The Millers in Motion Podcast
The Millers in Motion Podcast
Join Ryan and Lauren Miller as they take you beyond the world of RVing to explore all things travel! Whether it’s road trips, flights, cruises, or the hidden gems of small towns and big cities, the Millers bring you along for the ride. In each episode, we’ll dive into our latest adventures, share insider tips, discuss travel challenges, and meet fascinating people along the way. Whether you're an experienced traveler, a weekend wanderer, or just looking for inspiration for your next trip, we’ve got stories and insights that will inspire your journey. Let’s keep those wheels rolling—wherever the road, sky, or sea might take us!
The Millers in Motion Podcast
Can Social Media Help Fuel you RV Adventures? with Joe Mehl from the Alliance National Rally!
Can Social Media Fuel your RV Adventures? With Joe Mehl from the Alliance RV National Rally!
Recently we attended the 2024 Alliance National Rally, and during our time there we got to host a few panels! In addition to hosting, we also had some friends that gave some amazing presentations in this week’s podcast Joe Mehl (Director of Marketing at Alliance RV) chatted with a crowd that was interested in creating a Social Media presents for either keeping friends and family informed or to help create a community and a following!
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🎧 Tune into our RV Shenanigans Podcast for more on-the-road stories and laughs:
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Has it become a requirement for you to full-time RV and have a YouTube channel or a social media presence? We are gonna go into a whole lot of topics today, but one predominantly being around can social media help fuel your RV travels? Coming from a YouTuber and a podcaster, I can tell you that you don't have to have social media, but if you're looking to stay in touch with family or potentially create a business from it, there's a bunch of different avenues if you so choose to go down that social media or video creation route. Welcome back to the RV Shenanigans podcast. Like I said, welcome back to the RV Shenanigans podcast. My name is Ryan and along with my wife Lauren, we make up what is known as Miller's in Motion. We've been full-timing in our RV now for a little over two years and traveling most of our lives. We've been documenting those travels now for the last almost three years on the Miller's in Motion YouTube channel. You are listening to the RV Shenanigans podcast, which we have just removed the video version from our main channel onto its own RV Shenanigans podcast YouTube channel. So if you are listening to this or watching this and you do like that watching portion of it like the youtube side. Uh, do us a favor, help get the word out that it is no longer on the miller's in motion channel. Uh, because the last few podcasts now have absolutely been off.
Speaker 1:When we were back at the 2024 alliance national rally, uh, our good friend, mr joe mel, who's the director of marketing over at alliance rv, who we work with very closely on a lot of different projects, decided he wanted to kind of give a little bit of a talk over using social media to power your RV travels. That's kind of the general gist of it and what it boils down to just kind of a very quick little snippet was at the end of the day, you have to do what you want to do and if you want to use social media to stay in touch with people, to create a community, whatever you want to do. We originally started our channel, miller's in motion, just to document travels and in fact we were a full on travel channel. It wasn't necessarily RV specific like it has been the last couple of years, and that was because we wanted to let our families know kind of where we were and what we were doing and we wanted to kind of come with us, but we also knew that they couldn't necessarily come with us all the time, because everybody has their own lives, so we created the channel to really communicate with them. That's why Buy Mom is a thing At the end of our videos, how we tell our moms bye and then we kind of swipe to one side.
Speaker 1:That's where it started from. We stopped doing the bye mom at one point and we got yelled at by people because all of a sudden we weren't saying bye to our moms. So we went back to saying bye to our moms, who barely watch the videos, by the way. So, without further ado, I'm not going to take up any more of your time. I'm going to let Joe take over back at the Alliance National Rally and spoiler, I pop in a couple of times because I was recording it and he got a few questions that were more geared towards channels and less for a company using YouTube as a marketing platform, and so, yeah, I was there. So he asked me if I wouldn't mind answering and, of course, if I have an opportunity to talk and have a microphone, I'm probably going to take it.
Speaker 3:So, without further ado, let's pop back over to Joe and the Alliance National Rally. All right, so welcome. I do got to say you allies know how to party. I've had more concoctions made this week and given to me that are I've never had before, and I went to IU. So welcome to this little marketing talk harnessing social media to empower your Alliance RV journey. I don't know if it's still too loud for you guys. Can you guys hear pretty well? For those that are here for this? Thanks for being here. I appreciate that.
Speaker 3:So my name is Joe. I'm the head of marketing for Alliance RV. I've been marketing for over 10 years now. I've gone from web development to, you know, social media to photography I mean everything that is involved in marketing. I've done in advertising ad development. I was with a web development company and then I actually helped start a marketing agency where we were a full house agency and we did everything under the sun for a multitude of different industries, including zoos and restaurants and rv manufacturers and trailer manufacturers. So I have tons of experience in that.
Speaker 3:But what I, the point of today's talk is to really inspire you guys to want to create content and not be afraid to, because that's one of the hardest things to do is just press that record button and then post it and I know I'm guilty of it, I know every content creator that I've ever worked with is guilty of it, and they'll record themselves, they'll set it up and then they'll be like it doesn't meet my expectations. But you just have to realize that your audience is going to find you for however you create. So don't worry about that. Customer expectations and there's going to be different customer types Every single one sitting. You right now probably you've seen Alliance posts that you're like don't get it, don't like it. And then there's posts where you're like that's amazing, it makes me want to buy the product. Right, but I have a lot of different audience types that I'm trying to reach across the gamut. So, um, I'm going to. I'm going to just go through a couple of things really quick. I have about eight points that I want to talk about and then at the end, I'm going to leave it open for questions. So feel free to to free to ask away. I'm an open book when it comes to marketing and it's my biggest passion. I eat, breathe and sleep it. You can ask my wife.
Speaker 3:So, first off, I want to say that content, or the creative, is the variable of success, and the one thing that a lot of people will get hung up on I mentioned it briefly was the quality of that content. There are posts out there that have, I don't know, have you ever seen that dude? His name's Dogface and he's skateboarding down the street listening to Fleetwood Mac drinking Ocean Breeze on his way to a potato farm where he was a worker? That video got over 100 million views and Ocean Breeze was out of stock in every grocery store in America for over six months. So I mean, that's the power of social media. One guy can do a little post on his way to work and you can get 100 million views and you can really increase the brand Changed his life. He was living in an RV, just you know, living paycheck to paycheck, and then all of a sudden, bam, he blew up so and he actually almost didn't post that video because he was afraid he's like. But at the end of the day I was like, who cares what people think of me? Post Also Fleetwood Mac. That song was nowhere to be found in the top 1000 in current music that was being listened to. It was number one for over six months. I mean, that's how that's again the power of social media.
Speaker 3:The other thing is, you know, quality is hyper subjective. My view on quality is different from your view and every single one of you out here. You guys all have a different view of quality, so don't let that hold you back. You can, you know, you have. You know Ryan Miller from Miller's Emotions. He has all this great equipment and he's invested all the time to learn all this great equipment. But really what you need is this this can do everything you need it to do. It has good quality photos, it does decent audio recordings and you know Matt's RV reviews. You know he's grown to over a million followers I think he's like 1.2 million collectively and he doesn't even use a mic, he just yells at the camera. So you know, don't worry about that, because it's going to vary person to person, but someone that connects with you and your personality, it will resonate with them and that's what you're trying to do. You're trying to find your audience to register with and then, as you change, your quality will change because you's you're different. You're a different person today than you were last week because you've learned new things.
Speaker 3:The other thing is, a lot of people will get hung up on followers. You know, 1.2 million, 8 million, whatever that number is. In today's world, I call it TikTokification, where everything is vertical form and people are just swiping up on their thumbs. Right, I'm guilty of it. I'll sit there and I'll swipe for 45, 50 minutes sometimes, don't you know what you want to do is. You don't want to get hung up on the follower count, you want to get. You want to focus on the views of the videos that you're getting. You want to focus on the views of the videos that you're getting. I have noticed as of lately that my you know, a year ago I would have said you need to post 90-second videos and they need to be engaging, they need to be high quality. That's what's getting views Today.
Speaker 3:No, under 30 seconds that tells a quick little story and has some humor to it. Those are what's performing right now. I did this little video. Um, it was actually a video of an avenue sitting in a field and you guys all know who lightning mcqueen is from cars, the little movie ka-chow, yeah, ka-chow, um, and it was literally this little thing, that Lightning. It says have you ever seen an RV be struck by lightning? So it was like oh man. And then there's like a five second pause and then it's literally Lightning McQueen goes choo choo and he says ka-chow across the screen. Silly, it really didn't do a ton for branding, but people saw the Alliance RV in the background and it got over one million views and it was an eight-second video.
Speaker 3:So, like you don't have to be I need to go toward this product or I need to talk about this. It can just be a super simple little. Hey, I look at this bruise I got on my head from not dunking when I went under my slide out, you know. So don't worry about followers. Focus on what gets views and then repeat that stuff that gets views. So you're just going to post and if it gets 100 views, those could be 100 quality views. That could lead to some. If you guys have affiliate links with, like Amazon or anything like that, helping sell products, those views could help return investment on you guys for selling products with affiliate links. But you want to focus on the views again, so you might start at two views, but a year from now I guarantee you guys will be over 10,000 if you just keep doing it. But a year from now, I guarantee you guys will be over 10,000 if you just keep doing it.
Speaker 3:The one thing that I did for Alliance that I came in I am really big on posting every single day, even multiple times a day, so I try to post on Facebook, instagram and TikTok every single day, no matter what. And then YouTube I do YouTube shorts every day. Now, actually, as of three months ago, I started doing YouTube shorts every day and my viewerships are going like this Shorts I get more subscribers from than the ads I'm running on YouTube to try to reach new buyers, and that's. Those are all organic, so I'm not spending a dollar on those. The next, the next point I want to talk about is you know people want to connect to people they don't want to. You know they don't want to connect to an object or thing, and that's why I love this rally and my team's been running around and I'm sure maybe some of you have been talked to by them.
Speaker 3:We're getting interviews and we're talking to you guys about why did you choose to join the Alliance. You know, I see Alliance as a family, not necessarily as a brand, but you guys are the brand and you talking about Alliance out in the campsites and us taking care of you is so important. When people ask me, like what do you do? I say yeah, I'm the head of marketing for Alliance. So what does you do? I say yeah, I'm the head of marketing for Alliance. So what does Alliance do?
Speaker 3:I actually say we're a service company that builds RVs, and maybe I don't know if you guys agree with me or not, but that is what we are. We're a service company that builds RVs and we take care of our customers and I think that helps resonate with you guys and tell me if I'm wrong. You can come up to the mic later and be like hey, no, I don't think you do so, but the community is such an important part of your content. You want to build community. You want people to follow you for your community. Do any of you guys follow like, like Dustin or Leslie or Chris and Martha, and even Miller's in motion, or Aaron and Chris from Irene Iron Travels? What? No, we don't need Ryan.
Speaker 4:Sorry.
Speaker 3:Ryan, we don't need you. Oh, okay, thank you, ryan, I love you. He doesn't.
Speaker 4:I love you he doesn't.
Speaker 3:But their big thing that they do is they build community. They're not necessarily always talking about the product. They're talking about what they're doing on their journeys in their life in their way. So be yourself, don't try to be someone else. You know, you just got to come at it from a different approach and all the brand ambassadors that I sign up they're their own people. They are telling their stories in unique ways. So just keep that in mind. So I'm going to go backwards a little bit just to kind of make sure you know focus on the creative content piece, because that is the variable of success.
Speaker 3:Don't worry about the quality and Don't worry about the quality. And then don't worry about follower count. Worry about views. See what's working. If you get one view, that's fine. That means that that didn't resonate. But you can try it again in a week, try something like it and maybe it'll resonate a second time. So just because it didn't work once doesn't mean it won't work again. I've reposted videos that got 500 views and then I reposted it next week and it got 30,000 views. And then people want to connect with people. That's a huge piece. So just remember that people are on social media to be social and it's an incredibly powerful platform. With that story, I told about Dogface and selling out Ocean Breeze across the country for six months.
Speaker 3:The next piece is community management. Once you have a following, engage with your community. Don't be afraid to comment, answer questions. You got to be relatively quick about it too. What I preach to my team is every day we have to try to answer questions as fast as we can, and now we have tons of other projects on our plate. We don't always get it in a super timely manner, but we try our best to get up there and answer questions every single day. It's a task that's on multiple team members of ours and that's a huge piece of the puzzle, because that's what's going to get people to connect with you, when you actually engage and talk with them.
Speaker 3:And then you know something I just want to talk about. It's actually called strategic organic content or called SOC. It's kind of an emerging marketing trend in today's world where people are talking about, you know, creating content that naturally attracts engagement. Creating content that naturally attracts engagement. So, instead of spending you know a lot of people spend a ton of money on billboards or TV or radio or things like that, but there are more people on social media and there's more attention on social media than the other platforms. Go ahead and raise your hands. How many of you use social media every day? Pretty much the whole room. And so what we're trying to do is we're trying to reach that audience, and what you create is going to be the variable of success there. So your strategic, organic content is going to provide strategies for creating and using creating pieces of content, using trending hashtags, sounds and collaborating with others.
Speaker 3:So, if you guys are trying to start a channel, go find Dustin and Leslie, go find Ryan and Lauren, go find Chris and Martha and see if they're willing to do a collaboration with you to help jumpstart your platform of choice. And if you're only going to choose YouTube or Instagram or Facebook, choose one, and then the others will slowly follow. Place, I will say if you're going to choose Facebook, also do Instagram, because they're connected, they're the same platform. In essence, facebook is also bouncing back with vengeance. There's some obviously drama going around with TikTok, and so a lot of people are coming back to Facebook and are actually going full on into YouTube. So YouTube has gained a huge amount of ground as well. So if you're going to.
Speaker 3:If I had to give you a piece of advice, I'd say do Facebook, instagram and YouTube, and you're going to find a lot of success pretty quickly. And then you know, the other thing that I want to talk about is when you guys are doing content and you're near your alliance or you're in your alliance, like, don't forget to tag us or add us as collaborators, because I love when you guys are out there creating content. I share it all the time and I will have. If you add me as a collaborator and I accept that collaboration post, it'll actually go onto our news feed, so that way, people will then see it from the alliance group. So you're going to tap into our 50,000 followers well, 80,000 between Facebook and Instagram. So that's something that you could also do. And then you're going to get other RVers that are interested to follow you guys and see what your journey is all about. So you know, that's pretty much all I wanted to talk about today.
Speaker 3:I was going to keep it short and sweet for you guys, because I'm like a goldfish too, I forget things really fast. But I want to open up for questions and you got me here, so feel free to come up and if you don't have any questions, I'll just walk off the stage with my head hung low, or you can just raise your hand too. You don't have to come up. Yeah, great question. So the ambassador program. With Alliance, we do something a little different. We actually do a true partnership with our brand ambassadors, and Ryan can speak to it if he wants to. I, what we do is we actually work with how many followers you have and how much engagement you get, and then, based on that, what we'll do is we will say, hey, here's what we can sell you the unit for, and it's going to be not much off. I mean, you paid almost full price.
Speaker 1:Wow, I got a high five. Does that count for anything?
Speaker 3:I mean really what it is is we just make sure that we can pay our production teams so that way they can get paid for their work they did on the coach, and then you guys would get the unit. But we also then fully open our doors, like a little wider, so that you'll get direct access to me and my team will help create content all the time. We also give you insights into what's coming out sooner. So I'll be calling all the ambassadors I say hey, we have a new product, new floor plan. When can you come up here? Or what can we do to get an arrangement for you to talk about the product? And it doesn't always work out perfectly, but I don't know. Ryan, can you speak to the brand ambassador program from your experience?
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, I think the big thing from our point of view is it's like Joe said, it's kind of the access. So if we, if they have something coming out, we get a little bit more of a heads up so we can plan around that kind of a thing, and then it's accessed. And, joe, you said to you and your team, but it's also Cully and Ryan and Bill and and all of those guys, cause sometimes we get asked a question and I'm not going to be the first person that pops up and goes I know everything about Alliance. I don't. They do, cully does, ryan does, and so we always like to bring them in when we do that, when we do that, like in Dallas is a great example Avenue All Access wasn't getting quite the love on social media you were hoping for, and so we worked together and I integrated it into a video.
Speaker 1:We don't do full on like we're a travel channel, predominantly like Chris and Aaron from Irene Iron. We're travel channels, and so we do integration with Alliance more so than full videos. We loom every once in a while.
Speaker 3:And to speak on the point about the Avenue. So one of the initiatives that I did with my brand ambassadors is I said, hey, let's push Avenue. Can you help me push that product? And Avenue in May this year has had its best month in retail sales that it's had with the company. So I mean, if that says something, you know, marketing pushed the product really hard and now all of a sudden we're getting this big jump in product sales.
Speaker 4:Does that answer your question?
Speaker 3:We also do some. Yeah, like you said, you get access to Ryan and Coley and you get access to you know you're going to get their phone numbers and they're going to answer it because they know that you're in a brand ambassador. We also flag you in our system that you're a brand ambassador as well.
Speaker 5:Mine is. We're one of the regional rally hosts for the carolinas. A little bit more tie-in to get a little more advertisement through alliance for the regional rallies yeah, no, I would love to to help the regional rallies as much as I can.
Speaker 3:Um, you know that's something that I want to focus on in 2025 was really starting now. Um, the the southern rally was put on by chris and Martha and obviously, them being brand ambassadors. They had my support and we helped them a ton. But really all you need to do is email me and it's just joemel M-E-H-L at alliancervcom and I will be happy to help. Banners, social media posts, get stuff out there, do creative assets for you, anything you need. I can also tap into the brand ambassadors and figure out who's going to go there and if they're going to be available or not.
Speaker 1:I was going to say minus Chris and Martha's Southern Ally Rally. A lot of the regional rallies don't tap into that ambassadorship. But if you get a Chris and Aaron, us whoever start talking about it, it's just one more marketing lane to help promote that event itself. Yeah, about it, it's just one more marketing lane to help promote that event itself.
Speaker 6:Yeah, I've learned about RVing through YouTube, but it's been mainly through long YouTube's. You know someone that's putting out 20 minutes or maybe even a half hour. So if someone were starting up now at this point, would you say that don't…. One of my biggest hangups is I don't know how to edit, so therefore doing a 20-minute one requires a lot of editing to make that happen. So should you be doing just reels, just 15 seconds, 30 seconds, and then somewhere along the line, you will finally catch up with learning how to edit and you'll be able to do the longer ones. Or are the long ones gone?
Speaker 3:No long, still has a very, very prominent place in this world, especially for people trying to educate themselves. I'd say education is the category where people are willing to sit for 45 minutes and figure it out because they want to do it right. Entertainment is, you know, you obviously want to be a little on the shorter side, but you know, we all sat in here the other night and watched a 45-minute RV Unplugged episode, but that was entertaining, you know, and it kept you captivated the whole time. So I would say I mean, youtube Shorts is a fantastic platform. You're going to see exponential growth, especially from someone that knows the product. So if you just start there and doing 60-second YouTube Shorts and just you know, that's why I created what you know.
Speaker 3:Wednesday, you know, I came to Bill and I said we need something that I can post every week and I we need to talk about just different topics of educating people about little pieces of the coach that they might not know. You know like one of the simplest ones is make sure you latch your shower door all the way with the glass shower door, because if it doesn't click, it can pop up and shatter down the road. So I'd say, do both work on the long forms but only try to post. I don't know what you could do, but if you could post maybe one every two weeks, like try to get one 15 to 20 minute video every two weeks but then in between try to do, you know, maybe two or three shorts. And there's a and there's a great app called CapCut, so C-A-P-C-U-T. There's a pro version that only costs 90 bucks and it has crazy editing for a phone. I would equate it to Premiere Pro or Final Cut and, having used those for years For shorts, yeah, for shorts, yeah, use CapCut for shorts, not long form.
Speaker 1:Joe do you mind if I chime in? Yeah, go ahead. So the other thing I would say too is, like Lauren and I don't do shorts and reels, to be honest with you, we do, but it's always pulled from our long form. We're long form. Typically. My videos on the short side are 10 to 12 minutes. I prefer that. I like to shoot cinematically. I I use bigger gear, bigger camera and that kind of comes with it sometimes. But there's some very Phil and Stacey from Today is Someday. Their entire channel up until about four months ago was shot on a GoPro. That's it. They've used GoPros and now they have a DJI Osmo Pocket 3, because that's like a GoPro but a little bit more cinematic looking, and so they've recently changed. Still use the GoPro too, but into that in addition.
Speaker 3:I was going to go follow up. What are some of your favorite channels to learn how to edit, to learn storytelling, that kind of stuff. So I'm the type of guy and you know my team can attest to it I just throw myself in the deep end and try to figure it out and I just poke around until I get to a problem. I'm like I don't know how to do that. And then I YouTube, I type in the specific issue. That's how I learn, but everyone learns different. There's a guy I don't remember his name. I'll find him on my phone and come talk to you and be like this is the channel that I learned a ton from, but it's been a minute since I've used him. And then you get to a point where you know if you do get your channel to actually earning profits, you could even outsource the editing.
Speaker 1:Profits is a stretch, but money, money, yeah, yeah, I would tell you too, like from us, I'll come over to you guys in one second with the mic. Um, for me, there's I, as much as you deep dive how to RV, deep dive the stuff you want to know about now, like, I actually have my own personal YouTube that Lauren hates because it's all video creation, it's all that. So Think Media is a company I really like, but watch other content outside of the RV space, find out what you like. And then a creator I really like is named Jevin Dovey, from a shooting the cameras, tech, that kind of stuff, that side of it. He does a lot of kind of really cool insights in that. So I've learned a lot from him on that front.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the other thing to just tag on a little bit is maybe focus on five minute videos first. Try to create a little five minute story. Hey, I'm going to teach you how to level your coach in five minutes and that's the other thing. Like you got to simplify the message, like you don't want this long, long title. So an example is we do all these floor plan tours I'd categorize them as sales where we have myself and one of the sales reps go through and tour the product from a non-biased point, just being like hey, here's the features that you get.
Speaker 3:And one thing that I did about a month ago was I changed all the titles from it was like meet the paradigm 382 RK to meet the paradigm 32 RK, the perfect couples coach with large kitchen at specific length, specific weight, dry weight, and the viewerships went up exponentially when I did that. Because it's a shirt search factor and YouTube is the world's second largest search engine. Because it's a search factor. And YouTube is the world's second largest search engine because it's owned by Google, which is the first.
Speaker 1:Which is the first?
Speaker 5:yeah, ryan, and a lot of them. When they do their YouTube's, they say, well, click on here, and it helps us. And obviously he's making millions of dollars off of that because he's you know.
Speaker 3:I wish.
Speaker 5:Do you get a cup of coffee out of it? Nope.
Speaker 3:Oh, I swag you up, please.
Speaker 5:Without getting into a lot of details, you know, but I'm just curious of how all that works to your benefit and all that type of stuff.
Speaker 3:We don't monetize our channels, so Alliance doesn't make a dollar from our viewerships, because from a business standpoint we have to categorize ourselves as a business, so we can't.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so we do a similar thing, but it couldn't be further on opposite ends of the spectrum, because obviously that camera, the stuff that's sitting over there, not the big board, but my recording gear that all costs money, right, and I break it a lot. So it costs a lot of money frequently, and so we have to find ways that are non-intrusive to be able to pay for some of this stuff. And at the end of the day, we have bills, just like everybody else. Joe's is a marketing platform for a business. They're trying to drive people to the brand. They don't care about making money on the channel itself, whereas we have to.
Speaker 1:So when it comes to, like, affiliate links and those types of things, for us we've and I can't speak for every channel, I only speak for ours, because everybody does it a little differently. But who's seen a Brooklyn bedding commercial? Yeah, I'm going to pre-apologize, because guess what's coming out on our channel tomorrow? Um, but at the end of the day, for us, like, we actually bought ours still and we owned it previously. It's the same one we'd ever. I mean, we changed it out a couple of times because dogs are dogs. Um, but for that, like, if you go in and click through our affiliate link is they pay us a little bit to kind of promote their brand and then if you buy a mattress and you get used the discount that we negotiated, then we get a little bit of a kickback and that's essentially how we pay our bills, because the further down this you get, youtube itself doesn't pay jack.
Speaker 1:To be completely honest with you. It's pennies on the dollar and so we can't sustain our travels, our living on just YouTube monetization. It's nothing. I mean I'll be quite frank. I mean we typically, in one video in the first couple of days, will be somewhere around 1,000 to 1,500 views on the average and we have just shy of 7,000 subscribers and my monthly YouTube earning, I believe, is somewhere around $110. That's some people's coffee habit and so the affiliate links and that kind of stuff are what help us pay that and that's individual, because that ends up becoming a negotiation between you and whatever that brand is.
Speaker 1:Sometimes it's just an affiliate link where we literally get nothing and it's just if you click on it, then we do that. Sometimes it's a sponsored video. Sometimes it's a an affiliate link where we literally get nothing and it's just if you click on it, then we do that. Sometimes it's a sponsored video, sometimes it's a combination of two things. But at the end of the day, if you use our link, we try to negotiate a slightly better discount is how we kind of work. That, and if we're going to be intrusive to our community, we want to make sure that there's a value for them. It's just us throwing another you know brooklyn betting commercial down their throats.
Speaker 3:So and brooklyn. Speaking of them, they have a unique strategy where they're just going after content creators to get on social. So their, their, their whole marketing budget is spent on content creators to talk about their product to scry speaking of that, today's the last day for the you know, yeah, yeah, so, yeah.
Speaker 3:So Alliance actually did a beta platform with Brooklyn Bedding, because I met them down at the Tampa show and I was like, yeah, let's try something out. So there's actually a 30% discount where, if you type in Alliance30, I think is what the code is If you find the reel. There's a reel, and I can give you guys all that code too that you can get 30 off.
Speaker 1:there's also a giveaway, too, on their website, so if you go to brooklynbeddingcom, there's a alliance rv giveaway, so, and you actually have to be an alliance owner to get that mattress and that is the unique thing is because, um, the two brand ambassadors you guys have that also work with brooklyn bedding are lauren and I, and then new ambassadors to you guys, joe, and work with Brooklyn Bedding, are Lauren and.
Speaker 3:I and then new ambassadors to you guys, Joe and Rachel.
Speaker 1:Yeah, joe and Rachel, and so we both created a short gave kind of the content to Joe. Joe did some stuff with it, made sure the proper terminology was being used, all that good stuff, and then that's really a four-brand collaboration. That's kind of how I look at that is that now it's being shared across the alliances platform, it's also being shared across Brooklyn Beddings and then for us, the Ketos and the Ketos Us, kind of back and forth.
Speaker 3:So it hits on that collaboration point that I was talking about, because then you're tapping into every single audience type, because they're all different audiences.
Speaker 1:I was going to try and stretch. That was going to be a bad idea for everybody.
Speaker 2:How do you still consider email and blogs to be part of your marketing? Are they still relevant? I mean, I've been following I Love RV by Ray for a long time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so the I Love RV. So they have that weekly email that goes out. Right, that's a blog post. So nothing is never not relevant. Like, radio still has a place. Billboards still have a place. You know there's yellow pages are still around. They are, believe it or not. You know, the reason why there's so many A company names is because in the yellow pages you wanted to be first. So that was an old marketing thing back in the day. So I would say it's still relevant, but it depends on your audience Because, again, is your audience the people that will open emails.
Speaker 3:My open rates when we send out emails from the Alliance thing is like 30%. That's very good. That's very good yeah.
Speaker 2:Can you also explain the difference between views and likes on Facebook?
Speaker 3:Because there's a huge difference, Yep 100%.
Speaker 1:There's a huge difference. So just to go back to his point on the emails, real quick, our open rate and we've got about 1,300 people on our email distribution list and our open rate's about 87%. That means you have a very engaged audience.
Speaker 1:Right and so that's what we do. For us it's like first crack at anything we do, like if we're going to be somewhere, we give a little bit more Not necessarily real-time updates, but really close to it, whereas our videos are two or three weeks behind. So, like for us, yeah, businesses struggle with it more than brands. I say that's kind of the same thing.
Speaker 3:Well, businesses have to meet spam compliance laws, and so we have a lot of these rules and regulations in our place that oftentimes send our stuff to the spam filter. So, like, I have my personal e-mail set on our e-mail blast list and it always ends up in spam, and we're using a professional platform called MailChimp, which is what tons of businesses use. Constant Contact yeah, I've used it before too. Yeah, to answer your question about views and likes. So views just means that someone has seen it physically, and then a like is an actual. It counts as what's called an engagement, so likes and comments are typical. So that was one of the pieces that I always try to get my team to go on is we want to get engagement.
Speaker 3:But now I'm really pushing for views because I think, seeing the brand, it'll kind of subconsciously sit back there and so think about it from your guys' content creator standpoint. Yeah, see it, see it. See it, see it and then be like, oh, I've seen them before. It see it and then be like, oh, I've seen them before. Because my whole marketing strategy is to get consumers to walk onto the dealership lot to say I want an alliance. And then our sales team better be training up our sales reps to know the product better than you guys, because you probably know the product better than they do.
Speaker 7:So one of the things there are for just as many youtubers and streamers out there, there's the same, if not more, non people like me who don't have an interest in getting into that. But as I've noticed, uh, going through, like some of the rv tours, that that we had the two-hour window the other day there's some amazing talent out there in the RV world that deserve to get on there, but if they don't necessarily, like myself, want to get on and do a full content and streaming and YouTube, uh, is there any way as far as, like, being a guest on Ryan's show, or or for you as far as uh bringing that together?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, so I'm going to go, I'm going to. I'll go circle here in a second. But they're Jack and Shelby. They're two contestants on season two.
Speaker 3:You're going to, you're going to come to love them through the season. I got to meet them at the wrap party and they didn't have a YouTube channel when I met them. And when I met them I was like you two are so charismatic, there's no way you guys can't not have a YouTube channel. And they were like yeah, we just don't know how to edit, we don't know how to do this. And I was like those are all excuses, just do it, just post it. You know it comes down to that.
Speaker 3:And if you're not, if you're not, then the second side of the story is if you're not the type of guy that wants to be on camera, you're just not comfortable there. You know, I will say, I was that guy. I hated being on camera. It took a long time for me to be comfortable on camera. You could also be like JD from Big Truck, big RV. He never goes on camera, he just talks, he just shows. I mean, he posted a video the other day. It was like 30 minutes of him driving his truck, just talking, and he got like 40,000 views on the video. Some would argue that's a podcast, but whatever.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But yeah, but yeah. If you're wanting to dip your toes in per se and learn, I think that you reach out to Miller's in Motion, you reach out to Chris and Martha, the people that have the podcasts, you DM people that you want to work with or that inspire you and say, hey, I'd love to be a guest and talk about RVing life from my experience and then just see how that works for you RVing life from my experience and then just see how that works for you. But you can find your path. But I mean again, I'd say, just post it and do it. You won't regret it. There's a lot of people out there and maybe they've got one lunch for that particular modification.
Speaker 1:Sure right, and that's the only thing that they're going to be staying in.
Speaker 5:They're also not willing to do anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. No-transcript, which will then help you guys and people will be like oh, who's that? That's cool information, follow, follow, follow, follow. So I'm sure Ryan's gotten followers from collaboration posts from us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, we definitely have. And the other thing I would tell you is, if you do want to, kind of you think that you want to offer out to the RV community through a channel, whenever feedback, whenever you do reach out to those channels, don't take a non-response sometimes as a no. Take it as a non-response. I'll be honest, we get probably about 75 to 150 comments a day and we still pride ourselves on reading all of them and still, you know, liking them and replying good, bad, different ugly doesn't matter. The easiest way is typically brands will have an email address somewhere some way, somehow. That's the most effective way to reach out to them and sometimes it takes a minute.
Speaker 1:You got to remember some of us, like Lauren, I'll go off grid for a week because we're off grid, we just don't have internet and so RV channels are a little slow to return responses sometimes because of that. But yeah, let us know, Cause you never know like you might come back and say, hey, I have this really cool modification of my tow hauler space. We have a toy hauler. That makes sense. Just know what channel you're reaching out to. If you go to like a Matt who does strictly new RV tours, matt's RV reviews. He may do that, but you're a little more on the if thing there, so I have an idea for you.
Speaker 3:Why don't you create a channel called cool rv modifications? You stay behind the camera and when you're at campgrounds, just be like and you meet neighbors and they did this cool modification. It doesn't matter the brand, it can just be like they did this really cool thing and you're going to show cool rv modifications. That's a cool story that never ends because there are so many. You know how many different solar setups I've seen. They're all different.
Speaker 1:One's better than the rest, though I saw one was powered by Tesla, though Mine's powered by a beard.
Speaker 3:Does that answer your question?
Speaker 1:It's kind of long winded but and I just want to follow up with your Jack and Shelby thing. Yeah, because the Bimble effect is their channel. We met them originally at the RV Unplugged Season 1 rally so before you did, and we became friends with them and they were having that should we or shouldn't we way back then too. Yeah, and we were in there, originally from Tennessee. We happened to be in Tennessee in the Pigeon Forge area and we just texted them and said hey, we're around, do you guys want to come hang out?
Speaker 1:No intention of putting him on a video and he's like actually I would like to see how you film, because that's the biggest question we get, more than editing all that stuff. Like, I know, there's some editing questions, you can learn that right. But just picking the camera up sometimes and having the confidence in a crowded room to hit record and talk to it or film whatever you're doing is, believe it or not, one of the hardest things to possibly do. When you're new at it Eventually become immune to looking like a weirdo with a camera out in front of you in a very public place and you just kind of get used to it. But don't be scared to pick it up, because that's what they were scared to do. They got in their heads about it.
Speaker 3:Real quick, I will say that you could also do live streaming. It's coming backengeance right now. It's here, matt. He live streamed all day yesterday packing boxes and he got thousands and thousands of views, so that's another thing. He's just sitting there packing boxes. That's boring.
Speaker 4:Are you?
Speaker 3:kidding me? That's the other thing People want to engage.
Speaker 1:But let's be honest, matt probably dropped some things, because it's Matt.
Speaker 3:He definitely dropped some things and said some inappropriate things too probably.
Speaker 1:Can I do say that one more time. Well, that's just a little hurtful that you didn't already know, and it's on my shirt and I was just right in front of you.
Speaker 1:Miller's in motion, it's too small, yes, I'll get a magnifying glass. So we're, lauren and I are Miller's in Motion. It's too small, yes, I'll get a magnifying glass. So, lauren and I, our Miller's in Motion is our primary channel, and then our podcast is called the RV Shenanigans Podcast. Perfect, you heard of the thing that's the newest, which is how it always works. Right, you stumble on stuff.
Speaker 3:So our brand ambassadors are Ryan Miller, lauren and Ryan from Miller's in Motion. Who's Ryan and Miller? Ryan and Miller I gave you a middle name. And then we have Chris and Martha Venturesome Couple. Dustin and Leslie, the Wayward Wags. Chris and Aaron. Irene Iron Travels. Joe and Rachel, the Two Crazy Ketos slash, two Crazy Campers. And let me tell you they are full of energy, like, if you need your cup filled with energy, they'll do it for you.
Speaker 1:I don't drink coffee anymore. I just watch Rachel. Yeah, seriously.
Speaker 3:Um, and we're always looking, we're always the door's always open for more. I'm talking to several people now Um, and we're just. You know we're going through the process of what does that partnership look like? Cause we got to make it make sense for both parties and we want, ultimately, our goal is to have you own the coach, so it's yours, so you can actually say I own this, whereas some other brands will be like here you can have it for $1 for a year, but then, guess what, I get it back in a year and then all of a sudden, you're like what?
Speaker 1:do, I do, and if you're full-time, that means you're homeless. Yeah, trust me. I tried to shake Cully for more it Really. There's a mic right in front of you. You could have just walked two feet.
Speaker 8:I was just wondering about from social. We were talking about the different channels and I've been trying to get on YouTube more, so that's a new channel for me. But is it about posting on certain days, like YouTube? I see some creators post like on Mondays or Tuesdays or Thursdays. Do you know, is there a better day on that? I see traffic times on some things. But about days, or is it for a channel just to say I always post on Mondays so your audience comes back for Mondays?
Speaker 3:Yeah, once you've created the channel, I would say, like we post Mondays at 8 o'clock, like creating that once you have a little bit of an audience, 8 o'clock like that, like creating that once you have a little bit of an audience, I think in the beginning you've got to be a little chaotic and figure out what works for your audience and who you're attracting.
Speaker 3:I will tell you, for Alliance RV weekends Saturday and Sunday, sunday being our peak day, because I believe correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that's the day when you're probably traveling or there's yard work going on and you're finally getting an opportunity to sit for a second, and so I think people tend to swipe more and get on social on Sundays. So those are, hands down, our best performing day is Sunday, but that's for us, you know, I'd say Monday is one of our Monday, and Tuesday, monday and Thursday, for some reason, are our least performing days. But on YouTube, if I post a video on a Friday, it'll skyrocket over the weekend. But if I post a video on a Monday on YouTube, it'll trickle, trickle, trickle, trickle, trickle, trickle and then get a little bit over the weekend. So I always try to post videos on Fridays for me, so you've got to find what works for you. I always try to post videos on Fridays for me.
Speaker 1:So you've got to find what works for you. Yeah, what I found as we were starting our channel too, is, if you're sub, let's say two, three, 400 views per video in the first five to seven days, you're not going to have enough analytical data to really make that decision quite yet. So pick what works for you, because you have to remember too, you have a release date now and you should be active on the platform at that time to respond to comments faster. Be there, right, and so your schedule matters too, I mean if you can't physically be there.
Speaker 1:don't do that Right, Like we post on. We've moved our channel's release date the main channel three different times now, but we don't do it with. It actually takes weeks for us to plan like should we or shouldn't? We? Look at it and it's it's more of a conscious decision, less of a we're going to try here, but early on just try, yeah right, but I will say it does matter.
Speaker 3:There is a point where you, there is a point you will come to and you'll be like man when I post at eight o'clock on fridays. That's my time, but it'll change too, because your audience will change, because, like you are changing, your audience changes too.
Speaker 1:So that's why he's changed it three times, Right, and that's over two and a half years. So that's not like we do it every other week for the fun of it. But we started to post on Saturday afternoons. Every RV creator for a long time posted on Sunday afternoons. I'm sorry, we did it at like 3 o'clock on Sunday and everybody did it. Then there was one Super Bowl Sunday. I wanted to post a video that weekend but let's be honest, 3 o'clock you're not watching my video on Super Bowl Sunday, right? Don't let it cripple you.
Speaker 3:I moved it to Saturday. Yeah, if you're saying I'm posting Wednesday at 8 o'clock and it gets to be this, I hate it. That is unhealthy. Don't let it cripple. You Do something that you enjoy and you keep that joy, because as soon as you don't like it, it becomes work and you don't want to do it anymore. There's two questions. Okay, I was just going to say you talked about the audience changing.
Speaker 6:If your audience is growing, your demographics are also changing.
Speaker 2:That's a problem, and so therefore, you do have to adjust as time goes along, as it's coming in. Yeah, mm-hmm.
Speaker 3:Mm-hmm, yeah, yeah, if you're trying to get the working group, the working age group, that's when that price comes in there, because they're available on.
Speaker 3:Saturday Yep, so we and my marketing team, we have 10 different I call you guys cohorts, sorry, just means audience types and the content we create has to meet one of the expectations to fall in those buckets or multiple buckets.
Speaker 3:And so you don't have to get that deep but just be like and ultimately, if you just become yourself and you, you know, for Alliance, you know, did you have any of you guys seen that Bentley video that I did, where I made myself an idiot and I said Alliance? You know, there were people at Alliance that I will say are higher than me that did not like that video and I went tooth and nail and I said let's just try it, let's just see what happens, let's post it. I have seen I've gotten more positive feedback from that one video than any video that I've shot in the past. And it's just. You know, it comes down to connecting with the audience at the end of the day, and that piece right there connected with all the buckets, because some people that even didn't understand what the ASMR stuff was, where the girl was tapping on the tables. They still thought it was silly. Because, especially, the toilet thing.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Cass All right, joe, what's?
Speaker 1:up brother.
Speaker 3:What's up, brother, that's great Tuesday, tuesday Sorry.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I know it used to be.
Speaker 8:This is more of a general, a generality but posting at night was way more engaging.
Speaker 1:Is that still the case?
Speaker 3:Is that what you see now? Honestly? I've posted at 8 am and I've seen 80 to 100 to 300,000 views. I've also posted at 9 pm and I've seen the same amount of views. I think it comes down to the content and how it subjectively clicks with that audience type. So I don't think when it comes, especially on Facebook meta, those, I think think time matters less. Now, if you're creating like a long form YouTube channel, more in the Ryan's world, you do want some consistency there. For my, for Alliance, we have so much product to cover that I can't always be posting and then I don't have. I mean, I have 42 floor plans but I want to get those out as fast as I can to you guys or to the consumers that are trying to make their decision on that product. So I'm not going to be like see a new floor plan on Friday and then 52 weeks later I'm finally there, you know, and they have to rely on some of our dealer content versus the manufacturer content.
Speaker 1:Which is we're a show, right, we're more entertainment, and that's. It's like when you went to go back and watch Cheers or Friends or something else, you kind of want it to be at that same time, and if they were ever doing something different because of another event happening in the world, they like told you a lot about it.
Speaker 3:It comes back down to content type too. So, like my education stuff, I'm always posted in the mornings. That's why I post what you Know Wednesdays in the mornings and I get messages if I'm late or delayed. Sometimes I have early flights on Wednesday mornings and I can't post it at 8 or 9. I will have comments by noon. Where's what you Know Wednesday? Where is it? We're waiting for it, you know. So like people come to realize that it's coming in the morning and they expect it before noon.
Speaker 4:Only having about a,000 followers on Instagram and talking to friends that start off way after we have and they have 4,000 or 5,000 followers. They're like how the heck? And when it comes down to it, doing the study and research, the top general music that people like is the kind of music you want to have on your clips. That is what is the algorithm of getting people to get linked and to like it. So if Taylor Swift has a great song that everybody likes, if you add that music to your clips, that's when, all of a sudden, a boring video has 5,000 views, it's just because of the music you play in the background.
Speaker 3:I don't think the music is the key. I think it helps the algorithm certainly, but again I would say, don't focus on followers, focus on views. Do you have more views? And sometimes your views might not just be trickulating to followers? Instagram, in particular, is coming out with a new tool where they're making it easier to follow from Reels. Right now they have that little button, but it's sometimes hard to press, and so they're making it a little bit bigger so that it's easier to press. And then, if you see it once, they're also changing the algorithm where, if you watch it for more than three seconds, they're going to show it to you again.
Speaker 1:So the only thing I'd say, too, is from the creative side, I'm big on the storytelling process and as creative side, I'm big on the storytelling process. And as many clicks as beyonce's texas hold'em song has, if it doesn't make any sense for what you're saying and it's just nonsense, it will actually hurt you still correct, even though it has all that. So if it's got a ton of clickability, the song, it still has to make sense for the video content that you're putting with it.
Speaker 3:yeah, it also comes down to the creative is the variable of success. Right, so you? So you can post a video of you I don't know throwing a chair at your RV.
Speaker 3:That just came to my mind, I don't know why, and it can have no audio and it could go viral. You could also post a video of you just doing the Texas Hold'em dance in front of your RV, and it could go completely viral too. So again, it comes down to your audience and what they expect. And does the creative connect with your audience? Because if it doesn't, that just means that the audience don't like it, and then so you're like okay, I got to change my content type up, so I think the service team would appreciate not doing that while you're at the rally, at least the throwing of the chair part.
Speaker 5:So, unfortunately, so unfortunately, we have time for one more, and then that's gonna be a perfect. Do you have any advice on how to create?
Speaker 3:a catchy thumbnail or title. So my thumbnails that I do. So I've recently changed my thumbnail styles. I actually throw challenges out to my team and I say, hey, everyone, create a thumbnail, in the winter I'll buy you lunch.
Speaker 3:But what I used to do is I would actually go type in a similar style of video or audience that I'm trying to connect with and I would look at thumbnail samples of what's there and I'd say, oh, this one got the most views. This style I'm going to actually kind of replicate it but make it my own. And then I just use a tool called Canva and it it pops out thumbnails so fast. But you know you also have creators like Mr Beast who will spend a hundred thousand dollars on a thumbnail. So, like you, can't, you gotta. You gotta do what works for you. And thumbnails, while they are important because you want them to be visual, think about how, when you're searching through, like, what captures your attention when you're looking at it and what makes you click it. Does the title make you click it or does the thumbnail make you click it?
Speaker 1:So I use Canva as well. All of our thumbnails are done on that. It's just a graphic design tool that has a bunch of templates, so it's a really simple.
Speaker 3:Very simple. They have tons of templates. I think the pro version is what? 190 a year, if that. I mean it's not that much.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no especially if you use it all the time. We use it for our regular post, any marketing post, those types of things that we do, and I will say a thumbnail for us. I operate under two things. One less is more.
Speaker 1:Sometimes you get these thumbnails that have a paragraph on them and you're like nope, I try to keep it under three words. On the thumbnail, that's what the title's for you can go a little bit longer of a description there and it needs to have some sort of a personality. So that's why, typically, it has a face on. It is because it's going to show an emotion, because I can tell you I'm sad or happy without saying I'm sad or happy, right. And then go look at other videos that are similar and Joe said that to get ideas. I'm saying that to make sure it stands out, because at the end of the day, it is the billboard for that video, and I've not clicked on videos because of bad thumbnails, quite frankly. And that means that you just lost us and now the algorithm sees it as a less favorable video Now're going to get buried, and so that thumbnail I spend actually about the same amount of time trying to figure out a thumbnail that I do figuring out a video thumbnails take me to be completely honest with you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean I put I put four, I put five people on creating a thumbnail, so I mean we're all creating thumbnails and then the winner gets a free lunch.
Speaker 1:So Joe doesn't really get to do clickbait because he's doing.
Speaker 3:I do honesty, authenticity and just straight to the point, I don't know what you would.
Speaker 1:Clickbait Like manufacturer goes under Oop trick Just a tour.
Speaker 3:Well, there's, you know, endless Journey. You guys follow him. He did this very clickbait video. Um, it was like a rv manufacturer kicks me out of factory and it's like it. This is thumbnail of them like getting booted out of a factory and and it, and it they.
Speaker 3:They went to a factory and they said, hey, can we film? It was a competitor of ours. And they said, no, you can't have cameras, but you can take a tour where. Then they walk into alliance and here comes joe and coley and we say, yeah, film anything. And we are an open camera factory, so, like, we let you take pictures, videos, come anytime you want, because there's nothing to hide.
Speaker 1:The secrets are here, not in there and I've done other factory tours um with brinkley and grand design and other things over the last few years. I can tell you that they are very picky on what they hey you can film, but only these things, or you can't film at all.
Speaker 3:I think that's it, but I think we are wrapped on time.
Speaker 4:But if you have questions, come find me.
Speaker 1:I'm happy to talk to you offstage so that way, ryan can do his little thing. No, you're good, and one thing I was gonna say, too, is don't hesitate to reach out If you find someone that makes videos that you like. Like I can't. I mean, you guys reached out to us and I feel like I was pretty open about what we use, what we do. I'm not, I'm an open book, like to me. We're all in it together kind of a deal, and if I want to be better than you, I'm you post or do a video. That's just literally the mantra I try to live by when it comes to creation.
Speaker 3:And then I want to end with just kindness wins. At the end of the day, kindness will you will get the true. You will get the people that you want with kindness. So we try to be as kind and friendly as we can, or just as unbiased as possible with all of the content we create Authentic Yep, yep, authentic yep, yep. Thank you guys, thank you.
