Please note : This transcript is automatically generated and provided for your convenience.

Rob D. Willis: Welcome to Superpowered, the unique stories of modern leaders, where we uncover how exceptional people built their skill set so you don't have to learn everything the hard way. I'm Rob D. Willis, a storytelling consultant and speaker, and today I'm talking to Johnny Whitlam, a tour guide and content creator based Now, I actually used to work alongside Johnny back when I was a tour guide, but since then, he's gone on to grow his online presence to over 50, 000 followers, telling stories about the city in a really fun and interesting way.

Today, we're going to discover the real advantages of building an online presence, how to get started without getting overwhelmed, and most importantly, how you can do it in a way that feels [00:01:00] authentic to you and your expertise. If you haven't done so yet, please make sure to subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.

But Without further ado, please enjoy this conversation with Johnny Whitlam.

Johnny, welcome to the

show.

Jonny Whitlam: Rob, hello.

Rob D. Willis: We've known each other for a while because you started your journey like me as a tour guide. And since then, you've actually gone on to build a great brand. And I would say you're probably The number one creator on Berlin history online out there, people have to go follow you.

But for people who don't know your work yet, could you just give a quick introduction, who you are and what you're doing

right

now.

Jonny Whitlam: Yeah glad to be here. Thanks very much. So yeah, so my name is Johnny Whitlam and I've been a tour guide here in Berlin for 14 years now, . And as for what I do like right now, or I should say for the last couple of years is I started to make quite a lot of online content.

I started with a couple of blogs and self guided tours.

I have my own [00:02:00] podcast, History Flakes, the Berlin history podcast. But the thing that I think people mostly know me for, and the reason why I gained quite a few followers is making very short and informative videos on both Instagram and TikTok.

The city. And thank you for saying that I might be the number one. There are some really good people out there who I would put in front of me.

Rob D. Willis: But they're not as good because they're not on this show. There you go.

Jonny Whitlam: That's the delineating factor, yeah.

Rob D. Willis: There you go., there's so many aspects of what you do that we could go into. I love your storytelling. I love how you find those stories. But really what I thought would be most useful to my audience is simply how you've been able to build a presence and influence online. And when we think of influencers, we're thinking of the condition, Kardashians and stuff, but I feel, and I've seen it with you that building this kind of influence can really help people who, who have a job already. So, Let's say someone's thinking about building presence online. What would you say would be the main advantages for them?

For them?

Jonny Whitlam: I think number one, and this may be a little bit cynical, but it's a kind of, it's advertising, right? You're building, whether intentionally or not, you're building a brand [00:03:00] because you're building familiarity. There's a, there's a word for this, the kind of relationship you build with somebody. What's it called?

Parasocial. Yeah? So you you know, you see somebody enough and as long as they're not, you know, raving lunatic, you kind of start to trust them. You know, if you're regularly hitting that like button and so on. So what they're talking about is kind of meaningful to you. And I would say that everybody listening knows a lot about a thing.

They're passionate about a thing. And if that thing is also their job, then great. You can start talking about these things. Another thing is and I think having seen some videos that you've made, you would agree, is that it allows you to explore your creativity. You know, often in jobs, we're doing the same things multiple times a day, a week, or whatever.

And you don't always get to be so creative. You might have good ideas, it might not be the right time to take a risk, blah, blah. blah. With online content, yeah, you can take a risk at being funny or very serious. The good thing about social content that flops is [00:04:00] not many people see it.

You can, you can take risks.

And then one of the final things that I think is super important. Is direct feedback. And I mean, I'm working with with history. Some of the facts are objective, right, when it comes to a date or whatever.

Some are subjective, okay. But I don't get everything right all the time, you know, the same way that nobody does. And, and and you do get that instant feedback. And, and, you know, some internet commenters are best ignored. But some people are able to give you really good constructive feedback, which, which, yeah, especially for someone who works alone, is, you know, I hate to sound like a cliche, but it really is a blessing, right?

Rob D. Willis: So it's Marketing, let's say that's only one aspect of it, then it's also a way that you can explore your own creativity and expand your knowledge through connecting with others online, be that in your own comment section or meeting other creators. That's awesome. And let's just go back to So when you began, what was the thing that [00:05:00] made you want to start? What made you think, okay, I'm going to upload some, some videos and some photos

about Berlin?

Jonny Whitlam: So so actually I had never used Instagram or TikTok before I decided I'm going to make videos for Instagram and TikTok, so I had a kind of lot to learn in a way, but I also think that this is great. Good, right? This is, this is useful, in that when you enter a new world, you can see things for what they are, I suppose. And so I just started to see a few tour guides online, a couple of really great guides in London Bowl of Chalk and Jack Cheshire, both of whom are not hurting for followers. I imagine a lot of people listening would follow them. And History Alice, who's not a tour guide, I think, but she does kind of tour guide ish content and At the time I kind of learned about her.

She already had like a million followers or so. And yeah, she prevents, she presents these stories of like what can I say? Like English history stuff that I actually, if I'm being honest, I don't think has as broad of an [00:06:00] audience as the kind of stuff I get to talk about in Berlin when it comes to, you know, World War II stuff and, the Berlin wall kind of stuff.

So I thought, okay, if she can make like. niche facts about a rural church in England, you know, work for a million followers, then sure, I can make World War II work, right? And the other thing that made me start is which we'll get into a little bit more later on, I think, is I, I'd recently quit a management role, having realized that that wasn't for me.

And actually, because I'd chosen to quit, I didn't qualify for unemployment payments for a few months. Fair enough. So I thought, okay, I used to be a tour guide, I'll just jump back into that to bridge the gap. But I'd previously been a manager of a tour guide company, and I knew the money that came in versus what was paid out.

And to put it bluntly, I knew that I could earn in one hour what other companies would pay me for. Two to three hours so if you can earn in one hour, what other people will pay you in one day, effectively.

Rob D. Willis: hmm.

Jonny Whitlam: It's [00:07:00] worth the risk. It's worth trying. And so, yeah, that's, that's turned into how I work now. I don't, I don't work with other, agencies now. I don't, I don't need to.

Rob D. Willis: You find you see this opportunity. And there's a difference between seeing the opportunity and having an idea. Was there maybe a moment where you thought, I'm going to do this, I'm going to go and shoot a video now. And if so, what was the first video? How

did you choose it?

Jonny Whitlam: Yeah, the moment was thinking, Okay, again, I looked really closely at History Alice and her frequency of posting and it was one video every three days. And so I thought, okay, that's however many that is a year, I don't know. How many stories do I have in my head as someone who's been a tour guide at that point for over a decade?

And so I, I opened up a custom Google map and I just started pinpointing where I thought the I had a story. Doesn't mean I know the story, I know all the facts, I just know that there is a story. And, without opening [00:08:00] a single book, I put 500 points on a map. And I was like, oh, okay, that's enough for several years of Content, right? So, and that's really without thinking, or without doing any hard work. So, okay, like, I know that this is out there. And then how did I choose the first ones? Gosh, one of them was a story that I tell on my tours. A story of a family who I know, I know, you know, the story of it for the benefit of the listener.

A family who escaped off the top of an East German government building over the Berlin Wall into the West and so on. That's it. What can I say? Nobody dies. There's danger. I knew I could go to the location, I could get the b roll, and it's a story that I've told verbally for, for several years. The difficulty comes in telling a version that fits into, you know, one to two minutes, you know, even after editing. But, yeah, that was an easy one to begin with. But I remember I shot it, edited it, I was alright with it, I showed my [00:09:00] girlfriend and she was like, This sucks and I don't know who would watch it.

And her main criticism, she gave finer criticism than that but her main criticism was, that I looked like angry and it was because I was concentrating and so I learned to loosen up a little bit and I think everyone has to learn to be somewhat natural in front of a camera. But yeah so my very first one I didn't actually post.

I went and redid the whole thing. Yeah.

Rob D. Willis: But I mean, that's, I think a couple of lessons people can take from that. Even your idea with the map, maybe people don't have a map, they're not talking about history, but they've got a process or a problem that they solve, and there's all kinds of things that they can talk about, just lay it out without any research, have a big choice of things to do, and then pick one which is kind of easy, which you've explained a lot already,

and you know [00:10:00] is

Jonny Whitlam: Yeah, definitely lean on your experience and if you're talking about, you know, more traditional. office work, then there are, you know, there's a guide to this software or the reason for using this kind of practice with, one to one meetings or whatever. When you actually think I could, I've only got 60 seconds, you have to break it down, break it down, break it down break it down until you've got just this tiny little thing you can talk about.

Rob D. Willis: I think creativity needs a border. For sure. But without going too much into storytelling, can we just, you're at quite an advanced stage now, you've got over 50, 000 followers on Instagram, it's been really cool seeing your, your growth. If you were to break up your journey into broad phases, let's say, take a very high level, what would those main sort of phases be,

would

you say?

Jonny Whitlam: It were. First one is just flat out becoming a tour guide. I've always been quite a confident person, so thinking that you can [00:11:00] just move to a place, which is what I did. For the job, and they'd be like, Oh yeah, I know everything. It's fine. That maybe speaks to a little bit of overconfidence, but I was, you know, I was 21. And so starting out as a tour guide and just basically learning that craft, at the same time I became a guide though, my hobby was, photography.

And I used to carry a camera with me everywhere, you know, before your phone was really good enough. And I would take and post lots of photos. Eventually I kind of fell out of that as a hobby, but it's those skills that I learned working with cameras that then really helped me with the video production later on. So those two kind of came at the same time. After guiding for five years or so, an opportunity came at one of the agencies I worked for to become a manager. So that's a distinct, phase two. And I think like a lot of, businesses, no matter what business you're in, quite often when you become a manager, you don't do the thing that you're good at anymore. Yeah.

You help other people do it. And so I did that job for another [00:12:00] seven years.

And crucially, as a few people listening may have learned in their lives, I also learned that I don't like being a manager. I had quite a large team. and I just found that you would only ever manage the people who need managing and the people who are good at what they do. They're good. They go off, they do it.

And that's how I then came into this this third stage, which was almost by accident, really, like I said, I just kind of picked this up again to fill the gap. So I could have stopped applying for, you know, quote real jobs, but

then I made my own website. That's another thing I've learned to do as a manager.

And I got out and I took all my own photos. So this website looked good. And I implemented a payment system that I'd learned at that job I did for only, 10 weeks. I worked for the company that provides the payment system that I use. And all of those skills kind of came together to to allow me to then.

have that base that's there

to then start to, hey, how do I get customers? Right. It's [00:13:00] 2023 or two or whatever it was, make videos.

Rob D. Willis: And since beginning to start, like up to now, you've got, it's basically the engine of, of what you do. Are there any stages you feel you have to go through? People talk about the first thousand, the first 10, 000 or whatever. Did it all just kind of feel linear and the same or just kind of doing the same thing over and over again?

Or does the game change

as you

grow?

Jonny Whitlam: I think I could just keep doing what I did at the beginning, and I still make a lot of those kinds of videos. I got quite lucky that I got a viral video within my first two months of posting. Which is still my most viewed, thing. But I don't like to stand still.

And so I've, and it's also easy to get addicted to numbers. You know, uh, I can look at this video. That's got almost 5 million views on TikTok. I can tell you, it didn't get me 5 million sales. You know, I'm a tour guide, I have to be there, you [00:14:00] know there's a limiting factor. But, it helps keep things moving, but the people who are probably going to buy from you are in that core that are going to watch every video, to be honest. So building up that core is one, you know, it's only, it's probably the most important part. That means, you know, Interacting, it means answering their comments, questions, whatever. I don't, I don't view that stuff as work, I just enjoy that, so that's nice. But yeah, and then when it comes to a couple of years in, what do I do differently? Maybe it's more what I see behind the scenes than what an average viewer sees, but I try to do More collaborations. The advice would be to do collaborations with larger accounts, but Quite frankly, as far as I'm aware, I have the largest account of what I do Which is specifically History in Berlin on Instagram so, you know, cool, but I'm happy to Actually use that.

People like that big number and that allows me to say [00:15:00] to a museum, hey, could I come to your museum. Could you show me around? Give me a private tour of this museum and I'll make this video about it and we'll we'll get it out there online. You know, these are places that don't necessarily make a lot of money and so it's a real win, win that I get to then go and kind of show these, show off these places and try to show things people, that people can't usually see or, you know, get the information from the curator or from an expert or so on and yeah, that's I guess how it's then developed rather from just being me.

Rob D. Willis: Okay. So it sounds then like I mean, you can think about this. And when you read, watch, I don't know, some YouTube video about growing online, it feels almost like a computer game and you're completing levels, but your journey sounds much more organic. You sort of felt your way along and thought, Oh, that's cool.

Or I can collaborate with them and gradually built up over time, which, to be honest, sounds like a more attractive prospect than [00:16:00] the quite transactional

approach that lots

Jonny Whitlam: I mean to that I would say, say yes to things and try things, right? People do talk about, yeah, your first thousand followers, you can just try stuff, and I think that's, it's kind of trying to see what will work, but it's also trying to see what you like doing and what you're good at doing as well.

Rob D. Willis: What would you say then are a couple of the challenging moments along that path?

Jonny Whitlam: Having to produce stuff is quite a challenge in and of itself, right? You know, this ball is rolling and and you can only, ignore it for so long. You know, I've had a couple of weeks where I was like, I just don't have the time and whatever. It is important to take that advice to not get addicted to the numbers.

It's advice I was given very early on, which is nice, because yeah, I had a five month run of no growth in 2024, which was very frustrating because I was producing. The same amount and in my opinion, the same quality of content. [00:17:00] I actually did some collaborations as well with a couple of big accounts.

I did everything that every kind of social media guru says you should do. And I think in one month I got a net positive of 22 new followers. Which means I probably had 500 new ones and 500 people leave and so on. And it's tempting to say, Oh, they're all bots. But if it's all bots leaving, why is it not all bots joining? Right? It, you can't. You can tell yourself that stuff to make yourself feel happy. So that's, that's quite tough. But then I had my best month of the year right in December. But the lesson as well is to kind of, if you like what you're doing and you're sure that this is what you want to do, you want to keep going down this path, Then keep going down this path.

Rob D. Willis: . Are there any other things that have happened along the way? Where you've just thought I is this worth it? Can I really be bothered to make these these videos? Is it just the numbers and the time? Or what other things can people expect?

Jonny Whitlam: To be honest with you, I haven't yet had that thought. Is this really worth it? Should I stop doing [00:18:00] this? The only part I I don't like is the editing. Now for some people, it might be the filming, the scripting. I I don't know, but the researching the new information, cause I, I go to all of the places I talk about, right? So I, I've gone to a lot more kind of corners of town that are lesser visited. and and frankly, I just find that so fulfilling, for for myself. Not just that I get to show it to people.

Rob D. Willis: I feel that a lot of people who start something like this, this journey for a specific purpose of promoting a business, and they sit down with chat GPT and map out, these are the titles I need for my business to convert clients. I feel that that might have. Be more challenging to maintain

motivation

with than following a more organic Approach of that's cool and kind of related to

what

I

do

Jonny Whitlam: Oh, yeah, I mean well I would agree, but I'm fairly biased in this. But [00:19:00] yeah, just kind of follow what you're interested in. Because one of the great things about the internet is everybody can find somebody else that's interested in the same thing as them. You know in a way there are That nothing is niche anymore, right?

We talk about finding your niche and, you know, it's obviously a slightly different thing. But if you're really passionate about something, then that will come through. Here's an example. I have a friend who is really into Formula One.

Rob D. Willis: Mm hmm.

Jonny Whitlam: And he's quite well known in Formula One circles. And when we were teenagers and we were interested in the same music and video games and we had the same friends and everything, Formula One wasn't it.

Like, not for me. But he loved it and when he talks about it, it's interesting. I can see why it's interesting. His face lights up and it's like, oh cool, I kind of get it, right? I understand. And then I walk away and I'm like, I'm never gonna watch that, right? I'm not interested. And what I'm trying to get to, I mean, I've had a similar experience going [00:20:00] to, like, museums and art galleries. If there's a thing I'm not that interested in, but the person I'm with is,

you feed off of that excitement. Well, you need people to feed off of your excitement. If you're making content that you don't care about, who else is gonna care about it? I'll take that. Tell

Rob D. Willis: I really agree. And that's kind of led to the concept of this show. I talked to business people and non business people about their thing, because I really like hearing about their zone of genius and the thing that they are passionate about. I find it so exciting, even if I don't really understand everything that they're telling me. But if you were, if you were to take your journey, growing in this way from from tour guide to history, documentary influencer, what would you, if you tried a big business book about that? What do you think you'd call it?

Jonny Whitlam: I need to let people peek behind the curtain a little bit. You asked me this in advance, [00:21:00] and I was like ruoaf I don't know, man. So I immediately asked chat. GPT

Rob D. Willis: Let's hear

it.

Jonny Whitlam: I picked three. Rewriting the map. Lessons from a Berlin tour guide turned media mogul.

Rob D. Willis: Wow, that's so

80s.

Jonny Whitlam: Beyond the streets. Building a history business for the digital age. And here's the third one. Last chat GPT one. History in motion, turning stories into streams of income.

Rob D. Willis: mean,

Jonny Whitlam: it's perfect. Chat GPT can replace me. My real answer would be along the lines of winging it. I'm pretty sure winging, winging it already exists, but. It's kind of what you hit upon before with my kind of organic approaches. I just do what I feel like needs being done.

Rob D. Willis: And on that note, what I'd like to do is move on to how we could help someone else do this, the sort of practical application of what you learned [00:22:00] during your journey. So let's just say, you know, someone, they they're working full time, but they want to build a presence online.

And they've decided this year 2025, they are going to make that happen. Could you walk us through your

approach?

Jonny Whitlam: My approach at the beginning in particular was a lot more structured. And we've talked a bit about winging it and it's kind of true. But it was also structured, right? I kept to that same thing that History Hours did, that I saw of releasing a new video every three days. I did that for three to four months before I fell into a routine of actually releasing on average two new ones per week and sometimes filling that gap with with repeats, which you can do on Instagram and TikTok, not so much.

But that meant if I'm going to put two out a week, I need to have a plan of when I'm going to record. So I had to block that time. Now for me, that had to be daytime. So I picked what would be downtime, for a tour guide, which was Tuesdays. Wednesdays, I knew it would always work, right? For someone who's already doing a 40 [00:23:00] hour week, yeah, you've, something else has got to give, right? You have to block that time to learn how to do this and to practice how to do this. And if you want to post once a week, twice a week, three times a week, then you need to block that time to write, record, edit, and post. It's as simple as that. And,

Rob D. Willis: you think they should do it all in one go? Or are you a big fan of the batching

thing

that people

Jonny Whitlam: If your setup is going to be inside, in your office, for example, then, definitely a batch because I think it's quite hard to block out that amount of time, for most people. There's one person I follow online who, actually, he records his stuff. On the way to the supermarket and in the supermarket.

So he's kind of killing

Rob D. Willis: Dale Winton.

Jonny Whitlam: A famous Nottingham lad, yeah. Yeah, but I mean that [00:24:00] Like, that's, it kind of brags a lot, but it makes sense, right? That's killing two birds with one stone. And honestly, for a lot of the stuff, the visuals don't matter so much. So long as the picture is clear and the audio is clear, if you're a good speaker, people are gonna stop and listen.

And I think as well, there's a different vibe to being outside and moving. than there is to staying still in an office with a bookshelf behind you. And I think that kind of, oh, this person's doing something, uh, this works really well. Actually Rob, this is something you know quite a bit about with the whole, the trend of like posting two videos at the same time where one is just a thing that's happening, like someone making a sandwich or like some factory machinery working and that really holds our attention.

I think they're quite negative about those, but they work.

Rob D. Willis: Do. But the thing is, I always wonder like they make us stay for the video. But do we actually listen

to

what the

Jonny Whitlam: Oh, yeah.

Rob D. Willis: in

Jonny Whitlam: And it's smacks of stolen And cheap content. I don't recommend [00:25:00] that people do it. But what I was recommending is if you're, if you're, if you're doing something, even if it's not related to what you're saying, like walking to the supermarket, I think, I think that works. I think that holds people's attention more.

Because more of the screen is moving. More kind of things are alive.

Rob D. Willis: So let's just say step one, you need to have a little bit of a plan because building a hobby, becomes a lot easier if you know when you're going to do it and you set aside some time to do it. And If possible, back to some content, but the main thing is, create some sort of plan, a frequency you're going to post, and when you're going to write and record and edit that video.

Okay, that's step one. What happens next?

Jonny Whitlam: Depending on what your industry is, Tourism is the last industry to reach, especially when it comes to experiences. We're the last to get on board with a lot of tech. But whatever your industry is, get on board [00:26:00] with the innovations that are happening. The last two to three years, or is it two years really, of AI?

It's been crazy. The way that we work with computers is changing completely. I'm Yeah, we've mentioned chat GPT a couple of times already, and people people that don't know about it don't really understand it, which I'm guessing is largely not the audience that's listening to this. They just think, oh, it just produces stuff and you just copy and paste it and you're lazy.

And it's a bit like, it's a bit like saying, well, why are you using that typewriter? This pen works just fine. You know, you're going to be able to get a lot more done a lot faster and, particularly in tourism because I find that people are quite slow to jump onto whatever the new thing is. It can give you a significant advantage.

If I'm thinking of more traditional office work, if you're going to talk about this new stuff, you better know what you're talking about. But that's always going to be a draw for people. Because people, people are interested in novelty. So it's kind of, it's good [00:27:00] to think of that stuff. It's good to talk about this stuff, but you'll also learn from it. If you're on top of all the new things that are out there, and Rob, I'm sure you're more up to date on a lot more software and AI things than I am, but you will, you will learn a lot and you might find that one thing out there that works for you. And that's great, especially if you've kind of got receipts as people say, right?

So you can say, Oh, I tried this new thing. I now use it for This, you know, I've automated this process, it saved me this much time. It might sound quite bland the way I say it, but if it's the thing, if it's the area that you really care about,

your audience will care about it.

Rob D. Willis: How are you using AI2GPT for your

videos?

Jonny Whitlam: Oh, one way so this is, this is quite something, actually, I work with an account that's owned by the German foreign office. And, I've been asked to produce a video about about uh, Holocaust Memorial Day, which is the 27th of January each year. And so, I didn't have a lot of time to [00:28:00] do this.

It kind of came as a surprise. So I quickly wrote out a script, just based on pre existing knowledge in my head. And then, you know, I asked it to fact check it, I asked ChetGPT to say, you know, critique this, is there anything I've kind of glossed over, blah, blah, blah, and it gave me, a good few suggestions of, like, yeah, use examples here, cut out this word.

Just general proofreading, like, oh, the sentence structure is just wrong, right? my my opening sentence, I just I just miswritten it. and and bear in mind that the client was going to see this. So, yes, I could proofread myself. But at the very same time, that I hit return on. Oh, tell me what you think of this script.

Yeah. I got the proofreading and I also got these, these editorial suggestions. And again, we're talking about a topic that I, that I know about, so I'm not going to be like, Oh, I'm not going to fall for any kind of hallucinations that come up with this topic. That is obviously something to be aware of, especially with a topic that's serious. But but yeah, I I genuinely believe that, you know, Running my scripts by this thing have, [00:29:00] have, have improved it in in concrete ways.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. Yeah, that, that's the most important part of the video. But the, so you need a plan, try things out to help you with your process to get better at it, to get faster at it. Any other thing else you would recommend

that they do?

Jonny Whitlam: Yes start. Like, just start.

If the first time you sat behind the steering wheel in a car, a manual transmission and you, you know, you kangarooed down the road and you didn't know what you were doing. Yeah, you look like an idiot and you felt like an idiot and the second time was better and so on.

That's what's gonna happen. So, You know, make some bad content. It's okay, because you'll think that it's good and you'll look back at it a year or two later and you'll be like, Oh, I would do that differently and that differently. It's because it's a skill and you learn unlike other skills. You have to learn in front of people.

And that's the scary part for most people. That's what turns most people away. But that's also why there's a lot of opportunity there because most people will never bother and you can reach so many people. Yeah. You can get so much better at what you [00:30:00] do that's not the videos or content or whatever, and you can make so many more connections and get so many more opportunities because frankly putting this work in is quite difficult, in terms of the time commitment and so on.

Rob D. Willis: So we've got really one, two, three, make a plan, find a process and keep iterating on that and just get bloody started. Awesome stuff. Let's move on just to a couple of rapid fire questions. Don't need long answers

here.

But

Jonny Whitlam: They're my

specialty.

Rob D. Willis: This maybe is not your area, but What do you feel is the most underrated platform for professional presence right now?

Jonny Whitlam: Allow me to answer your question with a question. No there is no bad platform. How many millions, billions of people use these things? The people that you're looking for are there. There is no bad platform. I think if you don't like LinkedIn, if you find LinkedIn frustrating, if you're trying to build an audience there, then don't post on LinkedIn.

I follow a [00:31:00] bunch of guys who talk about SEO on TikTok. It's great. It's turned at least part of my TikTok use into something really useful and valuable for me.

Rob D. Willis: Have you got a non-business book? So basically a story which has unexpectedly helped you or inspired you

Jonny Whitlam: The most inspiring history book I've read recently is a woman in Berlin, which, is a genuine diary of a woman who was in Berlin during the Soviet invasion at the end of World War II and it just shows you the real minutiae, the human side to everything that people went through as, you know, the world's largest single ever amassed force came into the capital of Nazi Germany and, you know And that's such a big story, but to, but to see this real human side is And it's a, it's a really, really really amazing, book that I think you can just learn a lot from when it comes to humanity in general. I don't know how you'd apply it to [00:32:00] business, but you should definitely read it.

Rob D. Willis: Yeah. No, I think that's going to be a good one. Good one to check out. Lastly, what's the quickest way you've found to test if content will resonate?

Jonny Whitlam: Aside from posting it.

Rob D. Willis: Aside from posting it. Do you do any work pre posting?

Jonny Whitlam: all of the videos that are very popular that I've done Now, if you were to pick my three videos with the highest amounts of views on Instagram, I would have told you before posting them that they weren't going to do that well. And so the lesson is actually the kind of the opposite in that I don't know, I still don't know what will be what what will resonate with with my audience when it turns to, when it comes out to like the most successful stuff.

But the lesson to not knowing is keep producing stuff. Because, you know, during Germany hosted the Euro football last year and I made quite a few videos about football including international football, including the 1936 Olympics, Hitler getting angry at Germany, losing, this kind of stuff.

And that stuff [00:33:00] flopped.

Rob D. Willis: And you and you figured that this is this has

got to work.

Jonny Whitlam: yeah. yeah. yeah. I thought that's a shoe in, right? Everything's football focused at the moment. But in February last year I posted a video about the tiles in a particular U Bahn station and why they're decorated like that and people were like, This is amazing!

Rob D. Willis: Last thing I'd love to do for the episode today is our listener challenge. So every week we give listeners an exercise or a ritual, something they can try out just for this week. Maybe longer if they like it, but just to get an idea of how to get a little bit of your superpower, have you got

something for people?

Jonny Whitlam: Try to do seven posts this week. Be that LinkedIn, Instagram. Facebook, whatever platform it is that you're curious about or most comfortable with, try to do seven posts about the thing you care about. They don't all have to be super edited videos, as I talked about. Getting two of those [00:34:00] done a week is quite a challenge, right?

It could be a photo, an infographic, an achievement, something you want to do, something you know a lot about. As soon as you start brainstorming these ideas, you'll find out that you have way more than seven. So pick seven that you like, that you don't have to think, would these be successful or not?

Just pick seven that you like and get them done. Be consistent about it.

Rob D. Willis: So let's maybe thinking back over the whole conversation. Make it even more concrete. Write out 20 ideas, pick seven, schedule a time to make the thing, as much time as you think you can dedicate to this, and then post seven times.

Sound about

Jonny Whitlam: Yep, that's it. And then hopefully, when we get to day seven, you'll think, Oh, that was fun. Oh, I learned that. I could do this more often. I could do this two, three, four times a week. Or every day, if you think you can. But you won't get anywhere [00:35:00] with social media if you don't post. Sounds silly, but

Rob D. Willis: We'll see. I've been waiting. It's gonna happen for

Jonny Whitlam: You're good, man. You're good.

Rob D. Willis: You're too kind. But anyway, Johnny, it's been really fun talking to you. Where can people find out more

about what you do?

Jonny Whitlam: They can put Johnny Whitlam into Google. Because the only other Jonathan Whitlam that's famous writes books about tractors and we are often mixed up. But people will then be able to find me on, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, Threads, Blue Sky, and on my own website where they can see my tours and follow my blog and all sorts.

And one last thing. before we leave, is to say, that over the last couple of years, I got quite a lot of good advice, from a certain Mr. Robert D. Willis, and a lot of critique and feedback and help. And so, yeah my, I'm happy with where I've got, but nobody gets anywhere by themselves. And so, [00:36:00] yeah, thank you very much, Rob.

Rob D. Willis: And thank you for coming on today. Johnny, it's been really cool talking to you. Cheers. That was Johnny Whitlam sharing how he turned his passion for Berlin's history into a thriving online presence. And I love his point about not needing to know what will resonate. Just keep creating content which genuinely interests you and your audience is going to find you. If you've enjoyed this conversation, please be sure to rate and review the show wherever you listen to podcasts.

And if you know someone who's thinking about building their presence online, share this episode with them. Sometimes all it takes is that one perspective to get started. I'm Rob D. Willis, and I look forward to seeing you next week for another episode of Superpowered, the unique stories of modern leaders.

Goodbye.

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