We wanted to share with you guys the importance of applying the concept of social media marketing for real estate or for your business. Whether you’re a real estate investor or you’re a small business owner. Social media, it’s essential nowadays. It’s like the radio/newspaper version of what used to be the type of marketing that will gain a lot of traction. Nowadays, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and things like that.
I’m sure a lot of you guys are probably wondering why we are doing this. We want to share a little bit about the background on how this channel got started. There’s no secret that I am an Elite Legacy student. The program helped me grow to the extent that I never even thought it would be possible. I went from 0 to 24 properties in six months. I got asked actually to go to different classes and honestly share my story.
Eventually, a lot of people started reaching out to me. They started asking me questions. It was a little overwhelming because sometimes I share one thing with one person and eventually share something with the other person. I’ll be like, “I forgot.” Anthony noticed me. He came up with this idea, “Hey, how about we put a series of videos together. Whoever reaches out to you or gets to know you at one of those elite symposiums and stuff like that, you just give them your link.
That way, you can share your story, you capture everything in one place, and that way, you don’t have to worry about forgetting anything.” Slowly, it turned into a whole idea about YouTube because we feel very passionate about helping people. We were helped along our journey by many different unrelated people who believed in us and wanted to favor the world. We wanted to do it in a way that was easy to adapt to today’s society.
That’s how you came up with the idea of using YouTube to make the information available for all of you guys. We have officially hit over 1,000 subscribers. To be exact, we have 1,265 subscribers. What made put the entire marketing strategy together to achieve over 1,000 subscribers in less than three weeks? It’s all thanks to this mastermind right here, who also happens to be my boyfriend, Anthony Llanos.
Anthony: All right. First things first, as I say, thank you so much for having me in your show. I just got to say that it was hard. It wasn’t easy. It was a painful experience. It was a lot of losing money, first of all. It was a trial and error thing. If there are not many places or institutions that you can go and learn about social media marketing. That’s why like all the other things that I knew, it was pretty much trying one thing, seeing what works, seeing what doesn’t work, and losing money along the way. Because I’ve been doing this for like, I would say, through three years, almost three years and started from scratch, I didn’t know why I wanted to learn, but along the way, I found some mentors, some people. That could have been via video, learning from YouTube, or people along the way, teaching me how to do stuff, specifically social media marketing.
By the time I started with Lucy, I think she had like 79 subscribers. I remember it was 79 because I was tracking the progress. I was like, “Let’s record different videos. In each video, you’re going to tell a story. That’s going to be your personal story.” One of the things that you should know, especially if you are creating your brand if you’re creating your own YouTube channel, maybe you have a store, relate to a story. If you tell an account if you sound sincere, it’s coming from within you, and people will link to that.
Whether you’re going to put that video on Facebook, Instagram, or YouTube, people will watch it because they’re going to connect with you. That’s what happened with some of the ads we created for Lucy because she genuinely cared about her audience. She was devoted to actually helping, not only getting subscribers, views, but honestly, helping the people out generally.
Lucelia: I got viewers. I’m not sure you know this because you reach out to me, who wrote to me via Facebook, who left me private messages, who sent me emails. There were times he came home, and I was crying. I was like, “Oh my God. This woman just told me about her story. I feel so bad.” It was so gratifying. People sent me emails thanking me because they were looking for the answer, and they were so glad they clicked on the ad and gave the channel a chance. Now, their lives are different or improving for the better.
Anthony: Also, to make some key points about it is after sharing her story in the videos, I was thinking about like, “What is the best platform to share these videos?” We were analyzing, “We have these videos. She’s telling her story.” It was pretty good. It came out good because we show different aspects of her life, like going to symposiums, going to real estate events, going on vacation or traveling, plus adding some songs. That’s one big thing, is whenever you want to launch an ad, whenever you’re going to launch a video, try to add some music to that. You will see what a difference it’s going to make between adding a song to the footage versus just keeping it simple. We were analyzing, “Which platform should we use for these videos?” I was thinking, “Instagram, I don’t think that’s the best choice, because most people just go there just to see memes or some videos, workout videos.”
Lucelia: Something funny to relax. Cute dogs, cute cats. Just something to distract your mind from the day-to-day.
Anthony: That’s correct. We were thinking about Facebook, what Facebook can offer. I know, because I’ve been doing this for like three years, that Facebook, most of the audience, is into their 20s and 30s. They can see a video for probably like three, four, or five minutes, but a long video for like 10, 20, you might think these videos are like 25, 30 minutes. They’re not going to be sitting on Facebook just watching the video unless it’s incredibly entertaining, which is content, or the content that she provides is a little bit dry. Learning is not too fun. Even though we could drive some audience from Facebook to YouTube to see our content, it wasn’t reliable. Even though subscribers were going to the page, they left the content. I was analyzing the stats and saw, “Facebook doesn’t work.” Instead of losing money the way I did before, I’m now pretty good at catching, “This does work, this doesn’t work. We need to delete this.” We concentrated mainly on YouTube. If you saw some of her ads, it’s pretty organic. You’re going to see it pretty much on the suggested area of YouTube, and you’re going to see it in a how-to video. Anything that you will see there will be like, “How to find the financing, how to leverage credit cards to buy real estate.”
We weren’t selling anything, because what happens is that you can have different types of ads. I’m sure you’ve seen these. You can see the “Skip Ad” at the beginning of the video. It’s pretty good if it’s entertaining, but since our product is pretty dry, it’s hard to sell a product like that in that type of content. We decided to put it next to the videos, suggested area, and related videos to the videos that we’re promoting.
Lucelia: To your point, nobody wants to be sold, especially when you’re seeking information. We’re not selling anything either. We just wanted to put the information out there, but when you go into YouTube, you see all these videos ranking with-God know how many views. Then all of a sudden, a tiny little video with one or two views– It’s just, how do you make it to the top? That was what the strategy was about. How to expose that information to the viewers? Viewers like you.
It’s the same thing with you. How do you expose your business, because you know you are very well aware that you have an excellent product, you just haven’t put it out. How do you do that? You know you can make a difference, whether you’re selling real estate, selling consulting, or selling a service. We’re all in this for business, but how do you make it out there? How do you distinguish yourself from everyone else? That’s what he managed to do.
He managed to create content or type of content that was very organic, that was clickable, I think. Am I using the right term? Clickable. Not just that, but it can also apply to multiple audiences. It’s not like the typical prank video will go into the suggested section of funny videos. Real estate people seeking happiness, people seeking to grow, can apply to multiple audiences out there. You managed to tap into all of that. How did you figure it out?
Anthony: Basically, how do I do that is funny. It will be like a tremendous tip for you, is you need to know your competitors. We already watched a bunch of videos from different channels related to the content that she’s sharing. We analyzed how can we even make it better? Besides putting the content in there, we decided to say, “Okay, how can we make this much, much better than other YouTube channels that you’re going to see on the same topics?”
First of all, we analyzed the videos. We see what type of content they are sharing, and all basically, what they’re sharing is at a very high level. They don’t teach you the nitty-gritty. I say like, “Okay. Is it going to be better for you to use the board?”
Then we positioned the videos on this channel as a suggested video. That’s how I managed actually to drive all this traffic to her videos. Because the content was good, unique, it was more elaborate than most videos that you will find on YouTube. She walked you from point A to point Z in her computer or phone like the board behind us. That’s why we know that this type of content will be fair, and people will be seeking that because it’s unique.
Lucelia: Now that you’re talking from an expert standpoint, what would you share with someone who has no experience in social media? Because we have people of different levels. I’m sure some of you know a lot and can relate to what he’s talking about in Shopify, Facebook ads, and stuff like that, but what would you share with those who are probably hearing this for the first time? Maybe they knew about social media, but some people might be like, “Wait, I didn’t know Facebook had ads.” For those new to social media marketing, the newbies, what would you suggest to them? How should they get started?
Anthony: I feel like some tips that I can give you when you’re starting with social media marketing is to understand each platform and what type of ads, what kind of video content you can publish on each platform. What do I mean by that? If you’re going to go on Facebook, it will be hard to teach something to someone. Why do I say that? Because the content is mainly to have fun, see funny videos like memes, and see workout videos.
It’s going to be hard to teach in one minute video to someone, so you need to make each specific platform’s content. If you’re going to go on YouTube, the type of content you want to watch will be informative. People go on YouTube to search for stuff. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard the term “YouTube it.” If you don’t know the answer, go to Google or “Google it.” It’s the same thing.
On YouTube, you go to learn. You go on to see different things that you probably need to know and seeking answers too. On Instagram, you go to see probably some memes, workout videos. Although many people will say, “Okay, I learned a couple of things from Instagram.” But personally speaking, driving traffic from Instagram to someone’s page, like for the business that I work for, hasn’t been reliable at the moment.
I can tell you Facebook is pretty good. You need to understand Facebook and what type of videos you should share on Facebook. I think those are going to be my key points-in-some tips to get you started.
Lucelia: Those who understand the differences between the platforms but don’t know how to get started. I believe you have a playlist where you walk the audience through all of it. Everything from how to set up a Facebook ad. You even recorded the progress in the backend of how you grew this channel from when you first took it over to what it is now. Maybe you can share with them a little bit about that.
Ads
Anthony: Basically, what I did is created a video because I was going to track your progress and just show it to your audience, basically her audience of how I did it. That video will be on my channel, and that video will elaborate on how to use YouTube ads. Now I’m only showing you in the Frontend, but I can show you in the backend. Highlighting the steps I took to do YouTube ads, Facebook ads. The Frontend is what I’m telling you right now. Analyze the platform. What type of content are you going to post on social media. The backend is statistics, showing you how much money I’m putting in the ad, the type of video we decided to use for her ads, what kind of pictures, the lighting, the words, and what to put in the description.
Lucelia: Yes, I’m going to add that for those who are interested, and watching how he took this channel to the next level, and also learning a little bit about Facebook and stuff like that. His contact information will also be available for those business owners who are tuning in or building a YouTube channel and taking it to the next level. That way, you can reach out to Anthony and have him help you guys out.
Anthony: The playlist is free of charge. I’m just sharing my information. Most people are looking for that type of information, but they don’t know how to look for that. In that playlist, you’re going to see some of the latest videos. In my channel, I share mainly about my travel experiences, how I leverage-the different ways I can do- different types of methods I do to travel for free and experience around the world.
But in that specific playlist, you’re going to be able to find the YouTube training, the Facebook training. You’re going to see another video that I did and how you can actually do YouTube videos, but instead of paying for YouTube videos, you can even rank organically. It’s going to take you longer, and it will probably take you a little more than a year.
Lucelia: For those who are wondering, “Wow. It sounds like this guy is all over the place.” It’s not, because if you come to think of it, a happy person, it’s a well-rounded person. For us, it wasn’t just about pursuing our dreams, our career, real estate versus social media marketing. It’s also about being complete. We like to travel, and we enjoy learning about different cultures. It all ties back together.
I’m sure a lot of you are pursuing real estate because you want a better lifestyle. Because you enjoy it, but you also want to provide for your family. You want to be a business owner who doesn’t have to be tied to the business, and you can take days, sometimes even weeks. Pop your family on a plane and go all over the world and see what’s out there. That’s basically what the concept of this channel is because I don’t want you guys to get the perception, “Well, he jumped from traveling, and now he’s into social media.”
It all ties back together. Social media has a significant impact on how you can push your business to the next level. Let me give you an example. Back in the days, when I was little, I remember my dad used to promote the restaurant at the local newspaper, but that would only stay at the local level in that small town, and that was what it was. But with social media, you can not only apply that to, let’s say, for example, New York. You can take it to California. You can go international if you want to. Which at some point, we did test that in the global market. We’ve gotten some subscribers from Africa, Nigeria, the UK, and even Ireland.
Anthony: Elaborating a little bit more into how you can get specifically into social media marketing, and that’s the beauty of it. The difference between radio, TV, and a newspaper ad might still work, but you can go detailed with social media. You can pick the demographics. You want guys to see your ads, you want women to see your ads, you want people between the ages of 35 and 45. Who is your target audience?
Lucelia: You can be broad, but you can be specified simultaneously, and it’s all within your control. You don’t have to abide by the rules of the market or, “Well, if you want to target this audience, we’re going to charge you more.” No. You can select that and determine the budget. Although the budget will be another story, that’s what you’re going to cover in the playlist. We don’t want to make this video too long.
Anthony: That’s correct. I wanted to share one more thing. It is something that a lot of people say because they ask me, “Okay. What do you do for a living?”
Yes, they say, “Social media marketing.” They’ll be like, “Okay. You put the ads in front of people.” But they say, “I never watch the ads.” If you don’t think that it works, my question for you will be, “Why are you watching the video?” in a sense. Because you already clicked the ad and you subscribed to this channel. My point is, most people say, “Okay. YouTube ads. Okay, I don’t watch them. I don’t want to do that in my business.” How do you know? Have you ever tested it? Have you ever actually put money into it to see if you get leads, traffic, you get people in your restaurant? Even you can grow a brand as we did. What happens is that Facebook and YouTube and all these platforms allow you to show different ads.
Lucelia: Basically, it’s not just for this type of business. For example, you decide to open a restaurant, and you want to showcase how beautiful your restaurant is the food. You want to showcase some emotions about people and family sitting in your restaurant and enjoying it. For those who wish to do wholesaling, you can use that to collect emails. You can target people trying to sell the house, but they’re too embarrassed to admit in public that they want to sell the house. Then all of a sudden, boom, they see your ad.
You can expose your brand and your business to an unimaginable level, and it’s all done if you do it right, in Cents of the Dollars now. It didn’t cost Cents of the Dollars when I tested the model, but it’s slow progress. It wasn’t easy for me when I learned about real estate. It’s painful, but there’s a saying that goes, “If you feel the pain, it’s because it’s working.” The key is taking a step back and assessing whether it’s working or not, and I think we both did that despite how painful it was. We considered we took the lessons learned, the positive out of it, and we just completely disregarded the negative.
We took some of the negatives to become better, but we didn’t get stuck in it, and I think that’s basically what it’s-key. Social media it’s vital, not easy to learn. It seems easy on the front because we typically tend to go to social media to relax. Even when you’re seeking content on YouTube, it’s-someone else has put it together already for you.
Anthony: Before I forget. One key, if– something I want you to take away from this interview is that if you ever decide to promote your business via social media. Make sure that the video that you’re going to promote doesn’t seem like an ad. If you see it on your phone, without realizing you already clicked on it because you didn’t even know that it was an ad. That’s how you know that you are a good marketer because the content that you’re posting looks pretty much like a social media post.
Lucelia: Okay. Now that we know a little bit about the tips, social media marketing for investors, and how Facebook works, YouTube works. Why don’t you share with us a bit of yourself? I met Anthony when he was what? Three businesses in social media. Why don’t you share with everyone a little bit about how you got started. I remember you had a Shopify store.
Anthony: For the ones who don’t know, and probably you saw a bunch of ads, “Okay. Start your eCommerce store and start selling products.” Although that seems like an idea and I would say it’s not bad, but you’ve got to understand there’s going to be a lot of competition. Amazon is your first competitor. What this concept is, is that you’re going to create an online store. Shopify is going to be the host. Shopify is going to be the one that is going to give you the website. You’ve got to pay for that, and you can connect your website to a manufacturer in China.
What happens is that I bring traffic to the store, and as soon as I get a sale, I tell the manufacturer in China, “Okay. Send this product to their house.” I’m doing the wholesaling of the product. I get it for a lower price, send it to my customer for maybe 10, $20 profit per product.
Lucelia: Which is, in essence, not that much different from the business models from nowadays. You get your store, then you buy merchandise, typically from China. You then sell it to the person who walks into your store, but the difference is that we don’t have an actual physical store. Our store was online. When I met Anthony, my knowledge of eCommerce stores was minimal. I knew about online stores like Amazon, the big guy. I would see ads on Facebook, and I always thought there was a physical store behind that ad.
It wasn’t until I met him that the whole idea changed. He started telling me about passive income, how you can be out and still get sales, and stuff like that. I thought, “Well, you can make money back with the store.” But then he said, “No, no. I’m talking about sales. An actual store that you can let-running. That’s when I became very interested, and I started asking, “Okay. Tell me more.”
Anthony: Correct, Okay. Although the business model sounds impressive, it sounds like something that you can do with no money. I think the concept is a little bit broken because you’re not delivering a real product. I mean by a real product going back-tying these things to the channel and why this channel is being successful. We already have a thousand more subscribers because our products were replicas. You can get that on Amazon, and you can get that in different stores.
Lucelia: There’s always going to be somebody who can offer the same product at a much lower price. We were making penny profits. We were working up to two, three o’clock in the morning, and then I had to get up at 6:00 to go to work. You also had your job, but yours didn’t have the set 9:00 to 5:00. Your hours were very different from one day to another; we both worked hard.
Anthony: I’ll say long story short. We came to the realization and opened different stores. I opened my first store, which was selling phone cases. Then at the second store, I was selling dog products. Then the third store, we were selling a general store, pretty much everything. When I tell you that I lost a lot of money, it’s not even a joke. I think I lost over this time, 7,000, 8,000, just in trial and errors. By this time, if you want to say, “Who’s an expert?” Who hasn’t given up and is the one who’s delivered the values, providing the product, which I’m doing right now.
Lucelia: There’s no secret. Shopify is a big thing. I’m sure a lot of you guys who are watching are either involved in Shopify right now or were engaged at some point, or have launched a couple of business sites leveraging that platform. We’re talking to a man who has done it all to that extent. Share what everyone how you even got the whole idea of online marketing, online business? How you got started, from the point where you decided to drop out of college to pursue this.
Ads
Anthony: Okay. We’re going to take this a couple of years back since I started doing social media marketing. How did I start it, most importantly? It went down when I was going to college. When I was going to college, I was involved in an internship, and I was studying to be a nutritionist. I was two years in school, which was pretty good at the time. But what I realized sooner or later is when I was in the internship that I saw many people majoring in what I wanted to do, which was nutrition. What happened is that I started talking to them and listening to what they have to say and their own experience of, “How is life after graduating from college.” Keep in mind. They already had a master’s degree. What happened is I asked them, “How are you doing?” They told me they pretty much do the same internship. Some of them were not getting paid, and I was getting paid $20 per hour or so.
I got a paid internship and not the training where you’re not getting even paid because I knew someone. I met this guy because I was working in a nutrition store, supplement store. He came to the store, and he asked me, “Hey, Anthony,” about the products, and he loved the way that I was teaching about nutrition, supplements, and things that the product was going to do to their body.
I explained to him that I wanted to do more. I wanted to immerse myself in the field. He said he was working in a hospital. He gave me a paid internship in the hospital, and I was researching diabetes, blood pressure. As I said, I started interacting with the people that already finished school. Pretty much I concluded why these people already have a master’s degree, they already have a bachelor’s degree, and some are getting paid $20 an hour while they’re actually in debt for 50K, 60K, 70K? I was surprised. That was the beginning of the journey. I think I told you a couple of times.
Lucelia: Right. Anthony and I differed in our views in school. He poo-poos in school all the time. I chose the traditional path. For those who haven’t heard my story, here’s the card. To sum it up, my parents were small business owners. They were chained to business, working 80 hours a week if not more, and I was the little slave as well. For me, going from 80 hours to 40 hours working in corporate America with a degree wasn’t that much of a bad deal.
We’ve learned to live with it, with our differences. As you can see, we’ve joined forces on what we’re good at. In this case, he is excellent in social media marketing. I like to say that I am good at real estate. Hopefully, you guys think so too. What happened next? Did you drop out right away? Did you quit? What happened?
Anthony: It gets a bit interesting because I realized that I was basically at the end of the semester. In college, you have a spring break. Then you have summertime, and then you have fall, winter, then you take your classes. I took a break because I finished school at that time. When I came back to register for these next classes, I realized that I would pay thousands of dollars for just one type.
Then I started to think, “Is this something that I want to do?” Because when I was doing the research, we were sitting in a classroom looking at walls. I asked myself, “Is that something that you want to do the rest of your life?” Then I think what happened is that I said, “I’m not going to get myself into debt” because it was a lot of money. Most of that time, even though I was living with my grandparents, pretty much I was paying all myself. They weren’t helping me financially.
The little money that I made, it was going to go to that payment. I also realized that what are the things that I learned on this degree that I’m implementing and that I didn’t forget? I think that was important in my transition between dropping out of school and starting an eCommerce site. Where I was hands-on on the experience, and I had to learn it all myself.
I’m surprised because I never saw myself doing what I do right now, social media marketing, being in a different country. I came at the age of 17 and did it all by myself because most of the time, my family didn’t know what I was doing.
Lucelia: It’s a lonely road for him and me. Luckily, we found each other. I know I’m going a bit on a tangent here, but for you to be successful in what you do, you have to find a partner who understands you. Not so much understand the business model, believe it or not, a partner can take a lot away from you. Whether it’s business, whether it’s in a personal relationship like we are.
It is a lonely row. If you’re going to come home to someone, it better be someone who will bring you up, who’s going to make you feel that you’re doing something right. Because I remember when I met Anthony, and we were pursuing his social media business. His family didn’t understand much of what he did, but it makes sense to me for some reason. I understood what he was doing. My family wasn’t too.
They were wondering what it is that you always want more. Isn’t it enough? You already have a master’s. What more do you want to stop? They didn’t understand that I wanted to spend more time with them, rather than being locked up in an office, 9:00 to 5:00. Sometimes even longer than that. How was it for you? The loneliness? How did you cope with it, but it all together, and become who you are today in social media?
Anthony: I would say-like you say, it’s a hard thing to do because sometimes most people don’t understand what you are trying to do. Significantly, when you grew up in a family who ‘want the best for you,’ and think the only road to achieve greatness or try to achieve something means going to school and going to college.
Lucelia: The traditional route.
Anthony: Traditional route. When you’re trying to do something different, it’s scary for them. They don’t understand it because it’s not a degree that you’re pursuing. It’s not a degree that I was seeking. But over time, I think that my mom and my family understood what I’m doing. They still don’t fully understand how I do social media and leverage different platforms, like what I do for a living, but now I would say they don’t question me anymore. They don’t say, “Okay, you got to go to school. You got to finish your education.” I’m happy where I’m at because my job or what I do is pretty flexible. Most of the time, I can work from home and choose to spend time with my family.
If you were asking me, “Why did you decide to make a change?” or, “How’s the road or how was your journey getting towards where I’m at today?” I would say it was lonely pursuing what I believed in, and that was not working in a 9:00 to 5:00 job and leveraging social media to make a living out of it. That’s what I’m doing. I do videography, and I do social media marketing. Two things that I think I’m good at.
Lucelia: Agreed. Keep your mind on the end goal. If you strongly believe in it and think you can make it work, it makes sense. Just shut it out. Ignore them. Some people want the best for you. Some others not so much. You don’t need friends like that in your life.
RESOURCES & LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:
– Link to the presentation slides: go.www.novariseinvest.com/cares-act
– Cares Act: https://www.congress.gov/116/bills/hr748/BILLS-116hr748enr.pdf
VIDEOS COMPLEMENTING THIS ONE:
– How is a real estate investor managing her properties in this crisis?: https://youtu.be/36iowp8osqo
– Improve your credit while you maker money: https://youtu.be/eOx82LBo14g
– Fund & Grow your real estate portfolio: https://youtu.be/VV0n1crixUQ
PLAYLIST COMPLEMENTING THIS ONE:
– Investing During The Crisis: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sSrOt5IXnMs&list=PLbg0ENts-e2tjHtaG6f7Vb-gJwXzrFsx2
All About Business Credit Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dVtOEoKP8b4&list=PLbg0ENts-e2sznkpSyI-K9-rRcE3JppZh
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