PP 094: Living Your Dreams with Erin Zimmerman

Erin Zimmerman reminds us that living your dream shouldn’t be something you put off for “someday.” Erin and host Kim Sutton also discuss social media etiquette and discretion, the attitude of gratitude, the importance of building rapport with our audience and MUCH more!

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Resources Mentioned

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Episode Transcription: Erin Zimmerman

KIM: Welcome back to another episode of Positive Productivity! This is your host Kim Sutton and today I have Erin Zimmerman from Elephant Social here to join us. Welcome Erin!

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Hi! Thank you so much for having me.

KIM: Oh, it’s my pleasure. Erin is a social media matchmaker and strategist who helps business owners create social media strategies that are profitable, and that they can have fun with. Erin can you share the journey that you have been on with Elephant Social including what you were doing before.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yes. Yes. I will start at the beginning not when I was born obviously but I, I’ve been in the corporate world for a few years. I had been at my current corporate job for almost four years and I was inspired to really start on my own journey. In April of 2015, a close friend of mine actually passed away of complications from Cystic Fibrosis. I had other friends and family die in my life but the reason that it has hit so close to home was that he had finally been doing what he wanted to do with his life. He was an artist and in high school he really was. He acted like he did care about it but he finally, finally had like put it out into the world. All of his art. And he’s amazing at it and that’s what he wanted to do with his life. Then his life was cut short. I was like it really bothers me that people will leave this earth and either not be able to continue on that awesome path that they chose for themselves of living their dream. But also there are so many people who don’t ever take that leap and follow their dreams at any point in their lives. And so, I mean as we get older our values change, and things like that so, it’s not like everyone’s going to be what they wanted to be when they were five, but your thinking evolves as you get older. So, when I was younger I always wanted to be famous. I didn’t know what for. I mean part of me wanted to be a movie star. The other part of me wanted to have a girl band with my twin sister. But those were things that you know you think about it and it’s like: “Well I’m not that great at it.” And I don’t know, you know there’s always mindset issues even when you’re little and I noticed and now looking back, I was like: “Oh, I’m not good enough.” Well, shoot I am good enough darn it, and so in April of 2015 I started to think, you know, I like where I’m at, but I’m not going to be here forever, because there’s so much more for me, like I want to touch so many more lives than I was in the marketing department as a multimedia designer. And I did a lot of the social media and I thought: “You know, I’m really, really good at this. I should take this and run with it.” And so October 1st of 2015. So I just just came up on my one year anniversary of working for myself full time. And on October 1st of 2015, I walk out of those doors into, you know, the brisk fall air. October is my favorite month. Fall is my favorite season. I was wearing a dress that had a unicorn and rainbow pattern on it. I was just, you know, so pumped I was ready to go. And I started Elephant Social, which started out as Social Media Management for small businesses and a lot of it was local businesses. And I love what I was doing.

But then in the spring my grandmother, she got cancer again. Gosh I’m such a downer I think..

KIM: Nah ah..

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: OK good.

KIM: We’ve been on a journey like our journey takes us to where we are.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yes, and I was doing, I was taking care of all of these accounts, and I realized, I needed to drop everything and just be with her. She’s local here to me and so that was really nice. And so what I did was every day I’d go and spend time with her, and she was after her diagnosis unfortunately she was only with us for another month. But I got to spend that month with her. And after, and so this was in the spring of 2016. After that month I kind of just lost myself, because I had taken a break. Yes, I hadn’t dropped everything. I was still scheduling posts, but I wasn’t interacting like I should. And I gave my accounts, discounts because I wasn’t showing up like I knew I could. And I should to get them results. So I did, I kind of I lost myself, I kind of went into this mode of: “Oh my gosh, am I really doing what I should be doing? Should I be growing in this direction? I was really not a good boss to myself.” And it actually took going on a retreat in June with a group of people I have never met in person before, to get an outside perspective, to work with these women for five days, and see how they saw where I was going. They listened to me a lot and then, were able to like formulate my words into these ideas that – I never really knew existed. And so, now I’m a social media matchmaker and strategist and that is because I was tired. I’m tired of how people use social media, not necessarily business owners but in general the general human population uses social media to, you know, spread negativity, violate images, opinions, and or they’re just showing off their lives, even if they show off the best parts of their lives. And people really have been using social media for negativity, and you know, kind of to I don’t know it ends up making them feel bad about their lives, because people are showing the best of their lives through social media. And so, with all of this, I decided to go for the relationship based piece, because not only do I have a background in video and photography and things of that nature and I see how important it is for people to really get their clients and their potential clients and collaborators to see them for everything they are and video is a huge piece of that. But also we need to be using social media to build relationships, that’s why it was created, was – as a jumping off point for relationships that people could then take off line or take elsewhere. And I think it’s really important that we create social media strategies around, not only, something that will work for us to stay consistent with, something that will work for our – for our communities and ideal clients, but also – so it’s something that builds. It builds our relationships with people, even if they don’t become clients, they could become mentors and collaborators. It should be something that we use on a regular basis to build relationships, and not replace them. And so that’s the whole idea behind my evolution.

And it’s really just been a few months of me operating from this space, but it feels so good. And I know that I can help people more so than just do something for them. And with the relationship based peace, and the peace of knowing that you’re doing something that you like, in addition to what your audience likes, it makes it fun and it makes it easy. So that’s where I’m at.

KIM: That is all so powerful, and I’ve got so many questions now. I generally try not to put in anything that’s too dated into these episodes. But you brought up a very interesting point about how so much on social media is negative or floundering or of the sort of. Last night, so we’re at the end of October of 2016 so if you’re listening in four years it’s going to be totally different. Last night was a third of the Presidential Debates between Trump and Hillary Clinton. And I avoided Facebook and Twitter at all costs, like I did not touch them, because I did not want to see what was going on. Like, I was watching the debate, but I didn’t want to get all the feedback from anybody online, because it’s not positive right now, it’s bashing one side or the other.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yes, and it’s noise.

KIM: Oh it’s totally noise. And then you’re also completely right. Like, I’ll go – personally, I don’t really go to the main timeline of my Facebook feed very often, because without fail there seems to be somebody bashing somebody else and it’s unfortunate you shouldn’t be going on to Facebook to tell the world how your husband pissed you off.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Right.

KIM: That should be a conversation that you’re in my opinion, having lived in your house, calmly, and not broadcast into the whole world. You’re your dirty laundry.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Right.

KIM: And I don’t want to see it. So, I do have a question for you along that lines then, well a whole bunch of questions, for you personally when you go into Facebook what is the path that you take?

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: News Feeds are addictive. And I totally admit that even when I have something planned to go up, I will go through my news feed. But basically yes, I hide things that are negative, that are violent. Not necessarily, I don’t necessarily hide things that are too opinionated. But I won’t – I won’t participate in those conversations, because honestly I’ve tried before with some of them, and they just don’t go anywhere. And I want to use social media as a tool, like they said to connect with people and to build relationships. So, mostly what I do yes I’ll go on in my news feed, but I have my closest friends that I want to get updated on and so I’ll go to their page. Or you know I’ll text them instead of just seeing their lives from Facebook. And then, I immediately go into my personal Facebook group or my page, and then I go on to other business Facebook groups, where I know that the conversation is going to be good and deep and-

KIM: drama free..

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: I can go and help someone. Yes drama free, yes, for the most part-

KIM: for the most part.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Sometimes you get in those groups and that happens but you don’t happen when you have conversations that do have two sides or multiple sides sometimes it just happens or sometimes, I’ll give someone advice, when it comes to social media or business practices or something and someone will come in ready to fight and that’s fine. I’m just giving my answer as people who asked for opinions or ideas. And so, I don’t like to fight. It’s not my favorite. Debating really doesn’t help, because people have their side, and they don’t really want to do much more than that, they just want to fight their side or try to get people to enjoy their side. And that’s not me. If there is a discussion going on that, I think is intriguing I’ll read through some of the comments. But that’s definitely not in my growth – my business growth plan so, I try to keep those, I’ll save those threads for later, if I so choose to go back to it.

KIM: I love that. I was noticing in some groups that people were commenting about the first hater that they had received to one of their ads. And I’m sort of embarrassed to admit, but I was actually looking forward to mine, because you know you’ve been recognized, somebody is out there not just recognizing but, I’m not looking at it as a negative thing when I when I did get my heat or I actually cheered them, because I was like: “Yey! I got my first hater.” I haven’t had any sense, and I – please this is not an invitation from the audience to go hate on anything. But, I noticed that a lot of people do cheer each other on, when they say that they’ve just got their first hater, it’s like: “Yeah! you’ve made it” you know. But what is your personal stance on like, if a client gets a hater on one of their ads or anything? How do you recommend interacting with them? Because, I feel like there’s two ways you can go you can either ignore or personally I would respond politely. But there are others out there who is true to their nature. They go in all out combat mode with the person.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: What I like to do personally and what I do suggest to my clients is taking a step back. But I do believe that comments, people are commenting to get a response, whether they are trolling, and they’re just looking for something negative or whether they want a legitimate response, and you can’t always tell which is which, with a negative comment. However, besides being the relationship builder that social media is it’s also the best place for customer service. And so when it comes to anything ads, reviews, comments of any kind, I do suggest to step back whether it be an hour or whether it be a day especially, if you get defensive pretty quickly. And I understand, I fully believe in what I do. So I will back, I will back everything every stance that I take, I will back it. However, I do not want to be combative. And you have to realize that as many people as you are going to be reaching, there are going to be haters, and it takes a little bit of time to adjust to that. You will have people that say: “Well, I’m your competitor and this isn’t how it works, or this isn’t how it works best.” And you just got to go to flow, because everyone is different. Everyone learns differently, and everyone wants to operate it means to operate their business differently. There’s no cookie cutter way. So, if you have someone that is just dogging on you, then what I like to do – you take the step back and then go in and not necessarily engage them, but it completely depends on the situation. But a lot of times my response ends up being: “Thank you for your opinion” and then explaining how some people think differently, some people want to operate their business differently. And we are relationship based at least on my end. That’s what I say. And and this is how I teach. So I don’t know what your situation was, what they said on your ad, but more often than not actually, “No, All the time!” I feel like comments deserve some kind of response just because even if they’re just trolling you, at least then they know that there is a person attached to that account. It’s not just an automated account or an automated business and that you do stand true to your values and beliefs and that you will defend, if need be. But at least saying something to them, makes them realize that there is someone who will respond.

KIM: Oh yeah mine actually was a troll. I was launching my Twitter course and I have an ad promoting the course and I don’t remember what the comment was. But I actually and maybe this wasn’t really appropriate, but I actually thanked them for their comment, and I said: “Thank you for your comment because you have just helped me share my ad with your personal audience as well.”

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Oh that’s great, actually. Seriously..

KIM: Well, actually yeah. The second that they comment and commented on my ad, it became visible in their feed. So..

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Right, No I don’t feel like that’s bad at all. And a “thank you” goes a long way even if it’s like: “Thank you, you know, you’re helping me realize, who my ideal client really is” or something like that, like you you’re really helping me, because honestly they are, every negative comment is help in some way, whether it’s: “Oh shoot! I did have that typo in that ad. Thanks for telling me.” Or you know: “I’m at you’re really helping me hone in on my ideal client. Thanks so much.” You know, A “thank you” goes a long way.

KIM: Oh yeah. The attitude of gratitude even when you’re biting your cheek from saying a few choice words. Yes, it’s definitely good. So, what type of studies do you do before or at the very beginning of your relationship with your clients so that, when you are going into their accounts and posting and engaging with their audience as them, that you make sure it’s as authentic to their brand as you possibly can.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: So, I have about a 50/50 split. I have those who don’t post much. Slash had never started some of these accounts, and I have those people that come to me who have accounts and they have hit a plateau or they’re really looking to grow more. And what I like to do and I don’t post as much as other accounts any more, but I do still like it I fully believe in a person or a product or service like fully 100 %  like would be their customer. Then I will do that for them, because I understand their mission but here’s how I start. I will, I talk to them like that is the biggest piece for me a lot of people that I have talked to and even in my old job, it was, well I need look at the analytics first, we have to see how it’s reaching already kind of thing. But you got to sit down even if you’re doing your own social media. You have to sit down with yourself, sometimes you should sit down with someone else and just to talk, just to talk it through. But I like, I really enjoy connecting with my clients initially because I want to know – what they love about social media? – what they hate about it? – what their favor and least favorite parts are what they do? as well as – what has been working and what hasn’t? A big piece of this is knowing, you know, you personally what are your what are your favorite social media platforms to be on? And then from there, we find out, we talk through well, where have you gotten the most engagement?

Because if someone really enjoys Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest but they hate being on Twitter, then they’re not going to be as engaged – They’re not going to be using that like they should be. And I say you should be likely, because every single person and every single business is different. I personalized as much as possible. So, if someone doesn’t like Twitter, I say: “You know what, then let’s take Twitter out of the equation right now” and then, we take a look through their analytics, we find out what times look like the best to post, based on you know history ,  then we find out what types of content are being engaged with the most. So if it’s – Are you asking a question in your post? Great, Let’s ask more questions. Or, – Is it a video that’s getting more engagement, which you know nine times out of 10 videos are getting more engagement than some of these other posts. And that’s why video is so important. People are able to see how you interact. They’re able to look at it as if you’re almost having a conversation with them. And it’s really important to include them in all your processes whether it’s behind the scenes of what of what you’re working on next, or “Hey, I’m hanging out with my kids today” Here’s what we’re doing or whether it’s this is what my typical day looks like in the office, kind of thing. So, people really like that behind the scenes. and I like to try to employ that with all of my clients, unless they are really not digging video, and then at some point, they do end up digging video. It tends to be easier once they have a strategy going and they can schedule some other posts out. It’s really easy to think: “Oh shoot! I should video this as I’m going and just kind of pop those in as well for additional engagement.” But the conversation is so key. Then we go into analytics to figure out, you know, “Here’s where I like to hang out” , “Here’s where my people like to hang out” And then basically venn diagram that and find out a happy medium where there’s, you know, one to two to start and then keep growing from their social platforms. If people have not really participate in social media yet, whether they’ve had a Facebook page already, and just don’t really post consistently, or whether they have not even started at all, it’s best to test. I mean it is good for people who have been on social media for a long time anyway. But you got to test the waters, try something for about a month. Go in and tweak it. Anything less than a month, at least initially isn’t – It’s not going to give you much in terms of results of how people are interacting.

KIM: I love that you said that, because people will try something for one or two days, maybe a week, and then think it’s not working and just give up.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yes, and so much of it is about testing and – I’ve also run into a lot of people who think: “Oh man, I got started and I got to go with it. And it can’t change.” And I was like that with my business. I mean that’s why it took so long for me to really figure out that: “Yeah! I’m good at this piece, but I need to include something, I’m passionate about as well. And like really really integrate those two.” And people think that they can’t change it’s like: “Yes, you can switch paths, in social media, in marketing, in what you’re doing at any point in time. I mean you’re your own boss.”

KIM: Yeah, you are. And I just realize that I probably have led him to that question with the wrong question, because now I’m realizing as a strategist. Yes, So I’m sorry for that last question, as a strategist. You’re not necessarily going in and doing the posting you’re helping them develop their strategy to figure out what the heck they’re doing.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Don’t apologize, because a lot of people I’ve realized recently, I’ve been doing a lot of polls in my group and outside of my group, a lot of people don’t realize what a strategist is. That’s totally cool, that helps me, because as I’m polling people, as I’m asking questions that helps me to kind of lead my social media strategy so, that I can, you know, let people know what the heck a strategist is, what the heck I do. Like I said I do manage a couple of accounts, but it was one of those things where it’s like a lot of people, feel like they just need more but not necessarily information, but more training and then they can take care of it themselves and they can. It’s totally available to them and it’s empowering to be able to either learn to DIY it or pass it off to a VA or another employee.

KIM: Absolutely. So, it sounds like as a social media strategist and I know that you also say in that let me just pull it up “Social Media Matchmaker”, the Matchmaker portion could be matching the clients with the platforms, the tools, and then with the clients after the first two have been really honed out would that be fair?

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yes definitely. Because you can’t just expect to, you know, have high engagement immediately and a lot of people are so focused on the likes, whether it’s the like of your page or the like of a post that they’re not seeing, but engaging your clients or potential clients or your community, that’s so much more important is starting a conversation.

And like I said building those relationships you’re a conversation because, you know, you could have people that take to you immediately. You could have people that take five years, and then they’re like: “You know what, Yes! I need you in my life” kind of thing, but they’re not going to know ,if you’re if you’re not ensuring, if you’re not building those engaging posts. And those posts where you’re telling stories or videos where you’re telling stories, you know.

KIM: Oh absolutely and there’s so many people who say that it takes anywhere from four to 10 touches, until a prospect really becomes comfortable with you. So, yeah definitely build your rapport, and I love that you said about sharing the story, sharing the video, sharing the pictures of what’s going on behind the scenes. I mean, even if you’re in a corporate office like in a bank, I mean you can’t show what goes on in the vault, but you can still show the interaction that goes on between a banker and somebody who wants to get a loan, just to show that it’s really authentic and not have it be totally stages like in commercials,

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Right! or if someone posts to social media and they tag a bank in it, for example they say: “We got a doggy treat at U.S. Bank today or whatever.” Then they can show that to their wall as well. You know, it’s the personal touches and you want to show how that’s working and sharing other peoples content that they tag you in is so important as well.

KIM: Oh absolutely. And then there’s the flip side. So, I love that you bring that up, not just sharing that you got a doggy treat at the bank today. But when I have a really positive experience with a company that I’m using or an app or tool or software or whatever, I love to share those because I mean they do share them on their walls, and it is getting to me and maybe, you know, who knows that could wind up in front of a prospect, but I loved to let people know that their products and services are making an impact. And as much as I want to build rapport for me and my company on the Internet, you know, if I can help out somebody else. It’s all about making it a more positive place and everything, when you have feedback for a company, you should make sure that you try to put some positive out there too, not just: “Oh, I had to sit in line at McDonald’s forever today”

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Right..

KIM: Say something positive too.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yeah !  On the flip side as a consumer, I always think of constructive feedback, constructive criticism, like, I do not especially – OK, I have a group program about video and we’re in it right now and I emphasize that because, no one wants to create a video inside of a safe space and have someone come in and say: “Well you could’ve done this, this, this, and this better.” Yeah, that could be constructive criticism. But you also want to cheer them on. And so, as a consumer I will admit, I’m really bad at leaving like Google or Yelp or even Facebook group reviews somewhere, but I’m really good and I need to do that more, but I’m really good at tagging, that I’m at then you or or taking a picture of my coffee, you know, if they put something really like a cool design on the top. And then you know tagging the company and so, you know you give feedback – that’s great, but make sure that you also say something, be constructive as possible. So, recently I mean we realize that our produce at this particular grocery store is just not great anymore, like within two days, it’s going bad. And I like to grocery shop, for a week or two at a time, I don’t want to have to go every other day, and my husband left a review. And sometimes you can get a little negative on those reviews and I completely understand, and in that situation especially, but he said: “You know, we’ve been loyal customers there and up until the last month or two we have had a great experience there. However, this is what we’re seeing. And we’d love to continue shopping there. Just wanted to let you know” kind of thing, its just constructive. Always remember that in your head keep it constructive and don’t throw anything out there, that you would be embarrassed to see later on or if you be embarrassed, just like your parents or kids, put that somewhere, you know.

KIM: Or if a potential client sees it somewhere.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Oh my gosh! yes.

KIM: And I actually had that experience a couple of months ago and I didn’t leave negative comments. I put a couple videos up on my own personal wall and I just had to share a quick story, one of them was one of my twins. She was just over a year old. She was homesick for the day and she sneezed during the video. And let’s just say, if you have a weak stomach you wouldn’t really want to watch it, but it was really hilarious. And then a couple months later the other twin who loves our dog, like absolutely loves our dog. He goes up to the dog and opens up his mouth and gives him kisses. And I just get it on video. So, I put it on, I took the video and I put it on my Facebook wall and I did get some negative feedback just the day, before I had actually, just before the dog video, I had been accepted as a blogger for The Huffington Post and a friend reach out–

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yey! Congratulations!

KIM: Yeah, thank you. So, a friend did reached out and said, you know, if you’re going to be on The Huffington Post this probably isn’t something that you want on your wall and while I agree a little bit upfront, I am a mompreneur. So, in the future pictures of my, or videos of my son kissing the dog will probably stay up.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yeah.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: But had it been me lashing out about some political event or something like, that’s not something that I necessarily want of a prospective client to see. And especially as I’m building the Positive Productivity brand, because I do post, I don’t want to accept every person who sends me a friend request as a friend. There’s got to be some boundary between personal and professional. So, I do post a bit of public, quite a few public posts and I don’t want to be terribly concerned about if it’s going to be control of my brand or not. I guess that would be sorry to take that light away from you, but I guess that would be my little piece of advice is – Just think before you post and think about how it could affect your company, even if it’s on your personal profile.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Right, and that’s taking light away from me at all. I do, I want to mention on the flip side, I totally, I get taken care of, I mean being careful with what you’re posting out on the Internet. That’s a huge piece. Well, when it comes to, you know, your kids it’s up to you what you want to post online. Obviously you don’t want to post something you like to over embarrassing for them later down the road. But at the same time, you are, that is more you know behind the scenes. You know, I’m like you don’t even have to frame it as behind the scenes. You just post that, you can even post that as a mompreneur on your business page, and then say: “You know, here’s what’s happening at my house” and you know you have kids sneezing and then you guys are laughing. You want to show that life can be great and you can integrate business and personal together and things can flow beautifully. And then you’ve got, you know your Positive Productivity along with it. There’s so much there. I don’t feel like that’s something that you have to be worried about unless it’s like over embarrassing or you know..

KIM: it was just like, sorry for anybody with big stomachs. It was a nose full of boogers coming out after the sneeze.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Oh yeah.

KIM: Well, my husband has actually submitted it to fail or me on YouTube and we’re waiting for it to come out. So, when that happens I’ll be certain certain to share that, we’re just waiting for notification. I mean it was rough. It was really bad.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: But yeah, you know, I get it we do need to be careful about what we post, but if it’s something that you know it’s just you, just you in your life and it’s not, you know politically charged or negative or raunchy or you know something that would not be safe for work, then go for it.

KIM: Absolutely. I love that. Erin what are you working on right now in your business? And what’s exciting in going on in your world?

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Oh my gosh, I feel like there’s always something really exciting happening. I was actually asked recently – what my spirit animal for my business would be? And even though I do operate elephants social and one day I’m sure it will develop into an elephant, my spirit animal. But my spirit animal for my business is definitely a squirrel, because it’s not necessarily shiny object syndrome, but I will start developing something and get really into it and then realize: “Oh my gosh, this other thing could happen as well. Oh my gosh, other things could happen as well.” And after that retreat, that I mentioned where my business evolved. I was on the plane ride home which was only an hour and a half by the way. And I thought to myself: “Why don’t I have a YouTube channel? I need to make a web series.” And I came up with the idea. I wrote down a bunch of details for the first season and within a month, I was releasing one episode a week on YouTube, and it’s so cool how things come together when you have you have inspiration like that. So, through the end of the year, what I’m really working on is growing my community and making sure to nurture that community. I do have a private Facebook group for those, it’s free for those who want to work on their relationship based social media strategy. You want to work on video, want to connect with others. And so, that’s what I’m really focusing on, I’m really going to be living in that community through the end of the year and probably into January.

I am running a group program right now all about video and I’ll open that up again. Probably early spring of 2017. But my main thing is, as of the time this will be released the second season of my web series “Chat Kinect” will be releasing in December and January, and I’m really really excited about the second season, because we’re taking the best parts of the first season and really rolling it into the second, as well as, I am releasing it as a podcast, in addition to the web series because the main feedback that I got was: “I really want to watch it, but I don’t have time” and that comes from people in the corporate world and people who are, you know, working as entrepreneurs. And so I really wanted to make it so that, there are transcripts of each episode, so that if people would rather read it or skim through it, great they can do that. But now the audio will also help if your commuting or working on something else and you like to listen to podcasts and so I’m really excited with the expansion of that all to reach so many more people with it.

KIM: Oh that sounds so exciting. So, I am curious about this so are you taking – are you taking the video then and we’re just re purposing the audio portion for the podcast?

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Yes.

KIM: Because I heard the other way around..

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: I am taking the video. And so that’s one of the things when I help my clients with re purposing, I love starting with video. So, if you didn’t notice – I love everything video. And so this web series ,  it’s interviews but it’s not, it’s not interviews about someone’s business, as much as it’s – interviews where we’re just I start off kind of interviewing them, but then we have a conversation and it’s more driven towards life and of course business will come up because people are so passionate about their businesses and that is great, because you’re going to learn not only about someone’s business and about their thoughts and theories, but you’re also going to be able to learn new things you haven’t learned about these people before and a lot of them are huge influencers that they’re all bad asses in their own right. And I apologize for my language I didn’t really think about that before. But what I love to do is, I love the video aspect of it. I love everything about a web series, YouTube is wonderful. I will also be re purposing it to Vimeo hopefully by the time you’re listening to this it will also be on Vimeo. But it’s so easy to then transcribe a video, and then with audio from a video, and do so much with that, because you can make quote graphics or tweet out quotes from it. You can have it set up, so that people who learn differently, will ingest the information in whichever way they choose. And it’s just, it’s great. Video is a great way to start and then divide and conquer from there.

KIM: OK. So I am super curious, how do you transcribe? Do you have somebody do it for you or do you have a tool that you use?

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Right now, it’s me because I’m nerdy, and I love to transcribe things and it’s fun for me to go back and listen to what has happened because sometimes when you’re in the middle of an interview or you know when you’re in the middle you’re feeling a rush of adrenaline and you don’t necessarily remember everything that just happened. So I love to transcribe things. However it has been suggested to me that I use, oh I can’t remember there’s a service I have to tell you..

KIM: Oh I have a couple I can recommend do you.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Do you?

KIM: Yes, I have.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Oh please..

KIM: Trint, Trint.com and this will be in the show notes for listeners. Trint.com that’s Trint.com that one is actually artificial intelligence you upload your audio. It starts at about 25 cents a minute and then it spits you out a file you can listen to the audio right there and make the revisions because, because it is artificial intelligence transcribing it for you. It is not perfect, but it takes hours and hours of the transcribing process. And then there’s also Rev.com – R E V and that one I believe is actually humans doing the work and it costs about $1 per minute and I haven’t used it but I’ve heard that they have somewhere like 99.7% accuracy rate. But I am just fine. I’m still going to go through and correct, check the transcription. Maybe it’s not the best use of my time maybe I should have a VA doing that, but I myself love to go through and listen and absorb before I put anything out. So, I am using Trint right now and I love it.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Oh that’s great. That’s a great middle man. I think, I will probably opt for that, because as much as I love transcription, there are other things that I feel like I have this to do list, and then that always gets back to the bottom line so these these transcripts don’t go out in time with my videos, and then it’s like well eventually and I don’t want it to be that way. So thank you I appreciate that.

KIM: Oh my gosh! You are not alone with that even using “Trint” and I can’t imagine, if I wasn’t using “Trint”, even though I use it. I’m still two episodes behind, getting the transcriptions out. So listeners, send me a tweet @thekimsutton on Twitter and tell me to get my you know, we’re in geared getting somebody to handle my transcriptions, because when these episodes go live, you should be able to go, and get the whole show notes and transcription and all the good stuff on that day. And right now, I am two days behind. So, I apologize hopefully by the time this episode airs, I will be well equipped and ahead of time that would be so fantastically awesome. Love it.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: I love it. Thank you.

KIM: Oh, you’re very welcome. Erin, thank you so much for being here today. I have loved all the nuggets that you have provided for Social Media Marketing and it’s just been very eye opening even though, it’s always very interesting to me that, even though we do a lot of the same because I’m a digital marketing strategist when I’m not being put positive productivity, there’s always so much to learn from people even when they are in the same industry and I don’t look at anybody as competition so, I always have to learn what other people are doing and hopefully get back in some way. So, thank you.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Of course and I love that. Thank you so much for having me. P.S. I don’t believe in a competitors and competition either. Like I was totally for a while against everything. I think growing up, like even though I was in sports and stuff, I just don’t like it. I like working together much better. And this is great. This right here this podcast is a wonderful collaboration. Thank you for giving me this opportunity.

KIM: Thank you for being here. Thank you to all of listeners, for being here for another episode of Positive Productivity. Erin and I, I’m sure both of us would love if you would share this episode to Facebook and Twitter any of your social media networks and I would personally love it, if you would leave a reading and a review on iTunes or Stitcher or both. But thank you again Erin, it’s been an absolute pleasure.

ERIN ZIMMERMAN: Thank you. You have a wonderful day.

KIM: Yes, you too.