Young and Profiting with Hala Taha - Hala Taha: Grow Your Podcast with Engaging Ads, AI Innovation, and Social Media Mastery

Episode Date: August 9, 2024

Despite managing 30 employees and earning $100,000 monthly from her business, Hala Taha was reluctant to leave her stable job. But once she took the leap, her company truly took off. In this episode of the Big Questions podcast, Hala talks to Cal Fussman about her entrepreneurial journey and her strategies for leveraging social media and marketing to build a top-rated business podcast. Cal Fussman is a New York Times bestselling author, keynote speaker, and master storyteller known for his captivating interviews. He also hosts the Big Questions podcast, and his work has appeared in Esquire, GQ, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN.  In this episode, Hala and Cal will discuss: - Hala’s childhood and struggles with discrimination - How Hala built a top-rated podcast from scratch - Hala’s transition from corporate to entrepreneurship - The interest graph algorithm driving most social platforms - How she leveraged social media for business growth - Managing a team of volunteers effectively - The importance of mentorship and encouragement - Why consistent topics are essential for brand building - Hala’s unique approach to podcast advertising - How Hala innovates with AI in podcasting - And other topics…   Cal Fussman is a New York Times bestselling author and master storyteller known for his captivating interviews. He hosts the Big Questions podcast and is a celebrated keynote speaker. Cal has spent decades connecting with some of the world's most influential figures, from Muhammad Ali to Jeff Bezos. His unique ability to make people feel comfortable and his relentless curiosity have made him a beloved figure in journalism. His work has appeared in Esquire, GQ, Sports Illustrated, and ESPN.  Connect with Cal: Cal’s Website: https://www.calfussman.com/   Cal’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/calfussman/  Cal’s Twitter: https://x.com/calfussman   Cal’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/calfussman  Cal’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/calfussman/  Cal’s Podcast, Big Questions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/big-questions-with-cal-fussman/id1315791659?mt=2  LinkedIn Secrets Masterclass, Have Job Security For Life: Use code ‘podcast’ for 30% off at yapmedia.io/course.   Sponsored By: Shopify - Sign up for a one-dollar-per-month trial period at youngandprofiting.co/shopify  Indeed - Get a $75 job credit at indeed.com/profiting    More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting   Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala   Learn more about YAP Media’s Services - yapmedia.io/

Today's episode is sponsored in part by Indeed and Shopify. Attract, interview, and hire all in one place with Indeed. Get a $75 sponsored job credit at indeed.com slash profiting. Shopify is the global commerce platform that helps you grow your business. Sign up for a $1 per month trial period at Shopify.com slash profiting. As always, you can find all of our incredible deals

in the show notes. Hello, my young and profiting family. Welcome back to the show. On Monday, we played part one of my interview with Cal Fussman, and we're gonna be playing part two next Monday. Now in part one, we really focused on Cal's story, and in part two, we're gonna be focusing on AI,

and we're gonna get more practical and tactical. Now, I went on Cal's podcast, the Big Questions podcast back in May, and I thought this interview would be the perfect bridge between his two-part episode. So that's why we're replaying it today. Cal is a writer, journalist, speaker, and an expert interviewer, and I'm so impressed with his interviewing skills. He's interviewed some of the most powerful people in the world from Muhammad Ali to Jeff

Bezos. And so you could imagine I was super excited to get on his podcast because of the legends that preceded me and I was not disappointed. Cal is such a good interviewer and he asked me a question that I've never been asked before. He asked me about my ad reads and how I make them so engaging. And it's so interesting that Cal picked up on this because it's something that I'm really well known for in my podcast industry. But it's just not something the average person would know about me because it's not something I share.

And he said, when I do my commercials, it actually sounds like I'm so in love with my products that it feels like I'm doing the commercials for free. Now, I felt really happy that he said that because I own a podcast network. And so I'm often asked commercials for free. Now I felt really happy that he said that because I own a podcast network and so I'm often asked to talk to brands about how podcasters can improve their reads and stuff like that. And it's something I'm really passionate about and it's sort of like a hidden talent. So it was just really fun to talk about it.

I also loved how Cal was so genuinely curious about the stuff that he wanted to learn. He's trying to get better on social media. So we talked a lot about that. I explained the interest graph, which I had recently learned from Gary Vee, which is basically this new algorithm that all the social media platforms are using where basically they're feeding you content that you're interested in, not necessarily the most viral content out there. It's based on your in, not necessarily the most viral content out there. It's based on your interests, not what is popular. And we also talked about why you have to stick to the same topics if you want to build a magnetic

brand and a strong online presence. We went through all of my best practice branding tips and then we spoke about AI, something that Cal is passionate about, and what we're actually talking to Cal about next week. He is an AI expert and he's totally absorbed himself in the AI world. And we talked about how we use AI at Yap Media, what I feel the future of AI might look like for podcasters. But believe me, this episode is not just for podcasters. There's so much to learn if you're growing your business or trying to build your personal brand. I think you guys are going to love it. So let's get into my episode on the big questions podcast hosted by Cal Fussman. I automatically have a feeling of trust for you

because we both trust and have been trusted by somebody we both know. And then we were starting to talk. I told you how I met Heather Monahan and you said, oh, she was my first client. How did that come about? I love this. So when I first started my podcast, this was six years ago, Heather came on for episode 50. So I was probably doing it for a little bit over a year. My podcast was growing really big. And at the time, I had grown my LinkedIn following. And I was very innovative.

I had a team of 20 volunteers helping me with my podcast so that I could work a full-time job. And I was this marketing guru who knew how to audio edit, video edit, social media, graphic design, and I would teach all these interns to do it for me. And so we had really cool videos before having cool videos for a podcast was a thing. And Heather had a podcast. So she, after the interview, was like, hey, Hala, I see the amazing videos that you're doing on LinkedIn and your team is doing such a great job. Can you do this for me? And I was like, No, I'm so sorry. I have a team of volunteers. I was working at Disney at the time and I was like, I just have a team of volunteers. This is just a hobby.

They helped me so that I can just like keep my job corporate job. And this is just a hobby. We can't help you. they're busy with my show." Heather didn't leave me alone about it and she kept commenting me on LinkedIn like, Holly, you got to tell me at least how you do these videos. And so I looked up as Heather's, like probably like 10, 12 years older than me, 15 years older than me, and I looked up to her as somebody who I'd want to be like when I'm older. And so I decided, okay, let's have have a mentor-mentee relationship and how about on Saturdays, I'll teach you how to make these videos.

I started coordinating these calls on Saturdays with her. Then she got on our first call and I showed her my drive, how I do everything, our templates, our Slack channel. And she goes, Hala, I just had a call with VaynerMedia. Your stuff is 10 times better than them. You have a company, you have an agency, you have a team. I want to be your first client. You can't tell me no.

I'm not doing these videos on my own. I want you to do them for me. And I said, all right, I'll give it a shot. It was COVID. I had a little bit more time. I was like, okay, I'll give it a shot. And so she ended up paying us a small amount to do her videos. And it turned into us taking over her LinkedIn profile, her whole podcast. And then my second client

ever was a billionaire. And because I had started it off with Heather and created all these processes, then I pitched this billionaire, a 30k retainer to do his LinkedIn Instagram and podcast and he said yes and my second client was $30,000 a month thanks to Heather Monahan. Amazing. Yeah, she helped kick off my whole company. She pushed me. She also is the one that helped me quit my job because it took me six months to quit Disney and I was already making over a hundred grand a month.

I had 30 employees around the world and she, I remember her, she was in the grocery store yelling at me to quit my job. And like, she was like, you got to make the leap. You've got something huge. And she, and because of her, I quit my job. And then my company really took off after I quit my job. So I love Heather. She's one of my closest friends.

She's still my mentor and she's the best. So you mentored your mentor. Yeah. I know what that's like because Heather screamed at me too. And she screams with the best of intentions. It like truly outrages her when she sees somebody with potential not getting the most out of it. Yeah. And she gave me the confidence to do it.

Okay. So we're going to take a little time out here and backtrack. Sure. You got a great name. Where did you get your name? What like, are you named after somebody like an exotic bird? What, where does it come from? So I'm actually a hundred percent Palestinian and my name in Arabic is pronounced Hella. But in English, everybody calls me Hala. It's Hala Taha.

And so it actually means welcome in Arabic. It's a pretty popular. There's actually 100 people named Hala Taha in the world. It's pretty funny. For a while, it was hard to rank on search because there were so many Hala Taha's. But now I've outranked everybody. But yeah, it means welcome in Arabic.

All right. So you were born with the name Welcome. And where'd you grow up? I grew up in New Jersey, in central Jersey, a town called Wachunk. I have driven through New Jersey many times, but I've never heard of this town. What's it look like? So it's a really nice town. I would say it's a upper middle class town.

When I was growing up, I was one of the only brown kids in school. So that was pretty challenging growing up. But yeah, it's mostly this like upper class town, big houses, big yards and great school system. Okay, so and even in a place that was kind of upper class or upper middle class, it was a little difficult to have different color skin and this is what? Oh yeah.

This is late, this is 90s or so, you're growing up? Yeah, exactly. It was difficult. 9-11 happened when I was in high school. Wow. What did that do? That was the big turning point because before then, I feel like we were treated just sort of we were really accepted in the community. My dad's a doctor and we were like well off and my mom used to always help out with the PTA and whatever and I had three older siblings.

And so we were pretty accepted in the community. But after 9-11, things drastically shifted. So before that, I was getting the lead in all the school plays. I was on the soccer team and just a normal kid that was getting opportunities. After 9-11, it was way different. They wouldn't even let me in the talent show. I had the best voice in school. What? And they wouldn't even let me perform in the talent show. Yeah, yeah.

So it happened to be that in high school, I didn't get any opportunities. It was, and I ended up like my friend group changed. I was just really only friends with like all the immigrant kids kind of. And that actually turned out to be a blessing in disguise because I got used to rejection early on.

And then by the time I got to college, I went to a very diverse school in Newark, New Jersey, because I couldn't get anywhere else because I had no extracurricular activities, not because I wanted to, but because I was never really accepted into any of the programs that I tried to do in high school. I ended up doing really well in college because suddenly I was just treated fairly and I had the confidence and no fear of rejection because I just was rejected for like three years in a row before that. So I always, I look at everything as like silver lining, you know.

I'm just thinking you'd go out for the soccer team and they would just say, no, you don't make it. You show up to audition for the play. Nope, sorry. Somebody else got the part. Over and over again. Over and over again. And it's, it's, it's when you, when you look at singing is the thing where I know for a

fact that I was discriminated against because previous to that I was literally like always the lead of the school plays. My chorus teacher, thank God, was always still nice to me. And so I always had a solo in the chorus concert throughout those years anyway, because I literally had the best voice in school. It was an obvious thing. So for a fact, I know that like the teachers that were running the plays and the talent shows, they were definitely discriminating against me, but who cares about them?

I wonder if they are like listening to your podcast now when thinking, oh man, we got her wrong. Oh, for sure. For sure. Okay, so you go to college. What's the name of the school? New Jersey Institute of Technology. And were you a good math student?

No. No. And that's wild, technology. I know. So, well, I was originally going there to do chemistry because I wanted to make makeup. And then I ended up really focusing to my point of me struggling in high school

to do fun extracurricular activities because once I got into college, I was captain of the cheerleading team. I was leading all the plays. I was getting all these opportunities. I was president of the radio club. And I did all these different things on my sorority. And I just stopped going to class. I didn't care about school. And I was focused on everything else but school because I didn't get these opportunities in high school and I'm the type of person who loves like real world experience. So what happened was is that I got an internship at Hot 97 when I was 19. It was the number one hip hop and radio station and I ended up dropping out of school

So that I could do this radio internship basically full-time and be Angie Martinez as assistant And that's what I did for three years basically and so I ended up dropping out of school and going back But because I wasn't really doing good in school to begin with my GPA was really terrible And I was basically failing out of all my classes because all I cared about were these other things because I didn't get to do that in high school. In hindsight, I've realized that. I'm loving this because when I was in college, it was pretty much the same thing. I never went to class. I wanted to be like a newspaper columnist and so I just was devoted to writing for newspapers. And it actually focuses you in a way

that most people don't get. And yet at the same time, I've discovered that when I look back now, I had wished I had spent time in college maybe learning four or five languages. I had a choice between writing about sports, which I loved, or computers were coming of age. My dad worked for IBM. I could have gone in that direction. I could have watched Star Trek. I could have been enamored with that whole science fiction world and I pushed it aside. And only now, decades later, am I realizing, oh man, in this age of AI, it would be really helpful if I knew what was going on in Star Trek back in the 60s, because

it seems like everything that was on people's minds or the creator's minds is now coming to fruition. And I heard this on your last podcast with Stephen Wolfram. It was clear people were thinking of these things. They just couldn't figure out how to do it. Yeah, basically they, that's how everything is. Basically movies predict the future essentially and we're manifesting our future.

We kind of envision what it could be like and then slowly we're putting the puzzles together, the puzzle pieces together to figure out how to actually execute that vision. So you're in college, you leave, take this internship, and it sounds like you're taking on all these tools. You're able to speak because of the radio. You also have some video tools that you can use.

Was this also at, like like the very start of social media so that you were in on it right when it was in front of everybody? Exactly. So this was probably around 2009 when I first got the internship at Hot 97. So like blogs were super hot, Twitter was super hot. And so I really learned how to do those two things really well because at the radio station, I essentially was a full-time employee. I wasn't getting paid, but I had to go there every day from nine to five and I was not getting a dollar. And I did that for two and a half, three years where I worked for free

at the station. And I would make my money selling hip-hop showcase tickets at nights and Hosting parties with the DJs and hosting events with the DJs and on the side of everything I there was like an opportunity set a and an opportunity set B So opportunity set a is basically my day job where I would run the dilette boards. I'd answer phones the commercials Do the research for Angie Martinez, I would meet all these celebrities, and really there was only like 10 people allowed in the studio area, and I was like the queen intern,

basically, teaching all the other interns, and I was basically being primed to be the next Angie Martinez, which is, she's the voice of New York, she's a huge on-air personality, and in radio, you basically have to pay your dues, and many of the online personalities work for free for five to seven years before they actually get airtime. They had me doing commercials for the air and so on and

then on the side I was doing opportunity set B stuff so that was running hip-hop showcases, hosting showcases. I had online radio shows with the upcoming DJs DJs on the side where I'd like interview up and coming artists or even really famous artists. And it was the precursor to podcasts. And even some of these shows were on podcasts, like on Apple, technically, but nobody was listening to podcasts at the time. And online studios basically were, it would be like, you know, go to ALIS radio dot net, I'm going to be live Wednesdays from two to three, check us out. And then it would be like, you know, go to ALIS radio dot net. I'm going to be live Wednesdays from two to three. Check us out. And then there'd be like a recording and it was like sort of on demand, but it was just

like a video recording that you could go to on a website. So it was the precursor to podcast and I had four or five shows like that before I actually started my podcast, Young and Profiting. So I was really doing podcast stuff before podcasting was really a thing. And I was also blogging for Funkmaster Flex and DJ Enough. And so I learned how to blog. And then eventually it came to a head where, you know, all my siblings were in med school. And I was this black sheep interning for free college dropout at a radio station. And I started talking to Angie and Ebro and trying to ask for a job and just saying like,

hey, I need to at least get paid minimum wage. Like I'm doing a great job. I'm here every day. And it was totally illegal that I was working for free and they knew that. And so things got a little bit sticky and somebody got, there was an open role for a producer. And it was actually my friend who I used to do online radio shows with and he worked in the video department and they ended up giving it to him and they wanted me to come in and

train him. Oh man. And he was my, yeah. And he was my, and he was one of my close friends. And so I was really upset and I remember texting him in the morning and I was like. And I was like, Hey, I don't feel like coming into work today. I'm not feeling good. If you want to learn how to be the producer, learn how to do it on your own. And then he showed that text to Angie. Angie got really mad at me because I think like Jay-Z was coming in that day and I like she needed me, you know? And so

she was just like she fired me. She and she she cut my key card. She she needed me, you know? And so she was just like, she fired me. She cut my key card. She told me never come back. This is a lady I dropped out of school for. I used to babysit her kids. She never even gave me $20. And I used to like do everything for her. She never gave me a dollar.

And she fired me and she told me, not only that, she told everybody, if you talk to Hala, you're going to be fired. Because I used to work with everybody. I used to do shows with everybody. I would host cont, like, like showcases with them and she fired me and blackballed me. And so I was like devastated at the time I was like growing my Twitter following. My whole identity was tied to hot 97. All my friends from college knew that I was like H my Twitter following. My whole identity was tied to Hot 97.

All my friends from college knew that I was like Hala from Hot 97. My identity was literally Hot 97's Hala. That was my identity. So I felt like somebody died and I was devastated. Then I just had a new idea. I got fired on a Thursday. By Sunday, I was like, all right, I'm going to start this thing called the sorority of hip hop. I got fired on a Thursday. By Sunday, I was like, all right, I'm going to start this thing called the Sorority of Hip Hop.

I'm going to recruit all these other girls that are in the hip hop industry that aren't getting any opportunities. I went on Twitter and Craigslist and I put out solicits like, hey, if you want to learn how to blog, if you're a pretty girl in the hip hop industry, come work for me. I'll teach you how to do everything and let's start this new movement. We did. I recruited 14 girls in two weeks. We started something called the Sorority of Hip Hop, strawberryblunt.com.

We were bad girls back then. And it blew up. I went back to school. Within three months, we were one of the most popular hip hop and R&B sites in the world. The same DJs like Angie Martinez called me up and apologized, she tried to get me on Love and Hip Hop, she got me an opportunity on Sirius XM after that and she made up with me.

All the DJs that wouldn't pay me minimum wage basically started inviting me and my girls because I had 50 bloggers at any given time when I had sorority of hip hop to start hosting their parties. And then suddenly, I was everybody's peer. I wasn't anybody's intern anymore. And I'd be on the flyers with all the DJs hosting all these parties.

And, uh, MTV actually reached out to us three months into it to shoot a reality show, it didn't pan out. And then a couple of years later, they reached back out. And for a whole summer, MTV was basically filming us going to events, hosting concerts. We had our own radio show, the Strawberry Blonde Girls and two weeks before that was supposed to air, they pulled the plug. So that was like my second like big devastation. And then at that point, I was basically working for free for six years.

I had gained so much skills because I figured out we could talk about it if you want. I figured out how to hack Twitter. I figured out how to hack blogs. I had learned so much, but then I felt like, man, I'm 27 years old at the time. I've never had a real job. Technically, I'm leading this group of 50 girls and like we can barely make ends meet and I decided to just shut everything down and I was like, I'm just going to go get my MBA.

I'm going to be normal. I'm going to go into corporate and I am not cut out to be a star. Obviously I failed and I basically just gave up about being a personality and I went to corporate and at that point I got my MBA and I went to work in corporate at Hewlett Packard and I'll just pause there because I know I just went over a lot. Let's hold that thought and take a quick break with our sponsors. Young and Profiters, there is no better time to become an entrepreneur.

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Again, you can go to indeed.com slash profiting for a $75 sponsored job credit. Need to hire? You need indeed. I just want to backtrack a little. Yeah. Because one of the things I love about your podcast is the commercials. Yeah. The way you do the commercials, like, it's like you are in love with your, it's almost as if you would do it for free, which I guarantee you, you're not, but it feels like you're doing it for free. And I'm wondering when you went into that radio station for the first time and you mentioned commercials, did you feel when you expressed the words came out of your mouth talking about these products

that, oh, this is my calling? Or was it just like many of the other things that you were assembling as tools to put in your backpack and take with you on your journey. This is so interesting and nobody has ever asked me this question and now that I think about it, I've been reading commercials for literally 20 years now. Like, you know, like so it's so it's so interesting to think about how much experience I actually have reading commercials, right? So it's so cool that you mentioned that.

When I first started my internship at Hot 97, like I told you, I was a singer. I was making music and writing music, and my reason for being at the station and even applying to radio stations was because I was pushing my music to the DJs. And my original goal was to be a famous singer. And so I was writing music, I was recording music, I was working with all these famous

music producers. And then as I saw what Angie was doing, and I was really good at doing research and really good at doing these questions as I started hosting my own shows, I realized that like I was really good at being an on air personality. And I fell in love with that. And I also fell in love with the fact that it felt safer. I was getting myself in a lot of trouble trying to be an artist. There was a lot of guys that were trying to...

I was a really young girl, 19 years old, in the midst of literally the pinnacle of the hip-hop industry. I was really cute and whatever. I was getting myself in trouble trying to be a singer to be honest. We don't have to go into the details but I felt like I was getting in a lot of trouble or not. It was just unsafe. It felt unsafe. So the on-air personality felt like a safe way to use my voice in my career and I went that route. Okay. So like when you talk about indeed.com,

I get it, you're hiring people and they're helping you. How good is indeed.com? I mean, this podcast is about trust. What makes them so good? Yeah. I use Indeed for my own hiring. And I make sure that whatever I rep is actually a tool that I use. So I've been personally using Indeed to get jobs, for example, since I was in college. I've been using Indeed from the other side as an employee trying to get a job.

I first used Indeed that way. And then now as an employer, we use it to get candidates for our company. And so Indeed, in my opinion, is really great, but I think it's more of me understanding how to communicate the benefits of a tool and also making sure that my integrity is in line with what I'm selling. So I'm not gonna go tell, like for example, I really don't like to talk about like vitamins

or supplements and things like that because if I don't use it and I can't use every supplement in the world, right? That's inauthentic, then I'm not going to talk about it on my podcast. But I do love to talk about the different business softwares that we actually use. And it gives me a great way to give my personal experience with that tool in my, in my ad read. When you're doing your advertisements, is it different than just speaking or interviewing somebody or speaking about a topic?

Is there some magical place that you go into or is it all the same to you? It's definitely different. I definitely feel like my commercials, because I'm always interviewing other people, I actually use my commercial time as a way for my listeners to get to know me. So I love to talk about my personal stories.

I love to be funny. I love to make it interesting. And to be honest, it love to make it interesting. And to be honest, it's so funny that you're bringing this up. Today, I literally wrote my Slack channel, Yahoo Finance. I did a read for Yahoo Finance. And I'm always getting featured as like A plus ad reads. Like Oxford Road, which is an agency, is always putting me in their newsletter as like ad

read of the week or whatever, because I do a really good job with ad reads. And a lot of people know me for that. And some sponsors keep me on not necessarily because I convert but because I've got the best ad reads, right? And I get a lot of renewals because I have such good ad reads. And I remember in my Slack channel today, I actually told my team members because they said Yahoo Finance gave really good feedback and said they're going to start using your ad as an example for other people

because you did such a great job, you didn't follow the script, you gave your own personal experience. And I said, I might be a better ad reader than I am a podcaster. And everybody started laughing. You know what? And this is no commentary, your podcast is wonderful,

but there is something about the way you read your ads that is magical. I'm getting it because what you're telling me is this is your way of showing your audience who you are. Yeah. And you know what? I own a podcast network. I don't know if you know that. I have the number one business

and self-improvement podcast network. So Jenna Kutcher's on my network, Amy Porterfield, Trent Shelton, John Lee Dumas, like I, and Heather's on my network. So I get people's sponsorships, that's my thing. And I'm always sold out because I own a network, and that means that I have five or six commercials on every show.

And you want to know what? I've probably only gotten three complaints in the last six years about how many ads I have on my show. That's amazing because the show is packed with advertisements. Yeah, nobody complains because I think it's entertaining. Yeah, it really hit me because my mindset is completely the opposite. Like for years, I would have like no sponsors just to keep it to the, we're having a conversation here.

You get the conversation. But listening to your podcast, it really said, you got to think differently, Cal. And I didn't know what it was until you just told me. But I never thought of getting people to see who I really am through commercials. I tell stories about my boyfriend. I'll tell stories about my family. I'll tell stories about my boyfriend, I'll tell stories about my family, I'll tell stories about my employees. And it's just a way for them to get to know me better and feel connected. And it's also really good for the brand because podcasts, because you're listening to the

host all the time, the listeners feel like you're an old friend. They feel like they can trust you. They know your voice, they know your stories. And I feel like I really do a good job of bridging that gap both giving the actual benefits of the tools. I'm a marketer at heart. Anybody giving me talk, I'm a really good marketer, so anybody giving me talk points, I don't even look at that. I go on their website.

I go and look at what I want to talk about and I say whatever the mandatory call to action is and the brands always like that more because I actually go in, make sure I know what to do, make sure I wanna talk about the things that I think is relevant for my listeners. I don't even look at the talk points that they give me. I make my own ad read and I just read the call to action almost every time.

So they really like it. And I think it's as obvious to my listeners that I'm not just reading a script and I'm telling them a story. All right. I'm now I'm starting to really put the pieces together here. Okay. So you're developing all of these different social media skills and you got your own network. Does artificial intelligence give you pause? Is it cautionary for you? Because like,

your age, you came of age right when social media was blossoming. Now, something else is coming, and it's coming fast. Yeah. Is that concerning to you that, whoa, whoa, whoa? I may be just overwhelmed by a tidal wave or do you feel like you're surfing that wave as we speak? I feel like we're surfing that wave. So for example, I already have an AI version of my voice that is ready to go and We're actually already using it on social media. So I have an AI voice that my team writes a script and has a voice model. And for my reels, it's not actually me talking, it's the AI voice. And that means that if I get sick, if I have a cold or whatever, my team or me, I can write a commercial and my AI voice model can do it. Or if I can't make an intro because I do my intros post recording, I can have an AI do

it. We're also using that potentially. We don't want... Here's the thing. Host reads have to be authentic and it has to be the real person. But it's good because as you know, when you're sick, you still got to record your commercials, right? So it's a good thing as like a fail safe and then also for other podcasters to use as examples. So for example, when we're booking deals with these advertisers, some of them really want

to do back and forth, back and forth, where you send them a read and then they want, they want to revise it. Then you send them another read and they want to revise it this way. Oh man. I can say. Oh man. You don't have to do anything them another read and they want to revise it. This way, I can say... Oh man, you don't have to do anything. You just have the AI to the work. Yeah, write it and AI will do it. I can also see programmatic ads changing in the future where instead of pre-recorded ads

that like, let's say, Ford records a pre-recorded ad and then it gets flighted automatically in your podcast. That's what a programmatic ad is, right? Instead of a host reading the ad, it's just some recording of a commercial that inserts into the podcast. Now there could be a hybrid version where it's all automated,

but you use the AI voice generated model of the host voice and then the advertiser just writes it and the host doesn't actually have to be involved, but it reads as if it's gonna hear, like the listener is gonna hear it as writes it and the host doesn't actually have to be involved, but it reads as if it's gonna hear, like the listener is gonna hear it as if it's the host. So I can see that happening in the future. But anyway, I think AI is awesome for podcasts. It helps with transcripts, it helps with editing,

it helps with creating the video clips. It just helps enhance everything. And I do think in the future, we might have competition with AI hosts and things like that, but I think we're way far away from that. And I actually think that podcasts are gonna become more like AR, VR centric and kind of evolve as well. AR, VR, what's AR, VR?

So like basically I think that podcasts are going to become more of like a virtual reality thing where listeners might be able to like join a host and the guest like in a room and it will be more, more of like, um, an immersive experience. You know, here, here's the thing. And, and your last guest that I referenced, Steven Wolfram, who basically came from the day where they first started to think about artificial intelligence. And I noticed in the conversation,

there were so many times where he was saying something good that was about to happen or that might happen, and then he would say something in order of the problem is and there was always a problem I was I saw on the internet an influencer that I think she had like 10,000 followers wasn't that much. But somebody in China, basically using AI, hijacked her voice, hijacked her face, and was putting out content in China and getting people to respond to her as if she was the influencer. Does this bring butterflies to your stomach or do you think we're going to be able to sidestep these problems? It's scary because that could really happen, right? Somebody can take over your identity.

That was happening before AI though, you know, all these like fake, for example, like before I was verified on Instagram and it took me forever to get verified. That's a whole other story because I'm Palestinian, right? They wouldn't verify me. And I had so many fake profiles for years. They would always be popping up because people knew I wasn't verified and they would try to scam people off my name. And so this was happening.

This is happening before AI. People trying to, you know, pretend to be somebody else on social media. So I feel like they're just going to, we're going to need to figure out ways to like verify whether it's a human or AI in the same way that they did it in the past too. So I feel like these are problems that feel like they're solvable because they were already happening in the past. I always felt like a big mistake was made at the beginning of the creation of the internet, that everybody who wanted to go on the internet should have been issued a license, like a driver's license. And you don't get to hide, you don't get to threaten somebody and hide. If you're going to threaten somebody,

everybody's going to know who you are. And in some, I don't know what the reasons were. They just allowed this anonymity to prevail. And now we can be in a place where we just don't know where an attack is coming from. we can be in a place where we just don't know where an attack is coming from. You know, a lot of people, I say younger, because I'm a little older, they just seem to accept, well, this is the price of the internet.

There is no privacy. This, you want the good things, then take the bad. Is that pretty much your way of thinking? Yeah, I feel like, I hope that we can find ways to navigate this. You know, it's scary. Nobody wants to be scammed. I've been scammed before, right?

There's a lot of sketchy things happening on the internet, but at the same time, there's so many great things happening on the internet and there's so much access to information and access to tools and it's easier than ever to become an entrepreneur and you have all these resources at your fingertips that I feel like the benefits definitely outweigh the negatives. But to your point with AI, it's going to get even worse. Especially with somebody like me, there's so much voice content of mine that when AI

started to come out, I created a secret code word with my family. And I was like, hey guys, if anybody ever, cause there was some scams happening with podcasters, especially where people were calling up family members and would be able to like use my voice and act as if I was in trouble and I needed money or something like this. And so now we have a code word if that ever happens.

So I feel like people just need to wise up and understand that like this is coming. There's nothing we can do to prevent it. And if you've got a lot of content out there, you need to think about ways that you can mitigate bad things from happening or people stealing your identity. So me and you are in trouble. We got too much content out there. We'll be right back after a quick break from our sponsors. Do you trust the future? Yeah, I'm excited for the future. You know what?

I think Steve, I'm not sure if Steven was the one that told me this. I think he was. He made the analogy that let's say AI becomes like apex intelligence, smartest thing in the world, it's already like smarter than most humans, right? At one point AI might be operating on its own, like there might not be anything telling AI what to do and AI might be making decisions on its own, operating on its own, and he made the analogy that that's just like nature. I was like, aren't you worried that this is going to just take over the world and control us?

And he's like, well, we already live in a world that we don't control. We already live in nature and we can predict it and we can analyze it. But at the end of the day, we have no idea what it's really going to do and we can't control it. And one day that might be what AI is like, just some other phenomenon that we created that operates on its own and we live in the same world. And we're going to have to figure out how to navigate it. Now that's a little bit scary, but it's a little bit more comforting than to think that

AI is going to come kill us all and you know not be able to live with us. Maybe it might be something that is good for humanity where like let's maybe they'll stop wars and get involved or you know maybe AI will end up being good you know or neutral at least and just operate in its own thing, just like nature does. So that eased my mind a little bit when I thought about it that way, to be honest. And I've been thinking about that, what he told me a lot in regards to the nature piece.

Yeah, it was actually a great description of it. And if, you know, the way he explained it and the way I've heard it from a lot of people, it's really not like a brain. Look, it's taught itself how to do this, but really it's had a lot of information dumped inside a whole like fertilizer. And it is just figuring out like on chat GPT, okay, as your guest said, every time you see

a sentence that goes like the cat was sitting on the, it just can quickly access how many times that sentence has ever been done before and know what the probability of the best word that's going to come after it. Mm-hmm. My thoughts are that this actually, it's basically telling us what we did in our past. And I don't know how good that is, especially in art form for the future, because you're just going back and saying, look, this is how Rocky one was done. This is how Rocky two was done. This is how Rocky three was done.

We're on Rocky 38 now. So create your characters and do it this way. And I just wonder about a loss of creativity in this time. Do you do you see that? I totally agree. I think that's where humans are going to shine. I think humans are going to shine with being creative. I feel like AI doesn't have nuance, right?

And I think Steven was talking about how humans think quickly and they almost don't know how our brain exactly works. There's chemical reactions going on and things like that where AI doesn't have that. We've got millions of years of evolution of chemical reactions going on in our brains to help us decide things or think about things differently. Whereas the AI is going to be more structured because it's engineered. It's not biological. You know, it's something that we're engineering. So I feel like to your point, I think humans are going to maintain with the creativity

and maybe be able to innovate and leverage AI to help us with all the stuff that we don't necessarily want to do anymore or want to compute ourselves anymore? Well, it takes me to one last area that I'm very curious about and that is like social media which you jumped on as Soon as it came out and it hit you at the right time. I came from like two generations back and it was very, I made it foreign and that it was a foolish thing to do. But my mind stayed back in the old days of print journalism

and I was able to get away with it because I did it really well and there was a market for it. But it was kind of like being on a bridge that was burning in a movie and I could get to the other side or else you're going down. And I'm realizing, okay, especially with what's coming, if you're not completely understanding the way the internet

works and social media works and the way AI is going to work, you're really going to be left behind. So what do you recommend for somebody like me? And you're in a, we're in a Heather Monahan moment here. Same way Heather was telling me, you're gonna go into that hotel and you're gonna ask for an upgrade and you're gonna get an upgrade Cal. You understand me?

And you can yell at me if you want. You can be like Heather, what would you tell me to do in order to zoom ahead on the things that I should have known years ago, like how would I go about it? How would I educate myself? I'm going to go back and watch all the old episodes of Star Trek to understand what people were thinking in the 60s, to understand what kind of fueled the whole AI, because it was these ideas that were then, they were executed, they were,

like nature, they were turned into fruition. What do I, how do I gotta think? How, where do I start? Like LinkedIn, Instagram, let me know. Let me ask you something. Are you on any social media channels strongly right now? What is your strongest channels right now? I think I just started on LinkedIn and it actually surprised me because I am writing

in an older school way. I'm not putting out listicles and people respond to it. Like, wow, great story. Like, thanks for that. But I'm not doing the things that either a young person or somebody who grew up with this in their DNA is doing. So are you on Instagram? I'm there.

I have to jump back on it and I had an idea. Let me know what you think of this. What I wanted to jump back on it and I had an idea. Let me know what you think of this. What I wanted to do is, and I said, I'm going to do this for myself. I'm going to every day, just in one minute, describe what's going on with artificial intelligence, something new that came up today. And I'm just going to post it. And there's no call to action there. They're not selling anything, which you'd probably say,

hey, throw a commercial in there. But what I would be able to do 25 years from now, if I kept that up every day, is look back and I'd be able to see a whole staircase, which I've never really done with anything before. What do you think of that and how would you translate it into something you would do? Yeah. So I think focusing on one topic is great because the new trend with all these social

media algorithms is having interest relevancy. Okay? So in the past, social media used to be about engagement and popularity and virality. And essentially, you had followers and your followers would see your content. Right? It was basically like having an email list. Right? And maybe 20 or 30% of your following would see your content based on when they were logging on and when you posted. And they would basically match sending

users content based on the engagement probability of them interacting with that content. And they, they really focused on just virality, which means that in the past, really like inspirational, motivational content used to always go viral. Now all these algorithms, it's with TikTok especially started it. They try to feed you things that you're interested in instead of most viral things or the most recent things. They try to feed you things that you're interested in. So as you're approaching all these social media sites, you want to think about the different topics you're going to Continuously talk about so that you can be an expert in these topics and these social media sites can identify you as an expert

You've got to have keywords of these topics and hashtags depending on the platform on your posts And you need to start establishing yourself as an expert on those this top these topics And you need to start establishing yourself as an expert on these topics so that the social media sites can start serving the people who are searching for those topics and engaged with other profiles that talk about those topics, they'll start serving that content to them. So really, you should be thinking about your social media more as like, what topics am I going to own? And not just one topic, because things are different now.

You can own three topics, four topics. So what are the topics that I'm going to always talk about and brand myself about and consistently post about so that these algorithms know how to match me to other users that want that content? The other thing is that you've got to think about is like every social post now like operates as its own thing, right? What do you mean?

Like more and more now, everything is more like YouTube where like one video can pop off and get millions of views, right? So like for example, I had a reel the other day that got like two million views. Most of my reels got like 70,000, 50,000, right? This one got two million because everything's just operating on its own. It's that one struck a chord, you know, and went viral. So you got to think about how every single like post kind of can just operate on its own. Okay. If that makes sense.

I think I'm getting it. But let me focus this. This is great advice and very appreciative. So like the things I want to focus on are authentic human connection in the age of AI. Because my feeling is with the more and more AI just keeps developing, the more important the connections, authentic connections are going to be. Because you trust your authentic connections are going to be because you trust your authentic connections. And it would be great to think that AI is going to always be good, but as your last guest said many times,

the problem is, and it was created by humans, and humans aren't good all the time. So I think basically the way to maintain trust is just to be connected to as many people that you can trust and you're putting yourself in the healthiest situation. So those two along with my ability to tell a story, those are the three things that I would focus on. And here's the thing, what I want you to realize is that when you're being more topical focused, you are going to be repetitive. Okay, so if you go on, if you go look at people's Instagrams who

are doing really, really well right now, and you go look at their reels, they're often posting very similar reels that almost say the same thing, because they know that these reels, they're often posting very similar reels that almost say the same thing because they know that these reels are operating on their own, right? Different people are going to see the different reels and if one reel went viral, you want to just replicate that almost very similarly to just try to go viral again, right? And so that's why you see on these pages these people posting very similar content and almost repeating themselves once something goes viral, they're going to want to do it again and again and again in million different ways, right?

So that's one thing. But aside from the content, so having good content and good focus and being repetitive when something goes well is really, really smart and really important to win in these interest graph algorithms. That's what they call it, right? In this age of interest graph algorithms. The other thing that you need to think about is every platform is different, right? Every platform has features they're prioritizing. Every platform has different publishing and engagement strategies that you need to think

about. Every platform has different publishing and engagement strategies that you need to think about. Every platform has different organic reach. So for example, LinkedIn is still completely hackable. I have the number one LinkedIn marketing agency. I run Heather's account. I'm a huge LinkedIn influencer. I run a lot of influencer accounts. And it's completely hackable still

because they haven't fully transitioned to this interest relevancy model, first of all. And second of all, because there's so many different publishing strategies that you can do to manipulate the algorithm. And every social media site is the same. I figured out LinkedIn, so I know that it's hackable, right? If you understand how to publish things in a certain way, you will get 10x further than if you publish things in a certain way, you will get 10x

further than if you publish things in the wrong way. Okay. So, so for example, when you publish something up on LinkedIn and let's say, you put a link in the caption. All right. Right. LinkedIn wants to keep people on LinkedIn for as long as possible. You put a link in the caption, you're taking users off platform, LinkedIn's going to deprioritize your post.

That's one example. Another example is LinkedIn has spam filters. If you have typos, if you have big chunky paragraphs, if you are tagging more than five people, if you're using more than five hashtags, LinkedIn is going to put you in the spam filter and deprioritize your post. Another example is, you know, after you post something up, LinkedIn is judging how fast people are engaging on your content, right? They're trying to see, like, is this boring? Is this not boring? So if you, and they're serving into a subset of your first connections.

So if your first connections are dead, they hopped on LinkedIn, they got a job, they never came back. If your first connections have not engaged in your stuff in a while, right? So it's sort of like the rich get richer. If somebody engages on your stuff, if they like, comment, share, DM,

on a sliding scale, it actually impacts how often they're gonna to see your post. So DMs are the highest viral action. If somebody DMs you back, they're 85% more likely to see your content in their feed. If somebody shares it, they're like 70% more likely. If somebody comments, they're 50% more likely. If somebody likes it, they're 30% more likely. So it's like on a sliding scale, there's different weights to viral action.

So let's say you've got a first connection that hasn't liked your stuff in a long time, they're not going to see your posts in that small window of time where LinkedIn is judging whether or not your first connections are engaging, right? Then your post is not going to do well, right? So there's like lots of, there's so many different hacks. So for example, let's say you've got

stagnant first connections. What do you do? You want to go back and DM them and get them to DM you back. And you reinvigorate your first connections that way, then those people start to see your content again, right? So you really got to understand. And my advice to people is if you aren't big on one platform yet, figure out one platform at a time, then branch out.

So figure out one platform, take a masterclass from somebody who's doing it well, understand how to leverage all the features, lean into new features, understand what messages, again, you're going to consistently repeat over and over again. What are your key topics and how are you going to make sure your profile and your post have the same topics and that the platform can identify you as an expert to serve your content to other users, right? So those are the basics. And I would focus on one platform and then once you get that right, move on to the next

platform and you're going to take the same material and concepts and topics, but you're going to lean into that platform's algorithm and features and how you need to publish on that platform and what features you need to use on that platform. So that's kind of how I'd go about it. I am so clueless. Oh, man. Okay. I'm going to play that back about 10 times and see if I can put it to good use. I'm so grateful for that. It really, this was an inspired by Heather Monahan conversation.

And very, very grateful for all that you passed on and I hope that we somehow keep the conversation going. Yeah, I'd love to help you get ads on your show if you're interested and we can talk about that. All right. you