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"How Goldie Chan Became 'The Oprah of LinkedIn' Using LinkedIn Video" (Inbound Success Ep. 88)

LinkedIn is like the wild west for video creators, so what does it take to be a LinkedIn Top Voice and what the Huffington Post calls the "Oprah of LinkedIn?"

Goldie Chan

This week on The Inbound Success Podcast, I interviewed Goldie Chan, otherwise known as the "green haired Oprah of LinkedIn." Goldie has more than 45,000 followers on LinkedIn and garnered 3 million+ views on her daily LinkedIn video in under a year. She's been named a LinkedIn Top Voice (the highest honor bestowed by the platform) and is the owner of LinkedIn's longest-running daily show.

Goldie is indisputably one of the top thought leaders when it comes to LinkedIn video, and in this episode, she gets into the nitty gritty of how she approaches her LinkedIn Video strategy, including how she shoots her videos, writes the copy for the accompanying posts, and more.

This week's episode of The Inbound Success Podcast is brought to you by our sponsor, IMPACT Live, the most immersive and high energy learning experience for marketers and business leaders. IMPACT Live takes place August 6-7, 2019 in Hartford Connecticut and is headlined by Marcus Sheridan along with special guests including world-renowned Facebook marketing expert Mari Smith and Drift CEO and Co-Founder David Cancel. Inbound Success Podcast listeners can save 10% off the price of tickets with the code "SUCCESS".

Click here to learn more or purchase tickets for IMPACT Live

Some highlights from my conversation with Goldie include:

Goldie has the longest running daily video channel on LinkedIn, and has produced more than 600 daily consecutive LinkedIn videos.

Goldie produces and edits all of her LinkedIn videos herself and she says the key is to start by creating a video strategy and determining what the focus of your video content will be.

It took Goldie some time to build up her following and her advice for others is to approach it like a long term play and be committed to consistently producing content.

All of Goldie's video content is available through her LinkedIn profile which she refers to as her "channel." She does this to accustomize people to the notion that her profile is her content home base on LinkedIn.

Goldie uses the branded hashtag #DailyGoldie in all of her LinkedIn video posts and recommends that anyone who is serious about LinkedIn video use their own branded hashtag as a way of making it easier for followers to find their video posts.

She does not think it is a good idea to use what she calls a "hashtag wall" - essentially a long list of hashtags - because it does not help with YouTube SEO and is confusing for followers.

In terms of video quality, Goldie believes that people gravitate towards authenticity on the platform, so you don't need incredibly high quality video (and sometimes overly-produced videos can backfire). But she did say that videos should be in-focus, with good frame quality, good audio, and good lighting, and you should not be too close to the camera.

If possible, your LinkedIn videos should also be captioned (and if you're only posting videos once a week, captioning is a must).

Goldie has a very specific structure for the copy she creates to accompany her LinkedIn video posts, but she says you can create whatever structure you like so long as you don't use hashtag walls, you don't tag too many people, and you're not too salesy.

She uses emojis in her posts but says that if you do this, they need to be relevant and contextual.

She advises LinkedIn users to never use an emoji in their name on LinkedIn because it can break LinkedIn's code.

Resources from this episode:

Save 10% off the price of tickets to IMPACT Live with promo code "SUCCESS"

Connect with and follow Goldie on LinkedIn

Follow #DailyGoldie on LinkedIn

Visit the Warm Robots website

Check out Goldie's LinkedIn Learning classes

Follow Goldie on Twitter

Follow Goldie on Instagram

Read Goldie's column on Forbes

Listen to the podcast to learn more about the power of LinkedIn video and get specific tips from Goldie on how to use LinkedIn video to grow your business and brand.

Transcript

Kathleen Booth (Host): Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast. Welcome back to the Inbound Success Podcast, my name is Kathleen Booth and I am your host. And this week I am especially excited to say that my guest is Goldie Chan, who is known as the green-haired Oprah of LinkedIn.

Welcome, Goldie. Goldie Chan (Guest): Thank you for having me.

Goldie and Kathleen all smiles while recording this episode

Kathleen: I am really excited, maybe a little too much, it might be a little weird.

About Goldie Chan

Kathleen: So I'll just say a few words about you, and then I'm going to ask you to introduce yourself to our audience. So just, Goldie, I started following her because I was, personally, interested in getting better at LinkedIn video, and her name kept popping up, and her face kept popping up. And I just quickly realized that she was the one really doing it first, and so I started to LinkedIn stalk her, and then Twitter stalk her.

But she's got her own social media agency, Warm Robots, she is an influencer in the LinkedIn space, she's on the Producers Guild of America's new media council.

You put your hand in a lot of different things, and I probably won't do as great a job of covering it all as you would. So tell my audience a little bit more about you, and how you came to be this LinkedIn influencer.

Goldie: Sure. So I've worked, historically, in digital marketing, both on B2B and B2C side for over a decade; which always surprises people. And I worked from that ground up, I worked from the very lowest level entry level position to where I am today, and very different divergence from the traditional path.

But I currently am a contributor on Forbes, I write about storytelling and personal branding in the digital age, and I absolutely love my column that I get to write about that. And I have the longest running daily channel currently on LinkedIn, I am over 600 daily, consecutive videos right now, so I started in the beta and I kept going.

And one of the most interesting things, I think, is when you are doing daily consecutive content, which I'd personally never done before, you learn so much about yourself, your work ethic, your creative process, and how you can also teach that creative process and, hopefully, that work ethic to other people and explain what works and what doesn't work.

And I also teach a few LinkedIn learning courses, one which is on LinkedIn video, and if you have a library card in California, Texas, or New York, I'm not sure about other states, you can get access to lynda.com for free, that's L-Y-N-D-A, and you can actually watch all three of my courses for free.

Kathleen: That's great, I love that. And I want to just pause for a second and underscore something you just said, because I feel like it would be easy to gloss over it.

Goldie: Yeah.

Kathleen: Over 600 daily, consecutive videos on LinkedIn. So if you're listening, she has posted a new video every single day for over 600 days. I don't think you could find many people out there who have done anything consistently in their life for 600 days straight; let alone produce video and content.

I heard you talk about this, I think, it was Social Media Week Toronto, I watched your talk on YouTube. And you talked about you were going into the desert with friends, and you realized you hadn't done your video and you, literally, had to leave the desert and go film it because you didn't want to break your streak.

Can you talk a little bit about just that consistency, because that's pretty amazing?

What It's Like To Produce 600 Consistent Daily Videos

Goldie: Sure. So I had been used to doing content for clients or content in-house. And this is very different, because there's a definitive strategy behind it, you don't do content first, you do the strategy first, then you bucket the content, and you do one entire process; and when I started doing video on LinkedIn, I didn't do any of that.

I was actually on a hiatus between my last role as Head of Marketing at a full time analytics startup, and getting my next role as Head of Marketing at some other sort of startup, and I was taking a month sabbatical. And during that month sabbatical, I got into the LinkedIn video beta and I decided, for really one of the first times in my life, that I would be doing content that wasn't geared towards monetization; it didn't necessarily have a goal, it was content that I would enjoy.

So the first 50 videos, or so, I did on branding and metrics of pop culture phenomenons, because this is how big of a marketing nerd I am, this is what I consider fun to do. So I talked about things like Harry Potter, trains in the US, ride sharing, all sorts of really interesting, different things that have really permeated, specifically, American culture.

And I think it was so interesting, because the first 10 or so I did I thought, "This is so painful." Really fun, but it's also painful because if you've never done daily video content before, and you do 10 in a row, it's a lot. Ten videos in a row, that's almost two weeks' worth of video, so your schedule changes from everyday you might create content to everyday you have to create content.

And this is what got me through 600 daily videos, this is what got me, truly, through the biggest and hardest milestone, which was 365 days or a full year of video. And every single one of those videos were unique, original content; so nothing was ever repurposed, it was 100 percent unique, original content. And I think what got me through that is that there was never a plan B.

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: So in all things in life, usually you have a plan B like, "If this doesn't work, then I just won't post today, I'll post two videos tomorrow, it'll be fine."

There was never, ever a plan B. I was on a flight back from London to the US and my video wasn't uploading, so I ended up uploading this video of me running across the gang plank onto the plane; that was just like a very short clip. I essentially live on airplanes too, so I travel a lot, so my fight with wifi is always ... My battle and love affair with WiFi; we have a very contentious relationship.

Kathleen: I was just going to say, you can never go off grid.

Goldie: Yeah, I never can go off grid. But I had this really great, edited long video, super thoughtful that I did for that day, and I couldn't upload it. So I upload this video of me running saying, "I am trying to upload this video, I'm going to see which of these videos uploads, hopefully you guys will see one of them." And ironically, of course, what video uploaded was the video of me running. This video uploads, which then it actually blew up, which is the best part because no one had ever uploaded, of course, a video a very meta video of them running to try to upload-

Kathleen: To try to upload a video.

Goldie: A video of them. So it's a video of me holding my laptop, which is attempting to upload the main video, and I'm on my camera phone videoing me running down this to catch my flight. So-

Kathleen: I love it.

Goldie: Shoot a meta video and what it takes in order to get, I think, if anybody's thinking about doing a 365 day challenge which is, to me, that's the true challenge. Can you do one day of video for an entire year?

I think it really does change you to make that kind of commitment to creating content, original content, not repurposed content every single day; because repurposed content is easy. When you don't feel like being on camera, you don't feel like, say, necessarily seeing yourself, or hearing your own voice, or seeing your work.

It's very easy to repurpose content, it's so much harder to create truly original content every single day.

Kathleen: Yeah, I have so many questions that I want to ask you about this. Starting with, really, is it ... They say that content creation, whether it's written or video, or what have you, is like a muscle that you have to exercise.

Doing this for 365 days, did you feel like it got easier? And like working out, where you get into the groove and you're like, "Oh, yeah, I can do this, I'm in a routine?" Or did that challenge persist throughout that time? How did that play out for you?

Goldie: I will say it's so funny we're talking about this today, because today I struggled with ... Today was video 610 for me. I struggled with doing a daily video today, and I almost repurpose an older video, which I do sometimes; now that I've passed 365 mark.

So it is a problem that continues to pop up is creating original ideas, coming up with a concept, actually executing on that concept and/or editing through my insanely giant backlog of video content that I still have. I still have several unedited videos that I will release at some point this year.

You never quite get over that hump of there will be days that are really, really tough; but overall, overall, it does get easier. So it is like working out where you may just have some bad days where you don't want to go the gym but, overall, you're so used to going to the gym. I'm so used to every single day, I will upload a video onto LinkedIn, and I could not do any other content.

I do social media for a living, but I could not access any of my other platforms, I could just avoid them all. But I know that I will always go on LinkedIn, and I will always upload some sort of video content period. And that is a promise I've made to myself as a content creator, and so it's a little bit different than if you were doing it for a client.

But also, once again, a lot of people assume that I outsource most of this to my team; I actually don't. And I don't do it, partially, because I am crazy but also, partially, because my team has other things that they're handling, too. They're handling a lot of the client work, they're doing other things, so I don't want to, necessarily, distract my team from that.

Although this year for myself, personally, because once again, I've gone over that 365 day hump, I will be giving them a little bit more, especially of the editing to do as I'm moving forward with my content creation. But I think it's really important for even if you're doing, say, a 50 video challenge to do it all yourself, because it teaches you what you need when you do hire somebody to handle this for you.

Kathleen: Yeah, amen. I am currently trying to do it myself, and it's been an interesting journey; so far I managed to get a couple of videos out. But I'm not highly technical, and I think a lot of people listening probably aren't either. You have your team, that's your web developers, your video producers. I have a whole video production team that works for me, but I'm not having them do this. Because right now, it's not a business strategy, that's something I'm doing for myself.

Creating a LinkedIn Video Strategy

Kathleen: So if someone's listening, I guess, you've mentioned starting with strategy; so let's actually start in the right order. When you're talking to somebody who's thinking about maybe investing in LinkedIn video for themselves, or to promote their business, how do you talk them through conceptualizing a strategy for it?

Goldie: Sure. So the thing I start with is, what I start with with all my clients when I think about content in general, which is, who is your target demographic, who are you're trying to speak to? Because then it's so much easier to figure out the kind of content that you should be doing.

So if your audience is very serious, or your audience is very light-hearted, this changes the kind of content that is optimized for the audience you want to speak to.

So I like to think about it as an audience or demographic, first piece; so that's number one is thinking about your demographic.

Number two is, what is either your personal brand, if you're coming at it from your personal brand, or what is the brand brand? What is the keywords, what is the thought process behind the brand that you're trying to promote?

So those are the two really big key pieces, and people tend to hop, skip over this. And they're like, "You know what would be fun? Is a show about blog." And I'm like, "That sound fun." And I was looking at to literally do a show about blog, and then it took off, but properly strategizing for this, you want to think about who your audience is, first. And if you do run your own business, and you are looking for, say, more customers or more clients, who are those customers and clients, and what kind of content would be of the highest value to them?

How Long Does It Take to Build a Following With LinkedIn Video?

Kathleen: Okay, now in your case, how long did it take before you started to see traction with your videos and gain followers?

Goldie: I'm laughing a little bit, which you guys can't see because this is audio only. I will say the first 30 days I did it, or the first ... I don't remember what month, I started in August; that's right. So the first month I did videos, all of my friends, including some who are content creators on other platforms, they all thought I was absolutely bananas, they thought I was nuts.

They were like, "Why are you making videos on this platform? You're getting maybe 100 views if you're lucky." So giving everybody my numbers when I started, so I'd get, maybe, 100 views if I was very lucky, maybe 10 likes if I was super duper lucky, and I just enjoyed the process of creativity.

So it took me a while before I saw traction, and I think it's really interesting that people now want that immediate traction, especially on LinkedIn video.

And yes, you can get there faster than you can on other platforms, but I had a meeting once with this young lady, she's super nice. She had done three videos; so just three videos 1, 2, 3. And she said, "Okay, how do I land a brand like WeWork, like you have a partnership with? I've done three videos, they've all been incredibly well."

It was so interesting to me to hear that she had only done, and I use that word strongly, only done three pieces of content and then expected a giant brand deal out of that. You have to put in the time, the energy, and the effort, so you have to put in more pieces of content. So the in this case, it was both quality and quantity that was being ignored.

And that is one thing to think about, which is when you're strategizing and thinking about doing LinkedIn video, can you commit to doing at least 10 videos? Can you commit to doing at least 20 videos? Can you commit to doing enough videos for you to see if you can get traction over two months, three months, as opposed to thinking, "If I release one video a day for a week, I will get 12 new clients."

If it works for you that way, amazing; please teach me. But if it doesn't work for you that way, a lot of it is duration and being in it for a longer haul. Because with all video content creation, you need more time to build an audience, even if your content is amazing.

What Is a 'LinkedIn Channel'?

Kathleen: Yeah. Now you talked about having the longest running channel on LinkedIn. And this is something so interesting to me, because I don't think, probably, 90 some odd percent of people even know what the concept of a LinkedIn channel is.

So this is a two part question. The first part is, can you explain what that is and how it functions? And then, also, I would love to understand from you, if you are somebody who is going to commit themselves to a consistent LinkedIn video strategy, how important is it to approach it from, like, a channel mentality?

Goldie: So as opposed to other platforms like, say, YouTube, where you have a distinct channel, so your YouTube URL is your channel, it's the place that houses all your videos.

Right now LinkedIn, unless you use a third party, doesn't have the ability to host your videos on LinkedIn in a separate video tab or video functionality.

So when I say 'Channel', I essentially mean all of my content, so all of my content goes through the funnel of being on my profile. So in this case, my LinkedIn profile is my channel, and when I work with brands on their strategy on LinkedIn, and then I usually call their brand page 'Their channel'.

It's just slightly different terminology, but it helps people also understand that this is a place to consistently see content, because we expect a channel to consistently have content. And, once again, I have to emphasize that word 'Consistent'.

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: Now I'm completely forgetting what your second question was.

Should You Have a Branded LinkedIn Hashtag?

Kathleen: Well, so I'll help you out with that, because I have a second part to the question you just answered. Which is, in your case, you have your profile, which is your channel, but you also are very good about consistently using a hashtag, #DailyGoldie-

Goldie: Yes.

Kathleen: With your posts. And you can click on that hashtag and, actually, there's the ability to follow the DailyGoldie hashtag. So I guess the second part of the question's really, if somebody is going to really double down and commit themselves, obviously, your point about consistency is crucial; and I think that you've made that really, really clear.

You're not going to get traction unless you're consistent and the quality is there. How important is it also to try to brand yourself with whether ... Like I've noticed, you've done a hashtag, I also follow Chantel Soumis, who has #ChantelShares and Alyssa Mangaoang who has #AlyssaHQ. How important is it to have a branded hashtag to make it even easier for people to really follow that feed?

Goldie: So when I began doing LinkedIn videos, hashtag search in August of 2017, was not what hashtag search is now. So I actually didn't even start doing #DailyGoldie until my audience asked me to do a hashtag, so they could better find my content. Which I love this because this is such an example of chicken and the egg, horse and the cart.

I wasn't actually the original one who asked to do a hashtag, my audience was the one that asked me to do a hashtag so they could better find and aggregate my content. So moving forward, one of the things I do tell people is, "Have your own branded hashtag."

However, the thing that I super strongly recommend against is having multiple hashtags.

So some people, if you notice, they have a hashtag block, they have what works really well on Instagram, but it doesn't work as well on LinkedIn. And why is that? It's because LinkedIn's hashtag search is not as mature as, say, Instagram's hash tag search.

So if you have three or four hashtags that you're trying to own, it's much harder also for people to follow all three of those, remember all three of those, it's just much easier for people to remember one hashtag. So having one hashtag that you own that has, maybe, your name or your brand name in it will make it so much easier.

And even when I started doing live streaming, because now there's #LinkedinLive, I started doing #GoldieLive, which I might keep up with and I might not just because I think it's nice just to have my live streams be a little bit more unbranded.

And I know that is very counterintuitive, because everybody wants everything to be hyper branded; I, myself speak on branding quite a bit. But I think when something is so new, and in such beta form, you can look a little bit over done when you're over branded.

So when everything is hyper graphics, everything has an intro screen, etc, you lose some of that genuine qua- ... especially if you're a vlogger. This is not necessarily true if you're a brand.

But if you are trying to represent your personal brand, you lose that genuineness, you lose that authenticity, because people are having to watch 15 seconds of an intro to every single one of your live streams, and they all look the same too. Which is, to me, visually un-stimulating-

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: Not interesting and not, necessarily, super creative.

LinkedIn Video Production Quality

Kathleen: So that brings me to an interesting question, which is around production quality. I think you referenced wanting to convey a genuine feeling. And I feel the same way, like things that are too overly produced, they just don't seem authentic on.

And so what are the guard rails around this? Like, is there a low end that you shouldn't go below? And is there a high end that you shouldn't exceed?

Goldie: Well, it really depends. So one of the things that I tell people now is that LinkedIn is like YouTube year one. So even though LinkedIn, gosh, I'm coming up on two years now of doing LinkedIn video, even though it's maybe closer to its second year of birth, it still is so, so new as a platform, and that's why people are excited about things like blogs.

People are excited about these videos that feel a little bit more unedited, because they feel more different on a platform that is ... There's so many ads that I see all the time on LinkedIn, or just things that are constantly being super salesy on LinkedIn; so it's so refreshing to see things that are a little bit more genuine on LinkedIn now.

But let's go over the guardrails, so still, when you're creating content on LinkedIn, you want it to be as clear as it can be, as non-blurry as it can be, you want the framing to be nice. So I recently switched over to doing a couple more vertical videos just because I'm also experimenting with IGTV right now. And one of my personal pet peeves with vertical video that I've seen, is when people get too close.

So you guys can't see this, but I'm framing my face, and I call it the serial killer face. So when you are too close in the frame, your head fills up 90 percent of a vertical frame, you are too close. So you want to make sure that your head is maybe two thirds of the frame in a vertical video if vertical video is what you want to do.

And this is, of course, our beautiful rule of thirds, which is a classic rule, classic video rule, it's not one I made up.

And it really is helpful for actually, subconsciously, being a more interactive and engaging video. Because you're not in other people's faces, which is attention getting for one video.

And I've had other people who will dispute me on this, other marketers, who say, "It's good." They like this format because it always gets in people's faces. That's good for one video as a shock value, however, if I noticed that all your videos are disturbingly close, I probably won't want to watch more than one video, because it's off putting to me, because it feels like you're staring into my soul; and I don't know that I want that.

But having the proper framing for a vertical video, if that's what you decide to do, is important.

Now LinkedIn alternates between the style and the type of video that you can create that's optimal.

If I have enough time, because I am extra nuts, I like to shoot actually vertical and horizontal, just because I personally like the way horizontal looks on LinkedIn video more than I like the way that vertical looks.

But you'll notice that people who are, especially, doing blogs on LinkedIn, they're shooting a lot of them in a vertical format.

But I even have right here, I have an LED light that I use when I'm shooting content, but for most of it, having good audio, having good lighting, these are just basic tenants of creating content, and making sure that you have a tripod that you can carry with you when you are shooting on mobile. These are just basic that will be helpful for creating content.

Captioning Your LinkedIn Videos

Kathleen: Now what about captions?

Goldie: So I love, love, love captions and I am incredibly guilty of not doing captions recently in my content. And the reason for that is, quite honestly, I do daily content and I don't batch my content, a lot.

So for people who do batch content and say you're releasing one video a week, there is no excuse, there is zero excuse not to have captions on every single piece of content.

Now for me, I will literally shoot something on the way to a meeting, and then upload it 30 minutes later. So for me it's a lot harder to do captions, just because my content production cycle is so quick. But if you have more than 24 hours, you can hire people who either do captioning, or use something like Clips or Google Matic, which does auto captioning as well on the iOS devices.

So there's so many solutions if you're not doing daily content, where you can get captions and yes, I may not do captions frequently, but captions are so helpful.

And if there was a way for me to better do daily captions and still get the adorable filters that I like to put on my videos, I would do that.

But with daily content, it is incredibly difficult. But yes, there are so many captioning services out there, it's a shame not to do captions.

Kathleen: Yeah, there's a massive market opportunity out there for somebody to create a tool that makes it easier to caption.

I will say when I started doing my videos, I've tried, oh my God, I probably tried 10 different approaches to recording, and then I use Rev.com to transcribe my podcasts and I thought, "Oh, I'll just use Rev to create the SRT file for the captions." But then putting it all together was a nightmare.

What I settled on, which is amazing, is you mentioned it, Apple clips. It's unbelievable, it's so easy. I mean, if I can do a video with captions in Apple clips, literally, a four year old could do it.

Goldie: Yeah, Apple Clips and, I personally use Clipomatic when I do do captioning in videos. The only issue, of course, with that is that it only records up to a minute of video caption and then you have to, of course, go back and edit those captions because it misspells-

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: It always misspelled my name.

Kathleen: And it's all one long run on sentence, it doesn't process sentences.

Goldie: And it's one long run on sentence. So it's nice to go back and edit those captions to make sure that they say things properly. But, yes, there are captioning services out there so if you are making videos that are one minute or less, then there is truly no excuse, yeah.

Creating Copy For LinkedIn Video Posts

Kathleen: Now for every video you post, there is accompanying copy that you put in the post itself. And I'm curious if you can talk to, what have you found works really well when you're drafting the copy to go along with a video?

Goldie: I have an entire talk I do on copy on LinkedIn video, which should probably tell you how big of a nerd I am.

Kathleen: That's what I say, I knew I could talk to you forever, but we don't have forever.

Goldie: With copy, I have so many pet peeves with the kind of copy I see accompanying video or even imagery on LinkedIn.

One is the one that I already mentioned, which is the hashtag block. It is not SEO optimized, don't do it, it will only look junkie. So if it's not going to get you the SEO push, there's no reason to do a giant block of hashtags; it's my personal belief.

And the same thing, because I just talked about hashtag block, was tagging 20 irrelevant people in the post. Now I always love being tagged in everyone's post, because I do ... Even though I may not comment, I may not like, I do try to watch as many people's videos as I can; so I'm an exception to the rule.

But for the most part, most people don't want to be tagged in content that's irrelevant and I, myself, don't like being tagged in, say, images that are irrelevant and not original video content, so you have to be really careful about tagging.

And that is something people also put in the copy, is they do half a line, usually misspelled, and then they have 20 people in it. And that, once again, it looks junky, it just looks like it's not very well thought out.

And one of the things I do like to do in my copy is I like to use my personal hashtag, so I use #DailyGoldie.

I have a very distinctive structure for my copy, which you guys might now see kind of propagated across all of LinkedIn; a lot of people now use my structure. I tend to do a title, and then I do a body, and then I maybe put a link or something in there, and then I'll do which did daily number video I'm because I do daily videos and it's nice to know for me, personally, what video number I'm on for that day.

The structure, of course, changes for everyone, but what it is not is, once again, not a giant block of hashtags, it's not me tagging people who are not directly related to that video.

And it is also not, necessarily, a sales funnel. I don't believe in doing every video as a hard sales funnel, in fact, I very rarely do sales in my videos, even my sponsored videos. They happen pretty rarely and infrequently and I think, to me, that's because I like my content to always be of high value.

So even if I'm doing a video that is driving someone towards a sale, that's a high value video that they're getting, so even if they don't want to buy the thing, they're still learning something and I think that is, to me, the most important thing you can do with a video channel on LinkedIn.

Kathleen: Yeah. Now I've noticed you use emojis in your posts, and-

Goldie: Yeah.

Kathleen: I actually really like it. There's a lot of debate around emojis in, general, right now I feel like. For me the way, at least I've seen you use it, it helps visually break up the post.

Goldie: Yeah.

Kathleen: It's almost like you can't, necessarily, do bolding and italics in LinkedIn, but you can bracket things with emojis and set things apart.

Can you talk a little bit about your approach to that?

Using Emojis in LinkedIn Posts

Goldie: Sure. So I think ... Well, let me tell you where not to put emojis; so let's actually start with there, and then we'll go back to where you can use emojis and it does make sense.

So where you should not be using emojis - and I've actually talked to some of the top creators on the platform about, "Don't do this anymore" - s o I'm doing my school teacher finger waving that you can't see.

Don't put emojis in your name on LinkedIn. And the reason for that is, first of all ... And I use a green heart emoji next to my name on other platforms, but on LinkedIn, it looks a little unprofessional; so you want to stay away from that.

But that's not why you shouldn't use an emoji next to your name on LinkedIn, it will actually sometimes break the code.

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: So if someone is trying to tag you on LinkedIn, it can potentially break that code, which is all bad-

Kathleen: Yeah, that's not good.

Goldie: Because then people aren't able to tag you, and you don't get the benefit of being tagged in someone else's post. So that's the main reason I say don't use emojis specifically in your name; regardless of the emoji that you want to use.

Now let's go back to where you can use emojis and it does make sense, which is in your video copy and I use them to, like you said, break up the copy. I like to use them so it gives you a little bit of fresh air, but the emojis are usually relevant to the copy.

I don't like to use a ton of irrelevant emojis, like people who tend to do five or six emojis in a row and it's just a string of emojis that don't necessarily relate at all to that, but it's just a subset of emojis that they always use.

Once again, I think everything should be relevant and a value, so if I'm using an emoji, it will likely be relevant to the content that I'm creating; and that makes it less obnoxious.

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: There's a lot of debate, which you were talking about, that emojis are so obnoxious, they're just so annoying to see, and the way you kind of take that down a notch is making the emojis actually relate to what you're doing and what you're talking about.

So if I'm talking about fishing, and I use a fish emoji, people can't really argue with that because I'm not doing like 12 emojis in a row of palm trees and then a fish. I'm not trying to be a graphic designer with my emojis.

Kathleen: Right, you're not bedazzling your LinkedIn posts.

Goldie: I am not bedazzling, although we grew up in the 90s, you probably like the bedazzling.

Kathleen: Exactly. I don't know, I think it was pretty tacky then and that's one of those trends that does not need to come back, the second time around.

Goldie: I feel like in might just because we're seeing-

Kathleen: Probably.

Goldie: A resurgence in bedazzling, in general.

Kathleen: If gauchos and culottes can come back, then so can bedazzling.

Goldie: Yes.

Kathleen: Yeah, I would agree. I mean I think it's actually, emojis are becoming much more accepted in a business context than they used to be, but it definitely requires a steady hand and some balance.

Goldie: Yes, I think it just requires relevance.

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: So the more relevant an emoji is, the more people can't argue with that emoji use. I mean the same thing is true of, if we want to go down this rabbit hole, of GIFs as well.

Kathleen: Yeah, exactly.

So again I do feel like I could talk to you all day, but you have lots of content to create. And so a couple of questions for you to kind of bring us back home. The first is for somebody who's thinking of getting started with LinkedIn video today, any top piece of advice you would have for them that we haven't already covered as a newbie that they should have in mind?

Goldie: So my number one favorite piece of advice for anyone who's thinking about starting on LinkedIn video is focus. When you are thinking about creating a bucket of content, a bucket of videos on LinkedIn, they should have a singular focus.

And why is this? This makes it easier for people to understand what you're about, what your content is about, and it makes it easier for them to follow you. Because they can decide right off the bat, if they want to watch all your videos on, say, Shopify Plus.

Kathleen: Yeah, that makes sense and everyone who listens to this, in some way shape or form, is a marketer, so it's all about the editorial strategy and-

Goldie: Yes, and it's about editing yourself.

Kathleen: Yes, exactly. Sometimes it's the hardest kind of editing.

Goldie: Yes.

Kathleen's Two Questions

Kathleen: All right, well as my listeners know, I like to ask every guest the same two questions before we wrap up.

The first one is company or individual, who do you think is doing inbound marketing really well right now?

Goldie: Oh my gosh, this is such a lovely question. I recently met with somebody who I think is fantastic and has a great email strategy, and her name is, I'm going to pull it up right now because I really should have pulled it up sooner.

Kathleen: That's all right, I'm catching you off guard.

Goldie: For everyone who is, because I always get her last name wrong, Ann Handley.

Kathleen: Oh, I love Ann.

Goldie: Yeah, Ann is wonderful. We are totally going to buy matching suits and wear them to the next conference, so-

Kathleen: Doesn't she have the best suits?

Goldie: She has the best suits-

Kathleen: Yeah.

Goldie: But she also has incredibly strong email strategy.

So go subscribe to her email strategy, go read her book; she also has a new book out. But I like how friendly, yet professional her outbound content is. And it's this beauti- ... It's just like her suits, which are wild, but professional. And I think that she is such a great example of just a branding. She has incredibly consistent branding both on her person, literally her person, and also on her outgoing emails.

Kathleen: Absolutely.

Goldie: Yeah.

Kathleen: Her suit game is strong, and her newsletter which is, for anyone listening, it's called Total Annarchy, with two N's for her first name, is amazing. It comes out once every other Sunday, I think, is the cadence. Great answer, we love Ann at IMPACT.

Second question is, obviously digital marketing is changing so quickly, how do you personally stay up to date and keep yourself educated?

Goldie: So, I have a few resources that I absolutely love and I absolutely would follow.

One of them is so funny because they interviewed me, and then I got so obsessed with them, because I just love all the content that they're constantly putting out, and that is WeRSM. And they are based in London, but they have footprints all over the US. And they tend to cover a lot of things as they're happening.

So what they're great on is they will release articles, literally, the same day LinkedIn officially announced live, they will do an article that same day. So I love how incredibly up to date and feature focused they are, but for me as a marketer, it's all the kind of content and news that I'm more interested in, the new features that are released that are relevant to my user base and my demographic.

So they're a really slightly unknown, but such a great media outlet for marketers that I think should have a bigger and better presence. Ad they also had a podcast, that was really, really wonderful as well, but I think it's currently on hiatus.

How to Connect With Goldie Chan

Kathleen: I cannot wait to check them out, they sound like a great resource. Now we've already talked about how you can be found on LinkedIn if anybody just types in #DailyGoldie, G-O-L-D-I-E. Any other places people should seek you out online if they want to learn more about you or get in touch?

Goldie: Sure, so you can find me on Twitter @GoldieChan, G-O-L-D-I-E-C-H-A-N or find me on Instagram @GoldieCylon, G-O-L-D-I-E-C-Y-L-O-N, because I am a huge Battlestar Galactica fan. And I've been experimenting a little bit on Instagram, like I said before with IGTV and other kinds of alternative short form content; so Instagram also is fascinating.

Kathleen: And you have to go check her out on Instagram because she has an amazing picture of herself dressed as Khaleesi from Game of Thrones that is on point.

Goldie: Thank you.

You Know What To Do Next...

Kathleen: All right, well if you're listening and you liked what you heard, of course I would love it if you would leave a five star review for the podcast on iTunes. And if you know someone doing kick ass inbound marketing work, tweet me @WorkMommyWork because I would love to interview them.

Kathleen: Thank you so much, Goldie, this was great.

Goldie: Thank you so much for having me.

Want to stay updated when the podcast is released?

Drop us your name and email address below and we’ll send you the show notes every Monday!

from Web Developers World https://www.impactbnd.com/blog/goldie-chan-linkedin-video-podcast

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neilmillerne · 6 years

Text

Fitness Infographics Crush On Instagram. Here’s How To Make A Great One.

You’ve seen it everywhere.

Your friends are doing it.

Your fitness colleagues are doing it.

You might even be doing it, but wanna get better.

Well, you came to the right place because today we’re gonna talk about …

…FITNESS INFOGRAPHICS!

I’m gonna teach you how to create fitness infographics for Instagram to make more money for your business.

Sound good? Good. Let’s just dive right in.

WHY YOU SHOULD DO IT

The great Mark Twain once said, “Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.”

I love Mr. Clemens, but he never had an Instagram.

Plain n’ simple, infographics on Instagram work.

If done correctly, they are:

Easily discovered on the Explore page (attention-grabbing)

Simple to make after some practice

Digested quickly by your audience

SHAREABLE between other influencers (and followers)

VALUABLE to your audience

Yes, there are many people doing them (and many people NOT doing them), but most are really shitty.

Since you’re reading this article, your infographics may look shitty too, but that’s fine because everyone successful at making them had to go through that stage at some point.

As an example, I will use myself. On April 26, 2017, I had 1,319 followers.

74 likes, 18 saves, and 5 comments.

This was my first ever infographic on May 17th, 2017. Not terrible, but definitely not good.

The background needs to be white. Black background is harder to read (think newspapers – white with black letters).

My green checks are crooked.

My header letters are not big enough to grab your attention while scrolling through the Explore page/your feed.

Lots of writing; could be simplified and more concise.

Needs to be neater and more organized.

Like I said, not terrible. But we can make some improvements.

Let’s jump ahead a little over a year later and see what I’ve done differently.

1,039 likes. 1,300 saves. 15 comments.

2,114 likes. 1,400 saves. 158 comments.

A touch better, yeah?

Do all posts perform this well? Hell no. But it’s an improvement, for sure.

And as of writing this, I’m currently at 12K followers.

I haven’t gained as quickly as some others, but I’ve made progress and I’m happy with the audience I am creating.

I like to put my following in perspective by imagining if all 12,000 of those people were listening to me speak on a stage. That usually does the trick when I feel the need to compare myself to others.

And, let’s be honest, your follower count doesn’t mean dick if those followers aren’t buying shit.

The point is NOT to get more likes or followers.

The point is to make such a large impact on your audience that they are guilted into buying from you.

Again, to use my own clients and pure objective data, these are the stats pulled from all my client analysis forms:

Sure, I put more effort into Instagram than my other social media platforms, but the data is still ridiculous.

It shows you can convert followers into buyers if you market yourself well enough.

Which brings me to the meat and potatoes of this article: the 6 steps to infographic mastery.

STEP 1: Find a creation platform.

You have a few different options here.

If you’re super basic and have minimal graphic design skills, I’d highly recommend using Canva.

It will feel slightly overwhelming at first, but if you watch through the tutorials on the website and play around a little bit, you’ll get the hang of it. I’d also add that I prefer to make the graphics on my laptop. The app works fine, but fat fingers can make it difficult to create with precision.

Aadam Ali just gets it.

If you wanna get fancy or have more tech skillz than I, feel free to use Adobe Photoshop. I’ve never used it, but plenty others have and they love it.

Check out Aadam Ali’s Instagram (@physiqonomics) to see a master at work. I would honestly be doing him a disservice if I called his illustrations “infographics”. They are by far the best drawings on fitness on the Internet.

There is no wrong answer here, just pick one that best suits you and move to step 2.

STEP 2: Idea Creation – What’s the purpose of the infographic?

Alright, let’s not overthink this one.

Don’t get me wrong, you want to spend some time on this, but it can cause paralysis by analysis trying to figure out the PERFECT title for your infographic.

Some questions to ask yourself to overcome this:

What has worked for people similar to your brand/niche? Is there a way you can put a spin on it?

Do you wanna be a contrarian and go the opposite route of what most people say?

Do you want it to be funny? Entertaining? Informative?

Do you want to create a list?

To quote my man crush, Nate Green, before every post ask yourself, “What exactly am I trying to say?” Then at the end of the post, “Did I say what I wanted to?”

If yes, you’re good to go.

The main takeaway with this step: just get started.

Have a rough sketch and start creating. You’ll mold it to your liking as you keep working and, sometimes, you’ll take it in a completely different direction than you intended.

Follow that muse.

STEP 3: Content Creation

There’s only so much I can say in this section. This is where you have to showcase your creative talents and bleed the infographic with your personal brand.

Meaning if you’re primarily targeting women who want to look and feel better, your infographics may look similar to Marci Nevin’s or Leslie Hooper’s:

I actually reached out to Leslie and Marci to give some tips on their success.

Here’s what they had to say:

Leslie Hooper (@hooper.fit) – “Keep it simple. The fewer the words the better. You have three seconds to grab the attention of your audience while competing with thousands of other posts. This may be the first time someone has read anything on your topic, so make sure it’s so basic a third grader could understand it. Bonus points if it elicits an emotional reaction using wit, depth, irony, etc. And please, for the love of god, make sure the text and images are spaced out and centered appropriately. Perhaps Sweet Brown said it best, when the infographic isn’t aesthetically pleasing, “Ain’t nobody got time for that!” It doesn’t matter how mind-blowing the content is. If it’s an eyesore, no one’s paying attention.”

Marci Nevin (@marcinevin) – “My best advice is to keep the graphic as clear and simple as possible. You want it to be eye-catching, but also readable so that it keeps someone’s attention and is easy to digest. For example, “Great Foods For Fat Loss.” I find that lots of white space helps with that. Use a white background, simple graphics and only one or two different colors for the text. Make sure that the text isn’t too small and has enough space between lines. Also, concise lists seem to be really popular.”

But if you’re like me–I target younger men and women who are intermediate/advanced lifters; men are typically more drawn to my personality/brand/interests–you’re going to make infographics like this:

Despite the subtle differences between our content, you’ll notice some similarities:

Each infographic is visually appealing and grabs your attention immediately by pictures or text (BIG CATCHY TITLES) or both.

They are concise. There aren’t long paragraphs of texts. Each one mimics easy-to-read lists.

The images are clear (no borders around the images! Google .png files if possible) and relatable to what the infographic is trying to portray.

The words used are relative to the audience, i.e., most women don’t want to know how to “get big”.

I used green checks in mine, but green checks and red X’s can be useful to quickly distinguish between right and wrong.

Notice the amount of white space. It is even throughout and the infographic is designed efficiently.

This part will take a while to figure out how you want to structure your infographics, but it will develop over time.

Test and learn, test and learn, test and learn.

Step 4 – Refinement

This is where you have to bring out your inner neurotic OCD housewife (think Monica, from Friends).

People are going to give you about 2 seconds to grab their attention on Instagram. Even if the content is amazing, they are going to keep scrolling if you have poor spacing issues, grammar errors, and bland colors.

You’ll wanna match your font and colors to your own personal brand to make your feed aesthetically pleasing.

Make sure to add your watermark to each infographic (people WILL steal them if they’re popular). A good rule of thumb is placing one at the bottom and one in the middle (in case they cut the bottom one off).

These small details can often go overlooked because this is one of the last things you have to do before you’re done, but it is worth the extra time to take your infographic from good to great.

Step 5 – Captions: Where The Magic Happens

If you get anything right, it needs to be this part. This is where you need to be the most YOU possible.

People who absolutely CRUSH this part are Carter Good (@cartergood) and Jordan Syatt (@syattfitness).

If you put 10 captions in front of me from 10 different people, I could easily pick which one was written by Jordan or Carter.

With over 400K followers each, I think it’s a good idea to listen to what they have to say.

I asked them both what advice they would give to making better infographics and they were (not surprisingly) aligned:

Jordan & Carter – “You need to be able to look at the picture and not need to look at the caption to derive the value from the post. Keep the picture simple and use the caption to explain the nitty-gritty. Don’t be afraid to max out the captions. For metrics, look at saves over likes.”

You’ve gotta align your tone of the infographic in your caption: witty, intelligent, snarky, angry, kind, vulnerable, etc.

Always recall, “What am I trying to say? … Did I say it?”

And as I mentioned earlier, people literally spend less than 2 seconds on your IG post before they determine if they wanna keep going.

With that being said, which part of the caption do you think is mega important?

The very first line.

Think about something that would cause you to keep reading.

As for the rest: I challenge you to write a long, compelling caption. You want to prove you’re a good writer? This is the way to do it.

The caption is where people become invested in you and your personality. Not everybody will read to the end and that’s okay, because the ones who do are more likely to buy from you. That’s the goal, remember? The goal isn’t to appease to your childhood friends who are frustrated with your captions that “no one reads.”

Speaking of the goal, you need to write the caption from your perspective as a COACH.

I’m sometimes bad at this, but when I do it right it can be a huge push towards gaining leads. Mention how this infographic applied to a client, how you implement this technique as a coach, etc. It can be easy to just write about the infographic and elaborate what’s in the picture, but always remember the purpose of the post.

Some other tips for captions include:

Don’t write huge blocks of text. Break up each paragraph by only using a few sentences (notice how I’m writing this article).

Use periods or dashes to separate paragraphs in the caption. Quick tip on this: you cannot have any spaces between lines when you try to line break into a new paragraph.

Determine your emoji preference. Some people like to sprinkle in emojis here and there and some people (like me) rarely use emojis. This is your preference and will depend on your tone for the post.

Limit exclamation points. The overlord of this site has written adamantly about this topic.

Don’t overuse ALL CAPS. Again, this can get annoying and sound like you’re CONSTANTLY YELLING AT YOUR AUDIENCE. If it gets repetitive, you take away the emphasis from using a strategically placed all caps word/phrase when it matters.

Call to action. The algorithm changes all the time, but it almost always awards engagement. Asking your audience a question or encouraging a comment can improve impressions on your post. Every once in a while, sneak in a right hook and directly ask your audience to DM you about becoming a client or clicking a link in your bio.

Do your research on popular hashtags to your audience and play around with different amounts. The limit is 30 per post. Put them as your first comment to keep the caption cleaner.

Post to your Instagram Story. This is the icing on the cake. Instagram stories have been booming lately and this is where a large majority will discover your post. Just click the paper airplane icon under your picture (next to comment bubble icon) and click “Add post to your story.”

Do not underestimate the power of a compelling caption. Don’t purposefully try to make the caption long or short, just focus on making it fucking amazing.

Step 6 – Determine Your Frequency

People love to argue about quality or quantity and the answer is always both.

Posting three shitty posts will have shitty engagement. Posting one amazing post will be better than 3 shitty posts. I would recommend putting out as many posts as you can while keeping quality as high as possible.

At the end of the day, it’s gonna come down to how talented you are and prioritizing what your time is worth.

Let’s bring this shit home with another list because everyone likes a good list.

1x, 2x, 3x+ per day. This is going to be individual and you’ve gotta determine what your time is worth. Re-read above.

Leverage others. The great perk of infographics is their shareability. If you wanna post three times a day, try posting two of your own and one of somebody else’s. This also increases the likelihood they will repost yours (but don’t expect them to).

When inspiration and creativity are low, you can repost your old content that has performed well. If you’ve been doing it for a while, you should have a big bank saved up. You can also make tweaks and make them look better than the last time you posted.

Consistency is key. This is cliche, but I don’t care. This is the foundation of making these work.

Figuring the right frequency for you will take some time, but as long as you remain consistent you will find your groove.

The Part Where We Wrap This Up

Look, you don’t HAVE to do infographics.

Many people have great success on Instagram without using infographics.

But can they work for you and put more money in your pocket?

Absolutely.

It’s not going to be a shortcut to success or any shit like that, but if you follow these six steps and truly CARE about the audience you’re helping, it definitely won’t hurt.

Oh yeah, and before we go. Follow me and send me a DM if this helped you.

The post Fitness Infographics Crush On Instagram. Here’s How To Make A Great One. appeared first on Roman Fitness Systems.

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#Fitness Infographics Crush On Instagram. Here’s How To Make A Great One.

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joshuabradleyn · 6 years