Podcast Episode #12 - Running Low On Content Ideas For Your College Marketing? Get Ready To Dominate Social Media Anyway With Content Repurposing Featuring Guest Justin Simon
You want to build a bigger audience on social media for your school, and you want to be seeing fruits from that. More inquiries, more applications submitted, more this, more that. And it’s just slow going and you’re running out of steam. If that describes you, sit tight because if you put the methods discussed in this episode to use, you're gonna see things move in a positive direction
My guest today is Justin Simon - a growing influencer in the content creation space who has built his whole business around helping organizations like yours get the most out of their time spent creating content, by helping them repurpose that in creative ways that you might not have thought of. Lots of good stuff in here, so enjoy!
Links:
-Pricing for Video Storytelling Subscription: pricing.unveild.tv
-Download "3 Absolutely Crucial Components Every Compelling College Student/Alumni Testimonial Needs"
Instabrain - Marketing to Gen Z by Sarah Weise: https://amzn.to/3xjVwKJ
Hook Point by Brendan Kane: https://amzn.to/40TAm3t
Seenly Social Media Scheduling - https://app.seenly.io/signup?via=john-azoni
Connect with Justin:
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/justincsimon/
Website: justinsimon.co
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00:00:00:15 - 00:00:23:21
John Azoni
Content creation and social media. Everyone knows it's important and most of us are feeling like, Gosh, I am not doing enough. I'm not consistent enough, I'm not posting enough. I spend all this time writing a really articulate blog post or something and nobody cares. It gets three likes on social. What's the point? If you're feeling like that? Come here, bring it in.
00:00:24:09 - 00:00:49:11
John Azoni
Let me give you a hug because I know how you feel. You want a bigger audience on social media for your school. You want to be seeing fruits from that. More inquiries, more applications submitted, more this or that. And it's and it's slow going and you're running out of steam. Well, sit tight, because if you put the methods discussed in this episode to use, you're going to see things move in a positive direction, not immediately, not fast.
00:00:49:23 - 00:00:56:16
John Azoni
But if you build a content repurposing habit, results will come.
00:00:59:23 - 00:01:21:21
John Azoni
Hey, welcome to the Higher Ed Storytelling University Podcast, a podcast dedicated to helping higher Ed MarCom leaders tell better stories, create better content and enroll more students. My name is John Azoni. I'm the founder at UNVEILD a video production company working specifically with college marketing teams on automating their video storytelling content through a subscription approach. You can learn more at unveild.tv.
00:01:21:21 - 00:01:54:22
John Azoni
That's U-N-V-E-I-L-D dot TV. If you're listening to this podcast for the first time, go ahead and subscribe. And if you've been listening for a while now and haven't left a review, I'd love for you to break the seal and do that. It helps me continue to produce this content by helping others find it in the first place. My guest today is none other than Justin Simon, a growing influencer in the content creation space who has built his whole business around helping organizations just like yours get the most out of their time spent creating content by helping them repurpose that in creative ways that you might not have thought of.
00:01:55:03 - 00:02:17:01
John Azoni
We talk about a lot in this episode. We obviously cover content repurposing, but we also talk about creating great hooks for your content, capturing people's attention. The benefits of podcasting, for fueling your content distribution, bunch of stuff. We even talk about Mariah Carey a little bit. So here we go. My conversation with Justin Simon All right, Justin Simon, welcome to the podcast.
00:02:17:01 - 00:02:17:18
John Azoni
Thanks for being here.
00:02:18:12 - 00:02:19:12
Justin Simon
Yeah, thanks for having me John.
00:02:19:13 - 00:02:26:21
John Azoni
So your thing is content repurposing. Tell us tell us kind of what your overall mantra is or just your whole your whole thing.
00:02:27:12 - 00:02:53:15
Justin Simon
Yeah, sure. I mean, at its core, I think most companies and even universities or whoever is creating content, most people are really good at creating content. We've been sort of over the last 10 to 12 years really drilled into all of our heads about content is king and you need content and you got to have storytelling and you got to, you know, be able to tell a story with your content, all those separate that we really understand that and get that.
00:02:54:05 - 00:03:14:23
Justin Simon
But we do a really bad job of actually getting the most out of that content. So that's really where a lot of my stuff comes in at is trying to help companies. I work a lot with companies right now who are, like I said, really good at creating content. They probably have a couple of good pillars of in terms of what they're doing.
00:03:15:00 - 00:03:36:10
Justin Simon
They have a podcast, maybe they have a really productive blog, but they struggle at getting the most out of that content. Where to disagree, how to cut it. Potter Repurpose it in a different formats. And so I'm all about simplicity. And a lot of this stemmed from when I worked at a startup and I was went from having and we can talk a little bit about this at some point.
00:03:36:10 - 00:03:52:14
Justin Simon
I had a content team of like ten people at a previous role, went to a startup and I was the content team of one. And so you just learn to become scrappy and try to get as much out of the stuff as you can. So that's really sort of the the genesis of where a lot of that stuff came from.
00:03:52:20 - 00:04:00:11
John Azoni
Yeah, absolutely. That's why I love the whole topic of content repurposing, because I'm a content team of one and I'm always.
00:04:00:11 - 00:04:01:06
Justin Simon
Like a lot of people are.
00:04:01:07 - 00:04:19:15
John Azoni
What's what's the, you know, what's the fewest levers I can pull and get the most, you know, return from it. So tell me about your so your background is just tell me about your background with Tech Smith and kind of your career and how you got to where you are today and starting your company.
00:04:20:07 - 00:04:37:13
Justin Simon
Yeah. Yeah. So like you mentioned, I used to work at a company called TechSmith. I worked there for many, many years over a over a decade. And I actually started there as an intern. Turn on the sales team. I knew I didn't want to do sales, but I was like, Hey, this is a good, solid company. I'm going to get in here.
00:04:38:07 - 00:05:01:10
Justin Simon
And they were awesome. You don't stay at a company for ten years unless they're awesome, and I still have great relationships with everybody over there. Post-Pandemic just felt like I wanted to do something different and wanted to try something different. And so went and moved and started working at a company called Metadata and ran content marketing for them for just over a year.
00:05:01:10 - 00:05:22:07
Justin Simon
And then this fall sort of just made the change. You know, I was I was one of the folks who got laid off with a bunch of tech layoffs. And so it was like, okay, I can either go get another job or I can try to just start building my own thing. Threw some stuff out there and I had a bunch of people respond and were like, Hey, we need help with this.
00:05:22:07 - 00:05:39:01
Justin Simon
How do we do this? How how can you can you come in and like, supplement what we're doing? And just had a lot of good conversations around that. And so that's basically what I've been doing is building up the business here and working on strategy and working on execution for different teams and just helping people honestly just get more out of the stuff they're creating.
00:05:39:01 - 00:05:48:06
John Azoni
And so you're you're pretty active on LinkedIn. I see. I see most of your posts. Is that are you active on like other other channels as well?
00:05:49:00 - 00:06:06:12
Justin Simon
Yeah, LinkedIn is my main one. That's where I've built probably the biggest audience at this point. I also have an email newsletter that I send out every single week and write content for, So I have an audience there. And then as far as the other channel, like I'm like, okay, at Twitter, like I'm trying to like, get better at it.
00:06:06:12 - 00:06:33:11
Justin Simon
But like you said, I think as a one person team, you have to just be choosy in terms of what. And that's another thing I talk about a lot too, in terms of like your actual channels, your distribution channels. And so I've just chosen to focus really on LinkedIn and Twitter for now. I mean, I would love to get on different channels at some point, but right now it's, it's, it's how to pick and choose the ones that are going to be most valuable and how how I can execute them in a high like high deliverable way.
00:06:34:04 - 00:06:56:18
John Azoni
Yeah, that's good. That's, that's kind of where I'm at too, is just choosing choosing something and sticking with it and just defining a groove and just continuing to kind of dig out that groove. Because otherwise just spreading yourself really thin across all these channels that pop up in New, new social media, things pop up and it's like chasing all of those is just it's a stressful it's just like, wasn't there one that came out?
00:06:56:18 - 00:07:02:22
John Azoni
Like, I forget what it was called, but as couple of years ago, it was like some like audio like you like audio thing, Yeah.
00:07:03:04 - 00:07:04:10
Justin Simon
Clubhouse Yeah.
00:07:04:11 - 00:07:10:04
John Azoni
Clubhouse Yeah. I was just thinking about that. I'm like, What happened to that? Because I was all stressed. Like, I.
00:07:10:06 - 00:07:14:15
Justin Simon
I'm proud to say I never went into a single clubhouse in my entire life, so.
00:07:14:21 - 00:07:35:05
John Azoni
Yeah. Yeah, me either. Yeah. I was like, it was like a hangout for a while. I don't know, for just audio or something. You just like audio hang out with people I don't know is weird, but I want to talk about kind of like you're your main driving sort of statement or whatever. I think I got this off your LinkedIn banner.
00:07:35:05 - 00:07:49:03
John Azoni
Most companies hit publish and move on. I help you repurpose and distribute your best content. So expand on that for us. Talk about what most companies like. The idea of most companies hitting publish and moving on. Like what's what's the problem that you're seeing?
00:07:49:07 - 00:08:21:04
Justin Simon
Yeah, I mean, it's not it's not only a problem I'm seeing, it's a problem I've experienced. And that's where a lot of this sort of comes off of is traditional content strategies are built around content calendars or publishing calendars with separate sort of thoughts around distribution. And what happens after we hit publish on this? Usually it will get like lobbed over the fence to maybe a social media marketer manager or, you know, a manager or somebody like that or an intern like, Hey, we could just posted this new blog, go put it on social media for us.
00:08:21:16 - 00:08:49:15
Justin Simon
And that never works because the social media manager isn't tied in with the content or the intern doesn't know the why. You did the messaging the way you did it and what the purpose of it is. And so my whole drive is to get content marketers who traditionally are more maybe content creators or writers to think about distribution and to think about repurposing their content and how they actually get that in front of the audience.
00:08:49:15 - 00:09:11:21
Justin Simon
Because nice like 90 over 90% of content that people create will not show up on Google, even though most people probably think when they create content like, Oh, I'll just put a few keywords in there and it'll rank like, Oh, or Google. Like somebody will maybe view this someday, or how do we make this post that nobody is really thinking about?
00:09:11:22 - 00:09:27:10
Justin Simon
Like, it's not, it's not something, it's maybe a thought leadership piece that you want to get out in the world. Nobody's actually thinking about that. But like, how do we what keywords do we use to make you don't use keywords to make people think about that. You have to drive demand around those things, right? And get attention for it.
00:09:27:10 - 00:09:53:21
Justin Simon
So my whole thing is focusing on distribution first. And so thinking about in tandem with creation before you even create the thing that you're thinking about, how do you plan on getting that in front of your audience? I mean, the most basic level SEO would be an easy one. Search engine optimization. So you've got a post that you know is popular and you want to create something for it.
00:09:53:21 - 00:10:14:00
Justin Simon
The distribution for that is Google, and that's a very easy 1 to 1. That's a very traditional sort of marketing. Like you can create a piece of content and you can do enough on your end. Then fingers crossed, hope Google ranks it and then hope people click on it. But other than that, you have you have to drive demand for the piece of content that you're creating.
00:10:14:00 - 00:10:37:06
Justin Simon
So if you're creating a product webinar for a brand new feature that nobody knows about, how are you going to get that in front of your audience? How how are you in then? How are you going to communicate that with different audiences? Because your customers maybe requested that feature, so they might have more a different take on it than somebody who's never tried your software and doesn't care about that feature necessarily.
00:10:37:06 - 00:11:00:09
Justin Simon
So it's taking all those things into account before you actually go to create the thing, because that that's what ends up being a bit of a mess for folks as they create it. It might be an awesome piece of content. It sits on their archive, it collects dust, it never gets shared, it never gets used. Everybody internally knows about it, but everybody externally doesn't even know it exists.
00:11:01:10 - 00:11:27:02
John Azoni
Yeah. Oh, I've seen that a lot my whole career in, you know, working on, you know, corporate videos and things like that. Especially, you know, especially kind of in the corporate world is the distribution is an afterthought. And so we'll spend all this time on a video and then check like maybe a year later on there, YouTube. And it's gotten like 62 views and we're in it's kind of a disappointment because it's like, well, what what was the plan for?
00:11:27:05 - 00:11:33:04
John Azoni
Like that was a lot of money, you know, that was like per view, a lot of money. You know.
00:11:33:04 - 00:11:33:09
Justin Simon
Yeah.
00:11:34:05 - 00:11:59:01
John Azoni
And you know, and, and a lot of times when I will work with organizations and we'll talk about so where is this? How are you going to use this? It's often just kind of like a general tool. And that's kind of what I found is that people use at least video as kind of like a hammer, like I want to pay someone to make me a video and I want to just be able to use it in a bunch of different ways.
00:12:00:14 - 00:12:25:07
John Azoni
But really, it's just going to kind of sit there until someone is like, you know, thinks to use it or something like that. But but very little working backwards from from distribution. Give me an example of working backwards from from distribution. What could that look like for somebody for a for a college that maybe has, you know, a blog article that they want to write, doesn't have to be video, just, you know, something like that?
00:12:25:07 - 00:12:48:08
Justin Simon
Yeah, a blog article, I think district working, distribution first. I always suggest so first and foremost as audience, make sure you know your audience, make sure you know your ICP, make sure you know who you're trying to target, because then that will alter channels. But a a lot of assumption in there. But I assume you know who your audience is and who you're trying to go after with your content.
00:12:48:16 - 00:13:14:15
Justin Simon
The first thing I always suggest is channels and narrowing down your channels and deciding where that is like we talked about earlier. So in picking one and starting to get really good at one. So what most people tend to do that I talked to is, well, we'd really like to be on Twitter, but we know YouTube's a thing and maybe even Tik shock in reels and But what about LinkedIn and how do we how do we do all those things?
00:13:15:03 - 00:13:39:13
Justin Simon
And the reality is you can't do all those things like you can't do them all well. Each one is so individualized now that you have to focus on each one individually or have somebody on your team who can focus on those things individually. Like you need to have a YouTube expert almost to be able to like, do YouTube really, really well and have somebody who's like studying the algorithm, starting the platform, studying what titles really work, what thumbnails are like.
00:13:39:18 - 00:13:56:23
Justin Simon
That's a whole thing that's totally different than Twitter and how to write threads and how to write hooks that pull people. And that's different than LinkedIn and how to, you know, it's each one of these things is so different. So pick one channel. So you've got your blog, you know you want to write, what channel are you going to distribute that on?
00:13:57:11 - 00:14:18:10
Justin Simon
And then from there, I like once you have your sort of channel set, then you can kind of think through mediums. So let's just use I mean, I'm active on LinkedIn, but Molly's LinkedIn is an example. So LinkedIn, you can do a bunch of different formats, you can do slide carousels, you can do video, you can do plain text posts, you can do images.
00:14:18:10 - 00:14:39:18
Justin Simon
So based on that one article you're writing, what are the if you have images that are tied with the text, maybe you take that text and tie it with, or maybe you make the image ahead of time because you're thinking about that distribution. First. You make that image so that it would look good on a social feed. You don't just throw some random image in there.
00:14:40:00 - 00:14:54:21
Justin Simon
You think about that ahead of time to say, Oh, I can just insert and then I can instantly repurpose the same thing. I don't have to create two images. I don't have to think about it. I know I'm going to do an image for this one. I'm going to show off how to do that, but I'm going to format it in a way that makes sense for for social.
00:14:54:21 - 00:15:20:19
Justin Simon
And same with your how you outline the actual post. When you outline a post, you can basically use your headlines as different sub topics for content that you can post on social media. And so you don't have to worry about like just throwing a link out and saying, Hey, we post a new blog, here's a link. Take the section with the H1 and format that into a standalone piece of content that somebody could consume and learn the information on social.
00:15:20:19 - 00:15:21:22
Justin Simon
That's how I would think about. Yeah.
00:15:22:10 - 00:15:56:08
John Azoni
Yeah, that's cool. I think that's that's really good. And one of the one of the best pieces of advice that I got from a social media consultant was was, was at least for LinkedIn it's probably relevant for any platform is taking big ideas and breaking those into like much smaller posts because people people will invest in a in a quick win on social media might not want to stick around or might not be in a place in their in their day or in their schedule to stick around for a long teaching on how to tell a story or whatever it is.
00:15:57:03 - 00:16:24:10
John Azoni
And that has been transformational for me because even with this podcast, I'm able to take, you know, each episode I can take like nine or ten, you know, snippets and break it out and then just link to the full episode. And it just provides quick wins for for people. And that's that's kind of like a whole strategy in itself, a ways to get, you know, kind of just stretch the content more in blog blog posts, I imagine too.
00:16:24:10 - 00:16:37:17
John Azoni
Yeah, it's creating those images that you can get out of blog posts. Yeah, creating, you know, different sub subtopics. But yeah, really thinking about, you know, one piece of content is probably so many more pieces of content.
00:16:37:17 - 00:17:08:02
Justin Simon
Yes. Yeah, it's got I heard I heard somebody talk about it once like and this is kind of how I view it where it's like you see a piece of content and you get like X-ray vision where you can see all the possibilities in it. That's really what I want people to start doing is like to not just see a blog as a blog, but see a blog has the potential to be this, this, this, this, so that you're not having to spend so much time, energy, calories, thinking about like what is the next piece of content we need to create for our audience.
00:17:08:18 - 00:17:32:04
Justin Simon
When it's creation less, it's distributing more and then doing that efficiently to where you're also being able to hit the same messages. It's a whole other side of this is like being able to be consistent with your messages because so many companies go so sporadic with what they're talking about because they try to produce so much content that they hit their top five and they're like, Well, what now?
00:17:32:04 - 00:17:39:03
Justin Simon
What do we do? Well, I guess we can kind of touch on this topic or I will kind of go over here and it's not like core to who they're trying to talk to.
00:17:39:06 - 00:18:06:20
John Azoni
Yeah, yeah. And I find that too, that you run out of things to talk about when you're trying to when you're trying to make big statements. And that's a stressful place to be, to constantly think about, you know, writing some big monumental thing and having it just be a one thing like one post or whatever, and then moving on and like now you got to think of a whole nother and just, you know, people, people just don't have the capacity really to spend.
00:18:06:20 - 00:18:08:15
John Azoni
They're not like full time content writers.
00:18:08:15 - 00:18:38:03
Justin Simon
Yeah, yeah. It's, it's just thinking about it in a different mind is just thinking about it with a different mindset in terms of like short lived campaign mindset, kind of like, hey, we want our we want this message, we want to blast our network with it, and we want to, like, become known for this thing. Well, it's become known for something isn't a campaign that's like who you are internally and then doing that consistently over time too, where your audience then starts to know, like and trust you for a certain thing.
00:18:38:22 - 00:19:00:01
Justin Simon
And I've like seen this firsthand because I didn't talk about like content repurposing distribution until a year ago, but because I did it every day and learned about it and learned the nuances and was doing it myself and figuring out what worked and what didn't and what content was interesting on content wasn't quickly, I mean, much faster than I ever anticipated.
00:19:00:01 - 00:19:20:22
Justin Simon
People like, Oh yeah, like you're the guy who helps with that stuff, right? Like you're, you know, and it's like I have been talking about it for that long, but I've been doing it for a long time, but I hadn't been taught. So like that consistency of message, I think whether you're a company or whether you're an individual, really narrowing down on who you're trying to talk to and then what your topics are and just being consistent with that can can go a long way.
00:19:21:01 - 00:19:30:10
John Azoni
A quick break here. Speaking of content repurposing, to share with you some thoughts from one of our subscription clients who is the photography and video producer for Baker College here in Michigan.
00:19:30:12 - 00:19:56:01
Charlyn David
The video subscription idea was a real godsend for me. It's been kind of life changing in a way. I don't know if that's too strong of a statement. There's a lot of content to produce and not a lot of content creators here. So having somebody who can take that portion off my plate, it's allowed me a little bit of room to breathe and maybe focus on some other projects.
00:19:56:01 - 00:20:33:20
Charlyn David
Not only do you get a fully edited testimonial, you also get a delivery of all of the B-roll that was taken of that student. For instance, we have this culinary institute, and one of the projects we wanted to do is to create just a short little video connected to a QR code on all the little chocolates that we that we give out in the restaurant, or if they make chocolate for a special event or for our board members or for any meetings or graduation, they can scan this QR code and up pops this video of some like really beautiful slo mo hands making chocolate and that sort of thing.
00:20:33:20 - 00:20:53:06
Charlyn David
And I was able to go into this B-roll and find some fantastic shots of one of our students who did a testimonial creating these bonbons and creating cakes. And you've got the batter going and you got the chocolate drizzling. So I know that I'm going to be able to take that footage, resize it. I can I can resize it vertically if I need it.
00:20:53:06 - 00:21:16:04
Charlyn David
I can resize it into a one by one. If I need it, I can color grade it. However, I need to fit my needs. And I really don't have to travel across the state to our culinary institute to do a whole new shoot because I've got that B footage at my hands. So really, that's something that I could sit down, edit for a couple of hours, have it done and check it off the list, which is fantastic.
00:21:16:13 - 00:21:41:10
John Azoni
We love internal video teams here UNVEILD because we know what it's like to be in their shoes. We've been there. We've been those people before. It's a lot of work and it's not enough hands on deck to handle all of the content needs for a whole freakin’ college. So we're here to make not only the marketing team's lives easier, but the video people's lives easier too, and free up their time to be more productive and do other pressing stuff.
00:21:41:10 - 00:22:01:02
John Azoni
So head over to our Web site unveild.tv. That's U-N-V-E-I-L-D dot TV and book Call with us. And if you're like me and you want to know how much something costs before you have to talk to a real person, you can go to our pricing page and download our pricing guide, which has obviously pricing. And also just like how this whole thing works affects all that stuff.
00:22:01:02 - 00:22:27:02
John Azoni
So go to pricing.unveild.tv and download that. Okay. Back to my conversation with Justin Simon. Yeah, and you talk a lot on LinkedIn about, you know, most people don't see the thing that you posted yesterday or whatever the know and so and I love that. And then I see people in the comments going, Well, what happens if I'm posting the same thing in the same people are seeing the same message over and over again.
00:22:27:02 - 00:22:50:06
John Azoni
And I'm like, yeah, well, that that does happen. And for me, like, I think that's me getting your content. I probably get the same type of thing set in a different way. But for me, I like it because I'm like, it's a reminder that it's a reminder for whatever you're saying that day that fits within your message of repurposing content or reposting content, or you're just staying in front of people.
00:22:50:06 - 00:22:57:14
John Azoni
It's just sort of like having a coach in, you know, in the corner saying, hey, like, you know, don't, don't forget what we talked about.
00:22:57:14 - 00:23:27:00
Justin Simon
Yeah. And people are so worried about, I think alienating an audience or like making them annoyed or making them leave. And but to be honest, if someone gets annoyed with content or repurposing and distribution and how like air content marketing, like any of those things that I talk about, they're never, ever going to want to work with me in any way, shape or form.
00:23:27:12 - 00:23:47:14
Justin Simon
So it's probably okay in my book that they're not actively part of my audience because the people that need to be in my audience are people that are interested in the things I have to say, the products that I sell and the services that I offer. Same thing for a company. If you if you sell software that helps people in h.r.
00:23:48:01 - 00:24:04:20
Justin Simon
And h.r. People and a certain h.r. People don't agree with your mission or don't like what you're talking about. They're never going to buy from you anyway. So it's better for them to not be there. Yeah, and you can bring on new people who believe in your mission and believe in what you're talking about and believe in what you're saying.
00:24:05:01 - 00:24:26:11
John Azoni
Yeah, And that's so key, too, I think, to define who you are on the, on the platform that that you're on. I think that I see a lot of people there's kind of like two ways. It's sort of like a personal life, you know, sort of like Facebook or whatever. It's like a it's just a personal sort of like document of my life, you know, things, things that are happening, you know?
00:24:26:11 - 00:24:50:06
John Azoni
But most people I don't know that like most of my Facebook friends aren't like a certain person on Facebook. I guess that's more so like LinkedIn or YouTube or something like that. But but a lot of people use social media. It's like, here's this thing I did or here's this job we're hiring for or whatever, and not thinking it, thinking about it so much as who what is my personal message that I want to bring to the world?
00:24:50:15 - 00:25:14:23
Justin Simon
And there's a huge just say there's a huge difference between getting like this and getting people to buy your product. And so I think that's a, you know, so many times it's dying maybe more now, but like I've been in meetings where it's been, how do we go viral with this? How does this it's like you're you're if you're asking that question, you'll never get they're not going viral.
00:25:14:23 - 00:25:42:13
Justin Simon
You'll never get there. That's not that's not the purpose. That's not how that that's not how viral works. You create. No, no. Viral content was like, this is going to be viral. Yeah, I wouldn't imagine anyway. But I think that's something to balance too, because you might get five likes, but one of those likes is somebody in market and then they go to your website and get a demo versus one that gets 100 likes.
00:25:42:13 - 00:25:48:16
Justin Simon
But it was kind of fluffy. Maybe it's a meme and it didn't really drive any action, so it's like trying to find that balance.
00:25:48:17 - 00:26:14:02
John Azoni
And one thing I think that you're really good at that I'm clued into because I'm reading this book called Hook Point by Brendan Kane. I don't know if you ever heard about it, but it's he talks about just I mean, the whole book obviously is like cooking people, you know, in the digital spaces and how there's so much less focus than there should be on what those opening like 3 seconds should be or that opening sentence or whatever.
00:26:14:02 - 00:26:31:17
John Azoni
And that's one thing I think that I've noticed that you're that you're good at is is your your posts always kind of bring me in in and like kind of encourage me to keep reading. I think you have a good like a good knack for like getting me to the next line You know which and so so talk about talk about that.
00:26:31:17 - 00:26:39:23
John Azoni
Like what goes through your mind when you're marketing yourself and hooking people and trying to get them to read your whole message?
00:26:40:13 - 00:26:57:10
Justin Simon
Yeah, I love that. I think. And thank you, by the way. I do try, but it is it's one of those things that I think regardless of what if you're doing a blog post, if you're doing a video, if you're I mean video in particular, if you're on YouTube. Right. Like those first like 10 seconds. Oh yeah. So vital.
00:26:57:10 - 00:27:25:14
Justin Simon
Yeah. But it's same like the whole goal of what I think about you as an audience member on these social platforms. You're mindlessly scrolling, you're not a searcher, you're not actively looking for anything in particular. You're literally killing time, just scrolling with almost no finesse at all and just waiting for something to call out to you to say stop and pay attention.
00:27:25:23 - 00:27:44:03
Justin Simon
And that's the goal of the hook, whether it's an image, whether it's a video, whether it's a thumbnail, whether it's a title, whether it's the first three lines on a LinkedIn post, it's like, oh, like I got to I got to stop and pay attention. And then, like you said, the goal after that is to then get them to read more, read each line, read the next line.
00:27:44:13 - 00:28:08:07
Justin Simon
And I'm like, I'd be lying if I said like, I really thought, They're like the format. I think I've just written enough at this point. Like after writing five days a week on LinkedIn for two years, three years, you just kind of get used to like the flow of how you format posts, or at least for me. But the whole goal is to go from one line to the next to the next to the next to the next to the next.
00:28:08:07 - 00:28:27:07
Justin Simon
Like that's like storytelling. One on one is really just like bringing people in and then kind of like working them down through and trying to get them to the end point of me like, Oh, okay, you know? And so and that's something I'm constantly trying to get better at, but I spend way more time on the hook than I do on the actual post.
00:28:27:07 - 00:28:54:20
John Azoni
Absolutely. I think people people really need to spend more time on the hook. And I actually started collecting hooks like I had two albums in two albums and Malik Photos app on my on my phone, good hooks and bad hooks. And I just as I'm scroll as I'm scrolling and some, you know, Instagram ad is like, hey, digital marketers or whatever or like they like whip around is like, try to get your attention.
00:28:54:20 - 00:29:12:08
John Azoni
I'll like, I'll either, you know, I'll like, analyze it. Like, did that get my attention? No, I'm actually really annoyed. Like, just because you like, like came at the camera really fast Isn't isn't, isn't a good hook like, you know. And so I like screenshot these things and like keep record of them I think it's really important to do.
00:29:12:08 - 00:29:41:10
John Azoni
I really, really, really think that in content content marketing, the hook is so important and, and it really can define everything that comes after that in terms of engagement because the longer like things like the longer somebody stays on your post is the further that it goes that, that goes for YouTube Instagram. The longer somebody watches your Instagram ad, you know, the further it will share with more people.
00:29:41:21 - 00:29:53:17
John Azoni
But if you don't hook them in the first place, if your first line is, Hi, I'm so-and-so from such and such business by, you know, I don't care.
00:29:53:17 - 00:30:15:09
Justin Simon
Yeah. And I think that that's becoming is becoming even more important when you think about like a YouTube shorts world where it's 60 seconds that 62nd max for the video. See, your first 3 seconds have to be captivating because if they're not or TikTok or you know, any reels any of these sort of formats where it's just swipe to extrapolate types of swipe before you can find something interesting.
00:30:15:09 - 00:30:22:21
Justin Simon
So it's like though that that first thing to get something in is going to literally make or break everything that comes after it. I totally agree.
00:30:23:00 - 00:30:43:10
John Azoni
Especially for colleges marketing to what In the higher ed world we would call traditional students, you know, people coming, you know, kids, I don't know if they're kids. To me coming out of out of high school, I'm like the old man 30. I'm 38. I'm like all these these youngsters, these they're just kids. They don't know.
00:30:43:10 - 00:30:46:03
Justin Simon
I'm 33 and I feel the same way. So it's okay. Yeah.
00:30:46:21 - 00:30:49:08
John Azoni
I feel less cool by the day.
00:30:49:15 - 00:30:51:13
Justin Simon
Absolutely. Absolutely.
00:30:51:16 - 00:31:31:02
John Azoni
Anyway, so. But yeah, like for I, I read part of the finished the whole book, but it's, it's a really good book called Oh gosh. What's it called. I can't, I can't remember what the actual book is called. I can remember the subtitle is called and it's marketing marketing to Gen Z in and they, they did the author, you know, did these in-depth studies of people from Gen Z and how they scroll like literally like went to, you know, these young people's houses and and just watched them on their phones, how they interacted with stuff and they said it's like she said it's so amazing how fast kids will scroll through.
00:31:31:12 - 00:32:07:01
John Azoni
Like in the end, it's been scientifically proven that their brains have actually, like, evolved to be faster visual processors with this whole iPhone, you know, revolution or whatever. So the fact that you know, her, her whole point, I forget the author's name, I'll put it in the show notes. The author, you know, points out that like the the that hook is is so important like that first 3 seconds because it's even like down to like the millisecond that that these young people are making a decision to watch something or not, you know, or listen to something or not.
00:32:07:13 - 00:32:30:09
John Azoni
But once you do get their attention, I found it really interesting that that she said that they will actually go so deep down that rabbit hole of learning more and more information. And so one of the things that I've kind of put into place for for my business is making sure that there is a rabbit hole for people to go down and start to kind of binge content, like a podcast is a good example.
00:32:30:09 - 00:32:46:19
John Azoni
But even just like, you know, posting consistently on whatever social media platform because, you know, people can go go back through once you've hooked them, they can kind of go back through your post and see, Oh, what else is what else is this person talking about and stuff like that. But, you know, and, and I like that advice.
00:32:46:19 - 00:33:08:08
John Azoni
Like you spend you should spend more time on your on your hook on your headline than than anything else. So I want to talk about some specific case studies. One of them I got, I think from your LinkedIn profile was the Groove Tech Smith's organic blog Traffic over 25% in the first year while cutting posting frequency in half.
00:33:08:08 - 00:33:26:06
John Azoni
But first of all, and did you I don't know if you explained what Tech Smith was. If people have listened to the podcast for a little bit, they would have listened to Andy Andy Owens episode, who is from Tech Smith But in case they haven't explained to me what Tech Smith is and then how you grew that blog traffic.
00:33:26:06 - 00:33:53:21
Justin Simon
Sure, Yeah. I mean, Tech Smith Software Company out of the Lansing, Michigan area, main products are Snapchat and Camtasia screen capture, screen recording, video editing. Like I said, I worked there for years. And so at a certain point I had done probably a dozen and dozens of different jobs in the content space at Tech. Smith When you're there for a decade, that kind of happens.
00:33:53:21 - 00:34:14:02
Justin Simon
And so I started on the website and then moved to blogs. And and during that transition, I kind of took over a blog that was we were posting twice a week, but not really with any purpose other than like the average at that time. It was like the average blog, you know, post 2 to 6 times a week.
00:34:14:02 - 00:34:33:20
Justin Simon
The more you post, the better you do. Like that was just kind of like gut feel and trend. But we were like killing ourselves to do that. Like we were trying to get like video editors to write blogs about video and trying to get, you know, people who made our tutorials to do it. And it was just all like all UN volunteer standpoint or get, you know, just get different people.
00:34:33:22 - 00:34:55:05
Justin Simon
We didn't have like at that point, I'm trying to remember it's been been several years, but I don't even think we have like dedicated like writers for the blog. It wasn't like we had people who that's what they did was write blog content or content marketing in that way. And so it was like pulling teeth. You were trying to like they were trying to do an actual job and then write this and then write this blog post, right?
00:34:55:05 - 00:35:12:11
Justin Simon
And so it's like, of course. And they don't know SEO. They don't know, you know, any of the other stuff. And so it was like it was all just this discombobulating. And so I started learning and more about probably 2016 and then just did for like site audits and audits of our content, what was working and what wasn't.
00:35:13:00 - 00:35:36:19
Justin Simon
And so a whole bunch of nitty gritty in there. But essentially how we got to the point where we were doing less but doing better was just like efficiency. So understanding which posts were going to rank the best, do more of those type of posts, get more people and get more different types of posts. So like more middle funnel type.
00:35:36:19 - 00:35:53:11
Justin Simon
So I have this problem. How do I make a YouTube video? We've got a blog post that ranks on how to make Egypt video that links to Camtasia and says, Oh hey, if you want to make a YouTube video here we have a template. You can use it at us. So it's like this very quick and easy funnel to get people in to try the product.
00:35:54:00 - 00:36:13:20
Justin Simon
And so that was that's what that's what we ended up doing, was just building in a sort of like high density middle funnel contact and then moving people through. It's not like an earth setting strategy, but that's how that's how we end up doing it. We were not much more specific in terms of what types of posts we were doing and why we're doing them versus just like, Yeah, it sounds like a good topic.
00:36:13:20 - 00:36:15:11
Justin Simon
I think we think we could do a blog on that.
00:36:15:18 - 00:36:25:09
John Azoni
So any other stories stick out of maybe time where you've worked with someone? They just kind of had some aha moment or really turned their content around by repurposing?
00:36:25:09 - 00:36:49:20
Justin Simon
Yeah, I mean, I think one recently we were just kind of talking about this. It's a very similar, it's a different angle on it, but it's a very similar sort of story where they were doing a live show twice a week for their podcast and, you know, just started walking through it with them and asking them some questions and drilling into like the whys behind that.
00:36:49:20 - 00:37:05:00
Justin Simon
And, you know, you just start peeling a sort of like an onion, start peeling away the layers, and you just understand like, oh, like, I don't know why we're doing two like we just did and they were successful, but they're maybe not as successful now. And so how much and then how are you getting that out to your audience?
00:37:05:00 - 00:37:22:14
Justin Simon
How much how much content do you need? You know, when you talk about like distribution first, while LinkedIn, if you're if your LinkedIn Germain channel, which it was in these people's case like LinkedIn only really likes it if you post once a day, it's not Twitter. You don't need to post 100 times like LinkedIn really only likes it if you post once a day because that post is going to carry out for several days.
00:37:22:14 - 00:37:40:18
Justin Simon
That's just kind of how the algorithm works. It's it's an odd algorithm in that way. And so if you post every single day on LinkedIn, that means you need seven pieces of content a week. That's not very many. So can you get seven pieces of differentiated content out of one hour long show where you're interviewing like four people and doing a roundtable?
00:37:40:18 - 00:38:09:16
Justin Simon
Probably because you could get one quote from each person and there's four. And so, you know, so like you just start doing the math and it's like, oh, we cannot be busting our. But you have to do two shows with eight guests every week and manage it and do it like and so just cutting that down, cutting that back, starting distribution first starting figure out what you actually want to share on and what you actually need, and then go from there and really understand and focus on on what you want to create and how you want to create that.
00:38:09:17 - 00:38:16:02
John Azoni
And you're starting a podcast, right? Or you have a podcast. It's something that was like a waiting list or something.
00:38:16:08 - 00:38:37:20
Justin Simon
Yeah, I mean the, the podcast. So probably I don't know when this a launch, but it's okay either way, if people want to subscribe, it's going to be out there. It's, it's called distribution first. And so we're literally breaking down all of the strategies and frameworks that I use to do this. And sometimes it'll just be me on a monologue, sort of just chatting and giving, given different frameworks.
00:38:37:20 - 00:38:56:16
Justin Simon
Other times when I kind of invite my friends on and chat through how they're doing things as well at different SAS companies or their own startups and, and see see how distributions are working for different companies too. So yeah, distribution first, if you're interested in this and want to learn more, you can go to distribution first DOT CEO and that's where the podcast will be.
00:38:56:16 - 00:38:57:07
Justin Simon
And I.
00:38:57:07 - 00:39:22:15
John Azoni
I find that the this podcast is such a good content engine for, for me it makes life so easy. And actually it's the opposite of like my hesitance to start a podcast was, was, was because I'm like, I'm going to like my, you know, my jobs. Then I'm going to become like, you know, finding guests and like, you know, coming up with content ideas and things to say.
00:39:22:15 - 00:39:43:23
John Azoni
And I'm introverted, so I'm not great at talking to people, you know, and stuff like that. But like I've as I've gotten more comfortable with it, it's I'm, I just love how easy having a podcast makes life in terms of breaking that up into smaller pieces of content. Seven pieces of content a week, like you said.
00:39:44:02 - 00:40:11:12
Justin Simon
Oh, yeah. No, I think I think every business should have a podcast, but I think most businesses do podcasting wrong in two ways. They are not. The podcast is not connected to a core part of the business, so they might use it as a networking thing that, hey, we want to get in with where to interview CEOs, because eventually then when they need X, Y and Z, you know, they'll think of us because we interviewed them one time.
00:40:12:19 - 00:40:38:16
Justin Simon
But that doesn't really help their audience. Who is really using the product. The other the other problem too, is a little bit and it's not wrong. It's just it's something I've sort of realized as doing, working with these type of shows is interview shows tend to get you're like, You've got me on. So a lot of my thoughts are going to get out in the world on the podcast, but it doesn't get as many Jon's thoughts out on the podcast.
00:40:38:16 - 00:40:59:17
Justin Simon
And so like balancing that out for a show, being able to get your thoughts out into the world and how you see these things and using the show to be able to do that. That's what we did when I was at metadata. We use really two hosts to get thought leadership out there and cut those out and then brought in guests sporadically and did it that way.
00:40:59:17 - 00:41:20:08
Justin Simon
Again, there's no necessarily right or wrong. There's tons of tons of really good interview podcasts out there. It's just for me, I think in order to use it in a way that's like a super engine, because part of the fear is you don't know. You can always lead where the guest is going to go. And so if you've got a bad guest, it's like, Dang, this show is bad because the guest is bad.
00:41:21:01 - 00:41:40:01
Justin Simon
Whereas if it's just you, you can only blame you, which is a whole other story. But yeah, I've actually got an episode coming up that breaks down. Like if I were starting a content strategy because I am start, I did start a content strategy in 23. What would I do? And it all stems off the podcast. Everything like everything I have going forward is going to stem off the podcast.
00:41:40:01 - 00:42:02:23
Justin Simon
So newsletter social contact is like Twitter, LinkedIn, it's all going to stem off that. So if I get the topic right at the top and I get that right and we have the right conversation or I have the right conversation on the show, everything else off of that is going to come off of it. And so the message stays the same, the content resonates, all fits.
00:42:02:23 - 00:42:11:10
Justin Simon
And then I just want to drip that out over the months. So then the same message gets hit in June, even though I recorded it in January.
00:42:11:21 - 00:42:20:17
John Azoni
Oh, that's awesome. That's good. Let's talk about email content. You have it. You said you have a newsletter. How do you get people to sign up for that? Like, what's kind of your strategy for opt ins?
00:42:20:20 - 00:42:43:22
Justin Simon
My main strategy. So I have two I have two strategies. I have a what you would probably call a classic lead gen piece, which is just a distributions or a like a repurposing, repurposing ideas sort of worksheet that I have. And you can download it on my website, which is basically just taking one idea and breaking that out into into 30 ideas.
00:42:43:22 - 00:43:03:12
Justin Simon
And so you can take one idea and get 30 in about 30 minutes if you're doing it right. So I have that and then it's honestly just like content and then CTAs within content. So you like you like this piece of this LinkedIn post ad, Hey, I talk about this stuff every Saturday. If you want to join in and in, check out the newsletter.
00:43:03:21 - 00:43:26:21
Justin Simon
I'm going to give you more in-depth strategies, more in-depth things, give you better playbooks than what I'm just sharing out on LinkedIn. And so that's that's how I've done it. It's very organic. I don't do anything paid. I don't do anything like I'm kind of like slow growing it at this point. But in the the best ones do for newsletters are like or any piece of content in terms of like subscribe or ship that I found is like preview post.
00:43:26:21 - 00:43:52:21
Justin Simon
So like on Friday it's hey, here's a problem, here's how, here's how I think about that problem. Tomorrow I'm breaking this problem down in the newsletter. If you're interested in learning how to do that yourself, subscribe. And so that drives ten acts. The amount of subscriber is that a typical one would. But the key with that is not the key with that is that doing that every day like I'm not I'm not I don't have an ask every day I have an ask once.
00:43:53:14 - 00:43:58:12
Justin Simon
And so it's like that that balance of like gives versus asks for your audience.
00:43:58:17 - 00:44:20:23
John Azoni
So I want to ask you, what are some tools that people can use to take, you know, some of the manual labor out of content creation repurposing. I know you've been you mentioned use shield I've seen on your LinkedIn something about notion I don't know what notion does but like what what are some how do you how do your tools work together to help you repurpose stuff.
00:44:21:07 - 00:44:51:00
Justin Simon
Yeah I'm I'm still trying to figure out my perfect mix. I wish there was a tool that could, like, do, like, do just what I want. And so now it's a little bit piecemeal that I've tried a bunch of different stuff. I think at the end of the day it's like, honestly, my most like my best success comes when I have a blog post on one side of the screen and I have a blank Google doc on the other side that I call a distribution doc, and I fill it out with the headlines of the blog post and I write out my content for those and I say, These are my tweets and these are
00:44:51:00 - 00:45:12:08
Justin Simon
in it. You know, some people use spreadsheets. I just like the formatting of a Google post like Night and Go page list notion is very similar. It's just like a notion a little bit more advanced, but you know, same thing. You just do a blank page. And then from there I might use like a tool like buffer or a scheduling tool to to go and start scheduling out that content to where my goal is to have like at least 2 to 4 weeks of content scheduled.
00:45:12:08 - 00:45:28:10
Justin Simon
And then I'm just good to go. And then I'll come in on maybe Sunday night or Monday morning and just refresh and make sure like, okay, do I feel like commenting on this? Is this like still like what I thought was valuable content sometimes like all that postings like I'm just going to digital, I'm to talking about that today or you realize I was a little repetitive.
00:45:28:10 - 00:45:46:20
Justin Simon
I just had one similar to it. So but I try to bulk load things like I try to bulk write and I'm in writing mode. I'm going to repurpose like this week's newsletter. I like right before this call, wrote the newsletter and started breaking up that content immediately because the newsletter content was fresh. And so I was like, Okay, this content, I'm gonna start breaking that down.
00:45:46:20 - 00:46:02:08
Justin Simon
And I know ahead of time because I'm thinking about this stuff in a distribution first mindset. I know I a Twitter thread, I need individual tweets in any LinkedIn posts. And so I just start there and I go from there and I say, okay, here's the okay, what tweets would be good out of this? What where were the solid LinkedIn posts?
00:46:02:08 - 00:46:17:00
Justin Simon
Okay, I need a little bit more. Okay. I can do a Twitter thread that literally just uses the bulk of the posts and formats in a different way. And then, you know, by the end of the day, I'll have probably ten pieces of content that can come off of that and ready to be distributed. I do that every week.
00:46:17:22 - 00:46:41:15
John Azoni
Yeah, that's cool. I mean, bulk bulk creating is, I think the most stressful way to do content creation is like day by day worrying about what you're going to post. Yeah, You know, the moment I discovered I mean, I always knew that there was social media scheduling, you know, for, for a long time. But when I actually started to use it and I'm like, holy crap, I just, I just get a lot of months worth of posts.
00:46:41:15 - 00:47:03:02
John Azoni
I feel so free. You know, it's amazing, even with this podcast, like, I'll edit the show, I'll go for a walk around my neighborhood and just quality, control it and make sure you know, everything's there's no random noises or whatever. But then as I'm walking, I'm, I'm writing down like, Oh, that's a breakout snippet. That's a breakout one.
00:47:03:02 - 00:47:22:10
John Azoni
That's a breakout one. So by the time I get back to my house, I've got like ten ideas and then I just go, Cut those all out, toss them up. I use scenery which, which for me has been really great because it kind of takes some of the guesswork out of when to post content and it kind of takes into account when your followers are most active.
00:47:22:17 - 00:47:24:14
Justin Simon
And yeah, I played with that for a little bit.
00:47:25:09 - 00:47:56:16
John Azoni
Yeah, it's cool. I've been trying a lot of different scheduling tools and they're all relatively the same, but some have more advantages than others. But, but I like, I like seemly so far just, just for being able to. Yeah. Just queue something up, let it figure out when it wants to drip stuff out based on your specific audience and and you know working around posts that are already out there, you know, getting rich not not sort of like overstepping and you know, posting two things at the same time, whatever.
00:47:56:16 - 00:48:18:02
Justin Simon
And I think that's the thing to do is like coming up with a and this is what I'm starting to build out with clients and build out with other folks too, is build building out a custom framework for you. So your channels, your posting schedule, what do you want, How do you want to do this? And then every week, you know, like my main piece of content is this podcast or is this newsletter or is this blog post.
00:48:18:11 - 00:48:44:04
Justin Simon
From there I need to be able to share on this channel, this channel, this channel. Okay, so Mondays I write, Tuesdays, I edit, Wednesdays I cut. We're good to go. And then next week, Mondays I write too. So like you try to come up with a bit or, you know, record, edit, whatever it is, depending on the type of content, but come up with some sort of schedule too, where it becomes regular and becomes a cadence for you and your team, especially if you're a one person marketing team, the better cadences you can be on.
00:48:45:02 - 00:48:51:20
Justin Simon
Like you said, you got a routine for how you edit your show, you record it, you go in your walk, your clips that way, like you've got it sort of figured out for you what works.
00:48:52:15 - 00:49:17:22
John Azoni
Yeah, Selfishly, I'm curious how Twitter's working out for you because I was on Twitter back when it first kind of came out like 2009. I was working at this big nonprofit doing homeless outreach, and we would share a lot of kind of and stuff from, you know, people that we were encountering on the streets. And I did a lot of posting what I had for lunch that day, too, you know, back when that was real cool.
00:49:17:22 - 00:49:32:09
John Azoni
But I haven't been on there in like a decade. And honestly, I've tried to log in to my old Twitter account. There's this really dumb like profile picture of me that's like, if you search my name, it's like me laughing and I have like a faux hawk or something like that and like, and like, big plugs in my ears.
00:49:32:14 - 00:49:58:09
John Azoni
And I can't get into my Twitter account to want to take that down. All just, yeah, the old John Wake, I was ten years cooler, you know. But yeah. How is, how's Twitter working out for you. How, how do you see that content kind of move through the the digital world in a different way than maybe LinkedIn does or.
00:49:58:12 - 00:50:29:15
Justin Simon
I have not cracked it. I used to Twitter massively, so I used to do like the sports, like NFL writing a decade ago as a hobby. That's what I did. And so I grew like a pretty good following doing that. And I was like on Twitter all the time, like talking sports, doing all that type of stuff. Now I'm making that pivot to like talk about marketing and there are people who'd like, absolutely crush it this like, but it like so come comes back to what we talked about at the beginning of the show where it's like, I need to know what the most important things are for me to do now.
00:50:29:21 - 00:50:52:01
Justin Simon
And Twitter is like 10th on the list, maybe maybe 20th on the list in terms of like important. So I'll post, but I'm not like actively putting effort into growing that channel in a way even I probably could because it takes time and effort and energy to be on there and respond. Other is no different with LinkedIn, but like you have to be.
00:50:52:07 - 00:51:27:20
Justin Simon
That's maybe the overarching probably good thing to end and on to is like you can't just post and ghost anymore. Like just, you know, repurpose all the stuff and just post it and then, you know, move on with your life and never interact on those channels. That doesn't work. You have to be able to interact with the people that are on those channels and have conversations and it's social media and it's becoming more and more social media again in terms of like you can't just post, you can't just expect to get a bunch of followers or, you know, if you oh, if I post this really good stuff, I know you have to be active,
00:51:27:20 - 00:51:43:13
Justin Simon
you have to engage and you have to be able to to do that. And like mentally, I'm not spending time, effort and energy on Twitter right now to grow those, but I see people who absolutely are killing it doing that. So, yeah, I mean, it's kind of kind of chicken and egg with that.
00:51:43:13 - 00:52:01:22
John Azoni
Yeah. The only time I'm on Twitter anymore is once a year on New Year's Eve. And it started when it started when Mariah Carey in 2016, like, do you remember this where she was like went on stage and she couldn't sing any of it. She couldn't remember any of the lyrics to her song? No, I can hear herself.
00:52:02:10 - 00:52:32:13
John Azoni
Oh, my gosh, you got to look it up. It was the best. And I feel so honored that I that I witnessed it live. I mean, my being, my not in person, but like on live TV, it was just the tweets that came out after that were hilarious. It just so, so, so funny. And and so now every every New Year's Eve, my wife and I just get on the hashtag whatever the New Year's Eve hashtag, you know, just watch people just, like, tear apart these people that are just trying their best out there, you know?
00:52:34:04 - 00:52:44:04
John Azoni
So anyway, Justin, thanks for coming on, man. We're working. So you do have the the content repurposing roadmap. Is that is that like a page thing or. Right.
00:52:44:12 - 00:53:15:08
Justin Simon
Yeah, Yeah. So content repurposing roadmap is a course video course I made. It's got 12 videos and it takes you probably if you're to watch it straight through right about an hour, maybe a little less depending if you two exit speed on it and basically walks you through different frameworks that I use talks about the distribution documents, shows you how to do that for blog posts, walks you through really the mindset shifts that I talked about here on the show and then give us like concrete examples about how I've done this and pass at different companies.
00:53:15:18 - 00:53:26:14
Justin Simon
So that's like very self service DIY. If you're interested in trying to figure out how to do this, that's a great, great resource and you just find that content repurposing roadmap.
00:53:26:14 - 00:53:31:08
John Azoni
Dotcom Cool. Where can people sign up for your newsletter at if they were interested in that?
00:53:31:20 - 00:53:48:13
Justin Simon
Yeah. If you want to sign up for the newsletter, you can go to Justin Simon, Dot CEO and there'll be a little newsletter tab right at the top. You can sign up there and those drop every single Saturday morning at 815 every, every single week. So yeah, definitely would be happy to have folks join me over there.
00:53:49:01 - 00:53:51:18
John Azoni
Awesome. All is great having you. Thanks. Thanks for coming on the show.
00:53:51:21 - 00:53:53:16
Justin Simon
Yeah, thanks for having John. It was fun. Fun cover.
00:53:54:03 - 00:54:08:05
John Azoni
Well, I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Justin and I mentioned the book and about marketing to Gen Z in this episode and it's called InstaBrain. I recommend checking that out link in the show notes to where you can get that. Also a link to where he can get the book hook point that I mentioned by Brendan King.
00:54:08:08 - 00:54:30:07
John Azoni
Three things I want to give you before you go. Number one is having a lot of student and alumni success stories at your disposal is something you would love to have. You could just snap your fingers and have what you want. Let's talk. I've got something great for you with our video storytelling subscriptions. Imagine having one new student or alumni story drop in your inbox every month, Plus ten other supplemental videos stemming from that story.
00:54:30:07 - 00:54:50:06
John Azoni
11 videos per month. That's 132 pieces of video content per year, plus all of that footage to use as you wish, forever. No extra charge. For more information on that, including pricing, go to pricing unveild.tv and download our pricing guide. Number two, if you want to take the storytelling you're already doing to the next level, I have a free resource for you.
00:54:50:06 - 00:55:08:07
John Azoni
It's a three part framework for creating compelling student and alumni testimonials. Get it at unveild.tv/studenttestimonials. It doesn't even have to be for video. It works for written content as well, or telling stories on stage or in a presentation in your next TED talk, whatever. So go pick that up. Number three, leave it review for this podcast.
00:55:08:07 - 00:55:23:19
John Azoni
It helps us out a ton. Thanks so much for listening. My name is John Azoni. Go connect with me on LinkedIn or email me at John@unveild.tv. And in the meantime, we'll catch you on the next episode of the Higher Ed Storytelling University podcast. Thanks.
