Volume Gets You Seen, Authenticity Gets You Remembered

The panel was about social media, AI, and how you turn attention into real relationships. We each came at it from a different place. Sagun built an audience from zero, Khoa makes video for businesses for a living, Matt runs a nonprofit, and I spend my days building AI workflows for small businesses.

We still ended up in the same place, and that became the theme of the afternoon:

Sagun Sedai: Volume First, Then Value

Sagun started The Austin Report with zero followers. Gene asked him what moved the needle first, and he answered in one word: volume.

He was posting 10 or 11 times a day and recording at 1, 2, and 3 a.m. His view is that the "don't post too much" advice is a myth. On Instagram, a steady flow of content works in your favor with the algorithm.

Volume only works if every post gives people something, though. Sagun's value is showing people what's happening around them: the Samsung factory, Firefly Aerospace going public out of Cedar Park, a local business nobody knew about yet. People want to know what's going on near their house. Real estate agents want to know where their clients should move. And a business gets customers who say "I didn't know this existed, I have to go."

My Part: AI Is a Tool, So Point It at Real Work

Gene asked me what a small business owner who feels overwhelmed by social media should automate first. My honest answer is that it depends on the business. Some owners need help with marketing and social. Others have lead lists sitting around and need the outreach and follow-up to actually happen.

Either way, you start with your audience. There are a lot of ways to reach someone: their inbox, their phone, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook. Work out who you're trying to reach, then build your workflows around the content that reaches them.

For most owners, the highest-leverage habit is simple:

1. Film yourself as much as you can, in your shop, on a job site, wherever the work happens.
2. Get the transcripts and ask AI for the best lines you said.
3. Clip those lines into short videos, sized for YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok.

That turns one afternoon of filming into a month of content.

I also talked about what AI actually does well right now. It's best at computer work: coding, transcription, planning, and more and more of the editing. A lot of my recent workflows are about the details that make video look edited. If four people are cut into one clip, each speaks at a different pace, and the captions have to match each speaker. The animations have to make sense from one scene to the next. B-roll has to show up at the right moment.

Gene put it well when he followed up: AI isn't a replica of who you are. It's an extension of who you are.

Khoa Le: Stopping the Scroll Is Not the Same as Connecting

Khoa, founder of ATX Media Haus, made the distinction I heard people repeating afterward. The video that makes you stop scrolling and the video that makes you connect are not the same video.

A hook, a flashy visual, or a satellite zoom down to the house can stop a thumb. But if the video doesn't give the viewer anything, the attention is gone as fast as it came. Khoa called it value versus virality, and for him the difference comes down to storytelling:

• Have a key message, and be honest with yourself and your audience.
• Aim for "that's me." The best reaction is a viewer thinking I've been there, I've done that. That's how trust gets built.
• Don't expect one viral video. Businesses that go viral usually posted hundreds or thousands of videos first.

On branding, he said the hard work happens at the start. Do the market research. Know what you sell and who you sell to. Build an avatar for each customer group: where they spend time, what they search for, what language they use. If you're talking to Gen Z in baby boomer language, it won't land.

His example was Apple. The ads barely mention specs. They show an Apple Watch helping save someone's life. The customer is the hero of the story.

Three Hours a Week: Where Does the Time Go?

Gene then asked everyone the same question: if you only had three hours a week for your online presence, where would the time go?

What AI Still Can't Fake

The last question was the one the whole panel had been building toward: AI can write the post, edit the video, and run the outreach, so what can't it fake?

Khoa compared it to a student who hands in an AI answer word for word. The teacher knows right away, because it doesn't sound like the student. The fix is to talk with the AI and give it a lot of context. The more you work with it, the more it sounds like you. It still won't match a human, but it saves a huge amount of time.

Gene uses AI for his copy but still proofreads and edits every post, because sometimes it just doesn't sound like him. (That got us onto em dashes. Everyone in the room seemed to know that tell.)

Sagun was the most direct. He tried an AI avatar and posted it as a trial reel on Instagram, and his audience asked who that guy was. It sounded robotic, used words he'd never say, and had none of his energy.

The Takeaway

If I had to sum up the afternoon for a small business owner, it would be this:

• Use AI for the busywork: transcripts, clips, captions, resizing, first drafts, and follow-ups.
• Keep the parts only you can do: your face, your voice, your stories, and actually replying to people.
• Post often, but give people something every time.
• Know who you're talking to before you make anything.

AI makes it cheaper to show up. That means showing up as yourself matters more than it used to.

Thank You

Thank you to Sagun Sedai and Gene Griffin for building Do'ers Club and inviting me, to Meritage Homes for hosting us in Hutto, and to Matt Worthington and the Best Day Ever Foundation for the work the evening's proceeds went to. Thanks also to Khoa for sharing the stage, and to everyone who came out and stayed to talk afterward.