by Caroline Leach | Nov 26, 2018 | Social Media
iStock.com/kieferpix
Blogging is a powerful way to share your expertise and establish yourself as a thought leader. My blog, as an example, has led to speaking invitations, consulting projects, publication opportunities and more.
What does it take to write a great blog post?
Here are tips to write a post that people will love. Sometimes the hardest part is getting over the fear. But what makes your post stand out comes in the editing process. During the writing process, the most important thing is to simply get the words down.
You may need to silence your inner critic until you do that. Just suspend that self-critical voice until you have a first draft completed. Write continuously for a set period of time, such as 60 minutes.
Set your draft aside and come back to it, ideally a day later and at least an hour later. You may find yourself pleasantly surprised that your first draft is much better than you expected.
This is all worth it in light of the benefits of blogging. Bestselling author Dorie Clark cites content creation as one of the three pillars of “standing out in a noisy world.”
It enables you to share your hard-won expertise, establishing you as a person with a valuable point of view. As a result, interesting career opportunities may come your way.
Here’s how to get started.
Have a theme
This is about having a strategy for what you blog about. By focusing in one area, you will be better able to build up a devoted readership over time. Be clear on why you’re writing and who you want to reach. Once you have your topic identified, you can relate almost anything to that subject.
It’s okay for your focus to evolve as your career does. My blog began as an exploration of the future of corporate communications. When my job changed after a corporate acquisition, I wrote about marketing analytics for a short time. Ultimately that wasn’t something I wanted to spend hours of my weekend and evening time on, so then I explored how people learn.
After that I had a serendipitous moment at a leadership conference. Reese Witherspoon, the entrepreneur, producer and actor, talked about the white space in social media to work with people on building their reputations.
It was my “a-ha” moment. I knew what I wanted to focus on – writing, consulting and speaking about what successful people do in social media to boost their careers.
Share your point of view
People read blogs to learn, to be entertained and to be surprised by a new twist. Think about the point of view you can bring to your topic. You don’t have to be an expert to start blogging about it. If you’re fascinated by it and dedicated to learning in the process, you can bring value to your audience.
Your point of view is why people will read your posts. No one else except for you has had your unique experience in the work world. What you’ve learned and experienced along the way can be helpful to others.
Come up with a compelling headline
You could write the best blog post in the world, but if no one reads it, your light and your ideas haven’t truly reached the world. As I learned by experimenting, it’s important to devote almost as much time to creating a compelling headline as you do to writing the overall post.
There are headline analyzers such as CoSchedule that can help you improve your headlines to attract more readers. It’s almost a gamified approach, if you keep entering headlines to increase your score. Try to write 25 headlines for every blog post. Then pick the best one.
Of course, your headline has to be true to your subject. No clickbait for you. Deliver to your readers what your headline promises.
Focus on the first few words
The first first words and sentences have to pique your readers’ interest from the start. There’s no time to warm up and get to the point. Spend as much time on your lead as you do on your headline. What are the opening words and sentences that will grab a reader’s interest?
Those first few lines show up now for LinkedIn articles in your profile. Carefully consider what you want your first 30 words to say.
Get the length right
About 600 to 800 words is ideal. This is approximately the length of a newspaper op-ed article. It’s okay, though, to go shorter or longer if your topic warrants it. For something really long, you can break it into a series, as I did for my bio posts and my research on social media.
Since this post has hit that limit, watch for the remaining tips in a part 2 post coming soon.
by Caroline Leach | Oct 24, 2018 | Learning, Social Media
iStock.com/momnoi
Do you give speeches, talks and presentations as part of your work?
Have you wondered where to share them on your LinkedIn profile?
It’s a bit of a conundrum since there isn’t a specific section for speeches and talks at this time. But that gives you options, depending on how much you want to emphasize the speaking you do.
There are a few starting places. You could showcase them in your summary, as part of a specific job, or as a separate job listing as a speaker.
Another option is to use one of the Accomplishments sections. In this area, you can provide content for:
- Honors & Awards
- Publications
- Certifications
- Projects
- Patents
- Test Scores
- Organizations
- Courses
- Languages
At this point in my career, I hope no one would be interested in my GRE or GMAT scores, even if I could remember what they were. I’m still struggling to learn Spanish. And I’m not anticipating a patent any time soon. So test scores, languages and patents are off the table.
But speaking engagements?
In reflecting on this year alone, I realized I’ve given a talk at least once a month – at mentoring circles, at a legal conference, in town hall meetings, at a women’s leadership event, in a video series, at a sales and service center, in a social media podcast, and so on.
My LinkedIn profile was missing this important aspect of my work. In updating it, I discovered some tips that may be helpful to you in determining the best ways to share your own speeches.
A bit of research led me to a decision point between Publications and Projects.
I already had one project, Social Media for Innovation with Michael Ambrozewicz, Thyda Nhek Vanhook and Gerry Ledford. It was a series of case studies and innovation experiments on engaging employees and customers through social media. It was clearly not a speech. So there would be some cognitive dissonance to overcome in including speeches alongside this project.
That’s where the dictionary came in handy.
A publication according to Dictionary.com is “(1) the act of publishing a book, periodical, map, piece of music, engraving or the like; (2) the act of bringing before the public; announcement.”
And publish means to “(1) issue for sale or distribution to the public; (2) issue publicly the work of; (3) submit online, as to a message board or blog; (4) announce formally or officially; (5) make publicly or generally known.”
The sense of bringing something before the public felt analogous to giving a speech and sharing information publicly.
How about a project? It’s “(1) something that is contemplated, devised or planned; (2) a large or major undertaking, especially one involving considerable money, personnel or equipment; (3) a specific task of investigation, especially in scholarship.”
In a stretch, a speech could be considered a project. But to me it feels more like a publication.
And the information fields for both areas in LinkedIn are very similar. One minor difference is a Publication lists an author or authors, and a Project lists a creator or creators. Also, the Project entry lets you identify which specific job or educational degree the work is associated with.
Ultimately it’s up to you which area to choose. The good news is you have options. And perhaps a future LinkedIn update will add a “Presentations” or “Speeches” section to Accomplishments, making this a moot point.
What’s a good way of choosing which speaking engagements to include in your profile? In my case, there were three criteria.
- Could it be shared publicly, i.e., was it not confidential or sensitive?
- How relevant was it to my current and future work?
- Was there a public link to the video or audio?
That’s what led me to add Publications entries with 5 talks so far this year, including as authors the people who interviewed me or produced the segment – Josh Ochs of the Smart Social Podcast, John Stancliffe who rebooted a Women in Technology video series, and Shelley Zalis who founded The Female Quotient.
And I’m excited about a few more talks in the queue.
On Monday, October 29, I’ll moderate a USC Annenberg Facebook live with alumni session on starting your own communications firm. These are learning sessions that Annenberg’s Leticia Lozoya creates a few times each year. In this one, business owners Maggie Habib, Tom Henkenius and Rebecca Meza will share an inside view of how to launch and grow your own company.
I’ve also been approached about giving a TEDx talk in spring 2019, speaking to professional associations, and talking about personal branding for women. The invitations often result from my presence on LinkedIn, Twitter and other social media.
If you want to speak more to develop your career and your reputation as a thought leader in your field, consider adding your speeches to your LinkedIn profile and sharing your expertise through articles and posts.
You may be pleasantly surprised that you’ll be invited to talk about those subjects to audiences you care about.
Where do you share your speeches and talks in your LinkedIn profile?
by Caroline Leach | Oct 17, 2018 | Social Media
What’s the best day and time to publish an article on LinkedIn?
It’s wise to check the data frequently, because it often changes.
A year ago, studies suggested the sweet spot was 10 to 11 am on weekdays, and especially on Tuesdays.
In 2018, Sprout Social says the best time is on Wednesdays between 3 and 5 pm. Tuesdays through Thursdays are ideal, with the least engagement coming from Fridays through Mondays. That makes sense, given the cycle of the work week.
Co-Schedule aggregated several studies and concluded midweek from 5 – 6 pm, 7:30 to 8:30 am and at 12 pm. Essentially, it’s ideal to post before and after “regular” work hours (if there is such a thing anymore), in addition to lunchtime when people may be taking breaks.
Today and in the coming weeks I’ll test the Wednesday afternoon data with my own articles. Generally I post an article every Wednesday. Rather than posting in the morning, though, I’ll try the 3 – 5 pm window in Pacific Time, my local time zone.
I’ll post right at 3 pm since some of my network is in earlier U.S. time zones. Fascinating fact: almost 80% of the U.S. population lives in the Eastern and Central time zones.
My LinkedIn articles are based on my blog on how people use social media to build their careers and their companies. Sharing my blog post content on LinkedIn has been a valuable way of reaching a broader audience that is likely to find value in the content.
Wednesdays weren’t a data-driven decision in the beginning. Most of my blog post writing was on weekend mornings. My teens were sleeping in, and I had quiet time for writing. Wednesday became my reposting day on LinkedIn simply to give myself a few days to get it posted.
In the process, I began collecting and analyzing my own data. With my Excel spreadsheet of 18 months of posting an article roughly every week, I went back through my data to see if my experience aligns with the industry studies.
One of the questions when I shared my data six months ago was from a former colleague, Sarah Groves. She was curious about the ideal day of week and time of day to share LinkedIn content. At the time, there wasn’t a clear cut answer in the data, meaning that any weekday was fine. As I’ve collected more data, I’m curious if anything had changed.
Looking at my top 20 articles for views, likes, comments and shares, a few data points jumped out.
First, 60% of them were posted on Wednesday. But the highest scoring article was posted on Tuesday. And all days of the week were represented.
Second, 65% of them had strong headlines. They scored in the “green zone” at a score of 70+ in the Co-Schedule headline analyzer.
Third, 80% of the top 10 were posted in 2018 vs. 2017. They’re reaching a broader audience probably because my network has grown by 1,000 people.
What are the takeaways from this?
The quality of the content matters more than the day and time it’s posted. It’s ideal to focus on offering your network your best thinking in your articles. Write about the expertise and perspective that is unique to you that would be valuable to your network. Then to make sure it has the best chance of reaching the broadest audience, post it on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Thursday.
Headlines matter. You can write the best article in the world, but if the headline doesn’t pique people’s interest in clicking on the link, you won’t reach a broad audience. Write several headlines for every article. See how they score in a headline analyzer. It’s almost a gamified approach to headline writing, because you can keep entering headlines to try to get a higher score.
The size and quality of your network is important. Keep building a high-quality network of connections on LinkedIn. Connect with people you meet and want to meet. Be sure to personalize your invitations to strengthen your relationship. By increasing your connections and followers, your content will reach a broader audience, which is likely to increase engagement.
It’s wise to experiment with different days and times. All the data in the world is meaningless if it doesn’t improve your unique situation. You can try posting on different days and times of the week, and track the views, likes, comments and shares from your articles. What trends do you see over time? What are the patterns in your top articles? How might the engagement be affected by the local time zones of your audience?
What day and time for posting LinkedIn articles has gotten the most engagement for you?
Recent Comments