**** Welcome to the PBL Simplified podcast for administrators brought to you by Magnify Learning, your customized PBL partner. From over a decade of experience with you in the trenches, we are bringing you this top rated educational podcast designed for visionary school administrators seeking to transform their schools with project-based learning. Launch your vision, live your why, and lead inspired. Here's your host, Ryan Steuer. All right, PBL Simplified leaders, it's good to be with you again today. Today, we've got a leadership guest episode. And in these leadership guest episodes, we're trying to bring you people uh that maybe you wouldn't meet otherwise and see how they can cross your path and how they can improve the work that you're doing and magnify that work. So, today we've got David Griffith, who is kind of our social media guru. He's got a bazillion Instagram followers. That's not the exact number, but uh you you get on there and you're impressed by that number. So, I thought I' he'd come on here. He's former middle school teacher, youth pastor. He's got the street cred. Uh he knows where you've been and have him talk to us a little bit about uh social media and what that can be like. David, thanks for being on with us today.
**** I'm excited to be here and thank you for having me as a guest.
For sure. Uh excited to see uh how your experience can kind of intermingle with our listeners. Dave, why don't you just give us kind of a quick uh overview of of who David is and kind of what brings you here?
Okay. Um, well, I guess who David is in terms of what brings me here,
I am a content creator coach.
I am someone who's very passionate about helping people to have clarity and focus so that they get what it is that they're hoping to get out of their experience on social media. Um, I came to know social media initially because I was a gospel recording artist and all the marketing people kept saying, "Well, you need to you need to develop a following on social media if you really want to be successful as an independent gospel artist." And so after 13 years on YouTube and only a little over a 100 followers, I I feel like I had failed. But um life changed, circumstances changed, and I was given the opportunity by a friend who asked me a question. He said, uh he had lost his mother and he said, "Hey, David, would you be willing to sing a hymn every morning on social media to help me get through this season?" And at that point, I considered it not just um his invitation, but also a divine invitation to actually um get back to sharing my gifts. And what I found out was on Facebook, people wouldn't discover me very much. But when I did some research, I found out that a better platform for organic growth was Tik Tok. And so I learned the platform of Tik Tok. I thought it was just for, you know, high school girls that like to dance.
**** That's right. That's right.
And that's not my gift. And so I I focused I laser being focused on one platform and I got myself a coach and now I have over 1.2 million followers on Tik Tok. Then I took what I learned there and I started applying it to the other platform. like Instagram. Um, and and so today I come to this platform as someone who's been someone who struggled for 13 years and not had success and then someone who's found a pathway forward and now I want to share the wisdom that I've gotten from my journey with others.
**** Awesome. And there's a lot in that story that I'm hoping to kind of pull the thread on for our listeners and and see what they can learn from you. Before we do that, everybody that comes on the podcast gets the same question to start out with. You've hinted at it a bit, but could you tell us what's your why for the work that you do?
Wow. You know, there's a song that goes, "Is my living in vain?" Um, and I'm a songwriter, so songs kind of speak to me.
Sure, let's do it.
And then, uh, and then there's another song that says, "If I can help somebody as I pass along, then my living shall not be in vain. And so I went through some very difficult seasons in my life. Um, my marriage failed. I got COVID that turned into long COVID and I had to resign from teaching both at the university and middle school level.
**** I lost the ability to sing, which I'm a recording artist. And so that I I felt like I had all the things that were precious to me taken away from me. And in that moment, um, I found a pathway forward when I started looking at what I still had and started sharing it with others and that gave me that meaning that my living was not in vain. And so now I try to help other people find that same pathway forward as well. Your authentic experience, your authentic voice is valuable and if you'll share it even online,
**** you'll find that you'll help somebody but it'll give you a renewed sense of purpose. and uh meaning in life.
That's good. That's good. Yeah, there's a lot in there. There's some assetbased we call it assetbased school development. What do you have that you can build on? Right. Sounds like you had that moment like what do I still have that I can build on and how do I share that with others? And it it seems like you're doing that, brother. Here you got like you said million followers. I said a bazillion. It wasn't quite a bazillion but but legitimately over a million on Tik Tok, right? Hundreds of thousands on Instagram and as you noted in your story there was over a decade where you were producing content but it wasn't really getting out to the world like you thought it should. So obviously something happened right there was there was something that happened in that journey and I know that we've got leaders listening that are saying you know social media is not important um I think what they're probably really saying is I don't know how to do it and I don't want to I don't want to try that seems too hard could be a waste of time I would think would be another big objection, but obviously there's a right and a wrong way to do this thing, right? So, you've found something. Can you So, can you talk to that principal who's saying, "Yeah, I get it, but I don't know that that's for us." What would you say to them?
**** Okay. So, the the first thing I would say is what helped me to go from the 13-year drought to where I am now is I got a coach.
I actually found someone who had done what it is that I want to do.
And so listening to that person helped me grow further faster. And so I would say that's like obviously it can be very frustrating to do something and not seem to get any results. But and then honestly social media is like new territory and so on the one hand there's people who are overwhelmed with it but on the other hand especially if you are a leader and an educator you think oh this is just social media. Yeah sure. Uh well, take some pictures from what we're doing. Just post it on there and it'll work.
**** Yeah. Right. Sure.
But but in reality, um it is a nuanced experience. And so it is it is critical to get some wisdom from someone who's already gotten results because when they look at your post, they look at it differently than you do.
They might look at it and go, "Okay, how many seconds did it take for you to do something to get my attention?
Was your call to action something speaking to the audience that you really want to serve. Um, and then did you ask anyone? Did you tell a story? Did you invoke an emotion? Did you invoke curiosity in your main section? And then did you ask people to do something at the end like follow for more and give them a specific more? Or in other words, was your content intentional from beginning to end such that it would have the best chance of strategically being successful?
**** Yeah. Good. So, My guess is that most of our listeners are like, "No, no, no, no, no." Right. I think I think you got us right with like intentional from beginning to end. I doubt it. Right. Even if we have a person, we've got some districts that are doing some good work. So, I don't you know, I don't get too far out, but mo I think most of us are along the camp of hey everybody take some good pictures, tag the school, you know, and we'll get the word out. And I would claim that this is a big deal for schools that most people in the community don't know the amazing things that are happening in our schools, which means they're only hearing it from the news, right? It might even be national news. It might not be the local news like, "Oh, schools are falling apart. This is happening. This is happening in schools. Watch out for the library." All these different things that are out there. Uh maybe because I want you to give us I want you to keep pushing Regis Square, but before we get there, why why does a school need leader need to be on social media? You know, looking at probably a local audience, I would think, from most of us, right? Is is that a place for them to be and do they need to be there?
**** Yeah. So, the question um I think the question begs the question.
So, um where are the eyes that you want right now? Where are they? What are they doing every day? Where are the eyes?
You know, television audiences are shrinking based upon the growth of social media. And people used to complain about TV, you know, taking our young people away from doing good things like reading and going outside. And so you can imagine the power of social media, the power of everything being like in a device that's held in your hand.
**** Yeah.
And so why would you not want to be in the place where attention is going?
Um if there's over 8 billion people in the world, over five billion of them are online and nowadays um you're actually it's the economy of attention as Gary Vaynerchuk um or Gary Vee entrepreneur guru says it's the economy of attention and and now unfortunately you're not just trying to get the attention of the people in your town compared to the two other schools in the town. It's like you're people's attention is being um trying to be drawn from people all around the globe. And so it really behooves us to become experts at grabbing your attention and at creating content that specifically will speak to the people that we wish to serve.
**** Yeah, I think that's a great reminder, right? And and if we're putting out, you know, a post a month and expecting people to, you know, to be updated, right? Or even one a week, right? They and they probably didn't even see it,
right? And
yeah,
I think I think as educators, especially educators that are doing something differently, we've got to overcommunicate this message. And it's probably foolish to think that we can just do this without any kind of training or a coach, right? We're just going to say, "Okay, I'll just put some effort into it." It's like, "Well, okay, you probably don't have enough time." And this is where, so maybe that's it. I'm trying to figure out my currency for my audience, right, for this because I know this conversation is the right one, but how do I get my audience to to buy in? And I think it is you're wasting time on social media if you're not doing it right,
**** which you need to be doing it right.
So, can you So, David, can you give us maybe take us back to your journey where you were struggling, you got a coach, But then you had to do some things, right? Like buying a like getting a coach in a coaching relationship, which we advocate a lot for on the podcast that coaches are super important. You got a coach, but then you had to go do I assume, right? So what did that part of the journey look like once you got the coach?
All right, good question. So my particular coach suggested that I find several different areas that I was passionate about. And so I had about eight different areas and then come to the platform and share from those different particular areas. So I um one of my I think my first video to go viral was I was at uh I was in the drive-thru at Chick-fil-A and there was this long line of cars. So I take my camera out and I show like a few seconds of the long line of cars and then I flip the camera and I say, "Um, so what's so great about Chick-fil-A anyway? And it was a very short video, but that conversation was something that was kind of in the in the atmosphere, right? Well, what is so different about Chick-fil-A, you know? Um, and so I can say, well, it has great customer service. You know, the lemonade is awesome, right? But that discussion was very relatable to people. And so it that particular video for me at that time, like it had like 17,000 views in a few days. So that was great. Oh my goodness. That's wonderful. Um, and so I learned a couple things from that. Okay. So, it's easier to be successful with shorter pieces of content initially because the algorithm is paying attention to how long people watch your content. So, if I have a 45se secondond piece of content or a 60-second piece of content, I have to figure out how to get you to stay all the way till the end.
**** Sure.
If I have a 7-second piece of content, I don't it's not as hard, right? And so, Especially some people um do this. They have information that's hard for you to process in a short amount of time. So you have to watch it over and over and that makes the algorithm spread it out to even more people. So um as I got lost in the sauce on the way to explaining what my coach told me. So my coach said you know eight different areas and so I tried some trends. I have a masters in vocal performance from Peabody Conservatory. So ah let me try to sing. I think I got a couple hundred views. They weren't as excited about that. Um, as I mentioned, my my friend had asked me if I could sing a hymn every morning, but I also uh prayed.
**** Interestingly, when I prayed, I not only got a lot of amens, a lot of comments, but then I got a lot of DMs. People wanted to talk to me about things that were going on in their lives.
Oh, wow. So, according to my coach, your audience would tell you what it is that they want from you.
So if I give them a smorgasborg of choices, I'm trying trends, I'm, you know, I'm I'm I'm sharing interesting ideas, I'm teaching them how to do something, I'm playing the piano, I'm singing, I'm whatever the different interests are. Okay, I did all these. Oh, but when I prayed, oh wow, they were really engaged there. And then the other thing is when I just put the phone up on a stand and I sat sat down and I said, Hey, wait. No, scroll. Don't quit. And I gave them reasons not to quit that I would want someone to give me because I knew I was going through hard times. I wish someone would have this conversation with me. Let me have it with them as I wish someone would do with me. And that particular don't quit had over a million uh views. So
**** I think I think um that process of had trying several different things and then analyzing. Okay, let's see what the audience responded to. Oh, okay. People seem to like this more. All right, let me double down on what works.
Yeah.
So, that that scientific testing and then pivoting. And the other thing that I would add to that is
I did my research. I went into the particular niche that I was interested in and then I studied the other people and what videos they had that were being successful. In fact, I have um an assistant. Um I'm I'm pitching myself to serve one of my good friends who's a very gifted um public speaker and life coach. And I had them set up a spreadsheet and they went through several people that I saw as similar kinds of creators who are successful and they put the link into their highest performing videos, like five from each of them. And we're just going to analyze them
**** and then pick a couple of the favorite ones and then create our own version of it.
Yeah.
And when you do that, what you're doing is the algorithm already knows that this particular sequence of a video is effective. So when you create your own and you know two sec like the first two seconds it's closeup of you saying, "Hey, let me ask you a question."
Oh, that's what this other video has. Okay, it matches. Okay, let's go to the next thing. And the the next segment is uh 3 seconds. of you walking down the street past some stores and but that's what was in the other video. Okay, so the algorithm is recognizing the pattern
**** and suddenly you're going to get a lot more boost for your post because you went and did the research and found out what was already being successful on the platform in your niche.
Yeah, that's super good. So if we can try to, you know, copycat some of your success, right? Like pull out some gems, right? There's this last idea of like If nothing else, you for our school leaders, they could look at other school leaders that are doing this really well and instead of being like a fixed mindset of, wow, they're really good at social media and I'm not, we could growth mindset that and say, what are they doing that's working and how can I do those same things?
**** Yes.
And I I want to pull back a little bit though to your second point like when you started the prayers because that's what I saw on Instagram when I went is you didn't just do like three of those, right? Like how long did you do those? just for our audience cuz there's obviously there's some consistency in there that I think might be a gem to pull out.
Yes. So, let me let me yeah speak to that. When you come on the platform, make a commitment. Okay? You know, this is something of value for my community. I'm going to try this for six months until I figure it out. Right? Make a commitment that way. I remember there were times that I was posting and 45 days would go by and no substantial gain in followers. You know, maybe a couple a day and those might be instigated by me going on their platform engaging with their content.
**** Okay, but you know, obviously we don't have time to do that every day. But the fact that I didn't give up on day 45,
it kept going. Then maybe on day 52 suddenly I had a viral video. Then I doubled down on that and then that last before season and then it slowed down again. So, the fact that I was committed to doing this on a daily basis allowed me to really see the growth that um I was really looking for. The key is you have to be consistent long enough to learn what you need to learn to pivot and get to the point where you're dialed in in a way that will cause um large numbers of people to engage with your content.
**** Yeah. And and obviously We'll put your socials in the and the the show notes and any other links that you'd like us to. I'll give you a chance to to do that at the end as well. Um, but when when our listeners go and look at your Instagram feed, for instance, we do a little more Instagram than Tik Tok. So, that's kind of where I did some research. But, um, you can tell that your your videos are very well done, but they're not like in a professional studio, right? Like you might walk out of your garage, it seems like, and then you're going to do a prayer with us, and it's just every day. Like I could see a principal, you know, walks into the building every day and just does a one minute quote like or some kind of an inspirational piece. Is that fair as a place to start?
**** I'm so glad that you said that. Yes, that that's that's exactly what I'm hoping people will do. Okay. So, you looked at my profile. Okay. Well, if you look on my profile, there are other videos that I do that get a smaller number of views, you know. So, let's say, so morning prayers will get 20 to 30,000 um bedtime prayers 10 to 15,000 smaller numbers morning prayers get more and then in between I'll do other things if it's something emotional from my heart similar to my description of don't quit those those will get 7 to 12,000 but um if I'm talking about helping people with content creation those will get 2 or 3,000 so if you're looking at my platform and you see the higher performing ones and you want to do your version of it.
**** Yeah. Just study I'll I'll share some of the secret sauce, right? Just study what I'm doing and then do your version. And you did a great job of it because you said a principal can walk into the school
and and then do his thing. Yes. Absolutely. Okay. So, part of it is when I first started there was some uh talk about how people will feel that they can trust you if they can actually see all of you.
So,
okay.
So, interestingly enough, Yeah. Yeah. So, nowadays, because I've kind of established a pattern in a brand,
**** um I'll do the prayers where I'm in the street
and you don't see all of me, but the ones where I'm coming out the door, you do.
And that was by design based upon that that could feel like, okay,
um it's two things. One is I'm seeing all of him. Okay, I I think I can trust this guy. Get get to know who he really is.
Yeah.
And then two, um, almost like a cinematic thing, opening a door, that can also be something that keeps people engaged long enough that they don't scroll to the next video.
**** Yeah.
For whatever reason, that seems to be something that works cinematically. So, using those two things together, Yeah. a principal could do the same thing on their way into school.
Yeah. And, and I'm assuming you didn't start with, you know, some of this knowledge, right? You you figured this stuff out as you go along because you've given yourself, hey, I'm going to do this for 6 months and you know, we're going to figure this out. There's so I just there's so many possibilities. So again, I think as our listeners, our principles, superintendents, like you need to do this. I don't need you to be an influencer necessarily, right? Like David is, but I need your school on the map, right? I need them on the map of what we do is important. It's worth funding because at some point you're going to have a referendum and you're going to ask everybody community to vote to like, you know, re to increase property taxes and then suddenly we all get in a rush. It's like we're going to talk to everybody. Well, it's a lot better if you've already talked to them and they already know you and they trust you. And if we can let people in, you know, on a daily basis consistently, I think we can get Now, you had your third point of kind of doing research like this field research piece. That's a point I wanted to look at is
**** I don't are again we're pressed for time, right? We're we're trying to run a school here, right, as principles. But we don't we're not getting lost in analytics here, right? We're just saying what's performing best. Is it my morning intro videos where I open up my door and give a quote? Is it when I do a quick student interview? Like just in the hallway, I interview a student for 30 seconds. Why do you love this school? And which one of those gets more engagement? So is is that a I want to make sure that I'm I'm pulling the gem out correctly, right? I don't have to like necessarily build a spreadsheet, right? Off the bat, I'm just going to generally look at all these things I've tried and see what's working.
**** Yeah. So, I would say I would just make it like a a practice that I do at either at the end of every week or at the beginning of the week. Look back at the last week and just look back at the numbers on the content that you've created and see, okay, well, which did better?
Yeah.
Okay. And then which didn't do well? And often getting like the best and the worst and comparing them. You might learn something in terms of how long the video was, the time of the day, and then another thing is what were you wearing that could also So, for example, I know that the videos that I have that have gone viral, I would say 95% of them I'm wearing either gray or black.
**** Okay. Interesting.
So, what is it? Yeah. Well, just just by an analyze looking at what was happening, I was like, "Oh, okay." So, for example, I came across people who talked about wear bright colors and I've been in groups where they encourage people wear bright colors. That can work for some people, but that doesn't work for me. I enjoy wearing bright colors. I'll do it like today. I'm not wearing black or gray today because I'm like, "Okay, let me do let me do this interview and I want it to go viral, so I'm only going to wear gray."
**** Right. Right.
But but at least if I'm aware of some the different levers. Okay. When I create content, are people just seeing my head? Are they seeing a half shot? Or are they seeing my whole body?
Yeah.
Consider that when you're analyzing your content, consider the colors you're wearing. Um, also consider the time of day that you're posting. You may want to go on your platform, like on Instagram, and see what time of day your people are mo most of them are on because it might make more sense to post like right before the the rush of people are going to be on.
**** Yeah. And again, I don't know if this is normal for you now, but I would think in your 13-year drought, as you mentioned, like what's just the quantity of content that you're creating and putting out into the world. You increased, you know, the number of posts that are going out.
Yes. Now, so let me say this. I would recommend you do at least one post a day.
Okay? That's a good place to start just one post a day.
Yeah. Yeah. Um now depending on like I have a a a school called content creating academy where I teach uh faith-based content creators how to use social media to connect with the people they want to serve. And what I found is this. There are some people who will view this kind of like I do. It's like a fun game. Like you know you may play online Scrabble to unwind. For me um My exploring social media is like a game. It's like, oh, this is great now. Let me see what they're doing. Let me see what they're doing. Oh, okay. This is interesting. Well, let's try something like this and let's try something like that. If you keep it fun like that, I think you'll have, you know, you'll have a ball with it and you'll learn and and you'll get uh better at it. But like you need to keep it like that. You know what I mean? Because if you keep it like that, then in my case, I know the platform um Instagram in doesn't like you posting more than a couple times a day unless like you like my case if I designate something like a morning and an evening prayer then I can post another couple times and people are okay but if you're just randomly posting Instagram fatigues of seeing you versus
**** Tik Tok where you could post eight 10 times a day people don't care.
Yeah.
So it depends on the platform but one a day is a really good sweet spot and you can learn from that if weekly you go back and do your analysis.
I think that's where I was going is I think most of us don't have enough data enough posts to really say what's working or not working. So I think
absolutely
right. So I think once a day is helpful and just to recap that like I'm just going to do it on my phone right on my smartphone and I'm going to post it. Do I need to get like a a Blink app that puts the the text in there like captions or can I just put it straight on there for my phone? What do you think to start with?
**** C um there's on Instagram there's a sticker called captions that will put the captions on for you.
There you go.
So
after you after you upload your video, then just go to stickers and take the captions app and it'll put the captions on for you. I actually like that. Um it's just uh timewise it makes more sense for me to use Cap Cut and put the captions on and then have it to post on every platform rather than use Instagram's um app to create it and then have to remove the watermark and then post it.
**** Okay.
Yeah.
Okay. So, maybe Cap Cut, maybe Instagram, depending on where people want to start. It's a lot of great practical advice kind of wrapped around this idea that uh hey friends, we we've got to do this. You have to if you're not telling your story, someone else is and they're not going to tell it the same way you would. So, you've got to start the storytelling piece that that David has found. And what we just heard is that there's a right way to do it and there's some techniques that you need. Okay, we love getting a coach here, but you also have to get started. So, you got to get started somewhere. David, what's next for you?
**** What's next for you in your journey?
Wow. What's next for me is um is getting out from the shadows and speaking more and sharing more with people about content creating.
Yeah.
Um I I did a I did a con concert uh a week and a half ago. It was my first concert in several years and I loved it. And at the afterwards, some of my friends from high school were there and I said, "All right, I'm going to do 40 of these in 2025." And what I really meant is I'm going to do 40 events uh you know, out in public where I either sing or speak. So that's what's next. Man, I'm I'm excited because I realize it's so I find so much satisfaction that I have knowledge that really can move the needle for someone. I was having a conversation with someone and they were inviting me to something they're doing and I said, "I'm just curious. Um, it seems like a really great event. Um, is there a VIP version?" And and and she said, "No." I said, "Oh, okay." Because you know, and I explained to her like a lot of the offers now Nowadays, you have a general and then you have a VIP version
**** and you add some extra value because there's some people like I know there are some people that every day whenever I'm posting a prayer, they're going to be one of the first people to comment and they're going to have a, you know, something robust to say, right? Yeah.
So, they're like your inner circle, right? And so those kind of people, they want the VIP experience like, "Yeah, I'm going to come to David's event, but like can I hang out with David? Like, is there a special aftergo? Do I get to ask questions? And so I shared that with her and she changed and she um added the VIP to her offer because there's a reason why these gurus are doing it. You know, it's it it works and it adds to your bottom line, but more importantly, it gives greater value and service to those in your community who want more of you.
**** Yeah, that's good. That's real good. All right. Well, this has got to be published and now so you've got 40 events you've got to pump out in 2025. It's it's out and it's public, man. So, We may have tricked you into that, but it's out there, so you got to go do it now.
All right.
Hey, David, where can uh where can people find out more about you and the work that you do? Maybe bring you on as a coach for them and their school. Can you give us the URLs and and we'll put all of it in the show notes is and your your social handles as well, but go ahead and give us some of the URLs and or your academy that we can learn some more.
**** Sure. contentcreatingacademy.com. contentcreatingacademy.com if you want to send me a message. Um, email me at [email protected]. So, my social handles are um David Griffith 07 on Tik Tok, David Griffith's music on YouTube, David the Digital Creator on Instagram, and those are the those are the basic places to find me.
Yeah, that's great. And when they do you're going to have followers and you're going to have comments and these morning and and evening prayers. There's 300 plus comments on everyone. It's like right people get it and and they appreciate it and I appreciate you coming on today to share with our principles. I think they can all find some tangential uh next step for themselves. So, David, thanks for being on today. I appreciate it.
**** My pleasure. Thank you.
All right, PBL Simplified administrators uh that the challenge is out to you. Your social media cannot just It's not just there to be there for announcements of when parent teacher conferences are. You need to engage your community. You need to engage your your parents uh in a way that uh enlightens them that educates them that lets them know more about you and your school. That work is important for building that culture that you are passionate about building. So this is another layer and we're hoping that
