- Duration: 25 min
- Platform: meet
- Source: Read.ai 01J7GYHW2VC2ZT1RRWDRWH77C9 (https://app.read.ai/analytics/meetings/01J7GYHW2VC2ZT1RRWDRWH77C9)
Transcript
[shuja]: You’re inspiring me to go on a walk myself. How are you? [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Good. Michael Houck: How are you doing, man? [shuja]: I’m doing well. I’m doing well. Where are you based? Michael Houck: New York. How about you? [shuja]: Okay, cool. I used to live in New York. I’m in the Bay Area. Michael Houck: Yeah. Oh, I used to live in the Bay Area. There you go. [shuja]: Awesome. How’s it going? Michael Houck: Yeah, it’s good. Good man, thanks for grabbing some time. [shuja]: Yeah, awesome. Good, so just wanted to, I guess, level set and just get a better sense of what is it, you know, the ghost writing services, how do you typically work, who do you do it for? Happy to tell you a little bit about myself as well, if that helps, yeah. Michael Houck: Yeah, I mean, can’t share who we do it for. Oh, of course. Wouldn’t let people know we’re doing it either. But yeah, I mean, I think best place to start probably be to understand like your sort of goals. I just think, you know, we do LinkedIn, we do Twitter, we do newsletters. So like, I want to understand how what your what your goals are, and I can, I can call from there. [shuja]: Got it. So if I were to start off, like, you know, I mean, I think that the immediate goal, because I think you want to show demonstrate kind of value, right? Like, so as well, is about seven years ago, I I started hosting an annual conference around AI. So it’s called the MIT AI Conference. This is the first year we’re doing it in New York. So it’s going to be in October 26. So you should come and attend. And typically what we’ve done is, I mean, we’ve done it in the Bay Area for the last year since 2017. So now the challenge is like going into a new market altogether and driving kind of awareness of I mean, we’ve got seven years of really good content on in terms of the speakers and the bios and the videos and the photographs. And then as we gear up, I mean, I think we’re close to about like 50 days away from the conference. We’ve got now speakers getting confirmed and getting lined up, right? So we have that content as well, like new speakers getting announced every day. So what I want to do is be able to use content marketing to create awareness and, you know, be able to measure success by, you know, attendees at the event. Michael Houck: Makes sense. Would this be something that you’re looking to do basically just for the next sort of month or month and a half or so? Or is this something that you’re looking to do on an ongoing basis for your personal brand or, you know, for any other brand? [shuja]: So I think, like, it’s actually, it’s a starting point, but it can continue on, right? Because there is a large amount of content which will get generated after the event as well. So whether it’s videos, etc, we can leverage that. But yes, no, absolutely. I think this is not just a one and done thing. I have not done this before, so that’s why I’m reaching out. But I think the idea being that this works, then it is a longer-term engagement as well. So we start off with a very specific, targeted, laser-focused approach, which is kind of like, hey, we have a conference, we know what it is, we need to get tickets sold, we need to increase attendance, and that’s what it is, right? But as this goes around, and we’re not trying to be, I mean, when you use thought leadership to create awareness, and that’s kind of in line with my brand, my personal brand, and not like, hey, like be spammy about it, hey, go buy ticket, go buy ticket, go buy tickets, right? So I think like that’s a balancing act there, right? Michael Houck: Cool, okay, and last question, just to confirm, this would be on your personal account rather than a brand page, and if so, what platform or platforms would it be on? [shuja]: I mean, I think we can use, the good thing is that you can repurpose content, so we can do it on both the personal as well as the brand. Michael Houck: Okay, I mean, you’d want the same voice on on both. [shuja]: Yeah, yeah. Because otherwise, it looks kind of impersonal as well. Right? Michael Houck: Sure. I mean, some people like the personal, the personal brand have like your voice and the brand page just sort of have a different type of brand voice associated with it. So we get that request a lot. So that’s why I asked. [shuja]: Yeah, I mean, I think at this stage, I don’t know, we can experiment with it. You You can can check check it out, but I think it is. I mean, the reason I’m saying my personal page is not for any other vanity reasons. It’s just that I probably have a lot of LinkedIn followers, right? 5,000, 8,000, I don’t really know the number, but it’s like in that order, right? 5,000, 8,000 people. The organization brand doesn’t have, it’s probably have like 200 followers, right? So it’s just like, I’m just trying to be practical about how do we leverage personal brand to create more overall brand awareness, right? So that’s where it is. Yeah. Michael Houck: I mean, that would be my strong recommendation too. People connect with people before they connect with brands. Exactly. A lot of founders, better to make the personal founder brand first and then build up the company account later. That’s a very common strategy, but just wanted to confirm that we were on the same page there. So, okay. Michael Houck: As far as how we work, the process is pretty simple. We work with founders, so we know everyone’s super busy. We’re not trying to add a ton of meetings to your calendar or anything like that. Basically, we would do a one-time sort of kickoff call where we’d spend 30, 45 minutes walking through goals, the target audience you want, maybe some examples of accounts that have the audience you want or create the content that you like, and then we would, after that call, compile all the information together. We’d spend about two weeks doing initial research on the niche, on you. We’d get a ton of context from you, brain dumps, sort of any writing samples, vision for the conference, and your personal brand in general. You’d give that all to us. And then at the end of that two-week period, we’d start delivering content batches every week. So we would send you questions on Monday, back from you in like a shared Slack channel would be for you to send back voice notes to us. We sort of just like ramble. The more intonation and emotion that we can get from you, the better the content will be and the quicker we’ll be able to pick up on your unique voice. Our goal is for every piece of content to sort of be something that you uniquely could write. As far as the actual content formats and content strategy, that would sort of depend on your goals. It sounds like it’s mostly around this conference, So the goal would probably be to create content about the topic and then sort of link to the conference at the end so that people can funnel through. They read the content, they enjoy it, they go deeper in the funnel, they check out the conference. That’s like the general strategy I’d recommend. But yeah, if we get those voice notes back from you by the middle of the week, then we get the content back to you at the end of the week. That’s sort of how the process would work. We’d also work over the first month to build up a buffer of a couple of weeks. So we’re never like scrambling from week to week. Michael Houck: And then as part of this, I would also do a profile audit for you. I basically just go through your profile for, you know, about 10 minutes or so, five, 10 minutes or so, and just call out any tweaks that I would make to sort of create a better funnel to get people where you want them to go. Michael Houck: You’d be paired with a writer. So you’re not like going into some pool every week and different people are, you know, trying their hand at your voice. You have one dedicated writer who I’ve worked with for a long time in various capacities. We have a small team and, That’s it. You build a relationship with them. They’d learn your voice and they’d be your primary point of contact. But no content will get sent to you without me reviewing it as well. And then we also have Blakey mall. I don’t know if you’re familiar with him. He was the first CMO copy AI. You know, he’s a big personality on Twitter and LinkedIn to some degree as well. He’s also an editor on our team as well. So both of us check out every piece of content before it gets sent back to you. [shuja]: Got it. And how is generated content versus human content? Michael Houck: 100% of it is human content. We don’t use any AI tools whatsoever. [shuja]: Got it. I mean, I don’t know. Yeah, I’m indifferent either way. I’m just more concerned about effectiveness. But just wanted, I was just curious. Michael Houck: Yeah, we have a team of writers that we worked with, again, as I said, for various capacities over the years. They’re very good. And you’d be matched up with one who maybe is more familiar with AI, so he knows the niche already to some degree. [shuja]: Yeah. And in that context, because you bring up a good point, is familiar with the AI niche. Now, from what angle? Because there’s a lot of hype which goes around, and some people are very commercially oriented, or they’re very dry, academically oriented. [shuja]: I think the brand that we have is being on the cutting edge of research, but with an eye towards commercial applicability, right? So it’s not about, oh, this is the latest, greatest paper which has come out. It’s going to be at NeurIPS or whatever, right? It is also about, yes, it’s the latest, greatest paper, but this is how you could apply it in commercial applicability, I don’t know, healthcare, and these are the challenges associated with or ease of penetration into that market, right? But it’s not a love fest. It’s not a hype fest about AI either, right? I mean, there’s just too much of that crap around. And I think that’s something which I want to be very mindful of And it goes back into the writer to be able to get that specific nuance right. Michael Houck: Yeah. I mean, that’s their job, right? Is to write about content, write about niches, write about sectors and learn about them quickly. So I would pair you up with somebody who is familiar with AI for sure. But the way that they present that to the audience is going to be in your voice and what you want. We go over this again on that initial kickoff call where the writer would be present for and they’d be the one asking you questions and writing down notes. And then also over that first two week period, there’d be a lot of back and forth where they’re able to collect more information from you and sort of do it through that lens of like, hey, here’s this really interesting new technology. New application, new research, but like, how do we actually make that useful? How do we actually make that, you know, pragmatically useful to society? And so that’s totally the lens that they’d be able to present things through for sure. [shuja]: Yeah. And now given that, so the conference is on October 26th, right? So we’re a month and a half away from it. How do we adjust your timelines or your process to be able to get results for the conference or leading up to the conference, right? Michael Houck: Yeah, I mean, we could condense this sort of like initial research period down to one week. It might take longer after that to sort of get some of the nuances and things like that, just because that’s how our process is set up. But we could definitely condense that down to one week. Writers would be able to do that. And I mean, ghostwriting is a long-term game. I’m not going to sit here and tell you, you know, It’s going to be any particular way. It is a long term investment to build the brand, to build the personal brand, whatever the case may be. But if the goal is to get some content that drives ticket sales, we can definitely do that within the time period as well. [shuja]: Got it. And how do you guys charge? Michael Houck: Yeah, so it depends on the volume, depends on what you want. We basically have two tiers. One is like a full service tier for the account and and the the other other is sort of like a lighter tier. A full service tier would be something like either three long form posts per week. So these could be on Twitter, there should be like a Twitter thread or a long form tweet on LinkedIn. This would be like, you know, basically a long, a long post. It doesn’t have threads. And then you get about three of those per week, or you could sort of mix and match with shorter form posts as well. So let’s say you want to post something every day. You could take maybe one of those long form posts and exchange them for a couple of short form posts that would take the writer about the same amount of time. And they could present those to you as part of the batch as well. What I would say is that for your goal, which is ticket sales for this event, I would recommend fewer, longer posts. Those are the ones that have the higher viral potential. And so, especially if they’re gonna be researched and things like that, you just have, more meat in them. And it’s not so much about building up your personal brand. It’s more so about building up the ticket sales for this event. So I would say condensing that into bigger and more impactful posts, and a smaller amount is a better strategy. The lighter tier that I mentioned, oh, sorry, the full service tier would be $29.95 per month. The lighter tier would be $19.95 per month. And for that one, you basically get two long form per week, or again, you can mix and match and take one of those and apply it to some short form as well. [shuja]: Got it. And do you have any non-profit discount for MIT? It’s a non-profit thing. I mean, I’m a volunteer. I don’t do this for a living for this. This is mostly to doing it for building out the community, right? So yeah. Michael Houck: We do have one other non-profit that we work with, and they do pay they do pay full price. We didn’t talk about discounts with them. If I could see what we could do in terms of our side. Michael Houck: But we don’t have anything standardized. So we need to be kind of a case by case basis, I would see, hey, is the writer willing to take a bit of a discount on this as well. And then we can also take a discount on our side to make it work. But I can’t guarantee anything without talking to them. [shuja]: Got it. Got it. Um, so who Who needs to do that? Sorry, like there are other people involved and like you’re arguing to others? Michael Houck: No, no, no. I just need to talk to our writer. They work for us with our team, but you know, I need to make sure that we’re able to make money on this too. [shuja]: Got it. Um, understood. Um, and, uh, look, and you’re happy to do some, some, some barter as well, right? Like, so I can get you guys a thing as well. Um, uh, okay, cool. Uh, what would be next steps here? Can you show share some examples or who you have in mind from a writer perspective and how quickly can we get started if, you know, today or tomorrow? What’s the availability? What does the process look like, Michael Houck: Yeah, I can get back to you by the end of the day today. A couple more calls back to back after this, but once those are done, I’ll chat with the writer. We’ll get things set up and I’ll send you an email with like full details again on pricing, on what we talked about, and also any sort of context that might be helpful in your decision. And then you let me know how you want to proceed. And we’d be able to get started, depending on writer availability, which I think I feel pretty confident that we have right now. We can get started as soon as, you know, before the end of the week, for sure. [shuja]: Okay. And then do you need, I don’t know, do you have my LinkedIn already? Michael Houck: Yes, I do. [shuja]: Okay. And then I just put in the chat window, the AI conference website, right? And then you can, I think there’s a LinkedIn, I can find the LinkedIn page for it as well. So if that helps you. [shuja]: Yeah. Michael Houck: Okay. All sounds good. I’ll follow up. As I said, later today, any other questions on your side right now? [shuja]: No. Michael Houck: Cool. All right, man. So I’m excited. A topic that I love. So I do hope we get to work together here and I’ll follow up very, very soon. [shuja]: Yeah. And hopefully we get to get you to come to the conference too. [UNKNOWN_SPEAKER]: Yeah. Michael Houck: If I’m in town, I’m there. [shuja]: Yeah. So, okay. Let me put this, I don’t know if you will have the chat window or messages saved, but let’s put those in into the chat window. So. Michael Houck: Sweet. I’ve got them open in another tab. [shuja]: Okay. Is that, yeah. On your computer, on your Peloton or what? How does that work? Michael Houck: Oh, it’s just an under, it’s an under desk treadmill. This is my laptop. [shuja]: Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. That’s even better. So, okay. So I put in the, the company, you know, we do have a Twitter, but I, you know, like obviously we can post it on Twitter as well, but I think that’s too, you know, we need to build out the audience there too. Right. Michael Houck: So, yeah, I mean, it’s, you know, you can always apply the content to both platforms or slightly tweak it to go from one platform to the other. Perhaps help out with that too. Okay. [shuja]: Sounds good. Michael Houck: Go ahead. All right. Talk more soon. Thanks. [shuja]: Bye.