Master social media: Secrets to organic growth & local impact

Justin Ulrich
You heard it. That was the announcement of our brand new podcast, Justin and Jonny, coming out next week.

Jonny Fowler
As long as you manage it, I’ll be there.

Justin Ulrich
That’s great. So, you know, Jonny, one of the things that I really, really, really liked about your background is just how much focus you’ve had on social media. You’ve been on tons of podcasts. You fully understand how to promote yourself and get your name out there and leverage these tools that are relatively free, that everybody has access to. 

So I thought it would be great to bring you on as a guest and kind of pick your brain with regards to local marketing and social media. But before we jump in, if you wouldn’t mind just giving us a little bit of insight into your background and how you got to where you are currently.

Jonny Fowler
So I was born in Texarkana, Texas, moved to Houston, Texas when I was two years old and have been here my whole life. I’m on my fourth or fifth passport. Been all over this great big round globe and keep coming back to Houston. I started off life following in my father’s footsteps in the oil and gas business. It’s Houston, Texas. That’s what you did. 

And then ended up buying my first house, financing my first house in 1994. And when I did that, I was your typical A-paper wage earner, more documentation than anybody else, and just had a horrible time with the system, with how it worked. And we can go more into that if you want.

But ended up falling in love with this business. Took some college courses at my local community college that was kind of an adult education thing, and fell in love with this business. So I’ve been doing it ever since. 

Started off as a loan officer, ended up as a broker, and then got recruited by a fairly good sized company. We grew them to actually, at the time, the largest in the country. And then, you know, even through all of the strange times and the rough times in this business, we go through it about every seven years in this business. I just never have thought of anything else that I would like to do better. 

I love this business. I love this industry. I love helping people. I love marketing. So continued on with that for 30 years, and I guess three months later is where we’re at. And I have seen so many tools for us to utilize in this business, and I just try and utilize as much as I can.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. I love that you love helping people. You know, I always look at things as, like, the pie is so massive. There’s enough for everybody to go around, especially in this space, because it’s like, really, how much you gonna operate outside of your sphere and your kind of your local area, you know? 

And if you think as a marketing pro, like, you can help all sorts of folks, no matter where they are, learn how to best market their business and best leverage these tools that are available to everybody.

Jonny Fowler
And see, for me, I’ve always been nationwide. I say always. Since about 1999, I’ve always been nationwide. 50 states. And I will say, at one point in my life, I may have had that scarcity mentality where I’ve got to, you know, keep this close to the vest, but I will teach you exactly what I do and how I do it and how I just won, for the 7th year in a row, “Most Connected Mortgage Professional” in the country and all of those things. 

Because there’s a couple of things, and this may get a little bit too rough. So I don’t know if you’re going to leave it in, cut it out, whatever. But what I figured out is 95% of the world is either lazy or scared. You’re only competing against a smaller percentage of 5%. And there is a massive audience out there that needs your help. They need your voice, they need your direction. And I think that’s what our job is, is to help those people.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. Well, let’s jump in. You know, you’ve had your finger on your pulse of all things kind of social media for years, as I understand it. Like, you’ve always been plugged in really, really well, and you’ve taught thousands of agents, thousands of LOs, how to leverage these tools. You know, what are a couple things that you think really move the needle from a local marketing perspective when they’re leveraging social.

Jonny Fowler
Being present. Having systems. Being reliable. And when we’re talking specifically about social, it is actually using the word “being social” in social media. So many people make this massive mistake about thinking social media is a print magazine and not knowing how to use it, and not knowing how to talk to people. And so many people make a massive mistake about thinking that they’re job or what they do defines every moment of their life. 

And my job, what I have decided my job is, is to teach these people, teach realtors, teach loan officers how to change this mentality. So if you’re a real estate agent and you’re trying to advertise, well, I can only personally think of a real estate agent once every six or seven years. That’s the only time I want to buy or sell a house, unless I’m an investor. 

So if all you are is a realtor, every single day, you’re going to annoy me and I’m going to change that channel. Same thing with a loan officer. And trying to show loan officers you’re not supposed to go out and explain to somebody how a 203ks works. Your job is not to explain to somebody on social media what a DSCR is. Your job is to solve a problem in language that a third grader would understand and do it in a short period of time on social media. 

And that’s what our job is. So that’s kind of around about, you know, how I go about teaching. I also, everything that I teach is organic. Everything that I train people on is organic.

At one point in time, I was the largest real estate funnel in the country spending, you know, buttloads (when I say buttloads, way seven figures) on doing paid ads and things like that on social media. And what I’ve learned is, is you can get much better execution and penetration with organic. So that’s what I do.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. And if you do it right, you actually find what works on organic. Cause right now, the algorithms are shifting toward, instead of it being like, media first approach, it’s content first. If you create really compelling content that folks find valuable, then the organic, like it’ll take off. The algorithms will serve it up to people outside of your typical sphere of influence. And many, many, many more folks will see it. You’ll cast your net really, really wide. 

But if you use that as a signal to. Then if you want to put money against an ad, use that piece as your ad, and then it’s going to take off.

Jonny Fowler
Yeah. So a couple of things I’d like for your listeners and your followers to think of. Everything in social media was designed around Pavlov’s dog theory. So keep that in mind right off the bat. No if, ands, or buts. For everything that I do, if you do what I want you to do, I will reward you. For everything that you do that I don’t want you to do, I will spank you and I will shorten your audience. 

The next thing I need you to think about for social media is social media produces nothing, theoretically for sale. So I can’t go and buy a pair of Facebook jeans. I can’t go buy a TikTok car. I can’t go buy a YouTube pair of shoes. So the only way any of these forms of social media make any money whatsoever is by selling advertisements. But they don’t sell advertisements on their own platform per se. They sell it on yours. 

So if your platform has compelling information, great content, great intent, well, then I can sell paid advertisements on your content. So for you, your microphone is very recognizable, just like mine is. So what a great place to sell advertisement to shore to anyone else. When somebody says, you know, hey, that podcast sounds great. Well, it’s because of the equipment. 

What a great place to sell ads on a podcast using this equipment or even selling competing goods. So you have to make the content for them to be able to sell the ads. If you’ll keep those two things in mind with social media, your life will be so much easier going forward.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. So how do you get, how do you coach your folks on creating content that’s going to benefit them as opposed to the channels like you talked about, how you can’t just be a realtor all the time. You can’t just be an LO all the time. 

We had someone talk on one episode about how you want to actually be the mayor. Like, you want to try to go around and get to know as many people in your community as possible, tell their stories on social, access, their audiences by sharing their stories to folks. And in doing so, you attract way more people to what you have to say. Right. And you’re able to amplify your message, cast your net even wider. 

What are some suggestions you might have for folks who are trying to create content that’s compelling but not necessarily mortgage aligned or real estate aligned?

Jonny Fowler
So there’s two things. First of all, whoever told you that on your podcast, kudos to them, because it’s one of the systems that I use and I have for years, and we’re keeping most of your stuff to where it’s local. So think about this. Whatever you are, if you’re a real estate agent, if you’re a mortgage guy, whatever it is that you do, think about this. 

If you will walk into your local businesses. And what my recommendation is is once a week, and I say 50 weeks a year. But let’s say you’re lazy and you can only do 40 weeks a year. Once a week, go in. Actually, twice a week, go in to one separate business. So you’re going into two businesses a week, and I would recommend doing this 50 times a year. 

And you’re going to interview and talk to that local business, whether it be a pizza shop, whether it be a dry cleaners, whatever it may be. And what you’re going to do is you’re going to walk in and say, hey, can I interview you on video just for three minutes and find out who you are, what it is, and why you pick dry cleaning in Cypress, Texas. They’re always going to say yes. 

When you do, make sure you’ve got good audio, make sure you’ve got good video, make sure you’ve got good lighting, all of those things. You don’t want this to look like the Blair Witch Project because nobody has ever asked to advertise them to an audience at no cost.

Turn the camera on. I do recommend rehearsing. I rehearse every time before I ever go on stage. It could be for 30 minutes, it could be for hours, but I rehearse every single time. 

So go in, rehearse, know what to do whenever they get caught up on an answer, when they get frozen, whatever that is, know what to do, know what to work with. Go in and say, and ask them, interview them. Why is this, and how do you do this? And where did this come from? And were you born filthy rich? Or did you have to scrape to save up the money to buy this dry cleaner, you know, and find out what that is. 

Now, if you’ll do this twice a week for 50 weeks a year, you now have a hundred salespeople working for you, because nobody has ever come in and introduce this dry cleaner to their audience on social media, ever. Or this pizza shop, or this mechanic shop or tire shop or whatever it may be. Nobody’s ever done that. 

And then I like carrying it a little bit farther. I like getting the little acrylic table placards with my QR code on it so people can walk in. Everybody, you know, we won’t write down our name and our cell phone number and our email address to save our life. It is not going to happen. I know what you’re going to do. You’re going to send me spam email every freaking day. But we will run this across a QR code every single time we see one. 

So by that, you’re getting in organic leads every single day on top of that business owner promoting you. So that’s one of the things. 

The next thing I’m going to go over and talk about is, so when you’re putting your content together, there’s two basic strategies that I like when we’re putting together content for somebody who wants to be, you know, theoretical, Facebook famous, one of those kind of things. So in that, figure out what it is that you’re going to do, what it is about you, and let’s build content out. 

And instead of thinking about it one time today at 1:30, posting a picture of the enchiladas I had for lunch and hoping I can get business off of it. Let’s figure out what this is in a campaign. So maybe it is all of the places that I stop to and from or during my work week. Maybe it’s the gas station, maybe it’s the coffee shop, maybe it’s the restaurant, whatever that may be. And that’s going to be part of my content. 

Right now, and it has been for about three years now, short form video is hitting harder than anything else in the world. Start making short form video, 27 to 58 seconds long. Put it as an mp4 on your phone. Upload it organically to each one of the sites individually.

And if you can show consistency with this, the algorithms will put you in front of more people than you’ve ever been in front of before. Because they need consistent data, they need a consistent stage to sell ads on. And if this is you, you will win. 

What I tell people to do, anytime I do a seminar, anytime I do any kind of speaking from stage, go out right now and if you need help, I will help you. If you don’t want my help personally, go to Chat GPT, type in, give me the top 20 things that people want to see in Cypress, Texas. If only 10 of the 20 work, it’s still free, put it out. Now, go film 10 videos, 27 to 58 seconds long. And you have two weeks worth of material to post every single day. 

You’ve shown consistency to Pavlov’s dog, you’ve shown consistency to the system that is promoting you and putting you in front of more people. And the algorithm picks that up and it knows that it can rely on you. So there’s two takeaways. If you’ll follow those two starting today, it will change your complete social media life.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. And if you’re struggling for ideas like you mentioned, Chat GPT is a great tool to help get you past the blank canvas issue. Also, if you, as you’re scrolling through social and you see other, you know, like folks who are creating content that’s really engaging, and you can see in the metrics like that their content’s really taking off. 

Algorithms recognize that piece took off. And if you create a similar piece just with your own flair and your own flavor in your own area, the algorithms are likely to boost that in front of folks as well.

Jonny Fowler
Yeah, look at some of these people that have just done amazing. You know, I love the one that’s the middle aged woman that reenacts all of the beautiful models and their poses. And we just laugh so hard at that. This is something we can all relate to. 

You know, I would be careful of trendy, I would be careful of the scare tactic hooks that you see a lot of people doing. And I would try and be more real and more real to who you are deep down inside because you can’t fake that and figure out how to make that work for you at your best.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. Yeah. People can sniff out inauthenticity pretty quickly. That’s why a lot of right now, it’s actually algorithms of past few weeks, few months have been serving up a lot more just people talking in front of the camera with no edits, because it’s recognizing that people like and appreciate the authenticity that comes from a video that’s unedited.

Jonny Fowler
Yep.

Justin Ulrich
The um’s, the uh’s, it’s all natural. But we’re human beings. That’s what we do. The consistency thing, though, that you talk about, if you’re consistent and constantly creating content, then you’ll get past the um’s and the uh’s and you’ll become a lot more comfortable in front of the camera, in front of the microphone. And your consistency will deliver high, engaging content that will also, it’ll increase in quality over time and the algorithms will continue to serve you up.

Jonny Fowler
Yeah, I mean, honestly, it wasn’t 20/22 years ago when all of a sudden I got thrown up on stage and I had to speak in front of 4500 loan officers and I was scared to death. And the more that I did it and the more that I realized that, you know, they can’t eat you that it was easier. And you get better every single time. 

And I look back, you know, going up on stage is one thing, then filming it as a complete different thing. When I first started filming, and that was only about a decade ago, I had luckily, knock on wood, I had the privilege of Frank Gray and Brian Stevens teaching me how to do video. And if you look back on some of my first videos, they were as horrible as those Texas lawyer ads. You know, have you been hurt in a car wreck? I mean, horrible.

Justin Ulrich
And call Shane.

Jonny Fowler
Oh, yes, it was horrible. And what I get a kick out of now is I can talk about anything on stage, on camera, anything that anybody wants me to, and I get a kick out of it. My business partner will do this to me quite often when I’m getting interviewed to be, like, keynote speaker or something. We had two of those calls today. 

My business partner will say, you know, he can talk about anything you want him to. And they’re like, yeah, really? You know, I guess that some people have a hard time. And she said, Jonny, talk about blue. And I can go into a 30 minutes conversation and make you think, why blue is so important. 

And, so I guess the motto of that is, the more you do it, the better you’ll get. Even if it’s only in your head that you’re better than you were the day before. It’s like, Brian Stevens, just tell me the very first video you ever do is going to be the worst one you’ve ever done in your life. The second one you ever do is going to be the second worst video you’ve ever done in your life. And it just gets better from there.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. One of the things that I try to encourage listeners to do all the time is, you know, you mentioned having a campaign, thinking about a campaign, coming up with a little bit of a plan before you get started. But the biggest challenge is, like, we get in our own minds and, you know, put up our own barriers to getting started. 

And we prevent our own ability to succeed because we think, well, you know, I look silly in front of camera, I don’t like the way I look. Or, you know, we come up with all these different reasons. The best thing you could do is just get started, create a video, and just show yourself. Even if you don’t publish that one, it’s not that bad. Like, you can do it. And then from there, you just get better and better. Like you’re saying.

Jonny Fowler
100%. One of my favorite sayings in this whole world is done by that guy who was like 7ft tall, hands that big, very, very talented on stage named Tony Robbins. And he will tell you that we are all working with this 2000 year old operating system that told us to run away from saber toothed tigers. And the lies that it’s telling you are complete bullshit. You can’t listen to those things. 

One of the things in some of the coaching classes and things that I do is, you know, you’ve got to overcome that. Don’t tell me you’re going to start doing video as soon as you get the perfect camera and the perfect background and the perfect computer and the perfect microphone. Turn this freaking thing around backwards, get a lapel mic and hit the red button.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, everybody’s got one. And you have it wherever you are. So if you see something interesting, if you feel inspired, take the shot. Like record the video and post it. Like, it’s surprising, you know, what little things can do to help build momentum in the right direction.

Jonny Fowler
And if we’ll stop thinking of content as a job and we’ll start thinking of our surroundings as being content, it makes things a lot easier. When people say, you know, go get content, make campaigns, and they get all freaked out about what to do and then they pass 43 things driving to the grocery store that would be perfect for film. You know, just do it. 

You know, one of the things I love, I love the ignorance of some of the street signs. You know, there’s one that used to be in my area, they actually put up a sign that said no signs allowed to be posted on the street. And then everybody in the world would use that post, that physical post to tape their garage sale signs or their swimming lesson signs. And to me that would, I mean, that’s just, that’s gold. You can’t pass that content up.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure, for sure. Who are some folks that are – it could be individuals, it could be brands that you think are doing social really, really well?

Jonny Fowler
Man, I don’t try and boost anybody up in say, you know, follow this person, you know, I want you to follow your own. What I will say is there is no one in this world that knows social media better than Gary Vaynerchuk, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Justin Ulrich
100%.

Jonny Fowler
Yeah, I’m not a fan of a number of the people who try and be or, you know, the guy from Florida I’m not a fan of, you know. So there’s a lot of people doing a lot of content and getting a lot of views and, you know, things like that. 

What I would recommend is sitting down – and I tell people this all the time. Write down things that you like. Write down ten things you like on a legal pad. Go search for them on YouTube, go search for them on TikTok. Go search for them on Facebook and find people that are putting out content about things that you enjoy and follow that. Look and see what it is. 

I don’t like the idea of people saying that you need to follow Dan Habib. I love Dan Habib. Dan Habib is my adopted son. But Dan Habib doesn’t make any sense to people who don’t know about real estate, mortgage or crypto. So it’s very difficult for people to understand, you know, when you do. 

I love, you know, one of my great friends, Mike Ferrosi, that we were talking about earlier doesn’t have the view count that so many people that are Facebook famous have, but the information and the content that he puts out there and the way that he explains it is second to none. 

You know, letting people know that there are videos for views and there are videos for business. And I love that saying. There is a massive difference. You know, if you want video for views, do like America’s funniest home videos. Let somebody kick you between the legs.

You know, if you want to teach somebody how to become a millionaire, multi-millionaire through real estate, that’s a much smaller audience that will actually follow through and pay attention to it. But the content is so much greater.

Justin Ulrich
100%. Yeah, you can’t. It’s just like Gary Vee, I listen to the Gary Vee Podcast pretty often in the morning, like, while I’m working out just to see if there’s any new insights that I can get from a marketing standpoint. And he does talk a lot about, like, you can’t hold yourself to the standards of what other people are doing.

In many instances, it may not be realistic or we hear all the time about how people just present themselves on social media. It’s not accurate portrayal of reality. 

But I always try to give people the guidance of, hey, you have a baseline of the engagement and the metrics that you’re able to generate with your own content. Use that as your baseline and then improve from there. Because you’re not busy comparing yourself to everybody else who may have a much larger audience, who may have more dollars they’re putting behind their paid side.

You know, there’s so many different things that make it an unequal playing field. Just compare to yourself and improve from there.

Jonny Fowler
There’s so many simple things, and what you just said, just hit it right on the head. Pay attention to your own analytics. When you change your profile picture and you get a hundred people that throw the heart symbol up, that’s what they want to see. When you talk about your job, and you get three people that give you the thumbs up, and one of them’s mom. That’s not really what they want to see. You have to build up to that. 

So show people. You know the number one viewed pictures and videos in this country. Cats and kittens. Number one, dogs. Number two, children. Number three, animals. Number four. Nobody in there ever said anything about bitcoin or stock market. So what we want is we want the outcome. We want the solution. We want the realization without doing the work. 

And if you’ll read your own analytics and look and see what humans want and what we interact with and what we can relate to, that’s something that is very powerful, that will help you in the design of your campaigns.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, 100%. 100%. You talked a little bit earlier about creating content that you like, following what you like, and one of the things that I understand about your background is that you used to like to do MMA.

Jonny Fowler
Yes, sir.

Justin Ulrich
Is that right?

Jonny Fowler
Yes, sir.

Justin Ulrich
How many years did you fight for?

Jonny Fowler
So, back then, and I don’t know if you remember back then. So I remember..then, perfect. Before then. So, where I started was when Dan Severn, Royce Gracie, Ken Shamrock, when those guys were the names, and you had to go to the adult section of the video store to rent those. 

I was the typical kid that had, you know, they put me with ADD when I was in third grade, you know, had an attention problem. You know, would do what I wanted to do. If I got bored in class in fourth grade, I would get up and leave and go across the street to the stop and go and play video games, things like that. So I got put into martial arts at a very young age to teach me discipline, and that’s really what I needed, guidance. 

I didn’t need to be beaten. I just needed. If I’m not going to do this, what do I focus on? So, I started at a very young age. In Texas, back then you had UFC. At the age of 18, you were considered an adult male, and if you weighed 180 pounds or more, you were considered adult male heavyweight. 

So I was already – I was big. My fighting weight was, like, 196 to 204, and I fought adult male heavyweight, and we did what was the Texas Toughman contests, you know, back then, and did a little bit of traveling to a few states, things like that. So if you look at that point, then, I fought from 18 to 27. 

And I will tell you this, and this may mean something to you because you mentioned UFC 1. My greatest fear was never fighting the big mouth. You know, the guy who’s wanting to make trouble is always the least guy who’s going to ever bring trouble. My greatest fear, and I don’t want to say it almost happened, but there was a chance in my life where it was going to happen was to go in the ring against Butterbean and it was in Mississippi.

Justin Ulrich
Knock people out. Yeah.

Jonny Fowler
And I would never walk away from a fight in my life, but I’m telling you right now, I would have walked away from that and I would. It’s not worth getting brain damage in Mississippi trying to get back home to Houston, Texas, with a dollar 500 medical deductible that I got to pay when I get there.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah. Plus, you weren’t going to win that much money if you.

Jonny Fowler
Oh, no, no, no, no. I did this for fun and for a release. That guy did it for a paycheck.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Well, I thought it might be fun to, you know, for our guests, we create AI images. So I wanted to show you in the ring, winning your first UFC fight. That’s Jonny.

Jonny Fowler
I will let you know the best I ever got was about 11% body fat. So that picture of that dude at 4%, that ain’t me.

Justin Ulrich
That dude is trim. It’s so fun.

Jonny Fowler
But I will tell you, I will tell you, at 194 to 206, I had a 50 inch chest, 18 and a half inch arms, and I was benching 465.

Justin Ulrich
Holy cow. That’s incredible. That is a Texas boy right there.

Jonny Fowler
I was a brawler. I was not a cerebral fighter. I was a brawler.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, that’s awesome. Well, awesome. Before we let you go, I want to give you a chance to shout out, you know, how do folks follow you? Follow your brand?

Jonny Fowler
Best thing to do is find me on social media. I mainly stay where the largest group is. So that’s going to be Facebook. 240 million people are on Facebook, but you can find me on any of the systems out there. 

Jonathan Fowler. I go by Jonny. J-O-N-N-Y. You can go to JonnyFowler.com, you can find me there. You can send me an email: [email protected]. My phone number: 281-352-7307. That is my real cell phone number. It’s not a Google number. It will ring directly to my phone. Do it. Do it.

Justin Ulrich
You’re fine. Move, though, putting the number out there.

Jonny Fowler
I don’t. It’s perfectly fine if somebody calls and wants to be a jackass. There’s this thing called “block”, but I am so easy to find, so easy to get a hold of. I’m a massive QR code fan, so if you want, we’ll send you my QR code to have all my information. Whatever we can do. But I’m here to help your audience, you guys. Anything that I can do, I’m here.

Justin Ulrich
Very cool. Yeah. We’ll put all his links in the comments so you guys can click through and connect with Jonny. Great content. He mentioned being on other podcasts. He’s on countless other podcasts. So check him out. Follow him. He’s got almost 30,000 followers just on LinkedIn alone, so, you know, he’s connected with a lot of folks and creating awesome content all the time.

Jonny Fowler
So can I tell you something funny about that?

Justin Ulrich
Yeah.

Jonny Fowler
So there’s a friend of mine in Virginia. His name is Dwayne Jenkins. And he – I don’t know if you know Dwayne or not, but he goes by Credit Kwon Do.

Justin Ulrich
Oh, yeah.

Jonny Fowler
And one of the things that I got the biggest kick out of is he said one time, he said, I don’t care about the 30,000 people on LinkedIn that follow you. I don’t care about the 30,000 people on Facebook that follow you. How in the hell did you get 212 people to follow you on Eventbrite? And I’ve taken that one with that. I love that. To me, that’s the funniest shit in the world. I just had to throw that out there. It’s funny.

Justin Ulrich
Yeah, for sure. Well, awesome. Thanks again for joining us. To those who are listening, Jonny, thank you so much for coming into the lab. Tons of insights. Appreciate it.

Jonny Fowler
Anything I can ever do for you, let me know.

Justin Ulrich
You bet.

As always, thanks for joining us in the Local Marketing Lab. This podcast was sponsored by Evocalize. To learn more about how Evocalize can help you grow your business, visit evocalize.com. 

If you learned something from today’s episode, don’t forget to subscribe on your favorite podcast platform and follow us on LinkedIn and Facebook @Evocalize. That’s Evocalize and on X at Evocalize. 

And remember, keep innovating and testing new things. You’ll never know what connects with your customers best unless you try. Until next time. Thanks for listening.