301: Market Yourself as An Authority Figure, Clean Up Your Social Presence, and Build a Service People Use with Anthony Couch

Robert Plank 0:00 Robert Plank, Show Episode 301, market yourself as an authority figure. Clean up your social presence and build a service people use with Anthony couch, hey everybody, and welcome back to the show. Our guest today is Anthony couch, from get suitable.co and he's gonna tell us a lot of cool stuff. So Mr. Anthony, how are things today,

Anthony Couch 0:22 I'm doing great. Things are things are really busy. Thanks.

Robert Plank 0:26 Awesome. So so busy is good. So we're and we're gonna get to lots of cool, action packed stuff, because people listening are busy too. So what it is that you do, and what is this get suitable thing?

Anthony Couch 0:38 Yeah. So what we did with get suitable is create a parent company, an umbrella company, if you will. And so what we want to do is create applications for consumers that essentially make data meaningful and actionable for consumers. For instance, we want to build something that's going to allow, you know, homeowners to vet contractors before they are allowed in the home, to perform work. Employers to be able to vet contractors, employees, things of that nature. Right now, we're having fun with cache. That's our first brand that we launched, and cache helps individuals clean up their social media presences of things that they've been tagged in or things they've posted that may be inappropriate or detrimental to a hiring managers decision, and once we have all that eliminated, we give them things that is more goal specific for them To like and post and tweet about and and generally engage themselves in that are more related to their minor or major in high school, college or the current career field. So we're having fun with that awesome,

Robert Plank 1:53 cool, so, so cache, so it, it. So how does this work? Exactly like it, it just like scans a person's whole like, Facebook and Twitter and stuff like that, and just gives a like, a whole list of things that are tagged and things like that to clean up.

Anthony Couch 2:07 That's spot on. That's spot on. When we once cache has access to our users, Facebook and Twitter accounts, it's almost instantaneously. It's 60 seconds, and you have a complete profile, and inside that profile shows everything that was that was marked inappropriate, that could be inappropriate, and then allow you to make the decision from there whether you would like us to delete that content or or market private things of that nature.

Robert Plank 2:36 Awesome. So is this like a web app or an Android app or iPhone or how are, how do people use this thing? Yeah,

Anthony Couch 2:44 so right now, we're, we're on web services. We launched our first beta about six months ago, and we got some really great, solid feedback, so we pulled it away, and we're making some improvements now. We should be ready to launch again within the next three weeks, I believe,

Robert Plank 3:01 awesome. So when you are launched, how do people find that, like, is it spelled in a certain, like, kind of weird way, like some of these apps are, or how do people locate this app once it's back?

Anthony Couch 3:12 You know, that's a that's a great question, because the name of the application, the brand, is cache. And sometimes we've had people mispronounce it as cash yet. So it's it's spelled cachet, more of like a prestigious, honorable, meaningful, right, but right now, so our website for cachet is so cache.com and that's so C, A, C, H, E, T, and right now we're we're promoting cache through universities here in the tri state area, Cincinnati and Northern Kentucky, working with a few nonprofits who who go out now and and perform presentations at high schools and colleges. Spend time with college students, in general, anyone who's looking to get into the workforce and who's should be using their social media a little bit more

Robert Plank 4:18 appropriately, awesome and so as you're sort of pitching this to, you know, like, universities and and career reminder people and things like that, do you come across any difficulty in, in, like, making it exciting? Because even just, like, sort of the way that it's explained, like, oh, it goes back and, like, cleans up all your old social media stuff, like, it doesn't sound like the most sexy thing in the world. So have you come across any sort of difficulties like

Anthony Couch 4:43 that? Yeah, our main difficulty was that, like keeping users right, that's the goal. And so we have to have something that they love, whether it's it's pretty or not, but you're spot on. It's got to be something that they love. To use that it's worth using. We've got to be solving a problem 24 hours a day. And if we're not, then we're not, you know, we're going to have a much higher attribution rate, attrition rate. So no, we're we're still working on on how exactly we're going to keep things interesting for our users. And the good part about that is we exercise a lean startup mythology philosophy and within the company, within this brand, so we're able to get feedback really quickly. We speak to a lot of students, a lot of users daily, so we get a lot of feedback.

Robert Plank 5:38 Awesome. And so, so you know, you mentioned so far that, like, you speak to some of your existing users, and you've you and your team, like you give presentations different universities and stuff, and it's so that is that the way that you get traffic, and you get people using the app just sort of like one presentation at a time, sort of thing?

Anthony Couch 5:56 Yes, yes. So right now, word of mouth has been our main marketing driver. We don't want to keeping our user base to a minimum is going to allow us to make it's going to allow us to be very agile with the product, so we'll be able to make improvements quicker and more in line with customer needs. So we haven't launched a social media campaign or an or really an official marketing campaign at all.

Robert Plank 6:29 Okay, cool. And that sort of seems like that's, that's a cool way to kind of like you said, like you're, you're still perfecting it, you're still talking to users. And it seems like that also kind of keeps things exclusive, because it just sort of reminds me of Facebook, like, those first couple of years on Facebook, you couldn't join unless, well, I mean, early Facebook, you couldn't join unless you were, like, Harvard or something, right? But then in those and those a few years later, you can only join if you could, like, prove that you are a university student. You had to have, like, a.edu email address. And then they kind of rolled it out from there and there. And the way that they did that kind of made me wonder if they had got come out of the gate and tried to be everything to everybody, then they wouldn't really have stood out and would have had had some trouble getting people to adopt it. But then by kind of narrowing themselves to just this, this one kind of user base, then they can kind of get all the kinks worked out, and then get people kind of hooked on it, and then expand it. So is that kind of your guys' strategy, just kind of starting with the universities and then kind of moving out to more general audiences and stuff like that? Yeah,

Anthony Couch 7:29 that's exactly right. We need to build a product that our customers are ideal users want, instead of building something that we have to sell them on. So, yeah, we started from we're starting from we're starting from scratch, and we're gonna, we're gonna build this thing around their needs and expectations. Most importantly,

Robert Plank 7:46 awesome. So so people who you know are like, you know, college students or university level people, and our people who are our career minded have all this, maybe stuff on social media that they were tagged in or is inappropriate, or they just don't know about so your app kind of shows all that, and it gets them to to sort of filter it out and stuff like this. So how did this whole idea come like, where did this come from? Like, it sounds like it solves kind of an interesting need. But how did you even come up with this idea in the first place?

Anthony Couch 8:18 Working with a fortune 500 company, I realized it was, it was kind of, it bothered me that I was working with employees, my fellow co workers, and, you know, just kind of our culture did not fit, right. They their culture did not fit the company. And I thought that if my employer knew, you know, maybe we could, the company could save money. We could get someone in here who loves their job, who this is actually what they want to do, right? So we wanted to, we essentially wanted to allow, I wanted to do something for my employer, till that would allow them to make a better hiring decision than what they were doing. And turns out, we were a little too soon for that market, though we did see in the in the 70s and 80s, riots in the streets over criminal background checks, right? And then a few years later, it was financial background checks, social media background checks are they're right around the corner. We're just a little too soon. So we pivoted and and went towards cache. We got a lot more feedback from from the employee side of things, lot more hate mail, right? You know, they didn't like the idea that we were going to help employers find this stuff. So we thought, hey, you know what? Let's help people remove, you know, the inappropriate things, and help them build their brand. So a very small part of what cash a does is remove the negative content, but I think the most important thing to leave here is that cache is here to build consumer, you know, individual brands, professional brands, independent brands. So right now, I mean if, if I'm a marketing expert, and I apply for marketing positions. Questions my social media doesn't really need to reflect what I did on spring break, or what I'm how I'm doing my hair today, or what I'm wearing and things like this. It. It needs to show the world, society in general, that, you know, I'm on my game, that I I read every day, my my everything, my social footprint is all about my work, I take it seriously, and I love what I do, so it needs to reflect that. And that's that's our ideal customer,

Robert Plank 10:25 awesome. So sort of along those lines. So, so we're mentioning that. We're talking about how, you know, people need to kind of hat build that brand. And if someone checks up on us, then they see that we've posted a lot of content on that exact thing. Like you said, if someone's like a social media consultant like yourself. Then someone checks your Facebook page, they see all this stuff. And so are there some sort of steps, or some kind of, like a checklist everyone should be doing to kind of to kind of achieve that goal? Like, should people be, you know, vlogging every day? Or Should there be, like, a certain number of like posts every day? Or what should people be doing to kind of get that brand to be consistent on the social media?

Anthony Couch 11:01 Yeah, that's a great question, without without cachet right now, things are a little bit barbaric, the way it has to happen. But I would advise, I would, I would strongly advise those who, who are really understand the importance of a social presence and how it can reflect the outcome of a lot of a lot of issues later down the road with employment, is that, yes, whatever you do for a living, you have got to have your social presence reflect you as a professional, right? So, I mean, even all the way to Facebook, which is more of like your culture, right, who you are and what you believe in, whereas a LinkedIn is more about what you have accomplished in the past and what you're capable of. Twitter's the same way, you know, what do you promote and what are you liking and what are you favoring and what are you retweeting? You know, and all of this really needs to reflect your cultural fit within society, and your cultural fit again, will blend in with with the right employer and right company. So I would suggest to stop. Stop. You know, reading content that is inappropriate, that's not goal specific, and start reading things that are more aligned with your your professional interests, right? Or hobbies, things like this, and not so much about what we do with our you know, every 10 minutes and things of that nature.

Robert Plank 12:35 Okay, cool. So you mentioned a few times that people should be reading, and then as far as getting that to show up on social media, is it just a matter of, should people be just saying, like, Okay, I started on this book, or should they be posting, like, every day or every week with some kind of insights? Or, like, how much, I guess, content are we talking about here?

Anthony Couch 12:55 Well, I mean, it depends on how serious you take, take your professional your life, right? I mean, if you're going to read a book, and it takes you a week to read a book, you know, let let the world know. Say, Hey, I'm going to start this new book, and, you know, at the end of the week. So this was a great book, and promote it. Or don't say, you know, but don't say that it was a horrible book, and you're not going to promote it. Leave some kind of trail that, yes, you're making progress. I'm reading this book, I read this or I read this content. It was, you know, it was so on point with what I do. And every marketer should read this. I'm going to share it. Yeah, more along those lines, just kind of filling themselves with appropriate, positive content, sharing same content. Cool. So,

Robert Plank 13:40 so don't, don't be a hater. Don't be saying, Oh, I tried this book and this book sucks, or I started this book and didn't finish it. So, so, so be positive and stuff like that. And so you mentioned a little bit about sharing there. And so how? I mean, how much should we be kind of getting out there? Should we just be posting on our own page? We'll be like, re sharing other people's stuff. Should we like posting on other people's, you know, profiles like, I mean, have you seen anything like that where maybe people like, aren't are people like, not getting out enough? Or are they getting out too much? Or, like, how much of that sort of sharing and doing stuff on other people's social media territory should we be doing?

Anthony Couch 14:17 Yeah, so, I mean, it just depends on an individual's preference, right? So if someone is more outgoing and more likely, you know, they're going to be more likely to share content with other, with their with their friends and their followers, whereas someone else who doesn't share so much content could or should be retweeting the content. So there's I mean, you can share something and add a note to it, or you can just, kind of just share something, and that's it, right? And it's just a preference, but it does not hurt to put content when you share something, you know, an opinion, right? Your personal view on what you just read and why you. Or feeling that, you know, it's, it's something that other people would be interested in,

Robert Plank 15:03 okay, cool. And then so sort of along those lines of, like, being on brand, I guess, and and sharing, like, you know, the progress that you're making in your career and stuff like that. Have you seen anyone kind of have, I guess, I guess trouble getting the likes and the shares and the retweets on the nerdy stuff, because I've noticed, like, if I if I post, if I like, repost an article that I read on, like, Business Insider or if I write a blog post and share it, then it's tough to even get one or two likes. And then if I share some kind of, like, crazy viral video that really doesn't have anything to do with with what it is that I do, then it'll get, like, a ton of likes and shares and comments and stuff like that. So have you kind of seen any, any trouble with that where, like, the viral, silly, sort of waste of time stuff gets all the attention, but then the the nerdy, I guess, like, job related stuff doesn't,

Anthony Couch 15:57 yeah, yeah. That's weird how that happens, right? You share things that you think people should you know that they would actually enjoy reading, but they don't, right? They they may like it, but the interactions are low, right? The analytics show that they don't even read it, but they'll like it, or they'll retweet it. No, I think, I think, if you're looking for likes and retweets, it's very important. It's imperative that you put hashtags. You include hashtags. So I had a hashtag, great hashtag interview on the hashtag Robert at or at Robert Plank show, and we talked to, you know, talked about hashtag entrepreneurship, hashtag startups, and hashtag Missouri, right? And startup since, or what have you. So hashtags are very important to get your name out there and to get followers. And I mean, that's, that's great, because, I mean, you're gonna get someone who's gonna follow you, and if you follow them back, they're gonna share some kind of content that you are gonna find meaningful. So it's good, you know, it's important that we connect with one another rather So, yeah, knowing how to hashtag, knowing how to get the attention and and the likes and the follows is important. But I mean, not for a hiring not for a hiring manager's decision, right? It's solely about, you know, how does your social presence reflect you as an individual, what you know professionally and culturally within a company, right?

Robert Plank 17:28 And so to use those hashtags correctly. I mean, do you have a secret to that, like, there is there a tool that that maybe shows like, the popular hashtags? Or, do you recommend people kind of look at other people's tweets to see those popular hashtags, or how do we kind of figure out what to use in our tweets and our Facebook posts and stuff like that?

Anthony Couch 17:48 Yeah, so generally, whatever you're whatever you're wanting to post about, there's always a keyword in there, and it's okay, you know, great is not a keyword, but it's something that whoever looks up great is going to see that? Because someone is looking for great content. When they look up a hashtag great, so they expect to see really great things. But if you're talking about marketing, or you're talking about cars or race cars, or spring break hashtag spring break, you it's important that you include those hashtags, or else you're just sharing it on your page. And you know, a lot of people don't see those interactions and and if you're adding the close to appropriate hashtags, then you're more likely to get, you know, more followers. You're more likely to see more content that is more relevant and what your interests are. But I there's really no secret sauce. I mean, I, I'm not a marketing expert, but that is something that we want to do with cache. It's going to be important that we're your that we're able to do that, because we also look at it as we want to kind of save consumers time. Individuals spend a lot of time on social media, posting, tweeting, reading and so on. So if we can build cache out to be able to post for our users and create the appropriate hashtags, we'll be able to help our users build their brand much faster and accurately than what they can probably do themselves. Yeah,

Robert Plank 19:20 that'd be super awesome. Like auto, an auto hashtag tool, or something like that, and so, so this, this cache tool. I mean, does it? I mean, does it read like, a bunch of different social media platforms? Because you mentioned so far, like Facebook and Twitter and and LinkedIn. I mean, does it like, check Instagram or like, what platforms is cache look at, as far as cleaning up those that social media

Anthony Couch 19:43 right now, we only have Facebook and Twitter. The APIs are a little bit restricted on what we can do, which is really good, which is really good and and they allow us to use your third party security as well so that is encrypted and integrated into our. Software. So it's even better. But right now, those are the only few platforms we have. We're looking to get integrate LinkedIn next, and then Instagram, and then kind of go from there, LinkedIn is going to be an important one. It's important for not Yeah,

Robert Plank 20:17 right and right, because especially, like you said, if people are are looking to get employment then, then LinkedIn, yeah, you can't have a bunch of crap on there. And so those four you mentioned, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram, are those the four social media platforms that everyone should be focusing all their time on? Or should they give like more attention to one? Or are there others besides the four that people should like be paying attention to?

Anthony Couch 20:41 Yeah. Instagram. Instagram is an Instagram has created a lot of uproar in our industry. Employers are foaming at the mouth to see what's on individuals Instagrams and Snapchats, right? It's, it's, it's it's a little shameful. So, I mean, I would suggest to kind of stay away from it a little bit, you know, more. I mean, I mean, you're sharing pictures, and I mean, as long as it's appropriate, right, and it's okay. And there's platforms out there, like Hootsuite that where you can share, you can upload a photo with some content, and it would share that content all across four or five or however many platforms that you have. It would do it all at once so you don't have to spend, you know, 20 minutes sharing the same thing on four different platforms.

Robert Plank 21:35 Awesome and then so, so, yeah, that's a really cool time saver, just so that people don't have to go and maintain all these other all these presences and stuff like that. And so we're kind of starting to run out of time here. But, you know, we mentioned about all these things that people should be doing. They should be using cachet at so cache calm when it comes out. They should be cleaning up that profile because, because you don't want those employees or feature employers to be looking at your social media presence. You should be using Hootsuite to post on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and Instagram. Probably like reading books in your field and stuff like that, and using hashtags so that people can see that you know what you're doing and so you know it kind of putting all that aside. Have you been seeing like a number one universal mistake people make when it comes to social media and that kind of stuff.

Anthony Couch 22:26 Um, I, all I can say, you know, is, as we all make mistakes, and you know, for the majority of our users, again, that are our ideal customers. So we're going for people who are, who don't typically have too much negative content or pictures and emojis and things like this. So, no, we haven't seen too much of it, but we plan to see a lot of flag a lot more activity when we start to acquire users who are not, you know, our ideal customers, when we're building out a user base the way we are. It's important that we that we have the right users who do things appropriately, because we are not just a we can't be known as a as just a scrubbing tool. So once we clean up and our users social media, it's important and we hold our users accountable for the content that they post. So if they continue to post inappropriate negative content, they'll be removed from the community. We, you know, so they then they don't directly affect our other users.

Robert Plank 23:32 What does that mean? Exactly, because you just mentioned that you don't want cache to be just a scrubbing tool. So, so if someone, if you get, once you expand, if you get these users that just like, keep posting tons and tons of just garbage on their profile, why is it that you're kicking people out? Like, what does that mean that it's affecting the rest of your community? So

Anthony Couch 23:53 employers outsource to third party other companies that will that would do really great background checks on candidates, and they know rather an employee is a user of a platform that helps them clean up their social media, because there are other companies out there, competitors of cache who that's what they do, right? That that's their job, is to delete that negative content and but they do it and they promote their company like, hey, you know that cool, crazy thing you did last night. Don't worry. We got your back. We're gonna clean it up for you kind of scenario. And if an employer gets that that when he receives that report back and says that you're a part of something that cleans up your social media, it's gonna it just looks bad. From what we've got, the feedback from from our employers, they said that they're more likely not to hire someone when they can't view their profile or can't make any sense of it, right? They must have something to hide, or, you know, like it's unheard of that no one has a social media or that you can't see. What they do on social media.

Robert Plank 25:03 Okay, so, so, yeah, so people need to have social media and and if it's blank or protected, that's super suspicious. And are you also saying that, is there a way for employers to see if people are using your tool? And is that where you were also saying, is that if, if employers like see that someone's using cache, then that sort of seems suspicious to them.

Anthony Couch 25:26 Well, I think if they, if employers, see that they're using our competitors, it will look suspicious, simply because the message that our that our competitors put off, whereas cache sends a message to professionals. We say, hey, you know, it's, we're grown up now. It's, you know, let's, let's be professional, and let's grow a brand together. Let's not, you know, just, you know, pay for a service and we just clean up everything you do that's wrong. Because I'm not interested in that. I'm not passionate about helping people hide who they are. I'm passionate about helping people not lose in on opportunities for things that they did years ago. You know, a lot of friends that I've lost a lot of I mean, we all have that friend who's lost an opportunity because of what they've done on a social media rather be a football player or basketball player, we see it on the news all the time, and just that's what I'm passionate about. I don't care much for cleaning up people stuff and keeping it clean, right? Like the bill brands, positive, positive. I love it, right?

Robert Plank 26:29 Makes a lot of sense. So in the spirit of all that, I mean, what do you, what do you and your company kind of have planned for the future? Like you said that you're in the next few months, you're going to be rolling out this tool, and then once you kind of get more and more people using it, any like, cool features planned, or any cool like kind of ways to make this even better and make it more than, as you said, more than just, just a way to hide,

Anthony Couch 26:54 other than what I've disclosed so far. Can't really say much more. We've got a lot of we've got this list of features, and we just kind of get check marks on them based on what our users actually say that, hey, this is cool, I would use this, or this is cool, but I would never use it, right? So as long as we're getting that feedback, and we'll implement a neat little feature for a week here and a week there, and kind of gain that feedback, and that is essentially what determines the what features that we apply later down the road. Awesome.

Robert Plank 27:25 That's a pretty good way of doing things. It sounds like where you started off kind of doing the opposite of what you're doing now, and helping employers, you know, figure out what people are hiding on their social media accounts. And then you kind of pivoted and then changed it to people to clean up their stuff. And then now you're kind of, you found this audience of, you know, university students and people like that, who are looking for employment and kind of going place to place to build that audience. And then as you're growing the audience, and as you're getting the software, you know, fixed and ready to go and stuff like that, you're also listening to them and figuring out what features they want, as opposed to just thinking of a bunch of features, because that seems like that's a really easy trap to fall into, that to kind of make the huge, long to do list, and then kind of looking at, you know, once you get like 100 items, saying, Oh, well, these 20 things would be really quick and easy and fun for the programmers, but then now you're just kind of piling in 20 things nobody wants, no one asks or no one's using. So it's pretty cool way of doing it, instead what it sounds like, where you kind of made the base software, and then as far as the features, they're based on what people are actually asking for, and not just what's kind of what you're just kind of making up off the top of your head. So really cool stuff there. And we mentioned so cache, is this tool at so cache.com and then there's get suitable at, get suitable.co so if someone is listening to our conversation today, out of these sites, like, should, should someone go to one of these sites? Or is there a special page someone should go to? Or, you know, if someone listens to our conversation today and they they like your your thought process and your tool and stuff like that, where should they go to find out more about you and your company.

Anthony Couch 29:03 Well, you can learn more about cache on so cache.com and we have a video on there. We've got some pictures of the platform, and there's a there's there's a place there where you can ask questions. You can sign up for the beta and just generally learn a little bit more about what we do with cache, and you can join or visit, get suitable CO, that's the parent company or the umbrella company, and learn a little bit more about why we do what we do, how we do it, yeah, and how, essentially, we make, how we plan to make data more meaningful,

Robert Plank 29:40 awesome, cool stuff. And that's a cool goal to have make data more meaningful. So everyone listening right now, you should check out, get suitable.co and when it's ready, it's so cache.com. S, O, C, A, C, H, E, t.com, and I want to thank you, Mr. Anthony, for stopping by the show and sharing some of your stories and sharing your thought process. And I thought. Hope it was really helpful to a lot of people listening. So thanks for stopping by today.

Anthony Couch 30:04 Oh, thank you so much, Robert. It was good to talk to you. Awesome. Right back at you.

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