A Conversation With Wendy Pace of Pace Setting Media

If you're growing a midsize business, and need to focus your team's time on the business rather than social media...give Wendy Pace a call. Wendy had the courage to be a guest on The Future Of Email when she's not really a big fan of email!

Pace Setting Media handles social media for companies; they're immersed in helping clients learn who their customers really are, and how to reach them (cost-effectively) on a wide range of social-media platforms — including email :-)

AI comes up a lot in the conversation, with divergent opinions on the probable outcomes. Will AI make credible, compelling video content — or more drivel? Will copy and writing get better? Wendy's clearly paying close attention to the space.

It's been said that email is the original social media. This conversation tends to suggest that opposite, at least in terms of social media as it operates circa 2024. The heavy hand of algorithms and filters in the social media space don't apply (at least, not as much) in the inbox. From Wendy's perspective, that's bad — too much email. From Matthew's perspective, that leaves the person in control albeit with an additional workload.

If you're starting to think that you're under-utilizing social media and/or email to grow your business...give this conversation a listen!

Matthew Dunn: Good morning. This is Dr. Matthew Dunn, host of the Future of Email. My guest today, Wendy Pace, head owner, et cetera, of Pace Setting Media. Did I get that right? Yes, sir. Yeah, we haven't talked before, Wendy. So thanks for thanks for coming on the podcast and I'm looking forward to getting to know you a bit.

Tell, tell me a bit about Pacesetting

Wendy Pace: Media. Pacesetting Media was started nine years ago this July. It was a reaction to a change in my home life. My son was leaving for college and my daughter has epilepsy and I had to Be home because I was in corporate marketing and I was traveling and covering, you know, US, Canada, Brazil, Australia.

So, yeah, I had to kind of stay home. Yeah, [00:01:00] not a quick, you know, flight home if I was needed. So, yeah, so yeah, I. Just kind of was waiting for a sign from the gods above like what should I be doing with this? Yeah, and a friend of mine who's also in marketing said that she was looking to have a more robust social media presence and at that time this is So businesses were just starting to get started using social media as a platform for marketing.

We were moving away from the pictures of people's cheesecakes and puppies and going into what is this tool and how to businesses use it. So I hit a sweet spot and I figured if there was. One company looking for this service. There was five. I just had to find those five and

Matthew Dunn: I did and you did. You have 99 years.

Congratulations. That means you means is working. If someone said, I have no idea what social media is, explain it to me. What would you say?

Wendy Pace: That's a great question [00:02:00] because. It's so many things now, right? It has evolved into this be all world where we all sit online. I would say go back to the days of the coffee shop where you would meet up or see a friend and get caught up and go on your way.

Okay. That's social media online in basics. Okay. In its simplest format. It is everybody sitting there with their coffee cup with a screen in front of each other telling stories about their lives and hoping you believe what they're saying.

Matthew Dunn: Okay. Okay. There you go. There's a, there's a case in front of the Supreme Court right now.

We don't delve into politics in these conversations, but it's media related. Two of the U S States are, are in a nutshell. They have laws that would would give them a more [00:03:00] active role in what social media companies can and can to do in the way of content moderation. And I think the question up in front of the Supremes is under Section 230 of the DMCA.

Is that is that fair play or is that overreach? And I use that as a springboard to throw this question at you. Coffee shop analogy, decent, but social media, the coffee shop manager is deciding who listens to what conversations. Very much so.

Wendy Pace: Very much. Actually, I don't even think it's the managers that are listening.

It's the algorithm. So, it's even a step above the human element now. See, it's even a

Matthew Dunn: step above, right. Yeah. Yeah. So,

Wendy Pace: One of the things. That's why I said, and whether you believe what's being said or not, because with AI, and to me, AI is not intelligence. It is a more robust. search engine. [00:04:00] It is a search engine that is taking more things into consideration than just your search history.

Okay. That's not to say AI will evolve into that kind of super intelligence that everybody's giving you credit for, but At the base of AI right now is still human error. So if you don't ask it the right questions, you're not going to get the answers you're looking for. If you don't give it the right prompts, you're not going to get the images you want to create.

It's, and so there's still a human factor to that. So social media. With these laws that they're trying to regulate, I think they're going to run up against, certainly, freedom of speech is going to be right there at the forefront. And I think when it gets, the Supreme Court gets done looking at it, it's going to be like, yep, we can't really.

Beyond your basic hate speech, I think their hands are tied.

Matthew Dunn: You just [00:05:00] opened a very, very deep hole. I didn't, I didn't know, I didn't even see it coming. And you're right, some of the, some of the what's the word I'm looking for? Some of the guesswork about what the Supreme Court might focus on in, in looking at those laws does dot back to First Amendment freedom of speech for the companies exercising their right to curate the content on their platforms.

But here, let me give you an analogy. We can, we can beat this up a little bit. The Copyright and Trademark Office is, is going through a, I suspect, a fairly wrenching process of, of saying, can copyright be extended to something that an AI comes up with? I suspect the answer is going to be no. It's already looking like the answer is no.

I'm good with that answer being no, right? If, if something was created by a human being, it deserves that protection created by machine, not. If a company is outsourcing their content curation to [00:06:00] algorithms. What the heck does that have to do with free speech? You're giving the algorithm free speech?

Wendy Pace: I would hope that even if you're utilizing AI to do your content creation, that there are still human eyes falling on this for accuracy. AI is not flawless. Some of the information that comes up It just pulls out of thin air based on things it has scoured. So, at the end of the day, you're still responsible.

I would say that the company is still responsible. The individual company that's utilizing the curation. Process of an AI program is still responsible for oversight of what is being put

Matthew Dunn: forward. So the argument would be that the, the, the what's okay, not okay. What's promoted, what's not promoted is, [00:07:00] is, is, is, is an exercise of free speech by that company.

Right, it is

Wendy Pace: an exercise of free speech, but it's on them the responsibility to regulate

Matthew Dunn: themselves. Okay. I mean, I wonder if I wonder if someone's going to explore that. That dividing line between is there human judgment involved or not, but probably, probably above our pay grade. Go back, going back to your coffee shop analogy for a second.

I'm continually of a couple of minds about social media, aside from the fact that I find it mostly noise and irk on the the heavy hand of algorithms in promotion, not promotion and selection in creation of filter bubbles. It, it feels like anybody who's working with social media. As part of their business and marketing strategy is as much in a fight to play.

Keep up with the algorithms as to actually connect with their customers. [00:08:00]

Wendy Pace: So here's the flip side or the positive side, I would say. Of AI and marketing is that it is more curated than ever before. Okay. So you're getting a lot more drilled down accurate ads based on behaviors and speech because they're constantly listening.

Even if you're shutting your mics off on all your apps. There's still, there's still conversations being had where you're not aware that they're being read or I won't even say read, we'll say absorbed into the cyborg that is AI. So you're, the marketing that a lot of people are receiving now or should be receiving is more geared specific to the interest of the person.

more than ever before. It used to be you would throw stuff at the wall and hope it's thick, right? [00:09:00] But now you can really take and drill down your messaging to very minutiae and specifics because your audience is more

Matthew Dunn: culled. It's more culled and more targeted. Okay. So take that premise and let me, let me push back just for conversational fun.

If I didn't say you can absorb these things about me, isn't that a fundamental invasion of my privacy to be more targeted? The

Wendy Pace: minute you signed up for Facebook, you gave up that privacy because they did not charge you, they did not ask you, you chose to sign

Matthew Dunn: up. But your example was, you know, even conversations you don't realize are being observed are being observed, right?

Right,

Wendy Pace: but here's the thing, when, so Facebook is free, where is the payoff for the company? It's the data. Yup. And it's the data that you willingly put up when you put up that picture of the new house that you [00:10:00] bought, when you put up the picture of the new car you got, you are feeding the data machine.

You're giving them the information, even if you don't even think about it. Every time you play one of those games and it's like, Is your birth month that they are taking apart every little minutiae of data you're giving them by saying, yes, I was born in June because you played some stupid game, right? Or it said give us your birth date and we'll tell you your five top traits.

People do this all the time, and they're giving away information all the time.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah. You just articulated well why I'm not on Facebook, by the way. No, seriously, Mark Zuckerberg can go suck it, right? I'm not on, I don't have a login, and he has no right to my data, free or not. But your argument seems to be that if someone signs up, they said it's okay to take all that data.

Do they know that's what they're doing? They

Wendy Pace: did not when they did it back in 20s in 06 and 07, when we were all getting on. [00:11:00] And here's a funny story. I didn't get on Facebook in 06. Like I, I was like, why would anybody care what I'm doing right at this moment? And now I have this huge social footprint, of course, because business wise, it makes sense.

But at the, at the beginning of all this, I was like, Oh, it's free. I'm going to sign up. Oh, I get to see all my classmates. And it was a great connector at first, and then the Zuck went, Oh, by the way, there's data and data means money. I don't even think he realized at the conception of it, how much information he was going to be able to pull.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah, yeah, I, I, I think you're probably right, gotta take your, take your hat off in at least a narrow capitalist sense at the, at the success of that enterprise measured by stock valuation or whatever you want. Are [00:12:00] we hitting a point where we should be saying, I didn't actually think you were going to do that much and maybe it's too far, we should push back and rein it in with law?

Wendy Pace: Well, here's the thing. But in Europe, they have the GDPR and people have to opt in to give information for you to utilize their information. Congress has yet to put a bill together. Yeah. Anywhere close to what the GDPR is. And it's a very strictly regulated over in Europe and privacy is, but you know, they've, they've gone beyond just the privacy.

There's. Email laws, you know, where you can't. You can't expect an employee to open an email on a week. I mean, there's all kinds of protections, right? And I think they were very proactive and got ahead of it. The U S is still kind of wild west kind of internet. You're

Matthew Dunn: still, it isn't, it isn't where we we've been passing state level [00:13:00] privacy laws, somewhat substantial teeth at a very rapid clip in the last three, four years.

I had a guest on this podcast, Reed Freeman from Aaron Fox privacy expert lawyer. And he started listing off the state level privacy laws and, and, and some of them, California in particular, Washington's for unusual reason are like, they've got some teeth, but because they're not federal yet not necessarily we want, and that may be a function of a Congress that doesn't actually pass anything, not just expressed will of the, of, of the people, but the U S as an expert in this space, I think we, We'd be better off if we had a new set of boundaries around that collection and use of personal data.

Wendy Pace: I do and I'm shooting myself in the foot because who Benefits from data more than a marketing person, right? That's gold to us. That's the gold [00:14:00] standard. So of course I want to know everything about my potential customer's customer, right? I want to be able to say their luxury travel, their this, their that, their double income family.

I need all of that in order to gear my marketing. Absolutely. But at the end of the day, at what cost, at what expense? And it's, it's the privacy

Matthew Dunn: of the people. It's about, yeah, privacy of the people for, for consumer, consumer focused marketing. in, in particular. I want to pivot that to talk about email, but before I do that, I want to, I want to backtrack a little bit on what you do for business customers.

What's the balancing act when you get a, when you've got a business that's one of your clients of what you're doing that's helping them understand their customers, what you're doing that's helping them understand and use the channels that reach their customers, if my distinction makes sense. [00:15:00]

Wendy Pace: So one of the first things I do when I have a new client is I sit down and ask them who's, who's the person you're trying to reach?

Describe them to me. I don't know if you ever took an acting class, but when you did character development, you had to think about all of the past or how that character was raised in order to create the character that you were doing in your performance, right? Because all of that comes along. Same when you're looking at a potential client.

You need to understand who am I trying to reach? So, for instance, I have a new client. That he builds these A frame lifts for HVACs. Okay, who am I, who do you think I'm supposed to be looking at? And then I have to take it a step further. So he was like, well, commercial roofing companies. Cause they have to move these big HVAC systems.

I'm like, okay. Who else? And he was like [00:16:00] I said, well, you know, we need to look at commercial real estate managers and all of that that goes with that. And then you have to drill down. You want, you know, building maintenance directors and facility managers and all of these things. So that's where that data comes into hand.

Right. Because when I go to create. the ad campaign for them. I'm looking at people's behaviors online and that's where that data is most helpful. And that's how Facebook makes its

Matthew Dunn: money. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And, and in the case of, in the case of advertising channels like Facebook ads, you essentially are, you're going to help them get more efficient about that spend, right.

Right. By understanding their customer better, but they're going to be paying over and over. at a rate set by Facebook, right?

Wendy Pace: Yes. And it used to be Facebook has, you know, they, they get smart every now and then. Sure. They used to be you could [00:17:00] do a 25 ad and you would get any range of traction on that. But now they cut you off.

They're like, Nope, we said you were going to get 1200 views. That's all you're getting. And as soon as you hit that number, they're done pushing your ad, you know, out there. Right. Right. And they're like, oh, but for another 15, we'll get you another 2, 000 reach. If you act right now.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Carnival Barkers will never die.

Right? Okay. Okay. Do. new customers new clients. Let's try and I'll try and keep a consistent terminology there. Do they actually know their customer base very well when they come in to talk to you?

Wendy Pace: For the most part they understand there are moments where they're like, Well, I, I just, I just know I created this widget you that's your job.

You, you have to figure out how to sell my widget. Yeah. Yeah. And I'm like, [00:18:00] okay, I can do that, but I need to have back and forth with you and I need you to. Tell me, because I can pull anything out of my room, but I want to make sure that I'm doing it in a manner that is going to be beneficial to

Matthew Dunn: the client.

Yeah, would it be fair to say, because this sounded like your A frame customer example, they may have, they may have one persona in mind, but it's not necessarily the totality of their addressable market for Their particular solution,

Wendy Pace: and that's correct. And I think most people will think, well, I never thought of that.

I mean, that comes out of people's mouths all the time. I just, they just didn't think of it because they're, they're already in their bubble and they've had success in this track, but they don't realize just the 2 percent differential gets you. Three more

Matthew Dunn: tracks, right? Right. Hold on. Yeah. Potentially whole, whole whole new markets.

Okay. [00:19:00] Keep, keep, keep that as a, keep that as a frame and let's switch to talking about email a little bit. I'm going to pick on you. You made a bit of a face when we were talking before we hit record email, not your favorite channel, your words to that effect, right? It's it's not.

Wendy Pace: That's not to say that we don't create email blasts for people.

I feel like, okay, we have less attention span than a goldfish. Most people. And what is an email blast? For the most part, it's reading. If you don't capture them in those first Three lines your, your email is gone. Okay, so now we go to video, email, right? We have emails coming in. As soon as you open it, soon as it pops up, you've got somebody talking to you.

Matthew Dunn: Okay? Yeah. That doesn't actually technically work on a reliable basis. No,

Wendy Pace: it doesn't. So for me, yes, email is one of [00:20:00] those cogs that you have to grease and utilize, but it's only one small percentage of your overall marketing strategy.

Matthew Dunn: And, and fun, fundamental, I think I heard you say that the fundamental issue because of shorter attention spans is that written copy is not as effective a tool of, or capturing as it used to be attention as it used to be.

That's fair. Sidebar for what it's worth, the email marketing pundits and writers of substantial books on email that I've had on the podcast. would say email blast is a very dated term. It's the wrong approach because if you think of it as a blast and that's how you're doing it, that's why you get the result you get.

But personalization, personalized content is a pretty heavy lift on email as well. The virtue, one of the virtues of email as a channel is that if [00:21:00] you've gotten enough interest for someone to sign up, you're not paying a gatekeeper for their attention over and over after that. So from that perspective, like long term efficiency for people who are actually interested in your offer, not just attention, but actual interest.

It's a, it's a potentially Hyper efficient channel for that on a, at least on a cost basis, cause there's no gatekeeper.

I would agree with

Wendy Pace: that. My whole thing with, and, and this is just a personal thing for me. I hate email. Absolutely hate email.

Matthew Dunn: Cause you get too much of it.

Wendy Pace: Yeah. Yeah. And I get a lot of unsolicited Yeah, yeah. Email requests. Yeah. So for me it's just like that flat, you know, it's

Matthew Dunn: like . Yeah. Yeah. No, I mean, I keep batting it away.

Any, any, any professional, especially if you run a company, you, you, you, you get [00:22:00] inundated and there is, as yet no magic filter on the inbox that says, no, no, no, just show me stuff from where I actually said I wanna get it. And I don't know that anybody will ever come up with that magic filter my email, my start in the inbox in the morning, true story.

I know the keystrokes. I can't, I couldn't tell you them. My fingers know them, but I know the keystrokes to say, select all unread messages. So I'm only seeing those on the screen and they're selected. And then I go through and I unselect the ones from people I actually recognize and I delete the rest.

Like, start of the day is how to probably 90 percent of the things that hit my inbox. So I certainly understand the why I hate email, but there are emails that I actually always unselect because I know I'm going to read them because I value the content or the relationship or I'm interested in the company or something like [00:23:00] that.

And for them, that that particular channel is really efficient way. Staying connected with me and vice versa. So as a, as a strategic fit in a larger or as a tactical fit in a larger marketing strategy, there's a place for the, there's a place for the email function. It's just fighting a hell of a lot of noise is kind of what you're saying.

Wendy Pace: It really is. And. That's not to say, I'm not saying don't utilize email because you absolutely have to. Yeah. And I'm just saying it is just yet one of the other components or cogs on the wheel for an overall marketing strategy. Yeah. Yeah. Because people need to hit and you need to hit that client at different points in their day and in different ways.

Whether it's a video on YouTube, it's an email blast, it's a direct mail marketing piece. all of those things start to build and play a part in making that connection for [00:24:00] you to where they finally go. Okay. I'm going to eat. I'm reading the email because I've seen it 16 times in my

Matthew Dunn: box. Yeah. Yeah. Brand awareness or whatever you call it.

Wendy Pace: Today's the day I'm ready to hear that message.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. Takes a lot. It takes a lot of repeat repeat feeding to get the attention of the goldfish. It does. It does. You've got a specific interest in video content as a piece of marketing marketing strategy, I think, right?

Wendy Pace: I do. I think that, well, video is key.

And I think part of that is because people, as I said before, don't want to read for the most part. They want it fed to them. And if you can do that in the most entertaining way, You get them to stay on that video for a minute and a half and it's not counted as a bounce and it helps your algorithms and the Google gods allow you to move up in ranking because it's indexed you because that video played.[00:25:00]

Matthew Dunn: Okay. Most video content sucks, sucks. It's mostly unscripted er, talking head. specialist drivel. And yet we're still doing it.

Wendy Pace: And it's going to get more refined because of AI and people don't actually have to put their face up there, but can utilize their voice. Oh, I think it's coming. I think Soros, which there is in beta right now and they're not releasing it completely.

I think the fact that you can create a talking head and still get your point across. Yes, I think video is just going to get, and, and the thing is the, the quality of the video that's being made now by AI is improved. No longer the six fingers, three eyes, and the mouth is on the side of the head. It's getting more refined.

And it may not be at its peak [00:26:00] just yet, but in a few years, you're not going to be able to tell the difference between you and I talking and a generated AI video of the same conversation.

Matthew Dunn: You spent some time in theater, right? I have spent time in theater. Do you remember the, do you remember the, do you remember Aristotle's formulation of the six components of drama?

Not off the top of my head, but yes. Aristotle's, Aristotle Poetics, plot, character, theme, diction, music, spectacle, all you described is improved spectacle. Better production values doesn't equal better script, doesn't equal better dramatic structure or any of the above. And I don't see how AI is going to prove those things.

I don't

Wendy Pace: know. I, I, I will respectfully disagree. I think that in the hands of the right person or people who are skilled at giving the correct prompts. To the ai, it will be fine tuned to a point where it'll be just as human as human. [00:27:00]

Matthew Dunn: Okay. We'll have to agree to disagree. And you didn't address my Aristotle question.

I would say what are, what can AI improve aside from spectacle, which is production values in that formulation from the poetics? I think

Wendy Pace: production value, I think the imagery, I think. The poetry, I think you will see it come around. Is it there right today? No, but I think it's coming.

Matthew Dunn: We've talked about AI.

Interesting, given how relatively, I mean, I know it's, I know it's an important shift and it's not a new technology. That's key, but still pretty let me say this as carefully as I can. Results not at all comparable to results from a skilled person. It's just a shortcut on cost right now. Is that fair?

[00:28:00] That is fair. And you think the shortcut will get closer and closer to the quality of what a person could do? Possibly surpass it. Okay. Yeah.

I

Wendy Pace: don't think it's a today thing. I don't think it's a tomorrow thing. A near future

Matthew Dunn: thing is a different observation. One of the surprises in the landscape of generative AI, which is what's on most people's top of mind when they use the term AI is that meta the company behind Facebook.

Invested pretty significantly in development of a gen, gen AI model called Lama, and they chose to release it as open source, not keep it as a pay us to generate content, which is essentially what open AI is doing with chat GPT on. I'm curious your reaction to this when I talked about that with friends and colleagues and started [00:29:00] thinking about the impact of it.

Open source AI models being downloadable, changeable, anyone who can code can use them. Why, what's Meta's motive for turning that, turning that Machine loose. And I think the short answer is the more law, the more content, the better from Facebook's point of view and quality of that content doesn't particularly matter to them.

Wendy Pace: It doesn't. And it's, it's not the quality. It's the information they get from it.

Matthew Dunn: The information they get from what, from

Wendy Pace: what people are creating,

Matthew Dunn: creating or engaging both.

Wendy Pace: Because you're creating something in this open network, right? You're putting in information there, whether it's visual information.

Matthew Dunn: If it's an open source model that I'm running, there's no data transmission to [00:30:00] meta. It's an important distinction. They're not saying, use our machine running a model. They're saying, here's the model, run it on your own machine. Why would they do that? They want to see how it gets used. They wouldn't know how it gets used.

It's open source. How do you know

Wendy Pace: if they're not going to know how it gets

Matthew Dunn: used? Pretty easy, pretty easy to, pretty easy to monitor the network input output from a model. Okay. See, I, I, I, I think the, this is my, this is my speculation. This is one of the reasons I was curious to talk to you because you know more about, know a whole lot more about space than I do.

I, I, I think more easily produced content is, is likely to be. better from Facebook's point of view. It's like, if anyone can run a Tinkertoy AI and make yet another yet another post graphic, yet another, eventually video yet another written post, it's [00:31:00] more likely to land on one of their platforms than anything else.

It's like, it just makes it easier for people to sit in the coffee shop, your formulation, with their thumbs and say, look what I did, or this is how I'm feeling today or whatever. So we'll get. More views and it essentially becomes a we're, we're feeding that particular commons yet more stuff. Okay, park that one for a second.

TikTok, where does that fit in the world these days for businesses that are like clients for, for pacesetting media?

Wendy Pace: TikTok is having, I think, a bit of an identity crisis. Yeah. I feel, well, first of all, they're, they're getting sued left and right for copyright infringement. And so they've tried to tap down on the use of music and that's gonna, that's halting a lot of the generation that made TikTok what it is, right?

The younger generation with the dances and all of the caca that they put up there. So [00:32:00] the other thing that's happening on TikTok is that the Gen Xers have moved in. And just like they did on Facebook, they, they've taken over and businesses are starting to utilize it a lot more. And affiliate marketing is a huge to me problem because.

Every other TikTok where it used to be this mindless rabbit hole of a scroll of this one dancing and that one singing and whatever. It's now ad, ad, ad, ad. Oh, here's something funny. Ad, ad, ad, ad.

Matthew Dunn: Ad ratio's gone up.

Wendy Pace: Interesting. It's gone up horrendously. And though I think it's still a decent tool to use for business, I would kind of steer away from it.

Unless you're an artist, unless your content is of the visual nature and it makes sense that a 10 [00:33:00] second clip is going to get you more eyes than, say, Facebook. Then you also have to remember the demographics for each platform is changing, depending on what time you're there. So during the day it's Gen X, middle of the night it's Millennials and Zoomers, right?

So it really depends on the audience that you're trying to hit. Facebook has gotten middle aged. It's your late millennials. It's your Gen Xers and, and your boomers. Your LinkedIn profile that's strictly business, that's strictly showing your expertise in your industry. That's B2B. You're not going to see anybody well, that you won't not see people putting up stupid stuff on LinkedIn, but they get shot down a lot faster on LinkedIn going that's not this platform.

Yeah, you need to go over to Facebook with that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So you you still have to

Matthew Dunn: know the one sec had a zoom did a little spit up here. You still [00:34:00] hearing me? Yes. Okay, cool. We'll we'll edit, edit that. It doesn't, it sounds like your A Frame HVAC market person is not going to spend any time on TikTok for their business.

No. No. Sounds like LinkedIn might actually be a more effective channel for that kind of thing. LinkedIn is definitely where we're going to focus. Yeah. Okay. Have you found LinkedIn getting noisier? It is

Wendy Pace: a little bit noisier, but I think that's more of people trying to create their personal brands noise as opposed to the nonsense of TikTok and the feel good of Facebook.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah. Yeah. They're the, the, the, the personal brand. Thing does seem to be does seem to be a driver on LinkedIn. Like I, I get conceptually why it's important, but it seems to me not a scalable thing. If everyone's a personal brand, we're right back at ground zero. Used to be called your character. I believe somewhere somewhere back in history.

Huh. Sounds [00:35:00] like LinkedIn is sort of in scope cause you do have B2B customers though, in scope for your services. Okay. Okay. I have been pleasantly surprised that Microsoft was a 25 billion purchase when they bought LinkedIn, they seem to have left it alone. You don't see a Microsoft footprint per se.

At least explicitly for

Wendy Pace: the most part on the back end for the marketer. Yeah there's a lot more hoops to jump through than you used to have to jump through.

Matthew Dunn: Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah, we haven't we haven't used a. We haven't used a marketer's tool set on LinkedIn. We've just participated for lack of for lack of a better label on LinkedIn.

You know, you got to get your head shot, got to get the logo there, all of that stuff. And actually LinkedIn is the primary outlet for future of email aside from the, the, the podcast [00:36:00] networks, I guess, for lack of a better label, we, we always post stuff, post episodes like this one on LinkedIn because people are interested in marketing or email or digital marketing or whatever.

are likely to be there. Yes. Yeah. It seems like a professional seems like a professional fit. What about podcasts? Is that something that you touch at all with clients?

Wendy Pace: I do. We will do your intro outro. We will do the editing and we will get it posted on Buzzsprout and on the other networks for you.

Okay.

Matthew Dunn: Okay. Effective. It seems like a, it seems like a mysterious landscape. Like I know there's some data back from podcasts, but it's hard to get a feel for aside from the few big podcasts you can name, whether or not there's critical mass for many of them.

Wendy Pace: I think that it's definitely a community that has space to grow.

Some of it is just the entertainment value as [00:37:00] the networks kind of crumble. And networks, I mean by television networks. So people are getting their information and their entertainment in other ways from streaming. And podcasts are one of those entertaining alleys that people are going into.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah, yeah.

Particularly good, I think, for the fill time. You know, I'm walking to this, I'm driving to that, I'm whatever. I mean, at least, at least audio, specifically the audio component of a podcast. And there are some podcasters that have acquired a sizable audience. So obviously it can be made to work. It seems like, seems like edgy is a reasonably good asset.

In getting a podcast to work.

Wendy Pace: Well, you know, it gets ratcheted up. And you see this, especially in politics, they have to keep outdoing each other. And same thing with any of these, with YouTube, [00:38:00] with podcasts, everybody's gonna have to keep upping their game in order to maintain that audience.

Matthew Dunn: Yeah, yeah, it's true.

Are we gonna, we're, we're, we're already having the goldfish compression. It sounds like, it sounds like the, that's what I'm looking for. You said ratchet up. How much outrage do we have left to squeeze out of everybody, is, is a way to state the concern. Right,

Wendy Pace: and then you get to the point where it's out the outrage, and everybody's just mentally exhausted.

And you swing all the way to this side, and now you got happy news. And I'm going to watch this. I'm going to listen to this because I'm tired of the negative and I'm looking for something uplifting and happy and I just don't want to hear about the darkness

Matthew Dunn: anymore. Yeah, I mean, arguably probably one of the one of the unsung uses.[00:39:00]

of streaming media is that kind of cognitive relief valve, right? I've done it, you know, Hey, do you want to watch something tonight, honey? Yeah, but I'd prefer that it'd be funny or friendly or something. Cause I, you know, I've had enough I've had enough outrage. Right. Yeah. Yeah. It'd be interesting to find a way to analyze that.

I think it'd be tough, but it'd be interesting.

Wendy Pace: I think you one of the, you know, reality shows, especially on Netflix, that's, that's my dark secret is I'm watching, you know, Love is Blind and all these stupid reality love shows because it's, it's just, I don't have to think, right? Right. I don't have to think.

I can sit there. I can laugh at the situations and be like, yeah, that wouldn't be me or whatever. And I don't have to contemplate how heavy this is. Now, [00:40:00] there are shows on Netflix now that are like suspenseful, especially the British suspense, where you have to figure out the pieces. And I have literally said to my husband, I can't watch that tonight.

I don't have the brainpower to

Matthew Dunn: follow. Yes, me too. That's

Wendy Pace: going to make me think too hard. Right. I

Matthew Dunn: don't want to watch it. Right. Right. I say, I think thinking not on the list after, you know, after about seven o'clock or something like that. And I mean, we've always wanted some sort of relief valve, arguably network television played it, did, did that for multiple generations as, as well.

But being able to pick your relief valve is more accessible than it was to previous generations. Well, what's the What's the ideal new client for Pacesetting Media?

Wendy Pace: I would say it's a middle sized company. They've got a few employees. And the owner is looking to take some things off their plate.

Oh, okay. Nice. [00:41:00] They're looking to put that social media hat or marketing onto somebody else's head so that they can work on their business, not in

Matthew Dunn: their business. Gotcha. Yeah, I like that.

Wendy Pace: They're definitely it's not the startup. They don't have the funds for it and they don't see the value in writing that check.

Right. So the client I'm looking for is a new, not new, but a medium size. Relatively young, like growing company. Okay. That wants to take some of this stuff off their plate and go, okay, you're going to be our marketing department. Here you go. They want to outsource

Matthew Dunn: some service. Here you go. Do you find do you find companies whose products or services lend themselves to media or are inherently visual to be easier to work with in social media channels?[00:42:00]

Wendy Pace: I love a challenge, just like my A frame guy. I was like, okay, I haven't done that before. Let's see what I can do. That's what

Matthew Dunn: you can do, yeah.

Wendy Pace: So I do love a challenge, but I have everything from a country music singer. To a frame, to restaurant lawyers, to you know, medical facilities. I mean, I'm, I'm running the gamut.

I, I like the mix because it doesn't get stale and it keeps my, me and my team constantly thinking. Got

Matthew Dunn: it. Got it. I like it. That sounds like a lot more. Rewarding way to spend your week than traveling and waiting for the phone to ring and how do I get back home, right? Yes. Yeah. Congrats for you. Well, Wendy, it's been a gas talking with you.

We kind of wandered all over the place, didn't we? Thank you. I've

Wendy Pace: enjoyed it. I love a challenge. Bring it, let's go.

Matthew Dunn: Bring it. Where does someone find you if a [00:43:00] prospective customer happens to listen to this podcast? Well,

Wendy Pace: as everybody can tell, I have a large social media footprint, much larger than it will be when I retire.

But I'm on LinkedIn. I'm on Facebook. They can hit me up on any of those, or they can go to just send me an email at wendy at paysettingmedia. com.

Matthew Dunn: Perfect. Wendy, thanks again. We're out.

Wendy Pace: Thanks.