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How Social Media Examiner Became the Biggest Site in Social

Posted Under: Social Pros Podcast
Hosted By
Jay Baer

Daniel Lemin

Convince & Convert
Jay Baer

Hannah Tooker

LaneTerralever
Jay Baer

Leanna Pham

Convince & Convert
About Social Pros Podcast:

Social Pros is one of the longest-running marketing podcasts in existence (10 YEARS and counting), and was recently recognized as the #1 Audio/Podcast Series by the Content Marketing Awards.

Our purpose? Making sure that we speak to real people doing real work in social media.

Listeners get inside stories and behind-the-scenes secrets about how teams at companies like Google, Reddit, Glossier, Zillow, Lyft, Marvel, and dozens more, staff, operate, and measure their social media programs.  With 600+ episodes, the Social Pros Podcast brings the humanity of social media to the forefront, while providing incredibly useful marketing strategies that listeners can immediately implement.

Follow Social Pros on LinkedIn.

To inquire about becoming a guest or show sponsor, please email our Executive Producer, Leanna Pham, at leanna@convinceandconvert.com.

Apple Podcast Reviews:

The Social Pros podcast has quickly become a favorite in my feed! I'm consistently impressed by the engaging conversations, insightful content, and actionable ideas. I truly learn something every time I listen!

@Arlie K

This is absolutely an awesome listen for anyone in communications or social media!!

@Will31C

This podcast has become one of my staple weekly podcasts for learning about marketing! Love the conversations that they have and it's always enjoyable and educational!

@Simonstone95

Love the podcast - informative, in depth and spot on for any business size.

@MissTriathlon

Mike Stelzner, CEO and Founder of Social Media Examiner, author of Launch, and host of Social Media Marketing podcast, joins the Social Pros Podcast for the second time to discuss the strategies behind his success and what he learned from the mistakes he made on his journey to becoming a social media guru.


From his blog, to his podcast, to the yearly Social Media Marketing World conference his team puts together, one cannot argue that Mike Stelzner, CEO/Founder of Social Media Examiner, is a leading voice on all things social media. His blog alone has about 10 million people a year visiting and 340,000 email subscribers who get an email from him every day. And his success is all due to the social media game of him and his team: “Our vision for the company is pretty straightforward: All that we serve is quality and we service all with excellence.
Mike started his entrepreneurial journey in 1996 with a creative services agency, but the Y2K bubble exploded and he began losing clients. “Frankly, my wife was pregnant with our first and I said, ‘Holy cow, what am I going to do?’”
What he did was recognize and capitalize on a growing trend in the market – the white paper. “A lot of my clients were demanding the creation of content that they could just distribute electronically over the internet.” So, Mike wrote How to Write a White Paper: a White Paper on White Papers and established himself as a thought leader in this part of the industry.
Fast forward toMike Stelzner Podcast today: One of the most rewarding things Mike says he does is produce his 10-minute daily podcast on marketing tips for using social media. And though measuring the value his podcast adds has proven to be a bit meta, he says, “I would have gotten into podcasting even earlier had I realized how it really does make people crazy loyal.”
On this episode of Social Pros, Mike takes us through how he’s been able to use social media to convert users and subscribers across platforms.

“The social team serves up not just our own content, but [they] curate content that is of exceptionally good value. Part of what they do is they go out there and they find really, really good stuff that’s going to go viral. Then there’s a service side to it. We are constantly answering people’s questions that have questions about what we sell, which is our event.”

Mike lives by the philosophy, “Nothing ventured, nothing gained.” Though he has had many successful ventures, he has also had to shut down a lot of things throughout the years. But he doesn’t lose sleep over the projects that fail. “I believe in investing in things and seeing if they work, and if they don’t, moving on.”


See you next week!

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