How to use the carousel and other 7 marketing tips from Chris Do

Chris Do is an Emmy award-winning designer, CEO and Chief Strategist of Blind and the founder of The Futur—an online education platform that teaches the business of design to creatives.

His unique take on adding business strategy to creativity makes him a leader in the space. This unique perspective is apparent even in the way he lives his life!

Our podcast with him explored the different tactics he has within his workday and marketing strategies to ensure success. You can watch the complete video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CtqV_31rvJg

Or you could read on the 8 tips we picked up from our conversation that will help you imbibe his philosophy: 

8 Tips for Self and Marketing Success from Chris Do ?

1. Redefine “fake it till you make it” ?

“Fake it till you make it” is a phrase that usually means faking that you have the confidence to do what you want to do and do it as often as you can until you succeed with it. The phrase has been misdefined across the years and it’s important that people redefine it.

Chris believes in the phrase “fake it till you make it” but he has his own spin on it. According to him, everyone starts as an amateur but they start off by visualizing in their mind about being a champion. 

You need to believe something before you achieve something. This internal belief can push you towards success.

2. Have big hairy audacious goals ?

Chris Do swears by setting big hairy audacious goals (BHAG). A big hairy audacious goal, or BHAG, is a clear and compelling target for an organization to strive for. But, it sounds larger than just a goal. It’s an out-of-the-box challenge that sounds aspirational but with a set strategy, has the potential to be achieved.

Here’s what Chris Do had to say:

“ We have to think of ourselves in the future when it’s our last day on Earth and we’re in bed and we’re about to pass away. You have to think: what have you done with your life? How are you going to measure the success  your life?

But this measurement doesn’t just mean financial success. Here’s a thought Chris picked up from Jason Silva, known for hosting National Geographic documentaries: Brain Games and Origins.  

“The new billionaire is not going to be measured by the number of dollars and cents in their accounts. The new billionaire is going to be measured by the number of lives impacted positively.”

3. Using carousels to teach your audience ?

A great hack that Chris picked up is to break down content into teachable Instagram carousels. Carousels are highly interactive and your audience is sure to stay on the post and engage with it longer than a single image post. 

You can break your book or gated content into micro-information and sequence it into a carousel post. Ensure that your viewer has a powerful takeaway that they can implement in their life.

Chris Do uses ‘Keynote’ to create his carousels, not a design-powered tool like Figma or Photoshop. Keynote’s simplistic features make Chris focus more on the value of his content rather than beautifying his content. 

4. Create a library of content ⭐️

According to Chris, a lot of content on Instagram isn’t gaining traction because it is essentially just a reiteration of the same information that someone else has already put out. Instead, he suggests that creators draw from their inspiration and create unique content. This way, you’re sure to attract more engagement rather than a cookie-cutter version of someone else’s successful content.

Ensure that you have a library of content that viewers can engage with and they’d want to save for later reference. 

Chris Do templatizes his carousels so that he doesn’t have to spend too much time creating his designs from scratch. Templates are a great way to create your content in a time-efficient manner. He uses bullet points to keep his content crisp and easy to read. 

When creating your content, you must always have a CTA. What are you trying to get your audience to do? What is the ultimate action to be taken from your content? CTAs can give your audience more direction after engaging with your content. 

When viewers get to the end of the carousel, ensure that they get value and a conclusion to your “story”. 

5. Try to just teach with your content ?‍?

Both creators imbibe their own stories within their content, providing real-life examples to illustrate their point. Chris Do has a very unique approach to content. He doesn’t use his stories and instead, ensures his content is highly actionable. 

He goes further to provide too much content on his platforms, whether it’s Instagram or a recorded interview. Since the content will be available online even later on, it’s easier for his audience to save and go back to the content piece to digest it in chunks.

6. Read the comments from your audience ?

One pro-tip that Chris Do swears by is engaging with your own audience within the comments section. Converse and engage with folks who are leaving comments on your posts. Social media is a “social” space and it’s crucial to have conversations with people. 

By reading and responding to your audience, they are more likely to come back to you for your insights. Moreover, the responses you have to their questions can, in turn, be used as additional content. By engaging with audiences, you will never run out of ideas.

“One teaches to learn.”

7. Batch your work ?

Chris Do batches his work into different days. Batching is getting a long list of the same task completed over one to two days. How you batch your work depends on the amount of work you have and the kind of tasks you do. 

“Try to organize your life and day around the purpose of what you want to do, to reduce context switching. Dedicate blocks of time to do tasks.”

For Chris, all his writing is done on Monday while Tuesday is a learning day, reading or watching videos. He schedules all his meetings on Wednesdays and on Thursdays and Fridays, he produces content with his team.

8. Measure value with feedback from others, not yourself ?

Oftentimes, when creating content for your platforms or when speaking at an event, you’re sure to have self-doubt sitting on your shoulder once you’ve hit publish or you’ve exited the stage. Questions like “I didn’t do well enough” or “I didn’t create enough impact” are very common for almost everyone.

One way to get yourself out of this self-doubt loop is to never rely on self-evaluation. Instead, listen to what others are saying. This can be within your comments section or from people who approach you after your talk. Take note of this feedback and use it to improve or validate your work.

We hope these tips from Chris Do help you strategize your marketing and your everyday work better.