Strategies for Cultivating Your Personal Brand on Social Platforms With Goldie Chan

Goldie Chan is the Founder of Warm Robots, a B2B and B2C social media strategy agency helping brands and Fortune 500 C-level executives grow and retain their audiences. As a social media strategy leader, Goldie has over 10 years of experience working in-house for major technology and entertainment companies. She is a global speaker, author, advisor, and member of multiple boards in the creator industry, marketing, and education. Goldie regularly contributes to Forbes and is writing her first book, Personal Branding for Introverts.

Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:

Goldie Chan shares her passion for helping people discover their personal brands
Goldie’s transition from genetics research to personal branding and marketing
Advice for industry professionals wanting to develop their brands
The value of marrying education and entertainment when creating content
Storytelling’s role in personal branding — and how to leverage tension as a key element
What to avoid when creating content
Goldie offers a glimpse into her personal life
Finding joy in creating something new out of what already exists

In this episode…

Social media platforms allow space for creative individuals to curate original content, helping them develop their personal brand. Creating a brand that attracts your target audience can boost your following and grow your business. What criteria should you include in your content when establishing a personal brand?

The beauty of social media is there are virtually no limitations on the content you share — allowing freedom for authenticity and creativity. However, when building a personal brand, understanding your influence on your community can determine how your content performs on various platforms. Personal branding expert, Goldie Chan, advises her clients to create both educational and entertaining content. When used in unison, these elements give the individual an engaging personality.

On this episode of the Up Arrow Podcast, William Harris welcomes Goldie Chan, Founder of Warm Robots, to discuss why branding yourself on social media is essential for business growth. Goldie explains how to develop a personal brand, the role of storytelling in personal branding, and what to avoid when producing content. Her passion for creative innovation empowers anyone wanting to develop their personal brand.

Resources Mentioned in this episode

Sponsor for this episode...

This episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is a performance driven e-commerce marketing agency focused on finding the best opportunities for you to grow and scale your business.

Our paid search, social, and programmatic services have proven to increase traffic and ROAS, allowing you to make more money efficiently.

To learn more, visit www.elumynt.com

Episode Transcript

Intro 0:03

Welcome to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris, featuring top business leaders sharing strategies and resources to get to the next level. Now, let's get started with the Show.

William Harris 0:13

Hey everybody, William Harris here. I'm the founder and CEO of Elumynt. I’m the host of this podcast where I feature experts in the D2C industry sharing strategies on how to scale your business and achieve your goals. I'm really excited about the guests that I have here today, Goldie Chan. Goldie is a global speaker, strategist, author and advisor. She founded Warm Robots, an award-winning social media strategy agency based in Los Angeles with global clients. She's a Forbes contributor on personal branding and storytelling in the digital age, and is working on her first book, Personal Branding for Introverts through McGraw Hill. And Goldie, you didn't say this, but I will. You've been called the Oprah of LinkedIn, you work directly with Adobe and LinkedIn, you are someone that I consider to be a personal friend, and a little known fact, I actually own the very first Goldie Chan NFT that was ever minted.

Goldie Chan 1:07

I want to say the first and last, truly, the one out of one, NFT.

William Harris 1:16

This is rare,

Goldie Chan 1:17

very rare.

William Harris 1:18

Before we get into the good stuff here, I do want to make sure that I at least announce our sponsor, this episode is brought to you by Elumynt. Elumynt is an award winning advertising agency optimizing e-commerce campaigns around profit. In fact, we've helped 13 of our customers get acquired with the largest one selling for nearly 800 million. And we were ranked as the 12th fastest growing agency in the world by Adweek. To learn more, you can visit www.Elumynt.com, which is spelled Elumynt.com. That said, on to the fun stuff, Goldie. Tell me about personal branding, what got you into this? Why is this something that you are passionately helping people out?

Goldie Chan 1:58

So it's funny because I think I got into personal branding in two ways. One is, I have traditionally worked in digital marketing. And so one of the things that happens when you're the youngest member team, is you occasionally get assigned to handle whatever tasks the more senior team members don't want to do, right. And so I think I was actually working at an agency forever ago, and I started handling some of their really top level people who needed help with personal branding, specifically in social media. So I started doing that work in house. And that kind of went from there where I was doing that kind of work, and then that kind of client, and then we can get into this a little bit later. But that thing you mentioned before being called the Oprah of LinkedIn, yes. That also led to me doing more personal branding work, because my personal personal brand was so well known at the time that people were reaching out to me, including Forbes, to talk more about personal branding.

William Harris 3:16

Well, you skyrocketed. I remember around that time to you are doing if I remember correctly, a daily video LinkedIn video had just launched and you were doing a daily video, and how long did you go with a daily video?

Goldie Chan 3:28

I did over two years. So I think I did roughly 800 plus videos, I never skipped a single day. So even across different time zones, because I was traveling quite a bit during that time. I would be like in London being like, has it been 24 hours? So you know, since I last posted and it's it's always tough to do that, I'm sure you know, because you know, when you're when you're traveling too. It's so disorienting when you're going across time zones. And you're like, did I do that thing for the client? That was supposed to be at 3pm My time or their costume and you have no concept of time anymore? You send

William Harris 4:07

out the calendar invite for the absolute wrong time. You're like, Oh, I forgot my calendar change time zones. And

Goldie Chan 4:12

yeah, yeah, it's always it's always tough when that?

William Harris 4:17

Yeah, I mean, and I'm just going from, you know, central time to Pacific time I'm not doing I'm not doing the London timezone. Although I did, I did work from China for a little bit, which was, yeah, that was

Goldie Chan 4:27

oh my gosh, that must have been that timezone change. That's huge. That's massive.

William Harris 4:32

It was even more interesting because we had the kids with us and I want to say they're like five, three and one or something at a time and you're just like, I don't know what I'm supposed to sleep right now. This is a wild time. But you weren't always in personal branding. Or even in marketing. You actually have published some genetics, like research work and everything to it. Right. Like, where do you go from, like genetics into personal branding?

Goldie Chan 4:56

Well, I think it was, I think like A lot of people who study something in college, and I want to say especially millennials, I think a lot of millennials and maybe older folks than Millennials have experienced this where we went to college for one thing. And because just going to college was so necessary for our generation, and we didn't always enact hope he went to college for so I went to college and studied science, I studied biological sciences, I did a ton of genetics research, actually, and I published as an undergrad. Yeah, and I, when I left, I actually had an offer to go work at a really cool research facility. And I decided not to take that, because I was 21. And I wanted to do something else, at least for a year just to, you know, get out there and not jump in and start things right away, which I think is a good idea, especially when you are that young and you have that much energy. And you have that much time. I think there's so much of a push these days for people to tell people in their early 20s. Like you have to have it all figured out. You need to already have your career planned out. And it's wild the thing, when you it's wild to think you tell college students this, you tell somebody who's 18 to have something, figured out what they'll do in their 30s. And yeah, most 18 year olds don't know that. In fact, a lot of 30 year olds don't know what they're doing.

William Harris 6:40

I I've been out of high school longer than I was in high school, right. So I think I'm 38 now, so I, which means I've been out of high school for 20 years, I'm still not entirely sure what I'm doing in five years from now. And and you know, a lot of that comes down to being able to know that you just are willing to pivot. And just, you know, we could have predicted where AI was where it's at today. Like we we knew that everything's coming but like this is accelerated even my timetable of like, what is an agency? And what am I going to be focusing on in the next five years? And how does that look? And so yeah, no, I

Goldie Chan 7:15

think is must be super interesting as an agency owner. And then if we want to loop back to as somebody building your personal brand. Now AI makes that a little bit cloudier. Right, just because you can have AI, essentially at this point, I mean, not well, but you can have aI ghosts write everything for you, right? You could have aI create posts for you, you could create an entire workflow that you build your brand, and it's completely based on AI on right now where the technology stands, quite frankly, it wouldn't be perfect. Right? There'd be a lot of work that would It would need, but it would have some semblance of looking like a human being already, which is wild to me.

William Harris 8:00

Yeah. Well, I mean, there are there are legitimately AI influencers out there right now that are entirely manmade entire world, not manmade, AI made, right, like entirely created entities that people are following. They don't even realize that these are, these are not even real people like the images, the things that they're saying entirely generated by AI, which reminds me of warm robots, which is a really interesting one. Because if I remember correctly, you are also a fan of Battlestar Galactica,

Goldie Chan 8:30

right? Yes, I'm a huge fan of Battlestar Galactica. So I love everything in droid, but maybe not Android phones, at least right now. But definitely anything that deals with thinking about like cyborgs and humans and machines and the combination, which is why AI to me is also especially fascinating, but that's why I called my agency warm robots, because it's a reference to Cylons and Battlestar Galactica, humanoid robots. And I think, at the end of the day, that is also what you have to be when you're building an agency, right is you weirdly have to be part machine, you have to be part really living in the flow of the internet and what is happening and developing and technology and then have a human. I mean, usually mostly human, but you know, having that element of humanity is why also your clients will probably come back again and again to you is having that warm element having that relationship with them.

William Harris 9:44

Right. And so while we have a lot of these tools that can make this a lot easier when you are a busy C suite executive, it can still feel absolutely impossible to build a social brand. If you're not let's just even say A digitally native, first human being right? And so how do you go about helping C suite executives? who maybe don't even understand how the difference between Tiktok and Instagram or whatever, right? Like, how do you go about helping them develop a personal brand?

Goldie Chan 10:20

So when I start with the C suite executive, first of all, it has a lot of meetings, obviously. So it's a ton of meetings, because we have to be very aligned. And what I like to ask, is, I like to ask what are their bigger goals. So when I work with somebody who's, you know, usually I don't work with anybody who's below director level. But when I work with somebody, director level versus a C suite executive, these are two very different things. Because when you're in the C suite, or your VP of XYZ, your goals are probably to get on a new board, right board of directors, your goals are to perhaps get to the CEO, if you're a CMO or CTO, sure, your goals are to level up at a very, at a very competitive and a very high level playing field that not a lot of other people are playing on. So I usually start off with asking, what are their bigger goals, just their personal career goals? Do they want to start a charity? Or are they part of one that they'd like to bring more into the limelight? Right? Or, once again? Do they want to serve on more boards? Or do they want? Do they want to move into a better role at a different company within their industry, and that also informs how I think about social media strategy and how I think about building their personal brand with them. And there's also a lot of talks, usually with whoever works under them, because more than likely, they will not be the ones who are actually posting it. It will be assistants, right? It will be their social media team, if they're remember one CEO that I worked with, it was like a three person social media team that was running their presence. And so it was a lot of working very close together with that three person team with of course guidance from the CEO who wanted a very specific way that she was portrayed. Sure. And that was, I think, really, really, you know, interesting. It's always interesting to work with C suite executives. But that was a really interesting case, because you're working with the team. And you're making sure that that team talks the way that this other person wants them to talk.

William Harris 12:43

Yeah, well, in in, there's a lot that you, like you said, like a lot of these meetings are just getting down to the actual core root goal. And let's just say for some, at least in a lot of the ones that I believe, would be watching this show, they are owners of e-commerce, businesses, and a lot of times and owners of you know, let's just even say SaaS companies and whatever. And so a lot of times their goals for growing their personal brand is often to, you know, continue to be an influencer for their topic or their domain space. So that way it continues to grow their their business, what are what are some tips or tricks or you know, things that you would recommend to people that are just getting started in really accelerating their own personal brand, especially if they're like the founder of a company?

Goldie Chan 13:32

Yeah. So I think it's really helpful to start, especially if you're the founder to start on a social platform, right? I think it's really easy to get overwhelmed by the number of social media platforms that are out there, because there's so many. And if you start by trying to do five, plus different social media platforms all at once, and you don't have a team behind you, if you get really overwhelming and then what you end up with is like a tweet here and Instagram post here, one TikTok here, right. And I think that it is, oh my gosh, what an amazing onesie. I think that it is really tough to focus on one thing and do it well. And so I always tell people, when they're when they ask, what is the first step, I usually say pick one. So you want to pick one platform. And then when you have picked that one platform, then you can move forward with that one platform and learn that do that well, and then you can start doing really tactical stuff for that particular platform. So if you're building on Instagram and reels happens to be the thing that they're prioritizing, which who knows what they're prioritizing right now in Instagram, sure. Then that'll be the thing that would be helpful for you to learn and say you're on tour. Talk, then it's helpful to know. Okay, who were other people who are, say, in the SaaS space who are on TikTok doing it well, but specifically in your sector of SaaS, right? So that's what's super helpful is to also know, when you're when you picked a platform, what are other people who are already on that platform? Who are in your particular space doing well? And what can you not copy? Of course, but what can you repurpose? Sure, and also grow on write, like, I always think when people copy me and they do it one step better, that's great. Because they're not then copying me. They're evolving me. And I think that's really cool to see. So I think that's always a great thing to do is to see what your competitors are doing, and then evolve what they're doing into the next step into something even better, right?

William Harris 16:02

It reminds me of when blogging was still the thing, and I don't know if it really is as much anymore, but we had what we call 10x content. And it was the idea where it was like, how do you find the blog post that ranks number one for whatever keyword you have? And how do you not just make it incrementally better, but 10 Exit significantly better than any other blog post that's out there. And I think that's kind of what you're saying, from, you know, the social platforms, it's like, great. You can start with the basics of copying, but how do you make it better? How do you make it significantly better and evolve that content?

Goldie Chan 16:32

Yeah, and I think I, you know, I don't know if blogs are a thing anymore. But I guess whenever I think of blogs now, I think of substack. And stack certainly is like the evolution of the blog. Yeah. But I think it's helpful. Yeah, it's helpful to think okay, what is good content, right, which is such a huge question to ask. And it means so many different things to so many different people. And some people will tell you who are, you know, huge. YouTube folks will tell you I wouldn't touch TikTok with a 10 foot pole. And you have people who are on TikTok, who are like, Well, I'm on TikTok, I would never be on Twitter. Right. Right. So I think it's helpful to also think, what is really good content in the context of once again, the platform that you were maybe living on?

William Harris 17:27

Yeah. And so are there characteristics that you think are just above the level, no matter what platform you're on? These are maybe like three things that make for good content. Across the board.

Goldie Chan 17:42

I to me, whenever I think about content that I create for myself, or content that I start with clients, especially when they're at that leadership level, I like to use two e words educational and entertainment, entertaining, which ends up being edutainment, right. Sure. And I think that that is always a helpful place to start, that usually makes really good content. So if it is entertaining, it may not always be good for your brand. Let's throw that out there. Because you can have a ton of entertaining content that could do massive damage to your brand, right. But if you have content that is educational, and entertaining, usually that is somewhat of a safe zone for any brand, because people can learn from your content, but at the same time, it's really interesting. So really fun. I think about somebody, an example that someone used with me recently about IT person on TikTok, who does business lessons, but she does it in a director's chair in a massive parking lot. So she always does it from I guess, the same parking lot the same director's chair, but for some reason that that's her thing. And it works out really well for her. So it's entertaining for our audience, but it's educational at the same time. And so like that. Yeah, I think that that's, to me, an element that works well, honestly, on any platform. And it just translates into different things. So on Pinterest, that might be cooking recipes if you're a chef, right? But on TikTok that might be showing the actual meal being made and different plating and ASMR. But on Instagram that might be like beautifully done photos with like a really thoughtful long caption. But all of this is entertaining and educational at the same time.

William Harris 19:50

Yeah, I like that. And I think one of the keys there is there's a lot of educational content out there. That is absolutely boring and nobody will wants to watch that. And yes, it's not

Goldie Chan 20:01

the worst, you don't want to go boring either, right? Because boring is unwatchable.

William Harris 20:08

It is. And it's actually what's interesting is boring educational content doesn't even satisfy the purpose of being educational. Because people have just lost interest. And how many times have we been in school and they show you know, one of those boring videos or something, you're like, I've zoned out. And I don't even know what this is about anymore. It hasn't served its purpose of being educational. It was neither entertaining nor educational now, because of the way that the content was presented. But you have something that's so entertaining, and it lacks any information worth learning about, then you run into the same problem where it's like, it was entertaining for the sake of entertainment, but there was nothing of substance there. And that's fine in some context, but it's not helpful to you as a business. And so I like where you're blended both of those.

Goldie Chan 20:53

I think it's helpful to think about it like food, right, like nutrition, so you can eat delicious junk food that has a million calories and literally zero vitamins all day long. And is that going to be good for your body? No, but is it bad to have it every once awhile also know? Right? Probably, hopefully. Sure. Don't trust me. Talk to your doctor.

William Harris 21:17

Yes. But health advice.

Goldie Chan 21:19

This is not this is not health advice. This is not that podcast, but also at the same time. Is it better to eat something that has real nutrients and vitamins and is healthy for you? Yes, obviously. And so that's what I think about when I think about educational and entertaining. Entertaining is kind of like fast food. Educational could be like raw vegetables, right? Should you combine the two together? And hopefully you have something that's delicious.

William Harris 21:52

What about worse than raw vegetables? I'm thinking of astronaut food, right? Like the astronaut pays for you like this is absolutely interesting. It's just like peas paste. Like this is Oh, but

Goldie Chan 22:03

it's international. It's funny. I actually really, I feel like I've had the astronaut. I've had the astronaut ice cream before have you had that?

William Harris 22:11

I have and I love astronaut ice cream that is different. Yeah.

Goldie Chan 22:16

Love also I don't I don't know that that has I feel like astronaut peas has the nutrients. Right. And I'm not sure what nutrients are faster and ice cream. Minus literally being compressed sponge sugars.

William Harris 22:31

Oh, yeah, exactly. It's just sugar. Right? The water?

Goldie Chan 22:34

Yeah, sugar is. Sugar is sadly not a vitamin.

William Harris 22:39

No, no, it's not. Well, okay, so educational and entertainment edutainment. What else makes for just good content across platforms, that you see that you're like, This is really good. Or maybe is there an example or somebody that you like to look at that you're like, I really feel like this person does a great job of nailing this particular type of content,

Goldie Chan 23:01

I think across platforms is so tough, because it has to work. It just has to work. So they have to be somebody that can have something that works in video, but also possibly in text. And then in still images. I totally forget his name. But there is one, one Creator who I really like what he does. And he's a magician, I'm sure you know who I'm talking about. He does a lot of optical illusions, and works with a lot of major brands and things like that. So he does really great video content, because it's all in the editing. Right. It's all optical illusions. And that works across platforms, because magic is appealing across platforms. That's what what I think is magic was very magical. But what I think is so helpful is that he works with all of these major brands and incorporates magic into selling a refrigerator right? So it'll be him going into the refrigerator coming out. And that's a an ad for refrigerator, but it's a really compelling ad for refrigerator. It's something that other people are watching.

William Harris 24:21

Yeah, that reminds me of I'm drawing a blank on his name. Let me google it here real quick. I think it's like Jonathan Willman or something like that. Does this sound familiar? Name? Let's see. Boy, I'm drawing a blank on his name. I'm gonna have to look it up here. But he he has some really good magic shows and stuff like that. He's just like magic for Susans and magic for people or whatever like that. But it's really good stuff. But to your point where I think the thing about magic that I really like that I think every person can look at for them for inspiration for content is they know how to tell stories. And so it's not just the magic trick. That's too Taking place, but it is everything else that goes along with that. And it's the story. And so I don't know if you knew this, my, my daughter, she's 1213 Now just turned 13 When she was 10, her, her heart stopped, actually, she she, for 10 minutes, her heart completely stopped. And we had to rush her to the hospital and scariest moments of my life. But so she's on a breathing tube for a long time. And when she finally comes out, you know, and everything, she wanted me to kind of teach her some magic tricks. And while we're waiting in the hospital, and one of the ones I showed her was how to how to like, look, flip through a book, and you could pick out whatever word that person was thinking of, you're like, Great, I'm vectorized, the whole book. But it's like, if you just flip through this, and you just go like, Hey, I got this. And you just flip through, and you just say like, the what the word is. It's it's not that exciting. But when we add to the story sheet, and you know, the story that I had her tell was, you know, hey, while I was on this ventilator to this breathing tube, I wasn't able to communicate the way that I wanted to, but I was still communicating with, you know, doctors here, telepathically. And so I got very good at being able to read minds and being able to communicate with your mind, right. And so she goes through the story. And it's like, now all of a sudden, it makes it much more magical, much more exciting. And I think people forget to do the storytelling aspect of things when they're doing this and recognize that it's like that is part of it. That is part of the value of what this content brings not just the content or the recipe, but the way it's done too.

Goldie Chan 26:26

And I think magicians call that their patter, which is kind of funny. But it's the storytelling that goes around the magic trick. But you're right. Because if you just press balls through a cup, that's not exciting, right. But if you totally fun story about it, then that becomes really fun and exciting. But also, it's a fun distraction from the sleight of hand, right? So it allows you to do the trick. And people are focused on what you're saying, and not always focused on what you're doing. And personally, I I like that also for strategy. When you're thinking about social strategy, or thinking about personal branding strategy, I think so many people out there, go out and announce what they're doing. And they make a big deal out of it. And then they don't always follow through on what they say they'll do. And I'm sure you've seen this a ton. I've seen this a time, where, you know, people are just, they're really just talking and they're just not doing the actual actions. And I think it's always helpful to talk about other things, and then just do the action, when people are least expecting it. So yeah, I personally like that way of launching things. Occasionally, because it's nice to catch people unaware and suddenly. And it I think it's really interesting to think about that as social strategy or that as a personal branding strategy, because once again, so many people do the announcement, and then they announce things like five, six times, 10 times 10 times, by that time, people are just like done with it, then they're done with the announcement, because we have so much noise in this world, that sometimes you can I believe you can over announce something you can go for talk about something.

William Harris 28:36

That's a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Right, save a little something from to the imagination. You have to I was reading, there's a really good book and I forget the title of the book, and I have to remember it. But it's, it's about these four Russian authors. And it takes you through it's I think it's like A Swim in a Pond in the Rain, or something like that. And it breaks down, you know, some of the short stories in the idea here is that every sentence, every word should lead you as the reader a little bit. But it should also give you the ability to still use your imagination and almost ask the question, it's like, I got to know what that means. I've got to know where this is leading. And it's soon if you answer too much of the question. There's no more need for them to read the next sentence, and they're gonna put the book down and they're done. And so, you know, yeah, as a business you can over announce and

Goldie Chan 29:25

yeah, I think that what you're talking about here is two parts of storytelling that are very helpful. One is tension. And the other one is mystery. I saw this great comic online the other day, that was like, core horror authors. And it was like this little stick figure guy, and it was tension. And then it was like sci fi author and then tension and then it was like romance author and it's like this massive guy and like tension, right? Because in romance and all goes, yeah, like the whole romance, the whole point of the romance novel is they're not necessarily going on a huge journey. Usually, it is literally just tension, right? Yeah, that's what people read. That particular kind of novel for is the massive amount of tension that exists in there. And that you're hoping that the two main characters will take that next step, right. And I think if your brand has a little bit of tension in it, where people are not quite sure, either what the next step that you will be doing is or when the next step that you'll be doing, or when the when the next step that you'll be doing will be happening. I think that's also kind of a fun element to have in your brand. Because that just makes it more interesting, because tension, and mystery always adds a layer of interest. I think that's why people are, are always curious about that mysterious person in the room, right? That person that doesn't path a lot, or maybe you don't know their entire backstory,

William Harris 31:08

introverts,

Goldie Chan 31:10

the introverts, because, you know, they're not sharing everything all at once. And I know, there's such a, there's such a feeling that we need to be sharing everything all the time. And I think about a lot of people who are much younger, like your daughter's age, who are now saying, I don't even want to be on social media, I don't even want to be on social media at all. And there's a lot of teenagers that are saying that now, and I completely understand that because they're growing up in an age, where social media is every single waking moment of their lives. And that's documenting it right?

William Harris 31:55

From from the time that they were babies, right? Whether they wanted to be a part of it or not, they were and to your point, they're just like, well, I didn't have a choice. And I have a choice. And I want to choose not to be a part of that.

Goldie Chan 32:05

Right, which is a very teen thing to do.

William Harris 32:08

Right? The opposite of whatever is currently your parents are doing or whatever, right? Um, what about some, let's just say, cringe worthy things that you see people doing on content that you're like, at the very least, just don't do these two or three things or this thing?

Goldie Chan 32:25

Gosh, I think a lot about confidence versus ego, right? I think that when you are confident, when you put content out there, it comes across as you're a knowledgeable person, you're an expert, or you're just a nice, you're, you're a nice person to be around. When you put things out there with a level of ego, that's where the cringe comes in. Because you're boasting about something that isn't impressive. Or over inflating the value of something usually that's what comes across as super cringy. Or you are constantly talking about yourself in a way that never involves other people, I find that personally, very, very cringy is when I, when I see a person social media presence, that sort of personal presence that never talks about anyone else in their life, any of the other people contributing any of the other events. It's just like, it's a me storm is what I could. It's just that it's just a constant stream of like, me, me, me, but from a perspective that feels so egocentric and not from a place that has a lot of empathy. Because there are people who talk about themselves a lot, but they do it from a place of empathy. So you can share in that experience, and that is also different. And if you want if I want to use specifically like a very cringe worthy thing. I actually think about one of my clients who texted me once at 3am in the morning. First of all, not okay, but not okay. Second of all, what she texted me was so interesting. So she was a C level executive kind of like, lower on the C suite, but still C suite. And she texted me a picture of a horse hoof that she had taken in the Hamptons of one of one of her horses, like literally just a blurry picture of a horse and she's like, should this go on Instagram? She's asking me this at 3am in the morning, which oh my gosh, you know, whatever that time change is for four Pacific to Eastern Standard Time. Still not a good time to be posting a blurry picture of a horse club on Instagram or any social network.

William Harris 34:58

Time to picture Fisher posts of

Goldie Chan 35:01

No. And I think that's I think that's the other thing is cringe worthy cringy content usually doesn't, there's not a good time to post cringy content in that, from a C level executive who the rest of their posts were very formal, and very serious, it just comes across as very odd. And, you know, it'd be different if all the posts were very blurry, interesting art artsy pictures, that would be a little bit different. But since they are, you know, I think a lot about there's one celebrity in Korea, who he used to be part of a boy band called Big Bang, his name is top, he's an ex rapper, he's actually now going to the moon for one of space exes thing. Wow, he's a very interesting individual, because he pivoted from being a boy band member. You know, if you want the equivalent, think about the equivalent of the boy band he was in would basically be like being part of and sync, or any of the big boy bands here, like the massive ones one direction, right? Sure. He pivoted from that to being an art collector. So then he went from being a boy band, and like, all his stuff was, you know, him performing on stage and all these things to like, really beautiful and interesting pieces of art, or his wine collection, like went from a really interesting thing of like him performing, to the things that you could tell this, this person genuinely, really, really likes, and enjoys, including collecting all of, you know, collecting a lot of things. And I just thought that was a really interesting change for his personal brand. And once again, he's literally trying to go to the moon now, as part of this mission, as an ambassador for Korea. And so, to me, if he posts literally, I think about for a while, he was just posting memes that his fans made of him. So it would be like a chicken with his face. And he would post these things. But what was interesting was, it wasn't cringy coming from him, because he started just posting all of these things as a thank you to his fans, as opposed to being like, I'm so important. It was very irreverent. It was very funny because other pop stars at his level, wouldn't would never post that, right. We'd never post like, a fan picture of him that somebody made was 20 followers on his main profile. And these things are going on, like his main account, and he would post you know, one photo every few days. So it wasn't like, it was five pictures deep. You'd see this. It would be like that was the photo for the week. Yeah, as a picture of him as a chicken. I love it be like, thanks. You know, that was right. That was it. And then the next thing would be like a Matisse like a beautiful painting that cost like millions and millions of dollars, right?

William Harris 38:26

Yep. But if you followed him, then it's like that fit for him. And you already follow him because of his personality is that way a little bit where you like he's all over the place. And like, that's partly why you follow Him? Versus it wouldn't matter. Somebody else. Is it that way? Yeah.

Goldie Chan 38:39

And it wouldn't work for somebody else who isn't that way. So then I think about that C level executive again, who wants to post right, the blurry horse hook picture. And honestly, that might have worked for this Korean celebrity, because he would just be like, Oh, that's just interesting. It's probably piece of art that he's thinking about acquiring or something. But or like a photograph is the right acquiring. But for this seal of executive, it was just too far out of left field in odd. Yeah. And something that I had to tell that No. So I had to, you know, as I'm sure so many of us have had to do with clients and people we work with, put that boundary down, please do not text me on my personal cell phone at 3am. Or with your requests, this could be an email instead, this is not an emergency.

William Harris 39:28

And I think that's important because you know, when we work with brands, sometimes we think that we're working with this, let's just go back to the warm robot aspect. We're working with a robot and the reality is, we're not working with robots. We're working with Cylons. We're working with human beings who still need to sleep and need mental headspace in there are individuals as well. And so while there may be like a brand or a persona, recognizing that there's a human being on the other side of that, I think is important. And so to that effect, I want dig into a little bit of who is Goldie Chan, who is the human side of this Cylon. And so one of the things that I know that we've talked about before is some of the hobbies that you're into. Oh, but before we get her hobbies while we were talking Kpop completely random, who is your favorite KPop band then?

Goldie Chan 40:22

Oh, gosh, this is this is. This is very content. This is very contentious is what I will say. Right now. I really like Black Pink and Eugene's who are two girl groups. If you're familiar with them, specifically new jeans, they're just coming up in the scene. I think they're really really interesting. I think the look and feel that their creative team has done for them is is really on point.

William Harris 40:49

I don't know them, but I'm gonna have to check them out. My daughter's got me turned on to Black Pink. The first song was the what is the ice cream song?

Goldie Chan 40:57

Yeah. Yeah, I would I would totally ask your daughter about Yeah, jeans. And then she would really liked them a lot. But they're, they're huge. They're massive. They're the next. Black Pink. So I think boxing is already there. And then they're like the the next up and coming. group that's coming out.

William Harris 41:21

Yeah. So check that out.

Goldie Chan 41:23

Check them out. Yeah, I think Korean pop music and Korean culture as a wave is certainly having its time right now. I think about Netflix, I just started watching the show on Netflix called Black Knight, which is that post apocalyptic Korean series about a driver who has to deliver oxygen to homes because, you know, oxygen is in a limited supply now. And so people need oxygen deliveries, like food deliveries and trust pump into their, you know, little modules that they live in. And it's, you know, very thriller, free and very fun. But also, I think it's so interesting how much Korean culture has, has come into American culture.

William Harris 42:16

I think that's one of the things that I love about America. And I know that America has had its moment of problems, as every country, every company, every individual every family has. But we do have the ability here to have moments where we can really celebrate completely different cultures than maybe what we grew up with. And so, you know, if I had grown up, let's just say in another country, let's say Mexico, there's likely a lot less opportunity for me to have been exposed to radically different cultures than then maybe what I'm living in. Whereas here, I have the ability to get into a bit of Korean culture. And I think that's a really cool thing.

Goldie Chan 43:01

Yeah, I think that there is definitely a melting pot aspect to to America where there's certainly like waves and trends of things that I think are super interesting. I think about somebody I know who talks a lot about their cultural reference points, sameness, Jorge ARCU Tiras. And he made this beautiful movie Book of Life. animated show, he also did mine, the three on Netflix right now. Oh, yeah. And, you know, has done a lot of other really, like neat animated things. In his his cultural reference points is, uh, he grew up, not in the US. I think he grew up in Tijuana. I could be getting that wrong. But he, you know, watched really early on these movies that his dad watched, and they were like, kung fu movies, and they were movies that came out of, you know, like, movies that came out of the West that were like, fight movies, right, surely, like fun movies. And that, that really impacted the work that he does today. So now he lives in the US, but that that original media that he consumed, not living in the US that was like foreign media, which is kind of funny to think about, was like, totally admit, he consumed American foreign media when he was younger, and that really helped him be the creative that he is today.

William Harris 44:35

That's cool. Yeah, just being able to experience something completely outside of what your day to day life is and being able to use that to inspire you and help you see different visions and dreams beyond what you normally could have seen, I think is a really, really nice thing.

Goldie Chan 44:50

I think that that's also helpful for your personal brand too, I think. Yeah. Like any like anything, it's helpful to see outside of your own bubble I think especially for building your personal brand, or if you're thinking about growing a personal brand, it's helpful to see what other people are doing also outside of your particular industry. So outside of DDC, outside of outside of SaaS, outside of this very specific universe that you live in, it's helpful to see Yeah, what is a magician doing for their personal brand? And what kind of interesting content are they making? Are they thinking about that strategy? And then bringing some elements of that successful elements of that over into what you do? Because it just makes it more interesting to meld and mix things together. It makes something that's not novel novel, it really just adds that element of freshness, right?

William Harris 45:48

Yes, I like that. And I like I like where you are going with this, just in general, like where your brain thinks, and I think, is there something in your childhood or something that has enabled you to be the type of person who thinks this way?

Goldie Chan 46:07

I think that as a kid, we really quickly mentioned introverts. And I think as a kid, I was definitely always an introvert kid. I wouldn't always play with others. I mean, obviously, I played with others. But there was definitely a significant period of time, where I would just like to spend it on my own. And I would just think, little scenarios on my own, I would just like live in my own little imagination, which I think a lot of introvert kids do, is you live in your imagination, you make up wild, fantastical scenarios, and you play by yourself, but you're, you're really playing with like a ton of imaginary characters and people, situations that you've made up, which also, I feel like it's very helpful as an adult, when you're dealing with actual situations that are tough, and you can like really sit and think by yourself through solutions. But yes, I think that as a kid, I still like love. Coming up with like, imaginary situations, and playing by myself and doing a ton of ton of reading. I was just like, such a voracious reader, when I was when I was younger when I was little. And now I still read, but I definitely read I think a lot less than I did when I was a kid. And there was nothing else to do besides, you know, besides read and maybe be on the computer. Sure, but mostly read.

William Harris 47:39

Yeah, jumping into other worlds. And like you said, I feel like, I don't know if George Lucas was an introvert but him and a lot of other you know, let's just say creators, I mean, they've, they've made massive worlds and James Cameron and Avatar and like these worlds that they create inside of their heads that that they you know, get the chance to actualize in some kind of a way that there has to be a significant amount of brain power that is just put towards developing these worlds inside of their head.

Goldie Chan 48:09

I think I think to make original worlds or to evolve and existing world into something new, I think the Ewok forest in I'm not even though you're trying to turn to the DJI it one of the one of the movies, there's an Ewok forest, and that's based on the redwood forests in the Bay Area in Northern California. And it's pretty much a one to one, I want to say maybe they shot it inside there. But they based it off of like, literally the entire ecosystem is based off an existing redwood forest that already exists in California. And they did that very purposefully so that they evolved it into like a magical planet where all the trees look like this. And that's what the vegetation looks like. And it's so interesting to me that people see that scene and think it's so exotic. That it's a place full of redwoods when it's literally a redwood forest that's based in Northern California. But that's evolving, something that exists and does something special. Yeah, that's crazy. That's

William Harris 49:23

yeah, that's, that's cool. I like the idea of being able to take something like you said in reimagine in wild ways. I think about even, you know, one of the artists that I really appreciate it a couple right, but it's like, Salvador Dali, where it's like, like, you've got a clock that's like melting and you're just like, how do you I would never think about melting a clock or the way that you know, Pablo Picasso, you know, took things and completely you know, took fluid shapes and created almost like these geometric designs around them. And I'm always amazed at people that can see things that are Uh oh, almost foreign to my brain.

Goldie Chan 50:03

Yeah, you know, one of my favorite short films is a little known collaboration between Salvador Dali and Disney, Walt Disney. And it's just as wild and trippy as you think it would be. Because it's it's Dolly. She's also it's a love story. So it's a love story. And that element is Disney. But it's through the lens of Dolly. And so it is very trippy and very romantic, but very trippy. And it's, it's so fun to see, people filter common themes through a really interesting lens. Once again, to me, that's creativity that is being an artist. And I think I think more of us can be creative professionals, I think more of us can introduce creativity into our everyday lives and into our brands. If we just think outside of our normal spheres, if we take elements from other places,

William Harris 51:16

totally. So speaking of creativity, coming up the end of our time, and I want to be respectful of your time. I am not a writer in Hollywood, so I'm gonna strike right now. So you'll have to forgive me for my my madlib not being quite as good, but I wrote this little madlib last night that I call ad libs. I don't know if that's copyrighted by somebody else if it is that I need to change the name. But what we're going to do here is I'm not going to tell you what the topic is yet. I'm just going to ask you a few questions that you're going to answer for and then we are going to read it together. We're going to act it out. So let's have some fun. So last, okay, I need a noun. Any literally any noun, like a topic, let's say.

Goldie Chan 52:05

Now, that's a tough

William Harris 52:08

topic. Yeah. In wild topics, right, like have fun with this doesn't need to be busy.

Goldie Chan 52:17

Wow, you know what's so sad is the first thing I thought of was the most bland word ever. It's just books, books, books.

William Harris 52:24

All right. Perfect. Okay, I need a name for a group of humans like classmates.

Goldie Chan 52:30

A name for a group of classmates.

William Harris 52:34

Not classmates, like like classmates is a name for a group of humans but some kind of like a name for a group of humans. Pop stars, pop stars. I love it. Okay, I need a nickname and like a silly nickname, right? It'd be a pet name, whatever, but like silly nickname. Little Duck, little duck. Okay. And then I need a noun but like a thing. So like something.

Goldie Chan 53:06

Okay, something. Screwdriver.

William Harris 53:12

Okay, that's good. It's so funny because I can see what these are going into. I guess. All right, I need another noun. And I don't have a really creative one for just a noun, any noun just now. Okay. How about foot? Okay, perfect. I need another noun. anything I say? It doesn't have to be I guess. Water. Water. Okay. I do need a body part. You already gave me one. But I need another body part.

Goldie Chan 53:44

Fingers or finger? Whatever you need.

William Harris 53:47

That's good. That actually fits way too well with what this is. So how about not fingers?

Goldie Chan 53:53

Okay, darn. Hair. Here. Is that does that count as a body part?

William Harris 53:59

Sure. And that's actually wildly hilarious for this. I need a verb. We're almost done. A verb

Goldie Chan 54:12

Wow. Do you notice that is what I can't even think of like a basic verb. Okay. Baseball running

William Harris 54:18

when you're on the spot, right? Yeah, it is so much harder.

Goldie Chan 54:23

I cannot do you know somebody tried to cast tried to repeatedly cast me for this show. That would have been like a quiz show and I just kept saying no, because I'm so bad sometimes with being asked things on this. So my

William Harris 54:37

Yeah. All right, number six, okay. Now, let's say a really big number

Goldie Chan 54:51

3457

William Harris 54:55

Okay. And a big life question like a very important life question

Goldie Chan 55:06

Why do trees smell?

William Harris 55:09

Okay, that's good. And then last two, I need a human relationship. So like, brother,

Goldie Chan 55:18

sibling,

William Harris 55:20

okay. And I need a small number and then we are ready to do this, too. Okay. I'm going to share my screen and we get to act this out

Goldie Chan 55:33

together. Oh, fine.

William Harris 55:37

You should see it any second year now. Okay. Okay, so our topic is how to go viral on Tiktok. Let me pull this up a little bit.

Goldie Chan 55:49

I'm wearing my glasses. But can you see this? All right. Yes.

William Harris 55:54

Okay. You are going to be person two, because I'm personally a higgledy goth and are seen by you are the super cool marketing Rockstar that knows how to go viral on TikTok every time and you're trying to teach me the old guy how to do it. Hey, Goldie. I don't know why I can't get the hang of this TikTok reals thing. My last video about books only got 30 views.

Goldie Chan 56:19

Okay, first, it's not tick tock reels. It's nevermind. What was the video about?

William Harris 56:27

Well, here's what it said. Hey, popstars. It's William William little duck Harris, and I'm going to show you how to bake a screwdriver. First, you add the foot, then add two thirds cups of water. Use your hair to mix that all together and then running for six minutes, then just slice it and enjoy.

Goldie Chan 56:51

That was interesting. Okay, here's what I want you to say in your next TikTok instead. 3457 things you don't know about? Qi Qi PT. I never can pronounce that. Right. Did you know that chat GPT can tell you the answer to why do tree smell. And you can absolutely believe it to be true because I asked my sibling in fact to ask two other people and they all agree that chat GPT will tell you the truth.

William Harris 57:19

Wow. You're a genius. I never could have come up with such a brilliant idea on my own.

Goldie Chan 57:26

Obviously, it's what I do. That's good. All right. Okay, now I see why the finger in the hand the hair? Yeah.

William Harris 57:37

The only thing you could not pick for that. If if people wanted to get in touch with you follow you what's the best way for them to reach out to you?

Goldie Chan 57:50

I'm carrier pigeon with Ben, if you don't have that, you can go ahead and find me on social platforms. If you literally look up Goldie Chan, I'll probably be honestly the search first result on every platform. But you can find me on Twitter still in the remaining days at Goldie Chan, you can find me on Instagram at Goldie Cylon. You can find me on LinkedIn. If you look up Goldie Chan, and I'm probably the first result on that platform. Yep, and Bluesky. And oh, yeah. Now I'm on Bluesky at Goldie so you can find me there as well.

William Harris 58:34

Which I have to admit the first time I saw Bluesky. I don't know why. The way I read it was blue ski. I was like What's Bluesky

Goldie Chan 58:42

way that they abbreviate Bluesky? It.

William Harris 58:46

That's what it was. Yeah. So I thought was Bluesky Great. Goldie, thank you so much for coming out sharing some of your knowledge and time and wisdom with us.

Goldie Chan 58:55

Thank you for making a mad live.

William Harris 58:57

Yes. All right, everybody. I appreciate you jumping in here as well. Hope you all have a great day.

Outro 59:04

Thanks for listening to the Up Arrow Podcast with William Harris. We'll see you again next time and be sure to click Subscribe to get future episodes.

‍