What If Your Best Content Strategy Is No Strategy at All? | Ep. 137

Justin King: Reduce the overwhelm of feeling like you have to have a content strategy, because I think that prevents a lot of people from actually even starting and just share something that interests you.

Ethan King: Welcome to King Moves. In chess, the King moves one step at a time. But that single move can change everything. Each week we explore mindset shifts in simple actions that could lead to the next breakthrough in your business and life. I'm your co host, Ethan king from Atlanta, Georgia, USA, entrepreneur, TEDx speaker and bestselling author of Wealth Beyond Money.

Justin King: And I'm your co host, Justin King, no relation to Ethan, from Cape Town, South Africa. Entrepreneur, speaker and business growth strategist. Our journey crosses continents and cultures as we think out loud, challenge assumptions and uncover the small moves that create big momentum. Welcome to King Moves. Let's start the conversation.

Ethan King: Hey, so Justin, you know, on a previous episode I had sent you this clip. I think it was like a, uh, Facebook reel with this guy named Jason Pargan or Pargen. I'm not sure how you pronounce his last name, but he always pops up on, in my algorithm, on TikTok, on Facebook, Instagram, and he's this guy, he's always just commenting on something in pop culture and he has these thought provoking takes on it, but they're very random. Like there doesn't seem to be a through line or a common thing that he's talking about. And uh, I've been seeing him pop up on my, on my feed for a while now, I don't know, maybe a couple of years. And I always watch his stuff. So of course it continues to pop up on my feed. But then just yesterday I thought to myself, who is this guy? And so I actually clicked on his name, looked at his profile and, and come to find out he's a very successful author. I mean he, he's had several New York Times bestselling books. Uh, he actually used to go under a pen name. I think his pen name was David Wong. So which is, which is interesting because the author, Jason is a white guy and Jason, um, David Wong is very clearly Asian name. Uh, but at the time, and he, you know, I did kind of a deep dive on this guy and I looked him up and was uh, reading his, his, his Wikipedia and stuff and he wrote at the time he was working at a job and he didn't want it to be a conflict at his job, so he did a completely different pen name, uh, a pseudonym, as an author. And he said he started getting like anti Chinese hate mail or something and he was like Interesting.

Justin King: Yeah.

Ethan King: So, but after he left that job or whatever, now he started going by his real name, and he's had a lot of success, but he writes these fiction books. So I actually ended up. I bought one of his books last night. I bought his most recent book. Uh, they all have super high reviews, a, uh, large number of reviews. And I really. I typically don't read a lot of fiction, but based on the fact that I follow his social media and I like what he talks about generally, even though it's kind of all over the place, that led me to buy his book. So I'm, um, I'm, um, thinking now is that the new strategy of having a social brand, a personal brand, where you might not talk about things that are directly related to your business, but it could lead to more business.

Justin King: Is that, Is that like a type of halo effect, do you think?

Ethan King: Uh, so define halo effect. How are you. How do you define that?

Justin King: Uh, the easiest way would be, uh, halo effect would be. It's almost, um, it's the opposite of what you're describing in a way, because it would be somebody who is deeply trusted and hugely knowledgeable in a specific area. Or it could be even a sports person who's incredibly good at their skill and has won a Super bowl. And because they have that. That deep expertise in one area. The halo effect then for people is. Well, hang on, that halo must shine further afield, and that must mean that we should get the sports person's opinion on a political aspect or we should get their insights into what's happening with the financial markets or whatever it is, even though that's completely outside of their traditional realm of expertise. And I'm just wondering if. And that's why I'm asking, is this a type of halo effect where you, you really bought into. And even though there's not one consistent theme of video, but you bought into the style, you bought into the thought process, you bought into the points that get made and like, hey, um, man, that's. That's great. So his halo now goes further afield for you because he's an author and writes books. Granted, I know how you are. And you, you look at the reviews. So you've also checked that box, but you've gone, hey, if I like the video content that you put together, the way you articulate yourself and the, the points that you get across, I'm pretty sure that that halo goes to your books as well. And I'm willing to at least take a bet on. On buying one to see what that's like, interesting.

Ethan King: So I think that halo effect, um, is a slightly different conversation that we should have. In my opinion. Halo effect is ethos. You know, how you have ethos, pathos, logos. The ethos part of that is your credibility. And you know, you need all three parts of those in rhetoric when you're giving a speech. But the credibility part of it, uh, halo effect is when you have so much credibility in one area that people then transfer that to all areas, which can be not a good thing because like you said, if you are a Super bowl star or a Super bowl winner, and now, you know, we're talking about finances or your political views, it may not be applicable. Um, so I think that's dangerous territory. But, but when I'm. And we should talk about that on a future episode, let's make a mental note of that because I think that's an important conversation. But what I'm talking about here is I see a new opportunity for marketing, for leveraging your personal brand in an unorthodox way. And this. So it reminds me of I was speaking at an event where I was. Some of the people in the audience were B2B, some were B2C. So business to business or business to consumer. And I talk a lot about sharing on social media, having a strong presence on social media. And one of the guys audience is like, I'm B2B. I don't have any place for. I don't need to do social media. Nobody's looking for my particular product on social media. It doesn't apply to me. And he was kind of trying to push back. And then another lady who was actually on the panel with me who had read my book and everything and actually applied some of the principles, she gave an example, she said, I'm B2B also. But here's what I did, I did in my company, they sell like coffee to other businesses in bulk. And he said. And she said, in my company, we, um, we just, we did a post, a TikTok video about our Halloween party, company party. And that post ended up going viral, got hundreds of thousands of views and it led to business of companies buying our coffee in bulk for their offices. So totally unrelated thing post, um, content can lead to actual business. And that's what happened here. This guy, you know, Jason Pargan Pargin, he never talks about, hey, go buy my book or click the link in my bio. I've never seen, or at least I've never seen any of his posts do that. He just shares his thought on something and then that's the end of it. And then the next real I see he's sharing his thought on something completely different and to the point where I've seen it over and over again and I'm just like, who is this guy? And then you check out their profile and then you buy and the completely unrelated thing. And I'm seeing that happen more and more and I'm hearing people talk about it and I think that may be the strategy that we need going into this new era when we kind of tune out anything that smells like an ad in the slightest.

Justin King: Do you not think it's the power of likability that's being tapped into?

Ethan King: I think it is, yes. Likeability.

Justin King: Authentic. Authentic likability. You're not, not. Because if that, if that's purely your strategy to try and be likable, good luck if you inher not a likable individual or a brand. But I think if you can create authentic content, even if it's um, all marketing material and it's not necessarily geared around any one specific topic, but you are trying to be authentically you. And maybe that's the word we come back to in a time of a lot of AI generated slop. M. Hell yes, I'm going to like you. I'm going to appreciate the fact that you, you creating this content your still and because I like you and I appreciate the way you're going about this. If there's a way that I can support you, let me give that a bash. That then, that then takes you down a different road. If I buy your book and it is shit, I probably won't buy the next one. That's the truth. Yeah.

Ethan King: And in all that, all that's relative. Like likability is relative. Whether I think the book is shit or not is going to be relative. But the reason I bought it is because if we look at those words authenticity and likability in this sense, he's being his authentic self and just sharing his authentic views on the world. Some people are gonna connect with that and agree with him and be like, you know, I like how this guy thinks. Like everything he says I really agree with. Or it causes some type of uh, profound reaction in me where like an aha moment. I just like how he thinks in general. This is someone I want to hear more from. Let's see what else he has. I wanna go deeper into. So I guess like, I don't know if likability is the right word for that, but um, I mean, I guess it could work, but yeah. I do, I want to know more about how he thinks, I want to hear more of his thoughts, whereas, you know, it's just not the direct approach. So I do think that authenticity plays a part in showing more sides of yourself. For the longest we've been taught to focus on one thing and to, to have single mindedness when it comes to publishing content and like what you do with your newsletter, you, you, your thoughts. I think that that's the right way to do it. I think that is the, the, the current wave and the wave of the near future is to just share your thoughts authentically on different things and then people will want to know more about Justin King and his business coaching, his leadership coaching, whatever it is. Even though you may be talking about something completely different like weights in the gym or whatever.

Justin King: Right? Yeah.

Ethan King: So I guess this is kind of an aha for me because I need to do more of that. If you look at my feed, I talk about AI, AI AI a lot. And I uh, even like recently, well, last year I told my social media guy, my social media assistant. I was like, let's just focus on the AI thing because that's what I'm doing, that's what I'm speaking on, that's what my book's about. So just don't post clips of me talking about relationships or you know, the whole wealth beyond money thing. Right now we're just focused on AI but in hindsight now I'm thinking that that's not the right approach. I think I need to share more authentically about other stuff that I'm into and my thoughts on that. I mean I'm into nerdy stuff like Marvel comics and things like that and uh, in the movies and the upcoming Avengers stuff and things that I do with my kids and travel and fitness. Maybe I should talk more about those things, just sharing my authentic views on them. And then people would be like if, if they, if it resonates with some people, some people it won't. But they might just click on my bio and be like, who's this guy? What does he talk about?

Justin King: And I want to learn more. Yeah, I like that. And I think it was a, a friend of mine, Pierre dpc, I think he had a talk called AI and I. I m. Think he had a talk or something. But, but that jumps up for you because what you need to speak about is AI and I. So share more about, yeah, your stuff, what interests you. And there'll still always be the core element of AI that you speak about. But the, and I part is possibly missing. Share some of those things that are just top of mind for you. A lot of the things that made wealth beyond money a success as well.

Ethan King: Yeah, very true, very true. All right, well, this is good. So king move here, I'm going to say, and I'm going to apply this to myself. This was like a therapy session for me, Justin, so thank you. But I'm going to share just more authentically about multiple things in my life and my opinions on them and my viewpoints, and not just operate in a silo when it comes to what I share on with the content that I share.

Justin King: Yeah. And from my side, I think a king move would be reduce the overwhelm of feeling like you have to have a content strategy, because I think that prevents a lot of people from actually, um, even starting and just share something that interests you. That's it. Even if it's not necessarily related to your point of work. Share something that interests you.

Ethan King: Yep. Very well said. Yeah, forget the content strategy. I love that. That's a wrap for today's episode of King Moves. Quick favor before we go. If this episode made you think differently or helped you see your next move More clearly, take 30 seconds and leave us a review. It helps the show read reach leaders who need these conversations. Remember, in chess, like in business, one right move can change everything.

Justin King: Take today's action step, make your move and build momentum. And if you found value in today's episode, share it with someone who's ready for the next breakthrough. Don't forget to subscribe so you never miss our weekly conversations.

Ethan King: Until next time.