Less perfection, more authenticity

MCS Influencer Randy Chaffee says social media shorts and live recordings both offer an incredible opportunity to build trust. 

Editor's note: The following is the transcript of a live interview with Randy Chaffee of Source One Marketing. You can Read the interview below, Listen to the podcast or Watch the recording.

Jenny Yu: Hi everyone, this is Jenny Yu from MetalCoffeeShop® and today I'm here for an influencer response with Randy Chaffee of Source One Marketing. How's it going today, Randy?

Randy Chaffee: That's going wonderful, Jenny. How are you?

Jenny Yu: It is March, it's almost spring too. It's right around the corner now. I can't wait. So this month for March we're talking about social media, and we were wondering if you could share your thoughts on using short form video and live content to build trust and authority.

Randy Chaffee: Oh man, I'll tell you, this is one of my favorite subjects. When I saw that, I was excited. I love, as you probably know, I love social media, I love the force multiplier effect that it brings and I really believe in short form. Long form's great, and it's got a spot. I think long form is great for educational opportunities or a podcast interview-type scenario, but what I really like about short form is it's quick, it's in and out.

And that's what we all want in today's world. I don't care who you are. I'm an older guy, been around forever. And I still, I'll find things like on TikTok that I'm interested in. And if they don't go to what I want to see in about seven nanoseconds, I'm already bored and flipping because I can't stand to wait like three seconds, you know. And I think everybody's that way now. We've been trained that way. So I think we need to give the audience, if you will, what they want, what they prefer.

I think shorts and lives both offer an incredible ability to build trust. An age old saying is people buy from who they know, like, trust and feel safe with, right? And that's an old Ben Gay-ism — a good friend of mine, author extraordinaire. And I think when you do shorts, when you do lives, you have an opportunity to be there in person as opposed to just a static post.

Those are fine too, but when you just put up a picture and some graphics, some verbiage, yeah, big deal. Everybody does that. They don't get to see your personality. They don't get to see who you really are. And so when we do that, you develop a real, I like to say, equals opportunity because it does. And so I like the shorts because of the fact that it's just short, and you can get right to the point quick.

I love lives. When I'm with customers, I like to do lives where I'm maybe at a trade show, an association meeting, whatever the case may be, because then you really bring the feeling of the road, the feeling of where you're at to the folks that are not there with you, right? It just brings a whole different feel to it. And again, because with lives especially, there's no fixing it, there's no editing, it's really who you are.

As somebody that's done a fair amount of these now over the years, I can tell you this: the biggest thing if you're not used to doing them is do them, just do them. And number two, nobody expects perfection. As a matter of fact, less perfection is better. If you're too perfect, people aren't gonna like it. I know that's counter to what a lot of people think, right Jenny? But people aren't looking for the Hollywood, and you're in LA, right? They're not looking for that Hollywood, whatever that little thing is that they clip down in the old days. You probably don't remember, that's old. I'm aging myself, but nobody wants that perfect Hollywood production. There may be places for that in a long form educational maybe but if you're jump on and spend 30, 40, 50, 60, 90 seconds with a thought just jump on and do it with your cell phone. You can say an "uh" or an "um" or you forget what you're gonna say for a minute — just keep on rolling. Don't go edit that out because that's what makes you real, raw, organic and authentic, and that's what people want.

I don't know that makes any sense at all, I was rambling for a minute. And I just took a short into a long almost, didn't I? See? Don't do what I just did. Exactly. Because I just saw what I thought about it. I mean, literally, you asked me the question 13 seconds before we went on. So that's the best way to do it right there.

Jenny Yu: Yes, and it was very authentic and organic.

Randy Chaffee: Exactly off the cuff.

Jenny Yu: Well, thank you so much Randy. We always count on you for authenticity.

Randy Chaffee: I'll be authentic if nothing else, that's all I got. Thank you.