Josh McMillan Blog #4

David Goggins' weight transformation

David Goggins is an ex-Navy seal who has an extremely impressive list of accomplishments. These accomplishments include losing over a hundred pounds to enlist in the Navy, completing three Navy Seal hell-weeks, holding the world record for most pull-ups in twenty-four hours (4,030), and completing and placing in multiple long-distance races with distances over 135 miles. In 2018 David released an autobiography recounting these accomplishments along with principles and self-help tips for the readers. This book brought David into mainstream media and has resulted in him having over two and a half million followers on Instagram. Through mostly Instagram, his motivation tone, and high levels of interaction, he has quickly become many people’s favorite follow. David could grow his social media presence even more by utilizing Twitter and YouTube better, posting more, and following more people.

David Goggins’ most popular platform is Instagram. Along with his 2.5 million followers on Instagram he also has over a quarter of a million on Twitter. However, the posts on his Twitter are identical to those on his Instagram. Keeping in mind that similarity, when referring to his social media it will be focused on Instagram. David posts close to once every other day. About every week or two, David will also have a livestream where fans can chat and ask questions. These two combined make David very visible to his followers and those who don’t yet follow him.

Being that his life and book revolve around physical achievements, it is not surprising that the tone of his social media accounts is one of motivation. His Instagram is almost exclusively him working out while giving motivational words or advice to his followers. David Goggins is also a very adult account, meaning that he often uses swear words and stern language to get his point across. This is done almost entirely without yelling so it is not a “get in your face” type of account. I am often surprised at the lack of self-advertising he does for his book. I’m sure that when releasing his book he realized a large social media presence would help his book take off. However, there are little to no mentions to his book or buying his book in any of his posts. The closest thing to this is the link to buy his book in his description. This shows that David is more concerned with selling himself to the public rather than selling his book. This provides for a very transparent feel for him and allows followers to trust that he is out to do good, not just make money. This authenticity is hard to come by in today's social media sphere today. In fact the existence of authentic people suggest that there are some who are unauthentic (Marwick & Boyd, 2010). This authenticity is exactly what David Goggins strives for. By often times opening himself up and being vulnerable he shows that he is a trustworthy figure, aiming to have his followers trust his authenticity. 
The frequent showing of him working out creates an atmosphere of “doing” on his page. It doesn’t take too many of his videos before I itch to go for a run or hit the gym. This feeling is shared by the millions of his followers and is the exact feeling he wants them to achieve. This feeling is also what David thinks his audience wants. His imagined audience is a group of people who need motivation and encouragement, and Goggins tunes his tweets to match what this audience wants (Marwick & Boyd, 2010).

David replies to nearly
 every comment on his Instagram

          David Goggins interacts with his audience often on his social media. He often live streams his workouts, calls fans on livestreams, and replies to comments on his post. This shows a high level of social media use and interactivity. David also will issue challenges to his followers that he will also participate in. Just last week he challenged his followers to run four miles, every four hours, for 48 hours. He livestreamed him running that various miles and even had some participants join his livestream. This level of interactivity goes beyond the norm of replying to comments by actually encouraging and showing his audience doing the exact same thing he is doing. That being said, David follows no one on Instagram or Twitter. He claims this is because social media an become a serious distraction for him and that he uses it for the sole purpose of inspiring people. It is for this reason along with others that I believe he has a person or team designated to run his social media for him. For preaching the dangers of social media, he would have to spend too time replying to comments and DM’s for it to be just him. Often times in his live streams a woman will read out the comments people have for him to reply to. This very well could be the same person that helps run his social media accounts. Regardless of who it is actually responding, the David Goggins account interacts with users extremely frequently.

            I enjoy following David Goggins very much. However, there are some things I would change if I were in charge of his social media. First, I would diversify his overall presence on social media. Currently he is only on Twitter and Instagram, but his twitter is made up of same videos he posts to Instagram. I would recommend that he utilize the different features of twitter better and make it different content. This would create more of a reason to follow him on both platforms instead of one or the other since they are the same. Along the same lines, having a YouTube channel to post longer videos would also be beneficial to reach a potentially larger, more diverse audience. I would also suggest that he increases the frequency of his posts on his social media platforms. This could be done by something simple like having a daily fitness challenge or posting more workouts.

            Another thing I would recommend is to begin following people on his platforms. I find it a little hypocritical that he preaches not letting social media distract you but is at the same time so active on it. I think following people who are active followers of his or other fitness figures could increase his transparency.

            Overall, David Goggins is a great follow on social media. Watching his videos and reading his posts is sure motivate you to no end. His lead by example style of posting his workouts is part of what makes his so transparent. If David Goggins continues to post frequently, interact with fans, and remain true to himself he’ll continue to be millions of peoples favorite follow, including mine.

References

Marwick, A. E., & Boyd, D. (2010). I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet passionately: Twitter users, Context collapse, and the      Imagined Audience. New Media & Society 13(1), 114–133. doi:10.1177/1461444810365313