111: 2022 Social Media State of the Union

1. To succeed on social media, you need to set aside some budget for social media. Organic growth is much less common than it used to be, and the brands that are succeeding are typically boosting their posts or paying for ads.  

2. Short form video is king. Video is not just reserved for TikTok; it’s one of the best ways to build a personal connection with your audience on most platforms. 

3. To start your social media strategy, focus on 3 things: Foundational documents, brand development, and a clear understanding of your audience.

Jessica Doehling on LinkedIn

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(2:50) Jessica explains why she loves social media

(4:23) What are the biggest trends you’re seeing in social media marketing this year?

(9:19) The things that once worked on social media don’t necessarily work today

(15:00) 3 things to prioritize in your social media strategy

(20:30) Which platforms should businesses prioritize? 

(24:09) How are brands succeeding on LinkedIn?

(27:13) Jessica shares what success looks like for small and medium sized brands

(31:30) This week’s download: Access our social media calendar template

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Hey, y’all. Ryan here. And before we get started, I have to tell you about a special limited time offer from BELAY. At BELAY, we know that time is money. And now through the end of August, we’re doing something that will allow you to save on both. For the first time ever, we’re offering $300 off your startup costs with a BELAY Virtual Assistant. $300. All you have to do is book a call with our sales team by August 31st to qualify. There’s no better time than now to accomplish more and juggle less. Head to belaysolutions.com to get started.

Jessica Doehling:

People don’t connect with brands. People connect with people, right? When you’re doing short form content in video form, people can see your face and then they can see your authenticity. They can see your transparency. It builds more trust. It opens the door for more conversation and engagement. If you are creating content on social, you have to be thinking about the short form video content and how you can transition into that.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the most practical business podcast in the world. You’re now one simple tip, practical tool and small step away from growing your business. One Next Step is brought to you by BELAY, the incredible 100% remote organization, revolutionizing productivity with virtual assistance, bookkeepers and social media managers. Accomplish more. Juggle less. Modern staffing from BELAY. And now to your hosts.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Welcome to One Next Step, the practical business podcast that helped you run your business, so it stops running you. I’m Ryan and today I am so excited that we’re going to get to talk with BELAYs, very own social media strategist, Jessica Dohling. Jessica’s really incredible, because Jessica actually started as a social media manager that we contracted through BELAY at BELAY. And when the opportunity arose to join our team on the corporate marketing team, she came over and she’s been leading our social media since then. And it’s really incredible. In this episode, I get to interview her and she talks about some just incredible practical, next steps that you can take in your social media and understand the ever evolving new trends and what’s happening. It’s going to be a great conversation. And I promise that you’re going to be able to take something away and really take that next step in your own business or organization, social media. It’s going to be awesome.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Jessica handles all things social media for us at BELAY. From social strategy to content, brainstorming, the execution as well as posting and all the community building. Really aligning with our communication values, our marketing values, all those things that we’re doing. So I’m so excited about this conversation. I can’t wait for you to hear it. So let’s jump into it. Let’s listen to it now.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Hey Jessica, welcome to One Next Step. How are you doing this morning?

Jessica Doehling:

Hey Ryan, thanks for having me. I’m doing really well this morning. It’s a beautiful sunny day and happy to sit down with you and talk social media.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Yeah, no, I’m really excited about this conversation. I think there’s going to be a lot of really practical, next steps for people to take based on the information we get to share, which I think will be awesome. But before we get started, I just love to hear a little bit, Jessica, how did you get into social media and how did that become a passion for you?

Jessica Doehling:

So social media was my first job out of college. I graduated with a degree in marketing, so I was just trying to figure out which avenue of marketing I wanted to explore. And I got into social media partnering with a real estate marketing agency. And I loved the sincerity of the connection that you could find in social media. I thought that there was a lot of room for creativity and authenticity, and it just felt like the perfect place for me to use my skills and that also supported the kinds of values that I had. So it’s just a fun place to be. It also challenges you to keep learning. The trends are always changing and the social media landscape is always changing. So it’s something that keeps you on your toes and requires you to stay sharp and always be learning, which is something that I really love.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Yeah, no, I feel like for a lot of us that remember when brands first got involved in social media years ago, it really was this totally new interaction that we could have with customers. And we could get a whole new type of interaction, feedback, information from our potential clients, our current clients, people who love us, people who hate us. All of that became accessible in a totally new way. And then it’s just like rapidly changed over time. And I think that I would love to start there really. Can you just like give us a pulse check on what is happening in social media in 2022?

Jessica Doehling:

Yeah, absolutely. So throughout this year, the biggest trends that I’ve seen is that first and foremost, organic reach is on the decline. It has been for a few years, but if you are a brand trying to sell a product or a service, you have to pay-to-play. If you are not setting aside a portion of your marketing budget for social media, then you are majorly missing out, because the platforms are growing exponentially. The user bases are growing and there are people out there that want you to solve their problem. And so you need to set aside a significant ad budget to reach them. You don’t need to do it in a gross icky way where you’re trying to sell something to someone who doesn’t need it. You’re trying to reach the people that are looking for you. So, that’s the biggest trend that I’ve seen is that the most successful brands out there are increasing their social media ad budgets. Whether that’s just boosting your top performing posts or doing ads. But if you can do both, you are going to succeed in 2022.

Jessica Doehling:

Another trend that I’ve seen, which I’m sure a lot of people have seen, is that video is king. Specifically short form video. Vertical video and that’s coming from the huge boom in TikTok, but we’re also seeing it in YouTube shorts. We’re also seeing it in reels and we’ve seen it in the past few years with stories. And I think that the reason why this is becoming so popular is because it gives a face to your brand. It shows a person. Because essentially when we’re on social media, we’re there to connect. People don’t connect with brands, people connect with people, right? So when you’re doing short form content and video form, people can see your face and then they can see your authenticity. They can see your transparency. It builds more trust. It opens the door for more conversation and engagement. And that’s where it’s at. If you are creating content on social, you have to be thinking about the short form video content and how you can transition into that. And everybody, I truly believe everybody, has an avenue to explore that kind of content.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Yeah. And that’s been, what I’ve seen is that it’s more natural for some brands than others, depending on the personality of the person who’s leading. Size of organization. I actually think the bigger the organization, the harder this is, because there are brand standards and struggles, but there are a lot of ways to still navigate that. One of my favorite kind of startup brands here in Atlanta just went through a rebrand. Ruby Bond. It’s like these little, it’s very bougie, these candy charcuterie plates. They’re unbelievably expensive. They’re adorable though, highly recommend for your next themed party. But it’s really interesting. The owner of this account uses it as her personal social and the brand social. And it’s this interesting way that they’ve intersected that.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

And I think we’re just starting to see more and more and more unique ways for it to put a face to a brand name. Because like you said, and I think the point that you made is so important, is that people don’t connect with brands, they connect with people. And there’s like allegiance and that’s why brand ambassadors and all these things are so important. But it’s been really interesting for me to watch all these other brands try new and different things while everybody’s figuring this out. And as a person who really loves produced content, I think I struggle with exactly how to do it well sometimes.

Jessica Doehling:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that goes hand in hand with the increase in influencer marketing too. I think that that’s something that’s going to become more necessary for brands to learn about and lean into. If you don’t have someone within your company that is charismatic, is good at improv. If there’s not someone in your team, especially if you have a small business and you’re just more naturally introverted and you don’t want to put your face on camera, then find some people that are within the industry that you are trying to serve and partner up with them. And that’s a really great opportunity to get a face for your brand, so.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

So I feel three big things of what has maybe changed this year here is, pay-to-play, is the first. Video trumps everything, specifically these vertical videos. It really hurts my filmmaking heart. And then the third is, put a face to a brand. Those are the three big trends or things you feel that have changed or really kind of solidified here this year?

Jessica Doehling:

Exactly. Yeah. Those are the biggest things that I’m seeing that small businesses specifically can really lean into. I mean the landscape is always changing, but those are the three top trends that I’m noticing for 2022. Yeah.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Okay. Now for small businesses and brands that maybe don’t have a huge team to support this. You get into a rut often in social media. And I feel like here at BELAY, we’ve done that in some ways too. We have a pretty standard cadence of what we say and sometimes it’s really good and sometimes it’s not. But for small business brands, are there things that used to work that no longer seem to work that maybe we keep doing, because we build a system for it or whatever it might be?

Jessica Doehling:

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we all get comfortable in our routines, in our habits, right. But I think that first of all, blatant advertising, if you are not curating your content to fit into the platform that you’re on, it’s just going to come off as inauthentic. You’re going to stick out like a sore thumb. So first you want to choose a platform where your audience is living, but then you want to make sure that the content that you’re putting out on that platform, feels organic. As you’re scrolling through the feed, you want to make sure that your ad feels like it’s something that was organically posted.

Jessica Doehling:

So you want to spend a lot of time making sure that, if you’re on Instagram, you got to lean into reels. People don’t want to be blatantly advertised to without their consent. So you want to make it feel as organic and smooth any kind of hard edges as you can. So people are more receptive to it, because what I’m seeing is people experiencing a lot of ad fatigue, especially in the big major platforms. Now there are opportunities in smaller platforms like Snapchat and WhatsApp where people are a little more receptive to blatant advertising. But if you’re playing around in Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, you want your ads to feel fresh and organic and natural.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s really interesting.

Jessica Doehling:

Yeah. What else isn’t working? Directing people to your website and having them call you, is working less and less. Especially over 2020 peak COVID times, people retreated into themselves and are less open to giving you a call to learn more about your business. You want to make as much information available on your social media as possible. You want it to be a portfolio of sorts. I mean, there are a lot of different reasons to use social media, but if people have to go to your website or they have to give you a call, that’s just one more hurdle that your potential customer has to go over, which is going to potentially cause a leak in your conversion funnel, right?

Jessica Doehling:

You want to make it as easy as possible for your potential customer to learn about what you’re doing and to hear about exactly how you can solve the problem that they’re having. So I think that the more you can make customer service available on your social media, be more present and available and care about the experience that your customer is having on social, it’s just going to tighten up that funnel and make it easier for people to reach you, learn about you and ultimately buy from you.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s really fascinating. There was a point in time where the whole idea of LinkedIn Bio or a link built into whatever might be, was kind of the natural next step, but you’re right. I even, when I think about my own behavior, if I’m going to go through all the hassle of going to the link, I’m like, “I’m very qualified. I’m almost ready to purchase.” All of the research and the warming me up along the way, that all has to happen within the platform, because it’s a big barrier to leave it. And the platforms do that on purpose. They want to keep people on their platform.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

But even like yesterday, it’s funny, I got all the way into the link and then this fancy thing showed up with all these different things. And I was like, “Okay, I’m out. I don’t want to do that.” And I wanted to buy the product and it was so hard. It actually gave me enough time to like go, “Hey, no, you don’t actually need to spend that money.” And so it was actually really good for me, but not great for that brand.

Jessica Doehling:

No, you’re exactly right. That’s how I experience it too. I don’t want to leave the platform that I’m on. And that’s why the social selling and eCommerce is going to get just bigger and bigger this year, next year, because people want to stay in the platform. You can go clothes shopping in Instagram. You don’t need to leave the platform and that’s going to keep increasing. So if you’re selling a physical product, make sure that you’re setting up the shop in the most optimal way that you can to keep people in the platform. Because like we all experience, we want to stay where we are. If it’s even remotely difficult, we’re just going to opt out for the most part.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Yeah, yeah. No for sure. Donald Miller in his book Story Brand, or How to Build a Story Brand, talks about how many calories do you make the customer spend to understand the messaging or whatever. And I think that’s true with really any kind of UI/UX design. It really is like, how hard have you made it? How many calories does someone have to spend to take the next step? And I think that’s how we hierarchy our information and the way we present it in our posts, you’re educating a buyer along the way, all of those things. All the while trying to be native to a platform, trying to not make it feel salesy and make it feel helpful. It really is a challenge, but there’s certainly unique opportunities to do that. You could just speak to your customers in totally new in different ways.

Jessica Doehling:

Yeah. You’re absolutely right. It’s wild to see it all evolve this way. But it’s exciting too.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Exactly. And it’s ever changing. So what would you say are the three most important things a business should prioritize when they start thinking about social media strategy? If somebody’s either going to revamp it or update it or maybe start from scratch. What should they be thinking about?

Jessica Doehling:

What I always want to see if someone is starting a social strategy from scratch or updating it, is making sure they have some foundational documents that are going to make it easier for their social media manager to manage their platforms. And so when I say foundational documents, I’m talking about brand guidelines, voice guidelines, community guidelines. You will want a document that you can set up like boilerplate answers to questions that you’re frequently getting. Something that’s going to make it quicker and easier for whoever’s managing your social to get it done in the right way that is also on brand. I think that building a document that is also going to serve your internal team is really important. So that’s why I typically like to start with building a brand guide, something that’s going to clearly define your messaging, your mission, your vision, your target audience. Something that you really need to have.

Jessica Doehling:

And a lot of small businesses have those in mind, but maybe they don’t have it all written down in one document. That’s something that’s not only going to serve your social media strategy, but it’s going to serve everyone within the company. So I think that setting up those foundational documents is a really great starting point or something that you need to update, if you are trying to optimize your strategy. And also leaning into really clearly defining who your audience is. I think that you should create at least three really specific profiles. And we just recently did this with BELAY and it was such a fun exercise to really flesh out the person that we’re talking to. When you’re creating your content, it’s so much more helpful when you have a specific person that you’re speaking to. You’re not just talking to the billions of people that are on that social platform.

Jessica Doehling:

It’s so helpful when you have one or two or three different profiles of people that you are specifically speaking to. So it’s worthwhile to spend that time to detail out all of the different demographics that your audience meets. And that’s also going to help you in the pay-to-play sector of getting really highly targeted and specific in who you’re targeting with any kind of boosted post or social ads that you’re running. You want to know who you’re speaking to and how to reach them and to know that you want to flesh out all those details. And that, again, is helpful to everyone in your company, not just your social media manager.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Yeah. So we’ve got those foundational documents, the strategy documents, those things that really articulate how your brand ought to interact with somebody on social media. And I think like for us, for instance, we often have two sets of audiences because we’re a remote staffing company, essentially. We’ve got to find the remote staff and then we have to find the people who want to hire them. And so figuring out where the different people are. And I think every company has that same thing. So how does your brand interact there? The second you said then was defining who your audience is very clearly. So how your brand interacts with the audience. Who the audience is. And that really all leads to just the idea of social media in many ways just is kind of brand development, right? This is the place where it’s essentially the new highway billboard, but you get to interact with it. You don’t just see it. Right? Is that a good way to think about it or no?

Jessica Doehling:

That’s a great way to put it. I’ve never thought about it like that. An interactive billboard, but yeah, you’re absolutely right. I mean, if you don’t have a really clear idea of what your brand is and you’ve been solely focused on your product or your service, which is understandable, that’s what’s most important, but if you don’t have a clear idea of your brand, that’s why you’re going to have a struggle in your social media strategy. If you’ve found it to be a really large obstacle and not sure what to say, what to post, just think about your brand, think about your problem. Think about who you’re talking to. And then it will become much more clear, the direction that you need to go as far as your content creation.

Speaker 3:

I’m used to doing the bookkeeping and the scheduling and client calls and the actual deliverables. And to hand that over was kind of nerve-wracking because my name’s on all of this. It felt a little bit like a leap of faith. I just trusted the process and Ari proved me right. He’s worthy of my complete trust. And he has made my business so much better and working like clockwork and I feel like my clients are taken better care of now that we have more than just one person on the line.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Their story can be your story too. And all it takes is one next step to get started. You shouldn’t have to do everything. And with a BELAY Virtual Assistant, you don’t have to. Visit belaysolutions.com today to start accomplishing more and juggling less.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

We talked about 2022 and where things are at, some best practices. I would say for a business owner, if they’re dipping their toe in this or trying to reevaluate, how can a business owner determine which platforms actually deserve their attention and will maximize their access to that desired audience?

Jessica Doehling:

Yeah. Yeah. So for business owners, your time is so limited, right? So you don’t want to jump into every platform and be present everywhere because you’re just setting yourself up for failure at that point. So there are certain demographics for each platform. I think the most well known is going to be TikTok. Those are young people. The largest age group on TikTok is 10 to 19 and it’s majority female actually on TikTok too. But people know that. They know that the young generation is on TikTok. But the phenomenal thing about that is that they spend on average 90 minutes on the platform when in general, it’s like 20 to maybe 30 minutes for Facebook and Instagram.

Jessica Doehling:

So you really want to think about the demographics of your platform. We know that on Facebook, the largest age group is 25 to 34. It’s about an even split for gender, but yeah. 25 to 34 for the age group, but the growth on that platform has all but stopped. So what you’re going to see there is what you’re going to get. Instagram is still a pretty popular platform for gen Z and millennials. They’re definitely straying more towards the video content on TikTok, but it’s still a great place for photo driven content and video driven content. And you’re going to be able to reach like the 25 to 34 age range on Instagram as well.

Jessica Doehling:

I was looking into the demographics for Twitter and I found it to be really interesting because the largest age group on there is 18 to 29, which is younger than I thought it would be. But it’s still typically college educated, higher income, a more professional base. They’re going there to talk about some niche topics. And that’s a really great community building platform to talk about people or talk with people that are in your industry and are really smart. So, that’s a really cool platform to me. And then LinkedIn-

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Sorry, I was going to say, I just love Twitter so much. And I was kind of an OG Twitter user and I was going to feel attacked I thought in that, but now I feel somewhat like complimented. So it’s like, “What a refined place to be.” It’s like I’m at the art gallery. How fantastic.

Jessica Doehling:

Absolutely. Yeah. Feel good about your Twitter usage Ryan. It means you’re a smart guy.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Thank you. I had no idea. A lot of people would disagree, but I’ll take it. I’ll receive that compliment. Anyways, you were saying LinkedIn. I apologize.

Jessica Doehling:

Yeah. So going into LinkedIn, the largest age group on there is 25 to 34 as well, and that’s a professional platform. So you’re going to have high earning, typically B2B professionals, they’re there to network. But another thing to note with LinkedIn is that ad spend has a tremendous ROI on LinkedIn because they’re there for business. They are much more receptive to advertising on LinkedIn and they’re looking for solutions. So, that’s something that I found really intriguing about LinkedIn.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Follow up question. When you look at LinkedIn, I think what an interesting resurgence LinkedIn has had over 10 years ago to now. How are brands succeeding on LinkedIn? What have you found in your research there?

Jessica Doehling:

So within BELAY, we just did a very robust kind of LinkedIn audit and research project. And that was a lot of fun because I was able to see what’s actually working within LinkedIn and brands specifically. And what I found is that the brands that are most successful on LinkedIn are boosting at least 80% of their posts. They have significant ad spend reserved for LinkedIn, probably because the ROI on their ad spend is much higher than other platforms and people are more receptive to it, but they’re boosting at least 80% of their posts. And another note that I saw is that there are faces to the brand, like the CEO for instance, is going to be really active on LinkedIn. And then the brand’s profile page is riding the coattails of the CEO or whoever the figurehead is of the business.

Jessica Doehling:

There is a person that is representing the brand, personalizing it, showing authenticity and showing a behind the scenes look of a brand. And that’s, what’s going to propel a brand or a profile page on LinkedIn to really succeed. Is if they have, and even better, if they have more people, if they’ve got one like CEO, great, but your employees also serve a really important role advocating for your brand. If you can get your employees specifically in small businesses, talking about the kind of challenges they’re facing in their jobs, talking about the kinds of problems that they’re seeing, that their clients and their customers are having, just talking about their genuine experience and their everyday work life. And then talk about obviously how they’re solving problems. This is really going to work wonders for a brand because this statement is still true that people connect with people, not with brands. So you really want to be people focused on LinkedIn. And set aside that ad budget baby.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

So pay-to-play. People focused. And honestly you have to activate actual humans, not just a brand, to really succeed there on LinkedIn.

Jessica Doehling:

Exactly.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Back in the beginning of social media and I feel like all of a sudden I’ve turned into such an old dude, but-

Jessica Doehling:

Yes tell me your story.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

It was like, “Oh, go secure your handles everywhere. And just be everywhere.” But now it’s like the platforms have maybe diverged just a bit and we have more and new ones and all of a sudden, every day it’s like, “Oh, well, what about B-reel?” And whatever it might be, which I’m on and I’m having a blast on by the way. But how are brands succeeding and like the kind of small and medium sized businesses, are they just trying to do a little bit everywhere just to be present or do the algorithms love that? Do they hate that? What’s the successful approach when it comes to scatter shotting your social media approach?

Jessica Doehling:

I think that the more targeted and specific you can be the better. If you are reaching 10 people who are really into your product or your service, what it is you’re selling, you’re going to be so much more successful than reaching 1,000 people who don’t care to hear anything that you’re saying. You want to talk to the people that are receptive to it. So I think for small businesses specifically, pick one platform and really dive into it. Look at the content that’s succeeding on there. Look at the top brands in your industry. What kind of content are they creating? What kind of engagement are they getting? How are they talking to their customers? How are they talking to their audience? Be as specific as possible, because you’d rather have a small, really engaged audience than have 100,000 followers who weren’t really engaged with you in the first place. It’s a big waste of time.

Jessica Doehling:

So you want to make sure that the ROI on your social media efforts is really there. So the smaller and the more focused, the better. You don’t need to be on every platform. In fact, you shouldn’t be, because the audience is so different. Really know who your audience is, really know who you’re talking to and who you’re trying to serve. Find where they are and talk to them about what they want to hear about. I mean, you can use social listening in a way that drives the direction of your content. And what I mean by social listening is following hashtags, tracking keywords.

Jessica Doehling:

On most social media management programs, you’ll have a social listening tool. So you can track your competitors. You can track keywords, track hashtags, and just see what your client base is talking about. What kind of problems are they having? What’s on their mind? What’s in the news, that’s concerning them? And use that to drive what you’re talking about. To drive your content strategy. I think that’s a really important tool, but the smaller, the more focused, the better. You can always grow as your business grows and as your team grows, you can grow the content that you are providing and creating and thus grow the number of platforms that you’re engaged on. But for small businesses, the smaller, the more focused, the better

Ryan Fitzgerald:

That’s awesome. Well, Jessica, thank you so much. In some ways it felt like this is one of those kind of SNL weekend updates skits, where like an old dude ask somebody who knows how to do social media, what’s happening in the world? That’s just probably my life dream actually, is to be able to do one of those sketches, but thank you so much. This is unbelievably helpful. And this has been, I feel like a mid, second half of 2022 social media update. So if you were wondering what the trends were, well, you just got them. And here’s some next steps to take.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

But in addition to that, Jessica’s going to stick around after the interview to answer one last question about where to start with your social strategy. If you got to start one place, here’s what you got to do. You don’t want to miss it. And to hear that clip, you’re going to subscribe to our email list and we’ll send you a link to our bonus content. Or you can visit onenextsteppodcast.com where you can find a link in our show notes. Jessica, thank you so much for this. It was so helpful.

Jessica Doehling:

Thank you, Ryan. I appreciate it. I had a great time chatting with you.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Gosh, that was such a great conversation. Thank you again to Jessica for joining us. Honestly, for me, anytime I can have someone on my team, join us on the podcast, I feel like it’s just a real treat for me to get to be so proud of the work that they’re doing and what they’re working on. Jessica has done an incredible job, helping us figure out the next steps for our social, how we can continue to grow in a lot of different places, including LinkedIn. That’s a big place for us that we’re trying to figure out what to do.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

And for you, we do have a next step, a one next step for you to take this week. If you want to head to our show notes page, you can download our social media calendar template, so you can take the first step towards owning your business social strategy. And thank you so much for tuning in for this week’s One Next Step. To make sure you never miss an episode, subscribe on Apple Podcast or follow us on Spotify. And if you’re ready to start accomplishing more and juggling less, go to belaysolutions.com. For more episodes, show notes and helpful resources, visit onenextsteppodcast.com.

Ryan Fitzgerald:

Join us next week for a conversation with the one and only, Jon Gordon, the bestselling author of “The Power of Positive Leadership.” Jon will explain how you can cultivate positivity without being naive or blindly optimistic, and he’ll share some valuable advice and inspiration for today’s leaders.

Jon Gordon:

We’re not positive because life is easy. We’re positive because life is hard. And one thing I know is being positive doesn’t just make you better; it makes everyone around you better. So as you become a more positive person, as you feed yourself, you’re then able to feed others. And if you don’t have it, you can’t share it. So it’s essential that you feed yourself each day to be able to feed others.