Social is the one who knocks
I recently went on holiday and reignited my love affair with Netflix by watching Breaking Bad again. What a masterclass in storytelling and character development that is.
If you're unfamiliar with the story (and what rock have you been hiding under) a guy called Walter White (a high school chemistry teacher) finds out he is dying of cancer so takes it upon himself (with the aid of an unlikely sidekick called Jessie) to build a crystal meth empire.
Needless to say action, hilarity and a lot of dead bodies ensue.
The emotional journey you go on with all of these characters pull you into the story. Think of your team and your content as building on this same narrative for your brand. It isn't just me saying this LinkedIn is too!
But what can the great Heisenberg teach us about building a social media empire, content and a personal brand?
Quite a lot actually.
See Walt and Jessies secret is all in the blue Meth they cook up. It’s their signature product (Walter even refers to it as classic coke vs a generic brand cola).
"I’m not in the meth business, I’m in the empire business".
It becomes the hot product (think of it like your services) but then they start selling it and come across trouble from rivals.
So the alter ego that Walter creates (Heisenberg) and the stories that follow him around all build into this mythology of his personal brand which protects his product.
"Stay out of my territory"
Now think of your profile as part of your personal branding exercise.
Your content is your crystal meth and your distribution Network is Linkedin.
People expect the same tone of voice from your content, they expect that same high.
And all of this content is designed to drive people to your profile. Which is why you need to be compelling and have a little mythology built into it. But content doesn't come for free, you have to work at it. Through what I call the 5c’s.
Context (who am I speaking to, and what do I want them to take away).
Content (text posts, image posts, articles, video, how am I delivering that message).
Consistency (maintaining authenticity and a single personal brand voice and message across time).
Conversation (within your content and hopefully progressing to your DM’s and then into the analogue world).
Conversion (the actual selling part of social selling).
There's a few episodes in the series where Jessie (the more childlike of the two) actually comes up with some cracking ideas to further the plot.
One episode finds the cooks stranded in the desert after Jesse mistakenly drains their RV’s battery. As anger turns to despair — nobody knows where they are; the battery’s destroyed; they’ve run out of water — Jesse furiously demands that Walt "think of something scientific" to get them out of their predicament, then throws out a bunch of ideas: Turn the RV into a dune buggy! Send up a signal flare! Build a new battery! Make a robot! Miraculously, his Hail Mary galvanizes Walt, showing that Jesse really does bring something important to their partnership — and that he’s more valuable than Walt initially suspected. Plus, the whole thing leads to the series’ funniest exchange:
Jesse: Okay. What are we building?
Walt: You said it yourself.
Jesse, in wonderment: A robot?
In another episode they need to destroy a laptop with evidence on it, as Walter and Mike (their hired muscle) argue it out. Jessie pipes up with the word magnets. They both look round as if he has sprouted another head. They then proceed to build a giant electromagnet (with the aid of a surly scrap merchant) and mount it inside a van to destroy said laptop.
When it works (to Mike and Walters disbelief) Jessie utters the immortal line -
“yeah b**ch, magnets”.
This is why internal team meetings (once you’re on this social gravy train) are useful to share, propagate and develop internal strategy ideas for your content. You never know where good ideas are gonna come from, so celebrate and encourage the creatives in your company. They will lead you to greater rewards.
There is a strong metaphor here for being reminded that we are going to die eventually. In Walters case literally from cancer. This is the characters wakeup moment. When he becomes who he was meant to be.
You feel the same about content and posting, it’s the fear that’s holding you back and the discomfort of change. But all of this stuff falls away in the face of death. Change will be scary, but the difference being is nobody needs to die here, you and your employees can be brave and start to own this narrative around your team and all the glorious people inside it and this will create more opportunities for growth and revenue increase.
"Say my name"
You started a company because you wanted to change the world in some way. That doesn’t happen without growth (and I’m talking personal growth here). Remember who you ARE and what you stand for.
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