ads and if we're gonna do radio ads, let's keep doing it. What I would challenge people to do is to prioritize some resources in 2026 for social media, specifically under your marketing line. Put some money towards social. You can bring in someone like myself, you can bring in someone else I would bring to get some kind of an audit, some kind of, you know, a plan for 2026, and then just rock with it for 2026 and see how it goes. If it, if you feel like you didn't get the. The results that you got that you wanted, I should say, then that's fine, you can go back to, you know, doing radio ads. But I would encourage people to prioritize social because it's only like, I was watching, not watching, but reading a report recently, and people watch their TV more on devices and on YouTube than they watch on TV. Now it's officially shifted. I don't have the data in front of me, but you can do some research online. So this is important and it's not going away. [00:46:20] Speaker A: I read something recently and I've seen it before. Love your take on this. Who was this? It was someone. It was someone really famous too. You'd know their name. But I can't think of who it was, but it was. The concept of the advice was don't try to be on all the platforms. [00:46:39] Speaker B: I teach that. [00:46:39] Speaker A: Pick two or three and get real. Understand who's really. I mean, pick two or three. Meaningfully pick the two or three that, you know, have the most likelihood of reaching your audience, but focus on. I think it might have even said two, maybe three, but. But not, you know, hey, I gotta be on Instagram and TikTok and Pinterest and YouTube and Facebook and X and I mean, it goes on, you know, so. So pick two or three that, that you can really drive deeply deep versus wide was the basic concept of that your thoughts on that. [00:47:14] Speaker B: Yes, Patrick, I teach the same thing a little different. What I recommend to people, especially people who don't have, you know, any direction on social, I always say start with one. I say survey your audience. If you have an email list, if you have phone numbers, if you, you know, any way, if you have applications that, that you know, include where people you know, you know, operate on social media, then I would survey the audience to figure out what platform we want to start on or, or I would figure out who the team member is that's going to take lead on it and lean into their expertise or their knowledge on social. So if you have somebody who's really good at TikTok and that's the person that's going to be doing it and you feel like they're going to stick around for a while, then I would like just start on TikTok if you don't have anything. So yeah, I always say start with one and then, then, then when you see some success or you feel like you guys have it, then I would add one at a time. [00:48:08] Speaker A: That's good. Um, I'm going to get to my last two questions that I ask all my guests. But before I do, I am interested in knowing how are you mostly helping your clients? Is it consult to build a plan or it do you do, do you actually do done for you campaigns where you're designing and content and all that. What is the primary thing you offer for, for organizations and businesses? [00:48:31] Speaker B: The primary thing that I'm working on these days that I'm getting the most joy out of and that that's kind of where I let my business lead me because love it. I'm good. I'm good in terms of like revenue and money and stuff. Right. Like I have a job, my wife has a job. Like I'm not trying to like be the, the richest person I want to, I want to have a lot of wealth from the service that I do. Right. So I'll start there, not chasing a check. So I want to make sure I'm very specific. And the thing that I'm getting the most joy from right now, Patrick, is getting in front of teams online or in person and guiding them, guiding them through their social media journey and building our strategies. I have a tiered offering that I, that I have. And for example, the next thing that I'm doing is here at our local chamber. I'm going to be giving a half day workshop based on the book. Really like using the book to kind of help people get the basics and that's really where my jam is. It's like getting in front of rooms of people who are lost when it comes to social and helping them to create a roadmap for impact and human connection. [00:49:37] Speaker A: Do you get engaged in paid advertising, consult and like Facebook advertising? How to really do that? Do you help with that? [00:49:47] Speaker B: I have helped with that. I do that every day at work. Doesn't bring me joy though. So if that's something someone wanted, I could could refer them to someone that's a specialist in that area. When I like when I have time to like work on projects, those are not the projects that I'm accepting. I'll give my consultation calls. I always do. Like when I have a new lead, I'll do like a 30 minute kind of discovery call and we'll decide quick if I'm going to point them in the right direction. So again, I'm all about service, whether that's with me or not. The people that I get on the phone with nine times out of ten, Patrick, are people who have missions that are helping people and like serving communities. So for me, I'll jump on a 30 minute call to drive you in the right direction or we can develop a business relationship so I can actually serve you. [00:50:33] Speaker A: Beautiful. Yeah, thank you for that. That's helpful. Just for our listeners who might be going, this guy, how do I get a hold of him? So we're gonna again we're gonna put the links on our episode page, robinnathaniel.com or landthetalk.com of course the book is available on either of those or, or straight onto Amazon. Last couple questions, Robin. I like to ask all my guests because I love the answers and the responses I get. Who is a leader in your life that comes to mind as someone who's had profound impact on your view of leadership. And this can be someone you know or don't, maybe you don't even know them. But it's a leader who in your life has had profound impact and why. [00:51:17] Speaker B: There'S a few. But there's one of my mentors, I don't talk about him in this light often. It's usually like kind of a jokey, fun thing when I talk about him because we do fantasy sports together too, like fantasy football. And so he's like my buddy too. Right? So it's a gentleman by the name of William Clan, AKA Bill, AKA the Professor. He's, he's a, you know, older white guy. He's older than me. You know, we, we knew each other as, you know, co stakeholders While I was working for this nonprofit and he was the building supervisor and principal of a New York City public school, which is a huge job, right? To a school, a school that has three different high schools in it, like, lots of moving parts. And I would watch this dude operate on a daily with this humble yet assertive form of leadership that people believed in. People followed from students from various very underserved communities who hadn't been around, people who cared about them, to, you know, teachers with Master's degrees and PhDs and could get through to them with a smile, be assertive. When it was time to be assertive, we had conflict in rooms together when I was sitting on one side of the table and he was on the other with his team. But it was done in a respectful manner and in a way where progress was the end goal. And that's something I took from him so much that I asked him formally. I was like, will you be my mentor? Until this day day, I have things that come up that are not related to education or any of my previous work, even in my space. Now I lean on him for leadership. And, and he's the guy that I, I, I would say. And we actually, a side note, in September, all of our guys are going to meet up in Dallas and do a trip together, and he's going to be there. So I'm going to see him in person for the first time in two years. And I'm, I'm absolutely stoked. [00:53:13] Speaker A: I'm not surprised at all that you would pick someone like that, because the words that kept coming to my mind as you were telling that story was human connection, his ability to make human connection at all levels. That's incredible. Great story. My last question is this. You're at the top of a mountain, and you're given a megahorn megaphone, and at the bottom of the mountain are all the leaders of the world, people who identify as someone in leadership. You've got 15 seconds to tell all the leaders of the world world what the most important element of leadership is. The 15 second. Robin. Nathaniel, soundbite on leadership. Go. [00:53:55] Speaker B: I think my megaphone would say, lead with gratitude. Make sure people know that you are grateful for the opportunity to lead them. Verbalize that. Say things like, thank you for allowing me to be your supervisor. Thank you for choosing to be a part of our organization. Thank you for giving me the privilege of being your leader. [00:54:24] Speaker A: Wow, Robin. What I love about that is gratitude is one thing. Expressing it to the person that needs to hear it is another. And that's what you just gave us. So what'd you call it? Dropping bars. I gotta tell people now. I've. I've now officially dropped bars. Right? Hey, Robin, thank you. Thank you so much. This has been awesome. It's one of my favorite episodes, actually. I really, really enjoyed this, Robin. Nathaniel.com. or better yet, land the talk dot com. And the book is Social Media sync. Get it for your communications team, folks. I mean, really, don't just do this without really thinking about a great framework to do it on. And that's it for now. We'll see you next time. Lead on. [00:55:25] Speaker B: Sam.