Ep.27 – Using Animation to Increase Profits with Kim Emson

Introduction [00:00:02] Welcome to the All About Digital Marketing podcast. The show all about digital marketing, digital marketing, digital marketing, digital marketing brought to you by Social INK, the digital marketing agency specialising in social media and content marketing for brave brands and forward-thinking SMEs. I’m your host, Chris Bruno, and as always, we’re here to bring you the most actionable tips, tricks, tools and insights to help you achieve more when it comes to your digital marketing. Subscribe to the show and be sure to share with a friend if you found something useful or interesting. You can find all the show notes and more information on www.AllAboutDigitalMarketing.co.uk

Chris Bruno [00:00:54] Kim, thank you very much for joining us today.

Kim Emson [00:00:56] Hi there. You’re welcome. Thanks for having me.

Chris Bruno [00:00:59] No, it’s an absolute pleasure. It’s I’m enjoying actually, the podcast gives me this amazing opportunity to just start talking to phenomenal people. So it’s been a great experience so far and it continues as well. And that’s how we ended up connected and ended up having this conversation. For everybody out there that doesn’t know much about you, hasn’t met you yet. But can you tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got into it?

Kim Emson [00:01:22] Yeah. With pleasure. So I’m Kim Emson and I’m an animator, so I help businesses and organizations extend their reach through the power of animation. I like to not only make the animation, but I’m really keen on supporting people. And sort of bit of a hand holding process of getting people to learn how to use the content better and more effectively to get some real results from it rather than just, “we’ve done the animation now, here you go”, hand it over. And I also like working in healthcare quite a lot as well.

Chris Bruno [00:01:57] Okay. What sort of. Okay. So many questions. Healthcare animation. Talk us through that.

Kim Emson [00:02:05] Yes, sure. So in about 2015, maybe 2014, I started to get a lot more sort of health care animations coming through. Some of them were NHS ones, but some of them were health apps and all the kind of products that they were trying to either sell to, sell to the NHS or sell to the public. So, you know, to consumers and so that downloads or whatever.

Kim Emson [00:02:36] So I’ve done some content around that nice kind of was like, I quite like doing this. I think I want to roll with this. And, you know, it seemed like a mutual thing because I’ve had quite a few in a row. So they were drawn to me, too.

Kim Emson [00:02:50] And I think I quite like doing this. And the people, nice people that are trying to help other people. And I was like, yeah, I mean, like every time someone’s watched one of my animation, I’m helping someone else because they’re a step nearer to the health care they need. It sounds so like twee, but I realised that. And, you know, after say, I’ve done animations where I’m helping to sell more burgers or more coffee. Do you get what I’m saying?

Chris Bruno [00:03:16] I’m saying absolutely. It sounds like there’s a feel good factor there. And like you said not helping to push obesity with a new burger. Although I’ve got to be honest, we do like doing those sort of briefs as well because it always makes us hungry. I’m not saying that we’re influenced by our own marketing or anything like that, but. OK, cool. So it talk us a little bit through a little bit about animation as well. So from my side.

Chris Bruno [00:03:41] Obviously, social media content marketing is so important. I believe it’s the cornerstone for pretty much like, say, every business out there. What sort of animations and what sort of ways can businesses, especially small to mid-sized businesses, how can they get involved and use animation to help boost their business, to help create this content?

Kim Emson [00:03:59] This is a very good question. I love it because I think a lot of businesses just think they need A video. Any video will do. And actually, you know, you can’t just have one size fits all, a video that’s going to be the saviour of your marketing problems. And it’s suddenly going to be a boost, an injection to your marketing. You’re gonna need to work out really what you want to achieve, some aims and objectives and create the right kind of animation around that. And obviously, certainly, I know that consistent regular animated content is the best result is the best thing, the best solution, rather. But obviously, there’s layers of businesses that perhaps they’re going to want to invest in one animation at a time and build up slowly, you know, for budget purposes.

Kim Emson [00:04:49] Of course, they’re going to be like, well, we can’t do that. We’re just going to do one big animation. But no. Try and focus on something in particular you want to solve. So it could be you really, really need to attract more web traffic so you can design a certain kind of animation to do that. Or you might want an animation that will help convert traffic. So if you’ve already got a good flow of traffic, but you’ve just not got conversion rates, you could try and design an animation that’s very much based on your websites to help convert and those justice. And those are two completely the kind of content you’d including those two animations is completely different. So you could have, like I say one to attract to one to explain a convert. But equally, I’ve had I’ve worked with some companies and even some of the healthcare companies I’ve worked with that want to do an animation to recruit. And so that’s obviously people who want to do that. I’ve worked out beforehand, you know, a real good aim and objectives. There’s not as much of an issue there with someone. So you either want to recruit or you don’t. So you want a specific animation around that. That’s really good because they’ve got a really clear objective. And it’s obvious that that kind of animation is completely different from an explainer video. That’s fine. I’ve done some videos like that.

Kim Emson [00:05:56] Or you might want to do the kind of videos that educate your audience a bit more and really help build an audience. Which would probably, you know, if you were trying to build sort of more of an audience on LinkedIn or you want to build more of an audience on Facebook or something. So, again, that is completely different kind of content from an explainer video. So it certainly isn’t a case of one animation fits all, at all. And maybe some organisations either don’t realise that or they are so perhaps budget conscious and it feels like quite an investment for them that that’s the way that he can only think. Think about one video. To win them all or something.

Chris Bruno [00:06:39] So there’s a couple of things that you’ve said there that completely resonate with me. And also what we talk about a lot on both on this show and also as an agency when we’re talking to clients. The first one that you’ve mentioned there, you know, starting with a clear objective. What’s this for? And it’s something that sounds crazy. I tell this story quite a bit. We were on the call with a potential new client. We were talking to them as a business that turns over millions of pounds a year. They’re doing very well. And they’ve been using an agency for about two years to do all their social media to keep pushing our content. And I said, well, you know, how’s it going? You know, what are you achieving the results that you were setting out to do and is it working for you? And they were like that. What do you mean by that? Well, what would the objectives and how are you doing compared to that? And literally the call went deadly quiet. And we realized suddenly, you know, this idea of actually doing things for the sake of doing it without a clear objective. So like you just mentioned there, trying to have this one video that captures everything from bringing more people in, educating people, explaining how the product works and selling and converting clients. And you’re like that. You can’t do everything. One piece of content will never do absolutely everything. And I think that’s something that’s huge. Like you were saying that, you know, depending on what it is that you’re actually trying to do, what it is you’re trying to actually achieve. That’s what’s going to dictate what you actually then create. And the second part you said as well that I think is really, really important. Again, I said this to a lot of companies and businesses. Consistency. You mentioned it there. Sort of the one off, kind of budgets. And we understand that everyone’s got budgets and we all have to kind of figure out ways to live within that. But consistently turning up for your audience is probably going to be a 10x factor in comparison to having like you mentioned, that just one off video that you try and think is going to solve all your problems, especially for marketing in general. But that consistency is such a huge thing. Did you find that a lot of companies see much better results as soon as they do start doing them consistently?

Kim Emson [00:08:39] Yeah, they do, they do. Those that have done it consistently. They still. What’s the word I’m looking for? They still commissioned me. That’s the word I was looking for, commission. They still commissioned me a couple of times throughout the year. It wasn’t like we have to decide all in one. Go in and do it all in one go, and commit that way either, you know. So I did about five pieces of content at the start of the year and then a bit more later on in the year. And they were building a Facebook presence and it really worked well for them. I think like they increased their profits by a third as well as, you could see the evidence on Facebook pages of the engagements and the page likes. All of that had really increased. Obviously, ultimately at the end, they increased their profits by a third. But they had put in a whole load of effort into all sorts of marketing and were really ignited in, committing into their marketing and new marketing strategy and actually committing a nice significant budget to that as well. So that really made a difference to them.

Chris Bruno [00:09:45] Yeah. And I think that’s something for everyone to kind of bear in mind, starting with a good strategy and being prepared to invest. And not everyone can invest money. We know that.

Chris Bruno [00:09:54] But there’s definitely going to be time and resources that you can put in to being able to do that consistently and to get those results over time by putting the work in. Okay, cool.

Chris Bruno [00:10:05] So from your side then, how do you. I’m guessing you’re a freelancer or is it a small agency like your own agency that you’ve set up?

Kim Emson [00:10:13] Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. Is it? Because I guess a lot of the time it’s partly about how you define yourself or how others perceive you. And I think I defined myself as a freelancer for a while and probably. For the first five years, I was more like or slightly less a freelancer. Then after that, I kind of became more like, saw myself more like a business. Because I was working more direct with direct clients and more completing a full service production for them instead of just sort of only doing some of the animation element of it. I mean, I was happy to work either way that other people wanted to work with me. But yet compared to just doing a little, just the animation element of something compared to then for a business or helping organise a copywriter for their script, organising a voiceover for them, you know, I was becoming like a macro business really. And then I started to change as I had accepted and acknowledged I was a business. I think I changed the way I presented myself as well on my presence online or my presence. When I went to networking events, you know,.

Chris Bruno [00:11:23] Yeah, absolutely. But I think it’s interesting, though, isn’t it? Because even if you start doing one thing or just one part of something, I think what’s amazing is especially for small businesses.

Chris Bruno [00:11:33] Things evolve. Things change. And you kind of roll with that as well. And obviously going from sort of just doing one part of it or going and then sort of doing the whole full service and getting involved in the voiceover side and getting plans together on strategies and delivery so that you can do this entire process. But I think it’s interesting that from my side anyway, again, we talk to a lot of businesses about producing content and I think. Animation videos. It kind of scares people sometimes.

Chris Bruno [00:12:03] Or at least for client side of things, they’re not sure or they feel like it’s a very big investment or they don’t like themselves to be on camera or they don’t think they’ve got an idea or a story to tell. How do you sort of come up with ideas when you’re talking to somebody that thinks they might want to do some animation and they’re kind of trying to explore what the different options are and different ways? What sort of things do you talk to them about?

Kim Emson [00:12:24] Yeah. It’s funny you should say that actually, because most people. Do kind of come up to me saying we want an animation. How much does it cost? Rather than saying we want an animation. Can you help us explore that? Can you help us work out what we should be doing? It’s really funny how people are just like, I just wonder how much it costs. And it is quite frustrating sometimes to try and, you know, get around like get over that if you get what I mean, because it’s like in a way. If that’s all they’re concerned about, then there’s no point of having a further conversation. But even if they don’t use me and they go away with that little knowledge where I’m saying what you want to achieve, you know, and then let’s look at that and then I can give you a quote. And then at least they might be like, “ooh right, hadn’t thought of that”, you know, at least. Let’s do that first. But one business was like, well, you ask a lot of questions, don’t you? And I was like, well, did you contact me for some advice? And he goes, no I contacted you for a quote. So it’s kind of funny in that respect, really.

Kim Emson [00:13:28] But, what I am actually doing is a way of trying to support people more and help people with this. Is first of all, I’m running a free five-day challenge where I help and support people to plan their animation in five days and they get small task a day. They’ll help them identify the target audience, identify why they need animation. What they want to achieve with animation, and then try to identify some key messages for their animation and help guide them on doing some research for what kind of thing might look good for them. So at the end of it, they don’t come away with an animation, but they do come away fully prepped, ready to commission an animator or do a DIY job if their budget is that challenging. So it means I can help more people, even those that have budget challenges. And also I’m trying to, this is my way around overcoming what I just said before. The kind of conversations I’ve been having is. OK, so let’s how I am. How am I going to change this now and try and educate people better? So that’s one of the things I’m doing to try and help support people and educate people a bit better on how they can use animation more effectively or design animation more effectively. That’s one thing I’m doing.

Kim Emson [00:14:36] And then I’m also one thing I wasn’t doing before is I’m doing like one hour consultation video calls so they can just do that with me so we can really get into detail before they’ve actually properly committed to any kind of animation. I mean, they pay for that hour only. So, you know, and then if they decide or maybe animation will be in six months time, then not now. Let’s do other things first and get ourselves ready. You know, so sort of helping and advising them to spend their marketing budget a little bit better, because I think sometimes I’m like, say, some businesses are really keen to do animation but haven’t thought about all of those reasons. So they might bulldoze forward before they’re quite ready. Because although you did say, you know, some people get intimidated by animation, some people get excited and carried away because that’s way more fun than trying to. I don’t know. Write some white paper. Or write a case study, you know, coming up with something that’s fun and moves around and is all creative, seems way more fun. So maybe, you know, some people get carried away. So hopefully I can help people with that. And so those are a couple of things. Packages of products I’ve developed to try and help support and overcome that. And so it is unfortunately, a lot of people come asking how much, how much, how much. And those are the two things I’ve devised to try and help people with trying to weedle out that creativity and what we can do, what we can achieve and and that sort of thing.

Chris Bruno [00:16:08] It’s quite interesting. You’re saying that it’s happened to us recently where somebody said to us about just again, social media marketing, how much to run this.

Chris Bruno [00:16:18] And we were like that. How much to run? What? Well, it’s kind of vague. And I guess the same thing is true with you, with yourself. And when it does just come down to price and if people do take it the wrong way when you start asking the questions. But you know, well, you know, I’m trying to get a brief together. Unless somebody comes to you with an absolute fantastic brief that really does give you all the info and then you can just go away and come back with a price for it. But otherwise, you’re trying to understand, you know, the industry that you work in, what sort of a video you’re looking for, like you said, the objectives or how long the video is going to be or what it is that they’re trying to achieve from it. All of those questions are really key to be able to understand whether or not you’re a good fit. I’m guessing as well for them as much as they are for you.

Kim Emson [00:17:00] Yeah, exactly. It’s definitely a mutual thing.

Kim Emson [00:17:04] And I don’t know whether some clients or prospects might think of it that way. They think only is a one way thing. You know, with a while I’m good enough for them. I’m trying to test you out too, mate. But yes, certainly. I think you’re right. There is a lot down to companies not knowing how to brief or not being aware that that should be what they’re doing. So that five day thing or challenge is telling you about basically at the end of that, they’ll basically have a brief. I’ve avoided using that word because they’ll have that brief written because I felt like other businesses didn’t know what I meant. So I don’t really use that word. I think that is the problem, well not the problem. The challenge at the end of the day is that lots of companies don’t properly know how to brief. And that’s why they only know how, you know, they’re asking how much because that makes sense to them.

Kim Emson [00:17:51] That’s that’s so. Yeah.

Chris Bruno [00:17:53] Yeah. And it’s something that’s quite interesting. I think the more that they start working with either agencies, freelancers or anything else, they start to kind of understand that actually it’s not quite as simple as just how much.

Chris Bruno [00:18:04] And if the only thing that you are looking at is purely price, then you’re probably doing it wrong. To be honest with you, because you know, the best the best people usually aren’t the cheapest, obviously. And also there’s a lot more that goes in behind it. Do you want to work with somebody that understands your objective, your goals, your brand, what you’re trying to achieve? Or do you want to work with somebody that was fifty pounds cheaper, for example?

Kim Emson [00:18:26] Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly.

Chris Bruno [00:18:29] Okay, awesome. So in terms of how you go about marketing yourself and I’m guessing you do it through a lot of animated videos.

Chris Bruno [00:18:38] What’s the what are the ways that you found really work well for you in terms of actually reaching out to people?

Kim Emson [00:18:44] So I’m dedicating a lot of my time to LinkedIn and sharing lots of content on LinkedIn. I share a variety of content, not just hundred percent animated video all the time.

Kim Emson [00:18:55] I do still share a variety of content, but I do do like a talking head video animation. So obviously loads of people on LinkedIn do talky head videos, but mine is an animated character instead using my voice. So do. And I’m also building up presence on Facebook because I want to run my five day challenge through Facebook as well. So I do a lot of that. So it’s kind of funny because some of the stuff I’m talking about on LinkedIn and saying go over to Facebook on my five day challenge because I’m doing it in a group and groups don’t really work very well on LinkedIn, unfortunately, in a really, really wish they did and they probably could have done. But it’s just not worked out that way because maybe LinkedIn didn’t know how to encourage people to use the groups or know what they wanted from the groups so that people, the users on LinkedIn didn’t know what groups were for, were just going and pitching to each other and selling stuff to each other in these groups. So, you know, they’re perhaps not as beneficial as they could have been. And so and so I’m doing that. A lot of these videos are all on YouTube. So I use YouTube quite a lot as well.

Kim Emson [00:20:13] And unfortunatlye I don’t have LinkedIn Live. That would be really good if it did.

Chris Bruno [00:20:20] It’s coming soon. I don’t have it either. Some of the other guys in my team do. So they’re very happy lording that.

Kim Emson [00:20:26] Oh, yeah. It’s really weird how they decide that, isn’t it? Like a lottery or something. So yeah. And obviously I can live video on LinkedIn. The animated character. Sorry, I should explain. I can use her on live video as well. You say so I can do my video on LinkedIn or on YouTube or whatever. But I’ve also been doing webinars. But really in some ways the live webinars aren’t too different from a live video anyway. But I guess sometimes you’re a bit more reliant on a PowerPoint presentation and also presenting in person as well. I think it goes hand in hand if I’m doing more, speaking more through video. That I could do more speaker events, and I’ve done a few that went really well, so I think I’d like to do a few more of them as well.

Chris Bruno [00:21:14] Very good. What it sounds like you’re all over the place and in terms of on the platforms and the networks and it seems to be seems to be working well for you. You’ve been doing this now for how long?

Kim Emson [00:21:25] And since. Well, freelance have been doing it since 2009. I’ve been animating and you know, that’s been my skill set since 2003.

Chris Bruno [00:21:35] Fantastic. How did you get into it?

Kim Emson [00:21:38] So animation was what I did at university. I did a BA. in animation and I got a job straight after I graduated at a company doing, at an animation company. And I worked for them as an animator. And I had been working, doing work experience with them when I was in my second year at uni.

Kim Emson [00:21:59] So I got a job with them pretty much straight after graduating. So I was very lucky. I think it also shows it’s completely different times back then about myself making myself sound like, you know, that was a million years ago. Because I was literally like as soon as I graduated, I got that job and it was a wonderful job. That was brilliant. And that obviously gave me really good grounding for animation skills for about five years of work that before. Unfortunately, I got made redundant and it was all which happened all around the credit crunch times.

Chris Bruno [00:22:34] Back in 2008.

Kim Emson [00:22:36] Yeah, exactly. And that’s when I became freelance. But then again, that was a complete learning curve for me, of course, because I thought, this will be all right because the hard bit was getting and honing those really good animation skills, which is difficult, don’t get me wrong. But it’s just a whole new skill to get the freelance skills, you know?

Kim Emson [00:22:56] So punting out the new business and having a business development strategy as well as looking after your own marketing as well. Because then when you start out, it’s just you, of course, like you’ve got to spend your time building up, working on your business as well as serving your clients. And that can be very, very tough to get that balance. And just kind of often be this feast and famine because of that cycle, you kind of get trapped into it even if you’re aware of it.

Chris Bruno [00:23:28] I agree completely. And it’s very easy to talk about doing something. And then when you actually start doing it, especially when it’s starting a business. Going freelance. Is then you are constantly on a learning curve. So after eleven years, I can honestly say I’m still learning on a day to day basis. As always, new things, new ways to look at things as new ways to evolve, as ways to change there’s new skills, to learn along the way. And again, like you mentioned, even if you just took one part of it, like, for example, your own marketing. I look back quite a lot and think back to when we first started what we were doing and then you look at what we’re doing today.

Chris Bruno [00:24:05] So it’s incredible to see how quick all of this is changing and evolving as a space. Has that been very similar in the animation world as well, because obviously there’s so many platforms out there to help you create content and people to do it as well. But have you found the animation space itself is opening up and evolving quickly as well?

Kim Emson [00:24:26] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, definitely I’ve had to change and learn and carry on learning as I’ve been going, which is absolutely, of course what you’re supposed to do.

Kim Emson [00:24:34] But think back when I first graduated and got that first job and I was like, yes, mission accomplished. I felt that was it. Then, you know, I know that my learning was over, but the hard part was over. So.

Chris Bruno [00:24:48] It was just beginning.

Kim Emson [00:24:49] Yeah. So yeah. Just literally, as you were saying and at the time that I got made redundant was credit crunch times. It was also this exciting time where YouTube had been going that long, Facebook kept going that long but and businesses weren’t quite getting their head around whether they, how they could use it. And I wasn’t getting my head around how they could use it. I didn’t know how to use YouTube.

Kim Emson [00:25:10] If only I knew then what I knew now, because, you know, and I could have made did some things completely differently. And been a bit more ahead of the curve or whatever. And you. Yeah, hindsight is a wonderful thing. But so I was learning about using Facebook, YouTube for myself as well as for my clients. And the live video I was just telling you about. I had to learn that software. I didn’t know how to do that before. And so I’ve been doing that for about I’ve been learning that for about two. It was about two years ago. I first started experimenting with it and then probably in January was when I did my first video using it. So I was doing that sort of live video and talking heads type video. I’ve only really been doing that for a year. Which kind of sounds crazy.

Kim Emson [00:26:04] You know, obviously I wanted to be able to do it animated and to have the software available to do it. And then to teach myself how to do it. Did take quite a bit of practice because access trying to practice in between serving the client so just didn’t properly prioritize it. Obviously I got that in the end because my character’s been starring in quite a few videos now. And like I say and I’m really pleased I’m able to do live video using it. I do do a couple of appearances with me for real. Not just for my animated character.

Kim Emson [00:26:34] And obviously, you know, yes, I can hide behind her, but, you know, I’m trying to showcase more of what I can do and the possibilities of animation.

Chris Bruno [00:26:45] I’m really intrigued by this live animated videos. How does that work? Is it kind of. In my head I’m thinking, you know, the way they film. Things like Gollum in Lord of the Rings or something like that. It is. So you like cheap, like putting little points on your face so that the camera can recognize when or what you’re doing or your movements or how does it work?

Kim Emson [00:27:05] Yeah, you got it, Chris. It’s really similar to that. So I’m actually doing it using Adobe Character. And that software probably has been going possibly around four years. They didn’t always used to have it. And it basically, it has of course, got its limits because all it can do is really map your face, not your body. So it uses the webcam to map your face, so you design your character and then it will make the character by mapping your face and using the audio to change the mouth to make it lip sync and you can automate the arms separately using. It’s almost like going back to animating it on, to controlling your character on a spectrum. So I’ll have ZX will be left and right or something. So those trigger keys would then be a gesture that I’ve preanimated and then programmed in. So you can see why it took a long time for me to get my head around it because it was a long time to sort of set. You’ve got to set a lot of things up.

Kim Emson [00:28:08] But then once you set it up, then that character’s there to be reworked and reused on those different videos. So that’s two good aspects of it. It took me a while to set it up. So it was like loads of fun experimenting with that and working with that.

Kim Emson [00:28:21] And hope this doesn’t veer off too much off point. But basically back in something like 2005 or 2006, I went on holiday to Disneyland in Florida.

Kim Emson [00:28:35] I’d never been to Disneyland and it was amazing.

Kim Emson [00:28:38] And we went back then they didn’t have loads and loads of Pixar related rides, you know, and a couple of the rides that I did go on that were Pixar was Mike’s Stand-Up Comedy Show and also Crush’s Aquarium Show. And basically, you went inside and Mike was animated before my eyes live doing stand-up comedy, interacting with the audience. So he was saying his comedy jokes like a comedian would and go, hey, you at the front or whatever. What do you think? What’s your name? And he was fully animated in front my eyes. And I was like, how am I doing this? What have they don?e What is this wizardry? What is this magic? What if I say, like, Gollum was around back then, bull, I hadn’t put the two together, that that was how they were doing it, that someone was behind a screen and full body suit and then they were able to animate it and project it, projected live for us. So it was brilliant. And that is obviously that was the first time I saw it. And that is obviously the same technology that’s been then brought down to something that is more of a consumer level of cost, because, of course, Disney, if they were like, we want to do this, they’ll invest the money to make sure. We want to do live animation. We’re gonna blow their minds, you know? And they did it and it blew my mind. I’m not sure how much it blew other people’s minds. You know. You know what I mean? Because I was thinking this is impossible. How are they doing it? Maybe other people would just say, oh, this is cool. I’m watching Mike on TV doing a stand-up comedy.

Chris Bruno [00:30:11] That’s the beauty of it, though, isn’t it? You’re obviously is passionate about it as well. You can hear that when you’re talking about it and geeking out over it. But that’s the lovely part about it. Like for you, for other people, it would have just been a bit of entertainment for you literally. It was sort of. It starts making things turn around or cogs start turning and you start contemplating and trying to figure it out and try to work systems out and everything else. But I guess I kind of thinking about this now, but I’m thinking that the Animojis on an iPhone, for example, I’m guessing that’s kind of similar technology then.

Kim Emson [00:30:44] And yeah, it must be. I haven’t played around with that too much, but there’s loads more sort of animation available on Facebook and stuff like that. Their really going with that now. So. It must be really, really similar stuff and then obviously all the different Snapchat filters and things like that are based on that kind of stuff. So, yes, if more and more their platforms are like using it and stuff like that.

Kim Emson [00:31:12] And you know, the when LinkedIn give me my live video I can go for with my animated character on LinkedIn and stuff. So yeah.

Chris Bruno [00:31:22] I’m looking forward to that.

Chris Bruno [00:31:23] I’m sure they’re going to do it. LinkedIn, if anyone’s listening would be great. Just sort Kim out, please. Okay. Fantastic. Right. We’re going to wrap up. I have a question that I’ve been asking guests now for a little while, but what’s your favourite personal social media platform?

Kim Emson [00:31:40] Ahh. Sorry the reason why I’m going “ahh” and kind of thinking because, um, I really, I like LinkedIn, but it is business I use it for. And the reason why I like it is for business, not for nothing personal, but it must just be. It’s nothing exciting. I like Facebook because. No matter how you explore the other ones, at the end of the day, Facebook, I’m talking to my family in America that I probably wouldn’t get to talk to as much otherwise. And my cousin is deaf so I can chat to him easily on Facebook that I hadn’t been doing before Facebook. You know, I hadn’t even met my cousins until about 2000 in person. Since if it wasn’t until about 2006, then we were able to carry on that relationship straight away on Facebook or otherwise would have just been massive gaps before we see each other and stuff. So that’s been awesome because of that.

Chris Bruno [00:32:43] That’s awesome. The last few answers are pretty much open. Instagram, Instagram, Instagram. So I’m quite happy to hear somebody say something different. And yeah, I still am a believer in Facebook for both business and personal reasons. I think it’s it’s fairly solid. And as long as you’re not one of those people that feels that they’re stealing your soul or your data or whatever else is it in between. I still think it’s a very good platform and still has a lot of opportunities for people there. Okay, fantastic. Kim, where’s the best place then for people to find you and to connect with you online? I’m guessing you’re gonna say LinkedIn, but.

Kim Emson [00:33:18] Yeah. Find me on LinkedIn. Like I think there’s any myself and one other woman called Kim Emson on LinkedIn and obviously I’m the only animator called Kim Emson on LinkedIn saying, yeah, find me. And I do have my real picture on LinkedIn and not my little animated avatar. You should be able to find me.

Chris Bruno [00:33:36] Okay, great. We’ll add the link as well for people. So anyone wants to have a chat with Kim about looking and exploring the opportunities for animation, for your business or even for yourself personally, just for fun or create your own character. Maybe. Then you’ll be able to find it on our website and you’ll be able to link with Kim. Kim, thank you so much for joining me today. And thank you for an amazing conversation. And a lot of insight. I’m actually now kind of excited to try and find out more information about a live animation as well. And thank you so much for joining me.

Kim Emson [00:34:08] Thank you for having me. I’ve enjoyed it. You basically just indulged me. You know, you allowed me to geek out and talk about stuff I love geeking out about. So that’s been great and stuff I’m passionate about as well.

Chris Bruno [00:34:20] I was about to say no one can question your passion for animation now.

Kim Emson [00:34:25] OK, cool. Thanks again. And then, yeah, I’m looking forward to hearing what comes out on the podcast. Obviously, I listen to your podcast anyway, so I’m looking forward to listening, carrying on listening to your episodes.

Chris Bruno [00:34:38] Well, thank you very much. Well, we’re going to keep making them as long as people keep listening. So that seems like a good deal.