[00:00:00] Jeff Sieh: Welcome to Social Media News Live I’m Jeff Sieh and you’re not.

[00:00:03] Grace Duffy: And I’m Grace Duffy. And this is the show that keeps you up to date on what’s happening in the world of social media. And more last week we had on the, or Jeff had on the amazing Stephanie Liu, she and Jeff talked about launching your own live shopping show from a producer’s point of view.

[00:00:21] And today we have part two of live shopping. We’re interviewing two live streaming, Amazon influencers who are on the other side of the camera, interviewing experts and entrepreneurs.

[00:00:33] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. In today’s show, we are talking with my friend Jim Fuhs and Chris Stone of Dealcasters, all about the biggest opportunity for creators to grow and influence and generate considerable revenue with live selling on Amazon live. So we’re going to be digging into why we need to be Amazon influencers specifically, and how to get started. We’re gonna be talking about navigating brand deals, as well as building your own brand with Amazon live. And we’re also going to talk to them about their Amazon live day at coming up on VidFest at the end of this month at the PodFest Expo in Orlando.

[00:01:05] So stick around for that. So if you do not know Chris Stone and Jim Fuhs you’re going to today because Chris Stone, he is the president of CastAhead with twenty-five plus years history in the music industry with. And the success of his co-hosted podcast, changing his life. And it’s it’s helped him become a driven and passionate entrepreneur.

[00:01:26] He has founded the podcast and live streaming consultancy CastAhead. He’s also produced videos for keynote speakers like Victor Antonio, and Sam Silverstein, remote produced virtual live conferences for corporations and consultant and developed and produced hundreds of podcast episodes.

[00:01:42] Now, Jim is the president of Fuhsion Marketing and does marketing the Marine corpse way.

[00:01:47] The Marine Corps way. He is a retired Marine Corps. Lieutenant Colonel turned digital marketing consultant, speaker live streamer, podcaster, remote live stream, and virtual event producer with over 30 years of business and social media experience, he uses his Marine Corps leadership with next level digital marketing and as 20 plus years of highly successful leadership experience as a Marine Corps officer.

[00:02:09] And he lets that he brings that to bear in his ever-changing world of. We all know it’s an ever-changing world of marketing folks and he and Jim together pro co-host and produced the regular Amazon live show DealCasters live. They also collaborate as remote live producers and have led assisted coordinated production teams with clients such as IBM, United nations, global compact MIT Toastmasters, international Glasgow, Smith, Klein, Jamaican CA chamber of commerce, us biz party, which has included speakers as Gary Vaynerchuk, Seth Goden, and many more oh my gosh.

[00:02:43] That was the longest intro ever. But you guys have done so much. You know, I was talking to Grace and I thought, I don’t know if we’ve ever, I even know the answer to this question, but how did the two of you start working together? Chris? I’ll let you go.

[00:02:58] Chris Stone: Yeah. It, it comes down to networking and I think one of the most underrated components of podcasting of live streaming is the ability to network with people.

[00:03:08] I would not have met Jeff Sieh if it wasn’t for you know, meeting him at the last PodFest when everybody was in real life. But over the course of those two years, I got to know Jeff Sieh and Grace Duffy, and all of these great people that we see in the chat, Junaid, Ahmed, Billy Thorpe, all of these people.

[00:03:25] So that networking aspect of live video and podcasting is just, I consider one of the most underrated things that there is. And so Jim and I met at a podcast Atlanta meetup and I was working on more audio podcasting. Some video Jim was working on a lot more video, a lot more remote product.

[00:03:47] And so we met there became fast friends and you know, eventually knew at some point we wanted to do something together. And we were thinking about while we’re similar businesses, but different voices. And we treated, we didn’t treat each other as competitors. And when Jim gave me a call one day and said, Chris we have our show, we’re Amazon influencers.

[00:04:11] I gave him that look like a dog gives when the here’s a funny noise. But the light bulbs went off and we said, this is a way for us to do what we do. Owned businesses onone of the biggest malls of the world. And we don’t have to like, have that same conversation with different clients.

[00:04:32] Like here’s the mic I think you should use. Here’s the lighting you should use. Here’s this, oh, here’s my affiliate link. And we hope and pray. We get your 13 cents from the thing that you bought, all of those things were just taking too much time. And we said, we can do a show and just cover that.

[00:04:48] And then we have this content to work with that we can just repurpose and deliver value to those clients.

[00:04:55] Jeff Sieh: So Jim, I’ll let you, is that true? Cause you can refute anything he just said. So is that really what.

[00:05:02] Jim Fuhs: It is true. And the, the, the funny thing is though, the fact that Chris will still talk to me.

[00:05:08] Cause when we met in person, I said, you remind me of Max Headroom. Oh. And I cannot

[00:05:15] Jeff Sieh: see it. See that

[00:05:18] Grace Duffy: There’s a blast from the past. It’s because of the Sony connection. It wasn’t even,

[00:05:22] Chris Stone: he did that. And that was his thing. He was glitchy. He did that. Max said,

[00:05:27] Grace Duffy: where are you calling him?

[00:05:28] Glitchy?

[00:05:30] Jim Fuhs: Yeah. Not at all, but you know, we’re about the same age, young guys in our thirties. And you know, we have a lot in common you know, we like sports, we like music. And you know, it’s really just been a lot of fun.

[00:05:47] Jeff Sieh: That’s cool. I mean, it’s really interesting. When we’re talking about this because, and Chris mentioned, this is the collaboration that happened with live video, when you’re in your local economy, a lot of people don’t know what you do as a marketer, especially a digital marketer.

[00:06:02] They’re like what you play on Facebook all day. And then with live video, being able to connect with each other, there’s nothing like it that allows you to, I’m sure it’s with the same with you guys. Like my friends, like Ian Anderson, gray, who’s going to be at a vid Vesta and PodFest in Atlanta.

[00:06:17] It’s just cause we talk all the time and we do live shows together. It’s just like continuing the conversation. There’s something about live video that it’s, you’re, face-to-face, you’re talking and Grace and I, we never see each other and she’s in Dallas, I’m in Longview, which is only two hours away.

[00:06:30] But when we come together, it’s it’s just like normal. It’s just like nothing. It’s just like continuing the conversation. So I think your point about collaboration is huge and you’ve brought your your entire, I think fan club with you. A lot of people. And Gary’s always looking after me.

[00:06:47] He says my auto focus needs to be fixed. I waved my arms around too much. Gary, there we go. It should be fixed now or it’s hitting my microphone. So thanks Gary for looking out for me. All right. So by the way, I wanted to give us a shout out to our sponsors, Ecamm. They are amazing. They are what makes the show possible.

[00:07:03] They help sponsor the show and they have from the very, very beginning, but one of the things that they’re doing right now, and we had Stephanie Liu on last week talking about live selling as well is they have this brand new series called showrunner to and you can go in there and they’re talking for eight weeks, Stephanie Lewis leading this all about life selling.

[00:07:21] And so she talked about it, kind of an intro last week. She dove in a little bit deeper this week, but you can sign up and it’s all free, but you can get you know, on your calendar. If you go to ecamm.tv/liveselling. It is amazing. I learned stuff every time and I’ve been doing this stuff since the old days of Google plus, and we had.

[00:07:42] For diesel fuel into our computers and crank the starter. So I’ve been doing it for a while but go check them out. ecamm.tv/liveselling All right, Grace, let’s get going.

[00:07:54] Grace Duffy: Yeah. Yes. So today’s show is all about Amazon live Amazon life shopping, and we cannot talk about that without talking about Amazon influencers.

[00:08:03] So in a short amount of time, Amazon has risen to become a massive opportunity for creators looking to grow their influence and generate considerable revenue for themselves and for the brands that they’re promoting and or representing. So we have Jim and Chris on your today because they are the experts, Amazon influencers.

[00:08:27] And so we want to know about this Amazon influencer program for content creators. How can us normal, regular people get involved and also, what do you need to do to start selling or making shoppable content on?

How Do I Become An Amazon Influencer?

[00:08:43] Chris Stone: Grace, you are far from normal. You, I, and I said this before. Absolutely.

[00:08:48] And Gary Delaney agrees with me seeing here on the chat. This is far and away. My favorite livestream on the interwebs. And you know, it’s an honor for Jim and I to to once again, be on here with you on Social Media News Live. If you guys have not followed Social Media News Live, this is the first time you’re seeing the show.

[00:09:09] Trust me, everybody go right now, follow the show on whatever tube you’re watching this. You can also get it as an audio podcast and download it as well in case you miss it. But back to what I was saying is that and to answer your question more, more specifically Grace is like, What influencers and with specifically what Amazon and the Amazon influencer program have done is,

[00:09:37] I don’t know how many years ago somebody just thought, in order for you to be a influencer, you had to have six, seven figure followers and subscribers. And after all of these companies started spending, tons and tons of money for these elite celebrities to talk about their product, they realized what was really selling was people who are like gray said normal.

[00:10:01] And those are, you can call them whatever you want to call them nano. influencers And there’s all kinds of names for influencers. I can’t keep up. If you have 500 subscribers, you’re a nano. But all I know is this is that Amazon found out early on that you don’t have to be a celebrity. And when they started to do these live streams on the platform, almost three years ago, they were using celebrities and people don’t remember that.

[00:10:27] And they were massive failures. And so they said, okay, what if we just hired people that worked for Amazon, that weren’t necessarily big celebrities, maybe they knew, what they were doing, and let’s create a show, and, see how it works on prime day. Let’s see what it works on black Friday.

[00:10:45] Let’s see how that works, massive success. And so they said, now this is what we’re going to do. We’re going to create this Amazon influencer program. And guess what? You don’t have to have that many followers. And if you’re someone. that Has an existing business or someone that is a content creator or content entrepreneur.

[00:11:05] And it isn’t necessarily your full time gig. You can use the Amazon influencer program and bolt it onto what you’re doing. And it creates just a very nice amount of passive income while still, you being able to continue with whatever brand and whatever business that you have.

[00:11:25] Jeff Sieh: So what is it? So you mentioned, you don’t have to have a ton of different followers. So what do you need Jim, to become an Amazon influencer? Can you just go fill out a form and boom, you’re an influencer. What are they looking for as an influencer?

[00:11:45] Jim Fuhs: Yeah, it’s actually pretty close to that. Now they’ve changed it a little bit. When we got approved, I used my Twitter account, but now I don’t know for whatever reason, maybe, before Elan, they they, they took Twitter away.

[00:11:57] For some reason, maybe it’ll come back. Yeah. But you go to the Amazon, it’s first become, we always tell people become an associate first because then you can at least get those product links. You could talk, any product link you talk about, you can put in shownotes on all the tubes as Chris.

[00:12:14] And I like to say, but then you just go over and it’s it’s the influencer program. And all they’re really going to ask is pick one of four platforms, TikTok. Instagram YouTube or your Facebook business page. And what we recommend is the one that you have the highest number of followers on because it with YouTube, you’re going to find out right away with the others.

[00:12:38] I’m not sure about TikTok, but I definitely, with Facebook and Instagram, it could be up to five days. They don’t tell us how many people you need, but we would probably say you want to probably north of 2000 followers in most cases. And and if you do get disapproved, don’t give up, apply again.

[00:12:57] We’ve seen people that have, got it the second time around. So be persistent on that and it’s that simple, right? There’s not like a bunch of, 20 questions. And this is, I think also a misconception. You don’t have to be someone that lives. We have seen people get started in the program that have never live stream because they’ll join these Facebook groups and we’ll say, how do I live stream?

[00:13:20] So it’s really does not require you to be someone that has this huge history of live streaming. They’re really looking at your I think your follower count and probably are you posting on the platform that you are applying with it, obviously, if you’ve got followers, you probably are. So that’s how I would kind of describe it on a Chris wanted to add anything there.

[00:13:42] Chris Stone: Yeah, I think that’s spot on. I think, it’s, it’s it, again goes back to you don’t have to be massive. You don’t have to be Jeff Sieh just yet you can be Chris Stone and start at, this level and you know, be able to do this. And I think one of the things that is, is a misconception is that Jim talked about these people that were getting approved to be on Amazon live and never going live.

[00:14:14] And so what happens and why Jim and I really have this thing to evangelize for this platform is that if you’ve got a bunch of influencers that are going live and are creating recorded video, like product videos, which I’m happy to talk about as well, is that they don’t have experience doing it.

[00:14:32] Maybe they were an Instagram person that was doing pictures, or they just don’t have a lot of experience going live. We’re going live and waiting for people to chat with them. And all they’re making all of the mistakes. Maybe we all had made years ago. So if you’re someone that is a live streamer, someone that knows how to make a decent product video, even if you don’t qualify, you can start doing this.

[00:14:56] Now you can. And then when you do get approved, you’re automatically shot to the front of the line. And it’s why we evangelize and why we were like knock, Jeff, Sieh come on over here. You know knock Kevin Colby. Knock-knock, Gabriel Lewis, and say and say, Hey, look, this is something we wanna, we want to make this thing better.

[00:15:16] We don’t look at any one of these content creators as competition. We don’t look at Janette Ahmed and you know, all of our friends here in the chat as competition, we look at them as Hey, let’s make each other better. Let’s lift all the ships here. Let’s make this thrive because I don’t know if you remember YouTube in the early days was hot, garbage, you would look at it and everyone’s YouTube it’s, and I go, why am I here?

[00:15:41] But we all wished before there were now 40 million YouTube channels that we had created a YouTube channel and figured out how to do it really well.

[00:15:52] Jeff Sieh: So I want to bring up a point here from our friend, Gary Stockton, who’s watching over on YouTube. He goes, I watched the guy last week talking about digital audio recorders and he held my attention for quite a while.

[00:16:02] It’s interesting to look at specific niche of prod products, if you have expertise. So on this note, because I know you guys talk about this and for me, I mean, we do this show over on on Amazon live, but I also have been doing carving shows over there. And that’s the thing. What I love about Amazon live is you, everyone says, the riches are in the niches.

[00:16:23] You don’t have to be in a niche. I was even worried. I I messaged Jim going, Hey, can I do my carving over there? Because it is. You know, the opposite of what I do normally, is that going to screw up anything it’s no, do it. And so talk about that a little bit, Jim, about the ability to not have to niche down and be like, oh, I’m just going to be a Pinterest guy, or I’m just going to be talking about tech or I’m just going to talk about lighting.

[00:16:48] So talk about the opportunities that maybe a lot of people don’t think about over. Yeah.

[00:16:55] Jim Fuhs: So I helped ’em and she’s going to be one of our speakers. Denise Lipka is this lady who does art classes for kids. And she contacted me. She had this huge Facebook following and said, you should apply. And she got approved.

[00:17:09] And so she does art classes on the channel. The stuff is in her carousel Geraldine, Wilkins, who’s a quilter, a quilter. She does the same thing. And I think she’s maybe actually in Chris can, would know this too. I think she’s actually started a second show. Kind of like you have where she talks about tech.

[00:17:27] Cause she’s a really good with e-com. As a matter of fact, shout out to eat cam on that, but you know, Bradley, Vincent, same thing, teaching people how to do graphics and having the stuff he uses in the carousel. Cause here’s something you may not realize a lot of the software products we use.

[00:17:44] Are available on Amazon Photoshop is available on Amazon, not to say that you’re going to buy it there, but you know, and I love your woodcarving show. We had missed it for a long time. Cause a lot of those things you’re using, you can buy on Amazon. So if somebody gets the idea, like you can be teaching people how to do things on Amazon, there’s cooking shows.

[00:18:04] I mean, there’s people doing fitness. So this whole idea of it’s gotta be a certain way. And even some like Chris and I kind of do two different things, when it’s just me and Chris, we dive a lot deeper into, technology and how to podcast, or like last week we had fun and did a may the fourth episode.

[00:18:22] And that was when I watched a bunch of Star Wars stuff. But then next week we’re going to interview David Meerman Scott about his new book. And so there’s some opportunities there because, and I think, this, Jeff if Jim Fuhs and Chris Stone were doing a show outside of Amazon and we were to go ask somebody, Hey, would you like to be on our show to talk about your book?

[00:18:45] They’d probably be like how many followers would you say, would you like to be interviewed on Amazon? They’re like, what? And so that’s a whole different dynamic. And so I think that, and here’s the other thing, about being on Amazon versus say YouTube and we’re on YouTube. So don’t get me wrong.

[00:19:05] But people are looking for solutions to their problem on YouTube. They’re ready to buy on Amazon.

[00:19:13] Jeff Sieh: Oh, that’s such a good point. I think that people forget and I was talking to somebody else the other day. It’s you don’t ha we’re trying to get them in the funnel on everything. We’re always like, okay, sign up for my free ebook and then your lead them down a path as it may, hopefully they’ll buy your course and all this stuff.

[00:19:29] They’re already at Amazon. They’re there at the mall. They’re ready. They got their wallet with them. They’re looking at, oh, you know what, I really need to get a new vacuum, and they’re there. And they’re just looking to see which the best vacuum to buy. And so there’s that purchase intent.

[00:19:44] Chris Stone: I’d love to dovetail on, on, on that. And that is, know, Jeff, you and I have been doing podcasts for a number of years, and that’s one of the big rules is your avatar, right? Although every time I say avatar here, avatar, I think that like blue movie with the blue people. So if you already have a podcast and you already have an existing brand, you already know who you’re talking to.

[00:20:08] And you’re probably creating content to solve their problems. And so that’s why Jim and I, We’re a bit of an anomaly in that we created the show on the platform itself, and then the other stuff followed that’s when we created all the socials. And that’s why we don’t have, a ton of YouTube subscribers.

[00:20:29] It’s just not a focus for us. We try to do what we can do, but we know that’s a longer game for us. We’re not going to ignore it. And we’re going to try to do what we can do off of the rented land. But when you go live on Amazon, I think some people think they have to completely change everything that they do.

[00:20:46] I mean, this show right now is on Amazon. And if you look and you say, oh, look at this, this thing behind Chris, is it’s that? Thing’s kind of cool. I wonder I wonder what it’s about. Maybe you hit me up in the chat and say, where did you get that? I actually did buy it on Amazon. There’s a canvas, a company that creates these things.

[00:21:03] And then I put soundproof insulation in it and it becomes like functional for my studio. Something like that is you’re still doing your show. We’re doing a show, we’re doing a podcast. And yet we can incorporate products into the mix because that’s who our audience is. That’s who want to hear what we’re saying?

[00:21:21] And guess what? If they’re seeing it on Amazon, all they got to do is hit. And they buy it and at no extra cost to you, we’ll get a little commission off of it. And why wouldn’t you want to do it? If you’re watching a Jeff Sieh woodcarving show and you’re interested in woodcarving, that is a niche.

[00:21:41] Absolutely. And you’re going to get a ton of people and those people are going to love what you’re doing. And it’s going to create more attention for your business off of that platform as well.

[00:21:51] Jeff Sieh: Very, very cool.

[00:21:52] Grace Duffy: So we have a question from our friend, Gary here. He says you don’t have to buy a product.

[00:21:58] You don’t have to buy product to talk about on Amazon. You can maybe have one item to show off and then add accessories. Am I right? So I paraphrase. Like you don’t have to actually buy the product to talk about it. You can talk about it in, or do you have to have the physical product? If you’re talking about a physical.

Do You Have To Have The Product To Sell On Amazon Live?

[00:22:15] Jim Fuhs: So they’ve changed the rules a little bit. And what they want to do is as an insider, at least you have to have 75% of the things you’re talking about. So if I had, as an example, the Rodecaster pro on hand, I could do that. But then maybe some of the things you could add to it, I don’t have to have, but, another way, if you want to say, and I’m not saying it’s, around it, you can use B roll.

[00:22:39] Cause obviously, sometimes the things you’re wanting, you might want to talk about, like I’m using my focus, rite It’s hard for me to show it on camera unless I have a camera angle. So I might show a B roll of that. So that’s another way to, meet that, if you want to call it requirement.

[00:22:54] But I think it also what Chris and I have seen in you may have seen this as well. Jeff, if you’re seeing good content, Amazon’s not going to strike you down there. There have had a problem. And I think sometimes it’s like don’t stuff, your carousel with all the top selling products, because you think that’s going to get you more viewers because your video is playing on that product page, stick with the stuff that you know that you’re talking about.

[00:23:22] if you have an author on, you might have the book that he just released, but maybe you have all his books in the carousel as an example. So that there is a little bit of leeway, but we believe in being, rather safe than sorry, because, you would hate to lose this opportunity because, you’re trying to, if you want to call, I wouldn’t call it gaming the system, but, just, use common sense.

[00:23:48] Chris Stone: Yes.

[00:23:49] Grace Duffy: Let’s talk about if you have a cooking show and you have an electric pepper grinder and you’ve had this and it’s been passed down your family for generations. But in you’re cooking with it, can you put a different electric pepper grinder in the, in your carousel and or does it have to be the exact one or does it matter?

[00:24:04] Because sometimes I’ll be. Like a kitchen tutorial and I’m like, oh, I really want that type of product. I don’t need that necessarily. That same one. Do you get penalized for something like that? Or would you have to have the exact lemon squeezer pepper grinder, whatever it is?

[00:24:18] Jim Fuhs: I think that’s fine.

[00:24:19] I think it’s fine to have, this is something similar that is, is doing the same thing. Now what I would say, if you’re going to put another product in there other than when you’re using this, at least mine and Chris’s belief in this kind of goes into some of the other questions. I know you have you, you better believe in the product because that’s your reputation.

[00:24:41] So don’t put some cheap product in there just because it does the same thing. And then later you have, you find out people are, two and three starring this product. And you’re like, wow. And I put that in my carousel though, or even

[00:24:52] Jeff Sieh: returning it because you get, yeah. You make a sale, it’ll come back to you get dinged for those.

[00:24:58] Chris Stone: Sure. I think they’re getting that granular with the half 75% on hand stuff. If you’re at the insider level as you go for that, I think it’s a general rule. To be put out there for people like Jim was saying are gaming the system because that’s what we were seeing is oh, I’m just going to pick all of the top sellers, put them on my carousel.

[00:25:20] It doesn’t even matter if I’m talking about something for woodcarving, I’m hitting this fan. That’s the number one seller. And trying to drive all of that traffic over. And nobody wants that. We don’t want that. I don’t want somebody that’s shopping for a fan to come to our show and we don’t have a fan to talk about.

[00:25:35] And so I don’t know why anybody would do that. And there was a gaming of the system, but I think if you’re doing a show to your point, Grace, where you’re, it’s a cooking show and you have something that may not be sold on Amazon. But it is similar and something that and it’s a brand that you trust and most of the stuff generally you have on hand, you’re the expert.

[00:25:57] It’s a, it’s almost like if you were walking around Costco or. Big box store and there’s Grace, Duffy standing there cooking show something, and you’re sitting there and everyone’s oh man, this is delicious. This is really cool. How you doing this? And you’re like this is, this has been in my family for years, but this is generally the same thing.

[00:26:17] And you know, this is from brand so such and such, you’re the expert. And so that in your helping people make a great purchase decision. So I don’t think it’s really oh, you know, here’s Grace Duffy stream. She was at 72% of products on hand strike. It’s not, that’s not the interference.

[00:26:36] Grace Duffy: So let’s be honest about my life. It would be a Costco and I’d be demonstrating how to cook sausages. Let’s just be honest about

[00:26:42] Jeff Sieh: let’s have a disclaimer. Yeah. Let’s do a disclaimer, please. Don’t go to Costco and start. Because they probably wouldn’t frown on that unless you’re an employee.

[00:26:50] So don’t

[00:26:53] Jim Fuhs: touch, you could go to whole

[00:26:56] Grace Duffy: foods. You can say it outside of a whole foods. Didn’t do that.

[00:26:58] Jeff Sieh: One of the things about the co the carousel I wanted to talk about, because for me, I have everything that I have on my desk listed because I’m using it. And if somebody says, Hey, talk about it, I can pick it up and show them.

[00:27:11] That’s just kind of my rule. I mean, I, don’t always, I’m not like using my larger tech camera, but I’ve got it right there because I use it for product shots. And so I can show that if I needed to. So I think just be smart about it. The other thing, and I think, I can’t remember if it was Chris or Jim told me this is if you’re a podcaster and you’re on Amazon music, you can have your podcast as a carousel item, which is really cool because that’s how I get subscribers over on Amazon music, which is great for podcasts.

[00:27:38] We want that. So that’s another thing that I think a lot of people don’t realize as well. So that’s a really cool tip. And Gary says this, he goes to the thing I like about it is the audiences there for the product. So it’s not like you need to promote your session. Am I right? Yeah. I mean, they’re discovering you kind of just randomly on the live stream page wouldn’t you say that’s where most people find you?

[00:28:02] Chris Stone: I think w we treated a little differently. Yes. Most of your audience, like you get to the end and you’ll go, holy crap. That was a lot of viewers. And so obviously, if you don’t have really that much, that many people before you got on Amazon, those people did come over because you were talking about particular products and your video was on the page and drove them over.

[00:28:24] So those might be views that are thumb by views. But when we do our show we do redirects. Like Jeff’s show when he was was, he was on our show. If you go to Jeff Sieh dot deal, casters.live, it’s going to take you straight to his show. And because Amazon gives you this long hieroglyphics URL, and we were like, this is not.

[00:28:47] You know, our shows Dealcasters live on Amazon. So we’re going to buy.live. We’re gonna buy deal. Castro site live. And every time we do a show it’s, this is free to do by the way. So if you will not to buy a particular domain, buying a domain was like a cup of coffee, but once you have that domain, you can create sub domains.

[00:29:07] So if your show is Jeff Sieh dot LA. You can create a show that is Dealcasters dot Jeff Sieh dot live. That takes you right to a show. You just go in and say, this is the Amazon link I want you to send to. And so our intention on that is to drive views over to Amazon from the other places. We do get a I don’t want to say considerable, but we get, there’s a good chunk of commission revenue, and also views that come from off site.

[00:29:38] And that’s because every time we do a podcast, every time you see all of the social media, all of the repurposing that we do from the show, driving people back to each one of these shows or our shop page or whatever, when you send someone from offsite into Amazon, you get a higher commission rate because of course, Amazon loves that you sent somebody there.

[00:29:59] And so that’s really the driving force, but. Gary T to answer your question more specifically yes. More views. Percentage-wise definitely come from inherently being on the platform, your video being on the shop page for that particular product. Somebody going, oh, wow. That bearded dude, carving wood looks like he knows what he’s talking about.

[00:30:21] Click. I’m going to watch a show click. I’m going to buy.

[00:30:24] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. I know what I’m talking about. Carving.

[00:30:27] Jim Fuhs: Yeah. And I wanted to add one thing to that. It’s not necessarily working. I think the way we’d like to see it as influencers, but there’s the whole follow thing. So if you follow Jeff Sieh, which you, if you’re on Amazon, go down there or depending on which device you are hit the follow button.

[00:30:45] You’re supposedly going to start getting notified when Jeff goes. And there’s even that whole live stream page that you can see on the web on, you know, at least on the computer and iPad, where to show you upcoming shows, you can get noted reminders, I believe. So they are working to make them more of a visibility.

[00:31:07] You know, as an example, if you have your fans that like to watch your show, that’s how they’re going to find out about it. So that is something that they would like you to have people come to your show that are there for it. And you will catch some from the, if you want to call it the drive-bys that are at the mall coming by your kiosk.

[00:31:27] But but yeah, so followers is definitely something that Amazon. All of us to do. And so it’s interesting because you have all these followers on the other platforms, but people don’t realize you mean following people on Amazon is a thing. And so that I think has been a challenge because we know people have thousands and thousands of say YouTube followers, whatever else, they can’t get them to come over to Amazon and follow them there.

[00:31:51] Jeff Sieh: So really quick, I wanted to ask you, Jim, is that, one of the things with Amazon live is can you embed, can you take your Amazon stream and embedded on your website? I mean, is that something you can do? You know, like on Facebook I can take my Facebook video and embed it on like a blog page or something.

[00:32:17] Could you do the same thing with a, with an Amazon video to help with traffic?

[00:32:23] Jim Fuhs: Yeah, I don’t see why you couldn’t. I mean, as long as you’re able to get it to do that, I would, the one thing I would remind people to do is make sure that site is on your Amazon associates account. You know, here’s the stuff where I’m posting traffic and, the whole FTC thing of making people realize that, Hey, I make commissions off of this site, but I think as long as you’ve done that, I don’t see any problem in doing that.

[00:32:51] Chris Stone: So I I honestly, I wouldn’t and here’s why it’s not number one. Jim brings up a great point. I think anytime you’re talking about FTC stuff, you always need to tread very lightly. If you’re doing anything on your own website and you’re driving traffic to Amazon you got to make people.

[00:33:12] That they’re going there. And as an Amazon influencer, you are covered there, when they arrive, they’re like this influencer makes money from the program, they’re an influencer. But it is a it’s delicate and the goalposts move. And there’s not a lot of communication as to far, as far as when those goalposts move.

[00:33:29] So I would be delicate. And the other thing too is even though you can basically RTMP to any website that you’ve got, which is what you would have to do. I think with with an Amazon live broadcast, you still are not going to be able to the people that are on that site are not gonna be able to chat with you.

[00:33:47] They there’s no product carousel. And really the entire intention is to get them over on Amazon, which is why we have all the redirects. That’s a good point,

[00:33:55] Jeff Sieh: by the way. You know, you mentioned doing the.live as a redirect. And so I did this exact same thing. So if you go to Jeff Sieh dot live, it takes you to my Amazon page.

[00:34:05] And that’s a S I E H. I before E especially in See. jeffsieh.live. If you want to look at that. The, so the amazing Stephanie Liu is here, so guys be on your best behavior cause she will you know, shut us down if we’re being judged. So let’s talk about this engagement on Amazon, how to be engagement and get those people to follow you and stuff.

[00:34:27] And I watched your, it may the fourth show one because I’m just a nerd. And two, I, I needed some new Star Wars Legos, but one of the things you guys did, which I thought was very cool. And I hadn’t, maybe a lot of people, I know people do giveaways over there all the time, but you were doing a thing like follow us.

[00:34:43] And if you follow us before, click on it and click on it. So we get a notification you’re going to be entered in this we’ll have fun or whatever, or we’ll have prizes. I thought that was genius. One to get followers. And two, it made it interactive and people would stay on for your stream for a long time.

[00:34:58] For the hope of winning the way you guys did it. I mean, I know it was, it’s a hard thing to do live is entering people’s names and all that kind of stuff. But can you talk about some ways. The and tactics that you drive engagement on your Amazon streams, because I think that’s important. And a lot of people overlook that.

[00:35:15] We’ll start with you Chris.

How Do I Engage Shoppers on Amazon Live?

[00:35:19] Chris Stone: Yeah. First and foremost, I think a lot of people, when they go live on most, every platform like the Amazon and really, there’s going to be lots of other live selling platforms that are coming there’s ones that are already live there. Just don’t have a program yet, like Amazon does.

[00:35:35] And there’s, you’ve got supply chain and shipping and all of those stuff that it’s going to get figured out. So get ready. If you’re a content creator, you’re probably live, you’re probably already selling. You don’t even know it. And so why not get that commission for that, but when you create a show on Amazon in order for you to be live and engaging first and foremost you know, everyone does those intro videos, you know, we’re going live in five minutes, and then there’s a countdown and maybe you have a graphic. Maybe that person is just kind of sitting there or whatever. Jim and I our intention in the show and the whole run of show it to keep things moving and keep people engaging. It kind of goes back to what we said.

[00:36:13] Grace and Jeff earlier is who’s your audience? Who is. And so don’t waste their time, right? So if we go live and we are talking about a particular product first in terms of run of show and we’re highlighting that product, we have to think there are. Lots of people on that product page that will see our show and they’ll come over.

[00:36:35] And if they come over to our show and we’re talking about, you know, what we did that day or something like that, they’re going to be like, I’m not interested. I came over here because I wanted to learn about the product. So that’s kind of why Amazon’s policing some of this stuff.

[00:36:51] So you have to be a, you know, ready to, ready to go right out of the gate, let’s, you can’t, let’s not worry about the sponsors. Let’s get people’s attention. That’s the other thing. When we want something engaging, that’s what. It was just so fun to create this show and why it’s still fun for me is because it’s a fantastic sandbox for me as a video editor and as a content creator for me to be in, to be able to create some pattern interrupts, to be able to create some scenes in, in, in E M or whatever, to create this big circle in the middle of the screen that says unmute, see, I’m doing this right now.

[00:37:25] Just so everyone’s unmuting on your show on Amazon. You know? Exactly. And then when when you’re creating this prize wheel like we had for may the fourth and you know, those are the kinds of things that, and I know there’s some questions here in the chat about about followers and, let, you know, Jim take that in terms of engagement, but, This is the other way that a lot of content creators have achieved success in terms of gaining followers, is we all know you’re going to go on Amazon.

[00:37:59] You’re kind of looking for some deals, right? You’re kind of looking for some, maybe some freebies. You’re kind of looking for some prizes. And Jim and I get approached by a number of brands and they’re happy to give us products that would be considered, giveaways for something.

[00:38:15] And we’re highlighting that product all throughout the show. And that’s really the the impetus of doing, what did you call it? The wheel of death? I don’t, we don’t even really have a name for it.

[00:38:26] Jeff Sieh: So the wheel of wonder. So about that. So it’s funny about you talk about pattern interrupt a little bit.

[00:38:36] You may not know this, but when I started and designed Social Media News Live show, I looked at your show a lot. And that’s why I have, like, when I go to, you know, and I have these things on the side, they’re kind of cheesy. And if I was designing this for different, a different platform, I probably wouldn’t have them, but it’s that pattern interrupt.

[00:38:55] And I did, I use you guys to show is okay, that caught my attention. Why did it catch my attention? Okay. And try to do some of those same kinds of things. Jim, do you have anything else that you would say for best practices for like engagement when you’re actually doing a show on.

What Is A Pattern Interupt and How Can I Use It On Amazon Live?

[00:39:12] Jim Fuhs: Yeah. Now Chris, didn’t get a chance to show up, but we also have another scene that we created when it’s just Chris and I called Chatolisious and we’ll actually bring up the Amazon chat on screen.

[00:39:24] And so we can actually see the comments and we feel like that’s another way where the viewers like, wow, I’m actually, people can actually see what I’m saying, because that’s going to be in the recording. And then, the first thing we’ll do is we’re always putting comments ourselves in the chat.

[00:39:41] You know, Hey guys, how’s everybody doing? And if somebody, even if we’re not talking about somebody, cause maybe we’re interviewing an author or something, and that’s our podcast session, we’ll still say in the chat you know, Hey Jeff, great to see you glad you could join us.

[00:39:58] So we definitely, we’ll be there in the. Talking with with the viewers that show up. And then of course too, like if somebody asks you a question, like if, if Stephanie Liu said, Hey, what’s that microphone you’re using? Or if they ask about another microphones okay, Stephanie, we’re going to get to that in a second.

[00:40:16] And then we’ll even sometimes add those solution to their problem into the carousel during the shows that, Hey, okay, we’ve just put that in the carousel so you can see it. And, so that’s part of how we engage with our audience. So because we’ll have people sometimes, I mean, I won’t say it comes out of left field, but.

[00:40:35] Like we’ve had a couple of times like, oh, I need a monitor. We didn’t have any monitors, but we’ll go look for it. So we’re definitely there to to help those people, because you got to remember, the show isn’t about us. The show is about the customers and we’re here to serve those customers in the solution that we hope our show provides.

[00:40:58] If it’s a book, Hey, this is a great book. That’s going to help you accomplish some sort of goal, like with, with you know, David Meerman Scott, it’s going to be about, the new rules of PR and social media, we’ve got Stu Heinecke he coming on at the beginning of June when he launches his new book about how weeds, it’s of the, the taking the concept of weeds and how you can grow your business.

[00:41:24] And so that’s really how we get the engagement and the. The other thing is too kind of going back to Gary’s comment. We definitely push this stuff out on all our socials beforehand. And then after, as and I know we may get into this, know, Chris does the, the bulk of the the repurposing.

[00:41:43] I know I probably have to start paying them more for that, but we take we take the, we take all these videos and we cut them up. But to Chris’s point, we were shocked when we looked the other day at the amount of offsite traffic we’re getting. And we know that’s a direct result of our efforts on Social.

[00:42:01] Jeff Sieh: That’s really cool. So can you talk to the guy? Cause I wanted to give a shout out to one of our comments over an Amazon Randall, constant who, Randall. He says, hello, Grace. Hello, Jeff. Hello, Chris. Hello, Jim. Can you for all that’s good and holy, can you please tell Amazon to figure out a way we can bring up, things on screen comments on screen?

[00:42:20] I mean, that would make it so more interactive. I mean, that’s all I want Amazon please.

[00:42:27] Chris Stone: So Jeff, if you solo me, this is how you do it. Although you say it was cheesy, I think that graphic is cool, but you can see that Zack Mitchum is in the is in the chat whose we are video makers. Who’s who’s also watching on another tube as well.

[00:42:45] And that mostly gentleman on the left is who is number one. And everyone’s hearts is supposed to be Jim Fuhs, but he’s not being brought in as my as my in E camp, we bring them in and we do that. So does

[00:42:59] Jeff Sieh: this make you a little nervous? Because somebody could go you know, Jeff Sieh rock and hard body, or something like that.

[00:43:06] I mean, which I get a lot of comments that you guys don’t see about that, but, you know, doesn’t that make you nervous having chat? That’s why I don’t put chat up. I know there’s some other platforms that allow you to do. Yeah now we’re going to be

[00:43:20] Jim Fuhs: banned from Amazon now. He’s good. Now he’s got it.

[00:43:23] He’ll just remove the comment.

[00:43:25] Jeff Sieh: Yeah. But that doesn’t worry you at all, because that always would freak me out.

[00:43:32] Chris Stone: I wouldn’t say. And from Amazon with

[00:43:36] Jeff Sieh: that, I would have up on my screen that would be burned into the broadcast.

[00:43:42] Jim Fuhs: We’re pretty quick about jumping on that. Like I’m always watching that and I give the second, I see somebody starting to do something, I’ll call it trolley.

[00:43:50] Boom. Removed. So it doesn’t gotcha. Doesn’t last up there very long. Okay. But yeah, we’ve seen, I mean, and that’s something that I think is funny for all of you watching on Amazon, you’re logged into your Amazon account to chat. So if you are trolling on Amazon, Amazon knows who you are. Just saying,

[00:44:09] Jeff Sieh: yeah, there you go.

[00:44:10] Great. So I’m sorry. I cut you off. You had a question.

[00:44:12] Grace Duffy: No, I thought did you want to move on to the next thing?

[00:44:15] Jeff Sieh: There’s a couple of questions because I want to make sure we get our folks in from, we are really making sure you guys had called out. He’s also watching Amazon and this is nerdy, Amazon speak.

[00:44:25] So kind of break it down for people. What do you think about focusing on getting to a list or focusing on shoppable videos or just put equal effort into both? Chris, I’ll let you go. Cause you kinda mentioned shoppable videos.

Shoppable Videos on Amazon

[00:44:39] Chris Stone: Yeah, Zach. Thank you for that question. Zach’s a fantastic content creator as well on Amazon.

[00:44:46] You know, we, our video makers go follow him on Amazon does a great show, also somewhat in the tech field, but also does some other stuff. But what it really, it kind of depends on the content creator. I hate to hedge like that, but for Jim and I, we never really found. Chasing a list was really a something that w we didn’t felt like it helped Dealcasters.

[00:45:14] And so we made the decision to not, I mean, we did that show for may. The fourth would be had giveaways, but we had all the star wars stuff. And that was given to us to do that. And as well as a microphone from shore. And yeah, we got a bunch of followers when we did that show, and that was great.

[00:45:32] But we don’t go live every time and do giveaways and buy gift cards and things like that, just because our show. Is we use Amazon in a different way. We like to operate within what Amazon does for sure. And w it’s beneficial to us, but it’s also not lost on us that, all of these rules like gaming and things to gain followers, they change all the time.

[00:46:01] And so I would much rather focus on our content and what we’re delivering for our audience then. And, then that, and if we end up getting 2000 followers, which is the AA list thing, then. Those 2000 followers were achieved the right way. And so you didn’t, it’s not buying it. It’s I wouldn’t say it’s the equivalent of buying followers.

[00:46:24] Like you can on Instagram or whatever. But I just want people that come to our show that follow us are people that are, that truly want to see our show and hear our show. We don’t think everybody’s going to watch it every time. So I think to answer your question, Zach the focus should be both for, for us.

[00:46:43] And that way you’re not, you can like the shoppable video thing, which I’m happy to, again, talk to if we need to. And there’s going to be lots of that talk at VidFest as well is absolutely. Something that as a Amazon influencer, if you’re not doing that already, do it, create three videos, get those approved and start doing that to create some incremental re passive income in passive income.

[00:47:07] Thank you. For yourself while you’re, doing the live stream, because you will find that those components will help you along the way when you’re not doing live streams, you’re still your content is still sitting on a product page where someone can watch it and eventually purchase.

[00:47:27] Jeff Sieh: Those are great tips. And I wish I would’ve started earlier as well. So Grace,

[00:47:32] Grace Duffy: yes, I will. So there’s a comment in about working with brands and that goes into our next section of working with Android, using Amazon for two things, one getting brand deals and to building your brand. So we’ll start with the first one, when I started blogging.

[00:47:50] Back in the mid two thousands. I remember it took years before people started monetizing their blogs and working directly with brands. And of course, with the rise of social media, this has launched into that pretty much paved the way for our internet influencer culture, as we know it today. But again, this took several years and not anymore big influencers A-listers if we want to call them that and internet celebrities, whether you were talking to an audience of 500, 5,000, they’re all starting with the brand deals in mind when they get started, especially when it comes to Amazon live, what is the best way to find these opportunities and raise, and most importantly, raise your hand and say, pick me, I’m the one I’m the influencer.

[00:48:32] And yeah. So I’ll let you guys take that away because I think that’s a big question. When people see people like you guys working with brands, they want a part of that.

How Do I Get A Brand Deal On Amazon Live?

[00:48:43] Jim Fuhs: Yeah. So I would say the biggest thing is one be yourself. And one of the things that’s happened for Chris and I recently is we’re now working with sure that happened because when we use the products and they, we finally got that introduction and Hey, we love what you guys are doing.

[00:49:02] Same thing we’ve had that happen with Samson in the past. So I think part of it is there’s, and I’m not saying it’s right or wrong because we sometimes get products from other companies, but you want to make sure whatever products you’re getting are things that you believe in because what’s funny is I guess somehow they get our emails.

[00:49:21] We get emails, literally. Two or three times a week, if not more. Yeah. Chris yet. Cause the way I set it up and Chris never goes into the email from all these companies like, Hey, would you, and what’s funny is it’s right east they really haven’t done their homework. Hey, we’d love for you.

[00:49:38] We love your videos and stuff on Amazon. Would you be willing to talk about our product? And it’s it’s a a hello kitty purse and I’m sorry, my kids have grown up. I’m not going to be doing any hello, kitty purses or fashion. Sure. And I, but I will tell you our friends, Justin Moore and Mani Weaver, who Chris and I have gotten to know over the last year plus brought up a great point.

[00:50:04] It goes back to you should be engaging with those brands that you’re interested in organically. Don’t just be like cold emailing people. Hey, I love your brand. I want to work. They’re going to see that. So it’s not an overnight thing. Put out good content as Chris likes to say, get better.

[00:50:26] Sharpen the saw, I mean, that’s one of the things that I appreciate about the partnership and friendship that Chris and I have is we’re always working to make each other better, it’s that whole, and we, we try to get better 1% every time we go live. And so that’s how we’ve built into this brands and focusing on what are the products that we want to work with or the companies.

[00:50:47] So if there’s a really cool product that is out there, I’m not going to wait for them to contact me, I’m going to go buy it and I’m going to start using it. And then we’re gonna start doing videos about it. And hopefully we’re going to catch their attention, but you will definitely, as an Amazon influencer, say, as opposed to YouTube, you are going to get approached by companies because they’re starting to realize this is a way, cause like right now if Jeff.

[00:51:11] One of his products highlighted this video is playing on that product page and someone that just happened to be looking at products like, oh, what’s this video about who are these people? And you don’t get that on other platforms. But I think we other, other big boxes, if you want to call that are taking notice and are now starting their own programs.

[00:51:32] And that’s another reason to get into this now is because it’s this is your place to practice and, get yourself maybe working with other companies. And I’m sure Stephanie’s talked

[00:51:45] Jeff Sieh: about that. She talked about Target’s coming out with one live streaming is talking about one.

[00:51:48] So once again, make sure that you guys go to ecamm.tv/liveselling And get on the showrunner schedule because I think there’s six more sessions that she’s doing deep diving in. She’s going to enter you know, introduce you to some of these people. Some of the brands are actually coming on.

[00:52:05] So Ecamm.tv/liveselling. Make sure you guys go check out. I highly recommended. She is. She is, she’s done some really cool stuff. She’s done things with Jennifer Gardner’s brand and helped by a remote produce that. So she knows what she’s talking about. So go check her out at Ecamm dot TV forage last live selling to your point about getting di I mean, I get emails now from going and doing my show over there.

[00:52:28] It’s really funny though, about what you said about make sure you that your brand do your research. I get Hey, why don’t you promote our razor? And I’m like, have you not seen my show? Because that just doesn’t work. So not going to happen. But what I want to talk, cause I want to get free stuff.

[00:52:46] I tell you, I mean, that’s the thing. The whole reason you can I’ll do anything for you. Just give me a free t-shirt. I love getting free stuff but I want to talk about you know, brands getting brand deals. Do you need an agent? Because I’m hearing a lot of it’s like the podcast, it’s kind of like falling behind the podcasting industry where, the consortium’s and the podcast groups and hubs are starting together and getting together.

[00:53:13] But I’m hearing now, Amazon live are getting agents to represent themselves to brand. Do you have to be a certain level for that? Do you recommend it? Should you do it on your own? What are your thoughts about getting an agent for these brand deals? Chris.

Do I Need An Agent for Brand Deals?

[00:53:29] Chris Stone: I think it depends on, like Jim mentioned, our approach has always been very tactical in terms of how we work with brands, because what’s most important to us is that when you do watch our show or listen to our podcast or see whatever we’re talking about and you go, what Chris said about the MV seven, that works for me.

[00:53:51] And you’re going to love that mic and I know you’re gonna love that mic. And so I have nothing, I have nothing bad to say about it. Jim and I get approached by tons and tons of brands that we’ve never heard of. And I think for a lot of especially influencers who haven’t, already been talking to brands, it’s, it can seem so glorious.

[00:54:13] Look at my porch. It’s full of big brown boxes from all of these companies. And I have a, you can’t even pronounce their names and it can be, people are enamored by that and it can kinda make you feel a little bit, you puff up a little bit, but it’s dangerous because all of that, which, requires you to do something with right.

[00:54:36] You’re going to be, on. So if you go out and you go live and you’re talking about twenty-five brands and you’re opening this box for the first time, you’ve never used it. And it breaks on the camera, or you talk about how awesome it is. And somebody says, oh, this person said it was awesome. And then they bought it and it’s hot, garbage.

[00:54:56] Yeah. Like you just lost someone that could possibly follow you up a hill. And so we treat it more of a long game. It’s not, you can get quick brand deals. Absolutely. I mean, I, you know, and you can hook up to more specifically, like to your question. You can hook up with agents. You can hook up with all of these companies who work with smaller companies that will cobble together and have a program for you that you’re gonna just going to get a regular influx of products that are going to be sent to you.

[00:55:26] And, you open up your front door and there’s a treadmill sitting there where it ready for you to open up. I don’t know what the brand is, but in you go to Jew, but there is, you’re a fitness influencer and here’s a treadmill. And so we’re just don’t. We want not, I don’t want to use the word control, but I think it’s important to treat this as a longer game and figure out what’s more important to you is Jim and I got in this thing, Grace and Jeff Sieh.

[00:55:53] We did not get into live selling and Amazon to me. We didn’t that. And I want to make that clear. That is not what we did. I w we wanted to be in this thing to work our other businesses. This is a way for us to do a show, have fun, and this is what we do. And all of a sudden we didn’t expect that we would be heading up VidFest one day for Amazon Advil Fest.

[00:56:22] We didn’t expect, you know, you know, whatever, however much money we make on commission. We didn’t expect any of that. And so that’s not lost on us. We don’t, we still look at it as this is why we got into it. This is what we’re going to continue to do. And so what’s more important to us than some jar opener from some off-brand that’s somebody sent to me that I’m required to talk about if I’m going to keep.

[00:56:48] Like our brand is more important than that. And so we’re going to, like Jim said, use the stuff we already use, maybe buy something. And then all of a sudden brand is you know what, I’m going to talk to these guys because they’re used my stuff and they know what they’re doing, and they have a good show and they weren’t talking about some, Jack rabbit, Mike before we ended up talking about them, they actually know what they’re doing.

[00:57:13] Jeff Sieh: So real quick, do you got, do you guys have a hard stop because there’s a couple more questions and this is good. And it’s, you know what, while I do this show, you mentioned about why you did the show. I did the show because it was free consulting is what it is and they have to stay on and answer my questions.

[00:57:28] But we have, we asked, you mentioned, okay. Brand deals and, kind of as an Amazon influencer, it’s coming in to you and, making those deals. But Irene has this great question. Opposite direction. So as an Amazon seller or a brand owner, how can we find the right influencers to promote our products?

[00:57:49] Which I think is a great question. Four, how can you pair up maybe not using an agency?

If We Have A Product To Sell, How Do We Find An Amazon Influencer?

[00:57:56] Jim Fuhs: I would say this one, Chris and I and we don’t get paid for this are happy to help brands find the right influencers. We, we know a bunch of these folks. In fact, there’s a guy named Jeff Sieh and about 17 others that you might want to talk to that are going to be in Orlando on May 27th.

[00:58:14] And it’s, so feel free to come down and visit. But I think in one aspect there’s a co there’s a Facebook group that Mani Weaver and melody Johnson and Chris P Giles started called Amazon. I think it’s called. Live creators or Amazon creators. And there’s over a thousand people in that group there, most of them are influencers.

[00:58:35] So as long as you follow the rules, it’s a private group. That’s one way to kind of put out there, Hey, here’s the product we have. This is what we’re looking for. But the, I mean, we definitely you know, think that’s a very important part of this is you want to make sure you get the right influencer.

[00:58:55] I mean, if you’re in a, your business is specifically focused as an example on fitness, right? Where our friend, Christine and Nietzsche does a great fitness show and she’s got a huge following. And so I think that’s part of it is, don’t just think oh, I’m just going to go chase these people because they’re alive all the time.

[00:59:15] Because it was, I think one of the things too, that we’ve seen in this kind of goes back to Chris’s earlier point is, we’re focused on, I would say we’re actually focused on the shoppable videos more than we are focused on it. And because that’s where we’re seeing really those things work, because remember you can repurpose those shoppable videos on other platforms, right?

[00:59:38] You could take that native video and maybe upload it to your YouTube channel. So you’re giving that brand the potential for more exposure. You know, as much as the live streaming is great, like obviously prime, like prime, day’s coming up in July black Friday. That’s where brands maybe want to align with some of these sellers.

[00:59:58] If they’re going to be having products, they want to be seen on prime day because they will literally be tens of thousands of people watching some of these single episodes we’ve had that happen. And yeah I mean, we’re happy, I mean, if you want to connect with me or Chris through LinkedIn or whatever, happy to help you find the right people, because it goes back to Chris and I want to help everybody succeed because they’re, I don’t know.

[01:00:24] We think millions of products. I don’t know if there’s billions of products on Amazon. But so that, that’s why we don’t look at this as competition. There’s more than enough to go around. And if all the influencers want to do a video on a road cast or pro you know, they rotate it, not everybody is going to get their turn. So it’s there’s a lot of other stuff that still needs exposure.

[01:00:50] Chris Stone: Yeah.

[01:00:51] Grace Duffy: It was pointed out, like you’re not going to, you’re not gonna hit you’re not gonna get the hello kitty perse review. So there’s an opening for the hello, kitty purse people.

[01:01:01] Something for everyone.

[01:01:02] Jeff Sieh: So I do want to ask, so Zach is popping back and forth from YouTube to Amazon. And he goes any tips for getting these brands to pay you. I’m getting a lot of brands. I want to work with, give me free products and allowing me to do giveaways, but not paying me to make content on or off Amazon.

[01:01:20] And he has an audience of over four 40,000 people off of Amazon. What would you, Chris, what would you tell him to maybe entice these brands?

[01:01:33] Chris Stone: Yeah. Zack great question. And I am by no means a brand expert. I can speak from my expertise, but I would absolutely go and follow Justin Moore creator wizard on YouTube.

[01:01:47] He has videos that are specifically about this, that you can just watch fantastic content creator. We had him on Dealcasters. And if you wanted to catch that episode, it’s just in.deal, casters.live. But I would say this. Again I don’t love to hedge here, but depending, if you’ve got a huge following elsewhere and on Amazon, you’re still building it.

[01:02:12] But they’re approaching you for something on Amazon and why wouldn’t they you’re on this huge platform. I believe that it’s not about the scarcity mindset where there’s a lot of content creators that say, Hey, stop doing all these videos for free. You’re watering down the whole creator economy.

[01:02:31] I just, that’s not the way to look at it. I think I believe everyone has their own choice and if you’re making good content and, and someone is approaching you and you have a value attributed to that content that someone else is willing to pay for, or that you have you know, given a price for, then you should ask for that.

[01:02:55] And if you don’t. Then, move on. I mean, you know, Jim and I, consider, and I’m not saying get paid for every single little thing that you do. You know, I just got a huge refrigerator. I’m not even kidding, Jim. It arrived today, by the way he emailed me earlier, he says your refrigerator’s coming.

[01:03:16] I’m not kidding. I got a refrigerator now, did I ask that company to pay me for it? No, I did not. So creator economy, if you’re mad at me too bad, free fridge,

[01:03:31] Jeff Sieh: maybe I can, I just want a PlayStation five. Somebody can send me that if they want, I talk all about that. So by the way both Randall and Zach over our name was on life said, love that episode that you guys did with.

[01:03:43] Zach says, love Justin and want to take us in course and love that episode. By the way, if you guys want to go and you gotta follow these guys, if you have any interested in any sort of life sailing one, do what we talked about with showrunner two with Stephanie Lu, but follow deal, casters live, they have amazing guests on, they are what I’ve modeled myself, where they’ve helped me get on Amazon live and, and constantly encouraging me.

[01:04:07] So make sure you guys go follow them at dealcasters.live. Yeah,

[01:04:12] Chris Stone: we’ll spin the wheel and we spin the wheel right now. No, we’re not saying free stuff.

[01:04:19] Jeff Sieh: But real quick, I want you guys thank you so much for one for staying late. This is fascinating to me. And I think if you’re a creator or, there’s so much opportunity.

[01:04:30] At Amazon for Amazon and Amazon influencers and live selling in general. If you don’t know over in Asia, it’s, they’re killing it. That’s I mean, there’s celebrities over there that are, all they do is sell stuff. And brands are noticing here, what’s going on over there. And they’re like, okay, it’s coming.

[01:04:48] And if you start this now and build your reputation, you don’t have to have a huge following, but you, if you can show that you’re good on camera there’s brand deals coming. There’s opportunities that are coming down the pike, even Roku, I think in some other platforms we’re saying even Netflix, we’re going to start selling on our platforms.

[01:05:07] I mean, and so it’s coming. It’s going to be here. So get ready for the ride. But last one of the ways you can get ready for this tsunami of live selling that’s coming is Amazon day at VidFest coming up at the end of this month at Orlando. I’m so excited. So guys tell us about that, Jim.

[01:05:26] I’ll let you go first. And then Chris, you can.

Amazon Day at VidFest in Orlando

[01:05:29] Jim Fuhs: Yeah. W so Chris Kermatoes says we want to thank him for giving us the opportunity to have this this full day of on Amazon and the influencer program. We’re going to be talking about everything from how to get about brand deals. We’re gonna talk about how to, you know, up you know, live shows, different types of creators, how they’ve of niched you know Jeff’s going to be there talking in a couple of sessions as well.

[01:05:55] I mean, it’s going to be really exciting. So pretty much anything you would need to know, if you’re already a creator or thinking about it, we’re going to cover it. And if you don’t catch it live right, we can do meetups. I mean, we’re gonna be there for four days. You know, but Chris might be at Disney, so you might have to hunt him down, but it’s going to be, it’s going to be a great opportunity.

[01:06:16] I think I’ve already seen there’s at least 1200 people that are in the Hoover app. You know, I’m sure as people start figuring out, it’s not too late to get tickets. It’s Orlando, right? It’s the magic kingdom and all that good stuff. So I I’m excited about it. And you know, like you said earlier, Jeff, as far as we know, this was the first time that you’ve had a full day of creators you know, talking about the Amazon program.

[01:06:44] Really excited and, can’t thank you enough for being willing to be a part of it as well. Cause it’s funny for me, we met on Google plus, but you know, sometimes I have to pinch myself because I remember being in the audience at Social Media Marketing World 2018, not only watching you introduce Rebecca Radice, but also watching you talking about Pinterest.

[01:07:06] And so now to actually be sharing the stage with you is a, is quite the honor.

[01:07:10] Jeff Sieh: Shucks. So Chris w what are you excited about Amazon? I mean, you’re going to go, I know you’re going to hang out with Mickey and friends, but. What what, what are you mostly? I mean, I know you got, this is a lot of work and I appreciate you guys putting it together and I hope you, and I know you guys are going to reap the benefits of this and you guys are kind of the the influencers in this whole space.

[01:07:34] So talk about what you’re looking forward to it. And orlando.

[01:07:38] Chris Stone: Yeah. Yeah. So this is like the culmination of what Jim and I were working on when we were on that phone call and we’re like, how can we help people? We had no idea that this, that it would end up like, after having Chris comatose on Dealcasters, he said, guys this is massive because he saw what, what was happening.

[01:07:59] And you were talking about Jeff and what’s happening in Asia. And, he was like, Yeah, I, he tapped us to say, listen, I want you guys to you know, be the voice, if you will of Amazon of Amazon influencer program and Amazon live. And of course that was in the midst of the pandemic.

[01:08:19] And so a lot of it was virtual. But we knew at some point that it, when everything was coming and opening up, that we would have something going on at PodFest and VidFest when that was. And so that’s where we’re at. And I’m just super excited because we have a lot of, we could have put this together and said, here are our five speakers over the course of the day.

[01:08:43] Yeah. You know, we really I’m so happy that we got so many people on board and it’s not a situation where you have, oh these are five super solid speakers. We basically have the best people that can talk about something in particular as it relates to Amazon. So if you want to create an engaging live show, we mentioned Denise Lipka, who does you know, artists.

[01:09:12] Who paints and has a painting class for kids. And so we’ve got Geraldine, Wilkins who does quilting. We, we also have people who do these incredible live shows. We also have people like yourself, Jeff, who can teach you how you can repurpose your content from Amazon live, how people can think a different way.

[01:09:32] Some of the stuff we’ve touched on today about Amazon and how you’re you can bolt on your existing business or existing brand to what you’re doing. And it’s just really an all day jam packed thing that, yeah, I’m like I’m not sleeping a lot. And, but at the same time, I’m super excited that you know, we get to, and I mentioned this earlier, networking is a huge component of live streaming and podcasting.

[01:09:57] And so these are some people that we’ve met over the course of the past couple of years that we actually get to meet in person break bread with, and really sharpen the irons live. And we’re just super excited about it. And if you want to get 20% off Social Media News Live. See I’m live selling here, Jeff go to go to VidFest.dealcasters.live.

[01:10:23] And that will take you to VidFestexpo.com/amazon, same thing. So if you go to VidFest dealcasters.live, your tickets are there. And if you use the code Amazon, you get 20% off and we’re stoked and we’d love to see you there.

[01:10:41] Jeff Sieh: Is there a virtual option for people who can’t. I’m sorry.

[01:10:45] Jim Fuhs: Yes, there is.

[01:10:48] Jeff Sieh: I know I do it all the time, Grace, and,

[01:10:51] Grace Duffy: but this is why I didn’t show up for two weeks. Jeff never lets me talk on this show.

[01:10:56] Jeff Sieh: She talks enough offline folks. I’ll tell you that. So Chris, I’ll let you have the final word. Thank you guys for staying along with us today, but this was just too good to pass up.

[01:11:07] Grace, where can people find out about the amazing Grace Duffy?

[01:11:12] Grace Duffy: If Jeff ever lets me talk, I’ll be here every week with Jeff.

[01:11:19] Jeff Sieh: All right. And I want to say a big shout out to all of our friends who are watching Gary Stockton. Amazing guy. Thank you, Gary content creator tools. Since he’s going to watch this from the beginning Randall over on Amazon live says opportunities are out there even for old people. I feel you Randall.

[01:11:33] I’m excited for the opportunities as well. He does great stuff on Amazon and LinkedIn. Brian is there as well. Thank you guys so much. Our next show is Friday, May 20th at 11:00 AM. Eastern 10:00 AM central. We’ll be talking with Mitch dong all about volley. If you haven’t noticed about volley, we’ve been going over there every a week.

[01:11:53] Let me find my thing here. Yeah. Socialmedianewslive/chat. You can talk with us over there. It’s really cool to keep this conversation going. Megan Powers. You need to be over there as well. So go to Social Media News, Live dot com forward slash chat continued the conversation.

[01:12:07] We have a lot of fun there but as thank you for our sponsors, Ecamm they do amazing stuff. We could not do the show without them. Go to Social Media News, Live dot com slash . Thank you so much for sponsoring the show. Thank you guys for watching. We will see you guys next time. Bye everybody.