Episode 39: Content Marketing and Fraud Fighting with David Weaver

As fraud fighters, we can get so focused on fraud, investigations, prevention, awareness, and schemes that we forget it's important to tell people what it is that we do. In this week's episode, Leah interviews David Weaver, Senior Product Marketing Specialist for INFORM's RiskShield software, about the fraud fighting industry and recommendations for great content marketing. If you're a small business owner and looking for content inspiration, this is definitely an episode you don't want to miss!

David Weaver is the Senior Product Marketing Specialist for INFORM's RiskShield software. David's experience in marketing and communication includes the successful creation and implementation of a SEA, SEO, social media and content marketing strategy. His current focus is on combating fraud and other financial crimes while at the same time creating awareness about certain fraud schemes and sharing knowledge within this space. One method for doing so is his contribution to the #FraudFactFriday tag using both written and video content as well as the new LinkedIn Live function. He is also involved with all marketing activities for INFORM’s RiskShield software - a risk assessment, fraud prevention and AML compliance monitoring solution which provides unprecedented response time to the constant changing modus operandi of financial criminals.

Connect with David on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidweaveraachen/

Follow David's #FraudFactFriday for articles and live stream content about fraud.

Subscribe to Workman Forensics.

Transcript of Episode 39: Content Marketing and Fraud Fighting with David Weaver

Leah Wietholter (00:00):

Hi, I'm Leah Wietholter owner of Workman forensics. And this is the investigation game podcast.

Leah Wietholter (00:13):

Welcome to the investigation game podcast. I'm Leah Wietholter, CEO of Workman forensics in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Today, we're going to merge two of my favorite topics, content marketing, and fraud awareness. I'm excited to have David Weaver joining me today for this discussion David lives and works in Germany as the senior product marketing specialist at INFORM software. And he's also the creator of the LinkedIn live stream. Hashtag fraud fact, Friday, David has experience in marketing and communication through the successful creation and implementation of a SEA SEO, social media and content marketing strategy. His current focus is on combating fraud and other financial crimes. While at the same time, creating awareness about certain fraud schemes and sharing knowledge within the space. Welcome to the podcast, David, thank you, Leah, for having me. I'm very excited to be here. Yeah. So excited to talk to you because we're going to just kind of change things up a little bit, your route to all things, fraud industry is just different from other guests, which is why I'm excited to have you on this episode. So first will you share with us a little bit about your background?

David Weaver (01:22):

Yeah, so I was born and raised in California in the US I studied at San Jose state university and I was actually initially a criminal justice major. I always found the idea of stopping people from doing bad things, compelling, preventing crimes and things like that, but that route actually didn't work out for me. Found out that I wouldn't be able to do a lot of the field work. I was looking forward to due to some vision issues. So I switched to business administration and my studies and there, my concentration was strategic marketing while many people might not know about me. My first career was in the landscape industry. I worked at a garden center. I helped people design their, their yards starting at 16, even working through college. So I know a lot about plants, which helps me zero in the fraud space, but it's yeah, an interesting little point, but in 2009 I moved to Germany while my wife is German and I always wanted my master's degree and I also made it my goal to speak fluently the native language of my wife.

David Weaver (02:36):

So I, yeah, we headed to Germany and I did learn German and that was quite a challenge, but yeah, and I did get my master's degree in international business management with marketing and change management concentrations. And in 2011, I got my first job in Germany at the inform software and they're experts in hybrid digital decision making and providing fraud prevention and AML compliance solutions globally and active in many other industries as well. And my start was in the supply chain industry, which is also quite an exciting industry, I have to say. But I always knew about the fraud fighters and the other business unit at Inforum. And I always had my eye on, on what they were doing. And after a short break from Inforum, I came back to work with the colleagues over in the risk and fraud division and in 2019. So that's kind of my professional. You can almost call me a newbie, I guess, to that the fraud world I'm going on a year and a half now, but it was always kind of in the back of my head.

Leah Wietholter (03:51):

Yeah. Wow. That, that is an interesting route to get here. So I do wish that I had paid more attention to my grandma's tips about landscaping and so forth. So I just feel like that's an amazing life skill that you have. I wish I had paid more attention when I was younger because I need my yard work done. But in your current role now, what do you do for this fraud and risk group within your company?

David Weaver (04:21):

So I'm, I'm involved in product marketing and that is my main focus. So also content marketing, which we're going to get a lot into and yeah, finding creative ways to get kind of the message across regarding fraud.

Leah Wietholter (04:40):

Awesome. So what is it about fraud that caught your attention and caused you to jump in, to learn more and then to create the content that you now share?

David Weaver (04:48):

So I think it's this, this interest I mentioned previously, the reason I wanted to study criminal justice you know, catching people, doing bad things, preventing people from doing bad things. I'll never, also never forget the time my mom had her ATM card skimmed data stolen. It was a long time ago. I don't remember the details, but it's the fact that this is this experience burned into my memory from a time was 20 years ago where you, where you don't have a ton of memories, but it just displays the gravity of the situation. Being a fraud victim can be traumatic and, and have lasting impact lasting effects usually does. It's a big process to come out of. And that's why I think it's, it's important to fight against all types of fraud. Even back before I was working for the risk and fraud department at informed my cross paths with Michael scuba known in the industry as dr.

David Weaver (05:50):

Fraud was also a guest on a, on one of my podcasts. I helped the then marketing team do a video series with him. And the topics he covered were just really interesting to me and it motivated me to learn more and I read his book on the psychology of fraud and my wife's a psychologist. So that had also been a topic of interest for me. And I wrote my master's thesis and the field of behavioral economics. So adding this psychological and behavioral aspect to the whole fraud theme really peaked my interest and coming back now, after coming back to the risk and fraud department, all this led me to begin thinking about ways to get the message out about trending fraud schemes to help people avoid becoming victims of fraud because in this space it's, I mean, knowledge is power and we need to get the word out to help protect people.

David Weaver (06:51):

And there are systems out there that work 24 seven 24 seven to, to identify fraud seven days a week online trying to prevent fraud elder fraud, for example I get really frustrated when this topic of elder fraud comes up. I always think of my my great grandma. She lived to be 101, and just the sweetest, most caring person. And just from a different generation, a trusting generation believing the best in each individual. The problem is fraudsters, know this, and they know how to take advantage of this generation, which is why. For example, I thought it was really cool coming back to the, the systems that are working, that one of informs customer's financial institution used our tool to set up an extra level of protection for their elderly customers to protect them from the abuse and common schemes that were coming across.

David Weaver (07:57):

But these systems institutions that we kind of rely on, again, back to the case of my mom back 20 years ago, the bank did call and notify her about some odd transactions. This is just one aspect of very important one, a fraud fighting, but there's a whole other level of knowledge exchange that needs to happen. Make a call to your mom or to your grandma. See if anything has been off. Have, have there been any weird phone calls recently, any packages showing up that, that weren't ordered and so on. So or phishing attacks pass that info onto you if you don't pass the mail on of course, but pass the info on to your, to your friends, to your family, to your colleagues, to your it department, get proactive, share knowledge, share these experiences. And that's how that's how I came up with the idea for fraud fact where, you know, I'm not pushing any products or systems or, or anything else on these posts. Usually not, at least I'm mostly just trying to create awareness around the trending fraud topics and encourage knowledge exchange within the fraud fighting community.

Leah Wietholter (09:15):

Yeah. I completely agree. I it's. I used to say whenever I actually had somebody on staff very early on that said he came, he came into my office one day and said, Leah, I just need you to teach me everything. You know? And I don't like, I mean, I laughed and I was like, eh, but I didn't, I wasn't trying to be arrogant. It was just like, how do I share years of experience of studying and working on cases? You know, when a case comes in, I know what to do because I've seen it so many times. And so I think I agree that sharing that information with your audience and with as many people or like my grandma, I mean, I've told my grandma fraud stories since I, since I worked at the FBI at my grandma is pretty paranoid about being scammed, but having just at least that thought in your mind that, Oh, this may not be a hundred percent legitimate. Like just have that thought so that there's some sort of skepticism, so completely agree. I am curious because you mentioned it a couple times. What types of fraud and risk products does your company provide?

David Weaver (10:21):

So, yeah, I mean, the product is called Richfield and it's use in various application areas. For example we have an upcoming event in the, in the payment space where we're looking at reducing friction and e-commerce payments while being compliant with three D secure and PSD two regulations of the PSD two regulations. So this is one space in the payments space, ensuring safe payments, legitimate payments. There's also the insurance side of things where we're identifying fraudulent claims through different techniques. We're also in the telecommunication space where we are helping telecommunication companies avoid fraud situations. So there's various application areas where we are active.

Leah Wietholter (11:17):

Yeah. Awesome. So you have met all kinds of anti-fraud professionals through your fraud, frack Friday. Have you observed anything unique or unexpected about the fraud fighting community?

David Weaver (11:29):

Yeah, I mean, it definitely seems to be a tight knit group on LinkedIn. It's a community that's very creative with hashtags. It's actually how I came across Kelly Paxton and Matt Christiansen. They were having a battle back and forth about the most creative hashtags kind of, they both ended up being guests on fraught fact Friday, the live show it's been just overall an enormous learning experience for me getting involved in this community. It's already been worth my time putting out these fraud fact Friday episodes. I just mentioned my absolute disdain for elder fraud, but then I had Christina Frisella on the show, for example, who opened my eyes to a whole new world of rebel grandparents, the hardcore fraudsters amongst the older generations, a so-called gray collar crime, big surprise to me, big eyeopener, some of the details in that interview. And then just the whole aspect of that, that fraudster being the person next to you at church or the colleague that everyone at work gloves, this whole pink collar crime messaging from Kelly really shifted my perspective on what defines a fraudster, what that fraudster looks like.

David Weaver (12:47):

And then there's this whole had a few episodes on cyber security that I did with Gabriel Friedlaender and Matt Christensen. Thomas O'Malley is an amazing trio for cyber security awareness. Their insights are great. And for me personally, it was just an in my, my personally identifiable information, what I took away from these it's so important to keep that stuff safe. These are episodes that help people understand how to do that. Our episode of course was great where we focused on things like payroll fraud and forensic accounting seems to be a whole subgroup on LinkedIn focusing on that area. And I had a couple of episodes on artificial intelligence, which just shows the stark contrast to the importance of human involvement in investigations that we stress a lot. And this is just reinforced my belief that the world of fraud and fraud prevention is going to be moving even further into this hybrid approach to preventing and detecting fraud that human touch, that human experience combined with emerging technologies past experiences, meeting new age machine learning and AI approaches.

David Weaver (14:04):

This is again, another interesting topic was my, with my interview with Mark Anderson on, on the topic of conducting successful interviews, where we had this again, this positioning of old techniques and new technology, how is today's tech influencing this process of interviewing it's there it's being used now we're faced with new challenges of just mostly digital interviews. But there's still this, this missing factor of the human touch them which plays a role. And yeah, one thing I have to say that has been stressed through nearly all of my interviews and contact with the community is the importance of training and staying up to date with the latest industry developments, how that's key to this cat and mouse game that's being played. But yeah, in any event, it's definitely an exciting world that we're involved in.

Leah Wietholter (14:59):

For sure. I would have to say that I did not really jump in to the LinkedIn world for a long time, mainly because I was just like in survival mode for a long, for a lot of my career and starting a business and stuff. And so I was more in the, you know, studying how to like entrepreneurship podcasts and things like that. But man, within the last couple of years, getting into this LinkedIn community that they just love and talk about fraud for prevention, everything you just listed and then like through fraud, frack Friday, and then, I mean, that's inspired other fraud professionals to start their own live streams. So I think it's awesome how all of this information can help keep us like informed, you know, I mean, I have to get CPE every year and that's, that's great, but I mean, this is like real time information and things that we're seeing. And so anyway, I think it's cool. I think it's cool. And that's how I met you was just jumping in on LinkedIn and yeah. Gosh Kelly with her hashtags. Oh man. She's hilarious. Yeah. Okay. So let's jump over a little bit more on the marketing content, mainly content marketing side of things. So what is it about marketing that you enjoy and what has, I guess kind of become your specialty?

David Weaver (16:18):

I guess for me, it's the creativity side of things. Again, finding new fun and engaging ways to get oftentimes old messages across to people just in a, in a new way. And it's often not an easy task. Yeah. Another exciting part is that there's just an ever evolving set of tools that can be used. And it's just a rapidly changing industry. There's always a new social media platform popping up. There's always a new way to engage and just keeping up with that as a challenge in itself. Yeah. So this is, this keeps things exciting for sure. I also enjoy writing. I actually prefer the fraud fact Friday posts where I utilize like the full character length of, of LinkedIn that they allow and add a picture and just try to start a conversation around a trending fraud topic. I prefer that over the video posts, I have to say that I do, but again, also these video posts are fun. I'm trying to find a balance there, but yeah, I'm definitely more comfortable putting out the written word than, than videos. I guess you could say that the written word is my specialty. But I think, yeah, my willingness to try out new formats has proven to be a success factor in finding the right content for the

Leah Wietholter (17:50):

Right audience. Yeah. I think that's probably one of the most challenging things is to identify who that audience is. I know we struggled with that in the first good chunk of even this podcast, like who is our audience and how do we target them? And then of course, how does that translate to social media and all those things, we'll be right back to this interview.

Alycia (18:12):

So Leah, since the investigation game was first put out into the world, we finally have a second game. Yes we do. So I want to know all about it. What's different from case of a man cave. What is this game about and how can players access?

Leah Wietholter (18:29):

This investigation game is called the case of the cashflow fiasco. And this is really focusing on the risks to vendors and creditors when their customers are having cashflow issues and some of the things to look out for, and some of the fraud schemes that can be implemented because when a customer is in a cashflow crisis, they're looking for anything to just keep them and, and to try to help them get through a cashflow fiasco. Right? And so in the beginning presentation, we talk about those things. We talk about the risks that are involved and things that vendors and creditors can do to just monitor for these cashflow issues. Then you have 30 minutes to play the actual game. And what's cool about this game is that this one was actually made to play virtually. So you can play as an individual. You can play as a group, you can play with your chapter, but it's 100% digital online.

Leah Wietholter (19:27):

It was made for that. Not just adapted for online because COVID happened. So I'm really excited. This one, I also think has more of an escape room type feel. And you have the 30 minutes to put together how much was stolen, how did they do it? What existed, what didn't exist. There's a lot of really fun things and what I love and what you have been busting to make over the last few weeks are just all of these super creative elements of videos. And I don't, I don't want to spoil it and give it away, but like, there's just so many cool elements that you and Rachel have put together in this game. And then of course at the end, we'll do another 10 minute presentation of the solution. And we'll be able to tell people which players playing scored the highest points and we'll have a leaderboard and like all this stuff. So really excited for the case of the cashflow fiasco. And this one is a 15 minute training. So you don't have to carve out two hours of your day. You can just play this for 50 minutes and get your CPE. And right now we will be taking presales and scheduling people to play this game through the inbox Tober, and then we'll just have it on our website and you can go out and sign up and play it on our website. But it's a lot of fun.

Alycia (20:40):

Cool. Well, I'm excited for it.

Leah Wietholter (20:43):

Me too. You don't want to miss out. Believe me now, hopefully guys are excited for it too, to learn more about the case of the cashflow fiasco, go to the investigation game.com. Welcome back to the podcast. Where do you see content marketing going and what are some strategies that might've worked in the past, but maybe they're just not working

David Weaver (21:06):

As well now. And maybe she'd be abandoned altogether. I honestly, I honestly don't know. My initial thought is to say down the drain, I see it going down the drain. Because you know, I keep up with the latest trends in content marketing and there's a, there's a block of experts out there. You know, the, the, the gurus telling people to put out 20 pieces of content per day, they say, you know, push the message. They won't see you otherwise. And to me, that's just adding to the noise. I don't think it's, I don't think anyone realistically can put out 20 pieces of content per day, that is helpful to their particular target audience. I'm, I'm more of a quality over quantity person with the core rule of being helpful. You need to be helpful. There's an enormous amount of content out there, even in our space.

David Weaver (22:09):

And this is why it's required of us to be original, to bring something useful to the conversation. And it's important to make it personal. We all have our experiences. So tie those experiences into a piece of content that will help other professionals in this space be successful. To me, everything else is noise. And regarding 20 pieces of content, I mean, I say set goals for your content marketing strategy strategy that are realistic. You tell someone you go and tell someone new to the content marketing space to produce 20 pieces of content. They're going to be overwhelmed and likely give up. But this is how sorry, this is how a fraud fact Friday came about. I made it my goal to share either a personal experience or some other form of knowledge sharing with the community once per week. It turned out to be Friday because fraud and fact both start with F and sounded good together.

David Weaver (23:21):

Now looking back, I probably would've picked a different day, but it's the way it is. But I think to sum up the first part of your question people are tired of seeing poor, irrelevant content that and might just be enough to gain a reputation as that person that is putting out the content that is helpful, even if it's once a yeah, I think that's, that's the way to go as far as things in the past that might not be working now. I don't know. I think I see, I see on LinkedIn other platform to see these articles and not, I don't want to insult anyone or anything. I see these articles say is blogging. Dead is video. Dead is podcasting dead. I don't like these posts because the answer is always no, it's just like an attention grabbing headline. And that's a big thing I push is content marketing is way more than a headline.

David Weaver (24:21):

I think people focus way too much on headlines to have someone click and then be just thoroughly disappointed by the content that's in the article. I think more effort needs to be put into the articles themselves that are then helpful. But anyways, this, these types of posts that I don't like, and I wouldn't write the dead posts are dead. And yeah another thing that I think doesn't really work that well is to only communicate with people as a logo. I think having a company showcase page website these are all important aspects. But if you don't make your brand personal, if you don't show the people behind that brand, if you don't show the experience they have, you're not going to have a successful brand and content strategy. So you need to throw out the logos that are shouting at people about how great their product is.

David Weaver (25:21):

Those messages need to go out the window and the brand needs to be given a personality through the workers displaying the workers that make that brand great. And another thing that should probably be thrown out the window also on popular opinion, probably or the scripted messages that these automation things, I see a ton of it on social media. It's essentially logo speaking through the puppet employees and it's not authentic. And I believe it's truly these personal experiences and this knowledge that is shared that that proves to be most successful, not a regurgitated standard message and direct LinkedIn messages paid, sponsored, direct LinkedIn messages, throw that out the window to wouldn't do it. I've never read one.

Leah Wietholter (26:13):

I think I a hundred percent agree with all of your recommendations and things that just as, you know, somebody receiving those messages or running across those things, yes. Like I'm looking for something that's valuable. And that solves a problem. And I was actually talking with our creative producer this week about, you know, like she was asking, how do you get more followers and all of this? And I said, you know what? I am okay if our don't get like a ton of likes, if we're being consistent and becoming like this database of information so that whenever people are searching for things that they find us. So, and that whatever they find, like, maybe it wasn't popular in the moment whenever we posted it, but it answers their question in the moment they're looking for it. And so that's, that's where I've been kind of, I mean, I've been having to shift my thoughts because if there's not a whole lot of interaction on social media and, you know, that creates this feedback, sometimes it can just feel bad.

Leah Wietholter (27:19):

It can kind of feel disappointing. But if I think of it as I'm really just building this repository of valuable information, and we actually had somebody that was outside of the state of Oklahoma, which is super exciting for us contact us and say, Oh my goodness, I found a video on YouTube of you guys, and you specifically addressed what I'm facing right now. And I need to talk to somebody and like, that's how I've been viewing social media. So I love hearing all of your recommendations and just your thoughts on this, because I don't feel crazy now. So

David Weaver (27:55):

Yeah, I think we need to be careful also with, with follower numbers. I just started just again, to the topic of branding a shield it's called a showcase page Richfield by informed page. And I was asked the question, well, how many followers do you want to have? And for me, I don't care. I think if I have 50 engaged followers, it's better than a thousand followers that don't care what we're posting. So we need to be careful with follower numbers and not to get down about those. And that we, we do need to look for engagements and use those as indications for future content. But like you said, it could be in the moment it might've missed the audience. But that's why it needs to be a focus on evergreen content that we can share again, perhaps with a different question perhaps in a different scope in a different framework, but then repurpose it at a later date. Yeah, just additional thoughts on that.

Leah Wietholter (28:53):

Yeah. And that kind of leads me to a personal question that I had for you on this for this episode is just as, as we're posting social media posts. And, you know, you've kind of mentioned some about starting conversations. So is starting a conversation as a social media post, a good strategy for professionals or corporate brands. Do you think people enjoy interacting with those things, you know, are the followers wanting to participate in this way? Just your thoughts on that.

David Weaver (29:23):

It depends you will probably experience not having answers for awhile which shouldn't keep you from sharing these conversation starters in the future. Sometimes it helps. I am very careful with tagging people, but I do know that if there is someone my go to person, any, any one of the many guests I had on front fact Friday is a go to person for me. And if I've got a topic that I need to opinion on, I'm going to tag them either in the comments or within the post itself. And a lot of times that's an excellent way to get the conversation started because then their network sees that they've engaged with this conversation and not everyone is of the same opinion and they'll want to jump in and add their part. So I think I'm using the tagging function when you're wanting to get a conversation started is important.

David Weaver (30:15):

But I also think that changing up how the conversation has started is important. One time you can post a video clip of one minute and say, what do you think on this? Maybe tag an expert in this space. I don't believe in tagging a whole Trobe, just an enormous amount of people. I think that's spam. Other people call it growth, hacking whatever, but for me, it's, it's just getting those go to experts that, you know, are going to have an opinion one or two and try and get the conversation started that way either as a video. Another cool thing is this poll option. I don't know if you've done one yet on LinkedIn, but starting a poll and then letting that pull clothes out. And then kind of doing an analysis of that pole could be a way to start conversation. Why do you think it turned out this way? So changing up how you're posing the questions to start the conversation, tagging people? Yeah, it could be good ways to, to create that conversation.

Leah Wietholter (31:19):

Perfect. Thanks. Since Alicia is going to be editing this video, then she can hear these ideas as well, and maybe we'll get some good conversations started. I do agree that the whole, like, I don't even think it had occurred to me to tag a whole bunch of people, but you're right. I mean, we've had so many guests on this podcast and a lot of them are on LinkedIn, very active on LinkedIn. So I'm sure that if they were just tagged their social media, you know, just the way that I think in data and all of that, like, I don't like playing the odds of social media, like how many people are going to see my post at a certain time and Oh, the time changed. And then the algorithm, just all of that just seems so exhausting. So the idea of tagging people that we have relationships with to start the conversation, it makes a lot of sense. So thank you. That's, that's a tip I needed

David Weaver (32:09):

When it, when it comes to timing and everything. I got a lot of critique for doing it in Germany. My post come out on a Friday afternoon. But just the fact that people are talking about that proved that, okay. Maybe it's not such a bad idea to post something Friday afternoon. It's Friday morning in the U S I think consistency is key. So if you, if you start a series then keep it on that day and just see how it develops. You won't know anything for probably months. You just have to kind of monitor how things go.

Leah Wietholter (32:42):

Okay. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So in our world of fraud investigation, and particularly like forensic accountants, because you're right, that, as you said earlier, the fraud space is just, it seems like a niche, but then within that niche, it's extremely diverse. So in the area of fraud investigation, forensic accountants, there are a lot of small shops where like the investigator, you know, or any, even private investigators in marketing content marketing specifically, what are three areas that you would re recommend focusing on to spread awareness of a brand or a cause that, you know, in a small shop, like, yes, I do this podcast, but at the same time, like we had to get a case out yesterday, you know? So just kind of, I guess, cost benefit and, or even just some tips that you would have to be able to stay consistent when it can't be your full time job and you don't have a full time staff member to do.

David Weaver (33:37):

Yeah. I guess the first thing I would say is that you need to be where your audiences and one spot that is guaranteed to be, what's one of the many apps that we have on our phones. It's figuring out which one that is. I think LinkedIn truly is the place to be with the fraud fighting community. It might also well be that the eyeballs are in a particular particular industry magazine. And that's where you need to be with an article and with an ad. And I think that's the biggest challenge is figuring out where those eyeballs are. But once you've done that, then you can really figure out which type of content you should be producing. And then I would say a lot of growth needs to happen organically cause budgets, aren't huge. So you need to make use of existing platforms podcasts and blogs.

David Weaver (34:30):

They need to be pitched with ideas, but I mean, really, I get a lot of emails like, Oh I want to be on the podcast. What, how does that work? Not, that's not a pitch. I, I pitched, for example, LinkedIn, I, I wrote them like a page on my plans for fraud fact Friday and what that would be as a benefit. And I got access to, to live broadcasting. It needs to be a solid pitch to existing platforms, especially ones with a good a good audience where your target audience is. And share with them the knowledge that you want to share with the community and get on those platforms. Don't start your own platform because there are a lot of them out there that exists like this one. If you do have the resources, now I'm going to contradict myself, create your own platform because even if it's a weekly series that you start, you can show that continuity. I talked about show yourself as a reliable source of information. And again, if you do have a budget, I think I'm probably on the fourth tip. You said three, but if you do have a bit of money to spend what you want to do an ad, I would say I, I just bash LinkedIn sponsored messaging, but LinkedIn ads, the ad platform has made huge improvements in recent months. So it's worth a test for lead generation.

Leah Wietholter (36:02):

Well, man, there's some really great ideas. I wish I had talked to you before I started a podcast. No, I'm just kidding, but I didn't even think about it. It actually wasn't until I started a podcast that I thought, Oh, I've pitched, you know, I used to have somebody do PR for me and she'd pitch stories to the local newspaper and then news stations. And that worked well. But I thought, Oh man, there's this whole other world where they could actually pitch story ideas or interview ideas to podcasts. And, but I didn't think about it until I had already started a podcast, but this has become one of my favorite things. So I'm happy that I did it, but but yeah, it's definitely time consuming. And so I love that idea of if, if I was just by myself and didn't have the team that I have to pitch to other podcasts and to be strategic about it, like you said. So that's, that's awesome. Well, this has been a really fun conversation for me. I think it is awesome how you're like getting to use what you enjoy and even just the connection to the criminal justice that you were interested in before. I just think this is just a cool spot for you and I'm like, I'm excited for you and what you're doing and what you're producing. And so if our listeners want to connect with you, where are some of the best places to do that?

David Weaver (37:25):

Probably LinkedIn is the best place. I have a Twitter account, I have many email addresses, but my favorite spot to engage is on LinkedIn. So anybody can feel free to send out a, a connection request and I'm happy to connect.

Leah Wietholter (37:42):

Okay, great. Well, we'll put the link to your LinkedIn profile in the show notes and also, you know, just encourage everyone to, to follow you and to follow the hashtag fraud fact Friday so that they can see future episodes and even, you know, look at some of the old ones and cause it really is great information and I am just so thankful to have met you in this way and, and to have you on the show. So thanks so much for joining me.

David Weaver (38:11):

Thank you for having me on the show. Definitely an honor of mine looking at your guest list and I am very hopeful that this was helpful. Something I stress throughout the whole interview to your community. And yeah, my first, this is my first podcast interview. So thanks for giving me the opportunity as a guest. I hosted many but first as a guest. So thanks for giving me that opportunity. I appreciate it.

Leah Wietholter (38:42):

Absolutely. The investigation game podcast is a production of Workman forensics. For more information about the topics we discuss on each episode, please visit Workman forensics.com. If you enjoy this podcast, please make sure to subscribe and leave us a review. You can also connect with us on any of the social media platforms by searching Workman forensics. If you have any questions, comments, or topic ideas for the podcast, please email us at podcast@workmanforensics.com.