Episode 91 – Learn how to focus in your own voice.

My guest on the show today is Ash Brown. Ash is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, influencer, and event...

The post Episode 91 – Learn how to focus in your own voice. appeared first on Sideways8.

My guest on the show today is Ash Brown. Ash is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, influencer, and event MC. The blog on ashsaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews, and her favorite eateries. Her podcast, Ash Said It Daily, has streamed over half a million times worldwide.

Adam: [00:07] Hi, welcome to the Good People, Good Marketing podcast, a podcast about digital marketing and how to make it better so that good people and good organizations can have good marketing as well. I’m your host, Adam Walker, co-founder of Sideways8, a digital marketing agency and 48 in 48, a non-profit dedicated to hosting events that build forty-eight websites for forty-eight non-profits in forty-eight hours.

 

[00:28] My guest on the show today is Ash Brown. Ash is a gifted American producer, blogger, speaker, influencer, and event MC. The blog on ashsaidit.com showcases exclusive event invites, product reviews, and her favorite eateries. Her podcast, Ash Said It Daily, has streamed over half a million times worldwide, which is not in any way intimidating to me and interviewing her on this podcast. Hey Ash, welcome to the show.

 

Ash: [00:55] Hey, thank you so much for having me.

 

Adam: [00:58] I read that line in your bio and I was like, “Oh man, half a million.” I was like, I’m not doing as good as I thought!

 

Ash: [01:07] You just never know what’s going to work and what doesn’t work. And you check the stats one day you’re like, “ Wait, what!”

 

Adam: [01:14] You know what’s funny is I don’t even bother checking the stats usually. I don’t even know if I want to know. Is that what happened to you though – one day you were somewhere and then the next day it just went crazy?

 

Ash: [01:24] Well the thing about it was at that time I wasn’t really paying attention to stats so when I started my podcast it was really off of a dare. I had a friend of mine that was like, “Ash you should start another podcast show” because I had done them previously to help promote independent artists around the globe. And so I had done that and I was like, I’m kind of over that stuff. They’re like, no, it can be whatever you want. And I was like, what does that even mean, whatever I want? So I started to do just an audio podcast on Spreaker. It’s an app that anybody can get out there, it’s called the Speaker app.

 

[01:58] And so when I started that, it was just me kind of doing it sporadically, whenever I would remember about the app randomly before I went to the gym. The opportunity came for me to do iHeartRadio, to apply to become part of their stream, and I was like iHeartRadio is going to look at me and laugh and be like “Whatever.” So I did it and totally forgot about it. About a year later, I was still doing the show sporadically. It wasn’t a focus show and it definitely wasn’t consistent, and they sent me an email saying you’re approved, you’re a part of our stream now. So I needed to really pay attention now. I really needed to focus this show and actually plan shows and get guests to come on it and work on my digital marketing and making sure that the shows are available for people to grab and to download and all that good stuff. Fast forward four years later, half a million streams. That’s an astronomical amount, just saying it is just so weird. It is, and it’s such a blessing.

 

Adam: [02:59] That’s the dream right there. You’re living the podcaster’s dream, so maybe one day for the rest of us. That’s great though, that’s really exciting. So I’m excited to interview you about digital marketing. Obviously, you’ve got a lot of experience in the space. I’m really looking forward to hearing what you have to say so if you’re ready, I’m ready. Let’s dive in.

 

Ash: [03:19] Let’s jump into it. What are we jumping into first?

 

Adam: [03:20] Question number one related to digital marketing can you tell us something that has worked well for you?

 

Ash: [03:26] Engagement. Engagement with the audience is really huge and that’s what really makes a difference. I spent a lot of time before I started my own company working for other brands and making up a post or creating content and just putting it out there. That doesn’t really work. If people don’t connect to it, if people aren’t interested in what you’re talking about, it’s not going to go anywhere. So you’ve got to go into research mode basically and find out what people are searching, what people are finding out, how are people listening to different shows, how are people finding content? And you’ve got to find a way of interjecting yourself into it.

 

[04:05] So really engagement has been huge. So keeping engagement, meaning when people send me comments and all kinds of messages and emails and things, I may not be able to get back to people that day, that hour, but I make sure that I get back to people in a reasonable amount of time, which is usually within forty-eight hours, I can answer people sending me questions or having concerns about things.

 

Adam: [04:29] Gotcha. That’s great. So question number two, related to digital marketing can you share something that has not worked well, that we can learn from?

 

Ash: [04:40] Copying other people. You’ve got to create, you’ve got to come up with your own style. It’s good to be aware of what other people are doing, but what I’ve seen other marketers doing is they see somebody that has a big name or a big following doing certain things or posting certain things on social media and then they go and completely emulate that and it’s not original anymore. And you can look at the person’s stuff, the copycat, and be like, “Oh, we know where you stole that from.”

 

[05:09] Being original is huge. Me, myself, when I first started, I wasn’t doing that, but I didn’t really know how to focus in my own voice, so to speak, and I didn’t really know how to get people to really engage with me. So it took some trial and error and figuring out what works from what doesn’t, but you definitely have to be an original.

 

Adam: [05:30] That’s right. And I liked how you phrased that, learning how to focus in your own voice. And I think we learn that as we do. I don’t know if there’s any other way to do it. I’ve got two podcasts – one is a technology show and the early shows really are very, very, very different from the shows today. We found our stride today and I think with this one too, at first I’m interviewing and I’m always a little stale or just sort of rigid and then as you get into interviewing more and more people, you start to get a flow and you understand how the banter goes back and forth and then you can really just be yourself and just own your own voice as you put it.

 

Ash: [06:12] Yeah, and that’s the number one thing is you’re not going to know until you actually jump out and do it. I have people all the time, saying “Oh my gosh, I want to do a podcast, but I don’t know Ash, I’m really nervous.” You’re going to be nervous, you’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to misquote things, you’re going to mispronounce people’s names. Anything can go wrong. It’s just embracing the imperfections of it, just embracing all that stuff and just going for it because eventually you’re going to find a rhythm or you’re going to find something else to really captivate your time.

 

Adam: [06:46] Yeah, you have to be willing to fail and you have to also recognize in doing that that other people have failed much worse and it’s okay and they survived their failures and you’ll survive yours. And that’s part of digital marketing and the digital landscape in general is you can fail really easily and all you have to do is delete the file when you’re done. It’s great!

 

Ash: [07:04] Delete the file and then keep going. Make some new content, people will forget about the stuff that you messed up on.

 

Adam: [07:10] People’s memories these days are so remarkably short that you’re good to go. The next news cycle is what, fifteen minutes from now? We’re all set. No problem. So last question then, related to digital marketing can you tell me something you are excited about?

 

Ash: [07:28] I’m excited to see the next phase of digital marketing. As you guys know, like every major platform, social media goes, it’s always evolving, it’s always changing and with that there’s all these new updates on things, so I have to keep myself fresh. I actually take online courses to find out what are the new ways to market to people, what are the new enhancements that people can look forward to. The main thing that I’m super excited about is to see what’s next. I don’t know, they’re hitting around different little things, I’m like “Let me see what’s really going to be next for this and how we can leverage that to better ourselves.”

 

Adam: [08:07] Absolutely, that’s fantastic. Well, Ash, let me see if I can recap what we’ve talked about so far and have a good takeaway for our listeners here. For what has worked well for you, you mentioned that engagement with the audience makes a huge difference. If people don’t connect with your content, then there’s no reason to have it. And so you have to find out where people are finding content, how they’re engaging with that content, and then create content that engages with them and stay tuned in to what they’re about and what they’re doing.

 

[08:34] For what has not worked well that we can learn from, you mentioned that just being a copycat doesn’t work well, nobody likes to copycat, and you have to come up with your own style. Be aware of what other people are doing, but don’t do exactly what they’re doing. Learn and focus in your own voice and one of the best ways to do that is just to jump out and do it, just figure it out as you go. Why not right? You can’t fail too hard. Nothing’s so bad that we’re not going to recover, right?

 

[08:59] And number three, what are you excited about? You said the next phase of digital marketing, platforms are always changing, evolving, improving. And one thing I love is that you said you take online courses to stay up to date and then also you participate in online groups to also stay up to date and that’s a good way for us as marketing professionals to stay in the know as well. Did I miss anything in that recap?

 

Ash: [09:20] No, you got it perfect. You nailed it.

 

Adam: [09:24] Fantastic. Do you have any final thoughts you want to share with the audience?

 

Ash: [09:27] Definitely. I would just say whatever it is that you want to do, jump out the gate and do it. There are so many people in this world that are so negative. They’re upset with life, they want you to be upset too, they want you to be unhappy. I would say jump out the gate and make it happen, doesn’t matter what people say – they’re going to say anything about you anyways. So you might as well be happy and whatever it is that you’re doing, be the best at whatever it is, and the naysayers, they’re going to be to the side, still complaining about whatever and not making a difference in the world.

 

Adam: [10:00] That’s some fantastic advice. Ash, thanks so much for joining me on the show, really appreciate your time.

 

Ash: [10:06] Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate you.

 

Adam: [10:11] Thanks for listening to the Good People, Good Marketing podcast. To get more resources about digital marketing, make sure to go to goodpeoplegoodmarketing.com where you can find more podcasts, blogs, and other fun resources. Also, if you want to find me, your host, you can find me on twitter @ajwalker and on my blog at adamjwalker.com, where I blog about leadership, productivity, habit-building, and the craziness of having five kids. Thanks and tune in next time.

The post Episode 91 – Learn how to focus in your own voice. appeared first on Sideways8.