Visual Storytelling for Authors and Speakers with John DeMato

Visual Storytelling for Authors and Speakers with John DeMato 

In this episode of the All Things Book Marketing podcast, this episode’s host Marissa Eigenbrood, President of Smith Publicity, welcomes visual storytelling strategist and photographer, John DeMato.

They delve into John's background, from his early days in photography to his evolution as a strategist helping professionals enhance their visual presence.  

John shares insights on the importance of having a well-rounded visual library, including core assets, visual evidence, and personal touches, highlighting how these elements contribute to an expert's brand credibility and marketability.  

The discussion also covers strategies for effectively capturing key moments, the necessity of regular updates to visual content, and practical advice on hiring the right photographer. The episode concludes with anecdotes reflecting John's passion for his work and the meaningful connections he forms with his clients.

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome
00:32 John's Impressive Bio and Career Highlights
01:49 The Physical Demands of Photography
02:53 How Marissa and John Connected
04:34 John's Journey into Photography
10:02 Building a Visual Storytelling Library
17:07 The Importance of Consistent Visual Content
22:38 Evaluating Your Brand's Visual Assets
23:44 Importance of Event Visuals
24:22 Capturing the Full Event Experience
28:28 Starting Your Visual Storytelling Journey
33:50 Choosing the Right Photographer
36:44 The Value of Authentic Imagery
39:40 A Photographer's Favorite Moments
42:57 Conclusion and Contact Information

John DeMato is a New York–based branded lifestyle photographer who specializes in creating strategic, story-driven images for authors, speakers, and thought leaders. A former TV producer, he brings a marketing mindset to every shoot, helping experts show up confidently and consistently across their platforms. Visit John DeMato for more information.

Smith Publicity is an international book publicity firm specializing in non-fiction, business, lifestyle and thought-leadership projects. Since 1997, they have helped authors and experts amplify their voices, reach the right audiences, and make a meaningful impact through media placements, strategic campaigns, and expert guidance. For more information visit Smith Publicity. 

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Smith Publicity All Things Book Marketing podcast,
offering tips, insights, and advice from the best in the
publishing industry.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Hi, welcome to the latest episode of the All Things
Book Marketing podcast from Smith Publicity. I am your host
for today and switching up a little bit sometimes, but
for today, you suck with me. Marissa Eigenbrewd, President and
partner here at Smith Publicity, and so excited to have
what feels like a long time coming an interview with

(00:37):
Owen Sammarone. He has been a great friend of Smith's
for so long. We've been in touch for many, many years. Owen,
well before Lucas or Izzy, We're in the picture. We've
been back and forth and excited to talk about those
early days and how you got to where you are,
what started our conversations back in the day.

Speaker 3 (00:54):
But thank you so much for joining us.

Speaker 4 (00:58):
Yeah, absolutely, thanks versa for having me. Excited to hear fantastic.

Speaker 2 (01:02):
So I'd love to tell everybody a little bit more
about Owen first and we'll dive into our topic for
the day. So Owen sam Run is the founder of
Unleash the Knowledge, a personal branding and ghostwriting agency that
helps founders executives and authors become magnetic on LinkedIn. Through
his company's work, Owen has helped B to B leaders

(01:24):
turn their ideas and experiences into thought provoking content that
attracts clients, opportunities, and influence without spending hours online.

Speaker 3 (01:33):
I love that point. We'll talk more about that.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Before launching the agency, Owen built a two hundred thousand
follower community that's getting back to our origination point there
around books and personal growth, which taught him how to
turn storytelling into business leverage. He has marketed over five
hundred nonfiction books to this community, and his content has
been viewed by nearly one hundred million people a lot. Today,

(02:01):
he and his team managed a LinkedIn presence of high
impact leaders across industries, helping them communicate their vision, build trust,
and grow revenue through the power of authentic content.

Speaker 3 (02:13):
And I love this always fun fact about Owen.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
Before starting his business, he was a two time D
one college basketball champion under coach Dan Hurley. Something we've
always I think shared together was not a bat tall player,
but I am very tall too, so and I come
from a I was married into a basketball obsessed a
family where my husband played for a local Penn State.

Speaker 3 (02:35):
That's not not the main one, but so excited to
have you here.

Speaker 4 (02:39):
Owen.

Speaker 2 (02:39):
Love the layers to your experience and your background and
if you know, again we've got some visual components of this,
but if you are just listening on the podcast, what
you can't see is Owen's incredible bookshelf behind him, which
I know, after a recent move even had to be
sinned out a little bit and streamlined there. So you're

(03:02):
a voracious consumer of books and uh and I love
that you're always learning. So again, thanks so much for
being here, Owen.

Speaker 4 (03:10):
Yeah, absolutely, I'm excited to be here. It's always uh
good to connect to other people who have the same
appreciation around books, whether it's writing them, publishing them, promoting them.
You know, it's you know, I never want to say
it's a dying art, but there's multiple other ways to
consume information today and I think reading through a book
is still one of the best.

Speaker 3 (03:30):
It is it.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
Is I want to build a Chaitel palm that really
quickly together because you know, I think we see the
book is often so much of that like the cornerstone
of things. It is that tangible product that we get
to leave behind in someone's brand ecosystem that we're building out.
But as you learned, you know, early on through the

(03:51):
community that you that you built and sharing books, was
that it was so important that there were opportunities to
share the content of the book through other ways. So
you started off promoting and sharing those books that you
really were loving and growing it from there, and then
we saw how that kind of kept evolving into pulling

(04:13):
out aspects of the content, highlighting that and growing into
where we are today. So give me a little more
of the I'm giving the cliff notes of your backstory,
but let's I would love to hear it from you directly.

Speaker 4 (04:24):
Yeah. Absolutely, I think the you know, good way to
start is that you know, Owen was never a reader
growing up, like totally cannot get through a reading comprehension assignment,
was never drawn to books. I you know, just found
myself in other places. And I think what I came
to realize is what I was learning through books in school,
like traditional education just wasn't that interesting. And it wasn't

(04:49):
until I got into the basketball world and started working
under Danny Hurley that I got introduced to essentially like
how can you become successful? How can you like a
live by these habits that have been proven to work
time and time again, whether it's building the right habits,
or it's being consistent, or it's you know, being charismatic
and magnetic, et cetera. So that had just started this

(05:11):
whole world of like learning from me and reading the
books that I wanted to really or learn about the
concepts I wanted to consume too, essentially just become the
best version I could be. And you know, the Instagram
page literally was born out of me wanting to kind
of like a video diary almost like sharing the information
I was consuming and whoever wanted to listen could listen.

(05:34):
But the other core part of it was really to
build a community of like minded people. I don't know
bout you, Marissa, but like you know, you go through
life and you know there's plenty of people that are
awesome people, but not everyone's like, oh, I want to
go start a business or I want to go like
write the book like crazy endeavor that's gonna you know,
go against the status quo. And I've always been kind
of that guy who always, you know, couldn't accept the

(05:57):
idea of just being a number and working for a
massive corporation or you know, even though they might have
the brand recognition and whatnot, I always, you know, saw
more value and actually, you know, potentially even making less
but doing my own thing versus like being in a
really good position, whether it's like my salary or my title,
but just being a number. So it was during those

(06:20):
you know years in basketball that I was building this
page and just started sharing the good word and I
started to build that community. Like that's just really what happened.
I mean, started finding other people that had the same
shared values as me, and then of course the followers grew,
and then I realized, oh, there's other people that also
want to personally develop and get better. Yeah, so that's
really kind of been the mission and always kind of

(06:43):
has stayed at the forefront. But the other piece about
it is, you know, reading a book in its first
place is you know, a task most people don't want
to do. Like it's three to four hours sitting alone
in solitude, reading you know, words on a paper, Like
it's not going to be something that's the most attractive
thing today. So I was thinking, Okay, how do I
take this age old way to transfer knowledge because books

(07:06):
have been around for years and years and years and
take it into the digital world today of short form
content and how I can like convey those piece of
content a very punchy way that you know, gen z
or millennials or whomever who have historically short attention spans
and shorter as the time rolls on can consume that information.

(07:26):
So that was kind of the intersection between you know,
the passion behind these books and what I was learning
and learning about startups and business titans and you know,
spiritual leaders and whomever else, and then taking kind of
what I saw the landscape was today with short form
content and meeting them together, and you know, there's more
to obviously shared that a lot of doors have opened
since then, but that was the core kind of focus

(07:48):
of why I even began the project and the brand.

Speaker 2 (07:53):
Well, thank you so much for sharing that great overview
of where you got to today. Of course I can't help,
but as you know, being your feet, I think about A. J.
Brown of the Eagles and his love the inner excellence
that just took off, and he connects sports and that
personal professional development space together, and you know, it is
it is one that we've been seen continue to grow exponentially,

(08:15):
and I love what you're talking about, and you know,
seeing the opportunity to take this the content that not
everybody is going to have the time to absorb, but
it is so valuable and how that can be twisted
and turned and shared in different ways. And again in
your thing in particular with with LinkedIn as a big
focus of so much that you do.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
But I know that that your work just.

Speaker 2 (08:36):
Continues to expand in such exciting ways since we originally
met all those years ago, and and it is really
today about how you not only you know, create them
work and the accessibility and that connection with with your
audiences and such, but it is that you have like
you can't just be a one trick pony. You can't

(08:57):
just have just the book too. You have to be
able to show that you are you know that you're
you're someone says Okay, I heard the podcast interview or
I read the book, or I had this particular touch point.
They want to keep interacting, they want to keep seeing
the value. And so you've the challenge of content creation
is so strong today for authors, thought leaders, executives, all

(09:21):
these people that you are regularly working with, whether they
have a book or not, truly great to have a book,
you kind of just have that wonderful three hundred pages
maybe or whatever, give or take, that you can pull
little bits from and how it inspire the content that
you keep building out as part of your brand.

Speaker 3 (09:36):
Whether that's there or not, it is this.

Speaker 2 (09:38):
If you want to have a presence and a voice
that's going to be noted and impactful and lead to X,
Y or Z speaking, consulting, coaching, thought, leadership, elevation, whatever
it can look like for you, you have to deliver
content like it's just there's no there's no question about it.

Speaker 3 (09:57):
So it's just, you know, as it's a.

Speaker 2 (09:59):
Natural evolution to your work and such a you know,
clear response to you know, the call for us that
we see in our world today.

Speaker 4 (10:08):
Yeah, I think quickly on that point is you know,
when you figure out your big idea in the book,
I think you've done the hard part. Like you figured
out the clarity behind your messaging. Now it's a matter
of how do you just distribute that into different formats,
whether it's short form, long form, coaching, speaking, et cetera. Right,
Like like the keynote speech is that people do. It's
not like they're talking about you know, plants, one day

(10:31):
and then the other day they're talking about motivation, Like
it's it's clearly the same big ideas. So I really
think if you get to the finish line of publishing
your book, a good part of the journey has completed.
As far as getting crystallized on your messaging, That's something
I've helped a lot of people work through is get
clear on their messaging. And I'm sure you can attest
to this tumorsa but like when you're when you're not clear,

(10:54):
it is like the worst feeling, like you're just like,
oh my gosh, Like what what am I trying to say?

Speaker 2 (10:59):
What? Like?

Speaker 4 (11:00):
What is my thing? And I'm kind of going through
this myself right now. We've talked about this offline, but
like I've spent so many years building other people's brands
and working out their messaging, but you know, there's come
a point as of recent where it's like, Okay, who's
really Owen? Like are we going to build his brand now?
And like what does that look like? So I'm kind
of figuring out I'm kind of going through my same
process myself as I've done for others, and it's always harder,

(11:20):
of course to do it for yourself than others. So
I totally would recommend getting an expert or a guide
to kind of help you walk through it. But nonetheless,
I mean, you want to if you love your big idea,
you should like be passionate about wanting to share it
in different mediums, in different formats. And then just another
kind of quick point of like the difference of people
don't understand really the difference between having a book and

(11:43):
like having a course or having speaking et cetera. The
way I look at it really simply is the more
access someone has to you, your price goes up. So
like the big idea never changes. But like I get
buy your book for twenty bucks, and I'm not going
to ever you know me you or you know, see
you in person or even see you digitally. But I'm

(12:04):
going to get your personality through the words that you
put on the paper. That's why it's twenty bucks. You know,
it could get into rooms that you can't physically get into.
Then you get into the course, maybe you get a
group call with the author, et cetera. Okay, maybe it's
five hundred bucks, one thousand bucks, and then you know,
let's just skip all the way to the end like
one on one coaching, let's say, with Tony Robbins, like
it's gonna cost you one hundred thousand dollars for an

(12:25):
hour if that or I don't know, maybe it's more
like obviously it's way more lucrative because you're going to
get the direct access from the guy. So I think
that's just a good way to think about it, Like
it's a spectrum of access. You know, how much access
is someone given or you're giving them, and then the
price points to reflect that.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
Yeah, I have an interesting question for you because I
feel like, you know, typically we run into individuals who
have already you know, sorry to establish their brand presence online,
their thought leadership.

Speaker 3 (12:57):
Maybe they've done a little bit of media.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
I hear it before, and now the their next book
is coming out or could still be this our first
book or so. But when you're working, but sometimes that's
not the case, and sometimes someone's underway with the book,
but they haven't fully baked who they are in.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
That presence and with that content.

Speaker 2 (13:16):
For you, in the way that you work, is there
a is there an answer to be kind of chicken
of the egg question of like would you rather they
have they come to you with the book done, maybe
it's not published yet too. I mean that can be
an option there, and there is a book already there
in terms of how colo they might be on their message,
or do you like working with someone who is maybe

(13:40):
pre book or like has the book idea in mind,
but that the message clarity is kind of happening before
that stage.

Speaker 4 (13:48):
That's a great question, and I guess I could answer
a couple of ways. I mean, as far as our
LinkedIn goes writing service, we've had the most, we've had
the fastest success. I would say with someone who's already
got a lot of that flushed out and just now
needs help building a mile deep, inch wide like brand

(14:09):
presence on LinkedIn, and they want and they know at
the time or the energy to do that because and
I'm kind of going through this with the team right now,
Like building a brand and then using your brand for
legion are two completely different animals. Like like I used
to kind of I used to try to help people
with both at the same time. But really you need
to build a brand first, which you know could take

(14:31):
whoever knows how long, Like you got to build that trust,
that authenticity and put out that good will well before
you start asking for dollars or transacting, you know. I mean,
we talked about this beely before and I'm sure we'll
get into it, but there's a lot of pitch slapping
happening on a platform like LinkedIn where people are just
coming out of the gates, and that you know, there
needs to be a lot of giving before you go

(14:51):
with that ask. So that's one answer as far as
like the true LinkedIn service, it's really ideal with someone
has that flushed out. But the other component, I guess
is you know someone who is like in the mix
in the arena, doing the thing, but their messaging is
just too broad or they're not getting the best reception

(15:14):
or the response that they're looking for. That's been really
fun for me because we like know kind of the
domain they're in. We know, like, you know, are they
playing to health, wealth of relationships or what they're subniches
Like I have a really good example, tell really quickly.
I had a guy early on in my career. He's
now actually a present day client too. He comes and

(15:34):
goes just with various needs and he you know, is
a you know, forty five or fifty year old like
fit dad and he, you know, was falling in the
lines of the Tony Robbins and Brandon Burchard's the mindset guys,
the motivation guys, and high performance right, you know, he's
he's actually in the Philly area too, and he so

(15:58):
I'm like, you're not going to be able to cut
through the noise, right talking about high performance when you
got the likes of all these other people, the Tim Grovers,
whomever else. So long story short, we essentially found out
that he loves his two boys, he loves his sons,
and he wants in his's. You know, there was moments
where I'm sure, well I'm not sharing his name, but
I'm sure he's come from we're sharing this. But like

(16:19):
his marriage was on the rocks a couple of moments
because he just wasn't being the father and the husband
that he needed to be. And he realized that's very
you know, common unfortunately with other men. So he now
has built out, essentially this coaching program where he leads
dads to be the best kind of figure in the household.
It's still high performance, it's still mindset, it's still fitness,

(16:40):
but it's not competing with the broad big general guys.
Who again, like a guy like Tony Robbins, he's on
chapter seventy five when most of us are on chapter
one or five, and having that you know, understanding and
awareness is very key to this whole process. So we
still took what he's great at, but we just like
really narrowed down his niche. So he's already been in
the game. He wasn't really doing the revenue numbers he

(17:02):
wanted to do, but once we dialed in that messaging,
not only does his revenue boost and and he started
getting a lot more leads, but he like felt the
level of clarity that he never felt before. And I
think that for me is like the most that's where
the fulfillment comes from, to like be able to almost
like clear out all the you know, fog that's in
front of somebody and show them the clear path forward now.

Speaker 2 (17:23):
And there's so much power in being able to really
niche down and figure out who we want to talk to.
And I see the fear in people that we work
with too, you know, in in you know, what if
I feel whether if I'm leaving somebody out, what if
you know, this person just feels like they're not seen there?
And I think by trying to share it around them,
it's like vary similarship to you is like you can
start with it who your core is and really build

(17:46):
around that, and once that's really strong, then I like,
just like it's like an onion, like pullback to the
X layer of the onion and then the next one
from there.

Speaker 3 (17:53):
And it's like that can mean just expanding.

Speaker 2 (17:56):
Your content a little bit in one direction or another
so that maybe it still does speak to that core
to a degree.

Speaker 3 (18:03):
But you are welcoming in people who who.

Speaker 2 (18:05):
Have another layer of experience or another layer of challenges
or pain points or or whatever it is that starts
to bring them into your world, and you can insure
them that value too. But when you try to be
everything for everyone, you're kind of nothing for no one, right,
And it's hard for someone to see themselves in your content,
in what you do.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
And so yeah, I love your answers to the question.
And you know something that I.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Think you said, you know, we're gonna talk about it
some more. So let's go into and I loved your
phrase the pitch slapping.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
That was so great, Owen.

Speaker 2 (18:37):
And so you know, again we're talking about this early
days of establishing yourself on LinkedIn, you know, building that presence.
I said, it's hard to sell when you don't have,
when you're not showing value in a clear and consistent
way on a regular basis over time.

Speaker 3 (18:54):
So you've been doing that, you know, when you're you've
got to that point.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
But I think as we all regularly see we you know,
connect with them on on LinkedIn, and all of a
sudden the message pops up in your inbox within twenty
four hours or so, and it is that really blanketed,
you know, vanilla like just message that is like, this
isn't no way tailored to me.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
I find a couple here there that I would say,
like I have actually questioned it. I'm like, I think this.

Speaker 2 (19:22):
Was still automated, but it's good like that one took
a moment or they had some kind of algorithm that
made it a little more personalized to me. But we
all get those messages so frequently, and you know, with
LinkedIn strategy, you grow, you grow, there's got to be
a point at which you start to expand beyond you're
just posting what you're doing all the time, and that

(19:43):
could be a LinkedIn newsletter. But again, a lot of
individuals are really curious about what makes the most sense
in terms of a marketing or a dr campaign kind
of strategy. So tell me more about your thoughts around
the pitch slapping or you know, kind of the right
time to introduce something like that.

Speaker 4 (20:02):
Yeah, for sure, I think the biggest thing to know,
which we kind of called out, but just to like
echo it that the majority are doing that. They're sending
big paragraphs pitches like just getting raid to the juice
because they don't want to waste time. If you literally
just don't do that, you're already operating the one percent.
So that's like step one. I mean, it's it's literally

(20:23):
so simple, so simple, but it needs to be said,
like if the world is digging, you got to start zagging.
Kind of goes back to my original kind of story
shpiel I gave in the beginning of the podcast. There's
just always value in that. So that's one thing. You know,
it's funny you say, like some messages are good and

(20:44):
they might be automated, so like we don't use automation.
I will say right now, I'll just kind of make
a blanket statement there and I'll kind of go into
why and what I've done in the past as we go.
But the goal is to essentially create a personalized scale message.
Like you want the message to be personalized where it

(21:04):
doesn't seem ai or it's copying paste. But you want
to obviously scale, Like if you're a business owner, you
want to like get a lot of shots on goal.
We're not just here to send like three messages a day.
I mean, obviously it could depend on the person listening
to here, but like if you're trying to get more
business or your you know, core focus is to scale something.
You ideally want to get more shots on goals. So

(21:27):
a formula I kind of go by is like you
want to personalize the name first and foremost. And the
reason why automation can kind of screw up here is
some people will put like an icon or like a
period before their name on their profile and they'll come
up as a dead giveaway. So you want to catch
that too. I then try to create some common ground

(21:47):
anywhere from where you went to college, where you're from.
You know, if you're a traveler in the nation, like
more times than not, you probably have been to one
of the cities nearby. A person that you're going to
contact on LinkedIn, so you can just rip off a
bit just to create some common ground and act real.
And then the goal for me is you know, an
open ended question to kind of pass it back to them.

(22:08):
There's no pitch, there's no this is what I do,
there's no whatever. It's like true genuine rapport building to
kick the process off. You know, in the sales world,
people are constantly talking about, you know, the metrics of
booked calls and revenue and cost per acquisition and whatnot.
I think there's a sales metric probably you know, in

(22:29):
all sales, but really on LinkedIn, and that's getting a reply.
Like our first goal is just to get someone to reply,
So all your energy should go into creating a message
that does not come off as you're pitching, and just
get them to reply and start the conversation. Now from there,
of course, kind of like from your own experience, like
you might crush it with that first message, But then

(22:49):
if you screw up message too and just go pitch,
like you ruin the whole equation. So I you know,
this is probably counterintuitive, Like I literally think you should
embody a mindset to delay the sale, and that's not
like something you can literally do, but like just like
something in your head where it's like truly like, Okay,
yes we need to make payroll, we need to create revenue,

(23:11):
like we know that we're business owners, but just having
the mentality of like, let me delay this sale. So
then your writing and the way you go about it
is going to come off like even more authentic than
maybe you were trying to be because obviously people have agenda,
but we want to be authentic and have integrity and
be ethical. So you want to just be mindful of
that as you go through that process. But beyond that,

(23:34):
you know, I think the value first and the give
give give mentality is always the way to go. You know.
We like I've spun up some YouTube videos that I
think people could find value in, and you know, during
the conversation, I can simply just say, hey, looks like
you're at you know, let's just say I have a
video of how to get to like ten thousand followers
on LinkedIn. Let's say they're at eight thousand. You know, hey,

(23:55):
saw you're an eight thousand. Awesome size of your audience.
You know, or we live in a world that may
be a ten k. You have a little bit of
different perceived value, Like let's help you get to ten K.
I just shot this video. It's fifteen minutes, listen to
it on two X and it's going to give you
some good nuggets and just pass it and like no
strings attached, I mean if anything. Yeah, yeah, My mentality

(24:16):
is also like I just got a view on YouTube,
Like that's a win for me. Like I don't think
you know, if they come as a client like awesome,
that can come down the road. But you're just giving value.
You're giving value, and.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
You're showing partnership early on too.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
I mean you're showing them like I want to give
to you to help you. You know, it's just like
you see the opportunities in working closely together, and that
goes a really long way when it's just not like
it's not the hard sell, but it is that that
kind of warm process over time, and you're you're the
fact that you're willing to give something away to them

(24:52):
before there's any exchange of even a conversation over zoom
or phone call whatever could be, or any dollars, you're
giving some to them already and that goes a really
long way.

Speaker 4 (25:03):
Absolutely, and I think just the nature of Like I'm
sure all the listeners here are are generally, you know,
trying to get a speaking gig or a coaching client.
They're not probably trying to scale to one hundred customers tomorrow. Like,
it's a different game. So if that's the goal to
get like five good conversations going a week, take the time.

(25:23):
Like I mean, there's even a tactic that we're kind
of implementing right now where it's a sixty to ninety
second Loom video that's totally personalized. I mean, yeah, it
takes you know, five minutes, do quick research and then
film it, but it comes off, as you know, so
much more authentic because you're actually doing the research. And
people do this too, and they might label the Loom

(25:45):
like four to owen, but then you watch it and
it's Owen is not said because you could tell that
it's obviously a scalable video to go so literally, like
just saying someone's name, I mean that comes back to
like del Carnegie, how to win friends and influence people.
I Mean, when people here their names, there's a whole
different kind of you know, thing that happens in your
brain where you're just more receptive to the person and

(26:06):
there's trust being built, and then there's the total inverse
where it's like when you forget somebody's name but they
remember yours, it's so achy. It's a terrible feeling. So
I think there's just a level of like do the
unscalable and just be very intentional and personalized. And that's
where like automation just doesn't work right now, especially on LinkedIn.
I mean I've tried. There's like these AI SDR tools,

(26:31):
like a sale development representative tool, and I'll be honest,
like I used it for a little bit and then
I stopped because they were almost so good in the
sense that they would say like, hey, Marisa, I was
down in San Diego and watch your talk on XYZ
because it could pull from YouTube or whatnot, and like
I wasn't physically there obviously, Like so it's almost like

(26:54):
too good with the research of pulling it, but it's
not even close to being ethical about actually you being
So that's.

Speaker 3 (27:01):
The part of an honest and truthful relationship.

Speaker 4 (27:04):
Yeah. Yeah, And I think present day you can lean
on very unscalable activities and uh, you know not like
I mean, most speakers need like five gigs in a
quarter and if that to make a great living and
love life. And then of course we know like you
get the next best gig from your current gig, so
get on stage on five with those legion tools. But

(27:27):
then from there do a great job on stage and
then ideally you get more from there.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
Mm hmmmm.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
So you mentioned the the elephant that's in every single
room everywhere we go right now, But you talked about
AI and EISO, So tell me more about your thoughts
on the AI components that are within within LinkedIn and how,
if at all, it comes into play with with your work.

Speaker 4 (27:52):
So I think AI is a great tool to be
leveraged by all means. I think it's a great content
ideation tool. That's mainly how we use it. You know,
we have a rigorous or not rigorous, but we have
a kind of hour long onboarding call that we get
a lot of data. And of course with your clients
and my clients, they're authors generally, and you can just
input the manuscript into chat GBT your claude, so you

(28:13):
can get a lot of you can get a good
starting position of matching their voice and the key insights
from their book and know what their big idea is
just with a little click of a button. So I
think all that should be leveraged. But it's definitely not
an end to end platform in terms of content creation
right now. You still need to keep the human in it.
It's still using the m dashes and the emojis and whatnot,

(28:35):
And if you're in the game you can sniff that out.
I'm sure, even if you're totally not someone that consumes
a lot of content. I think just emojis today, you
just can tell. It's very like, I don't know, not
as not as professional. So I think there's just a
component there to kind of leave off. But as far
as like LinkedIn's AI tools, I mean, I haven't really

(28:56):
done much there. I think the only ones, I mean,
the main ones I've seen is like leaving an AI comment,
which is probably the worst thing you should do too,
so you know, and if you're going to comment, don't
just comment something like the great post, but actually offer
some you know, to carry the conversation going or share
your two cents on whatever the post is about. But

(29:18):
I think, like right now, I mean, I think that's
why LinkedIn's so kind of good right now. It's so
pure in a sense that it hasn't been ruined by
a lot of these tools or even you know, again
from someone who's built a business and a brand on Instagram,
and I love Instagram. You you know, you can get
everything you ever possibly would want to see under the
sun on Instagram. But like LinkedIn is still business specific.

(29:39):
It has the highest average household income per user. It
has almost the same amount of users as these other platforms,
But the percentage of people that are posting from the
last study I saw, is literally one percent. So like
a platform like Instagram is like thirty five to forty
percent of the users are posting content. They're technically creators
in their mind, but on LinkedIn it's a one percent.

(30:01):
And I think, I don't know if there's a real
date on this, but I can only imagine of that
one percent, it's a handful of I just got a
promotion or I'm happy to announce posts, right yeah, And
then there's a sliver of people that are like actually
grabbing the microphone and trying to you know, be thought
leaders and share what they have to say.

Speaker 2 (30:18):
That's actually I'd love that you've shared that that stat there,
I feel I want to pull it out and do
a whole post about it because we get so often
questions from you know, our our authors and our experts
and stuff that we work with, where they're like, is
is it valuable? I feel like I'm writing, you know,
if they're maybe they're doing it on their own or
they are hiring someone and making the investment in it,
Like are we writing into the void?

Speaker 3 (30:40):
Are we really?

Speaker 2 (30:41):
You know, everybody seems to be posting, everybody selling their stories,
but I think that's just because it's the world that
they're a part of. Where you're if you're if you
are again an expert or a thought leader, a speaker
in your space, you're gonna have peers who are probably
doing the same kind of thing and also posting regally.
But to be able to think that you're such a
small a percentage across all social media platforms, they're set

(31:03):
a small percent of those who are actually regularly posting.
The impact that that can have if you do it,
I feel like, feels so much stronger than across other platforms.
So it's just another check in the column for wilnkedin
the space to focus on. But why you should also
be doing it if you wanted to be a follower.

Speaker 4 (31:24):
Yeah, absolutely. And I think another point just to echo
there too, is is you know this dream that you're
going to get to a certain threshold of followers or
engagement and people are just gonna be throwing money at you.
That is not probably gonna happen. So the best way
to get leads to actually come to you are to
create you know, like lead conversion type of posts, which
is giving away like a free lead magnet and asking

(31:44):
them to comment a keyword or getting some engagement in
that sense and making them to be like, oh, yeah,
I would love to get that guide or PDF for training,
and then they comment and then you can DM them
versus going into someone's DMS and saying, hey, I have this.
You know that can come into the conversation, as I
mentioned before, but it's not like an initial first message.

(32:05):
And then the other thing I'll say, and this is
what I'm learning through our clients is I think there's
a lot of LinkedIn lurkers out there. So because your
content doesn't have a ton of engagement, that's okay. And honestly,
most of the people who have a lot of content,
if you actually look at who they are, they're probably
other people doing similar stuff as me. They're probably other
content creator coaches or what like ghostwriters and whatnot, So

(32:28):
like those are the people who are liking aggressively and commenting.
But I have plenty of clients in the corporate space
who have said literally like, you know, my engagement's up
since working with you, and the impressions are up, but
still you know, like ten likes, twenty likes, like nothing crazy,
not like big windfalls of engagement, but my dms are

(32:49):
filling up, like people are commenting, oh, I like this post.
And my thought behind all that is simply because and
I never worked a corporate so take this with a
grain of salt. Well, I think people are almost afraid
to like some sort of post because if there's like
one sentence in it that their manager doesn't like it,
they're going to get pinned up against the wall about it,
and it's just going to it's going to shoot them

(33:10):
in the foot. So they can consume it and like it,
but they kind of go behind closed doors and the
dms to tell you rather than showing that publicly that
they like it. So I say all that because if
anyone's listening here and they feel like they're talking to
the void, but they know their content's good, but they're
not getting engagement. I would say, keep pushing forward and
create more of those kind of lead generating posts to

(33:33):
get people to actually engage with you and see if
people are dming you and saying they like these posts,
then you're probably doing the right job.

Speaker 3 (33:42):
Yeah, I feel like too. It contain with the direct
message there.

Speaker 2 (33:46):
If someone is reading the post and they're so they're
so excited by it, or they're so inspired by it
or whatever it is, that they want to take the
next s app to talk to you further engage with you.
From the fact that they go, like I mean, most
people are going to go to a direct message to
keep that conversation going. You're not gonna have a whole
dialogue in the comments. So instead of kind of not

(34:07):
wasting their time and spending time engaging with likes and
comments on it, it's like it's even better if they
come over to a direct message because you can keep
it going, you know, a lot more over there in
a natural way versus you know, again, it would be
an strange if you were just having a full, full
fledged conversation together in the comments publicly for everyone to see,

(34:28):
so it's help.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
I agree with you, it's it's better if you're seeing
the DMS then that's with the engagement numbers of the
post all the time.

Speaker 2 (34:35):
It helps for discoverability of course overall, and how you're
getting in front of all these other people that you're
not already connected with. But actually speaking to that point,
what's your philosophy on like connection requests? I heard for
a long time ago someone encouraged me to send out
at least there's one hundred connection requests a week, but

(34:57):
don't worry about writing messages to everyone. Just just reach
ome to connect if you have you know, shared kind
of spaces or interests and stuff.

Speaker 3 (35:04):
And I can't say I've been consistent.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
With that personally every single week since I heard that,
probably three years ago. But I do want some some
connecting spreeze myself sometimes and always love to see the
response from that. So what's your what's your thoughts on
on connecting?

Speaker 3 (35:20):
Yeah, it's so much.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Pressure, like it has to be like, oh my gosh,
I knew that person to these five degrees and then
we can.

Speaker 4 (35:27):
Connect it linked right, and you can see who your
mutual friends are and so forth. I think Connecting is
a great idea. I think it's you moving the ball
down the field and playing offense and not just kind
of waiting for everything to come to you. I think
connecting with someone and getting to a pitch are two
completely different things. So if someone feels like that is

(35:47):
me pitching, then then you shouldn't feel that way. It's
simply just growing your audience and getting more people to
see your content. So I and we do is for
our clients. I mean, we exhaust the connection requests every week,
so you have about two hundred if you're in a
premium paid subscription. I think it's like one fifty maybe
if you're not. But nonetheless, I mean that's an amazing
set of numbers, you know, for people that could be

(36:09):
potential clients of yours. Obviously a percentage will respond back
or connect back, and then it's really a process of
following up and beginning that conversation or you know, endorsing
their skills or engaging on their stuff. But I think
that's all. That's also a big point, like it's not
go connect and send two hundred requests and then go

(36:30):
DM them and do the whole report building and then
try to get them on a call. I think there's
a there's a cadence where you could take you know,
it's not like a silver bullet cadence or you have
to stick to it, but you could even like and
comment on people's posts for like a week and then
connect with them, so then they already have seen your
name pop up and you're actually adding value. And again
you're not commenting great posts. You're commenting something to add

(36:52):
more conversation to the whatever the post might be. Yea yeah.
And to your point about writing a connection request message,
I have also seen it for myself clients and actually
like reported data that it's a higher acceptance rate if
you don't have any message there. So one that's good
for us because it takes a little bit quicker amount
of time and having to formulate a simple reply message.

(37:15):
But I think it's a simple indicator that people are
just so like skeptical and then when they see that,
they know a pitch is coming. So it just doesn't
feel right. Now. That's not like you don't always have
to do that, But like if I had seen you
speak on the stage Mersa, I would you know, I
could say something like, hey, I was just at XYZ
event in this city, And I love this part of

(37:36):
your speech that I think if you read that, you'd
be like, oh, this is legit, you know, like like
that's actually someone who's there. So obviously, you know, be
a professional and use the nuances as you see fit.
But I think generally, like, if you're trying to use
LinkedIn as your main platform and you want to grow
your audience to get more people seeing your stuff, then
you know, LinkedIn is literally handing you two hundred people

(37:58):
that you could potentially connect with. And the good news
is like, once you find like ten people that are
good fit, there's those recommendations as you mentioned, and not
all of them are perfect, but you can kind of
see who's adjacent to those people or who knows who,
and then you can build those connections too. So so yes,
definitely connect as many as you'd like. Two hundred is

(38:19):
usually the limit, and then no message is better than
adding a message.

Speaker 3 (38:24):
Yeah awesome.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
Tell me about you know, before before our interviewed here
we're kind of talking to us some bullet points and stuff,
and it might feel like connection here more.

Speaker 3 (38:35):
But tell me about your billboard analogy.

Speaker 4 (38:37):
Oh yeah, yeah, so yeah, the Billboard analogy for me
is thinking of your profile as a billboard. You know,
you're going by a highway and you see a billboard
and it's you know, says oh and Sam Ron or
Marissa Smith's publicity, you know, check me out and our
goal and it's in our power to create bumper to
bumper frustrating traffic in front of that billboard, you know,

(38:59):
the freeway right next to it. And how I look
at that is every car is a like or a
comment or a connection request to someone who could potentially
be a client one day, and that this is perfect,
a perfect you know explanation of the analogy right after
what I just mentioned about the connection requests, Like we
are in total control of moving the ball forward and
getting those cars in front of our billboard, but most

(39:22):
people won't do it, which you know you might think, oh,
any Google ads and paida and meta ads, like that's
all the same thing. You know, I look at every
eyeball as a car, and what you're trying to sell
or what your offer, what your brand is is the billboard.
So if you want to spend money on it, and
it just kind of speeds up the process and maybe
the nurturing and the trust happens a little faster because
you have the capital go for it. More power to you.

(39:44):
Obviously you need to know that game and not screw up.
But if you're on LinkedIn and you're doing organically with
no dollar spend, then think of every you know, like comment,
any type of engagement you put out there to support
other people as you're placing a car in front of
your billboard, because what's going to happen after you like
something of theirs or you visit their profile, They're going

(40:05):
to click on your profile, your logo, your your profile
picture and be like who the heck is Owen? And
then ideally you have your profile optimized with the header
and the banner and so forth, and it's like, okay,
he does this for these people, et cetera. That makes sense,
and then you know, from there you can make the
decision if you want to take a next step or
you know, then I will see that you saw my profile,

(40:27):
and then there's just like a little bit of a
you know, I don't know, noncommunicative relationship happening where I
can see like, oh you saw my stuff, blah blah blah,
back and forth, and then that could kind of further
that relationship potentially. But yeah, that's just the simple billboard
analogy of just you know, like and it's mainly an
analogy for when you get bogged down of why am

(40:48):
I sending these connectional quests or like, why is Owen
telling me to comment on twenty posts a day or
not that I am, but like twenty posts a week
or something like to engage with people. It's like, well,
it's a simple, free way for you to get more
visibility on your billboard, on your profile, and it takes really,
you know, fifteen minutes in the morning. So everyone should

(41:08):
do it if you're trying to use LinkedIn as a
business builder or a thought leadership platform.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
Yeah, and from our.

Speaker 2 (41:13):
Side too, it's so valuable to have it as again
that one of the like the one of the one
stop shops you kind of need to have about yourself
and your background and your key messages and such.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
A certain website helped that too.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
But we've really found great value in the connection between
what we're doing through publicity and our outreach to media
and then a kind of secondary touch point from those
who were working with through LinkedIn too.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
So one of our client actually we're book at the
top of the.

Speaker 2 (41:41):
Pile here Mary Kara Silliman, we worked really closely on Okay,
you know, we've got this interest from this outlet, and
then she went and that contact and we always say, you.

Speaker 3 (41:50):
Know, go and connect with all of them.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
Of course I'm going to ask for a well, ask
for an interview, ask for whatever it is, like, go
connect with them on LinkedIn ideally, so then there's a
secondary touch point there. But we really were working closely
on a strategy where she was then sending a direct
message to certain people to say not only hey, thanks
for you know, your interest, I know you have requested
a copy of the book or x Y or Z,

(42:12):
but we also she was saying to them, you know,
I think that this story and it would be of
interest to your particular audience or you know, when you
get the book, I would think you should take a
look at chapter you know, chapter three, or this particular
section two and you know, or I just put this
post up on LinkedIn. I think you would really like
it's not even just relately to the book, but then
being able to share how her like again, she's not

(42:35):
a kind of one one moment in time with just
the book, but she is regularly sharing this content, this
thought leadership over time as well. She can direct them
to the recent podcast interviews she did and the link
that she shared on her LinkedIn there, or just some
really great posts that she did around something in the news.

Speaker 3 (42:53):
Or just an important topic to her.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
So just connect from those dots together and creating the
multiple touch points, as you said, which are what are
further backing up the traffic and having people, you know,
spend more time looking at your billboard, looking at what
you do, and the connections between that and the media
work that we do are are becoming more and more
intertwined together too.

Speaker 4 (43:14):
Yeah, definitely, I mean it's it's it's like a spiderweb too.
You want to just kind of like leverage all the
tools of LinkedIn, and you know, there's endorsing skills, they're
sending dms, there's liking and commenting. You can use all
those to your advantage. And you make it a good
point too just to echo as well. You can send
your own posts into dms too, So that's obviously good

(43:34):
in LinkedIn's eyes because you're staying in platform. Like I
talked about YouTube, which is still a good tactic because
YouTube is an amazing platform to nurture and build that
personality connection because it's a long form. But of course
you're telling people to get off LinkedIn and go somewhere else,
and that, in any social media networking platform's eyes, is
not the best. Yeah. So some of your i mean
your content, A good portion of your content should be

(43:56):
pain point driven content towards your audience. And then you know,
if you have an open ended question or some sort
of cadence and the DMS of figuring out what they're
really struggling with, and then you have a post on
that like awesome, bring it together and be like, hey, well,
I actually just put out a post about this the
other day to solve this issue you're having, Like give
it a read, you know again, no pitch, no let's
get on a call and talk about it or anything.

(44:17):
It's just like, hey, here's just again some free value
that is specific to what you're going through. Let me
know if you resonate with it, and then from there hoping,
you know, you build a relationship too. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (44:28):
Well, and we're getting to the end of our time
together today.

Speaker 2 (44:31):
I'd love a really quick thought on you know, we've
got about two and a half months left in the
end of twenty twenty five.

Speaker 3 (44:38):
Crazy things are always changing.

Speaker 2 (44:40):
Everything is is rapidly, you know, moving forward. Tell me
about the like one thing that as we look to
twenty twenty six, the year ahead WITHOU related to LinkedIn,
or even just your work overall, that you're excited like
that you see ahead that the next big thing or
just something that you're excited.

Speaker 3 (44:59):
To die into more and applied to your work with
your clients.

Speaker 4 (45:06):
I wish something kind of witty came across me, But honestly,
what keeps coming up is just be human. I think
as we continue to go into an artificial world with AI,
and you should leverage those tools, but don't forget that
we're humans and it's human to human contact and people
want to buy or work with other humans, not brands
or logos or an AI agent or whatever that even
can really mean. So like, keeping the human in the

(45:29):
equation is so important. And that's not to say like
you can use half AI. And then there's this term
now like human handover within the AI world, where it's like, obviously,
bring the human over. I think that's just going to
become more important than ever. But we you know, it's
as I grow, I'm coming to realize it's all like

(45:50):
age old human nature principles, Like we all want to
be in community, we want to connect with each other,
we all have feelings, and yes we want to be
more productive or have more efficiency. But at the end
of the day, you know, there's some of these core
principles that have stood to test the time because it's
just in our DNA as who we are. So I
think the message going to twenty twenty six is leverage

(46:10):
all the good tools and hear them out, but don't
forget that it's a human world for living in and
always lead with that.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
Beautiful way to wrap things up there, Owen, thank you
so much for joining us today. For those who want
to learn even more about Owen and his work, you
can find out a lot on unleashth Knowledge dot com
and of course, as is very necessary here, you connect
with Owen on LinkedIn on Instagram too, and you know,

(46:43):
follow along with all of the great content that you
always are sharing and look out for always you know,
super personalized and wonderful messages with a rocket ship right
next to it from Owen on those platforms. So thank
you so much again for joining us Owen, it was
such a pleasure to have you here, and really excited

(47:06):
for all of our listeners to get these great nuggets
of knowledge.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
As they head into the next year ahead.

Speaker 4 (47:13):
Definitely happy to be here. Thanks for asking me to
be on. Appreciate our relationship over the years. It's been
awesome seeing all the things Smith Publicity is doing. I
know you guys have some good things coming as far
as your website and some rebranding, so I'm excited for that.
But yeah, nonetheless, thanks for giving me the platform to share.

Speaker 2 (47:29):
Thank you, Owen, and now again, thank you so much
for joining us on the latest episode of the All
Things the Book Marketing Podcast. Please subscribe, follow along, and
of course connect with us on LinkedIn too.

Speaker 3 (47:43):
Have a great day.

Speaker 1 (47:46):
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Smith
Publicity All Things Book Marketing Podcast. To reach us and
learn about our many services, visit Smith Publicity dot com
or send us an email to info at Smith Publicity
dot com.