July 30, 2025 • 47 mins
Enjoying the Show? Share Your Experience!
Social media is broken—and Daniel Hall is on a mission to fix it.
This Special Edition of MarketPulse: Pros and Pioneers dives deep into two powerful stories:
1️⃣ The personal journey of Daniel Hall—from a childhood marked by adoption and dyslexia to becoming a tech innovator, entrepreneur, and creator of SPOTAPOD.
2️⃣ The dark truth about social media pods and fake engagement—how thousands of professionals unknowingly damage their credibility with tactics designed to manipulate influence instead of earning it
🔍 In this episode, we uncover:
🚀 Daniel’s early programming obsession and rise in the tech industry
💡 How his daughter's question changed his perspective forever
🔥 Why social media is full of lies—and how to see through them
🚫 The hidden damage of fake engagement & how to protect your brand
If you rely on social media for business, or care about real influence over artificial reach, this episode is a wake-up call.
Grab Daniel's book "The Top 100 Lies of Social Media" at https://www.amazon.com/Top-List-Lies-Social-Media/dp/B0DY2JYRPM - It's STILL a #1 Besteller!
🎧 Listen on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/5BAEbmuQs0vpihAPuaGfXf?si=ac3dfbf2e62a44b0
🍏 Listen on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/yourpodcastlink
📖 Get Daniel’s book - Top 100 List of Lies on Social Media:
- Barnes & Noble: https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/top-100-list-of-lies-on-social-media-daniel-hall/1146533895?ean=2940193703570
- Apple Books: https://books.apple.com/us/audiobook/the-top-100-list-of-lies-on-social-media/id1784911432
🔍 Find more from Daniel: https://lnkd.in/eXHqi7wT
Thanks for listening!!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Paul (00:00):
Today on MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers, I am joined by the
(00:03):
author of the Top 100 List ofLies on Social Media.
Bestselling author Daniel Hall,who has also the amazing
personality behind the SPOTAPODgroup and newsletter on
LinkedIn, who I'm eternallygrateful for.
Daniel is a genuine pleasure tohave you on the show Thank you
(00:24):
very much for joining us.
Dan (00:26):
Oh, thank you so much Paul, and thank you for everybody
that's listening right now andtaking time out of their life to
make it.
about you and I and, putting thehuman back in humanity.
Paul (00:39):
I'm gonna give a bit of your bio and then I'm gonna
explain a little bit of how Ifound you in the first place.
And this is a special edition,anybody's watching along.
This is a special edition, sonormally we do a half hour.
Chat with the guest.
We've had some amazingpersonalities on the show, some
amazing stories.
But the reason I want to shareso much time with Dan here today
(00:59):
is because I.
I found him through professionalterms, so I found him through
his activity on LinkedIn andwhat he does, and I'll explain a
bit more about that in a moment.
But as you can see from the wallbehind Dan, he's so much more
than that.
There is a huge personal lifebehind him that I think we
should share a little bit moreinformation about at the same
(01:19):
time.
So I wanted to split this showin two halves, and I really
don't think that we could havedone of these.
of an hour in a 15 session.
It wouldn't do it justice.
So I wanna give us somebreathing space.
So we're expecting this torecord for about an hour.
along and you're finding thisfascinating, feel free to just
book this and come back to it.
I don't expect you to watch itall in one go.
(01:42):
There are some phenomenal truthsand lessons that you will pick
up from this story that I cannotwait to share with you all.
Dan is a full stack Microsoftdeveloper, data analytics expert
and the founder of Dream ITSoftware, and he's got a career
spanning over 20 years and he'sworked on high stake software
(02:03):
development projects acrossindustries.
From aerospace to NU programmingstarted and I love this'cause
it's very my own story.
I started at a eight with aCommodore VIC 2020, setting the
foundation for a lifetime ofinnovation.
Beyond this technical expertise,Dan is a bestselling off.
(02:24):
We've mentioned the top 100 listof lies on social media, not
below will have links to bothBooks and Barnes and Noble as
well.
He is the creator of SPOTAPOD.
There it is.
There it is.
Yeah.
It's the creator of SPOTAPOD,which is how I found you in the
First and is a dedicatedadvocate for adoption.
Having built an amazing familyof seven children's unique blend
(02:47):
of data driven problem solving,and a deep commit commitment to
human fuel's mission, as yousaid, to put the human back in
humanity through Taji.
That is easily one of myfavorite bios that I've had to
read.
So far date, Dan and I know thetruth behind it.
we've swapped message messageson LinkedIn for time now.
I think I, I probably found youabout a year and a half, nearly
(03:09):
two years ago.
SPOTAPOD and newsletters, whichI do, you know what I'm gonna,
I'm gonna leave it to you toexplain SPOTAPOD and means for
people.
And we can get into it a littlebit later the story of how you
came to, to.
And start that.
Dan (03:25):
So all those accolades that you just rattled off Paul, pale
in comparison to being a dad,they just so minute for me.
we talk about SPOTAPOD, oh mygosh, that, that started as a
temper tantrum.
For our 4-year-old daughter whowas severely drug and alcohol
(03:49):
exposed in utero, she's adopted.
She two weeks in detox after shewas born and within a, within
about four and a half monthspart small intestines had died.
So anytime you are thrown intothe situation of working with
fetal alcohol.
You're going to be dealing withmultiple temper tantrums, just
(04:12):
self-regulation, and one day shewas throwing one of her
screamers and she justdisappeared.
It went completely silent.
She came back about 15 minuteslater with a picture of her and
I holding hands.
And you can see by this picturemy mouth is huge, which means I
(04:34):
was probably a little bit loudthat day.
And she came down with thispicture.
She had gone to her room and shecame down with that picture and
she said, daddy, I am sorry.
I am so sorry.
And of course she got emotional.
I got emotional.
And she asked if she could hangit up.
(04:54):
On my wall back here and I waslike, and then the pictures just
started rolling in some justbecause, and some because of,
you know, more tantrums.
But, oh my gosh, Paul, she wasfour and she knew that taking
(05:15):
time out of her life to make itabout somebody else was so
impactful.
So over the course of threeyears, I developed software to
solve the vanity metrics.
I can actually calculate howmuch time we're spending
together in the comments onsocial media, but as I was
(05:37):
writing the software and lookingat some of the data, I noticed
that there was a lot ofartificial intelligence inside
the comments.
And I'm like, is this what ourfuture generations have forward
to is all these.
vanity metrics.
Our kids have some remarkablespecial abilities, but we don't
(05:58):
want them to become a vanitynumber.
We want people to see love herein value the time that they
spend with our kids.
Not worried about whetherthey're, you know, number one in
this and number two in this.
And I've got a million likeshere and a million likes here.
Nobody's gonna ever rememberyour vanity metrics.
(06:19):
Like Maya Angelou said, they'regoing to always remember how you
make them feel, and that's what.
We want for our futuregenerations, our family.
That's me being selfish.
But for our family, we wantedthem appreciated for who they
are.
So that's why I started thespot, A pod That's why I started
(06:40):
the SPOTAPOD movement, was tocall out and help humanity
identify what was really goingon under the hood with social
media.
Paul (06:54):
And so, like I say into that a little bit later, but I
found you because yournewsletter came up and at that
point never I'd of pods, but Iwasn't really sure how prolific
they are or much of impact hadon me or the people around me
and read that first news letterand there were some names
(07:14):
mentioned in that newsletterthat, that really threw me out
because ones that you do is youcall out the people that
evidence as having either beenpart of or utilized the pod in
some way, shape or form toimprove their own metrics and
likes and things, theirengagement.
I start to, read thosenewsletters and the names that
(07:34):
were mentioned in it blew meaway because they were people
that I was using as a role modelwhen it was first starting out
on LinkedIn, and I assumed thattheir metrics were genuine.
I thought these were achievablemetrics with just hard work,
good copy, good content ideas,
Dan (07:53):
Yeah.
Paul (07:53):
and I realized I'd been fooled and not so much that, but
like also everyone around me wasbeing fooled by these people and
these tactics.
And that really upset me becauselike, I'm a genuine guy.
I don't do things to foolpeople.
Like I'm very straight, honest,straight list, very upfront.
And who I am is who I am on theoutside as well as the inside.
(08:15):
So that really frustrated me.
And then I started following youand I realized learned a lot
more about your story, you know,as you shared, you know, some of
your stories about adoption andfostering, and it blew me away
that you give so much of yourtime for other people, whether
it was people on LinkedIn,whether it was your family, and
at the time, I didn't reallyhave any reason to spark a
(08:39):
conversation with you, right?
Like, Yeah.
I followed along.
I enjoyed your content and keptan eye on things.
And until this year, and I cameto a point in December where a
friend of mine.
Had messaged me and she said youknow, I've been posting videos
on LinkedIn for some time, andI've seen this guy and he does
really different kind of videos.
They're very different to what Ido, but he's getting loads and
(09:00):
loads of engagement and I thinkwhat I'm doing is wrong.
What he's doing seems to begetting loads of engagement.
And she's a marketing person,right?
She's fabulous.
She's really good at what shedoes.
Dan (09:09):
Yeah.
Paul (09:09):
came to me and I went, it's a pod.
It's a pod and.
If you're not fully familiarwith pods, we'll explain them in
detail in a bit.
But essentially it's fakeengagement.
It's been part of a group forthe purposes of automation to
comment on or send specifiedoutputs to any post of a member.
And as I pointed this out toher, she realized that she
(09:31):
wasted an hour of her lifelooking at this guy's videos,
trying to dissect them andunderstand why he would be doing
particularly well.
When they were actually justYouTube videos, they weren't
suitable for LinkedIn.
They wouldn't have drivennatural engagement.
They were only there because,
Dan (09:45):
Yeah.
Paul (09:45):
And I sent her your profile and asked her to kind of
follow along on, on SPOTAPOD.
But that really got me thinking,you know, I've got this new
podcast and I'd love Dan to bepart of it.
So again that's a bit of thejourney as to how we ended up
meeting each other.
Let's go back to when you were akid, right?
Dan (09:58):
That commodore the Commodore.
Like that for me I rememberhaving an Atari, an old Atari,
and if I wanted to play games, Ihad to type them in outta the
magazine that we got everymonth, record them onto a tape
some check them to make surethat we hadn't put a dot instead
of a comma somewhere, which wealways had.
And then eventually after aboutsix weeks worth of work, you
might get to play that game ifthe tape loaded and didn't crash
(10:20):
and you hadn't lost it.
Paul (10:20):
Walk us through why you loved it so much?
What was about it?
Dan (10:23):
I was adopted, you know, until I came into the hall
family, all I knew was just, youknow, you're nothing but a piece
of shit and you won't amount toanything in life.
That's what was my, that's whatmy life looked like prior to the
hall family.
And then my mom, my adopted momwould go to her church function
(10:46):
and drop me off at the localcollege in Vermont.
And had friends and family thatworked at the college.
They would let me use a computercenter there.
And I was eight years old at thetime.
Cobal and Pascal was thelanguage of choice on these
digital equipment corporation,big, huge printers with a green
bar paper.
(11:07):
And I would sit there and comehome.
With these reams of green barpaper, and my mom would sit
there with me board off her assand just cheerlead for me.
She'd be like, that is so cool.
She didn't understand anythingthat I was doing, but that was
the first time in my life that Ihad such a positive experience
(11:30):
with another human being.
it just became the catalyst, youknow, the Commodore Vic 20.
You know, I had the littlecassette tapes that went into
the little tape drives hooked tothe back of it and the big
cartridges.
And I just learned recently, andI never picked this up, that the
Commodore Vic 20, actually thecomputer that's used on the John
(11:51):
Wick films.
you go back and look at whatthey're typing in there, there's
are, those are Vic 20 keyboardsthat they're using.
And I was like, wow, thatbrought back some memories.
But you know, that became thecatalyst of me just wanting to
find a solution.
If you remember what I saidabout vanity metrics and finding
(12:13):
a solution, it's just I get somuch enjoyment of, you know,
trying to figure out a solution.
a tech standpoint, that's just,it's in my nature because that
was what my mom had justinadvertently ingrained into my
brain that success equals ah,you know, Yep.
(12:37):
like a, like, it got me to apoint where I feel like I get a
vacation Yep.
every day when I come to workanything.
Just, I love it so much.
And that's what she, that's whatshe did for me.
Paul (12:50):
I guess from the outside to me.
kind of feels like you found away to use technology to create
a human link.
Not on purpose, but as abyproduct of what you did and
not and I think that's, I thinkthat's fantastic.
I love that.
So then.
Using that experience, then I,where did you go from there?
What?
What was your career path thenfrom that point?
Dan (13:10):
I became a Microsoft junkie.
After that, you know, back, theygot me that Commenter Vic 20 and
I went through the.
Lifecycle of computers that cameaf after that.
The 80, the Radio Shackcomputers.
Then they got me my first pc,which was an Amstrad.
It was an 80 88 processor.
(13:32):
And that's when I startedpicking up gw, what they call
it, GW Basic.
and you know, it was.
Just going through theiterations of what Microsoft had
come out with in, in Windows andthe evolution of software back
in the eighties having, justhaving access to all that they
(13:53):
gave me, my parents gave meaccess to all that, whatever it
was, because they saw.
much it, I was absorbing it andthey knew that it would just
become a career path for me.
And on the flip side of that,they sent me down the career
path of music, which Iabsolutely loved as well.
(14:15):
And, but I have dyslexia, sowhenever I need to read
something, like even the book.
You know, writing this was sucha chore I thought it was a piece
of crap until I actually startedusing to narrate it.
(14:35):
So yes, if you ever get theaudio book version that is ai,
it's a product called hera,which 11 labs under the hood.
It's AI narration, and Icouldn't.
wrote, started writing musicwhen I was 10, but I couldn't
line up because of my dyslexia.
I couldn't line up the lyricsand the notes and everything.
(14:56):
It was just, it was all justjumbled for me.
So I and looked at it, suno andall the background music that's
used in the book for the audiobook is all ai.
It's completely ai.
But.
The music, if you ever get achance, Paul, you should listen
(15:18):
to some of the music that I'veput out It will rival of the
sounds of John Williams.
And, you know, even the soundsof Dune and Gladiator.
So AI can be used for good andbe reused responsibly, but like
(15:39):
everything, you just have tohave balance.
So, So then you I know you'vegot a you moved into the audio
space right?
Paul (15:47):
When as you got older, you moved into, correct me if I'm
wrong, it was kind of movieproduction and audio as well,
Dan (15:52):
yes.
Yeah.
Special effects and videoproduction, correct.
Amazing.
from those early days thenwhat's your favorite, role that
you held?
What was the bit where you gotthe biggest kick in those days?
'cause that was when all thisall the modern.
You know, when I think back tolike when Toy Story one got
released, for example, Iremember sitting absolutely
blown away by the 3D imagery andknowing that had all been
(16:15):
produced by a computer.
And now I look back on it andit's still like, do you know
what?
It's still watchable, which isthe amazing thing for me.
And well, I what, 35, 30 yearslater that it's still watchable,
blasphemy Aware.
But you went through that,right?
I did.
There's one particular clip thatto put together that I
absolutely love, and was for,actually a friend of mine who
(16:40):
was in House of Cards with KevinSpacey.
And it was in cinema four D, andit was a dog fight with three me
German Mesher Schmidt planes.
were supposed to fly in openingscene.
They were flying in over theIngles channel, and you would
(17:02):
see the three.
Measure Schmidt planes coming inand then one would veer off and
it was kind of a storyboard forTales of the Phoenix.
Who actually, Darren got CostasMandal.
If you don't know who CostasMandal is, he is one of the
actors from saw the all the sawmovies.
(17:23):
So just being able to.
Work with that caliber ofpeople.
You know, people see me as likea tech junkie, but a lot of
stuff that I do that I just, Idon't talk about and just don't
humble brag about.
It's fun to have theopportunities to work on some of
those projects like that.
Paul?
Amazing.
(17:44):
And then I guess from there,coming into having your own
family and moving from thatprocess of being adopted to
being an adopter what lessons doyou take from that for other
people?
That is an awesome question.
I never wanted to be a dad of.
(18:04):
Adoptive kids.
Just conceptualized that.
My wife asked me one day beforewe were married, would you ever
consider fostering and adoptingchildren?
I think she was trying to set meup, but for that path, and I'm
like, oh, hell no.
don't want to have to parent achild like I was growing up.
(18:27):
And she just has this way ofinto your soul, my wife,
reaching into your soulcapitalizing on the best parts
of you and leaving thenegativity behind, also ensuring
that she shows you a morepositive outlook or positive,
(18:48):
you know, she gives you ideas ofwhat can give you a better,
positive outcome.
Then the path that you're goingdown.
And she does that with me.
She does it with her kids andit's just, it's an amazing thing
to watch.
I follow, learned to become anincredible follower of hers and
our kids.
(19:09):
You know, in order to be a greatleader, you have to be able to
follow, you have to be a greatfollower.
And Family and my wife are mybiggest teachers.
I would not change thatanything.
I actually am thankful that Iwas put on a path, you know, in
(19:33):
my early years to understandwhat trauma looks like.
Even though I had to live it,I'm thankful that I did live it
now I have some understanding ofwhat the impact is.
So when I'm working with ourkids and they're throwing their
screamers, I can just sit backand listen with more than just
(19:54):
my ears and take it in and itjust, yeah, it's, I'm thankful
that she just, it holds my handand leads the way that's what I
needed.
So I'm sure that the questioneveryone at home is thinking now
is how do you go from notwanting children to having
seven.
(20:14):
And a huge family that, that,you know what, as a dad myself
and like you, it is somethingthat we gel over is like, I'm my
family is everything right?
And I came from a corporateworld where I was working 16
hour days and working an houraway from home each way, and
expected to manage my days offaround the business and cancel
(20:35):
'em at short notice.
And very much for the firstthree years of my son's life, I
wasn't around a great deal andmy wife had to just kind of
call.
And now having him as he's a7-year-old and I've got an 18
month old as well.
I'm very grateful that I have myown business, that I'm able to
work from home, that I live inan age where working from home
is something I can do even.
(20:55):
So I'm very grateful for allthat.
But I cannot for the life of mefathom seven children in my
house like that.
You know, I'm good with two.
I've I'm like, I don't thinkthere's much left of me after
two.
I, it takes an incredible parentto, to have seven children in
one household.
So what's the secret?
my wife.
(21:15):
She just, yeah, she's, she, youknow, we got our first two they
came to us, our first two twolittle girls, four and eight
are, you know, 21 and 25 now,they're getting ready to have
their first children.
And, that was difficult.
And then we had.
(21:37):
My great niece that was born andthat family needed help and we
couldn't turn them away.
The family and then niece justkept pushing them out and
pushing them out, and all of asudden we went from two to six.
And during that journey, my wifeand I looked at each other, can
(22:00):
we do this?
It was mostly me.
I can't do this.
There's no way we can go fromthree to four to five.
And then finally at number sixit was like, honey, we can do
this.
You prepared me for this moment.
And it's that 4-year-old girlthat I talked about that drew
(22:21):
that picture.
She was actually the last one.
The number seven is abiological.
from my first marriage.
So it's just, again, my wife,just having that amazing way to
work with our kids and eventhrough all the chaos, she's
able to prioritize what we needto look at.
(22:44):
You know, if you got three kidsthrowing screamers, okay where's
the conflict at that we need tobe able to, diffuse first.
She just, she knows.
And, you know, and as far as youknow, being able to manage it
all, it's all about forgiveness.
night when they lay their headsdown, we will ask them, what's
(23:07):
tomorrow?
And they'll tell us it's a newday.
they know that it doesn't matterwhat crap happened to happen
today when they wake uptomorrow.
My wife and I are gonna be like,good morning body.
Love you.
You know?
And just, it's a fresh start forthem every single day.
(23:28):
And that level of forgiveness isso important.
And you know what, Paul?
Sometimes at the end of the day,will turn to us and say, mommy,
daddy, what's tomorrow?
Because maybe we've had a littlebit of a rough day.
gonna do that with their kids.
They're going to, it's justthey, it's that, just that
(23:50):
positive positive spin that youput on life that your kids are
gonna pick up and remember.
And that's how we do it.
And, you know, people that don'twant to be parents, I applaud
them they know what theirlimitations are as a person.
If you only have two kids that'swhat you've decided is your
(24:10):
limit and that's awesome.
I commend you for that.
If it's six or nine or 12 andyou can do that's amazing.
That's incredible.
How do you do it?
'cause I want to know it's I'dsay it's, it is more of being a
sponge, but that's a greatquestion.
Fantastic.
I've thoroughly enjoyed digginginto some of these topics with
(24:30):
you because I just think it'samazing to meet somebody who,
like, let's be honest from myperspective, I can see that
everything that you do is aimedat helping make the world a
better place.
Starting at home.
Yeah.
But with the, you know,knowledge that every decision
that you make, every successthat you have at home impacts on
the wider world, and that has aripple effect outwards.
(24:53):
I know that's part of the reasonwhy you then got so heavily
involved in the spot podmovement because the idea that
people were lying to others inorder to financially gain.
And to con other people intohorrendous workloads.
Let's be honest, like,'causesome of the answers for, you
(25:15):
know, some of these.
People at the top of the podchain, I'm gonna call it, right?
I'm gonna corner you for ears.
But the pod chain, they, some ofthese influencers at the top are
selling courses for like$69 or$79.
Come buy my course and I'llteach you how to be a me at
LinkedIn.
And I know loads of peoplewho've bought these courses and
almost ran themselves into theground trying to follow the
(25:37):
tactics that don't work becausethey're tactics that these
people use now.
As opposed to, or have an armyof people to do for them as
opposed to them trying to do itthemselves back when they first
started on LinkedIn.
You know, and you can use thatcelebrity status that influence
that you have once you've got somany thousand followers to gain
(25:59):
traction with ideas and themesand courses much faster than you
can when you are, you've got athousand followers or you've got
2000 followers, right?
What was the first time that yourealized that you could
intercept pods?
And maybe a better question isto start with what?
What's a pod and how do peopleuse pods?
Dan?
Well, you know, Kevin D.
(26:21):
Turner in, our book kind of gaveme a really cut and dry term for
the acronym pods.
said pods are like, you know,the old performance enhancing
drugs.
You know, back in the day, andhe calls them post optimized
(26:44):
Deception Services pods.
And what that means is, let'ssay you and I got onto WhatsApp,
Paul, and I said, Hey, can youjust like and drop a comment on
my post?
And you're like, sure.
And you would go and probablyread it and.
(27:06):
You know, put a genuine commentin there.
But if you magnify that byhundreds of people, not
everybody's gonna go in thereand have your best interest in
mind.
those are what are called manualengagement pods, where you have
hundreds of people in there, butthey're all manually commenting
and liking, and that just takesso much time outta your life to
(27:27):
be able to do that.
Then somebody came up with theidea of.
Letting AI do this.
you sign up to be part of one ofthese services and you join 20
or 30 pods, and the same thingis happening except it's ai.
So if you have one of yourposts, Paul, you said, oh, I
(27:50):
want to get some engagement onthis, so I'm gonna put my post
in here.
Pick, you know, the 20 or 30pods that I want to be able to
engage in my post and then justwalk away and let AI decide
who's gonna drop a, like, who'sgonna drop, you know, a clapping
or a love, or AI doeseverything.
AI's even gonna drop thecomments for you.
(28:13):
That is deception like youwouldn't believe, at the end of
the day it's like the old style.
Ronco products that we used tohave here in the US and the
tagline for their products wasset it and forget it.
So you would sign up for thesepod services, you could walk
away and all of a sudden you'recommenting on stuff that you
(28:37):
have no idea what you're evencommenting which is super scary.
There are posts about ourpolitical stuff that's going on
here in the US blue badges arereacting to and engaging on.
And it makes it look like,because everybody looks up to
those people that are bluebadges and.
(28:59):
Oh, this must be legit.
This must be social proofbecause this person is engaging
on it when in reality they're ina pod.
They have no idea that theyengaged on that unless they're
actually looking every day,every second at that activity.
They have no clue because it'sit's there and then it's gone
(29:21):
because they're engaging onsomething else.
You could lose your business,you could destroy your brand,
you could end up in jail byengaging on something that is
nefarious, is disinformation.
But you know, you start out withyou and I being in a pod and hey
But then when you magnify it,you know, and people just don't
(29:43):
have your best interest in mindit's super scary.
that's not a world that I wantour future generations to grow
up in.
The scariest thing for me isthat you also identified that
some people out there don't evenuse the pods themselves, right?
They're a pod kingpin.
And they're using theirinfluencers and followers to
engage with the pods on theirbehalf, which is even, it just
(30:03):
takes the deception to thatextra level because they're
protecting themselves and usingother people.
Right.
And they're also, thoseblueprints and all these
different groups parties,communities, cohorts, whatever
you want to call them.
They'll get people to sign upand they will make them think
(30:24):
that, you know, you pay them themoney and then they turn around.
They don't tell you, but if youput a post in as part of their
cohort, they'll take that postthat you just put in and they'll
drop it in their pod.
So when you see all theengagement, you're thinking, oh
(30:46):
my gosh, person over here thatjust is helping me with my
marketing, knows their stuff.
But the moment that you stoppaying them.
They will take your content outof those pods and will drop, but
you have no Yep.
You have no clue.
those are the the connectionkingpins and queen pins that you
(31:10):
talked about.
they'll find those digitalmarketers and make some ho
unholy agreement with them thatthey have to.
You know, post four or five oftheir, or share four or five of
their posts per month in theirpods, it doesn't look like those
or queen pins are in pods, buttheir content is still getting
(31:33):
that engagement because, youknow, 10 or 15 creators have,
are putting their content intheir own pods.
So you'll never find them in apod, but You'll You'll always
see that engagement there, andonce you start seeing how fast
it comes in, you'll know rightIf you have within 30 minutes, a
thousand likes, or a couplehundred comments, you know,
(31:55):
that's, it's not possible.
It, you can post that at thesame time every day, but yeah,
you're posting it at the sametime and dropping it into pods.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
And like you can prove all ofthis too, which is the
interesting thing for me islike, I'm.
Always skeptical of people whenthey claim these things.
'cause like everybody has theirown ulterior motives these days
(32:15):
and it almost becomes a point towhere like, how cynical do I
have to be to survive?
But I've seen you, like I knowenough about tech to understand
the basics of how you do whatyou do.
But you've got a whole databaseof people that you can prove.
You can evidence, you've gottheir post, you can identify the
receipt that went with it toprove that came through a pod,
(32:36):
all those sorts of things, Imean, I never will throw or call
out anybody unless I have whatI, call social Yep.
And that's not going in andhacking these platforms.
just observing the trafficthat's coming back to my system
Yep.
that's legitimate traffic.
If I navigate, I'm in thousandsof pods, manual and automated.
(33:00):
So if I go and I look at a post,like if I went in today and
pulled up Link boost, navigatedto the pods that I'm in, pulled
up a post.
sends all the data back down tomy computer, which I can then
collect that post, includeseverybody that engaged on it.
(33:23):
It includes the creator thatpushed it out, the digital
marketer that pushed it out, andit also includes the actual link
to the post.
And the hilarious thing aboutthis is includes the AI comments
that are used.
So those comments that you seethat are dropped, that looks
like ai I like calling out thecomments that were used because
(33:46):
that's what comes back down tomy pc, you know, and that's the
digital receipt.
And you've also caused thosepeople in the pods to comment on
your post and identifiedthemselves, right?
Because I thought that washilarious because it That's one
of the reasons why we ended upchatting again, because I
actually saw somebody who.
It's in my local area who is adigital marketing expert and who
(34:10):
is part of quite a big socialmedia agency here in the uk.
And I screenshot that he was inthe pod at the time and I sent
it to my friend'cause I wasfurious.
I was like, how can somebody whoruns a social media agency
resort to these tactics and getcaught?
And of course they don't realizethey're being caught out because
it's just another comment onanother post unless somebody
(34:31):
tags them back and goes, whatyou doing here?
Then they have no idea.
So I'm, and I'm pleased that Idid screenshot it because his
boss commented on one of myposts about something about how
AI shouldn't be used fornefarious means.
And I went, you can talk yourteam's doing it.
And he went, oh, my team's notdoing it.
And I screenshot, I put thescreenshot in the post.
(34:53):
Strange enough, he went quiet.
He went really quiet.
And I'm like.
You guys, just honestly.
So it's amazing.
It's a tool to be able to fightback.
And I know that, you know, I've,a couple of times I've looked at
influencers and all I have to dois I just have to type in their
name and SPOTAPOD.
And if they've ever been in oneof your articles, their name's
(35:13):
gonna come up and the articlecomes up, you know, and I'm not
even, I'm not even gonna dropnames on this show, right?
Like, I don't need to, they'reall out there already.
But if, seriously, if you'recurious, go and have a look.
In Daniel's articles online, andif you find it of use, I'll also
say this, right?
Dan has a community where youcan buy access to the entire
database of people that he'scaught to date.
(35:35):
So by all means, it's notexpensive.
It's not about Dan making moneyout of this.
It's about paying for his costsand upkeep and things.
you know.
if you've enjoyed the storytoday and you've.
You are like me, you are a bigbeliever in the work that Dan
does.
Then go and have a look at thewebsite and purchase a
membership or something becausehonestly, it makes such a
difference to meet other peoplein this world who are trying to
(35:57):
make a positive difference.
Not because you're paid to, butbecause you care enough to do
something about it.
People have asked me, you know,how do I know when I'm
successful at this?
I tell them, success looks likehelping people see social media
with their eyes wide open.
It's that simple that, you know,and just they talk about it and
(36:21):
then others talk about it.
It's about the impact.
It's not about, I mean, if youlook at.
What, how we put the book outinto market.
We did the audio book first.
We gave it away for free.
People don't understand why Idid that.
Why didn't I put a print versionout?
I and my wife, our family iscomprised of children that have
(36:46):
disabilities.
That was to meet the needs ofthe accessibility community.
The audio book was out there.
It was for free.
And anybody that was blind,anybody that was dyslexic like
me, that couldn't pick up a bookand read it, you know, because
(37:08):
you get lost after the firstpage, but they can listen to it.
It's there, then after that itjust.
You know, putting out the ebookand everything you know, for
free.
And it's interesting because thebest selling part of this is
people paying for it.
(37:29):
That's been the biggest sellers,just people want the printed
copy just to have the printedcopy.
And I never expected that, Paul.
It's, I just, I wanted them tobe able to be impacted and to
learn You know, don't sit thereand just keep grilling yourself
why your content is notperforming well.
(37:50):
You're doing the right things.
Just rinsing and repeating andlearning from your process.
Not everybody's content is gonnabe your content.
Yep.
Your content is your own.
You're gonna meet the needs ofcommunity.
Only, you're not gonna meet theneeds of the masses.
That's never gonna happen.
(38:11):
Yep.
But if we can help people seethe other side, the dark side of
this, then that's what successlooks like.
As a bit of advice for peoplewho are out there who are.
Now perhaps beginning to opentheir eyes a little bit to
what's going on in, let's behonest, it's not just on
LinkedIn.
I could be clear on that.
This is not just LinkedIn, thisis Facebook.
(38:32):
It's all of the social mediaplatforms.
No matter where you go, thisautomated engagement happens.
How can I, as a non-expert, getsome idea of whether somebody's
working using a cheat code?
How do I know that they're partof a pod in some way, shape, or
form?
The biggest telltale sign is,and I always say the devil's in
(38:53):
the details.
can have somebody that has thebig reactions, the really, a
whole lot of reactions, a wholelot of comments.
But the consistent telltale signfor me is the shares and who is
sharing that information.
If you drill down those repostsor those shares and you just
(39:17):
keep, it takes a little bit oftime.
But if you keep scrolling to thebottom of that list and you see
that, you know, the creatorsreposting it, maybe the next
five or 10 reposts are fromaccounts that have like 10 or 15
connections.
Then you know that's probably anengagement pod that's, so you
(39:39):
have to do the legwork.
Most of the stuff on Facebook,the crap that you're seeing
that's AI is all pushed throughengagement And I'll sit there
and on those posts and I'll say,you do know it's against the law
to use fake engagement, youknow, on social media, no,
that's not true.
Yeah, it is.
The federal Trade Commissionpassed that law on October 21st,
(40:01):
2024.
It's against the law to use thatin the US to use fake followers,
fake reactions, fake engagement,period.
Yeah.
Amazing.
So my take on this and what Imight suggest to members of the
audience who's watching this,you know, like if you're out
there.
And you are comparing what youare doing with someone else,
(40:21):
which I think is a dangeranyway, right?
Like ultimately you're in a racewith yourself.
Like compare with yourself andget better based on your own.
And if you do find somebody thatyou want to role model with,
reach out to'em and have aconversation and find out how
real they are.
Right?
And you'll figure it out prettyquickly.
'cause I can guarantee there'sno substance to a lot of the
people that are gettingthousands of comments and likes.
(40:43):
But more importantly.
If you're in any doubt thatthey're in a pod, and you have
to ask yourself the question,are these people in a pod?
Because their engagement is soamazing, probably they are, you
know, without the research, youcan't prove it.
But let's assume that they areand move on and just get on with
your life.
The most horrifying thing for meis if I look at my friend and I
talked about in December, andshe wasted an hour of her time
(41:06):
trying to figure out why hervideos weren't performing as
well as this guy.
We multiply that across the, howmany people are using LinkedIn
even just on its own?
Like what, two, 4 billion?
Something like that.
It's a ridiculous number ofpeople.
Yeah, a billion, but 25% ofthose are fake accounts.
And it's not just me sayingthat, I was saying that last
(41:26):
there's a company called Lumio,that has done all kinds of
research behind it, and I thinkthey came up with like 24.7%,
which was pretty accurate.
And I said 25% because.
Michelle J.
Raymond from Australia had saidshe's been approached by
multiple maybe king, queen pins,and they're telling those people
(41:49):
to create 20 to 30 fake accountsto drive their business funnels
and to put them those fakeaccounts in pods.
And it's it is true.
One of the posts that I'mworking on now is, There's like
20, 20 or 30 fake accountscalled James Brown.
They're on Limb Pod, and I wasjust, and those fake accounts
(42:14):
are driving engagement for someof those connection king and
queen bins, Amazing.
pretty, pretty hilarious.
It's it baffles me, Yeah.
That's the level that we go toin order to fake success when
actually what we should reallyall be focusing on.
the irony is, like I, I knowsome people that work with.
(42:35):
Top LinkedIn influencers and I'mgonna use court marks for the
influencer part because they'vegot hundreds of thousands of
connections or followers rather,and are still struggling to
monetize their LinkedIn becauseultimately it's a bunch of bots
that are following them orpeople who don't care what they
have to see, or they're in thesame space and they're a
competitor or you know, all ofthese crazy things.
(42:57):
And like the whole digitalengagement is just not achieving
anything other than.
Ripping people off, callingpeople outta money and wasting
so much time for so many goodpeople.
And like I said, I mean, I getpeople come to me and all the
time, you know, Paul, I wannalaunch a podcast and I wanna
podcast with millions offollowers.
You know, I wanna monetize it.
I wanna get thousands of viewson YouTube.
(43:17):
Like you've got three ways youcan do that, right?
You've, you can either be acelebrity right now, are you a
celebrity?
No.
No, I'm not a celebrity.
Okay.
Well, your celebrity status isout the window, so we can't use
that one.
Number two, you can putthousands and thousands of
dollars behind it and pay forpaid media adverts.
Can you do that?
No.
No, I can't do that.
Okay.
Your third option is automatedengagement, then, and fake your
(43:39):
engagement, which all of thepodcast platforms will be able
to identify by the way.
Yeah.
So now what do I do?
Well, you do what everybody elsedoes and you launch a podcast
and hope to get a sponsor ifyou're good enough or you just
accept that you're not gonna getthousands of views, but you'll
add some value.
And that's the whole point.
It's just frustrating that wehave to keep having these
(44:00):
conversations over and overagain.
But it's good to know thatthere's somebody out there who's
trying to do something about itand help us help shine a light
on.
The dark corners of social mediaso that we can see what's there.
So Dan I'm gonna, I'm gonna drawthis to a close now.
We've done just under an hourand I've said I'll keep it to
the hour.
I appreciate your time so, somuch.
And genuinely we haven't eventouched on some of the stories
(44:24):
that you have to tell around,you know, I, the half the
stories you can't tell becauseyou'd have to kill me
afterwards.
The rest, you know, you know, wehaven't talked about the nine 11
project.
You know, there's so many thingsI'd love to have you back on in
a few months when we've cleareddown the queue a little bit
more.
But thank you so much for yourtime today.
Appreciate it.
Massively done.
Oh, thank you so much, Paul.
I'm gonna leave people with thisone thought.
(44:45):
Life is not defined by howsuccessful you are.
It's defined by your failfailures and how well you learn
from them.
I love it.
Thank you everybody so much fortaking time outta your life to
spend it with Paul and I.
Thank you very much Dan and yes,exactly.
Thank you very much for watchingalong at home.
I hope you are enjoying seasontwo as much as I am recording it
(45:07):
because it's been an absoluteblast and I will see you again
next week.
Thanks for your time.
Bye-bye.
Today on MarketPulse Pros and Pioneers, I am joined by the
(00:03):
author of the Top 100 List ofLies on Social Media.
Bestselling author Daniel Hall,who has also the amazing
personality behind the SPOTAPODgroup and newsletter on
LinkedIn, who I'm eternallygrateful for.
Daniel is a genuine pleasure tohave you on the show Thank you
(00:24):
very much for joining us.
Dan (00:26):
Oh, thank you so much Paul, and thank you for everybody
that's listening right now andtaking time out of their life to
make it.
about you and I and, putting thehuman back in humanity.
Paul (00:39):
I'm gonna give a bit of your bio and then I'm gonna
explain a little bit of how Ifound you in the first place.
And this is a special edition,anybody's watching along.
This is a special edition, sonormally we do a half hour.
Chat with the guest.
We've had some amazingpersonalities on the show, some
amazing stories.
But the reason I want to shareso much time with Dan here today
(00:59):
is because I.
I found him through professionalterms, so I found him through
his activity on LinkedIn andwhat he does, and I'll explain a
bit more about that in a moment.
But as you can see from the wallbehind Dan, he's so much more
than that.
There is a huge personal lifebehind him that I think we
should share a little bit moreinformation about at the same
(01:19):
time.
So I wanted to split this showin two halves, and I really
don't think that we could havedone of these.
of an hour in a 15 session.
It wouldn't do it justice.
So I wanna give us somebreathing space.
So we're expecting this torecord for about an hour.
along and you're finding thisfascinating, feel free to just
book this and come back to it.
I don't expect you to watch itall in one go.
(01:42):
There are some phenomenal truthsand lessons that you will pick
up from this story that I cannotwait to share with you all.
Dan is a full stack Microsoftdeveloper, data analytics expert
and the founder of Dream ITSoftware, and he's got a career
spanning over 20 years and he'sworked on high stake software
(02:03):
development projects acrossindustries.
From aerospace to NU programmingstarted and I love this'cause
it's very my own story.
I started at a eight with aCommodore VIC 2020, setting the
foundation for a lifetime ofinnovation.
Beyond this technical expertise,Dan is a bestselling off.
(02:24):
We've mentioned the top 100 listof lies on social media, not
below will have links to bothBooks and Barnes and Noble as
well.
He is the creator of SPOTAPOD.
There it is.
There it is.
Yeah.
It's the creator of SPOTAPOD,which is how I found you in the
First and is a dedicatedadvocate for adoption.
Having built an amazing familyof seven children's unique blend
(02:47):
of data driven problem solving,and a deep commit commitment to
human fuel's mission, as yousaid, to put the human back in
humanity through Taji.
That is easily one of myfavorite bios that I've had to
read.
So far date, Dan and I know thetruth behind it.
we've swapped message messageson LinkedIn for time now.
I think I, I probably found youabout a year and a half, nearly
(03:09):
two years ago.
SPOTAPOD and newsletters, whichI do, you know what I'm gonna,
I'm gonna leave it to you toexplain SPOTAPOD and means for
people.
And we can get into it a littlebit later the story of how you
came to, to.
And start that.
Dan (03:25):
So all those accolades that you just rattled off Paul, pale
in comparison to being a dad,they just so minute for me.
we talk about SPOTAPOD, oh mygosh, that, that started as a
temper tantrum.
For our 4-year-old daughter whowas severely drug and alcohol
(03:49):
exposed in utero, she's adopted.
She two weeks in detox after shewas born and within a, within
about four and a half monthspart small intestines had died.
So anytime you are thrown intothe situation of working with
fetal alcohol.
You're going to be dealing withmultiple temper tantrums, just
(04:12):
self-regulation, and one day shewas throwing one of her
screamers and she justdisappeared.
It went completely silent.
She came back about 15 minuteslater with a picture of her and
I holding hands.
And you can see by this picturemy mouth is huge, which means I
(04:34):
was probably a little bit loudthat day.
And she came down with thispicture.
She had gone to her room and shecame down with that picture and
she said, daddy, I am sorry.
I am so sorry.
And of course she got emotional.
I got emotional.
And she asked if she could hangit up.
(04:54):
On my wall back here and I waslike, and then the pictures just
started rolling in some justbecause, and some because of,
you know, more tantrums.
But, oh my gosh, Paul, she wasfour and she knew that taking
(05:15):
time out of her life to make itabout somebody else was so
impactful.
So over the course of threeyears, I developed software to
solve the vanity metrics.
I can actually calculate howmuch time we're spending
together in the comments onsocial media, but as I was
(05:37):
writing the software and lookingat some of the data, I noticed
that there was a lot ofartificial intelligence inside
the comments.
And I'm like, is this what ourfuture generations have forward
to is all these.
vanity metrics.
Our kids have some remarkablespecial abilities, but we don't
(05:58):
want them to become a vanitynumber.
We want people to see love herein value the time that they
spend with our kids.
Not worried about whetherthey're, you know, number one in
this and number two in this.
And I've got a million likeshere and a million likes here.
Nobody's gonna ever rememberyour vanity metrics.
(06:19):
Like Maya Angelou said, they'regoing to always remember how you
make them feel, and that's what.
We want for our futuregenerations, our family.
That's me being selfish.
But for our family, we wantedthem appreciated for who they
are.
So that's why I started thespot, A pod That's why I started
(06:40):
the SPOTAPOD movement, was tocall out and help humanity
identify what was really goingon under the hood with social
media.
Paul (06:54):
And so, like I say into that a little bit later, but I
found you because yournewsletter came up and at that
point never I'd of pods, but Iwasn't really sure how prolific
they are or much of impact hadon me or the people around me
and read that first news letterand there were some names
(07:14):
mentioned in that newsletterthat, that really threw me out
because ones that you do is youcall out the people that
evidence as having either beenpart of or utilized the pod in
some way, shape or form toimprove their own metrics and
likes and things, theirengagement.
I start to, read thosenewsletters and the names that
(07:34):
were mentioned in it blew meaway because they were people
that I was using as a role modelwhen it was first starting out
on LinkedIn, and I assumed thattheir metrics were genuine.
I thought these were achievablemetrics with just hard work,
good copy, good content ideas,
Dan (07:53):
Yeah.
Paul (07:53):
and I realized I'd been fooled and not so much that, but
like also everyone around me wasbeing fooled by these people and
these tactics.
And that really upset me becauselike, I'm a genuine guy.
I don't do things to foolpeople.
Like I'm very straight, honest,straight list, very upfront.
And who I am is who I am on theoutside as well as the inside.
(08:15):
So that really frustrated me.
And then I started following youand I realized learned a lot
more about your story, you know,as you shared, you know, some of
your stories about adoption andfostering, and it blew me away
that you give so much of yourtime for other people, whether
it was people on LinkedIn,whether it was your family, and
at the time, I didn't reallyhave any reason to spark a
(08:39):
conversation with you, right?
Like, Yeah.
I followed along.
I enjoyed your content and keptan eye on things.
And until this year, and I cameto a point in December where a
friend of mine.
Had messaged me and she said youknow, I've been posting videos
on LinkedIn for some time, andI've seen this guy and he does
really different kind of videos.
They're very different to what Ido, but he's getting loads and
(09:00):
loads of engagement and I thinkwhat I'm doing is wrong.
What he's doing seems to begetting loads of engagement.
And she's a marketing person,right?
She's fabulous.
She's really good at what shedoes.
Dan (09:09):
Yeah.
Paul (09:09):
came to me and I went, it's a pod.
It's a pod and.
If you're not fully familiarwith pods, we'll explain them in
detail in a bit.
But essentially it's fakeengagement.
It's been part of a group forthe purposes of automation to
comment on or send specifiedoutputs to any post of a member.
And as I pointed this out toher, she realized that she
(09:31):
wasted an hour of her lifelooking at this guy's videos,
trying to dissect them andunderstand why he would be doing
particularly well.
When they were actually justYouTube videos, they weren't
suitable for LinkedIn.
They wouldn't have drivennatural engagement.
They were only there because,
Dan (09:45):
Yeah.
Paul (09:45):
And I sent her your profile and asked her to kind of
follow along on, on SPOTAPOD.
But that really got me thinking,you know, I've got this new
podcast and I'd love Dan to bepart of it.
So again that's a bit of thejourney as to how we ended up
meeting each other.
Let's go back to when you were akid, right?
Dan (09:58):
That commodore the Commodore.
Like that for me I rememberhaving an Atari, an old Atari,
and if I wanted to play games, Ihad to type them in outta the
magazine that we got everymonth, record them onto a tape
some check them to make surethat we hadn't put a dot instead
of a comma somewhere, which wealways had.
And then eventually after aboutsix weeks worth of work, you
might get to play that game ifthe tape loaded and didn't crash
(10:20):
and you hadn't lost it.
Paul (10:20):
Walk us through why you loved it so much?
What was about it?
Dan (10:23):
I was adopted, you know, until I came into the hall
family, all I knew was just, youknow, you're nothing but a piece
of shit and you won't amount toanything in life.
That's what was my, that's whatmy life looked like prior to the
hall family.
And then my mom, my adopted momwould go to her church function
(10:46):
and drop me off at the localcollege in Vermont.
And had friends and family thatworked at the college.
They would let me use a computercenter there.
And I was eight years old at thetime.
Cobal and Pascal was thelanguage of choice on these
digital equipment corporation,big, huge printers with a green
bar paper.
(11:07):
And I would sit there and comehome.
With these reams of green barpaper, and my mom would sit
there with me board off her assand just cheerlead for me.
She'd be like, that is so cool.
She didn't understand anythingthat I was doing, but that was
the first time in my life that Ihad such a positive experience
(11:30):
with another human being.
it just became the catalyst, youknow, the Commodore Vic 20.
You know, I had the littlecassette tapes that went into
the little tape drives hooked tothe back of it and the big
cartridges.
And I just learned recently, andI never picked this up, that the
Commodore Vic 20, actually thecomputer that's used on the John
(11:51):
Wick films.
you go back and look at whatthey're typing in there, there's
are, those are Vic 20 keyboardsthat they're using.
And I was like, wow, thatbrought back some memories.
But you know, that became thecatalyst of me just wanting to
find a solution.
If you remember what I saidabout vanity metrics and finding
(12:13):
a solution, it's just I get somuch enjoyment of, you know,
trying to figure out a solution.
a tech standpoint, that's just,it's in my nature because that
was what my mom had justinadvertently ingrained into my
brain that success equals ah,you know, Yep.
(12:37):
like a, like, it got me to apoint where I feel like I get a
vacation Yep.
every day when I come to workanything.
Just, I love it so much.
And that's what she, that's whatshe did for me.
Paul (12:50):
I guess from the outside to me.
kind of feels like you found away to use technology to create
a human link.
Not on purpose, but as abyproduct of what you did and
not and I think that's, I thinkthat's fantastic.
I love that.
So then.
Using that experience, then I,where did you go from there?
What?
What was your career path thenfrom that point?
Dan (13:10):
I became a Microsoft junkie.
After that, you know, back, theygot me that Commenter Vic 20 and
I went through the.
Lifecycle of computers that cameaf after that.
The 80, the Radio Shackcomputers.
Then they got me my first pc,which was an Amstrad.
It was an 80 88 processor.
(13:32):
And that's when I startedpicking up gw, what they call
it, GW Basic.
and you know, it was.
Just going through theiterations of what Microsoft had
come out with in, in Windows andthe evolution of software back
in the eighties having, justhaving access to all that they
(13:53):
gave me, my parents gave meaccess to all that, whatever it
was, because they saw.
much it, I was absorbing it andthey knew that it would just
become a career path for me.
And on the flip side of that,they sent me down the career
path of music, which Iabsolutely loved as well.
(14:15):
And, but I have dyslexia, sowhenever I need to read
something, like even the book.
You know, writing this was sucha chore I thought it was a piece
of crap until I actually startedusing to narrate it.
(14:35):
So yes, if you ever get theaudio book version that is ai,
it's a product called hera,which 11 labs under the hood.
It's AI narration, and Icouldn't.
wrote, started writing musicwhen I was 10, but I couldn't
line up because of my dyslexia.
I couldn't line up the lyricsand the notes and everything.
(14:56):
It was just, it was all justjumbled for me.
So I and looked at it, suno andall the background music that's
used in the book for the audiobook is all ai.
It's completely ai.
But.
The music, if you ever get achance, Paul, you should listen
(15:18):
to some of the music that I'veput out It will rival of the
sounds of John Williams.
And, you know, even the soundsof Dune and Gladiator.
So AI can be used for good andbe reused responsibly, but like
(15:39):
everything, you just have tohave balance.
So, So then you I know you'vegot a you moved into the audio
space right?
Paul (15:47):
When as you got older, you moved into, correct me if I'm
wrong, it was kind of movieproduction and audio as well,
Dan (15:52):
yes.
Yeah.
Special effects and videoproduction, correct.
Amazing.
from those early days thenwhat's your favorite, role that
you held?
What was the bit where you gotthe biggest kick in those days?
'cause that was when all thisall the modern.
You know, when I think back tolike when Toy Story one got
released, for example, Iremember sitting absolutely
blown away by the 3D imagery andknowing that had all been
(16:15):
produced by a computer.
And now I look back on it andit's still like, do you know
what?
It's still watchable, which isthe amazing thing for me.
And well, I what, 35, 30 yearslater that it's still watchable,
blasphemy Aware.
But you went through that,right?
I did.
There's one particular clip thatto put together that I
absolutely love, and was for,actually a friend of mine who
(16:40):
was in House of Cards with KevinSpacey.
And it was in cinema four D, andit was a dog fight with three me
German Mesher Schmidt planes.
were supposed to fly in openingscene.
They were flying in over theIngles channel, and you would
(17:02):
see the three.
Measure Schmidt planes coming inand then one would veer off and
it was kind of a storyboard forTales of the Phoenix.
Who actually, Darren got CostasMandal.
If you don't know who CostasMandal is, he is one of the
actors from saw the all the sawmovies.
(17:23):
So just being able to.
Work with that caliber ofpeople.
You know, people see me as likea tech junkie, but a lot of
stuff that I do that I just, Idon't talk about and just don't
humble brag about.
It's fun to have theopportunities to work on some of
those projects like that.
Paul?
Amazing.
(17:44):
And then I guess from there,coming into having your own
family and moving from thatprocess of being adopted to
being an adopter what lessons doyou take from that for other
people?
That is an awesome question.
I never wanted to be a dad of.
(18:04):
Adoptive kids.
Just conceptualized that.
My wife asked me one day beforewe were married, would you ever
consider fostering and adoptingchildren?
I think she was trying to set meup, but for that path, and I'm
like, oh, hell no.
don't want to have to parent achild like I was growing up.
(18:27):
And she just has this way ofinto your soul, my wife,
reaching into your soulcapitalizing on the best parts
of you and leaving thenegativity behind, also ensuring
that she shows you a morepositive outlook or positive,
(18:48):
you know, she gives you ideas ofwhat can give you a better,
positive outcome.
Then the path that you're goingdown.
And she does that with me.
She does it with her kids andit's just, it's an amazing thing
to watch.
I follow, learned to become anincredible follower of hers and
our kids.
(19:09):
You know, in order to be a greatleader, you have to be able to
follow, you have to be a greatfollower.
And Family and my wife are mybiggest teachers.
I would not change thatanything.
I actually am thankful that Iwas put on a path, you know, in
(19:33):
my early years to understandwhat trauma looks like.
Even though I had to live it,I'm thankful that I did live it
now I have some understanding ofwhat the impact is.
So when I'm working with ourkids and they're throwing their
screamers, I can just sit backand listen with more than just
(19:54):
my ears and take it in and itjust, yeah, it's, I'm thankful
that she just, it holds my handand leads the way that's what I
needed.
So I'm sure that the questioneveryone at home is thinking now
is how do you go from notwanting children to having
seven.
(20:14):
And a huge family that, that,you know what, as a dad myself
and like you, it is somethingthat we gel over is like, I'm my
family is everything right?
And I came from a corporateworld where I was working 16
hour days and working an houraway from home each way, and
expected to manage my days offaround the business and cancel
(20:35):
'em at short notice.
And very much for the firstthree years of my son's life, I
wasn't around a great deal andmy wife had to just kind of
call.
And now having him as he's a7-year-old and I've got an 18
month old as well.
I'm very grateful that I have myown business, that I'm able to
work from home, that I live inan age where working from home
is something I can do even.
(20:55):
So I'm very grateful for allthat.
But I cannot for the life of mefathom seven children in my
house like that.
You know, I'm good with two.
I've I'm like, I don't thinkthere's much left of me after
two.
I, it takes an incredible parentto, to have seven children in
one household.
So what's the secret?
my wife.
(21:15):
She just, yeah, she's, she, youknow, we got our first two they
came to us, our first two twolittle girls, four and eight
are, you know, 21 and 25 now,they're getting ready to have
their first children.
And, that was difficult.
And then we had.
(21:37):
My great niece that was born andthat family needed help and we
couldn't turn them away.
The family and then niece justkept pushing them out and
pushing them out, and all of asudden we went from two to six.
And during that journey, my wifeand I looked at each other, can
(22:00):
we do this?
It was mostly me.
I can't do this.
There's no way we can go fromthree to four to five.
And then finally at number sixit was like, honey, we can do
this.
You prepared me for this moment.
And it's that 4-year-old girlthat I talked about that drew
(22:21):
that picture.
She was actually the last one.
The number seven is abiological.
from my first marriage.
So it's just, again, my wife,just having that amazing way to
work with our kids and eventhrough all the chaos, she's
able to prioritize what we needto look at.
(22:44):
You know, if you got three kidsthrowing screamers, okay where's
the conflict at that we need tobe able to, diffuse first.
She just, she knows.
And, you know, and as far as youknow, being able to manage it
all, it's all about forgiveness.
night when they lay their headsdown, we will ask them, what's
(23:07):
tomorrow?
And they'll tell us it's a newday.
they know that it doesn't matterwhat crap happened to happen
today when they wake uptomorrow.
My wife and I are gonna be like,good morning body.
Love you.
You know?
And just, it's a fresh start forthem every single day.
(23:28):
And that level of forgiveness isso important.
And you know what, Paul?
Sometimes at the end of the day,will turn to us and say, mommy,
daddy, what's tomorrow?
Because maybe we've had a littlebit of a rough day.
gonna do that with their kids.
They're going to, it's justthey, it's that, just that
(23:50):
positive positive spin that youput on life that your kids are
gonna pick up and remember.
And that's how we do it.
And, you know, people that don'twant to be parents, I applaud
them they know what theirlimitations are as a person.
If you only have two kids that'swhat you've decided is your
(24:10):
limit and that's awesome.
I commend you for that.
If it's six or nine or 12 andyou can do that's amazing.
That's incredible.
How do you do it?
'cause I want to know it's I'dsay it's, it is more of being a
sponge, but that's a greatquestion.
Fantastic.
I've thoroughly enjoyed digginginto some of these topics with
(24:30):
you because I just think it'samazing to meet somebody who,
like, let's be honest from myperspective, I can see that
everything that you do is aimedat helping make the world a
better place.
Starting at home.
Yeah.
But with the, you know,knowledge that every decision
that you make, every successthat you have at home impacts on
the wider world, and that has aripple effect outwards.
(24:53):
I know that's part of the reasonwhy you then got so heavily
involved in the spot podmovement because the idea that
people were lying to others inorder to financially gain.
And to con other people intohorrendous workloads.
Let's be honest, like,'causesome of the answers for, you
(25:15):
know, some of these.
People at the top of the podchain, I'm gonna call it, right?
I'm gonna corner you for ears.
But the pod chain, they, some ofthese influencers at the top are
selling courses for like$69 or$79.
Come buy my course and I'llteach you how to be a me at
LinkedIn.
And I know loads of peoplewho've bought these courses and
almost ran themselves into theground trying to follow the
(25:37):
tactics that don't work becausethey're tactics that these
people use now.
As opposed to, or have an armyof people to do for them as
opposed to them trying to do itthemselves back when they first
started on LinkedIn.
You know, and you can use thatcelebrity status that influence
that you have once you've got somany thousand followers to gain
(25:59):
traction with ideas and themesand courses much faster than you
can when you are, you've got athousand followers or you've got
2000 followers, right?
What was the first time that yourealized that you could
intercept pods?
And maybe a better question isto start with what?
What's a pod and how do peopleuse pods?
Dan?
Well, you know, Kevin D.
(26:21):
Turner in, our book kind of gaveme a really cut and dry term for
the acronym pods.
said pods are like, you know,the old performance enhancing
drugs.
You know, back in the day, andhe calls them post optimized
(26:44):
Deception Services pods.
And what that means is, let'ssay you and I got onto WhatsApp,
Paul, and I said, Hey, can youjust like and drop a comment on
my post?
And you're like, sure.
And you would go and probablyread it and.
(27:06):
You know, put a genuine commentin there.
But if you magnify that byhundreds of people, not
everybody's gonna go in thereand have your best interest in
mind.
those are what are called manualengagement pods, where you have
hundreds of people in there, butthey're all manually commenting
and liking, and that just takesso much time outta your life to
(27:27):
be able to do that.
Then somebody came up with theidea of.
Letting AI do this.
you sign up to be part of one ofthese services and you join 20
or 30 pods, and the same thingis happening except it's ai.
So if you have one of yourposts, Paul, you said, oh, I
(27:50):
want to get some engagement onthis, so I'm gonna put my post
in here.
Pick, you know, the 20 or 30pods that I want to be able to
engage in my post and then justwalk away and let AI decide
who's gonna drop a, like, who'sgonna drop, you know, a clapping
or a love, or AI doeseverything.
AI's even gonna drop thecomments for you.
(28:13):
That is deception like youwouldn't believe, at the end of
the day it's like the old style.
Ronco products that we used tohave here in the US and the
tagline for their products wasset it and forget it.
So you would sign up for thesepod services, you could walk
away and all of a sudden you'recommenting on stuff that you
(28:37):
have no idea what you're evencommenting which is super scary.
There are posts about ourpolitical stuff that's going on
here in the US blue badges arereacting to and engaging on.
And it makes it look like,because everybody looks up to
those people that are bluebadges and.
(28:59):
Oh, this must be legit.
This must be social proofbecause this person is engaging
on it when in reality they're ina pod.
They have no idea that theyengaged on that unless they're
actually looking every day,every second at that activity.
They have no clue because it'sit's there and then it's gone
(29:21):
because they're engaging onsomething else.
You could lose your business,you could destroy your brand,
you could end up in jail byengaging on something that is
nefarious, is disinformation.
But you know, you start out withyou and I being in a pod and hey
But then when you magnify it,you know, and people just don't
(29:43):
have your best interest in mindit's super scary.
that's not a world that I wantour future generations to grow
up in.
The scariest thing for me isthat you also identified that
some people out there don't evenuse the pods themselves, right?
They're a pod kingpin.
And they're using theirinfluencers and followers to
engage with the pods on theirbehalf, which is even, it just
(30:03):
takes the deception to thatextra level because they're
protecting themselves and usingother people.
Right.
And they're also, thoseblueprints and all these
different groups parties,communities, cohorts, whatever
you want to call them.
They'll get people to sign upand they will make them think
(30:24):
that, you know, you pay them themoney and then they turn around.
They don't tell you, but if youput a post in as part of their
cohort, they'll take that postthat you just put in and they'll
drop it in their pod.
So when you see all theengagement, you're thinking, oh
(30:46):
my gosh, person over here thatjust is helping me with my
marketing, knows their stuff.
But the moment that you stoppaying them.
They will take your content outof those pods and will drop, but
you have no Yep.
You have no clue.
those are the the connectionkingpins and queen pins that you
(31:10):
talked about.
they'll find those digitalmarketers and make some ho
unholy agreement with them thatthey have to.
You know, post four or five oftheir, or share four or five of
their posts per month in theirpods, it doesn't look like those
or queen pins are in pods, buttheir content is still getting
(31:33):
that engagement because, youknow, 10 or 15 creators have,
are putting their content intheir own pods.
So you'll never find them in apod, but You'll You'll always
see that engagement there, andonce you start seeing how fast
it comes in, you'll know rightIf you have within 30 minutes, a
thousand likes, or a couplehundred comments, you know,
(31:55):
that's, it's not possible.
It, you can post that at thesame time every day, but yeah,
you're posting it at the sametime and dropping it into pods.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yep.
And like you can prove all ofthis too, which is the
interesting thing for me islike, I'm.
Always skeptical of people whenthey claim these things.
'cause like everybody has theirown ulterior motives these days
(32:15):
and it almost becomes a point towhere like, how cynical do I
have to be to survive?
But I've seen you, like I knowenough about tech to understand
the basics of how you do whatyou do.
But you've got a whole databaseof people that you can prove.
You can evidence, you've gottheir post, you can identify the
receipt that went with it toprove that came through a pod,
(32:36):
all those sorts of things, Imean, I never will throw or call
out anybody unless I have whatI, call social Yep.
And that's not going in andhacking these platforms.
just observing the trafficthat's coming back to my system
Yep.
that's legitimate traffic.
If I navigate, I'm in thousandsof pods, manual and automated.
(33:00):
So if I go and I look at a post,like if I went in today and
pulled up Link boost, navigatedto the pods that I'm in, pulled
up a post.
sends all the data back down tomy computer, which I can then
collect that post, includeseverybody that engaged on it.
(33:23):
It includes the creator thatpushed it out, the digital
marketer that pushed it out, andit also includes the actual link
to the post.
And the hilarious thing aboutthis is includes the AI comments
that are used.
So those comments that you seethat are dropped, that looks
like ai I like calling out thecomments that were used because
(33:46):
that's what comes back down tomy pc, you know, and that's the
digital receipt.
And you've also caused thosepeople in the pods to comment on
your post and identifiedthemselves, right?
Because I thought that washilarious because it That's one
of the reasons why we ended upchatting again, because I
actually saw somebody who.
It's in my local area who is adigital marketing expert and who
(34:10):
is part of quite a big socialmedia agency here in the uk.
And I screenshot that he was inthe pod at the time and I sent
it to my friend'cause I wasfurious.
I was like, how can somebody whoruns a social media agency
resort to these tactics and getcaught?
And of course they don't realizethey're being caught out because
it's just another comment onanother post unless somebody
(34:31):
tags them back and goes, whatyou doing here?
Then they have no idea.
So I'm, and I'm pleased that Idid screenshot it because his
boss commented on one of myposts about something about how
AI shouldn't be used fornefarious means.
And I went, you can talk yourteam's doing it.
And he went, oh, my team's notdoing it.
And I screenshot, I put thescreenshot in the post.
(34:53):
Strange enough, he went quiet.
He went really quiet.
And I'm like.
You guys, just honestly.
So it's amazing.
It's a tool to be able to fightback.
And I know that, you know, I've,a couple of times I've looked at
influencers and all I have to dois I just have to type in their
name and SPOTAPOD.
And if they've ever been in oneof your articles, their name's
(35:13):
gonna come up and the articlecomes up, you know, and I'm not
even, I'm not even gonna dropnames on this show, right?
Like, I don't need to, they'reall out there already.
But if, seriously, if you'recurious, go and have a look.
In Daniel's articles online, andif you find it of use, I'll also
say this, right?
Dan has a community where youcan buy access to the entire
database of people that he'scaught to date.
(35:35):
So by all means, it's notexpensive.
It's not about Dan making moneyout of this.
It's about paying for his costsand upkeep and things.
you know.
if you've enjoyed the storytoday and you've.
You are like me, you are a bigbeliever in the work that Dan
does.
Then go and have a look at thewebsite and purchase a
membership or something becausehonestly, it makes such a
difference to meet other peoplein this world who are trying to
(35:57):
make a positive difference.
Not because you're paid to, butbecause you care enough to do
something about it.
People have asked me, you know,how do I know when I'm
successful at this?
I tell them, success looks likehelping people see social media
with their eyes wide open.
It's that simple that, you know,and just they talk about it and
(36:21):
then others talk about it.
It's about the impact.
It's not about, I mean, if youlook at.
What, how we put the book outinto market.
We did the audio book first.
We gave it away for free.
People don't understand why Idid that.
Why didn't I put a print versionout?
I and my wife, our family iscomprised of children that have
(36:46):
disabilities.
That was to meet the needs ofthe accessibility community.
The audio book was out there.
It was for free.
And anybody that was blind,anybody that was dyslexic like
me, that couldn't pick up a bookand read it, you know, because
(37:08):
you get lost after the firstpage, but they can listen to it.
It's there, then after that itjust.
You know, putting out the ebookand everything you know, for
free.
And it's interesting because thebest selling part of this is
people paying for it.
(37:29):
That's been the biggest sellers,just people want the printed
copy just to have the printedcopy.
And I never expected that, Paul.
It's, I just, I wanted them tobe able to be impacted and to
learn You know, don't sit thereand just keep grilling yourself
why your content is notperforming well.
(37:50):
You're doing the right things.
Just rinsing and repeating andlearning from your process.
Not everybody's content is gonnabe your content.
Yep.
Your content is your own.
You're gonna meet the needs ofcommunity.
Only, you're not gonna meet theneeds of the masses.
That's never gonna happen.
(38:11):
Yep.
But if we can help people seethe other side, the dark side of
this, then that's what successlooks like.
As a bit of advice for peoplewho are out there who are.
Now perhaps beginning to opentheir eyes a little bit to
what's going on in, let's behonest, it's not just on
LinkedIn.
I could be clear on that.
This is not just LinkedIn, thisis Facebook.
(38:32):
It's all of the social mediaplatforms.
No matter where you go, thisautomated engagement happens.
How can I, as a non-expert, getsome idea of whether somebody's
working using a cheat code?
How do I know that they're partof a pod in some way, shape, or
form?
The biggest telltale sign is,and I always say the devil's in
(38:53):
the details.
can have somebody that has thebig reactions, the really, a
whole lot of reactions, a wholelot of comments.
But the consistent telltale signfor me is the shares and who is
sharing that information.
If you drill down those repostsor those shares and you just
(39:17):
keep, it takes a little bit oftime.
But if you keep scrolling to thebottom of that list and you see
that, you know, the creatorsreposting it, maybe the next
five or 10 reposts are fromaccounts that have like 10 or 15
connections.
Then you know that's probably anengagement pod that's, so you
(39:39):
have to do the legwork.
Most of the stuff on Facebook,the crap that you're seeing
that's AI is all pushed throughengagement And I'll sit there
and on those posts and I'll say,you do know it's against the law
to use fake engagement, youknow, on social media, no,
that's not true.
Yeah, it is.
The federal Trade Commissionpassed that law on October 21st,
(40:01):
2024.
It's against the law to use thatin the US to use fake followers,
fake reactions, fake engagement,period.
Yeah.
Amazing.
So my take on this and what Imight suggest to members of the
audience who's watching this,you know, like if you're out
there.
And you are comparing what youare doing with someone else,
(40:21):
which I think is a dangeranyway, right?
Like ultimately you're in a racewith yourself.
Like compare with yourself andget better based on your own.
And if you do find somebody thatyou want to role model with,
reach out to'em and have aconversation and find out how
real they are.
Right?
And you'll figure it out prettyquickly.
'cause I can guarantee there'sno substance to a lot of the
people that are gettingthousands of comments and likes.
(40:43):
But more importantly.
If you're in any doubt thatthey're in a pod, and you have
to ask yourself the question,are these people in a pod?
Because their engagement is soamazing, probably they are, you
know, without the research, youcan't prove it.
But let's assume that they areand move on and just get on with
your life.
The most horrifying thing for meis if I look at my friend and I
talked about in December, andshe wasted an hour of her time
(41:06):
trying to figure out why hervideos weren't performing as
well as this guy.
We multiply that across the, howmany people are using LinkedIn
even just on its own?
Like what, two, 4 billion?
Something like that.
It's a ridiculous number ofpeople.
Yeah, a billion, but 25% ofthose are fake accounts.
And it's not just me sayingthat, I was saying that last
(41:26):
there's a company called Lumio,that has done all kinds of
research behind it, and I thinkthey came up with like 24.7%,
which was pretty accurate.
And I said 25% because.
Michelle J.
Raymond from Australia had saidshe's been approached by
multiple maybe king, queen pins,and they're telling those people
(41:49):
to create 20 to 30 fake accountsto drive their business funnels
and to put them those fakeaccounts in pods.
And it's it is true.
One of the posts that I'mworking on now is, There's like
20, 20 or 30 fake accountscalled James Brown.
They're on Limb Pod, and I wasjust, and those fake accounts
(42:14):
are driving engagement for someof those connection king and
queen bins, Amazing.
pretty, pretty hilarious.
It's it baffles me, Yeah.
That's the level that we go toin order to fake success when
actually what we should reallyall be focusing on.
the irony is, like I, I knowsome people that work with.
(42:35):
Top LinkedIn influencers and I'mgonna use court marks for the
influencer part because they'vegot hundreds of thousands of
connections or followers rather,and are still struggling to
monetize their LinkedIn becauseultimately it's a bunch of bots
that are following them orpeople who don't care what they
have to see, or they're in thesame space and they're a
competitor or you know, all ofthese crazy things.
(42:57):
And like the whole digitalengagement is just not achieving
anything other than.
Ripping people off, callingpeople outta money and wasting
so much time for so many goodpeople.
And like I said, I mean, I getpeople come to me and all the
time, you know, Paul, I wannalaunch a podcast and I wanna
podcast with millions offollowers.
You know, I wanna monetize it.
I wanna get thousands of viewson YouTube.
(43:17):
Like you've got three ways youcan do that, right?
You've, you can either be acelebrity right now, are you a
celebrity?
No.
No, I'm not a celebrity.
Okay.
Well, your celebrity status isout the window, so we can't use
that one.
Number two, you can putthousands and thousands of
dollars behind it and pay forpaid media adverts.
Can you do that?
No.
No, I can't do that.
Okay.
Your third option is automatedengagement, then, and fake your
(43:39):
engagement, which all of thepodcast platforms will be able
to identify by the way.
Yeah.
So now what do I do?
Well, you do what everybody elsedoes and you launch a podcast
and hope to get a sponsor ifyou're good enough or you just
accept that you're not gonna getthousands of views, but you'll
add some value.
And that's the whole point.
It's just frustrating that wehave to keep having these
(44:00):
conversations over and overagain.
But it's good to know thatthere's somebody out there who's
trying to do something about itand help us help shine a light
on.
The dark corners of social mediaso that we can see what's there.
So Dan I'm gonna, I'm gonna drawthis to a close now.
We've done just under an hourand I've said I'll keep it to
the hour.
I appreciate your time so, somuch.
And genuinely we haven't eventouched on some of the stories
(44:24):
that you have to tell around,you know, I, the half the
stories you can't tell becauseyou'd have to kill me
afterwards.
The rest, you know, you know, wehaven't talked about the nine 11
project.
You know, there's so many thingsI'd love to have you back on in
a few months when we've cleareddown the queue a little bit
more.
But thank you so much for yourtime today.
Appreciate it.
Massively done.
Oh, thank you so much, Paul.
I'm gonna leave people with thisone thought.
(44:45):
Life is not defined by howsuccessful you are.
It's defined by your failfailures and how well you learn
from them.
I love it.
Thank you everybody so much fortaking time outta your life to
spend it with Paul and I.
Thank you very much Dan and yes,exactly.
Thank you very much for watchingalong at home.
I hope you are enjoying seasontwo as much as I am recording it
(45:07):
because it's been an absoluteblast and I will see you again
next week.
Thanks for your time.
Bye-bye.
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