← Social Media Marketing Podcast
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- [00:00]
Michael Stelzner
After 13 years, we are making a bold move. We've been hosting thousands of marketers in San Diego, California since 2013 for social media Marketing World, and it has been epic. Here's the news. We're making a bold move to anaheim, California in 2026. The decision came down to three very compelling factors. First of all, the location advantages are incredible. Orange County's central location means easier access for our growing international audience. There are five different airports that service the area, including the Los Angeles airport, which means it's a lot more economical for you to get here. Second, the weather. April in Anaheim is absolutely perfect. 75 degrees, sunny skies, less chance of the random rainstorms that sometimes surprise us in San Diego. And third, this is really the big one. And Disneyland. It's only a 20 minute walk away from our venue. Imagine being able to experience Disneyland with your new friends that you make at the conference, literally after the event. I did this with one of my brand new employees. It was an incredible experience. Talk about developing lifelong relationships. This is the way to do it. This is the year to finally come and experience the magic that is Social Media Marketing World. Grab your tickets right now because we have a really big sale going on. Visit social media marketing world.info I can't wait to see you there. Welcome to the Social Media Marketing Podcast, helping you navigate the social media jungle. And now, here is your host, Michael Stelzner. Hello. Hello, Hello. Thank you so much for joining me for the Social Media Marketing podcast brought to you by Social Media Examiner. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner, and this is the podcast for marketers and business owners who want more exposure, more leads, and more sales. Are you active on LinkedIn? Do you want to be more successful with your content on LinkedIn? Perhaps you're ignoring LinkedIn. Well, today's episode is going to be for you. We are going to explore a content strategy that will make it very easy for you to create a variety of content to accomplish whatever your business mission is on LinkedIn. I'm going to be joined by Gus Bandal and we're going to introduce his strategy for creating really successful content on LinkedIn that engages people, but also gives you the opportunity to sell. By the way, if you are new to this podcast, be sure to follow us on whatever podcast you're listening to us on. And that way you'll not miss any of our future content. Let's now transition over to this week's interview with Gus Bandal. Helping you to simplify your social safari is this week's Expert guide. Today, I'm very excited to be joined by Gus Bandal. If you don't know who Gus is, He is a LinkedIn marketing strategist and the founder of Mguru, a digital marketing agency that helps business owners, executives and teams amplify their voice on LinkedIn. His event is called Uplift Live, a LinkedIn focused conference taking place in the UK. And his membership is called the Squeeze. Gus, welcome to the show. How you doing today?
- [03:20]
Gus Bandal
Hey, Michael. Yeah, I'm great. Thank you so much for having me.
- [03:22]
Michael Stelzner
It's a pleasure to have you. Today, Gus and I are going to explore a unique content strategy to achieving sustainable growth with LinkedIn. So, Gus, before we go there, I want to hear a little bit of your story. How did you get into LinkedIn? Start wherever you want to start.
- [03:36]
Gus Bandal
I won't start right at the beginning, but I was born in the late 70s, et cetera, et cetera. Anyway, I did a marketing undergraduate degree in the late 90s. I then kind of went into working marketing for a variety of companies. And then the advent of social media. You know, LinkedIn came out in 2002, Facebook came out in 2004, etc. I joined most of those platforms around 2006 and it became the new wave. It's. It's kind of like how AI is today. It's kind of. We went into using social media for marketing, the old kind of marketing ways and the methods kind of fell by the wayside for most people. So I kind of. I had this long and illustrious career in marketing, working for some of the world's largest companies. And then I left it all to run my local publisher. So I became a pub landlord for a little while.
- [04:19]
Michael Stelzner
When you say pub, you mean like a bar? Is that really what you're saying?
- [04:22]
Gus Bandal
A bar? Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, here in the uk? Yeah, sorry, yeah, it's public house. A bar, yeah. So I, I ran a bar and a restaurant here in the uk. It was my local, so I kind of, I grew up, you know, going there, et cetera, and the guy who owned it said, oh, I'm looking for a landlord. And for some reason I said, yeah, I could do that. And I gotta be honest, I couldn't. It wasn't, it wasn't something I could do. However, it did teach me a lot about running a business. I've always wanted to run my own agency and run my own kind of market company and actually the bar helped me to do that. So in late 2017, I started my own marketing agency. I thought, right, I'm going to do this for, you know, for businesses and helping other businesses. Because what I found was, particularly when I was running the bar, I had to do everything. I had to do accounts and HR and admin and cleaning and staffing and talking to customers and client facing and answering the phone and managing the bills and all this other kind of stuff. And marketing was just another thing on top of that. And although I could do that well, most of the other things I couldn't. So when I started my own marketing agency in 2017, that's when I really started helping businesses with social media marketing as a whole. But social media specifically, as time went on, particularly in the pandemic, when we hit the pandemic in 2020, that's when I really leaned into LinkedIn. I was creating content that people were reading, people were looking at it and thinking, yes, he's teaching us about LinkedIn. He's showing us how to do things. You know, he's sharing breaking news and advice and tips and all the rest of it. And I started getting was lots of clients. People started coming through, you know, picking up the phone, sending me emails, booking zoom calls and all the rest of it. And I thought I hit upon something where I can help others to do the same thing. So although I, I can be a social media generalist, I kind of leaned into LinkedIn because that's the thing that was working for me. So I took my learnings, my theories, my strategies and all that kind of stuff and applied it to, quite frankly, to other businesses, a range of other businesses.
- [06:17]
Michael Stelzner
I love it and I love the fact that you went all in on LinkedIn. I feel like for the longest time, LinkedIn has been the platform that has been ignored by so many social marketers. And so many people in my audience are super active on Facebook or Instagram or X, formerly known as Twitter and maybe TikTok. But LinkedIn is something that is an incredible opportunity and I want you to share with marketers, because so many marketers who are using LinkedIn are probably using it the same way they've been using it for the last many, many. And why should they maybe revisit their content strategy on LinkedIn? Said another way, if they listen very carefully to what we're going to talk about today, what, what's the upside? What could be made possible with really doing a LinkedIn content strategy?
- [07:02]
Gus Bandal
Well, particularly when it comes to LinkedIn and particularly when it comes to a content strategy, I think the important thing is that it still has one of the best algorithms out There in terms of pushing our content to a variety of people, arguably it's the world's only business focused platform as well, and it's one of the world's largest. So I believe Facebook has about 4 billion members, Instagram has about 2 billion. LinkedIn has just passed the 1.2 billion mark. So it makes it, it's kind of, it puts into the top four or five kind of social media platforms in the world. However, that 1.2 billion people are specifically business focused people. The reason people join LinkedIn is either to find jobs or put out their CVs, or talk to fellow professionals, et cetera. And I think particularly for business owners, executives, professionals, so on and so forth, it's a prime platform to make money, build relationships, get clients, et cetera, and really amplify their business and help it to essentially create sustainable success.
- [08:00]
Michael Stelzner
So when it comes to redeveloping or enhancing your content strategy, for those of us that have been on LinkedIn for a while, and maybe we're just doing what we've always done, what's the upside to really dialing in our content strategy?
- [08:12]
Gus Bandal
I think, particularly with a content strategy, I think the thing is it's comparatively easy to reach a lot of people, but particularly when it comes to content strategy itself, it's easy to create a variety of content. So most platforms are very kind of single focused. Most platforms try to be all things to all people, but ultimately they're single focused. So Instagram is images, Pinterest is images, Snapchat is kind of short content, Twitter and threads and Blue sky, very kind of short form text content, et cetera. On LinkedIn we can kind of create a variety. We could post videos, post images, post long form video, short form video, et cetera. And actually mixing up our content strategy means that we have the biggest chance of reaching the biggest section of our audience and making sure that there's something for everybody.
- [08:55]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah, and I've been experimenting with LinkedIn predominantly doing longer form writing. And I find that I have a really engaged audience. Like Facebook and LinkedIn really are the two really, really large audiences and a lot of people that maybe aren't seeing the kind of results that they want on LinkedIn. I feel like they're going to really get something today when we unravel what we're about to unravel. So when it comes to creating content on LinkedIn, what do we need to be thinking about before we start? Maybe we can talk a little bit about any kind of like groundwork stuff that we need to really Focus on mindset, et cetera.
- [09:28]
Gus Bandal
The majority of my clients and the majority of people that I work with, roughly around 70 or 80% of the people I work with are women. And like, just by default, it's just, you know, it's purely kind of coincidental. And ultimately what happens is a lot of my clients, predominantly women, but some men as well, they kind of say, I'm not confident about posting because I don't know if there's for example, my ex husband or my ex wife or my old boss or my friends are going to laugh at me and, or you know, I've changed career, etc. What are people going to think and you know, and all that kind of stuff. And it's very easy for me to say, well, if they don't pay your bills, you shouldn't worry about what they say. But actually it's that confidence thing and it's having the mindset to be able to start creating content that simply tells a story. And when I talk about content marketing on LinkedIn, it's very much about storytelling, it's very much about let's create some long form content, let's tell stories, let's tell people about who we are and what we do, et cetera. And, and particularly it's about having the confidence to create that long term sustainable success, not only in our businesses, but actually for us. You know, personally, I've met many friends on LinkedIn, I've made many friends, I've built many relationships, client relationships, new clients, introduce people to lots of other people, been to lots of events, been to lots of networking, had lots of opportunities, including this one, for example, all through the power of LinkedIn.
- [10:44]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, so when we were prepping for this, one of the tips you were talking about is journaling your week and maybe you could talk about that. And you had an example of somebody who was making human resources a little bit less boring and maybe we could talk about that too.
- [10:57]
Gus Bandal
Yes, absolutely. Yeah. So particularly people who are early on in their kind of content journey, or if they have been on LinkedIn for a while and they want to kind of mix up their strategy. What I normally say is to journal your week like either on a Friday, most likely on a Friday, tell the world what you've been up to this week. So for example, Monday I saw a new client and Tuesday I went networking, or Wednesday I ran a workshop up and you know, Thursday I bought pizza for everybody in the office. You know, it's, it's that kind of journaling of the week and as much as I love AI and as much as I use AI, etcetera, the only person that can ever journal your week is yourself. You can use AI and other tools to kind of obviously polish that up, but the only person that's had your experiences is you. And when you create that content on LinkedIn, it kind of resonates with others. And particularly the case of the, you know, the HR specialist that I work with, he essentially came to me and said, I want my content to be less boring. I don't just want to talk about hr. So I said, well, what are you into? He's a huge fan of the Hard Rock Cafe. He loves prints, he loves live music, he loves the Hilton brand and all this other kind of stuff. And I said, well, we should talk about that. We should talk about how that fits into your life. So we started, we created a content strategy where he started journaling his life and it very much became a diary. It's very much, well, Monday I did this and Tuesday I did this, and Wednesday I did. It's not as formulaic as that, but it's very much journaling your week simply because it resonates with an audience. It gets people to read that content. I think actually he's more than just hr. Ultimately that applies to any kind of any industry.
- [12:29]
Michael Stelzner
Well, and just to add a little bit more to this, there's a lot of times where you who's listening might be in a decision making capacity where you're looking to invite someone onto your podcast or you're looking to perhaps do something else. And the way that I found Gus is GUS journaled on LinkedIn that he bought a ticket to Social Media Marketing World and he tagged me in it. And as a result of it, he's on the show. Right. So like, you're living proof that, like, if he didn't write down that he was excited to be going to Anaheim, California and experience the conference, and then if I didn't somehow get looped into it, I would have never got a chance to really. Oh, let's look into who Gus is. Oh, maybe I ought to get Gus on my show. And the reason I'm telling everybody this story is because there's people who follow you on LinkedIn that might be looking for someone just like you or know someone who is. And if you don't journal what you've been doing, you're not going to come up top of mind for them. Would you agree?
- [13:28]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, absolutely. I think that's really, really important. And I mean, apart from anything I Absolutely cannot wait for social media marketing world, you know, next year. Not just because it's next door to Disney, obviously. However, it's exactly that, I think, when we start talking about the things that give us life, the things that we're into, whether it's buying pizza for everybody in the office or whether it's going, you know, buying a ticket for an event halfway across the world, or whether it's networking or what we're up to. We bought a new car or bought a new microphone, for example, or whatever it may be, we start creating this content, people start listening, they start reading that content and thinking, oh, actually, I need somebody that does this. And particularly when people look into your profile, your profile should sync. It should say everything that it needs to say in terms of, this is who I am, this is what I do for a living, etc. That's the kind of the professional outlook. Whereas when it comes to a content strategy, it's about bringing people into your world that are interested in you as a person.
- [14:22]
Michael Stelzner
Love it. Okay, we're going to get into the good stuff now, and Gus has come up with a really cool strategy. What I'd like to do, Gus, is kind of like, if you're willing, let's go through it very carefully, one at a time, rather than revealing all these different tracks and stuff. So when it comes to creating content that connects, like, let's talk a little bit about your strategy. So where do you want to start?
- [14:46]
Gus Bandal
When I talk about content marketing strategy with clients and potential clients, etc. Lots of marketers talk about content pillars, right? We kind of say, oh, well, you should just post this, you know, week in, week out, etc. And it can become a bit samey, a bit boring, etc. And I thought, there's a. There's got to be a better way. Now, as I said at the top of this podcast, I was born in the late 70s, so I'm of an age where we had like eight tracks and cassettes and CDs and vinyls and all the rest of it. When we listen to music, we listen to the whole album, right? We listen to everything, like all the tracks on the album. Whereas nowadays with Spotify and Apple Music and Amazon Music and all the rest of it, we'll listen to the tracks that we want to listen to. So we don't ever hear a full album. So what I kind of tell people is you don't want to be the guy that just. Or the guy or the girl that just posts one kind of track. You don't want to just say, well, here's my music. And that's what I'm going to talk about all the time. Because it's just a singular track. What I talk about is basically having multiple tracks. So then have different types of content for different parts of your audience that resonate with different people.
- [15:47]
Michael Stelzner
Just so we can wrap our heads around what you mean by a track. For those of us that are obviously of a certain age, we totally understand what a track is. Right. But. But conceptually, what I'm hearing you say is we're going to explore different kinds of content that we're going to call tracks, and we're going to use music in this case as the metaphor. Right. So we're not actually talking about music, we're talking about it as a metaphor, and we're going to unravel different kinds of tracks. Now, before we get into this, what I like about listening to an album, quote unquote, is we've all, especially those of us, are like over 40. We have our favorite CDs or whatever that we listen to over and over and over again. Right? And Maybe they're not CDs anymore, but we have like, and we know all the songs on the album. And generally speaking, they're not all the same. Right. Gus, this is part of what I love about your strategies. You have different kinds of songs that make up an album. They're not all rock songs, for example, on a rock album. So why don't you talk to us a little bit about the first kind of track that you recommend. We wrap our head around when it comes to our content, and let's introduce what it is, let's define it, let's talk about why it's so important, then we can give some examples and tips.
- [17:00]
Gus Bandal
Absolutely. So if we think about our favorite artist, you know, whoever it may be, Eminem or Drake or Robbie Williams or Elton John or whoever it is on their albums, there's always going to be an introductory track. There's always an intro, there's sometimes there's an outro, there could be some interludes, etc. And they're generally all the same. It's the pieces of music is the tracks that introduce us. It's the introductory track that basically says, this is who we are. This is the introduction to essentially to our album, to our music, to who we are, et cetera. And I believe every content marketing strategy should have an introduction. And to use an example, the way I talk about that is basically, it's who we are. Like introducing Ourself, this is me, this is what I sell, this is who I am, et cetera. And it's basically setting the scene for our audience. Now, as we know, the only person that sees 100% of our content is us, ourselves. Only a small portion of our audience kind of sees our content. So I always recommend that this is the kind of evergreen content that we should be creating on a regular basis. Hence why I talk about an introductory track, the interlude track and the outro track. They're all kind of very similar in terms of just reminding people who we are, what we do and, you know, everything about us.
- [18:15]
Michael Stelzner
So let's dig into this. What kind of stuff we should talk about on this opening or intro track, as you refer to it. But before we even get into the content of it, where should we put it? Because isn't it true that LinkedIn allows you to pin some stuff up on the top of your profile? Is this the kind of thing that would be like, somehow put up at the top?
- [18:33]
Gus Bandal
Typically, yeah, absolutely. For anybody that follows me or kind of will follow me, you'll see in my featured section, as it were, on LinkedIn, there's essentially a post that talks all about me. And my post talks about my professional life and my personal life. So it basically says, I support the Liverpool FC soccer team. One of my favorite artists is George Michael Love, you know, Mexican food, et cetera. But also I've got almost 30 years of marketing experience, I've got loads of letters after my name. I've trained thousands of people on LinkedIn, et cetera, et cetera. So it's the personal and the professional. And with that, I've added a selfie like of me because, you know, selfies work on LinkedIn because people love looking at other people's faces. And then essentially what you do, to be very technical, is once you've published that piece of content, you click on the three dots in the corner and it will say, add to featured. And then you add it to your featured section, which then sits at the top of your profile on a permanent. Well, I say on a permanent basis until obviously you choose to take it down and obviously add another post in there. Now, your LinkedIn profile generally should be comparatively professional. So it will say, this is who I am, this is what I do, this is where I work, this is my company, etc. Etc. But the featured section can be your best foot forward. It's very much like a mini website. So creating an introductory track, an introductory piece of content which basically talks all about you Once you've pinned that to the top and it's kind of added some professional information and some personal information, it's very much that introductory piece of content, you know, about you that kind of shows people what makes you tick, the kind of person you are, what you do, what you do in your professional life, your personal life, etc.
- [20:08]
Michael Stelzner
I'm glad you brought up the LinkedIn general summary, you know, versus this thing being slightly different. Right, because when you. I forget what you call that little descriptive box within LinkedIn, but you're saying that box ought to be tight and professional. Right, but the featured section is where, I mean, what do you call that little description box when you go to LinkedIn where it's a very simple summary.
- [20:29]
Gus Bandal
So first of all, you have your headline, which sits under your name, and then below that you have the about section.
- [20:34]
Michael Stelzner
So this is different than the about section, right? Or is it the same? I mean, like, what's. Can it be there?
- [20:38]
Gus Bandal
No, it's different. So in the about section, for example, we very much. It's that professionalism in terms of when people land on our profile and they kind of view our profile, they'll see our name, our headline, our beautiful professional photo, etc. They'll read our about section, maybe scroll down and read our testimonials, et cetera. So that's all the professional, the stuff that basically says, this is what I do for a living. This is all the stuff. So for example, in your case, Michael, it would be Social Media Examiner, AI for Business, Social media, Marketing World, et cetera. We're talking in this podcast, in your email, it would talk all about that. That's the professional element. But then you would write an introductory post that says, hey, I'm based in this location and this is my favorite food, and I've got this many kids and, you know, I love these dogs or whatever it may be, et cetera. So it's very much that bit that introduces you as a person that builds your personal brand.
- [21:26]
Michael Stelzner
Got it. But I can also talk about my business as well, right?
- [21:30]
Gus Bandal
Yeah.
- [21:30]
Michael Stelzner
Shouldn't just be the personal stuff, right? It should be like, for example, I could also talk about my interests on the business side of things. Right. Like, I love podcasting, for example, and these are the shows that I'm really excited about. And you know, and this is a little bit maybe just more of a, like behind the curtain view of how I do business, but also personal things, for example. Is that what I'm hearing you say?
- [21:51]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, absolutely. So to get people to Land on your profile and to read your about section, you have to entice them in. And usually with a content marketing strategy, particularly an introductory track, that's where you would say things. You know, you could have some personal information, but it would be kind of business focused information as well in terms of like you say, the podcast, what you do for a living, the stuff that you're into, the stuff that you like, et cetera, you know, from a business perspective. And that drives traffic to, to your profile where they can then see the professional information in terms of, well, I'll read Michael's about section and I'll see he does all these things and he's involved in these businesses and so on and so forth. So it's that driver. It's very rare that somebody will literally type your name, come to your profile, read your full profile, and then buy something from you. That's comparatively rare. What they want to do is get to know you, like you, and trust you. And the introductory content for your audience is obviously bringing them in and it reminds them, oh, I didn't know Michael does this, or I didn't know he was into this and let me read his profile so I can read more. Et cetera.
- [22:50]
Michael Stelzner
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- [24:13]
Gus Bandal
So the next track I always talk about is the ballot. You know, the, this, you know, I, I call it the soft sell. And as in it's the selling without selling. And it's the very, the soft, the easy track that just, you know, eases people into your world. So you've already had the introductory track in terms of this is who I am, this is what I do, et cetera. And the ballad is normally, for example, if you liken it to a track, is something like Come Fly With Me by Frank Sinatra. So it's very much the testimonials, the case studies, the reviews, the social proof, etc. Essentially telling the world how great you are without actually saying, I am great. It's all the stuff that it's very kind of selling without selling. It's the soft sell where people come into your world and they slowly but surely, surely learn more about you without you having to say, please look at how great I am. It's lots of other people saying how great you are, which then drives, again, it drives traffic to you. And it's that social proof that marks you out differently from the people around you, your competitors, your peers, etc.
- [25:11]
Michael Stelzner
So give us an example of how you or a client might do this just so people can wrap their head around this. Do you have an example of something you've done yourself or one of your clients has done? Because what I'm trying to do is just want to make sure people really understand how something like this might kind of sound.
- [25:30]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, absolutely. So the example that I would use is, so one of my clients is an accountant, and with all due respect, and it's something that they say themselves, accountancy is in the world's most interesting subject. Now, on top of that, because it's legislative as well, we have to do our accounts every year. We have to fill out self assessments and taxes and all the other kind of stuff, etc. So there's only so much you can say because quite frankly, if you don't look at LinkedIn, all accountants are the same. However, what we've created for this particular accountant that I work with is testimonials and case studies where they have worked with people that might have difficult accounts, strange circumstances, multiple businesses, different tax implications, or another accountant somewhere else has kind of messed something up, so they've had to come in, been parachuted in to fix it, etc. So, so we can talk. Our general, our introductory content is here's who I am and here's what I do for a living. But the ballads of our content in terms of the soft sell is this is the great work I've done for somebody, and here's something that I've done really well for them where they've had a problem and I fixed it. And I'm sure any accountant could fix it, but ultimately, not all accountants talk about it.
- [26:39]
Michael Stelzner
Ah, okay. So, like, it would be something along the lines of you're sharing a story. In this case, you're almost journaling without mentioning the name of the client. Right. Like, I recently had a client who was in a very unusual circumstance and here's how I helped pull him out of it or whatever. Right. And then you share some of the story, but you're signaling throughout the entire thing. Oh, he takes clients. Oh, he is an accountant. And, oh, he's talking about his craft and it's telling a story that signals that this is what he does for other people, therefore, he might do it for you as well. Is that kind of the idea here with something like that?
- [27:14]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, particularly when it comes to clients. The thing is, when you look for a necessity in your business, you could Google it, or you could go to LinkedIn and just use the search box or all that kind of stuff. But if you're connected to somebody that does that kind of stuff and then creates content around it, you're going to see them before you see anybody else. If I talk about myself as an example, there are a million LinkedIn trainers, right? You can use anybody to use LinkedIn. But what I do is I create my tracks and my content that ultimately marks me out as somebody that. That people should work with. And the same with this accountant, for example. What we're doing is we're. Although we're not reinventing the wheel because there's only so much we can do with the accounts world. What we're doing is we're sharing testimonials and case studies and stories and telling those stories where the accountant has helped somebody get over a hurdle or get through a wall or get through a problem, etc. Which, let's be honest, most accountants could probably do that, but not every accountant is talking about it. So when we're on LinkedIn, in. When we see this kind of content, we think actually this is the kind of person that we need. So let's kind of. Let's jump on board and let's speak to this person as opposed to, for example, just Googling, you know, accountants near me, for example.
- [28:22]
Michael Stelzner
So so far we've talked about the intro track, which is telling stories about your personal life or your business from a personal perspective to humanize you. Then we got into this ballad, which is this soft sell, testimonials, case study, storytelling kind of thing. What's the next track?
- [28:38]
Gus Bandal
So after that we go into the rock track, right? So we go into, for example, the Back in Black by ACDC or, you know, Paranoid by Black Sabbath. You know, it's those kind of. It's those rousing tracks where we celebrate our wins. So. And it's very different to testimonials and case studies, et cetera, in particularly in this kind of context. It's where we create content that obviously gets people to listen to us, to celebrate our wins, to play air guitar with us, et cetera. It's. So I've kind of made some notes here in terms of. The rog tracks are celebr. Creating our wins, new clients, getting a speaking gig, hitting income targets, or even talking about, you know, particular kind of work milestones. You know, we've been in business for this long, or I've created a new event, or I'm hosting a networking event, or I've been on this podcast, etc. It's basically that track where. It's the rock track where people can celebrate us. You know, when we go to a rock gig, whether it's Black Sabbath or ACDC or Motley Crue or whoever it may be, we can. We kind of watch them and think, oh, you know, know, I really want to be Tommy Lee in. In some cases, you know, for example. But it's. It's kind of listening to that music where we're like, I want to play along with these guys, I want to celebrate these guys. I want to club along with these guys, I want to applaud their, you know, they're great, etc. So it's. It's the kind of content we create where we celebrate ourselves without kind of. Without kind of being too arrogant, etc. But it's celebrating those wins that we've had.
- [29:58]
Michael Stelzner
So give us some tips on how to do this. Because a lot of people don't like celebrating their wins. You have to be. For some people, they have to get over some hurdles to be able to do this. Maybe especially those that don't like. Like the idea of bragging, you know, the humble brag kind of stuff. So how can we go about doing this? Like, give us a little guidance on how we can actually write this in such a way that it won't come across as super selfish.
- [30:18]
Gus Bandal
The elements of this is normally you can Keep it as vague or as specific as you want. So, for example, if you have an income target and you say, I've hit my income target, you don't have to tell the world that, oh, your income target was a monthly six figures. You know, I want to earn $100,000 a week, week, or whatever it may be. You don't have to tell people the figures. You just say, I set myself an income target and I've hit it. That's more than enough for the people that like you and the people that want to be in your world. That is more than enough because that is celebratory enough. It's. And, you know, and the same, you know, comes to, for example, oh, I'm hosting an event or I'm hosting a conference, or, you know, all the, you know, I've hit an income target, or I've, you know, started a podcast or I've written a book, etc. You don't have to give people the specifics of, well, it's cost me this much money and I've made an incredible amount of money and look how rich I am, and please look at my new Porsche and all that kind of stuff. It doesn't have to. Well, it's entirely up to you, but it doesn't have to go into that detail. It literally is just. What we have to remember about LinkedIn in particular is the audience that we curate and the people that follow us should be people that want to hear about our wins. Of course, we're always going to have haters. We're always going to have those people that would, you know, wish bad upon us. But it's a very small portion of our audience, the majority of our audience are following us and connected to us because they want to join us in celebrating our wins. Hopefully they're people that know us, like us, and trust us. And when that happens, it's about creating, first of all, it's about curating the perfect audience, and then it's creating these rock tracks that they would want to listen to that then help us. Help them celebrate us in terms of here's our wins, here's something I've achieved, here's something I've created, et cetera, you know, without going into, to look how great I am or please, you know, look at my bank statement, etc.
- [32:06]
Michael Stelzner
So, yeah, I mean, I can tell everybody that this stuff really does work. But I think the key is you want to tell a story, right? I mean, I don't know. I'm curious, is this more like a couple Sentences or are you writing out a full story? Or how are you doing this? I'm just curious, like, to help people understand how they could go about writing this kind of content. Is it images? How do you normally recommend having these rock tracks kind of built out as content?
- [32:32]
Gus Bandal
All the content that I talk about can be predominantly text based content. However, if you choose to add images, if you choose to create a video through this, etc. Then by all means. But it's, it's the kind of content where people would read a story. Because you can start with, when I started my business, here was my income target, and five years later, now here's my income target and I've hit that income target. Isn't it great? And it's because I did this in my business and I evolved my, my content or I evolved my LinkedIn or evolved my business, or changed my business services, etc. What it does is the people that are ahead of you would look back at you and say, that's great, you know, well done for, you know, for doing that. The people that are looking up to you are those people that would want to try and emulate that. So what you're doing is you're creating content where people are celebrating your wins, but also it becomes something where people come, can resonate with, where they kind of think, actually, I want to achieve those as well. And isn't it great that they've achieved it? And I want to try and achieve it as well. Because what we find on LinkedIn, we have those rock stars, we have those people that have, you know, like 500,000 followers and all that kind of stuff, et cetera, the influencers and, you know, the big names and all that kind of stuff. But for the most part, we're all the same. You know, particularly on LinkedIn, we're all similar. So when we're all in a similar boat, what we do is we look at each other's content and think, actually, I want to try and emulate that. So either we applaud each other and say that's well done, or, or we think, oh, I'm glad that they've achieved that. I want to achieve that too.
- [33:55]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah. You know, the, the example that I'm thinking is most people on this podcast don't know that story I'm about to share, but I always was told, and I told myself I could never start a software company because it's just too complicated. And I'm excited to announce that I am starting a software company. And literally in the next couple of Weeks, probably by the time this podcast comes out, I will announce it. And I could totally see writing that post, you know, something along those lines. Like, I just convinced myself it was too complicated and I could never do it, and I'm here to tell you that it's actually happened, that's something that I think people would celebrate. Don't you agree? Especially if I shared a little bit more of the journey and the story.
- [34:34]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, absolutely. And I think, particularly when it comes to you, Michael, I mean, from, from where you've come from and the things that you've achieved. And like, if I take social media marketing world as an example, it's, you know, from where it was, from the first event to where we are today. It's, you know, it's a huge difference. And I think the people that like you and the people that want to ride that wave with you will celebrate that and say, isn't it great? And now if you say, congratulations on starting a software company as well, and obviously when people, yeah, when people will go into that and say, oh, isn't that great? And, you know, there will be some people that will say, well, yeah, we expect this of Michael because he's great, but there are other people that say, well, how's he doing that? I want to know how he's doing that. And let's, let's talk some more about it, et cetera.
- [35:14]
Michael Stelzner
Well, but it's the same thing. Like when I started the AI Explored podcast too, right? Which is my other show is very similar kind of thing. Like, there's so many things that go into starting something new that there's so many story angles you could take. Like, you know, I told myself I wasn't going to start something new unless blah, blah, blah, happened. Well, guess what? It happened. And now I'm here to report that I'm starting something new, right? Or I'm starting something new that may not work, and it's completely okay, but I've decided I'm going to try it anyways, right? And each of these stories, like, I think, appeal to different kinds of people. Like the person who's resistant to starting something new resonate with this story. The person who's like a risk taker might resonate with the other story. You go, I'm so excited for you. Right? And these are the kind of things that I feel like create these little stories that we can talk about. Because the truth of the matter is everyone is always trying something new, right? And there's going to be a sub segment of your audience that Loves you so much that they're going to get behind whatever you, whatever one of your wins are. And the benefit, I think, to them is that they're going to start engaging with the content, which is going to get more people to see that content. Right. I would imagine these celebratory things can get quite a bit of engagement, no?
- [36:21]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, absolutely. And particularly I always find that when you tell stories that resonate with others, whether it be content where you're celebrating yourself, where you're kind of talking about the journey, talking about the things that you've been through and talking to get to a certain point. Yeah, they get a lot of engagement, you know, from the people that know you like you and trust you, from the people that love you, from the people that want to celebrate you, et cetera. It does get a lot of engagement because as humans, it's almost innate to celebrate those around us and particularly those that we like. It's very rare we talk about, you know, keyboard warriors and trolls and all the rest of it, etc. But thankfully there's still a minority and you still get them. You'll get them on most platforms. But thankfully what we can do on LinkedIn is curate an audience of people that actually like us and those people will engage with us and therefore the content will, you know, reach much further.
- [37:10]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, what's the next track? Because I know we got a couple more here to talk about.
- [37:14]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, so the next track. So I always talk about the experimental track, which I liken to. So for example, Bohemian Rhapsody.
- [37:21]
Michael Stelzner
I love that song. A very long song though, right?
- [37:25]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, a really long song. Yeah. But to start with, nobody liked it. It didn't reach the top 40, it didn't get into the charts, Everybody hated it, everybody said, why are Queen doing this, etc. However, we have to try things, right? Many years later hit number one and all the way, you know, top of the Billboard charts and all the rest of it. But I talk about experimental tracks and particularly in this case, the example is, is using. So it's, it's a pattern interrupt. So it's creating content that is different to the rest of the content that we create. So the content that I create is very much text based content. So I get people, I tell stories, I get people to read the content, to get to the end of my content, to get to a particular point. But a pattern interrupt would be me creating a video or me doing a poll, or me adding a document post, which is essentially like a carousel. So it's that pattern interrupt where people Saying, oh, how you do? How come Gus is posting something like this, for example? So. And I think everybody should have this experimental track. So kind of write it into our content planning in terms of, here's who my ideal clients are, here's the audience that I've curated, here's the kind of content that I create on a regular basis. But let's have a pattern interrupt. If I don't like videos, I'm going to try and do a video. I'm going to, whether it's my face or whether it's a video of where I work or my offices or what I'm doing for a living, or me going networking or me running a conference or whatever it may be. Let's create a pattern interrupt. So I always recommend experimenting with different kinds of content because ultimately has to evolve. If it does really well and reaches lots of people and gets lots of engagement, et cetera, it's something that we can try more often.
- [38:59]
Michael Stelzner
So is this experimental content just new mediums like written to video or written to images, or is it also potentially covering topics that are tangential to the kinds of things you normally talk about, but still relevant to your target audience?
- [39:15]
Gus Bandal
It could be both. So it could be one or the other, or it could be both. But in the context, for me, it's a different kind of medium. So if you focus on text content, you should try a newsletter or try a video, etc. But also, particularly if we're kind of creating our businesses, like, again, if we take yourself as an example, sure, we can talk about Social Media examiner and Social Media Marketing World and AI for business. But now we can talk about new software company, for example. So that's the pattern interrupt, which ultimately becomes. Becomes less of a pattern interrupt because you were going to be talking more about it. But to start with, it's creating that content to say, by the way, I'm also doing this. And then your audience will be like, oh, I didn't know that. And then all of a sudden it kind of. It moves into there.
- [39:54]
Michael Stelzner
I like that.
- [39:54]
Gus Bandal
Yeah. So it could be either something that you don't talk about normally, or it could be a different type of medium, or it could be both.
- [40:00]
Michael Stelzner
Yeah, because when I started the AI explored podcast and the AI Business society, I strategically knew that I was going to talk about something totally different. Different. And I was going to talk about AI, you know, and I was going to talk about AI for marketers and all the objections and concerns that people had around it. And that really did connect with a lot of People. And then now I do it kind of very regularly. So I like the idea that the experimental track is a playground upon which you might be able to discover something new that might become a more regular track. Now you've got another also track here which we've not addressed, which go ahead and share that one.
- [40:36]
Gus Bandal
So the final track that I talk about is what I call the Floor Filler. So, you know, we're in a nightclub and, you know, et cetera, and we want to dance with people. We, you know, we get on the dance floor first and we want people to follow us. You know, whether we are John Travolta or, you know, whoever it may be kind of thing. We want to get on the dance floor first. The track that I compare this to is Less Dance by David Bowie. And it's a track that genuinely gets people to dance.
- [40:57]
Michael Stelzner
You just got that tune stuck in a bunch of people's head just by saying.
- [41:02]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, just by saying that, you know, let's dance.
- [41:04]
Michael Stelzner
You know, put on your red shoes and dance the blues. Okay, so keep going. Sorry.
- [41:10]
Gus Bandal
Absolutely. No, no. I'm going to head to Spotify straight after this. Listen to a whole album, obviously, but, you know, it's the content that resonates with an audience. So in terms of the notes that I've made here. So it's about, for example, personal stories, business setbacks, hosting events, things that can resonate with others, and it's where they can partake in the engagement. So, for example, if I write a post where I say, oh, you know, my old boss was somebody I hated or disliked, as it were, or, you know, I've had this business setback where I haven't hit my income goals or I failed in this, or I created this business and it failed, or, you know, whatever it may be, you know, my tech stack failed or I didn't get a gig or my proposal wasn't accepted and all that kind of stuff, it resonates with people. Just to be clear, it doesn't have to be bad news stories. It can be also be good news stories like, I'm hosting this event or I'm running this thing, or here's something that I'm doing, you know, are you doing anything similar? And all that kind of stuff, you know, I was on a podcast or I hosted this or etc. It's content that resonates with others where they then want to come along with you for the ride, where they get on the dance floor with you. So essentially they hold your hand, they get on the dance floor and they engage with you, they talk to you about that and they kind of, they share their experiences like, oh, that happened to me as well, or I had that setback or that failed for me as well, or I'm having the same experiences and it's that kind of content. So particularly the example that I use here. So I work with a law firm where when they first came to me, they essentially said, can you create content for us? Like the content that you create for yourself in terms of stuff that gets people to engage. Like a lot of their content was very much about the world of law and, you know, all the, you know, legislation and things that they do, whether it's, whether it's buying a house or getting divorced and you know, all this other kind of stuff. But what they wanted to do was intersperse it with content that got their audience engaged. So they started talking about charity fundraisers, they started talking about events that they do in house, they started talking about team socials and nights out and things like that. And what it did was it resonated with a lot of other organizations because I said, oh, we love socials as well, we love nights out and we love doing xyz, et cetera. And actually it's their most engaged content content because, you know, their generic kind of law based content is. It is what it is. And it's, it's good to have that content so that when people land on their profiles, they can see that content about what they do for a living. The stuff that they intersperse that with in terms of the floor fillers is where they get people to engage with them. So the technical data is they create residual engagement. So when you have content that engages an audience, the next time you post, some of that residual engagement will come across to your new post as well. So it's keeping that kind of engagement going and making sure that your audience are involved and engaging with you.
- [43:54]
Michael Stelzner
So if we think about a CD or album and it's a circle, right? And we think about a pie, like what percentage of each of these tracks make up the pie? Just help people understand how they might, like, generally speaking, mix all these different tracks together.
- [44:08]
Gus Bandal
So that's a great question. So in terms of the introductory post, in terms of like, like when we start with the introductory part, the opening track, etc. That should be roughly around 10% of your content in terms of. Because that's an evergreen piece of content content. But you don't need to introduce yourself every week, right? Because, you know, hopefully most of Your audience knows you. So I recommend that's something that you would kind of publish every three months or so, like on a regular basis, just do an introductory post of, you know, this is who I am, etc. The ballot. So in terms of the content that, where we're creating, where people, you know, where we share testimonials, case studies, etc, I normally say that would be roughly around another 10%.
- [44:40]
Michael Stelzner
Okay, so we're 20% so far. Keep going.
- [44:43]
Gus Bandal
So, for example, the three left will be Rog track, the experimental track rank, and floor filler. Now for me, the experimental track should be roughly about 20% of your content. Okay, so that, you know, in terms of here's something that's out of the box so you know, it's. It's a fifth of your content. So for example, let's say you post a couple of posts per week, for example. So every couple of weeks, every two to three weeks, you're posting something that's different, that's a pattern interrupt to everything else that you're creating. And so therefore, the floor fillers and the rock tracks, the tracks that really get people to engage, either they celebrate you or they jump on the dance floor to celebrate break with you, I would say they're about 30% each. They're the kind of content that gets an audience to resonate with you further.
- [45:23]
Michael Stelzner
Got it. Okay, so the floor filler and the rock track stuff is the majority at 60%, about 30% each. And my guess is you could do more floor filler and less experiment if you want. You know, it's kind of up to you, but that's the bulk of your content. But the key message that you're saying here is, hey, many people are only doing floor filler content, right? And they're not doing experimental, they're not doing the ballads where they're soft selling and they're not doing the intro stuff, right? So that's the key, is like to have a album that moves people through all the different stages in the buyer journey. You want to make sure you have this cacophony or variety of different songs on your album so that you can grab people at different phases and at different stages and humanize your brand. Thoughts on that?
- [46:09]
Gus Bandal
Yeah, that's a perfect description. That's exactly what it is. So in terms of listening to an album, like I said, you know, in the old days of the eight tracks and the cassettes and the vinyls and all that kind of stuff, you know, the vinyl, you put the needle on the beginning and you Wait till it gets to the end. And it takes you through a journey and you're listening to all the different tracks. Whether it's a track that you want to dance to or play air guitar to, or you want to just relax to or, you know, have a cup of coffee too, or whatever it may be, there's all these different tracks. And ultimately on LinkedIn, that's kind of what we want to do because different tracks resonate with different people. And if we are curating the right audience and an audience that are into us. For example, if I only ever wrote one track that said, hey, I'm a LinkedIn trainer, please buy my services, very soon people would switch off. You know, it's kind of. Because it's very samey. It's very. It's like, I don't. We can't listen to the same track over and over again, despite what people on Desert Island Discs tell us. You know, you can't listen to the same, same tracks over and over again. So it's mixing that up to essentially to resonate with different parts of our audience and capture different parts of our audience at different times.
- [47:10]
Michael Stelzner
Gus Bandal, thank you for sharing your insights with us today. If people want to connect with you, I'm assuming LinkedIn is the platform, right? And then if they want to potentially work with you, where do you want to send them?
- [47:20]
Gus Bandal
So I send Everybody to my LinkedIn. My website is called dmguru.co.uk, but generally if you just search for either Gus Bandala or my business, which is the Mguru, just search that on Google and the first Tempo pages will be all about me, basically. But yeah, it's LinkedIn is where I do my best work and that's where I have my best conversations.
- [47:37]
Michael Stelzner
And it's spelled B H A N D A L for those that are listening. Gus, thank you again so much for sharing your thoughts with us today.
- [47:44]
Gus Bandal
Michael, thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate it.
- [47:46]
Michael Stelzner
Hey, if you missed anything, we took all the notes for you over@socialmediaexaminer.com 683. If you're new to the show, be sure to follow us. If you've been a long time listener, would you give us a review view on whatever platform you're listening on and share this with your friends? Do check out our other shows, the AI Explored podcast and the Social Media Marketing talk show. This brings us to the end of the Social Media Marketing podcast. I'm your host, Michael Stelzner. I'll be back with you next week. I hope you make the best out of your day and may your marketing keep evolving. The Social Media Marketing Podcast is a production of Social Media Examiner. This is the year to finally come to Social Media Marketing World 2026. Grab your tickets right now by visiting social media marketing world.in fox.