The Simple Social Strategy That Quietly Builds Authority

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Simple Social Strategy That Quietly Builds Authority"

Podcast: AI-Driven Marketer: Master AI Marketing To Stand Out In 2026
Host: Dan Sanchez
Co-host: Ken Fre
Date: November 11, 2025
Episode Theme:
Exploring a straightforward, practical framework for building genuine authority on social media through transparency, humility, and a consistent “learning in the light” approach—especially valuable in today’s AI-saturated, rapidly evolving digital landscape.

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Episode Overview

This episode dissects the pitfalls of superficial authority-building advice (often seen in Gary Vee’s “document, don’t create” mantra) and instead offers a much more actionable, sustainable, and authentic approach. Centered on the concept of "learning in the light," Dan and Ken share strategies for marketers and professionals to openly share their journeys, learning processes, wins, and even failures—while growing real authority and relationships on social platforms.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Current Social Media Landscape (00:00–04:30)

• Social media has changed vastly—past viral tactics don’t work anymore.
  • “It used to be that you could put motivational quotes… Remember those days on Facebook and they would go viral… then that wore out…” — Dan [02:10]
• The shift from ‘social media’ to ‘interest media’ where content can be random and still gain traction.
• Rising prevalence of AI-generated content makes authenticity more critical than ever.
  • “There’s something deeply human and something that AI can never do well…that authentic story…” — Dan [03:09]

2. The Value of “Learning in the Light”—Documenting Mastery (04:30–08:45)

• Move beyond vague ‘document your journey’ advice—be more intentional:
  • Share what’s actually helping you learn or solve problems.
  • “If there were problems for you, it’s likely that they were problems for others.” — Dan [04:57]
• Emphasis on posting high-quality questions, not just statements:
  • “One of my favorite types of posts… is not to actually post advice. It’s to ask really, really good questions.” — Dan [06:05]
  • Example: Dan’s honest post admitting confusion about ‘demand gen’ went viral because of its vulnerability and relatability.

3. Navigating Vulnerability vs. Over-Sharing (08:45–12:30)

• Key is to project curiosity, optimism, and a growth mindset—not helplessness.
  • “You don’t want to share things out of a spirit of defeat, depression…every once in a while, it’s okay to be vulnerable…just keep it at a minimum.” — Dan [09:31]
  • “There’s no such thing as a pessimistic leader.” — Dan quoting a mentor [12:33]
• Vulnerability is most powerful when it ends with hope or constructive insight.
  • “If I’m going to be vulnerable… I want to end it with hope…not have a pity party.” — Ken [11:08]

4. The Student Mindset as a Path to Authority (12:30–15:57)

• Document breakthroughs, even if they come from older experiences or well-known resources.
• “You’re not trying to become the authority of men… you let other people call you that. You’re just sharing your journey along the way.” — Dan [13:32]
• Case study: “Fit to Fat to Fit”—showing that even experts can renew authority by embracing a student’s journey.
• Ask yourself: What’s your industry's equivalent of “Fit to Fat to Fit”? Document your learning curve publicly.

5. Sharing Failures & Overcoming Imposter Syndrome (15:57–19:07)

• Sharing failed experiments doesn’t damage authority—done right, it adds value and trust.
  • “If you talk about it optimistically… it’s not so much about the failure, it’s about the learning…” — Dan [17:41]
• Reframing imposter syndrome by embracing perpetual growth:
  • “The reason why people feel [imposter syndrome] is because you’re always growing… and that’s okay.” — Ken [18:10]

6. The Simple Post Framework (19:07–21:27)

• The “Why–What–How–Question” structure for engaging content:
  • Start with why (hook/benefit for reader), then the what/how (lesson or story), and end with a broad question to foster discussion.
  • “The only way to quality is through quantity. It’s through failure and trying and trying.” — Dan [20:16]
• Team Quantity (with Intent to Improve): Emphasizes regular posting, feedback, and iteration as essential to gaining quality and authority.

7. Measuring Progress and the Importance of Engagement (21:27–25:44)

• Focus on who’s engaging—not just volume (views)—and strive to attract your target community.
• Comments and engagement on others’ content as a strategic lever:
  • “If a lot of people aren’t showing up in your post…it might be because you’re not engaging with those kinds of people on the platform.” — Dan [22:51]
  • Reference to Gary Vee’s “$1.80 Strategy”: proactively commenting on influential posts to be noticed by your ideal audience.

8. Commenting as Authority-Building (25:44–29:10)

• Commenting can inspire new post ideas and fuels network growth.
  • “A lot of my LinkedIn posts actually come out of comments first…sometimes it triggers new ideas in you.” — Dan [26:39]
• High-volume, thoughtful engagement (up to hundreds of comments a week) can rapidly boost your authority and reach.
  • “Your byline shows up with you on every comment. That’s like a little advertisement following you everywhere.” — Dan [28:13]

9. Avoiding Burnout & Creating a Content Flywheel (29:10–33:10)

• Go hard for 90 days to build momentum, then pace as needed; breaks are okay and the feed won’t forget you.
  • “It’s better to be more consistent, but… I go hard and then lay off a little bit. Right now we’re going hard by posting every day to this podcast…we won’t do this forever.” — Dan [29:28]
• Constant learning and active engagement ensure you’ll never run out of content ideas.
  • “If you’re engaging regularly, you’re coming up with content…if you’re learning regularly…getting ideas for posts.” — Dan [31:05]

10. Sharing Wins Without Arrogance (33:10–34:40)

• Frame wins as humble tips, as if giving advice to a peer just behind you.
  • “If you position yourself as a student and share what’s working… you almost think about it as a neighbor…two months behind you…” — Dan [33:33]
• Welcome debate and community feedback; celebrate collective achievements.
  • “Share your wins, but share it together with the community that you’re building.” — Dan [34:20]

11. The Next Step—Becoming a Contributor (34:40–End)

• With mastery, begin addressing unsolved problems in your niche—move from “expert” to “contributor.”
  • “Eventually, you become the expert… you’re engaging with the community…start to find the gaps. This is where you start moving from expert to…contributor.” — Dan [35:44]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On humility and asking questions:
  • “Asking good questions…is becoming one of the hallmarks of a true authority. Because they have the humility to ask them…” — Dan [07:46]
• On the need for optimism in leadership:
  • “There’s no such thing as a pessimistic leader. You will never find a leader that a lot of people follow that's just pessimistic all the time.” — Dan [12:33]
• On quantity and improving quality:
  • “The only way to quality is through quantity. It's through failure and trying and trying.” — Dan [20:18]
• On engagement and building an audience:
  • “You have to go and engage with people and show them value, help them in the comments, be as helpful as possible.” — Dan [24:38]
• On consistency and taking breaks:
  • “Go hard for 90 days, no days off, in order to really get that engine cranking…After 90 days, you’ll feel it…Your LinkedIn game will be completely different.” — Dan [29:48]
• On celebrating wins without arrogance:
  • “Share your wins, but share it together with the community that you’re building.” — Dan [34:20]
• On the transition from expert to contributor:
  • “That's where you get to start moving into the next stage of becoming a thought leader…from expert to contributor.” — Dan [35:44]

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Segment Timestamps

• 00:00 – Intro, critique of Gary Vee’s advice, evolution of social media
• 04:30 – What to post as a learning student; specificity and value
• 06:05 – Power of asking questions publicly
• 08:45–12:30 – Vulnerability: transparency vs. oversharing, platform differences
• 12:30 – Student mindset case studies, benefit of sharing real journeys (e.g., Fit to Fat to Fit)
• 15:57 – Sharing failures; learning through experiments
• 16:22-19:07 – Imposter syndrome; the humility–growth cycle
• 19:07 – The Simple Post Framework (Why-What-How-Question)
• 21:27 – Assessing and improving your content through engagement
• 24:38 – The $1.80 commenting strategy, engagement prework
• 26:39 – Comment-driven ideation and growing authority
• 29:10 – Avoiding burnout, content flywheel, batch vs. spontaneous creation
• 33:10 – Sharing wins without bragging
• 34:40–End – The next evolution: from expert to genuine contributor

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Episode Takeaways

• Authority on social comes through constant, curious sharing—not just by projecting expertise but by inviting others on your journey.
• Consistency, humility, engagement (especially comments), and optimism are the keys to standing out amid AI content overload.
• Start by learning “in the light,” then move to solve bigger, unsolved problems in your field as you mature.
• Celebrate wins with your community; make your learning—and their involvement—central to your story.

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Next in the Series

Dan teases that the next episode (and chapter) will explore the shift from “expert” to “contributor,” delving into how to identify and tackle real, yet-unanswered questions in your niche—moving from learning to innovating.

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“Let’s master this thing together.” — Dan Sanchez

For more resources, referenced materials, and the full "Own the Show" series, follow the show and see the episode notes.

Transcript

[A]

Foreign Gary Vee talks about this all the time, but I feel like he's always missing some critical advice when it comes to how to actually become an authority on social media. In the last episode, we Talked about the 30, 30, 30 plan, where you start to gain authority by building up your own expertise. 30 books, 30 interviews, writing 30 blog posts or something equivalent where you're starting to answer the most frequently asked questions based on the books you're reading, the interviews you're having. But we also talked about this concept of learning in the light, taking people with you on the journey. And I feel like Gary Vee kind of touches on it with his document strategy, wildly popular across people trying to get into social media for the first time. But in this episode, we want to uncover a more practical route, something that makes it even easier. If you are being like a student, you're just sharing your journey. You're taking people with you so that they know that you know with this concept called learning in the light. So welcome back to the AI Driven Marketer on our Own the Show series. Where we're taking each podcast episode is becoming a chapter in a book called Own the Show. And it's also, of course, this podcast series. I'm Dan Sanchez and I'm joined by my co host, Ken Fre.

[B]

Hey, what's up, bro?

[A]

Today we're going to try to lay out the goods when it comes to becoming an authority on social media. Because despite the fact that that social media has been out for 20 years now, despite the fact that it is well documented, there's books upon books, there's social media influencers on every single niche topic. When it comes to social media, I feel like most marketers, most founders, entrepreneurs, even experts who have something to say, man, it's a struggle with social media. Would you, would you concur?

[B]

Oh, yeah, man. Especially depending on the platform you're picking and you try to follow the tips and then all of a sudden you're like, I'm doing everything, but I'm not growing, I'm not making an impact and it's not helping my business. So then they give up and it's.

[A]

Become a mature platform and like, what's worked has changed over time. It used to be that you could put motivational quotes into in like bat with like backdrops of like mountains and clouds and stuff. Remember those days on Facebook and they would go viral and people freaking love them. And then that wore out and then it was sharing links to blog posts and buffer. The app, like blew up. Cause you were like making it easy to syndicate a blog post across social media and grow your traffic. And then it was about not just sharing it once, but multiple times out there. And then it was all about posting native content to all the platforms. It wasn't enough to just syndicate the same idea across all the social platforms. You have to, like, customize it for LinkedIn, customize it for Facebook, Instagram, all that stuff. And now we're in a totally different era. It's not even social media anymore. It's interest media, right? Where you could post about hot dogs one day and maybe thought leadership the other day, and one can go viral for hot dogs and one could go viral for thought leadership. You're like, wait, what? What are we doing right now? And that's where we're at with social media. It's all over the place. It's been changing, but there is one approach that I find works really well. It's worked. It's worked well for me over the last five years, and I'd still say is working well today. Because while interest media is dominating all the feeds out there, I still find that there's something deeply human and there's something that AI can never do well. And that's another issue going on with social media now. I'd say probably the most prevalent issue is the amount of AI content hitting all the feeds. And nobody knows what to do about all that because some of it's actually good, most of it's garbage, and it's just creating a message. But the thing that I think will stand out more and more is that authentic story, which is why we talked about becoming a student, positioning yourself in a humble way, saying, hey, I don't got it all figured out, even if you do, and just picking a goal out there to work towards, or saying, like, a vague goal, like I did, hey, I want to master AI, Join me on the journey. But I wanted to have a whole episode breaking down what that actually looks like, because social media looks like a lot of things. There's a lot of tips out there, a lot of bad advice, a lot of good advice. But I thought we'd break it down in this one episode, starting with, what should you post? What should you post? Now, Gary Vee talks about the documenting strategy, but I think he's a little bit too vague with that. He talks about like, yeah, just tell people what you're working on. Tell people what you're doing. And I'd say, don't do that. Be more specific if you're being like a student and you're doing the 30, 30, 30 plan. You're sharing what you're learning. Specifically, you're learning what's very helpful for you in helping you solve your problems. Because if there were problems for you, it's likely that they were problems for others. And I think having that lens of is this. Am I sharing something that was really helpful for me is the best lens that you can use when it comes to social media. There's other ways to do it, but I just found over and over again, if you keep it down to that one point, then that's the thing.

[B]

Yeah. You know, even this morning I made a LinkedIn post of. I've been trying for the last month or so to do LinkedIn outreach. And I'm not a big fan of like, cold outreach. I'm all about like, hey, great, create great content, bring in the inbound. But I was like, hey, let me test something. Because people like to always try stuff. And I'm, I'm always experimenting for solopreneurs. And I just wrote like, I don't like cold outreach, but hey, here's what is working for me when I do do cold outreach. And then at the end of it, I said, what do you guys think you would add or change to this to make it better? You know? So, like, I'm inviting people to, to give me feedback, but hopefully I also throw out some golden nuggets where people would be like, oh, I should do this, not that.

[A]

One of my favorite types of posts when you're learning as a student is not to actually post advice. It's to ask really, really good questions. In fact, I remember when I was, I was kind of on a different deep dive to learn about what demand gen was. And, you know, it's so funny. This was years ago and I, I just throw out a really vulnerable post. I was like, hey, guys, I gotta be honest. I've been reading about this topic of demand gen, quote unquote, and I've been looking at people's posts and I've been watching videos and I still do not understand what the crap you guys are talking about. What is this thing? What is it? What does it mean to generate demand in a marketing sense? You know what happened, too? That post went viral. That's probably one of my best posts because of the humility of it and because so many other people raised their hands, veteran marketers, VPs of marketing, they're like, dude, me too. Me freaking too. We're all wondering this and we're all confused about what this term is even though we're all using it. And it was actually this eye opening thing because we all got to realize together like there's so many, there's too many definitions of it. So it's essentially like this really vague term. Of course over time I did develop like a definition of what it means to generate demand because the term actually comes from economics to generate more demand because of the demand curve. Right. So what does it mean? What are marketing strategies for actually pushing the demand curve out? And that's where you start to actually differentiate the tactics of demand gen. It actually looks like a lot of thought leadership stuff, which is what we're talking about in this book. That's why you want to become an authority, because you want to generate demand where there wasn't demand before. Capturing demand is different than generating new demand where people weren't thinking or wanting the thing that you have. That's why authority is so important. But it was interesting just to ask a question. You'd find that not only is it great social content because everybody loves to give their two cents and because so many people are just posting statement after statement after statement, one of the best things you could ever do is just ask broad questions or even specific questions and ask for help. You can. It's okay to be an expert. People will still not. It's not like you get discounted like oh, they could never be an authority. They have a question question. It's. It's really a counterintuitive thing. But asking good questions in my opinion is becoming one of the hallmarks of a true authority. Because they have the humility to ask them and therefore because they're asking good questions, they'll actually be the ones who become more of an expert and authority later on because they're actually getting real answers.

[B]

Well, what Dan, for you, what's the line between being transparent and over sharing or looking like you actually don't know what you're talking about? Because I think that could happen a lot too where you're like oh, too far.

[A]

It could totally happen too far. I think asking questions out of curiosity are the ones that you want to focus on. There are what you probably don't want to share a lot of is like moments of desperation. Like hey, I'm desperate. I mean unless you really like. I would just be very sparing with it because it will get engagement. People will show up. If you're posting desperate desperation or, or down moments. A lot of people like to share those because they say it's being authentic. But I will say There is something about, like, if you have, like, down day after down day and you're just posting, posting about that, like, people then start to associate you with having down days. And it's not that, like, everybody has days that are bad or weeks or quarters. Like. Like, get it. It happens to everybody. Generally, it's better to hit things with a level of optimism, a level of curiosity, excitement, enthusiasm. So if you're sharing things out of that spirit, it goes really well. You don't want to share things out of a spirit of defeat, depression. I mean, every once in a while, it's okay to be vulnerable about that kind of stuff too. Just, you got to keep it at a minimum. Otherwise, again, that becomes part of your whole stick in your brand. And unless that's a strategic angle that you're taking, I would just keep those to a very, very few minimum. And it's not exactly being. I don't know, this is probably a good conversation. I don't think it's being fake. I think it's being considerate. I don't know. And different cultures, especially from Europe, would say that this is like a travesty. Because I think, like, even just showing up in person, when someone's like, how's it going? Do they really. And you're having a horrible day, is it really the appropriate time to, like, unload on them? I think that's emotionally inconsiderate of you in that moment. Now, there are moments where you can be vulnerable and have it open. And even with people that maybe aren't your closest friends if the time calls for it, but in passing, it's inconsiderate to do that. And I don't think that's being fake. Do you think that's being fake? No.

[B]

I would say where people mess up when it comes to vulnerability is that they assume everyone needs to know what's going on in their lives where vulnerability. I'm extremely vulnerable with my inner circle, like you, Dan, if you ask me anything and I'm like, hey, do we have time? I'll tell you all the tea, right? I'll give you all the dirt. But if, like, one of our colleagues or our clients asks us something, I'll be like, you know what? Yeah, it's going hard, but like, hey, here's. Here's what I'm doing about it. You know, I'm trying to focus on the things that need to get done at the moment. I will also say that depending on the social media platform, it's a little bit more kosher, right? Like on LinkedIn, if you're always down and out and always being vulnerable of stuff that, like, doesn't pertain to business, people start to be like, dude, what's going on with this guy? If you're doing it on, like, Facebook or Instagram. And again, that's like your, your, your brand a little bit. People will get it. Now, I will say that I'm always someone who's like, if I'm going to be vulnerable or something and it's hard. Truth or depressing thing, I want to end it with hope. Like, I know I'm struggling with this, but here's how I'm dealing with this problem. Please encourage me in this part. You know, like, I don't want to have a pity party. And that's where I think most people mistake vulnerability with just, just like being.

[A]

A curmudgeon, a mutual friend of ours, and someone who's mentored both of us, like, deeply and has told me multiple times, there's no such thing as a pessimistic leader. There's no such thing. You will never find a leader that a lot of people follow. That's just pessimistic all the time. Maybe. But like, in the thought leadership space, that's what we aim to do. We're trying to lead the thinking of others. And people all want something to be hopeful about. They all want stability. Those are two major things everybody wants from a leader. So if you want to lead the thinking of others, you want to be a thought leader, you have to provide that hope. And you can't do it if you're always pessimistic. You have to provide optimism. You have to provide a way forward. And it's partly what you're doing in your post, but you're doing it by being humble at the same time, sharing your lessons along the way. And they could be like breakthroughs, maybe even breakthroughs you've had in your past. You're like, hey, I used to run into this problem all the time. Here's what it would look like if that happens to you. These were the three things that I found fixed it. That's a good post. Or if you're learning something, like, new from a book, just being like, I just had my mind blown by this book. It's a problem that's been facing me over and over again for decades. Here's the quote. Bam. Here's my takeaway. Great freaking post, right? It's not even your content. But again, you're learning in the light. You're sharing what you're learning. It doesn't even have to be a book you're learning now. It could be a book you have on the shelf that you underlined from 10 years ago. And you're just pulling it up and showing people now. But you're doing it as if you're a student, as somebody who's learning in the trenches with somebody. You're not trying to become the authority of men. You let other people call you that. You're going low. You're just sharing your journey along the way. And I think that's where Gary V's documenting is so powerful, because it's about documenting the journey. But here we're just narrowing it down. We're documenting the journey of mastery. We're documenting the journey. If you're already a master, then pick a goal that you want to achieve and just document your journey towards that. One of the best case studies I've ever seen of this ever was a guy who was like, who was super fit. And this is in the health space, right? So this isn't B2B, but it was it, trust me. He was a thought leader, probably still going strong, but this guy, and he was, like, ripped. He was huge, like, and he was all about fitness. But he decided to become the student again when he created this whole series called Fit to Fat to Fit. Oh, yeah. And outsource, like, oh, what's the first bad food I should eat? And they're all like, donuts. So he eats the donuts on the camera. You just documented his journey from being fit to fat and then the win, win back. And the. The amount of this worked really well, like 10 years ago, but honestly, this would still work well today. Pick a goal and start working towards it and just document your journey towards it and what you're learning in the process. This is something that works over and over again and it will not get old. Nobody does it. What's the fit to Fat to fit for your industry? It will probably work out. It does. It can be lean, it can. It can be raw, it can be short videos, it could just be text posts, it could be images. If it's like a visual thing that you're doing. I always liked in photography, a lot of photographers do like a photo a day as they try to improve. You know, they could even narrow it down and be like, hey, I'm trying to improve in portraits. I'm trying to do a portrait every single day. And here's what I'm doing every day to improve. That shows the journey, that shows the way towards Mastery, and it still works. What's that for your industry?

[B]

How do you help someone who's like, okay, I'm gonna test this, right? Like, let's talk about someone who's starting a business, right? And they're like, I'm gonna try a bunch of stuff. But in that process of trying a bunch of stuff, nothing's working. Would you say, hey, let's document all those things? Because at some point people are gonna be like, this guy doesn't know what he's doing because nothing seems to be working. Or that might be the false belief that they have. How would you talk to that individual?

[A]

If you're already an expert, then you probably already have a sense of what works. If you're starting as a professional and you're trying to, like, double down into a niche or area, and you're generally. It's not. It's. It's. You're trying out stuff, but it doesn't show on your expertise to say, like, hey, I read this book. I tried the thing. It didn't work. Dang, you just saved a lot of people time on not reading or executing that other person's. It actually shows worse on the other person whose advice you're implementing, Right? So that is actually a huge. Like, I don't know that. That could be a game changer. In fact, I could say I just heard this. Gosh, I'm blanking on his name. I just, like, co hosted a. Or I didn't co host. I was on a panel with him in a webinar, and I'm. I'm blanking on his name, but I will put the link to the webinar in the show notes if you want to go watch it. We were talking about AI. He was like, hey, if I went and tried a hundred AI tools and found that, like, 95% of them sucked, was that wasted time. And everybody's like, no, because now we all know that you know which five are good, right? So, like, the failures actually paved the path forward, right? It's like the whole Thomas Edison thing. 99% or. No, no, it's. I failed like a thousand times before I figured out how the light bulb actually worked.

[B]

Yeah, the one time.

[A]

Yeah, the one time. It's only through failure that you get to the success. Do you have to blog every detail about every failure or post about it? No. You could share about what you're learning and every once in a while be like, hey, I tried this experiment. Here's what I took away from it. The results weren't what I was hoping for. But here's what I learned on the other side. Again, if you talk about it optimistically, which is, what did you learn? Then it's not so much about the failure, it's about the learning, and that's leading with the optimism. Yeah.

[B]

You know, the beauty about that mindset is that it also overcomes imposter syndrome. Right. Because there's so many times where you'd be like, oh, I don't feel like I'm the expert, or if I can't prove that I'm a success in this area, then people are going to notice that I'm a fake. But we're always staying humble. We're always showing, hey, here's what's working in the moment, here's what's not working. Or someone might come in and say, hey, the reason why it didn't work is because you forgot about this step. And now you'd be like, oh, okay, let me go try it again. And that's, that's what I have found to help me at least whenever I'm posting stuff is like, hey, I'm just trying new things. I'm always constantly learning. I'm always constantly developing myself. And I, I don't let imposter syndrome come up because I'm like, part of imposter syndrome. The reason why people feel that way is because you're always growing, and when you're growing, you don't feel like you've arrived at that state. And that's okay. That's the whole point of this process.

[A]

So as you're going through too, a lot of people ask, well, like, what. How do you post it? Of which I have a really simple framework that I'll share here and I'll make sure to link back to in the show notes or in the book at the end of the chapter, like, how to do this. It's specifically for LinkedIn. Do I find this particular framework works across any medium? And it's generally how you organize a post, whether it's a short video, a long video, or a. Or a written post. Most people get this backwards. They start with the what and then get into the why. But you always want to start with the why of the post. Why should people care? Even as you're documenting your journey, you want to think about, like, why would people want to read this? Whatever that reason is, that's the first sentence. Then you get into the what or the how, and then you always finish with a question because it's. While it's interest media, it's still fairly social, right? Every single one of these platforms has a comment section. I'd say this matters a lot less in a short form video. But in Facebook, text post, LinkedIn, text posts, even some of your short form video sites, you start with what we call the why. Or some people call the hook. Like why should you care? That's first. Then you give the meaty part of what the lesson learned is, or the story or whatever it might be. And then you finish with a broad question. And the question has to be such that anybody reading it can think of the answer quickly. It's easier said than done, and it will take practice. And the only way I know how to get better at it is just by doing it in volume. And when it comes to the whole quality versus quantity debate, I'm on team quantity with the caveat you actually have to work on getting better. You can't just like flood it with AI content or come up with a template that you execute every day and not think. Try to figure out how to get it better. You actually have to try to make it better and try to get your questions better. Try to see what what worked well before and then improve how you write and how you post and how you create the content over time. But the only way you're ever going to get the true quality is through quantity. It's the only way. I don't get the quality people, because I'm like, the only way to quality is through quantity. It's through failure and trying and trying, trying to. So that's the frame. Start with why, then go into the what and the how. Finish with a broad question.

[B]

Okay, so once people start doing that, how do they start to assess what's working and what's not? Like if we're going team quantity, right, we got to evaluate to make sure that it's quality. How do they know which part's working and which part is not?

[A]

Two things to look at is are people engaging with the post? Has a lot less to do with views, though. I look at views. I love views. Views are always exciting. But who's commenting? Are people actually engaging with your question or the post in general? And it's okay if people post negative things too. Sometimes you're gonna have ideas that piss people off, and that's okay. I'd say, like, it's okay to be intentional about being contrarian, but if you're going to be contrarian, make sure that you're ready to like, fight for the side that you take. That's fine. Those do Great on social. I don't, I don't like, really like being contrarian for contrarian sake. I think those people are annoying. But are the right people engaging? Are the people that you like to work with who you're trying to attract showing up in the comments? If they're not, then you might be attracting the wrong audience. If you're trying to attract VPs of marketing or VPs of marketing showing up in the comments, at first it'll be zero. It'll be crickets. Any engagement's good, but it's slowly over time, you're gonna be like, what can I possibly do to engage with more of the right people? Which leads to the other half of the equation. It's what Gary vee calls the $80 or the $67 or dollar something strategy. Also good. But again, it's a broad general statement that we're going to narrow down here into something more specific because I think it goes hand in hand with learning in the light, and that is comments. Especially on platforms like LinkedIn, this matters a lot because LinkedIn is driven by comments. But this also goes for X, AKA Twitter. This, this is the same principle, is that it's an engagement based platform. If a lot of people aren't showing up in your post, it might be not because you're not creating content that would intrigue and invite those kinds of people to comment, but it's because you're not engaging with those kinds of people on the platform. I love that about LinkedIn and X right now, that if you want to go and get more engagement on your post or get more views on the post from the right people, the easiest thing to do is to go and find those people and engage in those posts. And the easiest way to do that is to find the influencers who are already capturing the tension of your target audience. For me, like for a long time I was trying to engage with VPs of marketing and Chris Walker was the guy that was attracting all those people. So I would go into his comment feed and engage in conversations with a ton of them. I would like their comments, connect with them and then I would comment. They're commenting to his post, but I'm commenting to their comment. And slowly over time, if you show up, and again, he calls it the dollar, the $80 strategy or whatever because you're dropping your two cents multiple times a day up to $1.80 or whatever, you know, so it's like, it's a ton of comments actually. And I, it seems like a ton of work and it is. But this is the work you have to do in the beginning until you start getting enough of a following, enough of an audience that you don't have to do this as much that you still have to do it some. This is the pre work you have to do. If you don't want to do this work of showing up in the comments unless you have a different avenue to drive engagement, this is the work. It's very simple, it's time consuming. I don't know another way around it other than showing up and engaging. Unless you're going to events and engaging people and shaking hands in real life, this is the way everybody has to pay the price with actually engaging with real people and honestly freaking love it. You can't just post anonymously and just get away with being like alone. You have to go and engage with people. You're trying to attract people. You have to go and engage with people and show them value, help them in the comments, be as helpful as possible, Ask good questions too. And that's the way you slowly grow. You post good stuff and then you show up and try to be as helpful as you can in the comments. Whether you're asking good questions, giving good insights and just showing up in the comments all the time and more so.

[B]

In the beginning, you know, and especially what I found, I think this might have been a Gary V. Hack.

[A]

I can't remember.

[B]

Or Alex or Mosey. I don't remember who I learned this from, but they were like, when you go to a top influencer, like say go to Alex Hormozi for example, and he posts something, there's always going to be people who ask questions. Well, Alex is not going to go there and respond to those. But you can, right? And I've gone in there and I'll like respond to certain things. And that's how the engagement starts. Because then people are like, oh, thanks for the insight. Then they come and follow you. Then they might start engaging on your stuff and then they start commenting on your thing and it just starts to build that way. And I think that's really important for people as they think about strategically, what do you engage with? It's make sure you're leaving something meaty or weighty. And I love how you used to say this, Dan, every time you used to leave a comment that would actually be fodder for you for another post that you would make. That's right, because it would just give you another idea.

[A]

There's value in questions. If somebody's asking a question or someone's leaving a comment, sometimes it triggers new ideas in you. So I often find a lot of my LinkedIn posts actually come out of comments first. Cause if I'm there commenting 10, 20, 30 times a day, I've actually gotten it up to about 300 plus or maybe even three fifty in a week. I just had a friend too, who's maxed out his analytics because they won't report above 499 comments in a week. I was like, bro, new level unlock. You, you, you broke the system. You've left so many comments. And as I look at his post and the reach that he's getting, he's getting significant reach. He's got significantly less following than me and he's probably reaching more people than I am because the guy's hustling. His name's Jack W. I'll link to his profile in the comments. Friend of mine, we've been on each other's podcast. It's fun. But he's showing, he's showing up. He's dropping 499 plus comments a week now. I'm sure that's a high week for him. But still, uh, it won't be long before he continues to get traction, continues to grow, get clients, grow his authority because he's actually coming up and showing up in the comments all the time. Um, and like you said, a lot of those don't aren't wasted for two reasons. One, they can become other posts for you. Cause someone unlocks an idea in your head that becomes a post, maybe even a whole podcast episode. But two, oh gosh, see this? Three, it really helps you learn too, because you're engaging in dialogue and helping people all the time on the platform. So it's helping you grow stronger and seeing what people are getting stuck on or where people get what they get the most help out of. Your comments actually get a lot of views these days, especially on LinkedIn. So Comments is almost content itself, even if you don't repost it. I know a lot of people see my comments and engage with me in different comments that I'm leaving. And then lastly, especially on LinkedIn, your byline shows up with you on every comment. That's like a little advertisement following you everywhere. So if you have a nice value proposition in your, your, your byline, that little tag that shows under, shows up underneath your name, that's a little ad following you everywhere. So if you're showing up in a lot of comments, that little ad showing up with you there too. So lots of different ways comments work for you, but it certainly helps you grow your authority one person at a time. Only way you can get to thousands and thousands is you have to start with singles. And then singles turn to doubles, turn to tens, turn to hundreds, turn to thousands. But it's a very slow game. But it's the game we all have to play in the beginning. Yeah.

[B]

So, Dan, when people start playing this slow game, they're commenting and then they're also posting. One thing that I know can get nerve wracking is burnout. Or they just feel like, oh my gosh, I'm going to plateau if they just keep posting. How do they avoid this?

[A]

That's a good question. I take breaks every once in a while. I'll go hard for a season and then lay off for a little bit. I will say that it's better to be more consistent, but I think I just have a personality that likes to go hard and then go like, lay off a little bit. Right now we're going hard by posting freaking every day to this podcast. But we won't do this forever. So it'll just be the month of November and then we'll come back a little bit. So I recommend taking it in waves. When you first get started, you pretty much have to go hard for 90 days. No exceptions, like, I don't know another way around it. You have to take. You have to go hard for 90 days, no days off, in order to really get that engine cranking. You will not, you will understand how powerful it is to go hard every day for 90 days. After the 90 days, in the first 10 to 20 days, it won't, you won't get it. But after 90 days, you'll feel it. It'll be your, your LinkedIn game will be completely different. You'll be way stronger, you'll be getting more reach than you ever have before and you'll feel the momentum. And you can continue to go that hard or like lower it down a little bit or even take a week, sometimes weeks off. Shoot, when I went opportunity leave, I took three months off. Solid. Guess what? Nobody, like one person noticed and nobody else cared. The thing, the conversation goes on and then you get back into the game, have to kind of warm the system back up again. But what I like about it, Ken, is that it's a clear path forward. It's very simple. You just actually have to do it.

[B]

Yeah. Do you, do you have a, like a content flywheel engine or an idea? Like how do you come up with it so that people can stay fresh all the time?

[A]

There's been times where I try to batch ideas, though I found for most creators, most of the time on these kind of platforms, you might have some ideas in the hopper. You might have. You might time block off a section of your week to come up with posts of things you're learning and come up with multiple at a time. But generally I'm also kind of feeling it out every single day again because I'm commenting every single day and it gives me inspiration to post. So that creates a little bit of a flywheel where if you're engaging regularly, you're coming up with content. If you're learning regularly and doing the 30, 30, 30 plan, then you're getting ideas for post to share too. And then if you're looking back at old posts, seeing what works, it's also giving you ideas on how you can take that idea that resonated and do it again in a different way. So that's three different areas that if you're engaging with the system, if you're doing the 30, 30, 30, if you're constantly learning, if you're engaging, you should have enough content to post at least once a day, if not multiple times a day. The quantity you put in will directly match with how far and fast you go. And if you're able to do three posts a day every day for 90 days, you will go much farther. If you're only able to do one post every weekday, well, then it's going to be slower. And if you're doing only one post a week, don't expect much. It's a quantity game. You're just not going to get good enough. Now if you're really good. I know one person who does one post a week and puts probably like eight to 10 hours of work into one post. Like, he'll write it and then he'll rewrite it and then he'll do more research and make it longer and more robust and then he'll rewrite it and then rewrite it and then finally release it and all those his posts go viral. But he didn't get there that way. He probably did a lot of posts in quantity first and then figured out what, what it took to make a really, really good post and then started doing it that way for almost everybody. It's better just to go quantity first and do as many as possible and then try to again think about how to make them better. It takes a lot of time, but it doesn't always have to be as intense as it is in the beginning.

[B]

Yeah, Dan, as we Wrap up here because we could talk about this concept all day long and we're going to have other podcasts on it, right? But like, how do you, how does someone, as they start posting, they might get some wins under their belt and they want to share that. How do they do that without bragging or sounding like self promotion all the time? Like, look at what I can do and but show that they're confident Again.

[A]

If you position yourself as a student and share what's working for you and frame it as helpful tips, you almost think about it as like a neighbor that's leaning over the fence talking to someone who's probably just two months behind you. And whatever they're asking about, be like, oh yeah, let me tell you about that. I just, I ran into that last month and this is what worked for me. If you keep it in that frame and in that mindset, then it usually goes pretty well. Hold things loosely. I often invite debate. I say, hey, I could have this wrong. I often am wrong. Help me understand where I could be better. And if you approach things like that and get honest conversations going, things usually work out better. Every once in a while somebody will share something with me and I'll get proved wrong. And I've had to change my mind. Like earlier in this series, I've talked about how I used to hold storytelling in one regard and then a lot of people came at me and change my mind. And now I love storytelling as a marketing strategy. I've had to change my mind on multiple things, but there's many things. Whereas people told me different perspectives, it only strengthened my positions on some things. And lastly, it is okay to share wins every once in a while. Yes, it is bragging, but no, I'd say it's okay. I generally do when I hit new subscriber numbers, when I've had a new peak, every once in a while, I'll share the wins and I'll thank people for helping me get there. Because none of these wins happen in isolation. They all help with partners, they all help with co hosts. They all help with people that like are your. Are your. Are your besties on social, which you will get if you continue engaging with people. You will form relationships, people that you haven't met in real life yet. But give solid thanks, Give acknowledgments as you win. Share your wins, but share it together with the community that you're building.

[B]

I love it. So you even talked about disagreeing with people just there, right? Like if how you disagree publicly sharing your wins as we get into this, excuse me, own the show concept. What's next? What would make people want to say, hey, I should come back tomorrow to keep listening on how to grow their authority?

[A]

Eventually, you become the expert in following this process. You're not just learning about it, you're talking about it, you're posting about it, you're answering frequently asked questions, you're engaging with the community and you're sharing what you're learning. And if hopefully this is a part of your actual work job too, so you're actually experimenting with this stuff during the workday, it won't take very long to the point where you actually start to find the gaps. This is where you start moving from expert to what I call the contributor. Because in every niche field there are gaps. You will have questions that nobody has answers to, or at least answers that aren't satisfactory to you. And that's where you get to start moving into the next stage of becoming a thought leader. You're not just going from professional to expert, you're going from expert to contributor. But you can't do that without understanding a solid lay of the land first. Which is why the 30, 30, 30 plan, being a student and learning in the light is so important. But that's why I'm excited about the next stage, which we'll start with tomorrow.