11 takeaways from Jumpstart January’s Social Influencer Lab with Chris Do

To help entrepreneurs achieve their full potential, EO provides programmes that inspire transformational growth in the lives of its members. To kick off the new year with intention and energy, EO offered Jumpstart January.

The 21-day challenge offered two tracks: The Run Lab or The Social Influencer Lab. Each featured learning opportunities ranging from case-study workgroups and self-paced learning to large keynote webinars and intimate Q&As with subject matter experts.

The Social Influencer Lab

The first session of the Social Influencer Lab was led by Chris Do, an Emmy award-winning designer and CEO of Blind brand strategy consultancy. Moderated by Edward Lim of EO Philippines, the session provided a 30,000-foot view of how to up-level social influence through content marketing.

Chris Do provided a deep dive into content strategy, hitting the themes of consistency, discoverability, what to say, best practices, scaling and ROI.

Chris Do speaks from experience: He posted his first YouTube video at age 42. It took him more than two years to grow to 20,000 subscribers. Now with more than a million subscribers, he’s expanded onto other social media platforms.

“There’s no secret, there’s no quick fix, there’s no hack,” Do says. “You have to put in the hard work consistently and share valuable information. If you want to reach people, you have to teach people.”Chris Do explained the glaring difference between mass media and niche media:

• Mass media hammers people over the head with the same message. As a result, they tune it out. It essentially drives customers away.
• Niche media asks, “How can we help improve quality of life for our customers?” When that question drives what you do on social media, you’ll help people solve problems and gain loyal followers.

Intrigued? Want to learn more? There’s still time to register for the final 45-minute session in The Social Influencer Lab: How to Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media with Jasmine Star, Tuesday, 9 February from 1:30pm to 2:15pm ET.

How to up-level your social media presence

Chris offered the following tips as you embark on a journey to increase your social media following:

1. Know your audience. Develop a clear picture of who your audience is. You must be able to predict what they want, know their pain points and challenges so you can solve them. Keep narrowing until you’re clear about your audience’s goals and challenges, and what’s at stake if they fail. Then, you’ll understand how to speak to them in a valuable way.

2. Provide value. It’s a noisy world. When you write a piece of content, think about how to make it more likely that someone will be inspired to share it. Learning to make your social media content more attractive gives people a reason to care and share. Create content that attracts people to you: Be a content magnet.

3. Share your knowledge. Solve a real problem, deliver a quick win, be super specific, make your content easy to digest, convey high value, make it instantly accessible and demonstrate your expertise.

4. Choose your platform. Apply your expertise in the format that you’re most confident in, whether that’s written, spoken or video. Leverage your talent and provide value including: checklists, cheat sheets, templates, examples, toolkits, e-books, resource lists, calendars, worksheets, inspiration files, prompts and tutorials.

5. Tailor content by platform. Don’t create one piece of content and put it out on all platforms. That works against you. Followers across different platforms want different things. Start with the platform where you’re most comfortable, figure out what works, grow your following and then expand into other platforms.

6. Write in first person. Your followers want to hear from you. Use an authentic voice and tone, “Hey, it’s Me—and I’m talking to You.” Express your opinions honestly, and that channel will grow exponentially faster. Write for your company in first-person, too.

Pretend your company is a person and give it a first-person voice. Follow the example set by Wendy’s: Wendy got sassy on Twitter when McDonald’s tweeted, “What’s up with the square patties?” Wendy quipped, “We don’t cut corners!” Determine your brand’s authentic voice. People fall in love with personalities, not corporations.

7. Chop, dice, redistribute, repeat. Start with one piece of long-form content, such as a keynote address or a Q&A session. Then, divide it up to create smaller, bite-sized pieces of micro-content. Distribute these pieces on various channels. Add images to posts that do well and redistribute, plus spread it around to other platforms. One big piece of content can produce a significant number of smaller posts.

8. Start small, let it snowball. Don’t have long-form content? Then start with short-form content posts and aggregate them. Track what works, collect it in an app (Chris recommends Keynote), and build multiple shorter posts into medium-form content such as an Instagram carousel or short article on LinkedIn.

Tweak the posts that perform well—maybe add an image, or incorporate a follower’s comment—and redistribute them on different platforms. Eventually, short-form content will snowball into something bigger that you can share elsewhere, and could end up as the basis for a keynote presentation or TED talk.

9. Be a domain name squatter. New social media platforms are being introduced all the time. If you can, register your account name so it’s the exact same across every platform. That way, followers can find you on new platforms more easily.

10. Establish your two-word brand. Look at yourself through the lens of someone who admires you. Take 10 minutes, write down 100 words they might use to describe you. Don’t be afraid to write both positive and negative words—because words like opinionated or bossy can actually be good. Focus on words that feel most accurate, personal or even weird. The goal is to pinpoint two words that define your (or your company’s) uncommon attributes.

There is power in two-word pairings that juxtapose each other to reveal truth. Think about these examples:

• Insanely Great (Apple)
• Everyday Magic (Disney)
• Curiously Strong (Altoids)

Find the power in two opposing words that pair perfectly to describe who you are and what you offer. Your personal brand is influenced by what you say and do with consistency over time. Become known for it, deliver on it consistently over time to your followers, and your social media presence will reflect it.

Intrigued? Want to learn more? There’s still time to register for the final 45-minute session in The Social Influencer Lab: How to Build Your Personal Brand on Social Media with Jasmine Star, Tuesday, 9 February from 1:30pm to 2:15pm ET.

Note: Chris Do’s first session was based on takeaways from his personal experience and ideas presented in the books, This is Marketing and Permission Marketing by Seth Godin and The Brand Gap and The Brand Flip by Marty Neumeier.