Russ Johns 0:00
Welcome to the pirate broadcast, where we interview interesting people doing interesting things where you can expand your connections, your community. Kindness is cool and smiles are free. Let's get this party started.

What a great day and what a great way to start off the day with creative conversation around improving our lives, interesting things, topics and everything else in today. Amy's in the room. She's become a pirate, how're you?

Amy Blaschka 0:37
I'm excited. I'm finally a pirate. Yeah,

Russ Johns 0:42
I love creating pirates on a regular basis. Now that you're part of the pirate community. We have we have a Facebook group where I share things because a lot of interesting things take place after the mic is off.

Amy Blaschka 0:56
I bet. I bet.

Russ Johns 0:57
There's a lot of conversations that take place. After the mic is off. For those that don't know, you kind of give a brief overview of who is Amy? Why are you here?

Amy Blaschka 1:14
That's a great question. That's an existential though. So I'm Amy Blaska. I am a social media ghostwriter. And I help leaders craft their stories so they can communicate and connect better. That obviously takes place in social media. I like to say that we use social media for good. I'm all about positive use of social media and spreading that goodness around the world, rather than using it to sell or to parades or any any negative connotation.

Russ Johns 1:46
Sure.

Amy Blaschka 1:47
I've been doing this. Oh my gosh, this sheltered home. I've been doing this for like, almost a decade working at home but prior to being doing strategic writing, I was actually traveling tourism for about a decade running a destination organization and about five years after that consulting with like, bring I know, it's very like people away. It's all about service and industry. It's all about ensuring exceptional experience. The job that I had was really about telling the story of the destination. Before that, I was a branding consultant. So again, it's telling story of a product plays all these things. There is this common thread that weaves together. Before that, I thought it'd be a filmmaker. That's what I actually studied in school. Yeah, visual arts major film in video. I had a minor in communication. So I've always loved to write, but the idea of working collaboratively with people to bring a story to life that's really exciting to me that tangible result is having that like telling that story, and really kind of showcasing that and shining the light on sort of that unique element of now it's a person used to be a place to give you can of soda boxes, cereal, whatever it is.

Russ Johns 3:06
Anything. Anything,

Amy Blaschka 3:07
It's that sort of jazz. Yeah,

Russ Johns 3:09
Yeah. I always say you can you can tell your story with words, images, audio or video.

Amy Blaschka 3:17
All of that.

Russ Johns 3:18
All about them exactly. That's the whole point of what we're doing is, we're telling stories. I mean, so you've been a storyteller your entire life.

Amy Blaschka 3:29
Yeah!

Russ Johns 3:29
Actually, in some way, shape or form.

Amy Blaschka 3:32
I was the little shy kid in the corner, like drawing and writing stories. That was me. Yep.

Russ Johns 3:40
Yes, yes. Now that we're actually going through some challenging times here this is, I know that there are going to be numerous opportunities to tell stories around this. I think more now than any other time in history. If you have kind of a thought process that you may want to change or remove things from your life that are not really causing you joy or creating a fulfillment in your life. Maybe it's time that you kind of release some of that stuff and look at some other opportunities. Even as we go through this process, there are opportunities out there. I think a lot of companies are realizing the fact that remote workers are viable. They still operate your business as you work. You and I had been remote workers for years and helping people online around the world. It's not unheard of to do this. Maybe you could talk about that a little bit and share some ideas that you're kind of cultivating in your mind. I know that you just released a Forbes article and you're producing content all the time. What are some ideas that are coming to the top as we're going through this process?

Amy Blaschka 4:56
Well, I think there's a couple things first, I think before it's like, Okay, do this. First you have to acknowledge that this is happening because a lot of people I think are resistant to change. I won't say that I love change. Most people are okay with change as long as they're the ones driving the change.

Russ Johns 5:13
Correct.

Amy Blaschka 5:14
That's sort of the first tip. Acknowledge that this isn't just a new normal now, but I think what happens is sort of line in the sand between pre Coronavirus and post Coronavirus the world huge shift, right and how companies and how everyone does business will forever be changed. So if you're just saying in a week or two or month or whatever it is, I'm just gonna go back to doing same old same old. I don't think that's the best course of action. I think using this time, especially because we all seem to have time, right? To think about how you can pivot how you can move into sort of what's next. I wrote about this this morning about reinventing yourself and this idea that This is not mine, but I love it, pivot or perish. That's David Briars. I'm giving him a shout out because I love it so much.

Russ Johns 6:07
Yeah. David's a good one to follow.

Amy Blaschka 6:12
He's tremendous. That idea and this, he's mentioned it, this was well before anything going on now. Still that idea that you need to really take a hard look at what's happening in your environment. As you alluded to, is if something is no longer serving you, you need to be able to let that go. What you need to do is make room for what's next. If you're still carrying all that baggage, and the way you've always done things, and we owe you, that's not going to serve you, you need to let go of that and then be open to sort of what could be. This is the time that innovation is really thriving, because you have to, you have those constraints, like Well, you can't go out and you can't do this. In the last time we had sort of this recession, a bunch of new companies were founded and then company particular has already been around a while, but they moved from sort of this DVD delivery service into something kind of funky, new streaming. And now Netflix is huge. It actually now is a stay here for many people during this time. Tiger king. As we keep going through this, this is the opportunity to really pause and think about what do I want. How do my skill set and my offering, how does that align with sort of demand? What can I see what is a new way to think about what maybe what you've always done? You have some common skill sets you haven't seen, but it's just applying them in your way. That's the innovative part, right? Use your creativity and then how can we tweak this even just a little bit, because that's where you're going to shine. Then if you're the first person to do that, you come up with it. Guess what, you just created a new category product a new service for something that didn't exist pre Coronavirus, right.

Russ Johns 8:02
So it's ironic and I've been guilty, I've been in and out of corporate organizations during my career and multiple different careers. There have been times though Amy that I was really associated with my job as part of my identity, even though it was not in my best interest. It wasn't until I had extracted myself out of that, that I understood that it wasn't in my best interest. It was like one of those things that I had to remove myself long enough to understand. This is really not what I need to be doing with my time. If people can actually understand that, a time of reflection and self awareness and be able to really kind of think about those things and discover something that, like you said, in the space between what is and what could be innovation takes place. Let's think about what that looks like for our skill set for our interest for our finding the joy in the moment. It's really a time for discovery. I know there are tragedies, and there are things that are going to be challenging for all of us. I think that we can use this time to draw each other together and maybe make it more like I always say kindness is cool. Let's work together on that focus.

Amy Blaschka 9:44
Yeah, I agree. I think that it is funny that this technology, all the stuff that you use all the time, all the video and all this. It's amazing, that suddenly because we're all stuck in our houses today You forget a basic human need is really to belong and connect and wanting to do that. I think if there's any silver lining that's coming out of this, it's that people sort of that wake up call, that we were people before your CEO, before you're a marketing guy, before you're whatever. you are a person. People need each other, and especially right now. Now is the time to come together. I've seen it, I mean, I'm sure you have too, that. Overwhelmingly, people are good, and they're like, what can we do to help? How can we help you? What can we. I mean, and even if you think you're listening or anything, I don't have anything to offer. You're wrong because even just sharing your own story, your experience with somebody that is enough to give that person new thinking, it might give them that little boost of encouragement or something they might need. So it's simple, right? It can be can be video chat, it can be a message and maybe some other forms some way to kind of connect. Even just small acts of kindness.

Russ Johns 11:02
Yeah.

Amy Blaschka 11:02
Wow, that's enough to keep them going, particularly if they're dealing with a family member or somebody that has COVID-19. There's a lot going on right now there's a lot for people to handle it. Anybody that says, I'm great! I don't believe you!

Russ Johns 11:22
Talk about the heroes, the medical community, the first responders, the people that are essential workers that are out there on a regular basis, the restaurant tours that are keeping a distance and still serving the community and the people that are delivering food and services and the supply chain all of these individuals that are out there, keeping things moving forward for us, on our behalf. The majority of us need to stay home need to avoid contact, and the stories that come from that are really I mean, think of the social media impact, and how it's evolved in the last 30 days. It's really amazing to watch some of the stories evolve. How people are live streaming more and more now. It's kind of crazy because I've had the pirate broadcast for a long time. I actually created the pirate syndicate to help other people that are not as technical and don't have the time or the inclination, or the interest in learning the technology. So it's like I could produce your show and put this all together and this was before this thing happened, how to get it amplifies the idea that we have stories to tell we have things to share. There are things that are evolving all the time. If you can imagine the opportunity and how you can apply your skills to that opportunity. It's endless.

Amy Blaschka 13:03
Yeah, I think everybody realize the power of story. There's always storytelling. Oh, it's the reason that stories work is because they communicate with emotion and they connect people. When we talk about storytelling, it isn't so much you want to sell, sell, sell. If you have a story that can relate, or your customer has a story to share. These are the things that bind together, and stories are what people remember. Right?

Russ Johns 13:34
Yeah.

Amy Blaschka 13:34
When you touch somebody with emotion when you're sharing your experience, that's what people really gloom on to, and they really get it's not just Oh, it's just another, they're pushing their products or their services whatever, when there's a story that you share. It's a narrative, it's completely different form and your brain processes that differently. This is a way that really people can capitalize and particularly everybody is going through Sort of unprecedented crazy time right now and their little slice of life and how they can share and relate to others. How do you use this? Even like you said, social media, the use of social media. Everyone's been on social media, but now everybody is in front of their computer. Right?

Russ Johns 14:15
Right!

Amy Blaschka 14:16
Yeah How can you use that to be creatively sharing those stories and connecting others and bringing them along and kind of creating something new, like we were talking about earlier? It's a time if you choose to see it and use it in this way?

Russ Johns 14:33
Yeah.

Amy Blaschka 14:33
This is a time of great creation, reinvention, innovation. I'm always somebody who likes to see the possibilities. So I would encourage others to do that as well. Why not? What else are you doing?

Russ Johns 14:46
Yeah! Exactly! Why not? Why not? Why wouldn't we want to do this, sir?

Amy Blaschka 14:51
Yeah.

Russ Johns 14:53
I also want to give a shout out to some of the people that are and have been creative. I love collaborating for Wendy, she's talking about giving creative feedback. Gabriel started podcasting and just started this live streaming thing. He's just gone full force and creating some shows. If you haven't followed up with Gabriel, follow Gabriel.

Amy Blaschka 15:19
Yes.

Russ Johns 15:20
Dorkes Mathout. Good morning. Thank you so much for being here. Laurie Knutson. Thank you so much for being here Arcot. It's the end of your day. So appreciate it. Billy Jerell from Houston. Vicki O'Neil great point, people are okay with change if they're in control, that's important to understand is when you feel like you have control, even if you may not necessarily have everything under control. It's kind of one of those things right. There's all kinds of Bez, Latasha, Sherry lolly, Michael Evans. Jimmy Klim Go team. I want to kind of shift gears here, Amy, because I know that you've been story telling. You've been writing about stories and things like this. Not everyone is prepared or ready to hire a ghostwriter, possibly, however, they still have something that they want to get out. Maybe we could share a little bit of a few ideas that people can use just to get started. Maybe journaling or writing things down and how to structure it and maybe you could share a little bit about social media stories versus writing A book or

Amy Blaschka 17:01
Yeah.

Russ Johns 17:02
Creating a, a story for Forbes like you do.

Amy Blaschka 17:05
Okay. Well, I think the biggest thing with social media is there's a short attention span, right by nature of what it is.

Russ Johns 17:14
Price is the key. Right?

Amy Blaschka 17:16
Exactly. Actually, there are three things that are sort of my basic tenants. It applies to social media. It applies to any sort of form of communication, but it's clarity, as you mentioned, right? You have to be clear. With social media in particular, you want to stick with one message per post, okay? The second thing is consistency. When you are posting and you are talking about things and maybe you decide you're going to put a video out there, you're gonna post an article or an update. You want it to be consistent with the way that you write should be the way that you talk, that there shouldn't be like suddenly this formal academic language used in an update and then if somebody were to Meet you in person.

Russ Johns 18:07
Yeah.

Amy Blaschka 18:08
You want it to really be consistent to your voice and who you are. Then a discipline is really about staying in your wheelhouse because if you try to tackle too many topics, you'll confuse people and they won't come to associate you with anything. If you want it you'll never see, I use this example I have nothing against blockchain, but you will never see me writing or posting about blockchain or cryptocurrency because that is not in my wheelhouse, right? So if I suddenly start doing that, either slap me upside the head, you would probably be there.

Russ Johns 18:41
Are you Okay?

Amy Blaschka 18:43
What's happening with you? Because it doesn't make any sense. So what you really want to do is you want to make it very easy for your audience to understand who you are, what matters most to you what you're about and definitely how you can help them because I think When we use social media, we have an opportunity to serve versus sell. I think that's really important. Believe me, I have done this. Without selling this, I get all of my clients through social media, okay? I've never done an ad I've never done this. It's really about showcasing your value, who you are, what matters most to you. What's really important to you. I think right now, we all have an opportunity to share those types of things. It doesn't need to be fancy or complex. If anything, I would air on the side of being short because what happens sometimes, and think about what you want to say, before you jump on video before it doesn't have to be scripted in terms of you, please don't read, but don't ramble on and on, because you will lose people too. It'll come back to that. It's not making it easy for them to understand, well, what's your point? So be clear, be consistent and have some discipline. Those are really the top tips. Be brief, I would say, especially when you're first starting out.

Russ Johns 20:04
Yeah. The best advice I had was years ago I was teaching safety actually. One of the executives said, Russ, cut the embroidery, Get to the point.

Amy Blaschka 20:19
Great!

Russ Johns 20:20
I thought I'd always remember that it's like, Okay, if I could sit in half as many words I'm better off because I have a tendency to want to ramble. I have that ability. It's like, just cut it off, just move on. It doesn't have to add the whole thing doesn't have to be filled with words.

Amy Blaschka 20:43
That's right. Just because you have 1300 characters, if we're an update, you don't have to use them all or just because I can go on and I can chord 10 minutes of video. You don't have to and sometimes that's the most challenging for people. I will tell you that they think oh my gosh, how could I, but I need to talk I need to do this. I need to it's just.

Russ Johns 21:07
Well, I think it was a Mark Twain that wrote the statement. If I had more time I would have made it shorter?

Amy Blaschka 21:17
Yes, yes. I do think that at least when I talk to my clients, sometimes that is the most difficult thing for them. They're like, Oh, man, how do you do that? How can you be compelling and concise? It's like, well, that's the point.

Russ Johns 21:30
That's what makes it beautiful. Some of the best concepts are made in just simple language. I love quotes. I love the idea of taking a concept and breaking it down into just one small statement that just expands the concept and the idea, and it's just taken that, just boiling it down to its essence and it's really key. Social medias, we have the attention span of, I don't know, not even a squirrel, not even a foot fish anymore. It's like three seconds in your Twitter feed and you're gone. It's really important now more than any other time to really focus in on what you want to say and what you want to do. Amy, I wasn't gifted with the idea that I knew what writing and storytelling was all about, because I'm fascinated with so many different subjects. That's why I wanted to bring interesting people in doing interesting things because I can just kind of discover. You drive through the warehouse district and you see all these companies out there with the brand on their company and their building, and it's like, what do they do? I want to know what they do!

Amy Blaschka 22:47
Your curious, Nobody does that! Yeah!

Russ Johns 22:50
A lifelong learner. Then the downside of sometimes focuses is one of the challenges that I have to pay attention too. I really enjoy the fact that I love your work, I love what you're doing. I just wanted to share you with the community here and talk about what's going on in the world of social media and everything else. Talk a little bit about where do you see social media evolving to, in your line of work, and how we can actually leverage some of these things. I know mediums been really big, publishing on LinkedIn has been popular. There are some platforms out there that have evolved and now it's like, tick tock, where it's 10 seconds of whatever you're taught. So it's really kind of, it's a broad landscape. How do we think through the process of where to publish, how to publish and where to tell stories at what do you what are your thoughts on that?

Amy Blaschka 23:53
Well, I mean, to me, it seems like the first thing about your audience who you're trying to speak to? Who are you trying to reach? Then think, where are they spending their time. It's easier if they're already somewhere, it's easier to go to them and where they're already spending their time then it is to try to attract them and take them away from one platform to where you decide you want to be. So when you think about that, like for me, LinkedIn is, although I'm all over different platforms, LinkedIn is my primary platform because that is where I'm reaching my existing clients and potential clients and where they find out about me that's my audience, but that's not always the case. You maybe someone who's like, well, I'm trying to reach teenagers or I'm trying to reach a very niche set. Somebody who loves golf. You got to think about where are they? Where are they congregating? Where are they spending their time and then think about creating content there because they're already there and tailor it to them. If you're not sure, of course, you can dabble you can do some things. But keep in mind, there is a short attention span. So you want to keep it brief and concise. If you're on something like Twitter, unless you happen to see that in the feed, it might go away. Tick tock is great. I get the other part of this is, decide Are you somebody who's comfortable with video or dancing or doing something crazy and silly. Is that part of who you are and what you offer? Is that your fun sort of not super corporate or structured. Tick Tok might be for you. It's funny, my children won't allow me on tik tok. My husband jumped on and it makes our youngest daughter go, uuuhhh, sort of like Please don't do that. You see that there are brands you see that there are people coming over there, but that's right for them. I would say experiment but think about If you want to make it easier, and you think about where those people that you want to reach already are, but I will tell you, it because of what's going on people are exploring, the audience is exploring new places to go to so even if you think I can, that would never be where I would be, don't be so quick to discount it, maybe check it out, try some things and see what happens. It's a perfect time to test, right? What's the worst that can happen? It's like, it doesn't work. Okay, then we move on. That's what's really nice about social media is it's pretty brief. Even if nothing if it takes something else just replaced it in the feed, you're okay, you can try somewhere else.

Russ Johns 26:40
Another thing that I think is really important for people to understand is and it's different for every audience as well is the frequency of posting. I post on a regular basis. I do a show every day. The idea that Okay, I'm going to promote someone like Amy on the show, and then I'm going to promote the fact that she was on the show, and I'm gonna highlight your skills and your ability and people to learn and know who you are and how you help. That creates a lot of content. It's on Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Periscope, it's across a lot of platforms. Then by the end of the day, it's a podcast, it's a post, and it's a transcription of the show. It's on RussJohns.com. That's an abundance of content that I'm putting out there. Not everybody's willing or able to do that. However, I think it's really important for us to talk about frequency of typical social posting intervals, or the visual or a company and I don't know if you've had, you've been doing this a while so it's probably something that you have a few thoughts on.

Amy Blaschka 27:54
I do. Well, I used to post seven days a week and then I backed off on the weekend. Just Because I feel like I needed to have a natural boundary. It doesn't mean that I'm not poking in there and checking things out or I'm not actively posting, but I am posting Monday through Friday. I'm doing that regularly because it's one of these things. Again, it's when you are the frequency when you are regularly posting that is really what makes the difference and regularly can be different. What regularly does not mean is, I'm gonna post this once this one month. Then like three weeks go by and maybe post twice. If you're very irregular, people don't know to look for you. They don't know that this is something when you're doing it, you give yourself a higher likelihood of people actually discovering a piece of content, even if they miss the first one. They'll get the second one or maybe they'll find you on another platform and then realize, oh, if she's also on LinkedIn, I'm going to see and then they look or they connect or they follow you whatever. So when you're I'm not someone who thinks that you need to post eight times a day. I know there are people that post at least four or five, I've seen that, personally. I do this for a living, I would exhaust me I have other work I need to do. I will tell you and you mentioned something, the way that you can also go about this is to repurpose content for the different social media platforms, right. You mentioned like, Okay, well, we might have a transcript of this and podcasts. You have a visually, a verbal, you can do things in different ways. I will often take my Forbes article, which is a longer format and distill it down to a post, I add a visual to it. So there's something I may do a video about it. There are multiple ways that you can hit that because I think the other thing that's really important about content is people consume content in different ways. Some people prefer a video. For them, it's easy, quick, and by the way with videos it's nice to have captions too because not everyone can always listen to them because maybe their kids behind them. It's really early in the morning, or that they just want to be able to do this.

Russ Johns 30:04
Sherry said she's guilty of starting and stopping.

Amy Blaschka 30:07
Everybody is Sherry, don't worry about First of all, don't beat yourself up, okay? The thing is, you can always start again, you are never The only person that's done that okay? There will be times you're human, that you're gonna miss a day or two, you're sick, you're on vacation, you're whatever, but it's okay. I think the idea is that the more that you do this, and you kind of build it into the practice and day of what you're doing, people will come to expect that from you. If that is your goal, that you're trying to reach a certain audience, you want to make sure that you're delivering on that promise that I'm gonna serve you with some new content.

Russ Johns 30:43
If I quit showing up, if I all of a sudden just stopped showing up people would like wait, like, Where did you go?

Amy Blaschka 30:51
Where are you?

Russ Johns 30:54
Where's the pirates? I love this this concept of building it systems to make it easier for yourself kind of create a workflow for yourself and create some content. I'm a fan of batching. You don't necessarily have to post everything. You can create something on a Saturday afternoon when you're just relaxing with a beverage or something like that, when you don't have any distractions in your head, you create a bunch of content. Video for me is easy, because I just turn the camera on, and I go, and it's live. It's like, I got to be there. It's kind of like, part of the equation, or it's not for everyone. I understand that. Multipurpose content is really valuable to think about and consider going forward.

Amy Blaschka 31:49
Yeah, no I think that's good that the batching kind of I do the same thing. I'm better when I'm focused. Most of us are even if we don't want to focus on one task at a time. I did this yesterday I always write my Forbes articles on early Sunday mornings. That's my best writing time, I'll get that done. Then if I'm creating something with visuals and nothing, I can do that almost at any other point of the day, but I tried to do that. I did that took a break, the family took a walk, we did some fun things came back and it was like, okay, everyone's kind of doing their thing. I can spend some time and couple hours like just kind of this and then you have stuff that you can do. That's also important because you can get overwhelmed thinking, oh my god, what am I going to post tomorrow? What am I going to post and then you get into the habit of doing a bunch of them in advance. You won't have to you can plan out and go, Okay, I've got my content for the week or next week or whatever or most of it and what else do I need to do so you can kind of fill in the gaps as you need to so it doesn't become this dread. You don't want it to ever be a drought that defeats the purpose you should have some joy in. What you should be posting about honestly is your personal life, like what drawing inspiration from what happens in your daily life. You can have a universal theme.

Russ Johns 33:06
Uh huh.

Amy Blaschka 33:07
You will be the only person with that story and that experience. That's the way to kind of universal hits on many things like belonging are we overcoming adversity? How do you do it? That way you have your own way to go about it.

Russ Johns 33:25
Yeah. It's, I get to do this.

Amy Blaschka 33:29
I get to do this, not I don't have to do this. reframing.

Russ Johns 33:33
Yeah. So Amy, I could talk. I love the conversation we're having today. I know for the sake of time and everybody's, I know we have to move on. I want to at least leave people with the opportunity to have you share at least some words of wisdom as we go through this process is something to think about for the week. If you had something that you want to leave with somebody and plant the seed of inspiration. What would it be today?

Amy Blaschka 34:07
The best advice that I've ever received career wise and was Stop hiding. By that it's really, anybody hearing that they will have a response probably just like you did, because so many of us either aren't doing exactly what we really love and we really you know, our heart's desire and it really speaks to our soul who we are. It could be for a variety of reasons, but now is the time you stop hiding, just let sort of who you are come out. It's scary, but I will tell you, once you embrace and step into who you really are everything changes and that's owning your story owning who you are. Guess what? People will connect with you more because you are living in that truth and you are being really you and that's not fluff and that's not, I will tell you from personal experience. It works and this is why I'm doing this show today. I'm a writer and not kind of stuck back doing organizational audits and things that yes, I'm good at that. Well, I'm really miserable.

Russ Johns 35:14
Well, thank you for sharing your gifts your message in the great conversation on the pirate broadcast. You're now a pirate. So thank you. We have a new pirate in the works. I just everybody that joined in, you know, there's a ton of people that have joined in Fred Costa, Kenyatta, stop hiding, Laurie. These are individuals that are going through different phases, different shifts in their life, and we're here to offer some at least inspiration, if not, some entertainment at times. Thank you so much for being hear Amy. As everyone knows, kindness is cool. smiles are free and you Enjoy the day.

Thank you for joining the pirate broadcast. If you found this content valuable, please like, comment and share it across your social media channels. I would love the opportunity to help others grow in their business. The pirate syndicate is a platform where you show up we produce the show. It's that easy. If you want to be seen, be heard and be talked about. Join the pirate syndicate today.

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