Part 2 with Sean Burrows: Marketing and Influence in 2020
Let’s start with a little context:
For yourself: What is your overall goal here? Where are you going with this?
What industries do you look to for inspiration?
Strategically: What are you using your influence to do…
Personal website, sponsor website, tracking
Tactically:
Influence
@seangoboom on
Facebook (740 followers) Instagram catch all
Twitter (1016 followers) Seans Political Voice
Sean Borrows on Youtube (5800 subs) 136k Vid, several 10k plus vids, looking to build this to 10k subs for SHOT Show.
@sean.go.boom (interesting that Sean Burrows didn’t return IG page in search
Instagram (32.5k followers) Likely will become a lifestyle page. Long form content will be sent to youtube etc.
Formulas: The content waltz
* Gun Porn
* Gun Porn
* Video
What are you liking for equipment these days?
Tripod, DSLR: Cannon T7i
Sponsors: Federal Premium Ammunition, Breda, Safariland, Vortex Optics, Emerson Knives, Dakota Tactical, ShootSteel.com, HKParts.com, Gargoyles, 5.11 Tactical, Briley 3 Gun, ELF, Dueck Defense and Rhino Metals
Mark: 00:00:05 [inaudible] hey everybody, and welcome back to this in the cast parts. You is still on the first episode. We talked a little bit about [inaudible] now and now we’re going to get into the passive side of marketing. [inaudible]
Mark: 00:00:19 welcome back Shawn. Good to be back. I tricked you by not having a long winded ad segment before I introduce you to the shit. Oh, I guess we’re back now. Yeah, I know. I think, um, you know, uh, my thought process here was people, uh, listen to an hour and a half of us talking and, and ads and all that stuff on the first one. And, and what we started to kind of scratch the surface of the conversation. I didn’t want him to have to wait too long for the goodies on this one.
Sean: 00:00:45 No, it makes sense to me. And, um, you know, we’re, we’re just, uh, a weekend in between episodes, at least recording. I don’t know how you’re going to release this, so it’s still fresh in my mind. You know, it’s interesting to like do it right. But then it’s another thing to talk about it like after shooting a three gun stage. Like so w w what did you do there on your, I’m like, I honestly don’t.
Mark: 00:01:07 Yeah, I love that people come up to me and they ask me questions like that and I’m like, I don’t know. I just tried to get all the ammos into the all the guns and then get all the animals out of the guns into the things. Right. That’s why I love pictures cause all the bullets go on all the holes in the photographs. Oh, same with videos. Yes. Yes, you’re right. Very good. Yup. Cool. Well look, um, so in the first episode we talked quite a bit about like how you kind of arrived here and, and in both the shooting world and in, um, and then the marketing and also that you’ve got a big change in your sponsorship around, you know, and now federal premium ammunition as your title sponsor. And, uh, so this is actually kind of an interesting time to talk about this cause I’m assuming you’re shaking things up a little bit right now.
Sean: 00:01:50 Um, federal is actually not my title sponsor. Um, it shaking things up. Yeah. It’s, it’s kind of a, I, I got into this, just documenting my journey and then, you know, each k called and then this whole possibility of like getting support. I, I mean the whole influencer marketing thing is still so wild west, especially in our industry. Totally. Um, that, that it, you know, three, four years ago it was, it was completely unheard of. I’m like, yeah, yeah, I suppose I could just keep on doing what I’m doing and you could then, um, supplement my efforts with equipment. Sure. That, that doesn’t suck. And, and, um, so the thing is though, they, they called because I’m in the digital marketing and social space anyway. And so I wasn’t going to just because it was a hobby, create less quality content or do it halfway just because it was my thing and it wasn’t a paying client.
Sean: 00:02:54 In fact, I probably a certain point, I wound up putting more care and time into it. Um, then, then those, those, uh, uh, paying me because I, I wasn’t, there wasn’t pressure. There weren’t, um, third party, uh, decisions being made on what needed to be done. It was all my ideas. And so I could kind of marinate in it more as far as creating content, uh, starting conversations, experimenting with, uh, what kind of engagement I can get on certain pieces of, uh, things on different platforms. Um, but I’ll tell you it’s, it’s weird. Uh, one thing we are going into, um, any kind of marketing in this, uh, shooting, hunting outdoor spaces. You know, especially with guns, it’s so restricted. You can’t advertise on primary platforms. And a lot of these companies aren’t used to like even marketing. And so I, you know, talking to a company that actually has a marketing budget sometimes is a novelty and totally a novelty.
Sean: 00:03:56 And even some of the bigger ones have a hard time distinguishing between business development, marketing and sales. And it’s all just been a one mass. Like we want more money’s in art. Thanks. Yeah. Right. Well good. I mean, that’s, that’s really great. I mean, that is what I suffer from all the time. I think the largest budget I work with is for marketing. It’s, well, it’s well sub a million bucks, which is nothing in the big scheme of the marketing world. No, no. And it’s a constant conversation on the, on the business side. But no, I’m the Weirdo that’s decided to literally sit on the other side of the table that I sit on professionally. Um, and turn that into a hobby. Yeah, totally. Cool. Well, let’s get into this a little bit. So, um, I think what I’d like to do is, and maybe in the hopes of, you know, I dunno, not educating but, but giving some people a direction here is starting with, you know, before you jump right into like, what are you going to do tactically on Instagram is like, what’s the kind of the context for you?
Sean: 00:04:54 So if like for yourself, what’s your, I mean, do you have a goal here or where are you going with this? You have a direction or are you just Kinda gone with the wind? How does that look for you? Oh, again, you know, I kind of found myself in it. Um, well not knowing I was necessarily going for it. And so that, that, that goal is kind of been an evolving thing up until really a month ago, maybe five weeks ago. I mean, I, I was, um, prepared to, uh, really just keep doing what I’ve been doing. And that’s, that’s essentially seeing how high high is with the amount of value I can produce for my, um, the, the companies that support me. I’ve been pretty happy. Um, you know, some things have changed like federal coming into, uh, the roster has been, um, incredibly, um, beneficial. Um, but other than that, I’m not, you know, I’m not looking to see, um, how many more different types of products I can get right for the work.
Sean: 00:05:58 I, it’s really been more about simplifying, you know, that, that the learning curve has been like, well, let’s see what different kinds of companies find what I’m doing valuable and level big and small. And, uh, as, as I’ve, I was more of a data gathering exercise over the first year, year and a half. Um, and the last couple of years it’s really been about simplifying and I’m doubling down on the companies that one as a hobbyist, a competitive shooter, um, I can benefit from the most. Yeah. But also too, um, you know, I guess with that deciding, uh, the best things that I can do with what I’ve got in front of me, uh, to, to create more value for them and then, uh, figure out what more I can do, it’d be doing maybe on other platforms to increase that value because, um, when, when value increases, uh, benefits increase as well, especially when you have a relationship.
Sean: 00:07:07 Now, there are a few smaller companies that I just have relationships with these people. And, and again, this is a hobby for me. This is it. It’s, um, I, I’m also a business man. Just, it’s in my DNA, so I can’t not make everything into a business. Yeah, no, I got it. I, it’s what really floats my boat is the relationships, the, the, the people. And if there’s a company where that dynamic really dramatically changes, um, you know, I’m, I’m more than open to, uh, no longer working with that company regardless of how much I like the, the product.
Mark: 00:07:44 Yeah. Cool. Well, so, okay, good. So you’re, and I think this is pretty consistent. So there’s a theme with all the people I’ve talked to about this that are actually successful is their primary goal is to drive value for their sponsor or their customer, client, whatever you want to call it. Right. And, um, and I think there’s, there’s no doubt that that has a huge impact on the overall of what you’re doing. If, I mean, if your primary purpose is to make yourself look good, you might not do a very great job for, you know, company x, y or Z.
Sean: 00:08:16 I think early on, especially in the Instagram influencer space, like looking good with, you know, cheesy product placement, what was good enough, it drove enough engagement too. And certainly there are some, some big personal brands that really, you know, their, their entire premise of their, um, social platforms is just painting that beautiful life, not necessarily in our space, but, um, and it’s, it’s very effective. People just drool over that. They think there’s some level of uh, attainable perfection in reality based on what they see on their, their little three, four inch screen. But you know, we know that’s not the case. However, that’s, that is an effective form of advertising for certain types of products for us. Um, you know, I seen a huge modulation to, um, form following function in the firearm space, specifically in ev and related products, right? So, um, it’s cool to have a selfie and gun porn will always get it’s, you know, likes and comments and people like to talk about gear.
Sean: 00:09:28 But then there’s also, you know, a real, ah, just heads above the rest level of value where those that are real practitioners and those who put certain product lines through the ringer over the course of a competition season or maybe they’re a and armed professional [inaudible], you know, the military law enforcement or they have experience having been one now retired. And so those sorts of, um, contextual pieces of continual content, uh, really add up and giving people, um, a reason to justify a purchase. Yeah. You know, it, it, it makes it, uh, it’s more interesting and the more people are spending their time scrolling through these things on, especially Instagram, um, you need a disrupt, you can’t have, you know, w w we made jokes about, uh, the, the generic overly done forms of content. Yup. And I, I’ve been experimenting with all sorts of stuff over the last month, especially since, you know, I, I’m, I’m just so, so to be clear, I, um, uh, Alicia and I, um, have moved on from HK and we, we did a, the first, first part of August. And, um, we’d been,
Sean: 00:10:55 well for almost a year, over a year. Um, in casual conversations with companies. It’s always good to build relationships and keep things open. Um, and, and I’m certainly not going to be rude, but we’re, we’re now officially working with a B and t Bruger and Thomas their Swiss gun manufacturer. In fact, they make a lot of components and things for HK when, um, they have like a big military contract or something. And, uh, this last July B and t actually beat the MP five and a bid for the army’s new, uh, sub gun contracts. So the, the B and t APC nine k, which is the short version, um, has replaced the MP five k. So, um, you know, and I, that’s a half century old, um, piece of equipment. That’s big news as it’s like a Beretta disappearing from the battlefield. Right? It’s, it’s, it’s a, it’s a significant, um, thing and, and, uh, but you know, we, I, I’ve been a B and t fan for a long time because they make, uh, amazingly high quality, um, guns, but they just make long guns and sub guns. So, nope, no pistols. So that was an interesting transition. So yeah, we’re in the middle of, um, finalizing terms with Alice gun works for a competition and then as an influencer, that’s interesting to me now because I have zero, um, product exclusivity in the realm of anything conceal, carry or, or, um, uh, pistols of any kind outside of that. So, um, I w a a big departure on my youtube videos over these next six months is, uh, doing reviews on, um, non HK pistols, which, um, it’s a lot of fun for me.
Mark: 00:12:47 Cool. Well, welcome Dallas. It’s going to be fun to work together. Oh, that’s right. Your working with them. Yeah. No, I, I, I, I’ve heard about this for awhile, but I haven’t been able to say anything or, uh, or do anything about it cause, uh, you know, things weren’t solid yet. Sure. Well they’re, they’re solidifying this. Yes. That’s great. No, I got that really cool man. Yeah, I think you’re going to be pleasantly surprised. Oh, they’re great
Sean: 00:13:11 guns. Yeah. I’m, I’m very, uh, that’s why we’re talking.
Mark: 00:13:15 Yeah, no, it’s cool. And also, uh, working with, um, Adam is amazing obviously on the hardware and the content side, but, um, you know, cat’s also a really great like, uh, influencer on her own right. It’s been really remarkable. It’ll be good to have a, even more, we’ve, um, we’ve actually found so far to be honest with you, more horsepower at atlas outside of the three gun industry, um, people who are like crossover, uh, that we have inside. So the originally we had a lot of real great success with people who are like just straight up three gunners and then we’ve started to see that kind of level out, let’s just say for lack of a better term. So it’ll be fun.
Sean: 00:13:51 Small sport. I mean even [inaudible] PSA is bigger. Uh, totally. I have a few friends out here that are shoe, uh, Mike Stoker for one. He just, he just signed on with atlas a few months ago. So
Mark: 00:14:02 whole though, it’s amazing how poor USPSA, I mean for the, for the number of people involved, there’s not a lot of really good influencers in that game that we’ve, we’ve stumbled across there a handful for sure. But like, I, you know, it’s not like you have the, what I’ve seen, and maybe I could be wrong about this, but, um, I, from what I’ve seen in this space, there’s a lot of really awesome shooters. Some of the best in the world are in USPSA, but there hasn’t been this like drive to, to deliver on, you know, it’s like they’re not that interested in this, this side of the business.
Sean: 00:14:36 Well, no, it’s, it’s in fact, I mean that, that, that whole, uh, so I, I think this is a good segue, right? Yeah. So, um, you know, when I, when I first started getting into three gun, I, you know, I mentioned in our last, I guess episode installment that, you know, I, I didn’t wear a Jersey for the first year because I just didn’t feel like I was like Jersey worthy. Yeah. On a Sunday afternoon, I will see, I’m just middle aged to retirement age road. Bikers going on their big long bike rides and they’ve all got jerseys on right. They’re not doing a tour to anything. No. You know, they, they are decked out in um, standard issue uniform and that is Jersey of your choice just because everyone needs to know you’re a road biker. Right. And some, um, person commuting to work that can’t afford a car, it has a big difference.
Sean: 00:15:26 Um, in fact, some of these damn bikes cost more than cars, but, um, the, the idea is, you know, the idea of, uh, the ambiguous Jersey worthiness, um, has been interesting to me. And honestly though, you know, when I first got my first Jersey and I put it on for a, a match, I felt it was a weird level of self consciousness when first, until I had to snap myself out of it. Like, look, all these companies have supported me even getting to be able to shoot this match. And if I don’t wear it, it is doing them a disservice. You know, it had to be a paradigm shift where a lot of the, the people getting into it were, we’re on TV three gun nation, you know, they got their sponsors from a different way and now it’s, uh, it’s more like a rock band bringing in, uh, their own audience. Um, you know, I, I have my crowd that I bring and they get to watch everything at the match that I choose for them to watch through this device right here. This is my broadcast device. And so, um, they are literally, um,
Speaker 4: 00:16:39 okay
Sean: 00:16:39 that, that’s been a huge shift. Um, and I’m not saying there’s been a shift in Jersey worthiness, but I, I feel like that’s sort of a vibe is still there in, in, uh, USPSA. Um, it’s just strange to me. It’s just a shirt.
Mark: 00:16:54 Yeah, no, I know. But I think part of that’s the context thing that we originally came from. It’s like if you’re out there to bring value to your clients or your customers or sponsors, whatever you want to call it, you are, I mean, look, ultimately they’re like clients. I mean there is an exchange of goods and services, right? So it’s a hobby, but it is a professional business. If you’re taking money or services or goods for work, it’s a job. I mean it is. I mean, and so if you’re coming to it though from like, I want to create value for these people, for these clients, customers, sponsors, whatever, whatever word you’re comfortable using, then wearing the Jersey means one thing. If you’re coming from vanity, um, and it means a whole nother thing. And then inside a vanity is, is the vanity based on like you’re really, really good and you’re, you know, you’re being vain but you could back it up or are you doing it out of vanity and you just showed up with a bunch of logos, so look good and feel good and look cool, but you’re really not delivering on anything because frankly wearing a jersey to a match doesn’t amount to Jack Shit in terms of moving the needle for the customer or the client or the sponsor, whatever you want to call it.
Mark: 00:18:00 Um,
Sean: 00:18:01 especially if their logos of companies, you just like a totally,
Mark: 00:18:04 well look. I mean you have 300 people at a match, right? How many, you know, 80% of them are convinced that this trigger and this rifle with this comp and this optic is the only way to go. And if you give me any other options, I’m going to hunt you down on Facebook.
Sean: 00:18:20 [inaudible]
Mark: 00:18:21 I mean it is really that, I was just literally this morning I was on Facebook and there was this guy was just like asking a question about something simple. Oh, he’s trying to decide between the combat master and the DVC three gun, both find firearms. Just a simple question. He’s never owned a 2011 before and it’s a, it’s a, you know, 300 comments deep of brand x brand y. If you get that combat master, you’re a loser. What do you think your John Wick, blah, blah, blah. This is the guy tried to make a buying decision
Sean: 00:18:48 and see I that, that’s for me. Um, those groups are not where I’m valuable. I rarely participate in any of those conversations because I, I’ve got, frankly, I’ve got my own audience to tend to and it’s enough work. Tell me what the upside is for getting engaged in that conversation. None. Zero. Yeah. The only people that benefit from those conversations are those that can own and control the actual discussion group, kind of the moderator can’t keep, uh, rules intact. Um, you know, that, that’s, that’s really a, a bad value decision for the owner of the group.
Mark: 00:19:27 Yeah, I know. Well, I, well and there’s, well, let’s get into this a little bit, so, okay, good. So one other question I have before we get into the strategics is do you look at other industries for inspiration? Because I mean, our pool of talent is small. I mean, meaning there’s not a lot of people in the big scheme of things in three gun.
Sean: 00:19:44 Well, like I mentioned earlier, you know, my, my company IGB Research, uh, I, we’re, we’re relaunching a new website, uh, first week of October because, um, our influencer management services have exploded a five x over the last 18 months. And a lot of it is, you know, companies in any industry heard the influencer marketing’s the, the new way to go. And so they’ll send out a bunch of stuff to a bunch of people that have, um, the perception of big numbers. Some of them are fake, some of them are not big numbers of no engagement, low numbers of big engagement. They don’t know what they’re doing. But like, yeah, let’s just send free product and then we’re going to get, but it’s like the old days of search engine optimization. There were companies that literally thought that if they could get on the first page of Google, they could retire within 90 days on a beach with a Margarita in their hand and never have, like it was the old nineties silicon valley, a.com boom dream where it just sock puppet commercials don’t work anymore.
Sean: 00:20:51 Um, you know, the influencer marketing is now the big thing and people are being duped with how to coaching ads on Instagram, stories for become an influencer and get lots of free stuff and vacation for free. And then on the other side, you know, companies are like, wow, look at all these influencers, I’m going to just give them stuff. And, and, and, and it’s, it’s a whole big misunderstanding in, in relationship dynamics, uh, while utilizing the common ground of a, um, fake environment, which is filling your social platform, correct. Instagram, Youtube, whatever. And so, um, it, if you’ve got real entities on either side of a fake digital, um, ecosystem that don’t know how to function in those waters, it, the, the, the chances for success are slim to none. And so, and you wind up getting, uh, oh, I, I, I spent so much on product for these influencers and I didn’t get anything in return.
Sean: 00:21:57 We didn’t make one sale. And so that comes back to the, the misunderstanding of the difference between business development, marketing and sales and, and, and so, yeah, I look, I don’t know that I look to other industries for inspiration, but I am, uh, I apply what we manage and do on a professional side over to what I see working here. But it’s interesting, you know, it can be to an influencer’s advantage to have a less than experienced, um, sponsor company to work with, uh, with, you know, a decent budget and, and you, you help them build an influencer program. I’ve, I’ve done that a couple of times just because I wanted to work with them. Um, and then on the other side, uh, you, you have, um, the, the potential disaster where you get your free stuff and then he goes shoot with it. You do a couple of posts, he’s a few has tags and they think, you know, what the hell right.
Sean: 00:22:58 Um, case in point, I, uh, my first ammo sponsor, just a small little company in the Midwest that, uh, um, made really nice high end, uh, pistol ammo and their, their whole thing was that, you know, black hills pri or a black hills quality Walmart prices kind of thing. But it was still more expensive than anything you could get at Walmart. Now you can’t get anything at Walmart, so it doesn’t matter. But, um, they, they, they wanted to bring me on and you know, I, we set out in black and white in a very, very, very detailed, um, agreement that, you know, I was going to do x, they would get y and, um, and then, you know, my, my PR, I had to put my professional hat on because I could tell how, how inexperienced they were. Um, they, they were manufacturers that like to shoot that were coming from a completely different industry and, uh, they, they had a whole bunch of government contracts and so they were hoping to get a bunch of police, uh, police stations in the area buying their stuff.
Sean: 00:24:01 But, um, it just didn’t, uh, it didn’t go as fast as they wanted it to. Meanwhile, I was using their stuff and I was tagging them and I’m showing it off at matches and, you know, people ordered from me, but at the end of the day, like are not from me, but from their website using some discount code or whatever. Um, I advise against the discount code. I just, you know, just let me, um, give you exposure. But if you really want to do this, you, you need to have more than one influencer. Like, I, I can’t, I’m not going to move the needle on, on, uh, commercial sales, right? Like you, you, if your influencer pull for a company is too small, values lost because while the individual influencers may be reaching the target segmented percentage of their audience and getting the engagement, like if you’re not spread out enough, you’re actually not getting enough, uh, influence. Right. Um, you can, same thing as if you’re unfocused and you just throw a little bit of stuff everywhere. It’s diluted too much and there’s not enough value given to an individual influencer via cash product blend or enough substantial product, like a couple boxes of Ammo, for example. Right, right. Whatever. Okay. I’ll post it once I get a whole closet full of a couple of boxes. Ammo. Right, exactly. Um, and
Sean: 00:25:29 I guess you can’t, and then as a company, you can’t not be set up to benefit from it. Like, even if you do all the, you get enough product out to enough influencers if, if you’re not there to have someone ready to repost stuff, um, utilize video content to create custom audiences that can be later retarded with, with ads that even the gun industry can use. You know, um, I’m not going to get too nerdy with that. But yeah, if you’re just not set up as a company to receive that value, then that can be a problem. So it depends on how much work you want to do as an influencer. Working with companies like this. It can, it can be very, very beneficial to kind of be a trailblazer. But yeah, I mean if you want to just be a hobby influencer, you’re gonna, you’re gonna get hobby results, which is fine.
Sean: 00:26:17 Totally. I mean, well that’s why I go back to like, what are you up to? Like, what are you trying to accomplish? And that’s the one thing, it’s a good question to ask yourself before you dive into it. If you just want to have a great time and if things work out and you get some free shit here and there, blah blah blah, like just go play, go have a good time. You don’t necessarily need to take these aggressive steps to like really grow a business. You’re at a little different level of this and you’re actually, you know, you’re creating a meal, you’re getting some steak
Mark: 00:26:44 out of this, right? And so you’ve got more on the line, right? I mean you’ve, you, you do, you either can deliver or you can’t cause at the level you’re playing at. Um, if someone’s giving you, you know, like let’s take atlas for example, a couple of guns. I mean, that’s 10 grand, right? As a significant amount of money and any, I mean, there are people who in this country who shoot three gun, who make 30 grand a year, it’s a third of their income in a, you know, in a snap. Now obviously there’s,
Sean: 00:27:11 it really, they wouldn’t be able to spend on that or justify a spin on, on, on something like that. So then it becomes like, alright, you know, for with HK, like I was already using their stuff, I was already a customer and it was a natural move when when you become a super low income, high performing competitor, which there, there are, you know, a number of those and they’ve got these companies representing them with these beautiful pieces of equipment that they in their own, uh, income bracket, uh, would, would never be able to justifiably afford totally. We, uh, purchasers of firearms, uh, by any police officer in their twenties, in the United States of America. Right? Who’s getting in three gun period. I shoot with some guys that, I don’t know where they got them.
Mark: 00:28:01 I know, I know. Who’s you roll for that boat and the Atlas pistol. Right, right, right.
Sean: 00:28:07 Oh, I mean the, the, I guess, uh, that, that’s the amazing upside to doing this. Like you, you can pay for it in cash or you can pay for it and work. If you’re willing to do the work, the work has to be valuable. You can’t just be spinning your wheels. And so, um, gun porn works to a degree, but, uh, I mean, I, I’ll go back to, you know, my, my little halfhearted youtube experiment of a channel over the last two years. Now, you know, two years ago I put out a video explaining what the l h lem trigger is, and I’m not talking about you should buy an h k I’m talking about, I bought this pistol, I started using this one, this amazing gunsmith does this action package. NHK was so horrible at a marketing and explaining what the lem trigger was that I went to several, uh, trade shows and still couldn’t figure it out.
Sean: 00:29:05 And it wasn’t until, you know, two months ago that it all clicked. So, and there’s no videos out there. So I’m gonna make a video explaining what this is and, uh, you know, 130,000 views over the last 20 months. And, and, uh, you, my, my stupid little channel that I, you know, upload a video every week on, and then I wait six months for another video go up because it’s a lot of work historically speaking, that’s changing drastically, uh, moving forward. But you know, I, I’ve, I poor Rick home over at Lazy Wolf guns that Gun Smith had to put a hold on everything and now I’ve got, um, free action work on everything I could ever ask him to do in perpetuity unless he dies of a heart attack induced by stressed or by over demand of his that I’ve caused totally like that. Um, but I, you know, it’s, it’s that kind of over-delivery in value.
Sean: 00:30:05 I wasn’t, I wasn’t set up to actually, um, sell anything in that video. That video was literally, I got tired of people asking me what the lem trigger was and trying to explain in a dms. Yup. So now I can just paste a link to a youtube video question once. Well, right. Yeah. Cool. Um, and I just did one last week about, um, how I shoot a plastic gun. So fast and flat. Do you use stupid, uh, powder puff ammo or using factory? And you know, I naturally could v I mention the, uh, federal factory loads that I’ve been using for awhile now and, and I, I explained the body mechanics behind a good solid grip. Um, when you have to compete with a plastic gun and, um, you know, it, it’s already had a thousand views. It’s, it’s been six days and I get a trajectory. It’s, it’s going to be another one of my top performing videos because a million questions about ammo. Have you ever noticed that? Like, uh, everybody wants to find like the silver bullet to like a good grip and a good stance. Oh, of course. I mean, and that’s the great thing about this industry. You talk about training. Yup. It’s also a bit of hypocrisy, frankly. Like, you know, the, the, the guys that are really, really good. Yeah. Um, Oh, what movie was I watching? Um,
Sean: 00:31:29 ah, I forget. I watched the movie over the weekend and some guy said something to the effect of, isn’t that the irony of becoming rich? Um, the second year, rich, uh, everyone wants to give you stuff for free. Yes, sure. Or rich and famous or something like that. And, and, um, you know, I’ve, I’ve found that with, with the guys that show up and shoot with one or two pieces of nice equipment, but with a crappy optic and whatever ammo they can pull together and then they start winning matches and then, you know, um, eventually they’ll get support from, um, you know, uh, a good company like vortex and then safari land. And then, you know, I, it’s amazing to me and then all of a sudden they’re talking about like, I love my x, Y, Z super high end product, even though that’s not what got them there.
Sean: 00:32:13 Right. Correct. I, you know, when I was 12, I fell in love with Metallica’s black album and I was, uh, I was an aspiring drummer at the time that I grew from five foot, nothing to six, four over a summer, it seems like. And, and I’ve been 65%. And, uh, you know, I, I had no coordination. Like learning to play drum set was like the worst thing ever because I couldn’t even control my, my newly acquired long limbs. But I, I had so much drive behind it that, um, I wound up getting a scholarship by the time high school was over full ride scholarship and the college with, you know, my drumming and, uh, of anyway, um, you know, that I had just dreamed and obsessed over getting a Tama drum kit just like Lars ordered from Metallica had because that sound in the black album just rocked my world.
Sean: 00:33:04 I couldn’t believe drums could sound like that. Um, and, and it wasn’t until years later that I learned that he recorded that whole album on, on, uh, a Gretsch drum kit. It wasn’t even the brand that he was playing on stage. He was, he had lots of money to be seen with and music videos. What you’re actually hearing on the album was a completely different rented drum kit because the, the, uh, studio engineer knew what kind of sound to get and he knew what kind of drums to use. And that’s very common in the music industry where hopefully people will be seen playing Xyz Guitar, drums, whatever. But then, uh, what they recorded with was, you know, it’s Kinda anything goes on the recording studio. We just gotta get that sound and it’s totally accepted. Uh, and, and so it’s interesting to me because you can put a, I mean mill’s Jonathan, right?
Sean: 00:33:58 Like he’s shooting mechanic now. Yup. He’s still winning everything because he’s nils, nope. It doesn’t matter what he shoots. Correct. And so, um, I, I’m my approach moving forward is, is more about like, yes, I choose to use this because a, B and c, but, um, I can also do this with my wife’s, uh, you know, Franken gun ar 15 that she’s been shooting for the last two years or, or you know, um, like it’s, it’s about the, the time and work you put in and not the gear. It’s the analogy of would you rather have tiger woods as clubs or tiger woods is swing? Um, neither for me, cause golf is not primary interest, but you know, I, I guess that’s the direction I’m trying to go. Yeah. I’m trying to be genuine, good. Trying to actually show things at work and then the equipment that I use becomes less of a primary subject.
Sean: 00:34:54 I’m still gonna do gear reviews on things that I use. I call them overviews because they’re not reviews. It’s not like I’m some an agnostic. Yeah, I like that. That’s really good guy. Like every, like I’m very clear in a lot of my old videos. Hi, I’m Sean with H K and I’m going to talk today about the Xyz pistol rifle. So I think I said, I think I said in full disclosure on like, I don’t know, 150 videos and full disclosure, x, y, Z. I mean I literally was starting to tell people like, just so you know, in this particular conversation, I know these guys, I work with them, they’ve given me equipment to try and use blah, blah, blah. So you know, remember that, here’s what I have to say. Right, right. And then you still get, people are like, you’re a shill.
Mark: 00:35:39 Well, if I’m a shell [inaudible] going to show they don’t tend to disclose.
Sean: 00:35:45 Yeah, no, I, I, I’ve been really Kinda lucky. I only get one one nasty comment every probably 300 or so. You know, it’s, it’s, it’s very uncharacteristic of Youtube.
Mark: 00:35:57 Oh totally. Yeah, you are, you’re really lucky. I mean, we get, I still get comments, we did a review and then we got to get into some of this stuff, this actionable stuff for guys. But I did a review of the Walter CCP. You remember this pistol? It was like a billion people fricking, there was like a group people that love this gun cause it was easy to rack, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. We didn’t, nobody in the review liked it. Okay. We all had different reasons, but nobody really liked it. They’ve discontinued the gun and I still get comments like there’s the CCP is the greatest pistol of all time. I’ve, you know, my arthritic hands could only rack it. And I always went back like, look, I got that you like are a perfect use case for this pistol. But remember we didn’t review this for 70 year olds with arthritic hands or petite women.
Mark: 00:36:44 We reviewed this for like, you know, the masses. Right. And, uh, and I try to, you know, but even now and now, I just literally respond with it’s been discontinued. I don’t even like fight the fight anymore. I’m just, it’s just been discontinued. Cool. All right, well good. So this is, we got a lot of really good context. So I was hoping to, and I think for people who are listening to this that are, you know, uh, want to be influencers or are they not want to be but want to be influencers or who are, um, you know, like trying to figure out what they’re going to do next season is, let’s try to like go through some of these just platforms and talk a little bit about them individually about what you’re looking at for 2020. And uh, we’ll go from there. So I put these in rank order from your lowest number of followers to your highest. I don’t know why I did that, but that’s what I did. I works. Cool. So let’s start with Facebook. Um, and I, I got your, you have a couple of things on Facebook, but the one we’re really specifically talking about is Sean burrows. Dash competitive shooter.
Sean: 00:37:41 Right? I have a severely out of date, um, professional profile that I don’t think I posted on in three years. But you know, if people find value in it, fine. Um, and then, uh, yeah, so that, that, that would be my go to um, page. You know, I, I’ve seen some people have higher levels of success on Facebook as far as I guess number of followers. But you know, with, with the current climate of Facebook, you really have to pay to play. Meaning you invest a lot in getting likes on Facebook, meaning the number of people that like your page, um, you still have to pay to reach them. On average 1% of your audience, you’ll see your content that you post on your page. Then depending on how good it is, how, how frequently you post and, um, we’ll determine how much of that 1% will actually engage on it, like it, comment, share.
Sean: 00:38:49 Um, and, and so, uh, Facebook’s edge rank algorithm on Facebook pages, they really, you know, they’ve even publicly said over the last few years they’re, they’re trying to be a blanket over the web. Like AOL was in the 90s. You don’t want to go out to the worldwide web. We’ve got everything you need right here, right here and, and, uh, um, you can find any business you want and people can comment, you know, their, their, their customer reviews on local business style pages are showing up in Google search results now, whereas they blocked all that from Google’s bots and times past. And so, you know, for me as a, uh, shooter that’s showing off guns on, on Facebook, I certainly get people to come over a, people see it, people follow it, and I will engage in, answer every comment over there. And the DMS, uh, it’s a different audience.
Sean: 00:39:40 These are people that are not on Instagram and it’s mainly there for, you know, to, to be an echo chamber or a, a mirror of, of most of the content I put up on Instagram. Yeah, I was going to say primarily what you’ve been posting is direct shares off of Instagram. You know, like using the Instagram app, I’m assuming to just share it directly over to Facebook. Yeah. And including stories too. But you know, I, I’ll say that, you know, if you want to run a, a successful Facebook profile, you need to have stuff that you share natively. It claims to be a carbon copy from Instagram. And then what I’ll do in order to get more engagement there is after I do the share over to Facebook, I have to actually go to the Facebook page and then retag the company’s retagged companies in those.
Sean: 00:40:27 And then people actually see that and they’ll come in more if I don’t do that, it’ll get very, very low. No, that’s, that’s really, really good. So let me back up just a second. So you’ve got a competitive shooter page set up separate from your private profile. A lot of the people that are going to be listening to this show are trying to make a decision whether they want to do that or not do it. Um, reason being, uh, and you’ll, you’ll end up getting a lot of followers by simply, you know, like from other shooters that will send you a friend request and then just say, hey, um, this is for a family photos and kid’s birthday parties and stuff. But if you could come over and, uh, um, like my shooter page just says where all the shooter stuff is good and they’re happy to do that.
Sean: 00:41:09 Yeah. So tell me what your, your rationale for, you know, the average person who’s got maybe a couple like, you know, like weekend warrior shooters, got maybe a couple of smaller sponsors, maybe a couple of medium ones, whatever, to have the two pages given that the s the competitive shooter pages is going to be kind of in a fixed gear unless you intend to spend some money, um, or, or time, right. Like time in rev that out. Just for the record, we don’t really have any metrics. You get the measurement on engagement, how many people saw your things and yeah, if you have one or two posts that you then share over to your personal profile and get people to follow, like you can get that going. Yeah. And uh, it, it really works, you know, for, for me, for example, I personally belong to a lot of, not private, but you know, discussion groups.
Sean: 00:41:59 Um, you know, in the past it’s been HQ enthusiastic and, and, um, people that, that like certain optics and certain guns and certain types of ammo and to a, and then I’ll share a post that’s relevant from my page in those groups and, uh, that’ll, that’ll get the flywheel spinning and I’ll get a few more followers. You know, I’ve, I’ve actually, uh, uptick that quite a bit. Where am I at? Like 700 or so, seven 40, I think it was my last check here, but let me, yeah, so I mean, up until about six months ago, I had less than 200. Right. So, yeah, I’m putting more effort into that because I’m seeing the value with where I’m trying to go. I’ll feel yet native content for this, like specific for Facebook. Um, maybe, maybe the piece of content itself is found on other, in other places, but I’m re uploading.
Sean: 00:42:52 So instead of sharing a link to a youtube video right on, on Facebook, I’ll just upload that same, uh, video to Facebook. Yeah. That’s our practice almost everywhere. So, I mean, because Facebook gives preference to, to their videos and then I’ll tag the appropriate companies and get a number of views. Definitely not the same as youtube or even Instagram, but it is a different audience and I can reach more. And you know, when I’m reporting to, um, the companies that, that value of this kind of reporting, you know, I, I compare, you know, what an impression is to what they would pay for that in a magazine. Now, if they’re a company that doesn’t advertise in magazines, doesn’t even fricking matter. Yeah. But you know, like, look, our deal is you’re going to give me, you know, $5,000 in, in, in, um, equipment in exchange for, uh, x, Y, Z, um, reach and exposure.
Sean: 00:43:45 And then on top of that, you’re getting questions answered. You’re getting specific context because a really good magazine advertising play, for example, is a couple of full page ads and a feature story. So it all works together. That synergy can actually move opinions, change hearts and minds, but if it’s just a full page ad, yeah, I mean, you’re going to spend four grand on a full page ad and Recoil Web [inaudible] magazine Oh, easily, easily. And they distribute to about a quarter million [inaudible] they have a distribution of 240,000. Yes. Um, does that mean, oh, and then in one of their magazines is 200 pages or so. Right. And, and, and so you figure 240,000, let’s just say it goes out to 240,000 individuals, which it doesn’t, but let’s just say it does that, that just means there’s 240 imprints somewhere sitting on shelves. And anyway, correct. Let’s just say quarter million people actually opened that magazine and you’ve got a one in 200 chance of them even seeing your ad, let alone looking at it, reading and spending some time. So what’s the efficacy of, of a single full page ad in a magazine has quarter million, uh, in distribution and
Speaker 5: 00:45:02 uh, [inaudible]
Sean: 00:45:03 well, what is it like it’s every time fix it issues a year, right? And then you got to run a multiple issues that increases your, uh, cost, but also increases your likelihood of being seen. I’ll be really straight with you, a 250,000 readership at, uh, you know, so divide that by a thousand, right? For Impressions at 1,020. He has 1000, $250. Right? Is about all I would ever spend on that. But they also have, uh, they also have a cool social media program. And so I don’t want to downplay that. It’s, it’s the whole thing that they do. I mean, Rico works because Rockwell is really smart about like how they’ve sort of spread out and all these different things. But there’s like a lot of places, I’m not gonna name any names right now. They want to sell you advertising dollars. And I mean, we really roughly use the same figure of like banner ads around here, like $5 per thousand.
Sean: 00:45:56 If we can make it work at $5 per thousand, it’s probably worth doing. Right? But then, then here’s where it gets really interesting. And this, this can be, you know, understanding these principles can, can give you a rough idea as an influencer. Yes, it’s at home. I’m listening to this, uh, that, that, uh, it’ll give you an idea of how much you should post if they don’t specify in your agreement. Right? Like, so, um, if, if, uh, they’re giving you $4,000 worth of product, well, it’s a $4,000 worth of manufacturer suggested retail pricing. Right? Um, let’s just go off of that. And, and you know, I, I do this with a couple of the companies I work with. Um, $4,000. Okay, cool. Um, you get so much exposure every week. I report quarterly on this stuff because it was such a pain in the butt. I have a Google sheet because reporting from Instagram for example, they’re there.
Sean: 00:46:52 There is no reporting from Instagram. You can take screenshots and stuff, but you know, I give them total, you got so many posts, he got so many videos, so many pictures, total impressions, reach and then, um, engagements, shares and comments, right? Yeah. Oh, and views. And so then, um, then you know, you, you divide it up like, you know, what’s, what’s the, uh, price per post and then what was your price per engagement and you total it all back up and compare it to like recoil magazine. Like, wow, this is super effective, but oh, I’m not done there. Um, that was $4,000 MSRP, which I know you didn’t spend thousand dollars on that to give it to me, even with the ridiculous ups shipping that you had to pay. Correct. Right. And so then it becomes even more that the perception changes even more. And, and so, you know, it might be worth $4,000 to me because maybe I would have to spend that otherwise, but it’s not to you, that’s not your advertising costs.
Sean: 00:47:48 Correct. So, um, your number two is coming up. Let, let’s talk about, um, some of the things that I could use more as a competitive shooter or as a gun bunny or whatever you’re doing and, and, um, you know, I could get nine more bikini bottoms in a Camo pattern of your choice if you up the product support over here, I can justify that. Yeah. Yeah. Well, look, I mean, a real simple formula for this, and I don’t wanna get too too deep in the weeds on this, but if you, if you’re comparing against the cost of advertising, like a banner ad somewhere, which is like $5 per thousand, right. And it’s just the reason I use that number. If you went to like any major website, I mean not that anyone’s using banner ads anymore, but the fact that a lot of people are actually, but if you were to just look for a number that was simple at $5 per thousand, right?
Sean: 00:48:36 Um, in actual cash, I’m not talking about product here, I’m talking about cash, right? Yeah. I could see justifying like about $150 every time you post something cause you have around 30,000 followers on Instagram. Do you use a social blue book? Yeah, we do all kinds of stuff to, to dig into all this. But um, I, I’m going to be really straight with you over here. The way that I look at business and is pretty simple. If it doesn’t make sense on a Napkin, I’m not going to do it. That’s the size of the budget. So, so we just use a really basic number to look at One v two right? Instead of getting into like the analytics around what those would look like. So, but if you can show up and you say, look, on average, you know, a product, a product sponsor a, and I would use another like big name company, if you’ve already got one, if you’re talking to another big name company, like here’s what I do for them, here’s what I show them, here’s what they get, here’s what they spend over here.
Sean: 00:49:31 So I know, you know, the value is there. Not to mention on top of that we get engagements and all this. So it’s really simple. Now, if we were to do an evaluation of my social profiles in social blue book, that’s for a run of the mill, uh, normal industry, um, influencer sort of posts. But you and I both know that you can’t run, uh, ads on Facebook or Instagram, but, um, you’re essentially paying me to be your ad total ends. Um, I’m happy to talk about content types. I’m happy to talk about. Um, so when you, when you turn yourself into an ad by, you know, how can a magazine justify higher rates? It’s their distribution in the number of estimated impressions that they can get. The amount of reach. And so, you know, we, we can be even more specific and demonstrate even closer. Like, look, you want me, because, uh, this money maker,
Mark: 00:50:32 hi.
Sean: 00:50:33 I mean it’s for those of you who are listening, we’re just going into building a personal brand. Yeah, totally treating yourself as, you know, like look, people follow me because of, you know, bullet list of qualities. Um, no one else does exactly what I do. You know, the, the way I explain a reload might be something that people resonate with more versus, um,
Mark: 00:50:56 you know, somebody else explaining a role for sure. Right. And, and if an influencer can understand, uh, a, a, a
Sean: 00:51:07 aspiring sponsored shooter even can understand that the people actually want to know what and why they do things the way they do. Um, that, that creates a context for a product placements, right? Like, and so since I like to do this thing with my rifles this way, this is why I have this rifle set up and that’s why you should get it
Mark: 00:51:25 trigger a four, uh, your ar 15, is that correct? Yeah, no, I’ve just w when we started getting into the whole like dollars per thousands and all that. I think the main thing here is as far as I’m, I’m looking at my audience right now at like the people that are trying to figure all this stuff out and most of them have their value way over valued. Oh like by a lot. Right? And that’s why I bring this down to this real simple thing. If you were doing it in cash at $5 per thousand and you’d looked at what you were up to, I mean look, you have 33,000 people following you on Instagram right now, right? So if I gave you a [inaudible] that was assumed, everybody saw your Instagram post, it’d be worth $150 but see for you I would value at far higher because the value of what you’re doing is really good.
Mark: 00:52:09 There are other people out there that are putting out content, you know, and this is where you start looking. And for those of us that are in the background of this are looking at like what your actual engagement is. Because like I can, you could have, you know, there was a day when it was real easy to get 50 a hundred thousand people following you on Facebook. You just paid the bill on the other side of that is now you’re stuck with 50,000 robots following you or 50,000 people who, let’s just say they’re not robots for the sake of, you know, give Facebook the benefit of the doubt. They’re human beings who are only mildly interested in what you’re up to. They have less value than, than you know, a guy who’s got five friends that are like diehards for his shooting page. Yup.
Sean: 00:52:49 And, and that, that, that comes back to the qualitative things. So I mean, you can start the conversation with the Napkin on, uh, and then then CPM cost per thousand. Correct. Um, but then, then that’s, that’s the, that’s setting it up to,
Mark: 00:53:05 uh,
Sean: 00:53:06 pitch yourself right to, to, to talk about yourself. Intelligent lighting motion. When I was talking about pitching. Yes. Um, it’s, that’s where you say, but what I do is you’re not going to,
Mark: 00:53:17 you see me doing a, a match, uh,
Sean: 00:53:22 competition a video and then say like, to thank all my sponsors and, and then show me holding some award, you know, and then repeat, right? Like, yeah, there’s a lot of that. And, and I, I mean, I was there, there’s someone who’s been asking me for lessons and we finally got together and we probably did five or six, uh, lessons and, and my, my profile, there’s no shortage of three gun footage and from dry fire to match footage. But then, um, they were messaging me just last week and said, well, what’s three gun? Hmm, yeah. You know, we, we assume a lot of things as, as people that put a lot of time into our craft for sure, that aren’t actually obvious to our audience. And I realized I need to do a better job at being an ambassador to this sport. You know, people see me running around real fast shooting targets, but they actually don’t know what’s going on.
Sean: 00:54:21 Yeah. We’ll consider that. If you answered the question, what’s three gun a year ago? It doesn’t exist anymore. If the only place you’ve answered is in social media. Well on, well that’s, that’s another point, right? Like that’s, that’s a platform choice then or I’m trying to diversify like, yeah, the Graham Twitter and Facebook for example, are just a chronological feed. It’s not actually chronological, but you know, it has the appearance of one and eventually stuff does disappear. Um, time decay is one of the things in the algorithm. Yeah. So, um, whereas something like youtube, it’s more of an index and archive. That’s right. That kind of thing. You know, like your how to get into three gun video that did extremely well four years ago or whatever it was. And I watched that seven, seven years ago, believe it or not. Wow. I know. Yeah. I think I watched it four or five years ago.
Sean: 00:55:11 The whole point is, yeah. Uh, you know, understanding what kind of content to put where is actually more important now than ever. You know, one of my, uh, federal teammates asked me, Shawn, I, I, I’m new to the team this year too. And I, I feel like I have to up my value game. Cause federal has a really good ingredient. They, they’re very, very specific about the requests that they, they have and what they require from their brand ambassadors. And so, um, he, he’s just like, I’m just overwhelmed and I don’t know how much of what to do. And so I just gave him a really simple recipe. Yeah. Cause he’s a very good shooter and I’m like, look, you got to get more engagement on your profile. So, um, I, I would, I just call it the content waltz. Um, people, it’s, it’s just a staple on Instagram.
Sean: 00:56:04 People like gun porn. So, um, I would do, um, uh, porn porn video, just, it’s a three, um, post pattern and, and, but whatever you’re posting cadences, if it’s three a week or two a day, keep that, keep that expectation, keep that cadence alive. And if you, you know, increase it, don’t just suddenly drop back down. Like, maybe you’re at shot show and you want to do four day because it’s just so exciting or whatever. But as far as actual posts, not even going into stories, I just gave him that recipe and then I, you know, we talked about like, you know, whatever, figuring out what the value is based on what you received and how much engagement you get Ella to too. And I give them a little recoil, uh, formula. Yup. And, and he, he took it even geekier than I ever have.
Sean: 00:56:59 Cause he’s that kind of, he’s wired that way. And, but now he, he, he’s, no, he doesn’t have any anxiety about, uh, what he should be doing to support his new sponsor and give them what, um, he can justify as valuable at the end of the season. Yeah. I think also there’s some level of like, even a mediocre structure deployed consistently has more impact than like a really great structure that you can’t maintain. You know what I mean? Or like your deposit. Now, in fairness, he said, uh, um, the perfect strategy executed imperfectly perfectly is far less effective than the imperfect strategy that’s executed perfectly. So like if you’ve got a, a, a strategy that’s let’s just say 70% effective yep. But you execute on it 100% of the time, you’re gonna, you’re going to walk away. I’m winning, right? Versus it’s Kinda like getting one stage win and then bombing, uh, stay home and having like, if you can shoot consistently, you’re gonna finish the match much more, uh, um, at a much higher level than you would if just by getting one stage when and then messing up another.
Sean: 00:58:07 So, so let’s, let’s pop over to Twitter real quick. You got a about a little over actually has gone up five in three days, ready to go here at 10, 1021 to followers, people about gun control. I always get, yeah, no, I got it. So this is like also your, there’s some level of catchall here, but for the most, most part, you’re re tweeting a lot of political stuff. Yeah. So Twitter, Twitter is, yeah. This goes back to understanding the platform that you’re on. Yes. Um, so for example, the HK shooting team, social media person, um, posts just regurgitated, uh, videos from the other platforms of like, Hey, we’ve got so-and-so from the educated shooting team shooting a stage. You know, that’s just pretty much all match footage, right? And, and, and it’s, it’s less effective because that’s not what Twitter audiences are looking for.
Sean: 00:59:04 Twitter is a really unique social network because it’s actually social. You can actually jump in on any conversation. It’s not, um, isolated threads under a photo. It’s not isolated threads under a, an article link. Um, threads are created, but you can jump mid thread and respond to somebody’s comment, not knowing what, or not even paying attention to what the original piece of content or tweet was that started it. It’s, it’s like the whole world’s one, one big Christmas party. And you can, you can just hop in. And that’s interesting because you can literally get to know people, um, right away. So for example, um, the famous comedian bill burr is into, uh, drumming. He takes drum lessons and, uh, a friend of mine, Mike Johnston, uh, on the, has a website called a Mike’s lessons.com. You know, he’s been putting stuff up on youtube since 2005.
Sean: 01:00:03 He’s actually, uh, in as far as I know, the most successful music teacher on the planet because he reaches more people. He’s, he’s built an online platform. He’s very, very good at it. And, uh, um, Bill Burr was a follower of his and he didn’t even know and I’m like, tweeted something and Bill Berger said, Hey Mike, that’s great. Um, I’m interested in coming to one year camps. Um, how do I learn more? And, and Mike just happens to be a huge bill. Burt. Well, what red blooded American male isn’t, um, no, his last special, by the way, it was remarkable. If you haven’t seen it yet. The, Oh, I just watched it. I kind of binged on how fun is it to watch Dave Chappelle and Bill Berg go after political correctness with like such wit intelligence and execution, such a small interval. They’re both 20, 19 specials.
Sean: 01:00:52 Yeah, it’s unbelievable. I loved it. And, um, and I watched a Aziza and Zara is two and he goes after some of it as well. Cool. Which the [inaudible] Davis Fall. But anyway, it was, it, it was interesting that that one tweet, um, changed the dynamic of, of the kind of reach he had because everyone saw bill Berger talking to Mike Johnston. Yeah. Um, and, and you know that it’s more true on Twitter that one piece of content can change the landscape of your, um, visibility, uh, more than any other social network. And, you know, we, we’ve seen it, you know, like one idiot will just say one stupid tweet, um, commenting on a celebrity or a politician and then the whole whole world will come down on them and destroy them and retweet them. And then they’ll, they’ll come out on top with 5,000 more followers and box would be a somebody from them and there’ll be on the today show on Tuesday.
Sean: 01:01:55 Right, exactly. And if they’re prepared to leverage that, that can be huge. Most of them aren’t. So they don’t, and it goes away with new cycle in the, in the firearm space. That’s crushing it on Twitter right now. I haven’t seen anybody. Um, well that’s, that’s why I’m going back to, I’m using Twitter as, as a place to, um, be a bit more political. Like Instagram. I, I’ll, I’ll, I’ll do it once in awhile. Like the bump stock thing. I did an IGT video about ’em or the bump stock thing cause um, it, it really pissed me off. You know, if you look at when, well, you know, all the points added up as of that date, you know, Trump arguably has done more damage to the second amendment and precedence than Obama did. Obama tried a lot of stuff that he was unsuccessful. What they actually wound up with at the end of his eight years was making it, um, possible to carry a gun in national parks.
Sean: 01:02:51 Got It. No, I know. Yeah. So anyway, um, that ruffled a lot of feathers and so that’s good. It’s a place for me to be able to be more controversial and less frankly, product oriented. But people see I’m a competitive shooter because, you know, I put stuff up, they go look at my profile and I get a lot of Instagram, uh, bleed over from Twitter. It’s very popular to, um, take a screenshot of a tweet and then post it on your stories and, and uh, then people from Instagram will go over to Twitter and it’s so much fun in, in small doses to, uh, get, get a few a anti-gun Twitter activists, uh, all up in the night. It’s fun to call the NRA out on their, their garbage. Um, I want a place to do that. So I wouldn’t consider that a huge, uh, brand ambassador platform, but it’s tied to this weird Xango boom brand that has, has evolved.
Sean: 01:03:51 So, I mean, it’s, it’s actually, it was actually the first Shango boom account I created. Um, second came, uh, the, the, the Instagram, but Twitter, you know, you have to be on it all the time in order to have an effect. And so I, you’ll see months go by where I won’t post on it. It’s not a focus because you know, really competitive shooting, getting better at shooting. I like, you know, teaching some private lessons here and there, um, supporting the companies that support me cause of the relationships I have with them. They’re all friends now and that’s the only way I want to do it moving forward. And so that’s where I’m going to put the most of my efforts. It’s basically where I’ve found I can be of most value. Yeah. Right. Well let’s pop over to your, your, um, I’m going to,
Mark: 01:04:43 well, uh, now let’s jump over to this. Let’s go over to youtube. What are you looking at for 2020? On Youtube? You currently have just short of 6,000 subscribers, which the value of a subscriber is very, very high. I mean, I’m a huge fan of that and youtube seems to be doing a really good job of, um, uh, yeah, I wouldn’t say are turning into a social network, but that, you know, the, the, the way the information is conveyed and comments and questions, if you’re a user or a, uh, a content creator is getting more seamless, especially on the iPhone or you know, on your phone, it’s getting easier and easier to be engaged with that audience while you’re moving around the world. Um, which I
Sean: 01:05:17 think is pretty cool. Easier than it was. Yeah, it’s still a pain in the ass. It’s still a pain in the ass, but especially, you know, so I don’t upload anything from my phone. I just respond to comments. Youtube, youtube is a bigger focus. You know, a lot of people freaked out over, um, youtube tightening down on policies that they literally have secret, um, whistleblowers and, and so, you know, I, I’ve, I’m definitely focusing my content less on, you know, what I did to that gun to make it do this and more about a technique. Um, it, it’s becoming a place, I initially started it because, um, h k found a lot of value in youtube. Um, and you know, my first two videos were just product overviews. Uh, they, they, they have a really good a tne program, so they’ll send you any gun that they’ve got available, uh, for 90 days and you can make videos with it’s shooted do trials.
Sean: 01:06:14 And it was, uh, it was a great way for me to become a brand ambassador for them at the level that I kind of wanted to without, um, you know, needing to like try to justify, hey, could you send me this video for you? It’s, it’s more of a, um, it was a way for me to try to cut my teeth and see what I could do. Some of my early videos, I, I can’t stand anymore, but that’s, that’s the way it goes with anyone that’s seriously trying to create content. Your first stuff is just gonna suck more than your newer stuff. But, you know, I think I finally found a rhythm, cadence, editing style, that sort of thing. And I’ll tell Ya, you know, uh, it, it quickly became a very convenient thing for me because I’d rather spend, you know, an hour on the range demonstrating something and then maybe an hour editing a video together to put it up there to save me 10 hours over the next week with people asking me the same question I used to pay youtube, linkedin, I don’t have so many videos.
Sean: 01:07:10 I don’t remember what I’ve talked about. So I’m like, oh yeah, well holster, do I use here watching this video? That’s a really cool gun. Safe. Let me w w you know, where’d that come from? Here, here’s, here’s the product overview on my gun safe. You know, it’s even when people just ask me about things, you know, one of the, one of the mistakes I made was mentioning a discount code if you DM me. Oh yeah. And it just happens to be from the most, um, uh, successful video I’ve made. It was about the lem trigger. A cool thing about HK pistols as you can. Uh, they’re, the trigger systems are modular, so you can switch them out, you can switch to double action only. It’s really simple to do and you just got to get the conversion kit. Um, and so if you want it to get NHK K USP but they don’t have it with the lem trigger, it doesn’t matter.
Sean: 01:07:57 Just get the, the variant one and, and then spend an extra 50 to $70 on the conversion kit. And that’s better than waiting 13 months for the German factory to kick another couple of limited edition ones of those out and hopefully you get one. Right. So, um, that, that’s a cool concept. And, and um, there’s a local company that sells more parts from HK than h k does in the US called H K parts. And, um, so I, I worked something out with them. They’re literally two exits up the freeway from me. And, and so not that that direction matters, but um, that’s where they,
Mark: 01:08:34 no, I wanted to, I wasn’t actually sure about that in your, when I was reading your, your bio and it just didn’t seem like a question worth taking the time to ask. But the HK parts.com is actually a private company separate from HQ. Yeah.
Sean: 01:08:45 Okay. Um, and you know, they, they’ve, um, privately owned, but um, the, the, the owner has ’em has a contact over in Germany that he built up a long time ago. And so he orders stuff directly from Germany [inaudible] faster and more efficiently than h k USA has historically, uh, there that’s been an, that was an interesting internal thing because HK decided they wanted to up the game on their webshop and become their literal words internally were become the new HK parts. And I said, you guys realize how idiotic that sounds like you guys are HK. Like you should, there should never have been in HK parts correction. Right. And, but, um, that’s neither here nor there cause these key parts of sense, you know, developed a, a really nice offering of, uh, aftermarket parts and alternatives so you can get the genuine German whatever, or the maiden USA, which is almost as good depending on what it is after market triggers for striker fire guns and, and so they, anyway, but it became a little conflicting. Like they, they weren’t sure if they wanted to allow me to work with HK parts, but you know, it’s a friend just here in Utah that owns the business. And so it was, it was a little weird for a little while, but um, that, that’s neither here nor there. Right.
Mark: 01:10:04 Oh, and ultimately your, I mean, my God, you guys are making the parts that are getting sold. It’s just your, you know, right. Exactly. Down down in the work for the signal flow a little bit. So in the, just to kind of wrap up youtube, it sounds to me like you’re intending to put more of your time and energy into youtube this year, um, and be a little [inaudible] it and be a little like, well this is cognizant of the content you’re putting out to make sure you avoid some of the difficulties with, you know, being on Youtube and, and which is, you know, look, I’ll be straight. All of these platforms run, you run some level of risk of running a foul. I mean that’s just
Sean: 01:10:38 if you’re going to do any long form content that’s essentially irreplaceable, you put in enough time and effort to video it and edit it. On my blog, on my website, I’ve begun replacing a lot of the youtube embeds with um, uh, uh, WordPress’s video platform cause I’ve got a wordpress site,
Sean: 01:11:00 um, I believe they call it video press. It’s been $100 a year to be able to host these videos. But then it’s nice because now I’m able to, um, I, I have that backup cracked and frankly, some of are ranking in the search engines better than the youtube videos for whatever reason, cause I optimize them. But I mean, um, there is a backup of them. They share the exact same title, the exact same description. So when one disappears, say off of Youtube or one we’ll replace it. Google search engines currently work. And so, um, and then the other thing is, uh, I am, uh, my, my goal between now and shot show is to knock that 6,000 up to 10,000 subscribers. Sure. And, and, and so, yeah, I’m putting in more time consistently into youtube, Instagram, uh, content then can, can change to be a bit more a lifestyle.
Sean: 01:11:56 Kind of like it originally was. I’m finding I get more engagement with that. Um, and instead of trying to make an Instagram catchall, I mean, I’ll still post match videos, but id TV’s interesting. I get a lot of views off of it, but then it disappears. Um, as far as more people watching it. So, uh, you know, whatever I put on on Youtube, I’m going to start doubling over to IGT TV. Yeah. So let’s pop over real quick to, I mean look, that’s kind of yeah. To Instagram cause that’s where you’re, I mean you’re the lion share of your influence comes from is, is how you’ve done which correct. In our space. I will say the next year is that youtube over Instagram? Yep. Um, it, you know, it takes more time to produce one piece of content, but one piece of content, um, has more mileage with it.
Sean: 01:12:44 And so I’m ultimately creating less content, more value, and buys me more time to do other things. Correct. Cool. So tell us a little about what’s your, what’s your plan for Instagram? You just said you’re planning on going a little more lifestyle with it. You’ve got a, um, you, you’re playing around with Instagram TV, but also what, what’s your, uh, what’s your take on Instagram for 2020? Well for there, there are a lot of things. Cause my, you know, I got four kids, all of them are old enough to go shooting with me on some level. You know, I had a video go viral on, on Instagram a year ago. Father’s Day, uh, got a quarter million views and that was just on my post, not counting the hundreds of thousands of posts that got on reposts and you know, a little two-year-olds shooting, shooting an MP five hand-over-hand very safe, but, and the look of joy that went on in his face, it’s priceless.
Sean: 01:13:35 But you know, I, um, I have a family and we like go outdoors and, and you know, I’m going to have more stuff with me. And, uh, my oldest, my 14 year old, a shooting with me and, uh, I mean, Alicia and I shoot together a lot that, uh, especially over this last year. That’s been a huge change. And, um, you know, one of the biggest hurdles for me with HK is, uh, they do not want their kids. They don’t want, they don’t want any of their guns and swag being worn or seen in the hands of children. Um, this comes from me. The, you know, from Germany, totally believes that their stuff is for military and law enforcement, not civilians. And so it’s always been a conflict between [inaudible], Germany. But I mean, I’m sorry, I take my boys shooting and, and um, loved the guns, but you know, that, that, that’s, that’s been one of the biggest changes.
Sean: 01:14:32 And so, you know, the Instagram is going to be more of a, uh, um, a chronological, uh, documenting of, of what I’m doing with my family, whether Alicia and I are out at a three gun match or if I’m teaching my son how to quad load a shotgun at the range, you know, that one did rather well. Um, there’s, there’s no doubt that, uh, the, the amount of organic engagement that you can get on a video or a post in Instagram is changing. But, um, and, and what’s unique about Instagram is people can really easily unfollow you. Whereas with Facebook, you have to make an effort to go and unfold. I think I still like the TV show lost on my personal Facebook cause it’s just, yeah, totally, no way to an easily unlike it. And so Instagram is becoming, you know, I’m going to be documenting stuff.
Sean: 01:15:27 Uh, also an emphasis on higher quality posts. You know, I, I uh, upgraded to a DSLR about a year ago and so as many posts as I can, showing equipment, lots of gun porn, but with, with, uh, either, either an ironic, um, comment with sufficient hashtags or you know, a more in depth explanation of what they’re looking at and, you know, kind of both ends of the spectrum. Um, I’m experimenting with a lot, you know, like last night I posted a picture of my safari land hat on my dashboard as I was going out to the range, didn’t document in any of my Sunday gun day stuff. And I think by this morning I had 75 likes, which would have been cool with my thousand followers back in 2014 but you know, that’s, that’s awful. Um, but you know what safari land, um, we’ll appreciate it. Yeah. There’s value there that most of the outside world can’t see everyone else.
Sean: 01:16:22 Like what is this a hat on a dashboard. Um, they get to repost that content and use that on, on their profile and there’s value there. Yup. Um, so it’s also understanding, you know, something that’ll probably please your sponsor but not your, your masses, um, is sometimes not consistently all the time. The, the, the best thing to do because it gives them something they can use in repost. Right. So obviously it’s the best of both worlds, but sometimes you just can’t do that. Yeah. Look what I’m, what I’m, I think for people who are listening to the, I think it’d be interesting to talk about would be, I mean, outside of your phone, what, what equipment are you using? What are the things that, like you, you know, what’s in your range bag that’s just kind of your ongoing content? Um, kit always have a tripod with me.
Sean: 01:17:15 It’s just in my truck. Right, right. And then there’s one that’s tucked around the corner behind or gun safe or unsafe is in our living room. It’s, it’s more of a conversation piece than anything else. Yeah. Little neighborhood kids come in and, you know, I ask them if they’ve ever seen duck tales and Michelle, that’s our money. Ben Sue, smallest swimming, but it’s ours. Um, and you know, so equipment, you know, it’s, I, I’ve got a, you know, from sponsors, I’ve got, I’ve got things from, uh, companies I work with at my office. You know, you can see a point right there, Parkinson, the wall, you know, dry fire, basically, basically a tripod of some kind to prop up a, uh, a f or a camera. Yeah. And that could be anything from something small and simple up to something reasonably elaborate if you, if you wanted to.
Sean: 01:18:13 Yeah. Um, I usually have, since companies are, are not stingy at all with, with, uh, swag. Um, you know, I’ve got a couple of a vortex Brita, HK federal hats over there. Uh, depending on what, you know, if I get a break in my schedule, I’m heading to the range, you know, there’s public land 15 minutes down the road from notch here at my office. And so I always have a couple of steel targets, um, in, in the cab of my truck. Uh, you know, there’s, I, I, I’m, I try to be as opportunist as possible because it’s a hobby and it comes after work, after family. Um, you know, it’s, it’s a prioritization thing. Um, it’s also something that, uh, I’m opportunist about. But I’m also, I also tried my best to plan because frankly I’m, I’m all about digital minimalism. I stare at a screen all day for work.
Sean: 01:19:07 I’m looking at social media for a bunch of clients, having the energy to do it after work, you know, because I’m shooting is uh, still a miracle to me since I don’t really care for screens as much as I’m on them or appear to be on them. You know, you, you consider how much of me on Instagram you’ll consume it any given day. Uh, you know, it’s only a few minutes, you know, a bunch of 15 second stories and be like, man, it seems like you’re on all day. Like, well, so you’re just for keeping it simple, straight up tripod your camera. What DSLR are you using this year? Uh, I’m, I’m using a Canon t seven. I cool. Um, I mean it’s, it’s more about the lens than the Great Kevin. The body. It’s a good camera that does what I need to. Um, I, I, I got two lenses. I got a macro lens to take really up close with nice blurry backgrounds and then I’ve got one that’s a, a good for a depth of field.
Sean: 01:20:00 I don’t have any fancy zoom lenses for most people. I don’t even recommend that. And that the Canon has probably the best, you know, user-friendly autofocus on the market too, which for those of you who are looking to like document stage videos and stuff and you might even, you know, move around with that DSLR and chase people, that’s the cannon does a really good job of keeping everything, you don’t get that weird like focus shift that happens sometimes with the DSLRs if you’re not, if you’re running a manana. Right, exactly. Yeah. And so I mean, um, I use the GoPro, it’s a a Gimbal, um, for about a year, but it was such a pain in the butt. Pull the memory cards out on you, but you know, it’s better than having waiting to have your film developed at a rite aid or a wall, you know, like it just, um, when I’m, when I’m at, uh, a match, I’m not worried about posting in real time on stories.
Sean: 01:20:53 I’ll just video everything that I think would be a good story. I’ve already gotten in chronological order. You don’t at the end of the day. Story, story, story, story, story, story Hashtag Hashtag Hashtag and then I go get somebody. And then, because I don’t want to be thinking about the ground, um, hey, we’ll shoot the match when I’m shooting a, but at the same time, you know, um, getting the footage is important, so it’s just easy to, to film. Uh, Alicia and I both know how we like the other person to be filmed. And so there no, like looking for a squad person in your squad, you might be able to trust, you know, everyone knows by now, not to give Dylan easily their camera. Correct. We’ll turn into a slow motion selfie of him that’s like, oh, that’s been a really powerful tactic for him. Oh, it’s great. You know, everybody gets home in their camera and there’s like some villain easily on there and it gets shared because I wouldn’t do the whole damn thing in slow mo. Yeah, let’s go it really? Oh yeah, yeah. Dylan’s
Mark: 01:21:54 okay.
Sean: 01:21:54 Yeah. So I, I mean the,
Sean: 01:22:00 it’s, it’s all about keeping it simple and as far as consuming, you know, I said at a time, uh, I set time aside, um, every, every evening. Uh, usually I can’t, I can’t look at screens person in the morning. Um, and then, you know, I’ll spend 10 minutes on the answers, many comments and questions as I can if they’re of interest and then I move on. Right. I know people that are on this answering question all damn day long and I just can’t do that. Like, I, I’m not a consumer of content. I’m a producer, you know, I’m focusing on, you know, what can I do to be more creative with what I got going this week. It’s been really interesting the last month or so we’ll look at my feed like other than one one youtube video I did on, on recoil management, which was actually very time consuming.
Sean: 01:22:46 Um, from filming to edit, I was probably six hours into that thing. But it’s, it’s doing rather well this last week. But, you know, finalizing things with B and t, um, and not posting HK. Like how a lot of h k gear, you know, I’m, I’m not, you know, not that you don’t see like my carry pistol, but it’s, it’s become a very, yeah, it’s like this is my British shotgun. Here’s an Emerson knife. Um, I’ve had the really pulled to be creative, uh, with, with some things because, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m getting ready to shift gears and I’m, I’m tapering off all the HK hashtags and shout outs. I had someone asked me this morning on the way to work, um, are you no longer with HK? Um, I, yeah, I checked my youtube comments, uh, in a parking lot cause I’m really curious about this, this, uh, uh, how to, how to shoot a plastic gun fast and flat or whatever I called it because it’s just a new piece of content.
Sean: 01:23:41 So I’m kind of checking the comments on that. Um, obsessive Lee. And so far it’s been a fantastically positive response. But I guess my point is, um, sometimes you’ll have a Lowell, it’s kind of like an off season. I’m in this weird off season. I, I think we’re gonna have to withdraw from surefire because we’ve got brand new rifles and putting brand new optics on and we know any of our dope. And, um, I, I don’t know if I’m comfortable going into a major mass like that, but, uh, um, uh, you know, they’re, they’re not ar styrofoam rifles. It’s a completely unique platform. Um, and, and so I think we’re gonna be spinning, you know, most of our content over the next month when these rifles arrive in the next day or two is going to be like announcing and documenting our journey with, uh, getting to know these new platforms. And, and, uh, and then I think the next major we’re shooting is, uh, Fort Benning. I think that’s the plan. Who knows. We might show up at surefire, still were registered, but yeah, we’ll, we’ll see.
Mark: 01:24:40 What about just showing up at it and just not documenting it and having some fun playing with your new toys?
Sean: 01:24:45 Um, I, I don’t, I don’t think I’m wired to be able to do that. I’m more than happy to document, not doing well. Um, but, uh, I don’t know how happy a, B and t would be. No, I got that. I’m going to be shooting a lot of local matches. Yeah. There you go. With these, I mean we, we get to three gun matches a month plus we got you. You can find a USPSA match almost every single week of the month or nine months of the year here in Utah. So a lot of PCC, a lot of a rifle there that the PCC and the rifle. I have basically the same fire controls. So a lot of get to know your time. So really great. Yeah.
Mark: 01:25:23 Well Dude, I, this has been awesome. So for those of you who are listening over this, you know, two part series, uh, I encourage you to listen to what Sean is saying and try out some of the things he’s up to. He’s got some very sound, very practical ways of going about this content creation. Of course, this had some major success with it. So, um, on behalf of Shawn and his sponsors, federal premium ammunition, Breda, safari land vortex optics, Emerson Knives, Dakota tactical shoots, deal.com h k parts.com. Gargoyles five 11 tactical Briley Three Gun Elf, Duke Defense and Rhino metals. Thanks so much for being on the show and being t and me and t. Well that’s the new, the new deal. So we’ll have to, I don’t even have there. Um,
Sean: 01:26:04 where can people find out about B and t right now? bt-usa.com. Okay, cool. Cause I found, I found that the German version of the site or something and I was like, or the European version as I was having trouble navigating it even once you translated into English. So, um, yeah. Cool. It’s um, that’s part of, uh, my excitement. Like I’m getting in on the ground level as far as their US market share circles. Really helping them build that up. It’s an exciting new prospect. Awesome. Have an awesome week everybody and we’ll see you on the next one. Thanks, mark.
Mark: 01:26:52 [inaudible].
