Tag: Social media

General

Lessons learned from making 3.5 videos to use on social media

My third interviewee, theatre director Sara Joyce

I’ve talked about experimenting with content on LinkedIn, but confession time: I cheat.

I use Instagram and YouTube for my hobby (theatre blogging), and those have become a bit of a playground for trying new stuff.

(Yes, this is how I spend my free time.)

My most recent experiment started with an idea for short and snappy video interviews with creatives that would satisfy my love of talking to people and give me a point of difference from other theatre bloggers.

At the same time, I was mulling over interview-style content for my business social accounts but hadn’t settled on a format that I liked and which might work.

This is where trying stuff out has helped, not just in developing my technical skills but also in refining and developing the idea and format.

I’ve only made 3.5 videos, but each is an improvement on the last, and I wanted to share the journey and a few of the things I’ve learned so far.

🎥 Video 1 – the self-tape lesson

My first interviewee was writer/director Rebecca Holbourn, who I know and was happy to be my guinea pig.

The idea was to send 5 questions; they would video their answers and send the recording back to me. I’d then edit, adding in title cards and questions.

Rebecca said that self-taping her answers took a while to get something they were happy with.

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General

Rules of engagement: How to magnify your visibility on LinkedIn

Photo by Anthony Hortin on Unsplash

Engagement is a piece of the LinkedIn jigsaw that gets overlooked, but an engagement strategy is crucial to elevating your visibility and boosting impressions* on your content.

Rule 1: Engaging with other content

Do you comment on other posts? Writing comments on other people’s posts is great for your visibility.

Your profile pic and headline are attached to your activity on LinkedIn. So the more places you engage (react/comment/click to attend an event, etc), the more people who will see your photo, name and what you do.

But more than that, adding a meaningful comment is an opportunity to share your knowledge and expertise or how you think, your values and who you are with a bigger audience.

If you comment, the author will likely get notified, and those reading the comments will see what you’ve written. Some people who’ve already engaged will get notified that you’ve added a comment.

The post may even appear in some of your connections’ LinkedIn feeds, highlighted as a post you’ve commented on.

See how commenting can magnify your presence on the platform? Not only that, it can magnify your presence in between and alongside posting your content.

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General

4 things that might be killing your reach on LinkedIn

Photo by Gabriel Varaljay on Unsplash

LinkedIn is a platform full of quirks, and while no one outside of LinkedIn will ever fully understand how it works, there are some practices which may impact your reach and are, therefore, best avoided.

These are gleaned from 5 years of using the platform regularly and devouring content from a range of LinkedIn experts.

Tagging

You want to thank people or highlight a team of people who worked on a project, so you reach for the @ key to tag.

But be careful. Excessive tagging is sometimes used as a ‘hack’ by spammers to try and draw attention to a post.

LinkedIn doesn’t like hacks or its users getting spammed. If people don’t respond when they are tagged in a post, it can be a black mark against your content.

Yes, tag, but tag sparingly. And if you are legitimately tagged in a post, make sure you respond, even if it’s just hitting a reaction.

Posting too frequently

LinkedIn isn’t like X/Twitter, where you can fire off Tweet after Tweet without any problems.

Posts have a longer shelf life, and posting again too soon can affect your reach.

24 hours between posts seems to be the consensus.

So if you’ve got a lot to say or lots of news to announce, try and spread it out if you can.

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Writing LinkedIn posts: 3 different styles of opening lines

Photo by Nik Shuliahin 💛💙 on Unsplash

The first two lines of your LinkedIn post are critical for stopping the scroll and drawing readers in.

If it’s boring and doesn’t grab attention or intrigue, people will scroll on by.

There are many ways to write an attention-grabbing opening line on a LinkedIn post. Here are three examples using this post I wrote about the dangers of relying too heavily on one social platform.

1. My original opening line

What would you do if you couldn’t post to one or more of your social media platforms?

It happened to me recently.

I started with a question that would (hopefully) give pause for thought and intrigue – ‘What would I do?’ ‘How does my strategy compare?’ etc.

Followed by the start of a personal anecdote to add to the intrigue and make it relatable.

2. Less direct/conversational

I could have gone for something that didn’t involve ‘you’, which I know makes some B2B content creators a bit itchy because it’s more conversational and direct:

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General

How to avoid B2B content creation overwhelm and be strategic

With so many different types of content and so many channels, how do you decide where to put your content marketing time and energy?

This was the topic of a LinkedIn live stream and webinar discussion comms pro Ayo Abbas and I had.

We covered a lot (and answered a lot of audience questions) but here’s are some edited highlights. There’s a link to the replay of the full discussion at the end.

How do you decide what type of content to create?

Ayo Abbas You’ve got to make sure that you move away from perfection. Sometimes getting it done and getting it done to a decent standard is better than nothing at all.

When it comes to what type of content I want to create, I think about what the story is I want to tell and what content works for the story.

Or what have I not done for a while? Sometimes people aren’t posting certain types of content, so maybe doing that makes you stand out from the crowd.

Me I think it’s important to focus on where your audience is. Is your audience watching 15-second videos on TikTok? Then that’s probably what [your content] should be.

But if they’re not, then maybe that isn’t the type of content you should create.

[Caveat] Don’t forget new audiences. It’s very easy to get stuck into doing one type of content, but is there a new audience you want to reach, and are they consuming different types of content rather than the type you’re creating?

AA I interviewed an architect from BVDs. And he talked about finding the channels that you really enjoy. He loves talking, as does his partner, so they do podcasts.

Is it OK to stick to one type of content?

Me Yes and no. Yes, because it’s better to do one thing and do it well rather than trying to do lots of different things and not do anything particularly well.

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