Transcription – [Fully Managed] Ty Bennett Ep. 75 – Podcast Highlights and Transcript

Daniella: Okay. Hello, everybody. Welcome to hashtag AD by Penji. This is the podcast where we discuss everything influencer marketing-related. We talk tips to help assist you in your influencer journeys and so much more. I’m your host, Daniella. I am Penji’s influencer coordinator, and I’m joined today here with a very special guest, Ty Bennett.

Hi Ty. How are you?

Ty: I’m great.

Getting to Know Ty Bennett

Daniella: It is very good to have you. You are one of the first few guests that we have on the podcast, and for anybody watching that doesn’t know you, doesn’t know what you do, what you’re about, can you tell us a little bit about yourself? Give a little bit, run of a rundown of you.

Ty: Yeah, absolutely. So, I have been an entrepreneur pretty much my whole life and owned and sold a couple of different businesses. That led me to really what I am most passionate about and what I’ve done for the last 15 years. And that’s in being a keynote speaker and an author. So, I speak for different companies all over the world, and I’ve written four books.

And in the process of that, obviously use social media as part of that platform to get my name out there and to connect with people and to share my message and create content, et cetera. And so yeah, I travel quite a bit giving speeches to different organizations and really enjoy what I do.

Daniella: So, you obviously were a keynote speaker before you started your journey with social media. Right? What made you want it?

Ty: It kind of came on. Social media kind of came on about the same time, so a little bit of it went hand in hand. But yes, I definitely speaking, you know, before creating more and more content on social media.

The Jump to Social Media

Daniella: So what made you want to start sort of promoting it to your social media, you know, to take that jump. I think a lot of people haven’t had, who have businesses, who are entrepreneurs, who have any kind of project, have considered it, but have never dared to make that jump. What made you want to go into social media?

Ty: Well, a couple of things. One, I, what I do is highly visual and I want it to be visible, right? So I wanna get it out there in front of as many people as possible. But two, I think social media gives us a unique platform, a free platform, basically, to connect with people all over the world. It’s kind of amazing, the speeches that I can trace back to social media have led to speeches in countries.

Multiple countries on several different continents have led to speaking for some of the largest organizations, you know, I mean household type names such as like Delta Airlines or the Children’s Hospital of Colorado. Like all sorts of different groups that their connection point to me was with social media and some of the content that I was putting out there.

So, I think part of it was just, you know, here’s another avenue, here’s another way in which I can share that message and get in front of people. And I’ve found it to be extremely effective.

Daniella: It’s definitely a very new tool that I think a lot of people have been able to use for promoting their own sort of project their own businesses. And like you said, a lot of really great things have come from social media.

Social Media Strategy

Daniella: So what channels did you start focusing on specifically when you started to use social media? Did you… I’ve heard some people who go into the social media part of business and they sort of just do everything right. Like I’ve heard people who are like, I’m on Snapchat, I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Facebook, I’m on Twitter, I’m on TikTok and Instagram. And I’ve heard people who are a little bit more focused on one or two specific platforms. What has been your strategy so far?

Ty: Yeah, so when I first started Facebook was kind of the main thing. And so this is going back to, you know, 2006, 7, 8 timeframe. And so we did quite a bit on that platform. And then as I felt like we figured out how to have some success with it, LinkedIn and Twitter were kind of the next two that we ventured into.

I do much less now on Twitter or X. And the three main platforms for me are Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn. And we try and do quite a bit there and then share video content on all of those, but also on YouTube. So I’ve personally never gone deep on Snapchat or TikTok or some of the others. And part of that’s just bandwidth, right? Part of it’s just deciding where you can focus your time and attention and how much you have to put, how many resources or people or time you have to put towards those things.

And so for me, we’ve got some different strategies with each, but Instagram and LinkedIn and Facebook have been the main ones.

Daniella: Yeah. Well, you know, I also think like every app is sort of a different world nowadays. And TikTok and Snapchat are definitely a lot more youthful, I would say. So I also think that when it comes to having a social media strategy, you really have to think about the person that is going to be consuming your content.

‘Cause I’ve seen way too many people who are viral on one app, but it… you know, they can’t turn that into a sale or they can’t turn that into like a business because it’s not your target audience. So even if it’s a million people watching it, it’s a million people that are not going to give you any ROI. Right. So, yeah.

Ty: And that, I think for a lot of us, it’s hard sometimes or we lose track of the reason for doing it or what the outcomes that we’re looking for are with it. Right. Because it is kind of fun and you get that dopamine hit of people liking your stuff or it’s exciting to see something go viral. But yeah, having some kind of strategy and purpose to it I think is important.

Daniella: Yeah. Because if you don’t, then it’s not really gonna go anywhere. Right?

Ty: Yeah.

Growth Journey on Social Media

Daniella: So, in your social media journey, how has your growth been thus far? Right? You said you started back in 2006, 2007. How has everything changed since then? That’s a lot of time for things to have evolved on social media and how has that affected you and the way that you operate your own business, how you have been using it. How has the growth been for you?

Ty: So each platform kind of operates independently, right? Like I think you have to look at ’em each separately and Facebook, you know, we grew, that’s in the originally and going back to like, you know, you have a personal page and a fan page and all of those things too. And then as Instagram came out. I’m trying to grow that and figure that out. And then LinkedIn operates very differently than all of those as well.

So my growth has never been explosive, but it’s been consistent. And our strategy has been to try and be consistent in that there’s certain pieces of content. Like for me, I put out a Monday morning mantra, which is a video piece, just a content piece around the content that I teach every Monday, and I’ve done that consistently now for I think 11 years every Monday. Right. So just part of it is some consistency in terms of what I’m doing. And then in that, you know, we’ve had consistent growth through the process as well.

Staying Motivated Without Explosive Growth

Daniella: I think a lot of people that, so a lot of Penji customers are business owners that are trying to grow on their socials. Right. And I think a lot of challenges that a lot of people face is seeing success from having a social media online presence, whether it’s on like, you know, a platform like Instagram or Facebook or whether it is like you’re just trying to grow like an e-comm website, whatever it is.

And I think a lot of people in general get discouraged whether the results are not there. And I think a lot of them have been following sort of a pattern of, you know, you have to have a viral video and then you’re just super famous…

Daniella: You said that, you know, your growth hasn’t been explosive. It’s been more of like a consistent growth, right? So we have a lot of listeners who have struggled with figuring out how to stay motivated when they don’t are not seeing necessarily like explosive results. How has that process been for you? Have you ever felt discouraged or even if it wasn’t like, you know, the explosive growth that people think about when they think of social media growth. Has that growth that you have felt still helped you and given you success?

Ty: Yeah. So I think there’s a couple of things to think about with that. One, it can be frustrating, because you know, as the algorithm changes sometimes you’re like, what am I doing wrong? Right? Like, sometimes you get huge reaction to certain things and other times you get nothing. And some of that’s outside of your control a little bit, in terms of how just the apps work themselves and some of the changes that they make.

But I think it’s important also to have kind of a rigid flexibility with here’s a strategy and we’re gonna stick with it because this is a long-term play. But flexibility in that, you know, you can adapt that, you can change that as you learn more and are trying to understand how to do that.

But I also think that having some version of, for most entrepreneurs, what the outcome of that is, that goes beyond just reaction on the social media platform. So for me, ultimately what I want this to lead to is speeches, right? That’s kind of the outcome that I’m looking for. It’s something outside of that. And those speeches are monetized quite a bit, right? They’re, you know, we charge a fair amount for those speeches.

So having some way that you can have an ROI that goes, that’s taking people off of social media and connecting with them in a way that is more trackable, I guess, that is tangible to it, I think is important.

And so for me, I’m not looking for necessarily, like if something goes viral, that’s great, but if it leads to one or two key people reaching out and connecting in that way. For me, that’s the kind of ROI that I’m looking for. And so holding on to this is the reason we’re doing it, I think is important.

Beyond Virality

Daniella: I think it’s really interesting that you have mentioned sort of the idea that virality is not your main purpose, right? It’s a great thing if you have it, but it’s not what you are actively seeking. And I think that that sort of goal sometimes gets lost with a lot of business owners, where they think that virality is the only thing that’s gonna give you worth. But sometimes I think social media is a tool that you can use in so many different ways. And not being like the most famous person is not necessarily equivalent to a failure, right?

Ty: No, for sure. I think from a mentality standpoint, we get lost. I don’t know. We want business to be super sexy. Like viral is like sexy and cool and awesome, but most businesses just consistency, right? It’s just showing up every day and adding value in some way. And so yeah. I don’t think for most people it’s gonna be just this, like, I went viral and crazy and everybody knows your name. If that happens, awesome. But I think you can have a lot of success without that happening too.

Daniella: Yeah, I think you can, and you just have to sort of know how to manage what you have and what you are getting. And I think in a way, it’s better because I’ve heard from a lot of people who have explosive growth, how overwhelming it is because they’re wholly unprepared for it. You know, like…

Ty: Yeah, that’s true.

Daniella: It’s a very common thing of hearing about people who are just normal people one day and then the next, it’s like their whole world changes because they made one funny video or they made one interesting comment or whatever it is that they did, and then, you know, they can’t handle all of the stuff that’s coming their way.

Ty: Yeah, growth has its own problems too, right? We tend to want the problems we don’t have, but inherent there’s gonna be problems with any of it.

Managing Growth

Daniella: Yeah. So about growth, how have you sort of been managing that growth throughout this whole time that you’ve been doing speeches and working on entrepreneurship and all this? Obviously, you said your growth has been very stable and you’ve sort of been doing it this a lot of times where you have a lot of experience. But I think a lot of people struggle with when they’re at a point where their businesses or their ventures or whatever it is, are at a point where they can start scaling it or start thinking of how to grow that. What have you been doing to figure that part out?

Ty: It’s been a process over the years of, it started with me just doing it and trying to figure it out, right. And then eventually bring some people on who helped with that, and that’s changed over the years. I’ve used outside services. I’ve used internal team. I’ve used different groups for some specific different purposes and projects, and some of those have worked and some of those we’ve gone, oh, that was the wrong people to decide to do that with.

And so overall, because the brand of this is so much me, right? I’m the speaker, I’m the author. I wanna make sure that I am involved and kind of overseeing and okaying any content that we’re putting out there. Whereas if it was just a brand that was a little bit more general to a specific product or something, maybe I’d have a little less control in that regard.

But as much as I can bring on a team to help me with that, that’s great. I just want to make sure that I am obviously creating content because the content’s coming from me, but overseeing exactly like how it’s being put out and displayed and all of that kinda stuff too.

Daniella: I mean, you’re the main focus of it.

Ty: Yeah. I’m kind of the face of it. Right. So, yeah.

Social Media’s Impact on Leadership

Daniella: You have to have some sort of creative control. If not, then you know, it’s not gonna make much sense, like you said, with, whereas with something like a product. So you said that your main focus is your speeches and from your social media, I know that you focus a lot on leadership. Has social media impacted the way that you talk about leadership or the way that people view leadership? I think social media has affected nearly the way, nearly everything, you know, and the way that people perceive it and the way that people interact with a lot of different topics because we have this sort of new medium to share a lot of things and communicate. How has that changed for you since you’ve started your journey?

Ty: Yeah, I think it’s changed a lot. It’s changed the mentality of different generations. It’s changed the way that people show up and because of that, it’s changed how leaders need to show up.

So we are constantly looking at the research around it, trying to figure out, you know, what are best practices and having some of those conversations like, I’ll give you an example. One of the concepts that I teach in leadership that really came out of this social media mindset is I talk to leaders about the fact that people support what they help create.

Meaning, as leaders, we need to give people a voice. And the idea that just like top down leadership of just saying like, okay, go and do this. This is how you’re gonna implement. It doesn’t really work in today’s world. And the reason being is because of social media, because everyone has a voice. People have a platform that they can share their voice, and so they’re used to it being heard.

And so as leaders, we have to adapt our style because of that. Because people come in with that mentality. And so I do think it has an effect across the board. I think that it, I can give you several different examples of good and bad where social media comes into play, but it’s given people a place that they can be heard and a place that they can share their thoughts, good, bad, and different. And as leaders, it does have a big effect on the culture of how things operate today.

Daniella: Definitely what you said about people having a voice is huge. ‘Cause I think before you didn’t really have the opportunity, like, I guess the easily ready opportunity to share your opinion on something where now whatever you share is bound to get any sort of feedback, right?

Like you’re gonna get either a negative comment or a positive comment, but you’re gonna get someone saying something about it. And I think that that definitely is, it’s a very big change compared to before. I think a lot of times when we would consume any type of content, you would have an opinion, but you can just share it with your friends or keep it to yourself. And now it’s like you can, and you wanna comment on someone’s picture that they’re ugly, no one’s gonna stop you. Right.

Ty: Yeah. Yeah, it’s a different world and because of that it creates a different approach and thought process for sure.

Closing Thoughts

Daniella: Yeah, for sure. So it has been great talking to you, Ty. It’s very interesting talking to someone who’s been on social media for so long and been experiencing those changes. A lot of times people who have been, you know, only recently tend to have a perspective of how recently things have changed. Or for someone like me, ’cause I grew up using social media and constantly like, I don’t know, the world without it or the internet. So it’s a very different approach.

And it’s very interesting to hear it from people who have sort of seen all of that happen throughout time. For anybody who’s interested in taking a look at your content, who wants to maybe attend one of your speeches or wants to learn more from you? The floor is yours to share about any special projects that you’re doing or talk to our audience about any, anywhere that you want them to come and visit you.

Ty: Yeah, I’m pretty easy to find if you just search Ty Bennett. My website is tybennett.com on social media. I’m under Ty Bennett everywhere, so pretty easy to find that way. I’d love to connect and if I can add any value, I’d love to be able to do so.

Daniella: Awesome. Yeah. Then I will be adding all of your links to the description of the podcast so that everybody watching can take a look. It was a great time. Thank you for being here.

Ty: Yeah, thanks for having me.

Daniella: And thank you guys, everybody for listening. We’ll see you on the next episode. Have a great day.

Apple Music

Spotify

Amazon