April 24, 2025 • 26 mins
➡️ “Want to successfully promote your nonfiction book? Grab our FREE 5-Day Nonfiction Book Marketing Challenge here: http://authornation.online/promotion
In this video, we explore how to create snackable video content 🎥 that captivates your audience and enhances your author brand. Discover effective strategies for leveraging video to boost your visibility and establish your thought leadership in the nonfiction space. Whether you're a seasoned author or just starting, these tips will help you engage your audience and drive author lead generation with video 📈.
Key Takeaways:
In this video, we explore how to create snackable video content 🎥 that captivates your audience and enhances your author brand. Discover effective strategies for leveraging video to boost your visibility and establish your thought leadership in the nonfiction space. Whether you're a seasoned author or just starting, these tips will help you engage your audience and drive author lead generation with video 📈.
Key Takeaways:
- 📚 Learn the essentials of creating concise, engaging video content that resonates with viewers.
- 🎯 Discover how to utilize video as a powerful tool for author lead generation and audience engagement.
- 🌟 Explore practical strategies for building your thought leadership as an author through effective video marketing.
- 🚀 Uncover quick action items to start implementing snackable video content today!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We're talking about personal branding for authors, how to create
content that boosts book sales and visibility, and why LinkedIn
might be your new best friend him Melodie Oh, and
this is Author Nation Interviews, and we are here to
help you write successfully, share your expertise, and grow your
impact through your nonfiction book. If you're looking for resources,
(00:35):
you can visit no author nation dot online. There will
be a treasure drove of resources designed just for you.
So if they're sipping your morning coffee or winding down
after a long day, settle in and let me introduce
our guest. Justin Veco is a marketing nerd his Gateway
drug making up brand names and drawing logos with his
(00:57):
middle school buddies just for fun. He graduated with a
BA in Graphic design from EWO Claire. He then cut
his teeth leading the marketing for a four million dollar nonprofit,
moving them into the digital age with new channels and systems.
He joined a sixty million healthcare manufacturer as a marketing
(01:18):
team of one, helping grow them two ninety million in
three years. Justin then became a full time marketing entrepreneur
in twenty eighteen, and he now enables founders to grow
their pipeline and thought leadership through thought leadership video content,
which you can learn more about at www dot Dialogue
(01:40):
with Us. Let's welcome Justin. Hi Justin, how.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Are you doing great? Happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh, I'm thrilled to have you. You know, my daughter's
name is Justine okay, and every time she orders a
coffee and they say what's your name, she says Justine.
Later it becomes Justin. I don't know why that happens
to me.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I have the option. Is it problem?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
What I was gonna ask? Yes, do you become justinees?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Sometimes I do? The other time is Jason. I don't
know why.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
All Right, isn't that funny? Well, I'm glad it's it's
not personal to her.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
All right.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So you you started out in graphic design, but then
you moved to helping B to B or business to
business founders, Like, how did that shift happen?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, it's an interesting journey. I'll give you the short answer. Essentially,
I did go to school for graphic design, graduated with
a BA, and I took the first job I could get.
You know, this was in twenty ten, so two years
after the Great recession, and I took the first job
I could get and had ten percent to do with
graphic design and ninety percent to do with I needed
(02:43):
a full time job, and it so happened. In that role,
I was able to take on a lot of marketing
tasks for the nonprofit I worked for, because when you
do one marketing thing, people just assume you know how
to do the other ones. And I was interested in
curious enough to find out, and so that was my
I was there for one month drive six years, and
(03:04):
over time was able to learn quite a bit about
writing effective writing emails and long form letters. I would
be the one eventually by the time I left, I
was the one writing all of their donation requests letters
and pretty darn good at it. So all of that
taught me how to basically think about marketing holistically, and
(03:27):
then from there moved on through my career until I
eventually started Dialogue and here we are.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, I think non funding marketing is interesting. Is what
you're really doing is you're asking people for nothing, and
they're like, what do I get? And you're like, well,
there's no product or service for you, but you'll feel good.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Right, that's right. They inherently know they'll feel good. Yeah,
but it is still a tough sell. It is still
a tough sell.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It can be a very tough sell.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Let's talk about personal branding for nonfiction authors. Now, we
have a couple of different types of nonfiction authors. We've
got the business owner who writes a book and that
helps them, you know, it becomes an asset in their business.
It because you know, there's a professional and medical doctor
for example, who writes a book helps with a reputation
in their career. And then you've got the nonfiction author
(04:13):
who writes let's say personal essays and they've got two
or three books and they're really looking to they're really
looking to sell books and you know, other similar things
to make income. They don't have a traditional business like
the entrepreneur over here or the medical doctor there. But
they all need a personal brand, don't they.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah, you do. I liken it to Someone can
read your book, but if they forget your name, how
useful is that for the next book?
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You saw?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Right, that's why you want to think about building a
personal brand. And when you think about some of the
biggest authors out there, that's what they've all done and
Now you could argue, well, they've done it through writing
a really damn good book, but a lot of them,
especially in the business world, they've done it by putting
themselves out there there beyond just the book and doing
you know, the traditional things that authors are asked to
(05:04):
do by their pr folks, the interviews, the media appearances,
et cetera. But there are other ways to build your
personal that are less than being on the news or
doing the media interviews. Still hard to do, but still
a little less scary, and even I would argue, sometimes
even more effective over the long term.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, exactly. And one is LinkedIn. I'm really excited to
get to that, but I have a couple of questions
before we get there. So what type of content actually
moves the needle when it comes to visibility and book sales?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So I can't speak specifically to visibility when it comes
to books. We have a couple of clients who are authors,
but when I know when it comes to LinkedIn and
getting visibility on LinkedIn, I can definitely speak to that
and how to actually build your personal brand as an author.
There are no secrets to building a personal brand as
an author versus as a regular business person. But I
(06:04):
will say having a book in your hands while you're
doing a video or or mentioning that book in a
post you write or whatever is definitely a massive game
changer for the personal brand you want to write, you
want to build.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, so what what should authors and stop doing?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Mmm?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So if you're this is a this is a great
question across the board for LinkedIn. So I'm talking in
the context of LinkedIn. I'm a video guy. This is
my thing, so I'll answer in the context to what
I know best. One of the common things you see
a lot of people do when it comes to video content,
including authors, is that they might be thinking about doing
(06:46):
this as a like a speech or presentation. The problem is,
we have enough speeches and presentations online and most of
them are going to be better than you, So don't
try to compete on their field. What you can do
instead is think about your content as a snapshot in
your life and what you're thinking. So content as you go,
so to speak, not these presented speeches so to speak,
(07:10):
no pun intended. So what does that look like? Well,
instead of thinking about creating content that is polished and
specifically video, but even writing and writing in a way
that's just this this essay. Think about your content as
what can I share today that I've learned in the
last week, What can I share today that I gave
as counsel to somebody in the last week. And you
(07:31):
start thinking about your content less as a platform and
more as a as a way to help people. And
that's extremely extremely needed in the non fiction world. And
again all from your experience as a as a as
an author, not necessarily in platitudes and things like that
(07:54):
that can easily be chgpt. As an author, you have
to have a let go have written something. You are
a writer, and so do definitely leverage the as you
go approach of creating content with your special your unique voice.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah. So another question I want to ask you is
about being You know, a lot of authors don't want
to feel marketing or sales y, but I wanted to
link it to the question we just discussed. The thought
that comes to me is, you know, talking about your
content and not thinking about it as formal presentation, does
it make sense to make it like you're having a conversation.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
M h yeah, exactly. And so that that ties in
beautifully with how I recommend everybody approaches their content. It's
called I use a term called the content buddy system.
So just like you and I are having a conversation
right now, it's a very it's a fairly formal affair.
It's a podcast type of method. You can do the
(08:54):
same thing with a colleague or a peer, or even
a customer even to create content. And what I mean
by that, what the content buddy system does is it's well,
let me expring the process first and then explaining what
it does. The process is basically, you get on the
phone or on a zoom call with a buddy again,
a peer, a colleague, maybe someone ahead of you, somebody,
(09:16):
a prospect, maybe you're trying to build a relationship with,
and you say, hey, what if we could help each
other create content by interviewing each other once a month,
once a week, whatever. You decide a cadence. And there's
no standard, there's no you're not trying to do something polished.
You're just trying to understand one another and you're asking
each other questions from a different perspective than usually we
(09:37):
ask ourselves. And you record that session and then guess what,
You've got a recording and you can take the wrong
ingredients of what you said, and you can either turn
it into short clips for social media if it's good
enough for that, if you feel like it's good enough,
or you could take the transcript and what it inspire
you for polishing up a little bit more your answers
into the written post or both. That's a sense what
(10:01):
we've productized and serve our clients. But anyone can do this,
and what that does is it removes the stress from
creating content. It also removes the excuse if I don't
know what to talk about, because guess what someone's going
to ask you questions, Hey, tell me your story, Hey
why did you choose this? D D D? And you
might not always have an answer, but you can keep
whatever you want and get rid of whatever you want,
and you'll never run a by and run out of
(10:22):
ideas because someone else is drawing it out of you
through simple conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I love this, And if
you're loving this as much as I do, go check
out dialogue with us dot us for more information about
how you can work with Justin. And I'm not going
to call him Jason, It's Justin, all right, Let's talk LinkedIn,
(10:48):
Let's talk LinkedIn. Why is it such a powerful platform?
I mean for nonfiction authors, but for anyone, Why.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Is it so powerful? Well, specifically nonfiction. When you're a
nonfiction you really are talking to a business audience. Typically
not always right there are you know, cooking books, there's
there's all sorts of categorism nonfiction. But I know that
in the world of business, if your book has anything
to do with B two B or selling or marketing
(11:17):
or mindset or culture or whatever, you're talking to a
business audience. And LinkedIn is really the platform for business
audiences that are hungry to learn, willing to learn, willing
to do something about it and take action rather than
just browsing and viewing and going on their way. LinkedIn
(11:40):
has over a billion members now A lot of people
don't realize how big LinkedIn is. That's one one in
eight people in the world. And it's probably most, if
not all, of the business professionals you look up to
in the world have a LinkedIn account. Not everyone. There's
a couple I can think of at the top of
my head. Some of my heroes are like, they don't
have an LinkedIn account yet I should I should bug
them about that. But most anybody who's anybody will have
(12:03):
a LinkedIn account. And what makes LinkedIn different as a
platform for your content as a nonfiction author is that
you have insights into who's seeing your content specifically down
to the individuals, whereas the other platforms you're really just
seeing overall big picture things like views and engagement rate,
which isn't bad, but it leaves a gap at least
(12:26):
something to be desired in terms of how to leverage
that information, leverage your content in order to get more
opportunities in front of you. So, for example, if you're
an author of a nonfiction book and you're in business
and you want to see who's visiting my profile on LinkedIn,
you can do that. You can't do that in another platform.
You can go, I'll view them other week and you
(12:47):
can see, you can see if they're qualified as a
prospect or a partner, and you can send a connection
request and you can say, hey, thanks for visiting my profile.
What drew you to connect and start a conversation? And
guess what? Now you have content that drew someone to
your profile, that drew drew you into a conversation one
on one, and you have, for all intents and purposes,
a lead on your hands in a non salesy way,
(13:08):
just initiating connection in many ways, similar to how speakers
speak on stages and then often people approach them afterwards
and say, ah, that was so good. Could you work
with us on X y Z problem. If you're leveraging
the speaker approach and the founder approach, I'm sorry, the
speaker approach and the author approach. LinkedIn is the next
best thing because it's the speaker and author approach at scale.
(13:29):
You're teaching people with your content, which is the author approach,
and you're also able to approach people after the event,
so to speak, and initiate those one conversations which are
important for business.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah. Yeah, And I'm just going to say that I
know authors who are on LinkedIn who aren't necessarily business.
Mental health. A lot of people are LinkedIn very interested
mental health. You know, personal developments along with professional development,
and even you know how to how to manage their time,
their you know, family right, how to build relationships with
(14:04):
their with their kids because they're busy working. It's amazing
to me how many different types of nonfiction books actually
work on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
That's good insight for me, right, I'm not again, I'm
not the author expert here, but I do I cannot
anecdotally confirm that that content does work. That's not business
content through I have a couple colleagues, newer colleagues of mine,
and they're in the fitness space and their angle, I
guess it is fitness business. Their angle is busy founders. Right,
So they're talking about fitness. But for busy founders, where
(14:35):
does it make sense for them to do content? YouTube?
Maybe sure, why not? TikTok maybe sure, why not? But
LinkedIn because that's where the founders are spending time. That's
where the founders are themselves looking for clients, but also
learning from people ahead of themselves. So it makes sense
to be on the platform, at least if you're already
on another platform, to just add it and and propagate
(14:55):
your content there as well and help.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, and as you said, you want to have a
business twist, right, So let's go back to cookbooks. You
mentioned cookbook. You know, if you have a cookbook and
you want to go on LinkedIn, don't just say hey,
here's a cookbook, Say hey, here's a cookbook with you know,
ten thirty minute recipes for busy professionals who still want
to eat you know, who still want to eat whole foods.
(15:20):
You there, you go, right, It's and this is something
I'm always telling authors when it comes to content. You
can go on a variety of different media, different types
of podcasts, but it's you have to fit it to
that audience. If you can fit it to that audience,
you can be in the right place.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
That's absolutely right. Yeah, that's a relevant lesson for anyone.
You don't have to just stay in the one place
you think you have to play. If you can adapt
it to the audience of that platform, which on LinkedIn
is really the biggest difference is business, then then you've
got a game plan on your hands for your content
to win.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yes, exactly. So let's talk about what type of content
we should be putting up on LinkedIn, specificly videos.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to slice and
dice what makes for effective video, But ultimately what I
will say is you want your videos. We're talking two things,
the type of content, but also the way you deliver
the content. When you do video, the delivery is often
just as important as the content in the video. And
the first thing I'll say about the type of content.
(16:21):
I've been asked this question a few times what makes
for the best video content, And I will say anything
that teaches your audience something new. It's not about stats,
it's not about stories, it's not about anything any one
type of topic specifically. It's about is it teaching somebody
something new, Which means, when you think about it, any
(16:42):
type of content can make for a good video if
you then deliver it in the best way. So if
you're talking about a stat, maybe you need to cite
the stats, show the article in the background of your
video when you're thinking TikTok. You know, when somebody's pointing
see the stat and there's an article header above them.
You can do that on LinkedIn as well. My point
is that effective video content on LinkedIn delivers value every time.
(17:03):
It's not you walking along and sharing your thoughts about
the latest thing. Although there might be a gold nugget
in there, make sure you hone in on that gold
nugget and give it to somebody as quickly and as
efficiently as possible. Nobody wants to watch you for two
minutes to get to the gold nugget. They're scrolling Your
post is probably an accident in their feed. So give
(17:24):
them a reason to stop and listen and go that
was insightful and maybe follow you, maybe take an action
as a next step, but they're probably going to move on.
And the good thing is if you give them insightful, fast,
little snackable pieces of content with your video, whatever it is.
We talk about some of those tips for different kinds.
But the good news if you do that effectively, if
they watch your video and they think this is important,
(17:46):
this is good, and they like it, the algorithm is
more likely to show them your next video and your
next video and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, thank you, and talking about that, it's such a
nice segue. I think you have a video, an educational
video to share with the audience. Could you talk a
little bit about what this is? Which one you were
going to offer a video for the audience.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I'll see, I'll see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Absolutely. So one of the things while I'm on a mission.
First of all, my big Harry audacious goal may be
HAG if somebody you are familiar with that terminology, is
I want to help ten thousand subject matter experts have
a voice on LinkedIn. Specifically, I believe there's a lot
of people who are sharing content on LinkedIn who really
(18:35):
should be sharing content on LinkedIn. It's not very good.
They really don't have the life experience to speak to it.
It's kind of like the life coach at twenty year old.
Life coach kind of a thing. And I also believe
as the opposite is true, people who should be sharing
their content just aren't. And so one of the things
I do that fulfills that mission is I give an
opportunity for folks who are interested in doing video content.
(18:58):
And there may be a little stressed about it. Maybe
they're not so much stressed about it, they just don't
have the time to make for it. An opportunity to
do a free video session with me. It takes thirty
minutes and it produces one edited video. And the reason
it works so well and it removes all the stress,
or at least most of the stress from the equation
of doing video is because just like what you and
I are doing right now, it's all about having a conversation.
(19:20):
We set the time together on your calendar, you're held
accountable to that time with me, and we meet and
I say, okay, move your light over here. Right, there's
always technical things to do with video that most people
are never aware of. But I'll walk them through that
ten fifteen minutes, and then the rest of that time,
that half hours spent just having a really pleasant conversation
about what they know best, and then we turn that
(19:41):
around and turn it into an edited thirty sixty minute
or sixty second video for them to use however they
want on their website or on LinkedIn or any other platform.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That's beautiful. Thank you so much. That's amazing. Where do
we find that?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So you can find more about that on my profile
on LinkedIn? Find me justin Vacojko and the only one
in the world, so it'd be pretty easy. And that's
really the only place you have to come. Connect with
me on LinkedIn, or you don't have to connect with you,
but you can go check that out on my LinkedIn profile.
There's some people that says get a free video.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Perfect, and I will make sure that that link is
in the show notes for everyone, because I know everyone
wants to go do that, at least you should. I mean,
that's an amazing offer. Thank you so much. As we
wrap up, what are three things our listeners can do
right now? To get started. Like people who are like
(20:37):
I don't want to be on video, we are like
three things they can do right now to move the
needle forward.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Absolutely. So the first thing you can do is if
you don't have the time, you can make the time
by having accountability of another person. We talked about that
before content buddy system. Find a buddy. Maybe if you're
really nervous, that someone you're comfortable with that maybe they're
not in business, but they're willing to give you thirty
minutes to just start out and have a conversation. When
I've had people, when I coach people, I've done a
(21:04):
workshop and I've had people do this, they were nervous
at first, but all of a sudden they were just
the floodgates opened and they got comfortable, and all of
a sudden, all this valuable content came out. And so
I recommend finding a content buddy and doing your first
session and recording it and not having the standard that
we're going to use the video, but maybe you use
the transcript and write a few posts from that. The
second tip I recommend, and this is one a lot
(21:24):
of people don't think about, is if you are in
business and you're having a lot of conversations with people,
whether it's networking or sales conversations or even with your team.
You're sharing content all the time. You're just not capturing it.
You're sharing tips. I guarantee you you're sharing tips, stats, trends,
all sorts of information that is really just staying in
(21:45):
one on one conversations. So get a software like Fathom,
which I use, and record your calls and then ask
Fathom after a call hey would would make when would
there be any topics? Or take the transcript and run
run it through chat GPT and say will there be
any topics here that be useful for content? And then
take that and it'll tell you and then you can
decide if you want to write something about that.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Now.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
I don't recommend using outright just to write the post.
It's a very poor use of AI. If you're a writer,
you need to write. So use Fathom though, to capture
content as you go. Going back to the point we
shared earlier, so content boddy system to get some content
out that you may not have thought about before from
a different perspective, content as you go with a Fathom
type of software to capture what you know, not really
those really solve the getting it out of you and
(22:28):
getting the ideas done. And then the third idea I
have for you to if you're trying to take LinkedIn seriously,
treat this is a bigger mindset. Go on there and
if you're too not sure about writing posts or creating videos,
start by commenting. Commenting on LinkedIn, unlike any other platform,
has incredible reach. If you go to your feed, you
spending amount of time in your feed on LinkedIn, you'll
(22:50):
notice people in the feed that are just leaving comments
on other people's posts you don't know. LinkedIn rewards presence
on the platform, and one of the ways that measures
that is if you're making comments. So maybe don't have
to start with content, but you can start with commenting
as you find your voice on the platform and you
can get more embold and then you can get into
content creation.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, and I love how you talked about just you know,
if you don't want to do post, just comment is
one of the best things. So I get these kind
of cold messages from strangers on LinkedIn sometimes you know,
it's like you should do this with me, and I
don't you want, you know, and that most of the
time they don't even know who I am. If they
had just started by commenting and interacting with me online
(23:32):
and building some sort of recognition like oh, I know
that name. That person's taken the time to get to
know me and has commented on my on my things.
When they then made a connection and wanted to get
on a call, I'd be far more open to it.
And so I just want to add that. So you know,
find your ideal reader or client on LinkedIn and follow,
(23:55):
don't even ask for connection, follow, comment, you know, like share.
There's certain people I share their content because I think
it's really valuable content. I just want to add that.
So it's you know, that's that's really really good advice.
Thank you so much, justin my pleasure. Ah, where do
we find you? Remind us where we find you?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
So you can find me on LinkedIn. Of course I
post almost every weekday and I try to comment as well,
so uh, and you can also find me on my
website dialogue with dot us and we have all sorts
of goodies resources. There's a free mini course for how
to get leads with video. Obviously there's way more to
it than just a couple talking points that I made today.
So I'll walk you through some of the technical aspects
(24:39):
of it and some of the softer aspects of it,
like what does good content look like? I talk about
the hook, the media, middle, and sixteenth summary, and the
three parts that make for every good video piece piece
of video content in depth, so all sorts of resources
on my website.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Thank you so much, really really appreciate you. Thank you
for coming, and thank thank you for joining us today
and Authornations. I hope this conversation has sparked new ideas
for how you can grow your author platform, share your
message more widely, and create content that actually connects with
the right people. Remember to visit author nation online to
(25:15):
unlock a wealth of resources designed to support you. And
of course we're always grateful for your support, and this
was a really valuable episode, So please leave a review,
share it with someone you know who needs to hear this,
and let us know what you'd like to hear next,
because your feedback helps us bring you the tools and
the insights you need to succeed. So keep writing, keep
(25:40):
showing up, and continue to share your stories with the
world
Speaker 1 (26:00):
S
Hello.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
We're talking about personal branding for authors, how to create
content that boosts book sales and visibility, and why LinkedIn
might be your new best friend him Melodie Oh, and
this is Author Nation Interviews, and we are here to
help you write successfully, share your expertise, and grow your
impact through your nonfiction book. If you're looking for resources,
(00:35):
you can visit no author nation dot online. There will
be a treasure drove of resources designed just for you.
So if they're sipping your morning coffee or winding down
after a long day, settle in and let me introduce
our guest. Justin Veco is a marketing nerd his Gateway
drug making up brand names and drawing logos with his
(00:57):
middle school buddies just for fun. He graduated with a
BA in Graphic design from EWO Claire. He then cut
his teeth leading the marketing for a four million dollar nonprofit,
moving them into the digital age with new channels and systems.
He joined a sixty million healthcare manufacturer as a marketing
(01:18):
team of one, helping grow them two ninety million in
three years. Justin then became a full time marketing entrepreneur
in twenty eighteen, and he now enables founders to grow
their pipeline and thought leadership through thought leadership video content,
which you can learn more about at www dot Dialogue
(01:40):
with Us. Let's welcome Justin. Hi Justin, how.
Speaker 3 (01:44):
Are you doing great? Happy to be here.
Speaker 2 (01:47):
Oh, I'm thrilled to have you. You know, my daughter's
name is Justine okay, and every time she orders a
coffee and they say what's your name, she says Justine.
Later it becomes Justin. I don't know why that happens
to me.
Speaker 3 (01:59):
I have the option. Is it problem?
Speaker 2 (02:01):
What I was gonna ask? Yes, do you become justinees?
Speaker 3 (02:03):
Sometimes I do? The other time is Jason. I don't
know why.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
All Right, isn't that funny? Well, I'm glad it's it's
not personal to her.
Speaker 1 (02:13):
All right.
Speaker 2 (02:13):
So you you started out in graphic design, but then
you moved to helping B to B or business to
business founders, Like, how did that shift happen?
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Yeah, it's an interesting journey. I'll give you the short answer. Essentially,
I did go to school for graphic design, graduated with
a BA, and I took the first job I could get.
You know, this was in twenty ten, so two years
after the Great recession, and I took the first job
I could get and had ten percent to do with
graphic design and ninety percent to do with I needed
(02:43):
a full time job, and it so happened. In that role,
I was able to take on a lot of marketing
tasks for the nonprofit I worked for, because when you
do one marketing thing, people just assume you know how
to do the other ones. And I was interested in
curious enough to find out, and so that was my
I was there for one month drive six years, and
(03:04):
over time was able to learn quite a bit about
writing effective writing emails and long form letters. I would
be the one eventually by the time I left, I
was the one writing all of their donation requests letters
and pretty darn good at it. So all of that
taught me how to basically think about marketing holistically, and
(03:27):
then from there moved on through my career until I
eventually started Dialogue and here we are.
Speaker 2 (03:32):
Yeah, I think non funding marketing is interesting. Is what
you're really doing is you're asking people for nothing, and
they're like, what do I get? And you're like, well,
there's no product or service for you, but you'll feel good.
Speaker 3 (03:44):
Right, that's right. They inherently know they'll feel good. Yeah,
but it is still a tough sell. It is still
a tough sell.
Speaker 2 (03:51):
It can be a very tough sell.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Oh.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
Let's talk about personal branding for nonfiction authors. Now, we
have a couple of different types of nonfiction authors. We've
got the business owner who writes a book and that
helps them, you know, it becomes an asset in their business.
It because you know, there's a professional and medical doctor
for example, who writes a book helps with a reputation
in their career. And then you've got the nonfiction author
(04:13):
who writes let's say personal essays and they've got two
or three books and they're really looking to they're really
looking to sell books and you know, other similar things
to make income. They don't have a traditional business like
the entrepreneur over here or the medical doctor there. But
they all need a personal brand, don't they.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
Yeah, yeah, you do. I liken it to Someone can
read your book, but if they forget your name, how
useful is that for the next book?
Speaker 1 (04:41):
You saw?
Speaker 3 (04:43):
Right, that's why you want to think about building a
personal brand. And when you think about some of the
biggest authors out there, that's what they've all done and
Now you could argue, well, they've done it through writing
a really damn good book, but a lot of them,
especially in the business world, they've done it by putting
themselves out there there beyond just the book and doing
you know, the traditional things that authors are asked to
(05:04):
do by their pr folks, the interviews, the media appearances,
et cetera. But there are other ways to build your
personal that are less than being on the news or
doing the media interviews. Still hard to do, but still
a little less scary, and even I would argue, sometimes
even more effective over the long term.
Speaker 2 (05:27):
Yeah, exactly. And one is LinkedIn. I'm really excited to
get to that, but I have a couple of questions
before we get there. So what type of content actually
moves the needle when it comes to visibility and book sales?
Speaker 3 (05:40):
So I can't speak specifically to visibility when it comes
to books. We have a couple of clients who are authors,
but when I know when it comes to LinkedIn and
getting visibility on LinkedIn, I can definitely speak to that
and how to actually build your personal brand as an author.
There are no secrets to building a personal brand as
an author versus as a regular business person. But I
(06:04):
will say having a book in your hands while you're
doing a video or or mentioning that book in a
post you write or whatever is definitely a massive game
changer for the personal brand you want to write, you
want to build.
Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, so what what should authors and stop doing?
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Mmm?
Speaker 3 (06:25):
So if you're this is a this is a great
question across the board for LinkedIn. So I'm talking in
the context of LinkedIn. I'm a video guy. This is
my thing, so I'll answer in the context to what
I know best. One of the common things you see
a lot of people do when it comes to video content,
including authors, is that they might be thinking about doing
(06:46):
this as a like a speech or presentation. The problem is,
we have enough speeches and presentations online and most of
them are going to be better than you, So don't
try to compete on their field. What you can do
instead is think about your content as a snapshot in
your life and what you're thinking. So content as you go,
so to speak, not these presented speeches so to speak,
(07:10):
no pun intended. So what does that look like? Well,
instead of thinking about creating content that is polished and
specifically video, but even writing and writing in a way
that's just this this essay. Think about your content as
what can I share today that I've learned in the
last week, What can I share today that I gave
as counsel to somebody in the last week. And you
(07:31):
start thinking about your content less as a platform and
more as a as a way to help people. And
that's extremely extremely needed in the non fiction world. And
again all from your experience as a as a as
an author, not necessarily in platitudes and things like that
(07:54):
that can easily be chgpt. As an author, you have
to have a let go have written something. You are
a writer, and so do definitely leverage the as you
go approach of creating content with your special your unique voice.
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Yeah. So another question I want to ask you is
about being You know, a lot of authors don't want
to feel marketing or sales y, but I wanted to
link it to the question we just discussed. The thought
that comes to me is, you know, talking about your
content and not thinking about it as formal presentation, does
it make sense to make it like you're having a conversation.
Speaker 3 (08:34):
M h yeah, exactly. And so that that ties in
beautifully with how I recommend everybody approaches their content. It's
called I use a term called the content buddy system.
So just like you and I are having a conversation
right now, it's a very it's a fairly formal affair.
It's a podcast type of method. You can do the
(08:54):
same thing with a colleague or a peer, or even
a customer even to create content. And what I mean
by that, what the content buddy system does is it's well,
let me expring the process first and then explaining what
it does. The process is basically, you get on the
phone or on a zoom call with a buddy again,
a peer, a colleague, maybe someone ahead of you, somebody,
(09:16):
a prospect, maybe you're trying to build a relationship with,
and you say, hey, what if we could help each
other create content by interviewing each other once a month,
once a week, whatever. You decide a cadence. And there's
no standard, there's no you're not trying to do something polished.
You're just trying to understand one another and you're asking
each other questions from a different perspective than usually we
(09:37):
ask ourselves. And you record that session and then guess what,
You've got a recording and you can take the wrong
ingredients of what you said, and you can either turn
it into short clips for social media if it's good
enough for that, if you feel like it's good enough,
or you could take the transcript and what it inspire
you for polishing up a little bit more your answers
into the written post or both. That's a sense what
(10:01):
we've productized and serve our clients. But anyone can do this,
and what that does is it removes the stress from
creating content. It also removes the excuse if I don't
know what to talk about, because guess what someone's going
to ask you questions, Hey, tell me your story, Hey
why did you choose this? D D D? And you
might not always have an answer, but you can keep
whatever you want and get rid of whatever you want,
and you'll never run a by and run out of
(10:22):
ideas because someone else is drawing it out of you
through simple conversation.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
Yeah, that makes perfect sense. I love this, And if
you're loving this as much as I do, go check
out dialogue with us dot us for more information about
how you can work with Justin. And I'm not going
to call him Jason, It's Justin, all right, Let's talk LinkedIn,
(10:48):
Let's talk LinkedIn. Why is it such a powerful platform?
I mean for nonfiction authors, but for anyone, Why.
Speaker 3 (10:55):
Is it so powerful? Well, specifically nonfiction. When you're a
nonfiction you really are talking to a business audience. Typically
not always right there are you know, cooking books, there's
there's all sorts of categorism nonfiction. But I know that
in the world of business, if your book has anything
to do with B two B or selling or marketing
(11:17):
or mindset or culture or whatever, you're talking to a
business audience. And LinkedIn is really the platform for business
audiences that are hungry to learn, willing to learn, willing
to do something about it and take action rather than
just browsing and viewing and going on their way. LinkedIn
(11:40):
has over a billion members now A lot of people
don't realize how big LinkedIn is. That's one one in
eight people in the world. And it's probably most, if
not all, of the business professionals you look up to
in the world have a LinkedIn account. Not everyone. There's
a couple I can think of at the top of
my head. Some of my heroes are like, they don't
have an LinkedIn account yet I should I should bug
them about that. But most anybody who's anybody will have
(12:03):
a LinkedIn account. And what makes LinkedIn different as a
platform for your content as a nonfiction author is that
you have insights into who's seeing your content specifically down
to the individuals, whereas the other platforms you're really just
seeing overall big picture things like views and engagement rate,
which isn't bad, but it leaves a gap at least
(12:26):
something to be desired in terms of how to leverage
that information, leverage your content in order to get more
opportunities in front of you. So, for example, if you're
an author of a nonfiction book and you're in business
and you want to see who's visiting my profile on LinkedIn,
you can do that. You can't do that in another platform.
You can go, I'll view them other week and you
(12:47):
can see, you can see if they're qualified as a
prospect or a partner, and you can send a connection
request and you can say, hey, thanks for visiting my profile.
What drew you to connect and start a conversation? And
guess what? Now you have content that drew someone to
your profile, that drew drew you into a conversation one
on one, and you have, for all intents and purposes,
a lead on your hands in a non salesy way,
(13:08):
just initiating connection in many ways, similar to how speakers
speak on stages and then often people approach them afterwards
and say, ah, that was so good. Could you work
with us on X y Z problem. If you're leveraging
the speaker approach and the founder approach, I'm sorry, the
speaker approach and the author approach. LinkedIn is the next
best thing because it's the speaker and author approach at scale.
(13:29):
You're teaching people with your content, which is the author approach,
and you're also able to approach people after the event,
so to speak, and initiate those one conversations which are
important for business.
Speaker 2 (13:41):
Yeah. Yeah, And I'm just going to say that I
know authors who are on LinkedIn who aren't necessarily business.
Mental health. A lot of people are LinkedIn very interested
mental health. You know, personal developments along with professional development,
and even you know how to how to manage their time,
their you know, family right, how to build relationships with
(14:04):
their with their kids because they're busy working. It's amazing
to me how many different types of nonfiction books actually
work on LinkedIn.
Speaker 3 (14:13):
That's good insight for me, right, I'm not again, I'm
not the author expert here, but I do I cannot
anecdotally confirm that that content does work. That's not business
content through I have a couple colleagues, newer colleagues of mine,
and they're in the fitness space and their angle, I
guess it is fitness business. Their angle is busy founders. Right,
So they're talking about fitness. But for busy founders, where
(14:35):
does it make sense for them to do content? YouTube?
Maybe sure, why not? TikTok maybe sure, why not? But
LinkedIn because that's where the founders are spending time. That's
where the founders are themselves looking for clients, but also
learning from people ahead of themselves. So it makes sense
to be on the platform, at least if you're already
on another platform, to just add it and and propagate
(14:55):
your content there as well and help.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Yeah, and as you said, you want to have a
business twist, right, So let's go back to cookbooks. You
mentioned cookbook. You know, if you have a cookbook and
you want to go on LinkedIn, don't just say hey,
here's a cookbook, Say hey, here's a cookbook with you know,
ten thirty minute recipes for busy professionals who still want
to eat you know, who still want to eat whole foods.
(15:20):
You there, you go, right, It's and this is something
I'm always telling authors when it comes to content. You
can go on a variety of different media, different types
of podcasts, but it's you have to fit it to
that audience. If you can fit it to that audience,
you can be in the right place.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
That's absolutely right. Yeah, that's a relevant lesson for anyone.
You don't have to just stay in the one place
you think you have to play. If you can adapt
it to the audience of that platform, which on LinkedIn
is really the biggest difference is business, then then you've
got a game plan on your hands for your content
to win.
Speaker 2 (15:53):
Yes, exactly. So let's talk about what type of content
we should be putting up on LinkedIn, specificly videos.
Speaker 3 (16:01):
Yeah, there's a lot of different ways to slice and
dice what makes for effective video, But ultimately what I
will say is you want your videos. We're talking two things,
the type of content, but also the way you deliver
the content. When you do video, the delivery is often
just as important as the content in the video. And
the first thing I'll say about the type of content.
(16:21):
I've been asked this question a few times what makes
for the best video content, And I will say anything
that teaches your audience something new. It's not about stats,
it's not about stories, it's not about anything any one
type of topic specifically. It's about is it teaching somebody
something new, Which means, when you think about it, any
(16:42):
type of content can make for a good video if
you then deliver it in the best way. So if
you're talking about a stat, maybe you need to cite
the stats, show the article in the background of your
video when you're thinking TikTok. You know, when somebody's pointing
see the stat and there's an article header above them.
You can do that on LinkedIn as well. My point
is that effective video content on LinkedIn delivers value every time.
(17:03):
It's not you walking along and sharing your thoughts about
the latest thing. Although there might be a gold nugget
in there, make sure you hone in on that gold
nugget and give it to somebody as quickly and as
efficiently as possible. Nobody wants to watch you for two
minutes to get to the gold nugget. They're scrolling Your
post is probably an accident in their feed. So give
(17:24):
them a reason to stop and listen and go that
was insightful and maybe follow you, maybe take an action
as a next step, but they're probably going to move on.
And the good thing is if you give them insightful, fast,
little snackable pieces of content with your video, whatever it is.
We talk about some of those tips for different kinds.
But the good news if you do that effectively, if
they watch your video and they think this is important,
(17:46):
this is good, and they like it, the algorithm is
more likely to show them your next video and your
next video and so on and so forth.
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Yeah, thank you, and talking about that, it's such a
nice segue. I think you have a video, an educational
video to share with the audience. Could you talk a
little bit about what this is? Which one you were
going to offer a video for the audience.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, I'll see, I'll see what you're saying.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:15):
Absolutely. So one of the things while I'm on a mission.
First of all, my big Harry audacious goal may be
HAG if somebody you are familiar with that terminology, is
I want to help ten thousand subject matter experts have
a voice on LinkedIn. Specifically, I believe there's a lot
of people who are sharing content on LinkedIn who really
(18:35):
should be sharing content on LinkedIn. It's not very good.
They really don't have the life experience to speak to it.
It's kind of like the life coach at twenty year old.
Life coach kind of a thing. And I also believe
as the opposite is true, people who should be sharing
their content just aren't. And so one of the things
I do that fulfills that mission is I give an
opportunity for folks who are interested in doing video content.
(18:58):
And there may be a little stressed about it. Maybe
they're not so much stressed about it, they just don't
have the time to make for it. An opportunity to
do a free video session with me. It takes thirty
minutes and it produces one edited video. And the reason
it works so well and it removes all the stress,
or at least most of the stress from the equation
of doing video is because just like what you and
I are doing right now, it's all about having a conversation.
(19:20):
We set the time together on your calendar, you're held
accountable to that time with me, and we meet and
I say, okay, move your light over here. Right, there's
always technical things to do with video that most people
are never aware of. But I'll walk them through that
ten fifteen minutes, and then the rest of that time,
that half hours spent just having a really pleasant conversation
about what they know best, and then we turn that
(19:41):
around and turn it into an edited thirty sixty minute
or sixty second video for them to use however they
want on their website or on LinkedIn or any other platform.
Speaker 2 (19:52):
That's beautiful. Thank you so much. That's amazing. Where do
we find that?
Speaker 3 (19:56):
So you can find more about that on my profile
on LinkedIn? Find me justin Vacojko and the only one
in the world, so it'd be pretty easy. And that's
really the only place you have to come. Connect with
me on LinkedIn, or you don't have to connect with you,
but you can go check that out on my LinkedIn profile.
There's some people that says get a free video.
Speaker 2 (20:16):
Perfect, and I will make sure that that link is
in the show notes for everyone, because I know everyone
wants to go do that, at least you should. I mean,
that's an amazing offer. Thank you so much. As we
wrap up, what are three things our listeners can do
right now? To get started. Like people who are like
(20:37):
I don't want to be on video, we are like
three things they can do right now to move the
needle forward.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
Absolutely. So the first thing you can do is if
you don't have the time, you can make the time
by having accountability of another person. We talked about that
before content buddy system. Find a buddy. Maybe if you're
really nervous, that someone you're comfortable with that maybe they're
not in business, but they're willing to give you thirty
minutes to just start out and have a conversation. When
I've had people, when I coach people, I've done a
(21:04):
workshop and I've had people do this, they were nervous
at first, but all of a sudden they were just
the floodgates opened and they got comfortable, and all of
a sudden, all this valuable content came out. And so
I recommend finding a content buddy and doing your first
session and recording it and not having the standard that
we're going to use the video, but maybe you use
the transcript and write a few posts from that. The
second tip I recommend, and this is one a lot
(21:24):
of people don't think about, is if you are in
business and you're having a lot of conversations with people,
whether it's networking or sales conversations or even with your team.
You're sharing content all the time. You're just not capturing it.
You're sharing tips. I guarantee you you're sharing tips, stats, trends,
all sorts of information that is really just staying in
(21:45):
one on one conversations. So get a software like Fathom,
which I use, and record your calls and then ask
Fathom after a call hey would would make when would
there be any topics? Or take the transcript and run
run it through chat GPT and say will there be
any topics here that be useful for content? And then
take that and it'll tell you and then you can
decide if you want to write something about that.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Now.
Speaker 3 (22:06):
I don't recommend using outright just to write the post.
It's a very poor use of AI. If you're a writer,
you need to write. So use Fathom though, to capture
content as you go. Going back to the point we
shared earlier, so content boddy system to get some content
out that you may not have thought about before from
a different perspective, content as you go with a Fathom
type of software to capture what you know, not really
those really solve the getting it out of you and
(22:28):
getting the ideas done. And then the third idea I
have for you to if you're trying to take LinkedIn seriously,
treat this is a bigger mindset. Go on there and
if you're too not sure about writing posts or creating videos,
start by commenting. Commenting on LinkedIn, unlike any other platform,
has incredible reach. If you go to your feed, you
spending amount of time in your feed on LinkedIn, you'll
(22:50):
notice people in the feed that are just leaving comments
on other people's posts you don't know. LinkedIn rewards presence
on the platform, and one of the ways that measures
that is if you're making comments. So maybe don't have
to start with content, but you can start with commenting
as you find your voice on the platform and you
can get more embold and then you can get into
content creation.
Speaker 2 (23:07):
Yeah, and I love how you talked about just you know,
if you don't want to do post, just comment is
one of the best things. So I get these kind
of cold messages from strangers on LinkedIn sometimes you know,
it's like you should do this with me, and I
don't you want, you know, and that most of the
time they don't even know who I am. If they
had just started by commenting and interacting with me online
(23:32):
and building some sort of recognition like oh, I know
that name. That person's taken the time to get to
know me and has commented on my on my things.
When they then made a connection and wanted to get
on a call, I'd be far more open to it.
And so I just want to add that. So you know,
find your ideal reader or client on LinkedIn and follow,
(23:55):
don't even ask for connection, follow, comment, you know, like share.
There's certain people I share their content because I think
it's really valuable content. I just want to add that.
So it's you know, that's that's really really good advice.
Thank you so much, justin my pleasure. Ah, where do
we find you? Remind us where we find you?
Speaker 3 (24:17):
So you can find me on LinkedIn. Of course I
post almost every weekday and I try to comment as well,
so uh, and you can also find me on my
website dialogue with dot us and we have all sorts
of goodies resources. There's a free mini course for how
to get leads with video. Obviously there's way more to
it than just a couple talking points that I made today.
So I'll walk you through some of the technical aspects
(24:39):
of it and some of the softer aspects of it,
like what does good content look like? I talk about
the hook, the media, middle, and sixteenth summary, and the
three parts that make for every good video piece piece
of video content in depth, so all sorts of resources
on my website.
Speaker 2 (24:54):
Thank you so much, really really appreciate you. Thank you
for coming, and thank thank you for joining us today
and Authornations. I hope this conversation has sparked new ideas
for how you can grow your author platform, share your
message more widely, and create content that actually connects with
the right people. Remember to visit author nation online to
(25:15):
unlock a wealth of resources designed to support you. And
of course we're always grateful for your support, and this
was a really valuable episode, So please leave a review,
share it with someone you know who needs to hear this,
and let us know what you'd like to hear next,
because your feedback helps us bring you the tools and
the insights you need to succeed. So keep writing, keep
(25:40):
showing up, and continue to share your stories with the
world
Speaker 1 (26:00):
S
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