FutureProof You

Dan Yu: Welcome everyone to another episode of Future-Proof Used podcast F yourself. Today we are talking about content creation and [00:01:00] our upcoming class content creation 1 0 1. Again, as always, joined by John Lo and Aaron McKey. We are here to demystify a lot of the things that just kind of are mystery to, uh, to people in their job search or building out their personal brand. And so today we're talking about content

Aaron: talking about the

Dan Yu: some of the challenges. That people face and the kind of the fears and the misgivings. Um, one of the things that, uh, I remember when I was posting

Aaron: car today.

Dan Yu: to post enough was how regularly should I do it? And so, you know, I'd love to

Aaron: Still.

Dan Yu: you know, were you having some of the same problems?

John Lovig: Yeah, I mean, I, I always would, would wonder, you know, what's the right amount, you know, how often should I be posting, particularly on LinkedIn for what I do? [00:02:00] you know, it, it's always been a kind of ongoing, am I doing enough? Am I not doing enough? I.

Aaron: Yeah, I think there are a lot of misconceptions about that. The one I hear in a live class, we got asked this, but if I post too much, I'll wear people out and they'll unfollow me or not read my stuff.

Dan Yu: That's

Aaron: That is a, that's like a 2008 model of YouTube subscribers where people think, oh, if I follow Dan, then every time Dan posts, there's an IV injection of his article that goes straight into my arm and I have to see it right now.

Aaron: That's not how the algorithm works. If you engage with a lot of Dan's stuff, you are gonna get that. Yes, but not always the same day. I follow both you guys. I interact with everything you do, and sometimes the first exposure I get to your post is a week after it went out. So even to one of your closest, most engaged followers, I do not get stuff same day or even same week all the time.[00:03:00]

Aaron: So don't think you're gonna go, oh, if I post once a week, every person who follows me saw all seven posts. Those days they came out. That's not how it works.

John Lovig: Yeah, it, it, it's definitely been a shift in algorithms for sort of trying to keep the drip going longer and increasing long-term engagement.

Dan Yu: Well, ultimately, everyone should think about posting somewhat regularly. Right, in order to continue to build your personal brand, right, and then also receive the feedback, right? And that, that's a concept that both of you really love to talk about is the social proof of, uh, of social media, especially on a professional site like LinkedIn,

John Lovig: Yeah.

Aaron: there's no, nothing better than getting roasted in the comments.

Dan Yu: right? Or.

John Lovig: I.

Dan Yu: Or getting propped up. Right.

Aaron: Yeah. Or actually, I think the [00:04:00] best combo, this happened to me yesterday. I. I got roasted in the comments by Aran, you know, I don't know who this person is, and they, they saw my post and basically said, oh, everyone's so dumb there's an easier solution than what he's talking about. But then one of my followers came under his comment and was like.

Aaron: Basically said, you're an arrogant prick and there is a good reason to do it that way. And she had my back and it was awesome because it's like I didn't have to go defend myself, although I did in a kind of snarky way, funny way. But to have somebody else jump in on your behalf and say like, no, actually that is a good idea or a good practice, that's the ultimate.

Aaron: And you don't get that if you don't post.

Dan Yu: Right. And, and, and you know, there, there's so many different ways to do things, right? Especially when you're posting, I mean, you know, we're, we're gonna cover it in our class on Friday. There, there's so many different methods and it kind of depends on you do it,

Aaron: How you do it,

Dan Yu: do. And also when, and I [00:05:00] think when is a big question. For a lot of people. So, you know, I like we hear all the time

Aaron: you're all.

Dan Yu: that, oh gosh, you know, it's so, it seems so much work. How do you do it? So, I mean, Aaron, like, you know, just, you know, in the, in the past week, you know, you, I mean, you're very prolific across all of your channels. Like how, you know, how many times did you post over the past week?

Aaron: Not everybody aspires to be a social media diva like I am, but we looked in one week, I did about 105 posts in seven days and people like, and you have a job and a life and you sleep and see your kids and your wife still remembers your face. But it's just 'cause I have a system and I use. I schedule things and I batch it just like anything else.

Aaron: Uh, I only check my mail once a week, Saturdays at 10:00 AM Well, I'm only gonna look at analytics on Sunday nights when my kids go to bed for an hour. So once you find a system, [00:06:00] you realize a lot of that is smoke and mirrors. What you think people are doing is not. As much time and effort as it appears from the outside.

Aaron: And one of the things people will get from the course, whether they go live with us in March of 2025 or after this recording, they can get it as a digital download is, John, you said this. People always say, I know I need to post, but I don't know where to start. Or I'm just, I'm so overwhelmed that instead of doing some little thing, I just do nothing.

John Lovig: Yeah. Yeah. The analysis paralysis, fear of doing something wrong, fear of having bad content, fear of putting it out there in the universe. You know, it's, it's like a lot of things drive people. I.

Dan Yu: And so, so Aaron, you did a, uh, you said you did 105 posts that one week. How across how many channels is that?

Aaron: Oh, that's eight channels.

Dan Yu: channels.

Aaron: So most of 'em, my text posts, I try to do two a day across. [00:07:00] Six channels, and then some of them I end up doing a few more organically, like in the app instead of scheduling. And then TikTok, I don't usually schedule. I try to do those. I'll prerecord 'em, but I'll, I'll post 'em either in the moment.

Aaron: 'cause sometimes my stuff is just, this came out this week. This is a new feature. Um, but I, I've also had mixed results with using scheduling tools to post to certain platforms, and TikTok was one of those. But it's all, it's just about having a system you can follow. And if you ever get overwhelmed, you go, what day of the week is it?

Aaron: What are my content pillars? What am I trying to get out of this? Am I trying to sell consulting? Am I trying to get a job? Am I trying to position myself as an expert? Am I trying to make people laugh? Am I just sharing an idea? And once you have a system to follow, it turns into a plug and play. Just like anything else you can templatize about your career, just [00:08:00] fill in the blanks and hit post.

Dan Yu: Yeah, I, I mean, e even within the apps though, there's a lot of different capabilities to schedule posting, right. And I don't think people, people, uh, even understand that, right? So just in LinkedIn schedule post, it's a great feature. Um, I don't think people even know it exists.

John Lovig: It's only re relatively, relatively new too, I think the past year, year and a half.

Dan Yu: That's right. Yeah. So, um, you know, Aaron, you are the most prolific poster amongst the three of us. So say you look at the analytics on a Sunday night. do you create.

Aaron: After that, the, the way that I view it, and I think this has really helped people, the mindset of content creation is just as important as the strategy and the software,

Dan Yu: Right.

Aaron: if you think about all of your short form posts. So just to give our audience a little context, short form [00:09:00] video is something that's gonna go to TikTok.

Aaron: YouTube shorts, Instagram reels, it's vertical. So nine to 16 aspect ratio or with text. It's something less than an article, so it could be a tweet, it could be three lines on LinkedIn, whatever those are short form. I view those as just antenna or feelers that I put out in a pretty high volume. What I can do on Sundays is take those across a bunch of different platforms and say.

Aaron: What were my outliers that did really well on LinkedIn, on x on threads? Turn those into my next long form. So let's say I have a three line tweet. Do really well on a Tuesday. I look at the analytics and go, I need to write an article about that. Or I need to make that into a thread. 'cause it, there's some social proof for it.

Aaron: And then there's no pressure because you know how many tweets I had that sucked, like 90% of 'em were not good. Well, now I know which ones to ignore, [00:10:00] and I let the algorithm sort it out, and there's that fear of putting it into the universe that John talked about is actually a good thing because I'll just let the analytics tell me on Sunday which ones to expand on and which ones to leave and let 'em die.

Dan Yu: Yeah,

John Lovig: That's a great way.

Dan Yu: And so, so doing this kind of in batch form, right, it really does free you up. I mean, we all have, you know, our day jobs, right? We all have our work. And to spend that little bit of time really just, uh, really just makes you more efficient.

Aaron: Yep. And I, my analogy that I used with a group I spoke with on this topic. A lot of people do the content and hope it goes viral or hope it gets 'em the job, but they don't look at the performance or the analytics. That's like doing science experiments, hoping you [00:11:00] cure cancer, but you never looked at the data and did any lab reports.

Aaron: You're like, I'll just go back to the lab and mix more stuff up tomorrow until. Poof, I get the magic, and you, you're just wasting your time. Like it feels like you're doing something, but you're not getting results because you're not looking at those and using that to inform what you do next.

Dan Yu: Right. And, and also the, uh, like you alluded to this, by delving deeper into certain types of content that work, but I think people can also repurpose, right? And just reuse, recycle, right? Recycle content. Why not?

Aaron: Not

Dan Yu: Have that same content and, and your 105 posts across eight, not all of them are

Aaron: all of them.

Dan Yu: A lot of them are re reused and recycled.

Aaron: Yep. Here's a great example, another misconception from people who are intimidated. They go, I need a new post idea every day. Or if it's image based, I need new pictures and graphics every day. [00:12:00] Two weeks ago, I posted a picture of a Mac computer and said, you know, I bought this. I'm excited to use it. Very little engagement on any platform.

Aaron: I took the exact same picture from my camera roll, and I reposted it the very next week. So I have 98% the same followers that I did a week before. Totally different context. I said, I'm gonna use this Mac device to host local AI tools so they're not in China. So totally different context, but the content was literally the same picture for my camera roll.

Aaron: Best engagement post of the week. And people think like, oh, you can't post the same video twice or the same article. Sure, you can. Number one, not everybody saw it that saw the first one. It's not a direct line to your followers, but you can just change the context and talk about it in a different way or to a different audience and literally just reuse stuff.

Dan Yu: So interestingly, [00:13:00] the, you know, having the different context, were mindful, right? You brought mindfulness to your posts, and then I think the authenticity hit differently for the audience. 'cause it's not about you, it's about your audience. What do they find authentic, If maybe you had more authenticity from your heart on your first post, it doesn't matter.

Dan Yu: It's all about the audience and the analytics.

Aaron: Yep. And there are so many ways to do that. Another example, take the thing that you wrote about and screenshot a picture of that in an Apple note. Same, same copy, or just turn it into like three bullet points. I did that last week and said instead of writing out three sentences. I did an Apple note with the three things checked off a to-do list.

Aaron: It's, it's not original [00:14:00] content, but you just wrap it up in a different wrapper, and it did better than it would've done if it was just text.

Dan Yu: People do love their checklists.

Aaron: Yep. The dopamine fiends came out in the comment, like the first comment within minutes of it posting was, oh, I gotta hit a dopamine just from seeing your three things checked off on your Apple note, which

Dan Yu: awesome.

Aaron: I will, I'll confess, I add things after I do them just so I can check them off.

Dan Yu: That is awesome. That's awesome. You know, people love the, the checklist, the, the, the listicle right here are the, here are my three takeaways, my five takeaways from this article. They just love it. And it's really not very much effort. It's not, not a big lift to create those. So

Aaron: Yep. And.

Dan Yu: know, you, you've, you, you've done this too, right?

Dan Yu: With um. Uh, you, you, you know, one of one of my favorite articles by you is that, uh, is the thing on Ghost Jobs, right?

John Lovig: Oh yeah.

Dan Yu: I mean, [00:15:00] that's like, that's a great, great article that continues to pop up for

John Lovig: It, it performs every week

Dan Yu: incredible. And

John Lovig: even. Even if it's small numbers.

Dan Yu: It's six

John Lovig: Yeah. I mean, it was originally

Aaron: Originally.

Dan Yu: Wow.

John Lovig: I reposted it on Halloween.

Dan Yu: It coach jobs, of course. Right. So, yeah, that's, I mean, it's such, it's uh, it's such a good story, right? It's a good success story, right, where you're getting engagement, you're continuing to build your personal brand, you're continuing to have social proof in the feedback from people that missed it the first time. Absolutely they missed it the first time. And by the way, Aaron, your story about, you know, the, your picture with the Mac computer? I did not see the first one. I know I didn't. I definitely saw the second one about Giant. Right. So, um,

Aaron: know why you didn't see the first one?

Dan Yu: 'cause you deleted it.

Aaron: No, I don't. I never delete anything. I don't want to go down that rabbit hole. [00:16:00] Because it didn't get good engagement from the first sample it put it out to. So it didn't get pushed to even my engaged followers like you. Not all of them saw it.

Dan Yu: So if it doesn't get engagement, it, the algo pushes it down.

Aaron: Exactly. And then I know I'm not gonna go write an article about I got a new Mac computer, wanna read five pages of it. 'cause no one wanted to look at the three line text posts that I did. But you know what I am. You know what? I am gonna write an article about what local LLMs I hosted on my Mac studio because the post about that and China and privacy had like 24 comments in a day, which for me is way more than usual.

Aaron: And it was a mix of negative and positive. So the first feeler didn't get any traction. I repackaged the exact same picture in a different way. It got better. Now it's gonna be an article.

Aaron: And that's, it's writing the lab report. I ran the [00:17:00] same experiments, but if you don't look at those, I would just keep blindly posting and the, those are the things we're gonna teach in the class. And when you, you work with professional content creators, all of all of us are. Dan, you're kind of the OG one to me.

Aaron: I'm the rookie who is more TikTok than anything. But you, you realize, oh, you just need a strategy. You. You're not lacking ideas or creativity or writing style. You just need a blueprint to follow and everything else will come.

John Lovig: Yeah.

Dan Yu: the compliment, but you have now become Darth Vader, right? You have, know, the student has become the master, right? And, uh, your, your analytics, like, like you, you shared it with us, you know, before the call. I mean, your analytics are off the charts. I mean, that is just so, so impressive what you've done. Um, and continuing to build out the brand and so, so for

Aaron: So.

Dan Yu: I think that's a great. Um, kind of [00:18:00] bar, even though it's a super, super high bar, but I don't think it's a bar that everybody can aspire to. Me included. I'm sure John would, you know, feels the same, right?

John Lovig: Yeah.

Dan Yu: if. Our students can go from let's say zero or you know, maybe 10%, uh, you know, kind of on the knowledge scale and then kind of creep up a little bit.

Dan Yu: I think it'll be worth it for them, right, to be able to just understand some of the tactics that, that they'll implement based on their strategies.

Aaron: Yeah, let's, let's use each other as an example of one of the things we'll learn in the class. To me, there are three types of content creators. There are yappers streamers and typers. In other words, do you like to talk? Do you like to video record or do you like to write? Which one would you say you are?

Aaron: John, what's your preferred medium to create in?

John Lovig: Yeah, I think I write the most, um, [00:19:00] although I could probably generate way more content just talking, um, just because you can switch subjects, pull a lot of data, um. yeah, I tend to write.

Aaron: What we'll do if you're listening and go, oh, I'm a typer i'd. I'd prefer a keyboard. That's how I create. We'll give you a system to follow. That goes, here's my short forms, here's my long forms, and then how do you turn those in? Say you have a podcast. Like, I'm on a podcast right now. I'm not a yapper. I, I fill that bucket when I teach.

Aaron: My students have to listen to me talk enough. I'm a video person, but you can take what you wrote and turn it into video scripts or into audio clips. You just need a system to follow. Which of those, Dan, are you more a yapper, a streamer, or a typer?

Dan Yu: I have gone back and forth, I would say four [00:20:00] years ago, 20 end of 2020, early 2021. I was very much a streamer and I kind of went away from it. Um, and much more of an audio actually more of a writer now. So I think I would like to get back to being more in the different types of content.

Dan Yu: I, you know, I, I produce, um, and it takes, you know, it takes work, but

Aaron: Court, but

Dan Yu: I

Aaron: I, I understand the system.

Dan Yu: uh, you know, I can't wait to have our students learn from you, Aaron. I mean, the, the system works.

Aaron: Yep. And what I see, so say you guys, neither of you prefer to stream, you don't want to. A selfie cam is not your desired creation format. It is mine. So I kind of learned this haphazardly. People like you then either don't record video, which is a huge mistake, or they use AI and [00:21:00] say, write a script of a 32nd Instagram reel about.

Aaron: Recruiters on LinkedIn and they get this cheesy, terrible thing and they hate doing that medium, and it's just such a cringey combo. What our students will learn is take what you like to yap or write about in your own voice and tone and turn it into little snippets of video. Just hit post or take your article and just record the 32nd video summary of it after you write it.

Aaron: You don't have to come up with new things. You don't need to use AI to give you the script. You can use your own authentic voice. So I'm excited to share that system 'cause I'm a streamer, but I have to also write articles. I don't wanna sit there at a keyboard. Um, and somebody who likes to YAP can use a tool to transcribe it.

Aaron: There's your blog, your article, your email newsletter, and just follow the system.

Dan Yu: It's great systematizing. It saves time, money, everything, effort, mind, space, [00:22:00] and uh, that's what we're here to do. So Friday, uh, at noon Eastern Friday at noon Eastern. Visit future proof u.com. to our courses and you will see the listing for the class content creation 1 0 1. And, uh, we look forward to having you in class. This will be a, a lot of fun, I think, for people to, uh, to learn how to be more efficient on creating content actually enjoy it instead of feeling that you have to be perfect and have that fear have that, misgivings or anxiety about it.

Aaron: Yep. And if you miss March 28th has passed since you listened to this episode, just check out the website. It'll be there as a digital download. If you go to [00:23:00] futureproof y.com, there's a store and you can grab the recording of it or reach out to us on LinkedIn or whatever platform with a DM and we can hook you up.

Dan Yu: Excellent. Well, this has been another episode

Aaron: Another episode.

Dan Yu: Future Proof Use podcast f yourself. Thanks so much to, uh, to you guys as always, always get to hang out with you.

Aaron: Thank you, Dan.

John Lovig: good time. Looking forward to Friday.