Maximize Your Social With Neal Schaffer

LinkedIn in 2026 isn't social media — and if you're still treating it like Instagram's boring cousin, you're leaving the biggest opportunity in B2B marketing on the table. Four out of five LinkedIn members drive business decisions, but only about 5% of them post strategically. That's not a crowded room. That's a wide-open one.In this episode, I share the most engaging parts of the keynote I am delivering this week at the Digital Marketing Summit at Nova Southeastern University — including the Business Engine Framework for LinkedIn that I built the talk around, and why LinkedIn is now the one platform where search, email, and social actually converge.Tune in to discover:Why your LinkedIn profile needs to function like an inbound landing page, not a resume — and the 220-character headline test that tells you if yours is workingThe four cylinders of the LinkedIn Business Engine (profile, network, content, relationships) and why most marketers are running on just one or twoThe 95/5 r

Most businesses treat social media like a task to check off. Post something, hope it performs, repeat. But according to today's guest, that's exactly why most businesses are getting mediocre results — because social media isn't a task. It's a craft.I sit down with Jon-Stephen Stansel — social media manager turned entertainment industry freelancer and author of The 10 Principles of Effective Social Media Marketing — for a conversation about what actually works on social media in 2026. Jon-Stephen has managed social for Texas State University, worked on Prime Video's Invincible, Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power, the Avatar franchise, and is currently working on Beast Games for MrBeast. Through all of it, he's distilled social media into 10 principles inspired by designer Dieter Rams — evergreen enough to be true a decade ago and still true today.We cover why goals — not followers or viral moments — are the only real starting point, why audience alignment needs to happen before

Two years ago, 60% of consumers said they were fine with AI-generated content. Today that number has dropped to 26%. Consumers are rejecting AI content faster than marketers can create it — and the brands that ignore this are paying a steep price.In this episode, I'm sharing the full breakdown of the keynote I delivered at DigiMarCon West in Hollywood — a presentation called People, Not Prompts. It's built around the SES framework from my book Digital Threads: Search, Email, and Social working together as one connected system. But more importantly, it's about the layer on top of that system that AI simply cannot replicate: people.I walk through why the bottleneck in marketing has shifted from execution to strategy, what the SES framework looks like with an updated AI-era lens, how brands like Lego, Levi's, and Intuit got burned by going all in on AI without a strategy, and how LinkedIn has become the single platform where search, email, social, and people all converge.Plus — I'm givin

I've been saying for years that marketing is increasingly visual — whether it's social media, YouTube, websites, or even AI-generated content. But most of us aren't designers, and we're winging it when it comes to visual branding. My guest today is Jim MacLeod, author of The Visual Marketer, and he's someone I've known for about a decade — back when I co-founded the Social Tools Summit and invited him to speak about visual social media from a B2B perspective. Jim has a rare combination of graphic design expertise and deep marketing strategy knowledge, and in this conversation he breaks down how to think about visual identity from a customer-first perspective, why consistency matters more than creativity when building your brand, and how to align your visual content strategy with actual customer research. Whether you're a solopreneur designing your own graphics in Canva or a marketing leader managing a creative team, this episode will change how you think about the visuals th

You're using AI every day — but is it actually getting smarter about your business? For most marketers, the answer is no, because they're treating AI like a search engine instead of a workspace. In this episode, I break down the AI Workflow Flywheel that I have developed for my own business — a compound-momentum system that makes every AI conversation build on the last, so your output gets better and faster over time.If you've ever wondered why some marketers seem to get 10x more value from the same AI tools you're using, this is the episode that closes that gap.Tune in to discover:Shift your operating system: Move your daily workflows from your inbox (reactive) into AI conversations (proactive) to change how you approach every projectBuild the four-stage flywheel: Front-load context → AI learns your business → output quality improves → reinvest time savings into higher-value workClose the adoption-integration gap: 91% of marketers use AI, but it touches only 15% of actual marketing activi

In a marketing world increasingly driven by AI-generated content and data dashboards, it's easy to start treating customers like data points instead of people. Phil Treagus-Evans — founder of UK social media agency Giraffe Social and author of Human First Marketing: The Art of Being Seen, Trusted and Remembered — makes a compelling case for why human-first marketing isn't just a philosophy. It's a competitive advantage.In this episode, Phil and I dig into what it really means to understand your audience (hint: it goes well beyond the customer avatar), why Phil believes the traditional marketing funnel is built on a fiction, and what a pinball machine (for those that remember what one is!) has to do with the modern buyer journey. You'll also hear Phil's take on where AI helps marketers — and where it quietly undermines everything they're trying to build.Whether you're a solopreneur, a corporate marketer, or an agency owner, this episode will give you a new mental model for ho

Note: This is Episode 442, published January 6, 2026.You published a book, it hit #1, and the reviews were phenomenal. In the digital marketing world, that’s usually where you take a victory lap. But then the AI revolution happened. Over the last year, the fundamental ways we build relationships and create content on LinkedIn have shifted so dramatically that I knew a simple "tweak" wouldn't cut it.I’ve spent the last several months obsessively updating Maximizing LinkedIn for Business Growth to reflect the 2026 landscape. This isn't just a minor update—it's a 70% expansion featuring five entirely new chapters. In this episode, I’m pulling back the curtain on the exact strategies I added to help you stay visible, professional, and profitable.Tune in to discover:The AI "Ask Neal" Framework: My exact process for creating AI content that actually resonates with humans.The CRM Solution: Why your LinkedIn inbox is a "black hole" and how to fix it with a personal CRM sys

Most people are still "chatting" with AI. They put in a prompt, they get an answer, and they move on. But while the rest of the world is dabbling, the top 1% of marketers are building Agentic Workflows. They aren't just using AI to write; they are using it to act.Today, I’m joined by Matt Collette, founder of Sequencr.ai. Matt has a background at Ogilvy and Edelman, and he’s here to show us how to move from being an AI novice to an AI architect. We’re talking about the "Micro-Agency of One"—a way to use autonomous agents to scale your output and strategy without ever hiring a team.Tune in to discover:The Expert Gap: Why 80% of marketers are "dabblers" and how to join the expert tier.Instruction Layering: The secret to using separate files to hardcode logic into your AI agents.Autonomous Research: Why tools like Manus.im are the new gold standard for deep business analysis.The Synthetic Audience Hack: How to use the Code Interpreter to "game out" your marketing stra

Most marketers and creators agree on one thing: “AI slop” is bad for the internet. From hallucinated facts to soulless clickbait, low‑quality AI content is blamed for ruining search results and polluting the web. But what if that narrative is missing the bigger strategic picture—and quietly putting your business at risk of becoming invisible in an AI‑first world?In this solo episode, digital marketing author and consultant Neal Schaffer makes a contrarian case: a specific, ethical form of AI‑assisted content may actually be your only path to discoverability in 2026 and beyond. As search behavior shifts from short keywords to long, conversational prompts, we’ve moved from the classic “long tail” of SEO into what Neal calls the long‑long‑tail—an environment where having just a few great pieces of content is no longer enough.Neal breaks down the three tiers of AI slop, the four guardrails of responsible AI volume, and a practical framework for turning one flagship asset into dozens of ultra‑specific answers that

Most marketers and experts don’t have a conversion problem—they have a messaging problem. Their websites, emails, and content are packed with facts, features, and “I help…” statements that never touch the emotional brain that actually decides to buy. In the age of AI-generated content and endless noise, it’s the human story behind your offer that cuts through and converts.In this episode of Your Digital Marketing Coach, I’m joined by Aurora Winter—Hollywood-trained storyteller, entrepreneur, and author of ten books, including Turn Words Into Wealth and Marketing Fast Track. Aurora has helped entrepreneurs, attorneys, and experts transform their “invisible” expertise into powerful IP, profitable books, and seven-figure opportunities by fixing how they talk about what they do.We dive into the specific messaging shifts that turn flat copy into compelling stories, why your brand will determine whether you compete on value or race to the bottom on price, and how to use books, video, and AI-era search engines (Amaz

Is your business ready for a world where 50% of search queries involve AI?The digital landscape is shifting fast. We are moving from a world of traditional Google rankings to a "Zero-Click" environment dominated by AI Overviews, ChatGPT, and Voice Search. If you are still relying solely on old-school SEO playbooks, your content is at risk of becoming invisible.In this episode I break down the confusion between AEO (Answer Engine Optimization) and GEO (Generative Engine Optimization). I reveal why these aren't just buzzwords, but the two sides of the same coin that will determine your digital visibility in 2025 and beyond.Tune in to discover:The Critical Difference: What separates AEO (Extraction) from GEO (Synthesis) and why you need a hybrid strategy to win at both.The "Zero-Click" Reality: How to measure success when users get their answers without ever visiting your website (and why that actually builds more brand authority).5 Foundational Strategies: The specific steps you can tak

Are you feeling the pressure to build a "Custom GPT" for every aspect of your business? You might be wasting your time. While the hype cycle tells us we need complex bots, the reality for most small business owners is that we just need better organization.In this episode, I sit down with Phil Pallen, Brand Strategist and author of AI for Small Business. We strip away the enterprise-level jargon and focus on the practical, "boring" ways AI can save you 10+ hours a week. Phil explains why he prefers ChatGPT Projects over Custom GPTs, how he automates the emails he hates answering, and why tracking your time is the first step to AI mastery.Tune in to discover:The "Joy" Metric: How to audit your week to find the tasks you should automate or delegate immediately.Projects vs. Custom GPTs: Why Phil believes Custom GPTs are not useful for 95% of the population (and the cleaner workflow he uses instead).The Inbox Zero Stack: The specific tools (like SaneBox) Phil uses to filter pitches an

Are you frustrated that your AI-generated content sounds robotic, generic, or just "off"? You might be suffering from the "Vending Machine Syndrome"—feeding ChatGPT a coin (a prompt) and hoping for a gourmet meal.In this episode, I share the insights from my recent workshop at Chapman University, where I taught future entrepreneurs how to create targeted, compelling content in under 30 minutes. The secret isn't finding a "magic prompt" on Twitter; it's about building a robust Context Framework. I break down the three essential pillars you need to define before you ever open ChatGPT to ensure your content builds authority, trust, and leads.Tune in to discover:The Context Revolution: Why providing background data is 10x more powerful than tweaking your prompt syntax.The 3-Pillar Framework: A step-by-step guide to defining your ICP, Brand Voice, and Core Pain Points for AI.The "Library of Content" Concept: How to use this system to build SEO authority and satisfy

Are you stuck on the social media hamster wheel? Most entrepreneurs feel the pressure to post constantly, chase trending audio, and "feed the algorithm" daily—often with little ROI to show for it. But what if you could cut your content creation time by 80% while actually increasing your leads?In this episode of Your Digital Marketing Coach, I sit down with agency owner and strategist Katie Brinkley to dismantle the "more is better" mythology. We dive deep into her signature 4-Post Strategy, a tactical framework designed to move your audience from passive scrollers to active buyers without burnout.We discuss why "community" is the new currency over "virality," how to leverage the "Donald Miller StoryBrand" approach in your captions, and how to reverse-engineer your social media goals so every single post has a job to do. Whether you are a solopreneur or running a marketing team, this episode will teach you how to treat social media as a strategic digital thread

Most marketers treat YouTube like Facebook or LinkedIn - posting content and hoping to drive traffic back to their website. This approach fails because YouTube is fundamentally different. It's a recommendation engine, not a traditional social platform.In this episode, you'll learn why successful YouTube creators think differently than marketers, discover the research strategy that reveals what content YouTube actually promotes in your niche, and get the framework for creating videos the algorithm wants to recommend.If you've been frustrated with YouTube or haven't started because it seems overwhelming, this episode gives you the strategic foundation to succeed in 2024.What You'll LearnWhy thinking like a marketer kills your YouTube successThe "ghost account" research method from Derral Eves' YouTube FormulaThe 3 elements that determine if someone clicks your videoWhy your first 15 seconds make or break retentionHow YouTube success improves your Google rankingsThe 5-vide

Ever wonder how someone goes from frustrated agency employee to building a trusted content empire? Derek from NapLab shares his remarkable journey of turning a terrible mattress shopping experience into a business that replaced his salary in just two months.In this episode, you'll discover Derek's "create what you wished existed" approach to content strategy, why he started testing mattresses in a cramped one-bedroom apartment with nothing but a cell phone and lamp lighting, and how this humble beginning led to one of the most trusted review sites in the mattress industry.Key takeaways from this conversation:How to identify profitable content opportunities from your own consumer frustrationsWhy starting imperfectly beats waiting for the right equipment or skillsThe simple transparency strategy that builds more trust than any sales funnelHow to monetize content without compromising your integrity or audience trustDerek's approach to weathering Google algorithm updates by focusing on au

Tired of spending hours researching agencies only to end up more confused than when you started? In this episode, I reveal my solution to one of marketing's biggest time-wasters: finding the right agency partner.After years of getting asked "Neal, who would you recommend?" for everything from SEO to video production, I decided to do something about it. I partnered with Clutch, the leading B2B service provider platform, to personally curate 12 specialized directories of agencies I actually recommend.These aren't just random lists—each directory has been carefully vetted based on proven results, verified client feedback, and deep expertise. Whether you're a startup with a limited budget or an enterprise brand with complex needs, there's a trusted partner for you.What You'll Learn:Why agency selection has become such a major pain point for marketersHow my dual role as Fractional CMO shaped my approach to these directoriesThe 12 specialized categories and what makes each one uni

Sales and marketing teams at war? You're not alone. While most companies treat these as separate functions fighting for resources, the winning businesses have cracked the code on true revenue alignment.In this eye-opening episode, I sit down with A. Lee Judge, author of "CASH" and founder of Content Monster, who reveals the uncomfortable truth about why some companies are eliminating CMO positions entirely and replacing them with Chief Revenue Officers. But it's not what you think.Lee, who uniquely served as both a marketer managing Salesforce and a bridge between warring departments, shares the simple meeting strategy that transformed competing teams into unified revenue machines. You'll discover the specific metrics that keep marketers employed when budget cuts come, and why learning to "speak sales language" isn't just helpful—it's survival.Key Takeaways:Why the traditional marketing "handoff" to sales is dead (and what replaces it)The sports team anal

Struggling to compete with content creators for attention on social media? What if I told you that one innovative company decided to turn their entire team into creators instead of hiring expensive influencers?In this revealing episode, I break down how Buffer revolutionized employee advocacy by moving beyond "please share our company posts" to "please build your own personal brand." The results? 90% participation, over 2.5 million total reach, and a cultural shift that's making competitors take notice.This isn't your typical employee advocacy program - it's the future of user-generated content strategy, and it perfectly illustrates the Platform Authentic Content concepts from my book Digital Threads.In this episode, you'll discover:✅ Why traditional employee advocacy programs fail (and what Buffer did differently)✅ The three-pillar system Buffer used: Slack community, resource hub, and Creator Café workshops✅ How to shift from promotional mindset to authentic personal

Tired of cold emails that get ignored? What if I told you that sending gourmet cookies could be more effective than your entire digital marketing budget?In this eye-opening episode, I sit down with Corey Quinn, former CMO at Scorpion and author of “Anyone Not Everyone,” who reveals how gift-based outreach became their company’s #1 sales channel - outperforming a $6 million marketing budget that included ads, content, and 100 annual events.Corey shares the exact strategy that helped close seven-figure deals with brands like Lululemon, ReMax, and Hyundai, and how his team scaled this approach to send 15,000+ gifts annually while growing the company to $200 million in revenue.In this episode, you’ll discover:✅ Why traditional cold outreach fails (and the psychology behind gift-based marketing)✅ The “unique, striking, impression” framework for choosing the perfect business gifts✅ How to build a high-quality prospect list that actually converts (it’s not about volume)✅ The 6-step follow-up system that turns gift r