Guy Kawasaki is the chief evangelist of Canva, an online graphics-design service, and the author of The Art of the Start 2.0, Enchantment, and 11 other books. Formerly, he was an adviser to the Motorola business unit of Google and chief evangelist at Apple.

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I invited Guy to Marketing Smarts to discuss content marketing, social media, and his recent book The Art of Social Media, co-written with Peg Fitzpatrick.

Here are just a few highlights from our conversation:

Want to double engagement on your social posts? Add an image! (03:54): "My observation from my own social media is that you can double or triple engagement just by adding a picture. SEO people are jumping up and down when they get 10[%] or 15%, right? You could double this in content marketing just by adding a picture, and no black hat black magic."

Any business can use content marketing and social media, if they're willing to add value (13:12: "Let's say you are a market, and...you're going to use social media to [promote] your market. So, of course you would like to just run specials that say 'Mandarin Oranges This Week: Special,' or "Guinness Beer Special Price,' or whatever, right? But...you don't want to be a social media account that is simply couponing. You want to add value so that people reshare what you've posted and increase you're awareness, and all this kind of stuff.

"So, if I were a restaurant, let's say that Real Simple magazine wrote an article about how to organize all your Tupperware and containers... '"How to Reorganize Your Kitchen Drawer,' If I were the market, I would run that story. And let's say that Martha Stewart makes a two-minute video about how to remove the husk...from garlic cloves. Most people are out there with their fingernails and knives trying to cut it off. And I can tell you with total certainty if you put your garlic cloves in a Tupperware bowl, cover it, and just shake it, just shake it as hard as you can for 60 seconds, it'll be perfect—perfectly unhusked garlic cloves.And so, if Martha Stewart made that video, if I were the market, I would run that.

"And if Martha Stewart made a video about how to boil an egg so that it's easy to peel, I would run that. So now, the market is running this kind of content, people see it and say, 'Oh, man, this is really useful...' and so that person who gets it—the first-generation recipient—would reshare it and send it out to his or her social media followers, and they might reshare it, and soon, Martha Stewart is happy, but also the market is happy because more people are getting reshares of the market post, so they're getting more followers and more awareness, and someday people will pull into that market. And what did it cost? It cost finding the garlic clove removing video and sharing it on social media, which is roughly five minutes of work."

Earn the right to run your "pledge drive" (16:30): "If I were a large brand, I would...be thinking, 'So, what do my followers want to learn?' which is a different question than, 'what do I want to tell my followers?' So, if I were a market, I would say 'my followers want to learn how to cook.' If I were Virgin America, I would think my followers want to learn how to travel efficiently and enjoyably. And if I were Audi, I would think that my followers want to learn how to use their Audi best: where to travel, when to drive, what to do, how to winterize your car, this kind of thing. Audi would just love to pimp its new A3, and the market would like to just pimp it's new mandarin oranges. And Guy would like to just pimp his book.... You need to be like NPR—NPR provides great content and earns the right to run the pledge drive.

"So all of us need to earn the right to run our pledge drive. My pledge drive is going on right now, which is I am ramming Art of the Start down everybody's throat. My calculation is, 'Listen, 360 days of the year, I'm giving you great content. Five days of the year I'm going to tell you to buy my book. Man up, deal with it.'"

Brands don't need an army (or even an agency) to effectively use content marketing and social media (17:58): "If I were [a] brand, I would be constantly looking for stuff that's relevant to my followers. If I were Virgin America, I would find articles about how to pack, what kinds of shots or vaccinations should you take? How do you pack for an overnight in a duffle bag? Comparison: Should you get Global Entry vs. TSA Pre vs. Clear? What are the differences, what are the cost benefits? That's all very useful for people who travel, and those things will be reshared.... I know this for a fact, because I do it firsthand; it doesn't take a team of people, it takes one person. Two, maximum. It certainly does not take an agency. [If you're Motorola or Apple], you hire two people who love Motorola and love cell phones, or you hire two people who love iOS and love Macintosh and you say, 'Here, find us the best damn content you can that's the most relevant to our followers.' It's not that hard."

To learn more, visit GuyKawasaki.com or follow Guy on Twitter: @GuyKawasaki.

Guy and I covered a lot more ground, including why brands don't need a social media war room, so be sure to listen to the entire show, which you can do above, or download the mp3 and listen at your convenience. Guy also gives out his email at the end, in case you want to drop him a line! Of course, you can also subscribe to the Marketing Smarts podcast in iTunes or via RSS and never miss an episode!

This episode brought to you by CallidusCloud.

Special thanks to production sponsor Candidio, an efficient, affordable video production platform allowing marketers and communicators to collaborate and curate video content, with help from a team of professional, on-demand video editors for the finishing touches. Check them out!

Show opener music credit: Noam Weinstein.

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Published on March 11, 2015