Are you spending hours manually responding to social media comments while your potential customers slip away because they never clicked that bio link? What if every comment could instantly become a direct message with your personalized link - automatically turning engagement into revenue while you focus on creating?
Here's the thing: most solopreneurs are trapped in manual social media management, responding to comments one by one and hoping someone will take action. Meanwhile, AI can analyze every interaction, craft authentic responses, and convert casual commenters into paying customers - all without you touching your phone. Imagine your social media working like a 24/7 sales assistant that never sleeps and never misses an opportunity.
Today I'm excited to introduce Jeff Dwoskin, founder of Stampede Social and a fascinating example of how unconventional backgrounds create breakthrough solutions. Jeff spent years as a comedian understanding what makes audiences tick, and he's channeled that insight into building AI tools that don't just automate responses - they amplify authentic connections. He's helping creators transform their social engagement into consistent revenue streams, and he's here to show you exactly how AI can become your most valuable business partner.
The AI Hat Podcast host Mike Allton asked Jeff Dwoskin about:
✨ AI Revenue Conversion: Transform every social media comment into a direct sales opportunity through intelligent automation that sends personalized links straight to interested prospects' DMs.
✨ Smart Engagement Scaling: Use AI analysis to identify your most valuable interactions and automate responses that maintain authenticity while freeing up hours of manual work daily.
✨ Data-Driven Growth Strategy: Leverage AI-powered competitive analysis and reporting to make informed decisions about content, timing, and audience targeting that actually move the revenue needle.
Learn more about Jeff Dwoskin
- Connect with Jeff Dwoskin on LinkedIn
Resources & Brands mentioned in this episode
- Stampede Social
- Jenn Herman
- Agorapulse
- Notion
- Otter.ai
- Magai
- Grab the free Scalability Audit and find your leaky buckets
- Follow Mike Allton on Instagram and get more AI tips
- Explore past episodes of the The AI Hat Podcast podcast
Full Transcript
(lightly edited)
Solopreneur's Guide to AI-Powered Social Media Automation with Jeff Dwoskin
[00:00:00] Jeff Dwoskin: There's a million reasons to prompt someone to engage with you, but you wanna make it as easy as possible and you wanna make it as easy as possible for them to repeat the action. Because the other thing that's I think gets overlooked and I think is the most important thing, is... people when they come across something, aren't necessarily at that exact moment, have the time to engage with that thing fully, right?
[00:00:28] "Oh, this is really interesting. I would love to learn more about Mike's podcast" and then we all do it. We go, okay, I'm gonna remember this is his Instagram account and I'm gonna come back to this and like an hour later even hit with 10,000 other pieces of information. You can remember, is it one L or two Ls? Enough? Yeah. And, and you never find it again.
[00:00:50] But if you can get something into your inbox, into your dm, the thing that you want, then you can get back to it. Like creating a to-do list on the fly in your inbox of things that you're interested in. And so you wanna get it somewhere where they can remember it and act on it at any time that they're ready to, because that's really what it's all about. Be there when they're ready, or prep them for when they have that moment.
[00:01:14] Mike Allton: Mike's got The Hat, the AI kind. Unlocking power in business, you'll find. Cut through the hype, explore the tech. Every week, new ideas to check.
[00:01:39] Allton leads us on a digital quest. AI secrets, he'll always invest. Tune in tight, don't miss a beat. Knowledge, groove, keep you on your feet. Listen up! To the AI flow. Business growth, here we go. Cuttin' edge insights, that's the plan. With The AI Hat, you'll understand.
[00:02:23] Greetings program. Welcome back to The AI Hat Podcast, where I selfishly use this time to pick the brains of experts at harnessing the power of AI across all areas of your business, from streamlining operations and boost your productivity to getting a competitive edge and driving explosive growth. Oh, you get to learn too.
[00:02:39] Subscribe to be shown I prepare yourself and your brand for this AI revolution and come out ahead.
[00:02:44] Now. Look, you spending hours, mainly responding to social media comments while your potential customers slip away because they never clicked that Biolink. What if every comment could instantly become a direct message with your personalized link automatically turning engagement into revenue while you focus on creating?
[00:03:03] Well, here's the thing. Most solopreneurs are trapped in manual social media management, responding to comments one by one, and hoping someone will take action. Meanwhile, AI can analyze every interaction, craft authentic responses, and converts casual commenters into paying customers all without you touching your phone.
[00:03:22] Just imagine you're social media working like a 24 7 sales assistant that never sleeps and never misses an opportunity.
[00:03:29] Well, today I'm excited to introduce Jeff Dwoskin, founder of Stampede Social, and a fascinating example of how unconventional backgrounds create breakthrough solutions. Jeff spent years as a comedian, understanding what makes audiences tick, and he's channeled that insight into building AI tools that don't just automate responses. They amplify authentic connections. He's helping creators transform their social engagement into consistent revenue streams, and he's here to show you exactly how AI can become your most valuable business partner.
[00:03:59] Hey Jeff, welcome to the show.
[00:04:01] Jeff Dwoskin: Hey, Mike. So great to be here.
[00:04:05] Mike Allton: So glad to have you. We've been able to have some conversations a couple times over the years. But this is the first time we really dived into the AI world, which these days it's strange. Wow. Have, we've never talked about AI before.
[00:04:17] Yeah. But this is cool. You went from comedy stages to building these AI powered social media tools. How, let's start with that. How did your entertainment background kinda shape your understanding of what audiences really want from these kinds of automated interactions? I.
[00:04:34] Jeff Dwoskin: Yeah, great. Great question. I, being a standup comic, you're up there alone.
[00:04:39] It's it's an interesting kind of dynamic that you have with the audience. It's immediate, and so it doesn't feel as alone as, say, social media can feel, when you say something, you either get the reaction you wanted or you don't, and mm-hmm you find out right away and you adjust quickly.
[00:05:00] Hopefully, and you the next time, when you do standup comedy, it's, it's doing the show over and over again. So I've done over a thousand, standup comedy shows, so you're doing the same jokes over and over again and you, you learn and you adapt. And so, like there's one joke where I know I, I'm gonna deliver this punchline and I'm gonna grab this water and I'm gonna take a drink 'cause I know I have enough time.
[00:05:22] Because I, I can predict that the audience will laugh long enough 'cause it's happened enough and you start to get this feel where you can read the room. You can understand the room. You it's like this weird energy that you get where you know when you're connecting and when you're not and, and you're being able to adjust.
[00:05:39] Originally we adapted that. Into the world of Twitter when it was Twitter before X and, and so it was a similar thing with, it was something called hashtag Roundup, where we did these word prompt games, hashtag marriage in four words or something like that. And so you start to learn, okay, what's gonna drive the attention of people, what's gonna get the retweets, the, the, the likes and all that good stuff to help you potentially go viral. So it becomes like this innate thing where you start to understand engagement in this unconventional way where you know you're delivering it and you get a real strong feel for how someone's gonna react.
[00:06:21] Um. To you, while you're saying it or as you prepared to execute it, and then you execute it, knowing pretty well how someone will react to it. Doesn't mean you're always right, but and that's the fun part, but that's, that's just rinse, wash, repeat type stuff.
[00:06:40] Mike Allton: Got it. One of my favorite comics is Taylor Tomlinson, and she, her best friend is also a comic and goes on the road with her, and I'd swear he's your doppelganger. I'm like, aren't you touring with Taylor right now? Why are we talking? Um, but I love how they, they do a lot of crowd work. I don't know if that was something that, that you worked on when, when you were on stage, or was it pretty much just your set.
[00:07:02] Jeff Dwoskin: As time evolved, I would interact with the audience. And one of the things I always did was I always recorded every show I did. Sometimes video, but always audio so you, I could hear things. 'cause the interesting thing about standup comedy, when you're delivering it's, it's the words, it's your confidence, it's the pauses and it's how you deliver something. Sometimes it's the literal pacing of how you say something and you can say something and it not work, and then you can say something later and it works. And you have to capture it on tape because you're in like this weird, euphoric state when you're on stage.
[00:07:44] And so if I step off stage and you say, Jeff, what did you just, do you go, I don't know. I don't know. It's like you become like another person, because you have to, 'cause it's like you on, you know how it is, like when you're on stage mm-hmm. You're delivering a speech, you're like, you're on stage, Michael Alton.
[00:07:59] Right. It's like there's a version of you that is commanding this audience. And so I would engage with people and then sometimes I would just turn, that was into bits where I could repeat that, or I could talk to someone in the fronts. And I know this is a, is gonna go because I've crafted it so it looks like I'm engaging with the audience, but I know they're gonna say this and I'm gonna deliver this joke almost regardless of what they say, but it gives me the opportunity to just be silly based on, and make it a little different based on what they say. As time went on, you start to get this kind of feeling and you can trust yourself to immediately react to something and you know that's where when you're engaging with the audience, it becomes a little easier and becomes more fun and you do it.
[00:08:45] I don't try and fill too much of my act up with audience. Just pure audience working because I think that can be lazy. I, like people are there to hear my material, not the random things that can happen, but as a comedian, I think it's important to be able to capitalize on the random things that happen and make it a moment.
[00:09:04] 'cause those are the things that make that unique. So it's like, that's never gonna happen again. The, the waitresses who walks in front drops her whole tray on the guy that gets spilled. Yeah. Like that will never happen again. Right. So it's your time to create this moment. And then everyone's gonna remember that moment.
[00:09:22] They're not gonna remember anything else, but that's what'll stay with 'em forever. And you could bump into that person five years later. He goes, oh my God, you remember? And yes, yes I do. So,
[00:09:33] Mike Allton: yeah. Well you're right. It's almost like you're having an out-of-body experience, I think when you're, when you're on stage.
[00:09:37] 'cause part of your consciousness is just paying attention to what you're doing, like almost behind and down. Judging you, but then yeah, you get off and it's, and it's so hard to remember all those things. And, and so that's why it's, it's great to have a recording, but I ask that because what that looks like is improvisation.
[00:09:57] And when we're bringing it back to the, the point of this conversation today, using AI and automation to help us with so social media messages and dms and that sort of thing. It might seem daunting at first, I think to some solopreneurs that, wow, every conversation I have is different. How could I possibly automate this?
[00:10:17] How could AI possibly do this? But to your point, when you get down to it, most of the time, yeah, the, the individual words might vary a little bit, but the gist of the conversation is probably the same. Most of the time, and even when it's not, you can have a direction you want to go with that conversation because you've done it a hundred times and you know that's the direction you wanna go, regardless of what the individual says.
[00:10:39] Right?
[00:10:40] Jeff Dwoskin: Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Sometimes when you know enough, you can lead them to water, to, to make something feel a little more organic while you're having that conversation. So it's like you coming in fully loaded and it, I think that's part of the, the finesse and kind of the the mastery of any kind of conversation where you're having it, whether it be sales or anything where you're feeding enough to hopefully get them to walk into it.
[00:11:08] And then you, you have the response or a version of that response ready to go.
[00:11:13] Mike Allton: So let's, let's talk about why Link In Bio then is a problem. 'Cause I think it directly relates to what you're just talking about. You've called it a dead end. And I wonder if you could walk us through why traditional social media conversion methods are, are failing solopreneurs and what AI, in your opinion can do differently.
[00:11:31] Jeff Dwoskin: Well, a combination of AI and technology. So the,
[00:11:34] Mike Allton: yeah,
[00:11:35] Jeff Dwoskin: the issue with, um, Link In Bio, and I'm not saying don't have a link in your bio, definitely have a link in your bio. The issue with the concept of sending people to your Link In Bio when they're on say, a post or a real, or something like that, while they're already engaging with you, um, specifically like on Instagram, like, well, you're, you're reading and say, Hey.
[00:11:57] Or sometimes they'll put like the URL, which is unclickable and, and sometimes even not even copy and pastable or they'll go, go to my Link In bio. So what you're asking them to do is say, all right, I'm already here, but we're asking you to go to the bio, assuming they all know where that, you know what we're even talking about, right?
[00:12:16] They'll full audience, it's and then find the link in the bio and then hope they can find what they want. In one of those links, right? Because sometimes it's just a picture of the whole feed again. Or did they update it? So,
[00:12:32] Mike Allton: mm-hmm.
[00:12:32] Jeff Dwoskin: The percentage of people that will walk away from a post to actually execute that is minuscule.
[00:12:39] And so, the idea would is to get them to be able to engage on the post itself and remove that friction, comment below. DM gets sent to you automatically with the link that you requested for the product that you're interested in, and then, the rest takes care of itself with driving the sale and engaging with that customer.
[00:13:02] But, that's the thing. It's, it's about making it easier for your customer to get what you are talking about in this particular post. Maybe it's a sign up. Maybe it's your new book for a webinar. Maybe it's to register for a conference. Maybe it's to get your book or pre-order your book or order this, thing or listen to my podcast.
[00:13:27] There's a million reasons to prompt someone to engage with you, but you wanna make it as easy as possible and you wanna make it as easy as possible for them to repeat the action because the other thing that's I think gets overlooked and I think is the most important thing, is... people, when they come across something aren't necessarily at that exact moment have the time to engage with that thing fully, right? Oh, this is really interesting. I would love to learn more about Mike's podcast and then, then, we all do it. We go, okay, I'm gonna remember this is his Instagram account and I'm gonna come back to this and like an hour later you've been hit with 10,000 other pieces of information you remember. Is it one L or two Ls and L. Yeah. And and you never find it again, but if you can get something into your inbox, into your dm, the thing that you want, then you can get back to it. Like creating a to-do list on the fly in your inbox of things that you're interested in, um, if you come across my podcast, there's a good chance you don't at that exact moment as interested and you are, and listening to the guy from chips. Um, yeah. Maybe you don't have that 45 minutes at that moment, but you, you will, I, I, I know I'm gonna go on a walk tomorrow, but you, so you wanna get it somewhere where they can remember it and act on it at any time that they're ready to.
[00:14:50] 'cause that's really what it's all about. Be there when they're ready or. Prep them for when they have that moment.
[00:14:59] Mike Allton: This is such a powerful technique. Jenn Herman, author of, Instagram for Dummies and probably the world's foremost blogger on Instagram. We talked at length about this on a webinar.
[00:15:08] There's so many benefits to this kind of a tactic for starters. By asking people to comment on a post, you're creating engagement on that Instagram post, which is gonna allow it to get more reach and visibility with other audiences. And then when you direct message with somebody on Instagram, they're going to be more likely to see your next post and your next post because of that intimacy with you, with them on that platform.
[00:15:33] So it's, it's fantastic for your Instagram profile growth overall so strongly encourage it. So as if you're a solopreneur, this is something you can start doing manually today. Instead of telling people to go to your link in bio to get to a podcast episode, which I do and I shouldn't be doing, tell them to drop a comment.
[00:15:50] Just give 'em, give 'em a word, whatever to drop and then you'll d end them the link. And you can do that manually, obviously, to a point. Once it gets past, I don't know, 10, 20 comments a day, that's probably taking up too much of your time. If you're an Agorapulse user, you could have that set up as a saved reply, so you'd see them in your inbox and you could reply a little bit faster than you could on your phone.
[00:16:10] But obviously at some point you're gonna wanna bring in a tool like yours, Jeff. So I think this is a good point to talk to us about Stampede Social and how that would help a solopreneur in this kind of a situation.
[00:16:23] Jeff Dwoskin: Yeah. So stampede social, um, thank you for the, the plug and the pivot. It's it's as simplest way
[00:16:30] Mike Allton: and he's not paying me to say this folks
[00:16:34] Jeff Dwoskin: simplest way to turn Instagram engagement Facebook as well into these measurable results that we're looking for.
[00:16:40] The, the nice thing about it is, even if it's only, um. Five a day or you only getting a few a day? 'cause you're a smaller accountant growing. The thing is nice to wake up in the morning and see that some of these dms went out while you were sleeping. Because it's also about reaction time.
[00:16:59] I think, um, when someone comments it's, within seconds they get that DM 'cause that's what they wanted. That's the reason they aren't gonna go to your Link In Bio is 'cause you know how, we live in the world where every video is like, do you have the best viral hook if you don't spend, and then there's a new thing about like that pause for people my age because it would take a second for the video to start.
[00:17:22] So it was normal. And that half a second is like, well, that's why you don't have any views. It's that half a second. And it was like, what? And so. So you think like timing is like, if I wanna watch this thing and I want it, you want to know that you have that right away. So yes, it's totally reasonable.
[00:17:38] If someone dms you or comments at one in the morning and you wake up at 9:00 AM then you reply, sure, that's totally fine. And should be, but maybe they're in a different time zone. To them it's 3:00 PM right? So, or whatever. But the whole idea is, um, is the idea of making it so it's just working 24 7 while you are doing whatever you're doing.
[00:18:00] You're on a meet at a meeting, you're sleeping, whatever it is, let that engagement happen. Let people get what they want, when they want it. That's the kind of the magic and the beauty of the. Automated auto, link sending to the dms.
[00:18:15] Mike Allton: I think the other layer of complexity that people need to start thinking about, like, we're recording this, it's late August, it was probably just a month ago, I think, that I decided personally I'm gonna start focusing on Instagram as my primary channel.
[00:18:28] So I'm, I'm still growing that channel. It's been around for a long time, but it wasn't focused on, on AI for solopreneurs. So this is something I'm, I'm realizing today I need to start doing because each time you do a new post. Where you wanna send them to an external resource, and so you prompt them as a CTA to comment.
[00:18:46] That's one more thing that you're going to have to remember how you needed to respond to that manually. It's fine if you've got a single post, you can have that response that you can copy and paste from your phone put it into a dm, but man, once you get three, four, or five of those going, and somebody, stumbles on a post that you did two weeks ago and they comment.
[00:19:06] Podcast because they wanna link to your podcast. Now you've gotta, shuffle that out. So I definitely think having a tool like yours for that automation is fabulous. But I know your platform also includes AI and AI comment analysis. What are the specific insights in this case, for instance, that, that an AI is looking for?
[00:19:25] How does that translate into better business decisions for the creators who are using it?
[00:19:31] Jeff Dwoskin: Yeah, absolutely. So. We, one of the cool things about comments that you get is that you're doing like. Surveys or research on the fly, conversations and the replies to the conversations can be gold.
[00:19:50] And so what our tool does is allow you to either just download all the comments, but we also have a built in AI analysis tool that'll read the comments on a particular post and then give you just some, feedback on that. And so what that allows you to do in general is just understand, um, what people are talking about, so I worked at a fast food company once for a while and like the comments would come in and it, this was, it was important. We'd re-release products based on the fact that people were always talking about it. But it's hard to keep up pulse on all that as it's happening.
[00:20:31] So the idea of comment analysis, a lot of times, if you. It's about changing the focus, or it's partially the focus of some of your posts to start these conversations. So Mike, you might start a very specific conversation about Chat GBT. What do you guys think of Chat GBT? I'll just say xo. Oh, so, because they'll probably change 50 times since you do it.
[00:20:52] So we won't date this by me saying the number that it's at right now, but, um, and you say, Hey, what do you guys think? And then people can, oh, this is what I love. This is what I hate. This is what I love. This is what I hate, then you can take that information, you could analyze and go, okay, here's the common themes.
[00:21:07] This is the kind of the basic sentiment of what's being said here. Or you can, you can then take all those comments as well and pop 'em into a blog maker. You could turn it into a blog, Hey, I wanna write this blog, or I wrote this blog. Fill it in with some of these comments. As a third party validation of what people are saying.
[00:21:27] So it's a, it's about having access to information that normally you wouldn't have access to. 'cause Stampede Social collects all these comments that come in for every Instagram post real or live event, and most other platforms, you can see the comments, but it's not giving it to you as like a full database or something that you can download and, and use as you wish.
[00:21:50] So in that sense, it gives you this whole new kind of way to collect data, come at your posts slightly different or some of your posts and, and then go from there to mine this information that normally you wouldn't have had access to.
[00:22:07] Mike Allton: I love that because then I can pull that into Notion and, um, do all kinds of incredible activities with it.
[00:22:15] I'm doing that right now in a lot of other areas. But I'm wondering how you balance automation like that with maintaining, an authentic human voice, maintaining the genuine connection with your audience. What do you think about that?
[00:22:29] Jeff Dwoskin: Yeah. Well, the, the one, the comment analysis is, that's.
[00:22:34] Just analyzing their comments. We do have a comment.
[00:22:36] Mike Allton: Yeah.
[00:22:37] Jeff Dwoskin: AI comment, reply tool. We call it a co-writer. Our, our thing with AI, and when you use it to write things or do things, it's, it should be kind of a, a helper, not a from scratcher. Does that make sense? Mm-hmm. It's it, use what you have and make it smarter.
[00:22:53] So our AI comment response tool, like if you go in, you can set your tone and voice. So like, I have mine set up as a witty comedian. Right, and, and then as comments come in you, what happens is with our tool is it reads the full caption of your post and then creates a response to the comment in context of the caption, in your tone of voice, and then you can edit it.
[00:23:18] Everything has to be manually sensed because this is meant to help you write it. We call it the, what do I say to my 50th fire emoji comment. Because it can create smart responses to just emojis or, non-specific comments as well. Because it is important to engage. You should respond to every comment that comes in.
[00:23:37] Mike Allton: Yeah.
[00:23:37] Jeff Dwoskin: Um, it does help overall. People love seeing people comment. A real comment, not just a kind of a generic thing, so. We kinda help and then you can edit it and you can send it. And, and so, and then, people, it's, it ends up being that, that feature of Stampede Social where all the other cool stuff that Stampede Social does always ends up being everyone's favorite tool because it's, it's really, really helpful to craft something.
[00:24:06] We don't auto send it. 'cause I don't, you can't trust, I don't, you know that, like, AI can be delusional sometimes. So you gotta always check it, so it is your social media. It's your social media account, so, so yeah. So it, it crafts it, that's why we call it Yeah, like a co-writer.
[00:24:24] So it helps you craft it. You can edit it, um, and then you can, you can send it. So
[00:24:31] Mike Allton: that's smart. That's so smart. 'cause I, I, obviously, I'm having conversations all the time 'cause I've got one foot in the social media world, one foot in the AI world, and people are always talking about, man, I wish I could just automate social media, I could publish the content and I would automatically post all my channels. I'm like, Nope. No, you don't wish for that. That is not gonna be your friend. You can absolutely use AI to help you create those assets, but you want to look at them first. Like I've been setting up Notion where I pull the podcast episode and the Notion and Notion will automatically create some AI generated summaries.
[00:25:02] It'll pull out quotes and create tweets and that sort of thing. But those aren't going outta Notion without me looking at 'em first because that would be bad.
[00:25:10] Jeff Dwoskin: Oh. So
[00:25:11] Mike Allton: I appreciate
[00:25:11] Jeff Dwoskin: that. Yeah. Hundred percent. I use for my show notes for a podcast that I do, I I, I take the. With Otter, Otter ai, I use it to transcribe the audio.
[00:25:23] Right. So I have the transcript and then I take that into, oh. Funny thing about Otter. If you go to export something as a TXT file, it goes, are you sure? Are you sure you could do this? All right. Here, you could talk to your day. Your, I'm good, thanks. And I created a GPT, custom GPT.
[00:25:43] Mike Allton: Okay.
[00:25:43] Jeff Dwoskin: I guess anyone could use it, but like it's, but I only, I probably know it exists, but I trained it to do all the things I was using, create the show notes, the caption, the highlights, everything you were just saying, like they used Notion for Yeah, I just did it and then it just walks me through like 15 different things that I told it to make for me.
[00:26:02] And then I have all those show notes and I use, um. A different version to create the YouTube chapters and stuff like that. So yeah. I love, so we just tangent it randomly on ai, but yeah, it's I love it's, but this is a good example, like where, where you're using a core set of data to create something that you still have to check, but.
[00:26:22] It makes at least the AI, I think, a little smarter and less delusional when you're giving it the thing that you're basing the thing on. And so it's not like you're saying, um, write me a bio of Jeff Dwoskin just randomly. And it goes, and it. It's, and it gives me accolades of things maybe I never did, yeah. Versus dropping in a bio that I gave you and say, Hey, make this three sentences instead of the three PA pages that Jeff submitted. So that kind of thing, so that kind of thing. So then that to me is like. A good way to use, like these AI tools to whichever one's of choice.
[00:26:59] So, but yeah, so it's,
[00:27:01] Mike Allton: yeah, that's, that's, that's exactly what I'm doing. Yeah. I take your bio that you give me, that's a guest, 'cause I have you fill out a form and I pair that with your LinkedIn. Or a website or whatever, whatever URLI can give to Claude, I've got a setup where Claude is helping me create the show notes or the, the run a show for every show before I do the interview, and it knows I wanna hype up the guest.
[00:27:23] So it's looking for accolades and important things and tying it to my audience and. People compliment me on, on the bios as I read them. Like, wow, Mike, that's the best introduction I've ever heard. I need to bring you everywhere. I'm like, Hey, you did all the work. Claude did all the writing. I just read it on camera.
[00:27:37] But I love how we're combining now automation with really smart use of AI at key points to really help us. One of the things that I think a lot of solopreneurs aren't doing enough but could do with AI is competitive analysis. I think they believe that it's not something they can afford. But I'm wondering what kind of intelligence is your AI gathering about competitors and how actionable is it for, for this kind of an audience?
[00:28:05] Jeff Dwoskin: So our tool, Stampede Social, has a competitive analysis feature. And so what it does is you put it into the Instagram account of somebody who's. Instagram you want to take a peek at and, um, so for example, I have a pop culture podcast, so I might put in smart list, right? And so what it does is it goes and it reads the captions.
[00:28:29] Good handful of those captions from that account, and then it comes back with content themes and it tells you, oh, they're really into celebrity interviews and lighthearted banter, and these are the type of references they're making and the tone and personality of that account, and who that target audience is most likely the types of call to actions.
[00:28:50] That they're doing on that account. Sentiment, um, if there's any trending topics or consistent things that they're talking about looks for brand messaging, emotional appeal, any promotion that they're doing, gives you a summary. Here's the hashtags they're using and then it gives you some competitive challenge ideas.
[00:29:09] Um, that's a nice way of saying, here's some posts you could do to compete with them, or not necessarily compete with them, but here's some ideas for you. To put yourself maybe closer to the game, to, so people can get a feel. So, with competitive analysis, you kinda, you don't wanna copy, but it's, it's good to understand what people are doing and sometimes that can spark ideas for you.
[00:29:34] When you see what other people are doing, you can come up with your own unique spin on things or different kind of themes that you can explore. Or, or things you didn't even think to go, oh, I, I have that information. Why don't I ever tap into that? Things like that.
[00:29:49] Mike Allton: I love that. I couldn't agree more.
[00:29:51] Folks. We've had competitive analysis tools for a long time. We've had it inside of Agorapulse. You could add Facebook pages or other kinds of profiles that you want to monitor, but it's always, how are they doing in terms of follower growth and engagement? There's high level metrics, not the kind of deep analysis that Jeff is talking about.
[00:30:07] I taking all kinds of notes here and things that I'm already gonna start applying today literally to my Instagram profile. And I've got a bunch more questions. But before we do a quick word from our sponsor.
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[00:31:14] Jeff, let's talk more about DMS and the automated DM system. We were, we were talking, joking be before we started recording that there's a big difference between automation and artificial intelligence. What we were talking about before with DMS was really just pure automation, right?
[00:31:30] You program a scenario where if. This is the post. If somebody leaves this comment, this is the direct message we're gonna send them. Is there an AI enhancement within your tool that that's gonna come in there and further that conversation?
[00:31:45] Jeff Dwoskin: No. It's, it's like a real kind of simple way to engage, get someone the information they want and then we're done.
[00:31:54] You know what I mean? It's not one of those things that's gonna bother you every 15 minutes, but the, but the nice thing about it is, and the important thing is to get them into your dms, right? So. Um, as excited I as I was about stories when they did the URL link. 'cause you used to have to have like 10,000 followers said that it's like I always said, don't use that.
[00:32:15] Use Stampede Social, you have them comment and get the link because, well, a few, few reasons. One is you want things to be trackable. So you asked like what some of the stuff that AI does with Stampede Social is. I come from a company that used to work at this company called Four C Results, and it was a whole analytics company.
[00:32:35] And so, data doesn't lie. And so if you can really understand data beyond the surface level, then you can really start to help move your business forward. And, and so that's one of the cool things about Stampede social and the data that we collect. And so the idea with a story, for example, get them the comment, get them into your DM one.
[00:32:58] Now we've, we know that they're an engaged user, right? We know that they are. Um, interested in yours thing, and more importantly, they're in your DM so you can follow up with them on a personal level, right? Say, Hey, did you, did you like the episode? I've generated a lot of, just on my podcast, um, Instagram.
[00:33:18] Or someone will get the link and I'll send it to 'em and they'll start a conversation with me about what that show meant to them. Not necessarily my podcast, but the show that we're talking about in the, in the podcast. So you can, and then they'll show up again. They'll constantly like those become the super fans.
[00:33:33] So you want to be able to get people into your dms. And you want to be able to then nurture those relationships. So it's not just about the transaction, but the transaction can be the nice simple way to get someone to engage with you. It's something magical when you're in someone's dm. You know what I mean?
[00:33:51] It's like,
[00:33:52] Mike Allton: yeah,
[00:33:52] Jeff Dwoskin: you. Feel a different connection with that person, especially if they talk to you non-automated wise. You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like, oh, this is real. This is, I'm talking to the host of this podcast that I listen to, or I'm talking to the person that runs this account and that forms a different type of bond that you can't get through any of these other things. So using automation, ai, all that stuff. But at some point, human, the human touch and the human level of a conversation or a connection is always gonna be extremely important for long term.
[00:34:29] Mike Allton: Could not agree more and appreciate that clarification.
[00:34:31] You mentioned data. Are you weaving AI into how you present reports and data to your users? And if so, what, how's that working out?
[00:34:41] Jeff Dwoskin: Yes, so one of the things like under the covers of Stampede Social is, we're collecting every comment that comes in where we're tracking every DM that you send. There's all your Instagram post stats, all this sta all this stuff, and so we.
[00:34:57] You can download all these things as raw data and you can do whatever you want with it. But we're starting to really build in some tools where you can look at it visually and understand it and have it analyze, oh, 90% of these things that went on on a Sunday, or, things that you wouldn't necessarily know or realize until the AI can find those things for you. It's like, oh, there's a lot of reactions in this direction to the things that you say like, oh, you're right. It can pick, it can find patterns that us as humans maybe tend to ignore or choose to ignore, and it can pull those out for you.
[00:35:35] Mike Allton: Now for some of the folks listening, um, they're really focused on creating whatever it's that they're creating. They may be feeling a little bit overwhelmed with social media Overall, what do you think is the first, let's say, AI powered automation or just automation that they should implement to try to see some immediate results?
[00:35:55] Jeff Dwoskin: It's, it's simple as just just creating a campaign to drive people to whatever maybe you want them to do. There's like a, there's a few combinations of things you can do. Like Stampede social not only does the DM automations, but it can do, um, as winner selection tools. You can turn any posts into a, a, a giveaway Instagram post mm-hmm.
[00:36:18] Reel or live, and then you can track fan generated content as well. So it's about creating moments of engagement that where you can really connect with your audience or have them give that you can then react to. And I think sometimes that's automation. I, I'm not, I love the automation, but I, every post doesn't need to be about that.
[00:36:38] Yeah. Some posts can be about a conversation, start a conversation, engagement starters. 'cause then you can start to collect that information. One of the things that we do when we talk about data and understanding who's engaging with you, because we're collecting all of these comments and everything, we're able to, um, in real time give you a top fan report.
[00:36:58] So, like I, I can look at my thing and go, oh, Mike Alton commented. 50 times on my posts, like
[00:37:05] Mike Allton: that guy's a stalker.
[00:37:06] Jeff Dwoskin: He'd tell you he really enjoys my stuff, and so you can, download and understand who's engaging with you, and then you can, you can do things that can then.
[00:37:17] Give you ideas to say, oh, I'm gonna create something where I'm gonna, I'm gonna call out the super fans, or, or, or you can dive deeper into what this person is engaging with you with, and that can help you understand. Or make, make sure when you see them comment again that they get maybe 10 extra seconds of your attention as a response.
[00:37:38] 'cause they're really, really engaged. But that's a way to also build up other people into that, get 'em into the higher on that top fan list is constantly be engaging with people and acknowledging people that are commenting on your posts and reels. Instagram Lives, so it's, it's all about engagement.
[00:37:58] It, it's, as much as we talk about AI and automation and everything, it's really still about you guys. You still gotta create things that people want to react to, so that's the interesting thing about, and why DM automation comment, it works so great, is you're giving people. A way to enact, engage with you.
[00:38:19] And so, the reason most people are lurkers is the same reason why if you're at a party and you don't go up to someone, there's no clear way for you to start to engage. You know what I mean? And some people are more introverted and can't, maybe so they'll just stand there, right? But when you're come to something and says, Hey, you want this full episode comment?
[00:38:38] Stampede and we'll send you a link to this amazing conversation between Jeff and Mike and now I think, oh, okay. Now I, I know how to get it. I have a path. You gave me a path. And I think we sometimes overlook that as a thing that we need to do. We go, oh, well, I posted this picture of Jeff and Mike talking, and then the caption says we're talking about ai.
[00:39:01] I just assume since it's a picture of them on a podcast, that they'll look at that and know. I want them to listen to my podcast. You know what I mean? But they're just seeing it, right? So if you don't tell them you want them to react in a particular way, whether it be a commented DM or, Hey, I'm asking you a question about the latest, Claude Update, or hey, comment, you know this, to enter this contest, I'm giving away a free ai.
[00:39:30] Workshop, whatever it is. People, people like to have that path, understand that bridge, how to get to the, complete that final mile to get to where you want them to go. That's why most people are like, oh, I, I, I don't know, are people even looking at my thing?
[00:39:46] And then. This is, this is the way to do it. Give them something to react to. Very specifically. Ask a question, tell 'em to comment, whatever it might be. Whatever your thing is, you do you. But that's, I think, where people miss the mark on any social post.
[00:40:04] Mike Allton: I love this picture you're painting of people building or even stacking different kinds of tactics and, and automations and, and AI to start to generate more and more engagements.
[00:40:16] Start to be able to identify who your top fans are. I don't know who my top fans are today. I have, I have no idea. I have no way of knowing that. But when you've got access to that data and you're doing these things that create those inroads and those opportunities for people to become a visible top fan, you know what you're doing.
[00:40:31] You're identifying your top potential customers. These are the people who have now come to know, like, and trust you, Mr. Solopreneur and Miss Creator. And they're the ones that are gonna wanna work with you because they've liked 50 of your posts and they've listened to 50 of your podcasts, and they know what you can do.
[00:40:46] And when they reach out, when they're finally ready to reach out. A, you're gonna recognize them, and B, that's gonna be the easiest sale of your life. 'cause they just wanna know where to hand their credit card at that point. That's the optimum, that's the ideal picture. What, what's, what's the opposite? What are people doing wrong?
[00:41:02] Where are people going wrong when it comes to AI and automation? What? What's a mistake you think that they should really try to avoid?
[00:41:10] Jeff Dwoskin: Um, along the same lines of giving people that path, that bridge is, people bury it, right? So, people would say, oh, no one commented or something, right? And you're like, well, you had literally seven paragraphs of information.
[00:41:27] At the very bottom of that seventh paragraph you said comment, whatever, or comment below. Let me know your favorite travel destination. I go. People don't read. So, and like, and then think of it on a phone too, like what multiple paragraphs or even one long paragraph looks like on a phone, right?
[00:41:45] It's buried. Buried anything underneath it. So call to actions need to be at the top. I'm not saying it has to be the first line, but short sentence, call to action, then finish it. If they're that interested, they'll read all your stuff, but you gotta let 'em know right away if you want them to take an action, what that action is.
[00:42:03] No one's. It's beautiful. I look and I'm saying like, I love what everyone of you wrote, but no one's reading it. Right? And like
[00:42:11] Mike Allton: we're saying it with love.
[00:42:12] Jeff Dwoskin: I'm saying it with love and, and so you gotta let 'em know and then write whatever you want, 'cause that's important now too, with the SEO and it's sharing on Google the, especially Instagram posts, you still want all that stuff there.
[00:42:24] But let's be honest, it's very tiny, that area. And so you gotta. Get it right at the top. You gotta let people know what you want from them other than just reading that caption. So that to me, I think is, is one mistake that people make when they're looking to up their engagement.
[00:42:45] Mike Allton: That is a huge tip, folks.
[00:42:47] And again, I'm taking notes 'cause that's something I'm, I'm as guilty of as anybody. I'm a classically trained marketer. I put the CTA at the end and I should know better. Looking ahead, Jeff, I'm just wondering how you see AI changing this creator economy, what should, the solopreneurs like myself and us listening, be really thinking about and preparing for to stay competitive.
[00:43:09] And I know with AI we can't go far out, but maybe just the next, like 12 to 18 months, what do you see?
[00:43:15] Jeff Dwoskin: Yeah, I think AI is advanced during this conversation. We which makes it a little, um. It does make a, a, it gives you a little anxiety, like, you start to worry about every day, you scroll on TikTok, it's like every AI influencer, it's like, well you gotta do this one now, and now it's a Nana banana and like, say goodbye to Photoshop.
[00:43:36] And it's like, thank, it's like, um, it's gonna always be a balance of making sure that people feel what they're seeing is real. And, using AI to enhance and make your job better, whether it be messaging and stuff, I think it's always gonna be just that balance of how people react to the content you're putting out and pushing the AI too far may detract from that, but it's gonna be AB testing along the way. See what happens. I'm a big fan of AI. I think everyone should use it. It's, I don't, I think it's an inevitable thing we all have to embrace it, but I think it's about how can we make our lives easier using it? How can we make our job easier?
[00:44:22] How can I do 10 things instead of five things in the same amount of time? And those are the things that I think to sorta. Stay on top of, pick the ones that work for you and, and just go for it. There's always gonna be something that makes a little better, better image than the Chat, Chat GBT or something.
[00:44:37] But it's like, are you gonna bounce? It's like, I think it's just a matter of settling in and not getting overwhelmed. If I see one more of those, you wanna be an AI expert in 28 days, here's 50 things you'll do in one a day. It's like, ah. It's like, um, find the one that works for you.
[00:44:52] Like you mentioned, Claude, I'm a big Chat GPT guy. Um, so it's, it's, I think it's just a matter of figuring out what works and being able to pivot. That's the thing. It's like, don't fall in love with love. Don't get too caught up in one thing that you're not willing to shift to something else that might be better for what you're going to do or need it to do for you.
[00:45:15] I think that's just the key. Keep an open mind. But just keep moving forward. So
[00:45:23] Mike Allton: Such powerful advice. Jeff, thank you so much. I know folks are gonna go back and listen to this again. Take the transcript, drop it into their own Gemini and Chat GPT or Claude AI assistant say, how do I fix my Instagram based on all Jeff's knowledge.
[00:45:36] So thank you for that. For folks who do want to learn more about you, or maybe they got more questions, where should they go?
[00:45:42] Jeff Dwoskin: You can email me at Jeff at Stampede Social, go to Stampede Social. Um, yeah, those probably the two best and easiest ways, so.
[00:45:54] Mike Allton: That's all the time I got for today, friends. But we will of course have all those links and the resources mentioned in the show notes below. Now, if you're still trying to figure out what to even do with AI, I highly recommend taking a self-audit of where you're spending the most time in your business.
[00:46:08] That'll show you exactly where to begin thinking about applying ai. And my free Scalability Audit will help you do just that. It's linked below. Check it out and I'll see you in our next episode. Welcome to the Grid.
[00:46:19] That's a wrap on another episode of The AI Hat Podcast. I hope you've gained some valuable insights and actionable strategies to boost your business with AI. If you enjoyed this show, please subscribe, leave a review, and share it with your network. And don't forget to visit the ai hat.com for more resources and to connect with me.
[00:46:38] Until next time, keep innovating and remember, the future of business is human and it's powered by AI.
