425: Finding Your Entrepreneurial Rhythm with Jim Carter III

Welcome to the Leaders of Transformation podcast, the number one show for business leaders and entrepreneurs passionate about uplifting others and making a greater impact in the world. Now here's your host, transformational coach, speaker and business advisor, Nicole Jansen. What growth hacks do top podcasters use in growing their audience? This is the Leaders of Transformation podcast and on this show we interview difference makers and world changers who are disrupting for good. Thank you for tuning in. I'm Nicole Jansen, your host and our guest today is Jim Carter iii. Jim is the CEO of Carter and Custer, which is a purpose driven marketing agency that works with top podcasters including Lewis Howes, Ed Mylett and many others. And at the peak of his career, he's got a great story. We're going to have him share it with you here today. He found himself kind of feeling like dead inside and decided to shift his focus from chasing money to fueling impact. And so he's built two seven figure companies, supporting cause based organizations with marketing expertise, masterminds and so much more. And so we're going to have a great conversation here today talking about the best growth hacks for podcasters, channel by channel, tips SEO for your website and how to dial in your content for the best results. So we're excited to have him here. Jim, welcome to Leaders Transformation.

Nicole, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

It is a pleasure. Thank you. And also I want to do a shout out. I always like to thank those that are supporting this show with amazing guests and Oscar Hamilton recommended Jim. So thank you to the team there at Oscar Hamilton. They are fantastic. I also do want to mention one more thing. I oftentimes forget to do this, but people ask me and say, Nicole, what exactly do you do? And so just to let you know, this podcast actually is brought to you by my training and coaching company which is the Leaders of Transformation. And so if you're a leader who wants to be better, do better, make a greater impact in the world, you can go to leadersatransformation.com coaching and you can book a time with me. We can discuss where you're at, where you want to go and what's it going to take for you to get there. So that's leadersoftransformation.com coaching and there is a link to my calendly scheduling link. So with that, Jim, let's dive in and talk about your journey because I know you are an expert in marketing and SEO, but this kind of started before all of this world. And you talk about how you became a cause hacker. So tell us a little bit about that story.

Yeah. Thank you. It's really a fun story because it's not just personal for me, but it's something that I saw in so many other people. And I sort of. I was faced with that fear of, like, why me? Why should I be the one to actually go down this route that I think is the better path when I haven't seen very many do it, but now living in the results of it, I'm so glad I went down it. So it's a simple story about a guy who grew up as an only child with very humble roots. I'm an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. So I grew up in service, and I spent most of my childhood being in the outdoors and being connected and also just in service. Service was a really big component to the Boy Scouts of America. In fact, in order to attain the highest rank in the Boy Scouts of America, which is Eagle Scout, you have to orchestrate what's called a service project. And it's a test for that young boy to go through all of the planning, all the coordination, getting everything together. You pick your service project, you coordinate the location, you get the permits, you get everybody together, you collect a donation so you can afford to buy them lunch. You put the whole thing together, and then you present this report to a board basically who evaluates you and they challenge everything you do. And it's not meant to be a punch to the gut. It's meant to be like a, this is how you're stepping into life. If you want to lead with service, you need to know how to do these things. So it was a wonderful way that I was able to take my past and move it forward because I grew up in service. But as I got married and started having different jobs and floated between entrepreneurship and taking full time positions and then having children, moving from Los Angeles to San Francisco and everything, I lost my path is really the honest answer there. I got busy and I used that as an excuse for a lot of years. And one day I had seen an Instagram post from a really good friend of mine that I was helping him build his business up and he had tagged a book by Adam Braun, who is Scooter Braun's brother. He was the founder of Pencils of Promise, which is a nonprofit out of New York City.

And.

And this is the book of how this individual launched this organization. Had a wonderful path forward kind of laid out for him in the finance world, but just knew that he had something different inside of him, didn't know what, but was willing to give that up to just try something different and didn't self fund it with a million dollars and none of that kind of story. It all came together very organically and it was sort of living proof that your network actually can be your net worth. A way of thinking about what is it like when you just go all in on what your passion is and trust that you've got the right people in your circle to ask questions and to find the connections and really just thinking about it differently. And I picked this book up and I couldn't put it down the quote, it was such a great read and it really opened me up because at the time I was kind of in that Ruth, I don't know if read. So Seth Godin is one of my favorite authors and the Dip by Seth Godin was a book that just really helped me in a couple really challenging times of my life. When I peek on burnout and just when you get stuck in that. And I was borderline getting to that point again. And I told myself, I promised my wife I would never hit that rock bottom again. It's just not worth it. Especially now being a father living in the Bay Area, one of the most expensive places to live in the country, and here I am trying to build startups and do all these things. And what I found was just this beautiful message hidden inside this book, but hidden in plain sight, which is just follow what's on your heart. If you feel that you've got it inside of you and you know you can do more. Well, why living regrets, you have to go for it. And that was sort of my wake up call that I thought, well, why don't I just check out this website? Why don't I learn a little bit more about the organization. I kind of put it out there in the back of my mind. I'm like, I'm a religious guy. So I was like, all right, God, gimme a sign. One of those good old adages, show me that this is the right path. And it didn't dawn on me until later, but this is where the story gets fun. I went to the website, it was slow, it was on WordPress, it had security issues, it was broken, there were errors. And I was just like, man, what a bad situation. This really sucks for the founder. He pours his heart out, it's the top of the New York Times bestseller list. And boom. All these people are probably trying to go and learn about this organization and they can't. And I just Texted my buddy, and I was like, dude, I love that book recommendation. You want to connect me with your guy and his team? Because I can help him get all this stuff fixed. I wasn't looking to bill him. I just wanted to pay it forward. And they just welcomed me with open arms. It was such a wonderful feeling because it dawned on me a week later after we got everything all fixed up. And for me, this is easy. This is my zone of genius. This is what I know. I was just helping where I knew I could. The gratitude that they shared with me about, wow, we didn't know getting it to this level was possible. And even if we thought about it, we wouldn't have known who to call. How much would you have charged? We don't even think we could afford you. It was just this very juxtaposition of ideas and passion and entrepreneurship and me just being a humble guy where I was like, I was faced with imposter syndrome for the first time, and I was like, well, wait a minute. All I did was just show up the way that I energetically love to show up. Me doing these things is me at my best, because I've studied it and I've obsessed over it, and I love the stuff. And that little effort ended up going so far because the fruits of what that presented unlocked that organization. Now, the site was ranking better in organic search. Now donations were converting better because people weren't like, well, they got to get their shit together before I'm going to actually give a donation, and all of these other things. There were so many downstream benefits to just having a proper site and having their content a little bit more in order and having everything together. And that sort of just was this catalyst that unlocked me from that point forward. I just couldn't see it any other way. I was addicted to this realization that I don't need to be everything to everyone, but where I can be a specialist and I can pour into people. And what really lit me up at the time was supporting nonprofits. Wow. I could do this all day. And again, I wasn't doing it because I was trying to find a client. I was just doing it because I was passionately and energetic about making a change. And that was sort of that big realization for me, which is it didn't matter what I did. It mattered that I was willing to do it. And after I stood in that and I owned it, and I kept asking, who else needs help? You got friends. I was like, there's no better way than to get some reps and to Try this out. All these stores just started opening for me. And it wasn't because everybody was looking for free work from me. It was because I was becoming known for what I loved, and I was standing in it every day. And that really was the catapult for me because from that point forward, it opened up new connections, it opened up new opportunities, it opened up new business possibilities. And I can't imagine what my life would be like had I not actually reached. Reached out and said, can I just help you fix up your website? It's crazy when you think about how much can change in a short period of time, because from there to here, that was only seven or eight years. And I think of all of the time. I started coding in the mid-90s. So people ask what I do now. I'm like, well, I'm a recovering developer because I've been a software engineer for so many years, but now I'm able to use everything I've learned and just do it at a higher level. And it's lights my soul on fire. Because not all the work that we do is with nonprofits, but when we do get those, there's sort of a piece of me that just. That really resonates, and it helps me find my way back to service, of finding ways that I could use what I love and apply it at a higher level.

Wow. There's so much in there. So many lessons, Jim, when you talk about growing up in service and learning that service, man, if we could have our kids learn that and to set them up, because when those formative years that they learn that it's about giving. And I heard one time there's a quote, something about, the only thing you get to keep is that which you give to others. And I think of you as being such an incredible example of that. And so many people nowadays are trying to make it work, trying to be entrepreneurs and get out there and so forth, and. And they want to help people. But there's kind of like this conflict between, I really want to help people. I want to do the thing that I love, and I want to make money or I need to make money, because obviously we have a family we've got. And especially living in California as you and I do, it's expensive here. There's this balance between it and how do you find. And may. I don't know if you know the answer to this or if you ended up talking to people about this along the way. How do you find that balance? Because some people say, don't just do what you love because it doesn't guarantee that you're actually going to be successful at it. And yet here you are. You experienced the very thing that you did do what you loved and it did work. But there's something that you did there in terms of connecting it to what the market was looking for, a need and a want. And again, that ties back to this idea of service. So talk a little bit about that. Maybe if you can unpack that a little bit for people.

Yeah, of course. Nicole, what you alluded to is honestly my take as well. I'm very much an optimist. Anybody who knows me knows that of me. But I'm also an engineer, so I have to be pragmatic. And I'm also a realist. I'm never going to say, well, if I'm a plumber today and I want to become a hand surgeon, that I've got nothing standing in my way to get there. Those are two totally different life paths. Expertise needed. One may not require anything on the wall. The other might need a lot of paper and a lot of Alphabet soup after my name. So there may be a big road that you have to go down to get there, but if you never start trying it, then how are you ever going to even see it? I don't want to live in future regret. So for me, the way that I see it is the whole work life balance. Everybody has an opinion on that problem. Happy to throw mine into. And it's actually a result from what a good friend of mine, Kyle depias, kind of got me thinking about, which is think about it less as a balance and think about it more of a rhythm, because as an entrepreneur, is there balance? Can you honestly be a busy entrepreneur and tell me that you've got balance? Show me. I would love to see it. I'm not saying you don't, but prove to me that you are fully balanced as a human. I love the entrepreneurial life, but I don't have the privilege of shutting my brain off because it's my path and I'm not looking for a badge of honor or pity. But my team can take an extended weekend and I can try to shut my head off. But at the end of the day, it's my business. I care so much about it that I want to be thinking about that. And how do you balance that? I'm a father of two girls. I'm married, going on for 15 years. I'd like to have a hobby here and there, too. So how can you be imbalanced when you don't have the privilege of shutting your brain off as an entrepreneur is really the way that I like to think about it. So if that's the case, well, what would it be like if it was a rhythm? So I won't get into the whole I have a perfect morning routine. I don't. I have young kids. This morning I Woke up at 3:30 just because I was wide awake and I was like, okay. So I came out, had some coffee, read a little bit, got a little bit extra work done, took a break. Then I was a father and then I walked my kids to school and then I came back and I prepped a little bit more. Now we're having this great conversation. I don't know how balance works because how can that be harmonious? However, for me, rhythm works. It's making sure that when I'm on, I'm on. Like I'm plugged in, I'm energetic right now, I've got my coffee, I'm fired up, I'm not thinking about anything else. And I'm grateful to be here. But when we're done with this conversation, I'm going to take a break and I'm probably going to text my wife and I'm going to see how she's doing and I'm going to go back to just not thinking about business every waking second of every day. And the combination of that aligned with why do you want to be on all the time? Why don't you want to shut your brain off? What is going to make sure that you're not living in future regret? That's how I like to do it. Because we may not always be working on the most exciting thing, the thing that brings us the most joy. But why not, I think is the question. If you are not feeling fulfilled more often than than you are, then that's where there's a problem. So that's where I like to sort of spin it back on its head and say, well, if I really don't like doing these things and they need to be done, can I afford to hire somebody to do it for me? Or ask myself, why do they need to be done? Am I actually just going down that wrong path? But if more things are feeling great than not, I look forward to waking up. I look forward to getting into that rhythm because then you can balance it out in a way that feels better. It's not a work life balance. It's actually just a personal. You're balancing out how you perceive it. And that's the way that I like to show up. And when it comes to that transition, you never know what's on the other side of the transition. But if you're not feeling good about it to start, it's going to be so much harder.

Yeah. I think about the word that comes to mind is presence. You're talking about presence, being present with yourself, how you're feeling, being. I love that. When you talk about the rhythm, I think about it as that integration, that harmony. Growing up in an entrepreneurial household now, there wasn't any balance in our household. It was an integrated. Entrepreneurship, I believe, is not a vocation. It's a lifestyle. It's kind of hard not for it to be a lifestyle and a way of being and being present. When you were talking about. I just got this sense that I find a lot of us in the. And I can speak from my own experience in the past is that sometimes we like being busy and we don't like stopping, because when we stop, we are faced with the fact that we really don't love what we're doing or that we're going down the wrong path or somehow we're disconnected. And so it's like, it's almost easier to keep moving. And I've had lots of clients like that, coaching clients who. It's like, they come to me and they're just like, they're so busy. They want to do more. How do I do more? And it's like, well, wait, wait. Maybe the first question is to step back and do less, to stop and check in to see where you're at and how are things going. And then you can move forward, but then you can move forward with intention. You can move forward with passion. You can move forward with that clarity of like, this is what I want to do. And also tuning into. You talked about your wife, you talked about your kids tuning into what's going on around you. Because how often do we hear about successful people that, you know, their families fell apart, and it kind of surprises them because they're like, hey, where'd that come from? Because they weren't present because they were so busy working and working, working. And I think we're seeing a transition. There's a lot of people, especially through Covid, who are just kind of like, hey, wait a second. The great reset. Like, what the heck? What am I doing? I love spending time with my family. I love working from home. I want to be there for my kids when they grow up. And it's just a different. And of course, that spills over to everything else, else that we do. And I know we're going to talk about podcasting, but it really does tie in. You talk about marketing, talk about podcasting, all of this, if we don't watch out, can be like a lot of hustle. It's a lot of hustle, it's a lot of pushing. It's like chasing the numbers with dollars or whether it's followers. It's chasing, chasing, chasing. And you end up coming from this place of scarcity versus abundance and then wondering, what am I actually doing? So I'm, as one of my mentors would say, I'm lost, but making good time. I'm going down this route, but I'm not actually going in the right direction. And I'm not even fulfilled, but I'm certainly getting a lot done. So let's talk a little bit about that. In this competitive world of marketing and SEO and trying to get our message out, like you mentioned about Pencils of Promise, and I heard about that organization many years ago, and you're right. All these nonprofits and just even businesses, great ideas. But if you don't have the marketing, if you don't have certain things set up, people can't find them. So it's important. It's absolutely important to have it. And yet how do you stay impact driven in the process of putting in what you need to put in place? Where's the balance? Where's the line? How do you help your clients? Because I know you talk about working with some of the top podcasters. Obviously they want to grow their audience. Where's that line where you stay in check? You've talked a little bit about it, but like, I'm thinking, practically speaking, how do we make sure that we're staying in balance and staying focused on impact versus how many people actually like that post and shared it and all of that? How many downloads do we have?

Yeah, it's a great question. And it's honestly subjective because everybody has different goals. I also like to think it doesn't have to be a goal. It could be a standard. It's a standard of excellence. It's something that matters to everybody a little bit differently. The interesting thing about it is, so, yes, I am the data nerd. I love a good data sheet because data can tell you the most beautiful story ever. And it's because it's what you make of it that is what can unlock you. It's what can change your business. It's what can give you the clarity to actually go do something. So again, if you're having that check in and you're measuring a data point five out of seven days a week. Are you unhappy? Are you only happy because it's the weekend? There's something wrong there, but you can't optimize. What you can't measure is just like a simple principle of life. So when you can start measuring it, that means you can do something about it. And whether it's the busy work that turns into something more or it's the measuring data of what you're doing that gives you clarity. You need to actually set a big vision and call a goal. You have to track it. Brendan Burchard, really well known high performance coach. I love Brendan's message. He's a goofy white guy like me, he jumps around on stage. I love going to his events and stuff like that. Brendan is a big advocate of tracking to make changes. That's one thing I love about the guy. And for example, a lot of people have planners these days. You've got your journals, you've got all of these different systems. But his is the most data driven I'd ever seen. And when I found it, I was like, I love this thing. And I even took it a step further and I put my results from the tangible planner that I'm handwriting everything out and I put it into a data sheet and I built charts and pivot tables and all that stuff. I know some people listening to this are like, oh God, no, hard, no, that's not what I'm going to do. But hear me out. When I was able to actually see changes in the graphs and correlate it to milestones in my life, it was eye opening, you know, like when I started it, I was feeling a little overwhelmed. I was feeling like I was missing something. And it measures, I'm going back and I'm trying to remember. It measures everything from relationships to like mindfulness to productivity and some of these key things. And you know, if, if I was having a rough patch with the family, then I would feel overwhelmed and the relationships, the family side would be a little bit stressed and if I came into a really big account then the business side would be huge. And it was like, okay, well let's actually understand what these peaks and valleys mean. Once I was able to make sense of it, I was able to make changes against it. So I like to use that example as a parallel to business. So right now, for example, for my business, I'm also the cfo, if you will. I have a fractional team, but I just can't afford the multi 6 figure salary for a full time CFO yet, I'm not going to lie, I'm conserving that cash so we can reinvest it and we can grow. But in lieu of that, I had to step my game up and I went right back to business money basics again. And I've done it in the past, but I was like, this is a new type of business. These are new challenges. I have different profit margins I have to hit. I have to think about my balance sheet differently. And I had to ask a lot of questions. And for me, my new goals were based off of what teams that I hired told me this is what your target should be. So I'm a big fan of being energetic and passionate enough about something that you're willing to go back to being a student of life and just measure the data and figure out if it's actually bringing you joy. Finances don't always bring me joy. It's not the first thing I would pick. But, Nicole, let me tell you, when I start to see my numbers turn around and I started to see more profitability and I started to see things optimizing and I saw costs going down and I realized that was part of that. A piece of me is like, yeah, I got this. So it can be these little changes. And that's why it's going to be different for everybody. Your business is fundamentally, fundamentally different than my business, than somebody else who's listening right now. And that's okay. But I would never want to get caught up in busy work to avoid the most important things. So it really is a subjective thing. And I would just challenge anybody listening that if you feel like you're caught up in the busy, if you don't know why you're not feeling energetically excited about it, I would ask yourself to do a gut check and say, is it because you're avoiding the thing that you know you need to do that you just aren't doing? And when you ask yourself that question, it kind of lights a lot up. It says, I know this is something I should be doing, but I'm not. Why? And is it because it doesn't bring me joy, or is it because I fundamentally think that I'm better than it and then we kind of balance that. Drop your ego and just get it done. But don't get stuck in it, because when you get stuck in it, that's when you start to regret it.

Yeah. And I think when you talk about what you measure improves or that you have the ability to improve it, it's Interesting, because what I heard in that, behind that, all of that, was that you look at the numbers as a measure of progress and the impact that you're making, whatever that impact is that you're focusing on at that point. And when we focus on the impact, if we focus on the reward versus the work, it's coming from an abundance standpoint versus scarcity standpoint of like, wow, how do I know that I'm making an impact? How do I know that I'm making improvements? Moving forward versus staying static or moving backwards is by measuring it. And so then you look at the data differently because you're looking through it through the lens of impact and whatever that number is that you're looking to impact and what that actually ultimately allows you to do, right? Margins and all of this stuff, what does it allow you to do? Help more people have a greater impact for your business, for your family, for your team, knowing when you can hire that next person, all of those things. So that's really, really good. So I want to shift gears because we started off talking about how to grow your podcast. I know some people are going, okay, that's great. How do I do it? My goodness, I need to know the details. What do I track? What do I focus on? And I want to do a shout out because I sent some questions to some friends of mine, Jason Everett, Nick Pereira and Diane Halfman. Jason has a show called Beautiful Minds. A little shout out for each of their shows. Diane's show is called Live youe Spa Life, and Nick's is the Nick Pereira Show. And I asked them and I said, okay, so you've got amazing shows. And I've been guests on theirs. They've been guests on mine in many cases. I don't think Diane's been on my show yet, but she needs to get on my show soon. So I asked them and I said, okay, so what are the things that you're asking yourself in terms of how do I grow my podcast? If you had the opportunity to ask the person who works with Ed Mylett and. And Lewis Howes how to do it, what would you say? And so these are some of the questions that I got from them, and some of the questions, of course, I wove in for myself because there's an ulterior motive here, is I'd like to know how to grow my show too, and make a greater impact in the world as well. So the first question I have is kind of a blanket question, but it's what's the most important thing a podcaster needs to do to grow their audience. What's the first thing that they need.

To focus on right now? 2022, it's having a video component to your show. Okay. Hands down, we're recording this on video and because of that we can do so much more with it. So there's no problem with having an audio podcast, but we are now in a video first world. You will never open TikTok and see a non video. Like they won't even show you a TikTok that doesn't have a video component. Right. There's, there's zero static to that. And last time I checked, TikTok has been the number one app on the app store for how many quarters has it been? 7 quarters in a row? Something like that. Again, we have to measure the data. If the data is telling us that the world is going in this direction, we have to pay attention to it. So now in a video first world, whether it's short form in TikTok or in Reels or Instagram kind of mid form there, if it's posting something to catch your eye on Twitter or if it's more long form just goes to YouTube, somebody can sit there and watch it and consume on their own time. Yes, audio is still great, but when you have a video component, it unlocks you to be able to do so much more with it. And that just gives you this breadth of new platform and channel opportunity that if you aren't doing it yet, I would encourage you to.

So you talk about TikTok and some of the other channels and short mid and long form. So what's the best way to use that? So we have, let's say, okay, so we're doing this video, right? And so then we're done with this video. What do you suggest in terms of like taking clips, putting it here on Facebook? One of the questions I had was, is it better to do like a video clip and lead them to the long form video or is it better to have it right out there on Facebook? And I know we're getting the nitty gritty here, but these are some of the questions, right? It's like, do I put the full version on Facebook or do I want to lead them to YouTube? How do I. Okay, so I've got this video. Now what?

So the short answer is ask yourself how you would want to consume that content and do it exactly like that. And again, it's a little bit subjective to the channel. So Joe Rogan has a type of audience. Maybe we'll leave it there and they like to consume his content in certain ways. He has these marathon long episodes where he goes deep and they're long conversations. So short form really doesn't make a lot of sense. But he's got clickbait like no other when he gets his guests, versus if we think about maybe this show, and I'm not comparing you to Joe, I'm just looking at a difference in the theme and everything here. It would be effortless to be able to take this whole video, find these key. For example, you're asking me a series of questions. You can go through, you can earmark these questions. Here's the question, here's an answer. And a podcaster who sees that will get their answer just like that. Versus a podcaster who is busy recording content, doesn't have time to listen, two hour long joke kind of ripping and riffing and things like that. So I want you to think about your content, your channel, and I want to think about where you would consume your own content channel because you're talking to yourself in other people. And for all the podcasters, all the YouTube creators that are listening to this right now, your message is unique. You may be in a competitive market, but your genius needs to be shared, right? You're doing people a disservice if you don't get it out there. That's why you podcast, that's why you record video, that's why you love getting your message out there. So if your content deserves to be listened to or watched in full, then absolutely put it out there. But don't expect to get the same impact that somebody would get watching an hour and a half on YouTube in a 30 second, 90 second or now couple minute clip on TikTok. It just won't work. So if you're covering really technical things, you could still hint at it. And that's kind of the answer there is. It's like, well, if you're curious, maybe you can go watch the whole thing over there. But if we could just give a little bit away, we're still doing a better service than a disservice by putting it out there and trying different channels and seeing what sticks.

Thank you for that actually, because when people think about even number of views, right? I'm not, I mean I get the number of views on a 40 minute or an hour long podcast. Unless my I'm Joe Rogan versus something that's 30 seconds and then it's just repeating TikTok. I'm not actually very familiar with TikTok yet and understanding how to Use that in the audience that really spends time on TikTok. I do know that people put a lot of TikTok on Facebook and so you see them other places or Instagram and all of that, they re share them there. So how's the best way to use TikTok in that? Like we talk about really? Because they're really short clips and even using that as a promotion for the rest of the show.

Each channel is different by design and we have a different way that we consume content based off of different channels. So let's erase TikTok from the conversation for a quick minute and let's just think about a couple of the common ones. Think about Facebook. When you're on Facebook, what are you doing? You're on your phone, you're curious, you're open to things and you understand that you're going to get things that are promoted to you by way of other people sharing them. Because that's the way Facebook's algorithm is fundamentally different than anything else. Recent study came out. Facebook released a new transparency report actually just last week and it showed that 80% or more of content consumed in the main feed as of 2022 came by way of shares. So it's still highly promoting content that is shareable. So there's one thing and we'll set that right there and move on to the next. Take Instagram. With Instagram, it's more about quick hits. You want to see what people are doing, you want to have some fun engagement. Instagram is like the new global Messenger. Aside from WhatsApp, you can connect with anybody and have a quick chat with them. You can follow along with stories. People really just don't use Facebook stories that much. And with Instagram they're getting into reels. I digress. They've had reels for quite a long time, but people are way more adapted to reels now, which is kind of a combination of just your highlight reel, not to be confused with reels, but like your highlighted photos, you know, putting the best up but also mixing in short to starting to get into mid form content. And people are still learning a lot on Instagram. It's where you fall in love with the brand. It's where you get to know that person or the message. We'll set that on the shelf as well. Let's move over to LinkedIn now. The first two, Facebook and Instagram, what are you on? You're on your phone. Yes, they have web components, but let's be honest, you're on your phone. How often do you go on LinkedIn on your phone, compared to when you're on your desktop, you're typically on LinkedIn more on your desktop. Why? Because it's a professional setting. You, you go there because you want to see what connections you have, you want to see what people are up to, you want to celebrate their new wins, you want to understand what they're promoting, what they're investing in, what they're professionally energetic about. So now if we think of those three dynamics, we've got one professional setting where you want to consume and you want to be almost sold on something and you're on your desktop and then you've got another which is you're curious and you want to see what other people care about. You actually don't want to do your own discovery. So we've got LinkedIn, then we got Facebook and Instagram is kind of a mix of the two. And you want to learn, but you want to be connected to that brand. And if you're so inspired, you're going to go a step further and you're probably going to message. All of those are drastically different. And we haven't even talked about YouTube, we haven't talked about Twitter, we haven't talked about TikTok. So you start to see where this is coming together is if you just take this YouTube video and you put it on LinkedIn, okay, that might do a little bit better, but it's not going to cut it for Facebook because that's just not what people want on Facebook. And I welcome a healthy challenge. Somebody can feel free to tell me, nope, that's exactly what I do. And it works great. I love learning. So if that is working for you, I would love to learn from you. But I'm talking in the majority here. In most cases, if you don't want to consume content that way, why would the person who's actually going to be following you want to? Does that make sense? So what I like to do is I like to promote thinking about having one awesome source piece of content like this whole recording and then finding the right utility for it on the right channel. Because I don't need somebody to watch a 10 second clip on TikTok and then convince them to go over to YouTube and watch the whole thing. People are smart, they're going to figure it out. You don't have to tell somebody, go watch the whole thing on YouTube anymore, unless that is literally the only place that they can find it and, and you're brand new. But there's a really great example there's a photographer that is blowing up on TikTok. And he walks around the LA area, Santa Monica, Venice, finds random people, just offers to do photo shoots for them. And he has somebody recording B roll next to him. And he goes up, he shows him the camera. Hey, I'm this photographer. People are starting to know this guy. They're like, oh, it's you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I want my photos. And he'll make a quick TikTok and then he'll re put it on Instagram for reels and he'll say, the results are in my follow up video, really smart play. Start with something. People are like, oh, they're so connected and they want to see what it turns into. And then he's like, well, I'm not going to show you yet. You have to go to my profile. And people are going to naturally subscribe. And now the guy's got millions of followers. But you can use simple techniques like that and still be in integrity, but be like, this is what I do and I'm really good at it. But that kind of stuff just won't fly on YouTube. You don't want to go on YouTube and see quick cuts and all that stuff and then go to the next one. You're like, no, I'm on YouTube, I'm here for the whole thing. Give it to me. I want the long form video. So when we start to think about that, and I don't know how that strategy would even work on LinkedIn, to be honest. That's just. It's the wrong audience, it's the wrong concept. So it's really important you start with video, you get really clear on what it is that you want to get out there and you find the right utility for the right channel and don't feel like you have to guide everybody to one flow because people are going to consume on their own time.

Yeah, that's good stuff. This is definitely one of those ones that we're going to need to put out there in many different forms because obviously we're talking about it. But even just to go back and relist to this, there's just so many nuggets in here. This is good. So a couple more things. Let's talk about SEO for YouTube and LinkedIn. What are some SEO tips?

Ooh, this could be a whole separate episode. SEO is a big topic.

Give us a little taste and then.

You can send us a mess. We're going to get right into it. SEO is the big topic and it's big because it's all Based off of algorithms that we have no insight into. Right. We hear SEO some of our, like your palms get sweaty and you're like, oh, God, no, I don't want to touch this. But I love it. I've been in growth and SEO now for over a decade, and I just, I love the challenges. The first thing we tend to think about when you hear SEO is Google. But SEO is a broad term that is popularized by Google, but it simply means search engine optimization. So really quickly, SEO could mean making sure that on Instagram, if, for example, your Instagram handle is icolejenson and your name is nicolejensen, that's not necessarily SEO optimized because somebody can search and find you in both places. Why wouldn't you want to have Nicole Jensen as your username, but have Leaders of Transformation podcast host as the top? So now they can find leadership, now they can find podcasts, now they can find the ecrm going with that. So I want to use a simple example to explain a really broad topic, which is you have to start with quality content if you can't find what you're looking for. And that's the essence of SEO. You can optimize all you want, but if there's no content there, it's not worth going for. So sort of bridging this question, thinking about it with the mind of Google. Remember, Google is the number one search engine in the world, and they just happen to own YouTube, which is the number two search engine in the world. So if we're thinking about how to optimize, we have to feed the cool beast what they want. And with that context to get to your question, because that's really important context that we understand. It's just about doing what we believe makes the most sense with the tools that we're given. That's really SEO at its root. And when it comes to how to Deploy that on YouTube and how to deploy that on LinkedIn, again, these are algorithms that aren't public for a reason. Some of the best engineers on the planet are the ones that are behind Locke and Key that we just can't figure out. But Google publishes, thinking about YouTube here, Google publishes in their webmaster guidelines that they clearly, in the couple first sentences, they say, don't optimize for Google, optimize for your user. And Google's going to do its best job to figure out what your user would want. Right? We're zooming out and we're thinking about it at a higher level. So Google doesn't want you to obsess over putting the right title tag and all these little tweaks and all that stuff. They just say, okay, if another human being came and read this or clicked on this or did this, are they going to enjoy it? That's my way of really simplifying it. So now we go back to that other question, which is, well, how do you consume and Enjoy something on LinkedIn versus YouTube? You give the people what they want. So if you're on YouTube, you want to be told that this is the answer to your question. You want to feel like you're going to learn something. You want to come away feeling like it was worth all that time. Think of the typical search you put into YouTube and you see the screens and it's like the number one destination resort that you've been looking for. It's the eight travel hacks that you didn't know existed. I'm just making stuff up. But it comes with a beautiful poster image and they've got 30 million views and life is good. But you walk away from those and you're like, yeah, I actually learned something. It was worth my time to invest in it. But with LinkedIn, it's different again. It's more of you're in a professional setting, you're thinking about it in a different vibe. So it's more about being sold on something. It's more about understanding the community behind it and the why, I believe. So that's really important to understand the intention. And then once you feel really good about the intention, then you can optimize. Right. There's some prep work that really goes into SEO to make sure you're doing it to a way that feels good to you. So on YouTube, really, it's so drastically different than Google search. And I'll be really transparent. I have not spent most of my SEO time working YouTube, but the things that I do know are title and poster image are everything and they are worth updating and testing, trying and trying again and changing background colors. And it's all about just getting somebody's attention so you can see if you can introduce them into what you're talking about. So title and poster image are everything when it comes to YouTube to really kind of to break that hub. And then on LinkedIn, I was reading an article actually just last week that talked about the importance of LinkedIn tags and that LinkedIn tags are still really, really kicking. So I do believe that the current best case that you can do with LinkedIn is to still utilize tags and to get that K factor with people sharing it so making a shareable piece of content very similar to Facebook. Those would be my two top strategies for how to start to optimize your video content when it comes to those two platforms.

Awesome. Thank you. One last thing. There's so much, of course. And then we're going to also give our listeners and our viewers your information so they can go and find out more about you and additional information that you have out there on this. You mentioned about the poster on YouTube. So what's the formula for that?

Because it evolves as we change perspective, as we change attention spans, as we change the way that we want to consume. It's all related to your business as well.

So you change them. Like you mentioned about changing them up even.

It's really helpful to change them up. So again, I would want you to think about how you would want to be sold on an image. It really comes back to that. So, for example, recently started going back to the gym after an unmentionable pause, and I found the love of cycling. I got a free Year of the Peloton app through my health provider. And I was like, oh, this is fun. So now I go back. Before that, I was keeping it simple. I just went on YouTube and I was searching cycling classes and, you know, just think about that. Like, there's a lot of free cycling classes out there. What am I looking for? Well, I'm looking for like somebody sweating, somebody kind of having fun. I want to see what kind of music is in there. Right. Again, this is the difference between here's how to cycle 101 for beginners and 90s hip hop cycling Megamix for 30 minutes, which is like my jam. So which one did I pick? I didn't want the boring one. I wanted the one that I was going to enjoy. So that is nothing to do with the business, but for that YouTube creator, that's their business. So if we think about how we want to consume, that gives us permission to try it. And you don't have to have the neon blue background with the super smiley face and be the most beautiful face with all the filters and all that stuff. If you've got what somebody wants, they're going to watch it. YouTube's going to recommend it more. And then that, that's just that cycle is going to go. So thinking about it as I don't know what the magic is, and even if I did, they're going to change it. Because Google's edge is staying on the edge of competitiveness. Their whole business model relies on them providing the best answer to your question, period. So the minute that you stop trusting their search results, you're gone. And that's why they're going to keep evolving, because as we keep changing our search behavior and the heuristics of what goes into our searches, they're going to iterate because they have to stay ahead of the curve.

Yeah, that's so good. One last question and then we'll start to wrap up. And I appreciate your time and sharing this. These are nuggets of wisdom here. How frequent, when we talk about podcasting, how frequently is the right number? And I know that you said about goes with audiences and so forth, but is there like kind of a sweet spot in terms of where you can, you can almost have your podcast coming out too much versus too little and so talk about that frequency.

I work with a lot of podcasters and creators and it's everything from daily episodes to once every few weeks. And this is going to be a non answer, but I'll expand on it, which is depends on what you're talking about mixed with what your audience has the capacity to consume. So how many Joe Rogan episodes can one human fit into their day? Well, if we think about, I don't know everything about the man, but I've done enough homework on his show for the obvious reason. It's the number one show out there, so we should pay attention. You get a lot of people who they're on their morning commute and they listen to a show, it's like talk radio. So if you're commuting five days a week to and from work and you've got time, permission granted. To release as much as humanly possible because you're just going to get somebody to fall in love with you and just to be a listener forever. But if your content is delivering one health tip a week, then getting the really long context and everything, well, can any other human have time to understand all that? Go get all the prep work, go buy all the things, have it shipped, do the thing. Even Amazon can't keep up with that kind of hustle. They probably could, but I don't think we would want to be on top of Amazon doing that. That would require a second job. So it really depends on the industry and the message. I need to make sure that that's really clear, but at least from an SEO perspective, because again, that's one of my specialties here for over a decade is Google doesn't care if you put out one post a day or one post a month. As much More as you're consistent with it. So they're going to want to favor quality content over quantity. Now, it's really important. Back in the day, it was all quantity. They wanted to fill their database. They wanted the most results, and they wanted to give quality results, but they had to have all the answers. Now, my God, knowledge is a commodity. So if we're thinking about how to really change the paradigm, it's quality content, but it's consistent. So whether your show has a couple a week or a couple a day, if people can't keep up with it, and this is where you need to measure your data, then you're doing everybody a disservice. Somebody's going to feel like they're missing too much, and then they don't want to get into it. But some ideas, like maybe the weekend you do a digest episode, that's 10 minutes, and you talk about the best things that happened over the course of that week. You hint at what's coming up. You have the freedom to do whatever you want, but whatever you do, be consistent.

That's good. Thank you. Yeah, I noticed that with my show because I had it three times a week and people said, oh, I love your show, but I just can't keep up. And I was like, oh, got it. So as I listened that. Yeah. As I lessened it, it's interesting because my. The number of downloads didn't decrease when I even had less content. And I was like, okay, so what am I doing all these extra shows for? So then I just dialed it in from that. So it's a learning process. Jim, thank you so much for this. I do want to wrap up with you telling us who's your ideal client. Obviously, you work with big names in podcasting, and you also work with these nonprofits you're talking about from the beginning. So who is your ideal client? And then, of course, how do they find you?

Yeah. Thank you for asking. My ideal client right now is the entrepreneur that is creating content that has an established brand that just needs help growing that brand and getting it out there. So they are busy creating content, and they don't want to think about the technical stuff, like all the stuff that we talked about. I have a lot of done for you services where it comes with strategy, but also implementation. We'll take a podcast, we'll do all the work. We'll create a 2,000 plus Word article. We'll publish it for you. We can take video like this. We can find those key points and chop it up and then give you A treasure chest of reels and TikToks and all that kind of stuff, building email journeys, stuff like that. We love to take the expertise and the genius that is the content machines of the world and actually help them grow. And we do that in a couple of ways. We do it with original content, kind of repurposing and creation that way as well as we have a mastermind for early stage entrepreneurs called Fast Foundations. And we help entrepreneurs get from about that 20,000 a year to half a million a year mark and over to kind of hit that hump. Because that's kind of the difference between having a hobby and playing business and actually running a business and doing it sustainably. And those are the two people that we just are loving serving right now because it's our zone of genius. It lights us up and yeah, I wake up in the morning and I can't wait to get into it.

Beautiful. And where do they find you?

Carterand Custer.com is our agency again. I founded that company. The CEO RT Custer is my partner there. Between the two of us, we proudly built three seven figure businesses, not the other way around. And we're just loving both leading and running that mastermind as well as using our years of marketing and expertise as we grow our team with a lot of content creators.

Awesome. Well, Jim, thank you so much. You are a wealth of knowledge. And as I was listening to you, I was thinking, man, yeah, I'm glad you do this for people because I think about myself, there's a lot. And keeping up with all of this, it's a lot. And somebody's actually trying to still build a business on the side rather than just always focusing on the marketing piece. So to be able to hire somebody like you that does it is brilliant and certainly a gift. So I would encourage our listeners to go to CarterAndKuster.com we'll make sure of our services in the show notes as well and make sure all the social links are in there as well that you can reach out to Jim and his team if you're interested in learning more. And there's also of course a wealth of information that they share. Leaders of transformation take action. So all of this is wonderful, but unless you do something with it, it just doesn't mean anything. So go out there, take some action, even just some of the tips. Maybe it's looking at your YouTube channel. I tell you, this is what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to look at my YouTube channel. I'm going to be looking at LinkedIn I'm looking at all the ways that I use this content to be able to get it out there to a wider audience and make a greater impact. And so I encourage you to do the same. And even if you take one nugget, one tip and start applying that, I know that you're going to see a difference and then come back and do another tip and then another tip, another tip. That's how change happens. So I encourage you that we'd love to hear your stories. Of course you can find us on social. You can go to leaderstransformation.com and let us know how this has impacted you. We'd love to hear from you. We appreciate you being here again, Jim. Thank you for being here as well. We look forward to seeing you next week on another episode of the Leaders of Transformation. Have a great day. Thank you for listening to the Leaders of Transformation podcast with Nicole Jansen. If you're enjoying this show, please click the Follow or Subscribe button and leave a rating and review wherever you listen to your podcasts. And remember to join us on Social and get connected. Together we can make this world a better place for everyone. We'll see you next time.