Branding Byte #011

When I started creating content, I was completely lost. I had zero intent in my writing, 100 ideas in mind, and no clear editorial line or creation plan.

I started creating content on a daily basis in October 2022, every day I’ll sit 30 mins before the moment I was used to publishing and start wondering which topic am I going to write about today.

What a complete waste of time.

We always want to do mistakes on our own even if people warn us we’re going in the right direction. That’s a terrible human trait. Any really successful person would tell you that the reason they reached their state is that they listened to people more advanced in life.

I was consistently doing the same mistakes over and over again, which is quite funny when the number 1 advice creators on LinkedIn give you is to be consistent.

The reasons? 3 mistakes I kept doing continuously:

• I had no plan in place.

• I didn’t take the time to audit my content.

• I didn’t exchange with other creators on Linkedin.

Then, one afternoon, I listened to the following podcast: Justin Welsh and Guillaume Moubeche and everything became crystal clear.

I like to show this picture for content:

Let me tell you how you can make that transformation happen:

Create a clear Editorial line and a plan to test if there’s a market.

It’s super easy to get lost in ‘fake’ busyness, so many startups and solopreneurs stay in this region until they give up. They believe they’re being productive while they’re just wasting their time.

When you start creating content your goal is to be read by people, create something they enjoy, relate with, and ultimately consider as educative/transformative.

If you don’t have a hypothesis in place in regard to:

• The persona you want to help

• The benefits you think you provide

• The pain point you want to solve/tackle

• The transformation your solution provides

You won’t get the right feedback, nor know if there’s a market or not.

The moment I sat down and decided that I was gonna build my strategy around the following: Growth through content creation.

All my actions were intentional and purposeful, I started engaging with creators from the same niche, getting inbound messages from people with a specific inquiry, and a clear response from my market (people) as to whether or not my content was good.

Now let’s decompose how a plan can enable you to avoid consistently going in the wrong direction:

1/ Identify your LinkedIn positioning

Easier said than done, I know, which is why I am gonna tell you something you may have heard already a few hundred times:

1/ Define your niche

• What are your areas of expertise?

• What do you want to learn about daily?

• What are your competitors writing about?

2/ Develop a content strategy

• Types of content (Carousels, Testimonials, videos, articles).

• Tailor those types to the specific intent of your post.

• Have a clear time each day at which you engage + post.

• Identify clearly the pillar topics of your strategy.

3/ Optimize your LinkedIn Profile

• Activate the creator mode.

• Choose the # related to your niche pillar topics.

• Highlight your social proof in the featured section.

4/ Engage and network with other creators.

• Identify 20-40 creators you enjoy the content (From your niche).

• Engage daily with their content.

• Send them connection requests with personalized notes.

• Jump on E-coffees calls with them?

• Ask them questions in regard to your positioning/their area of expertise.

Do that as soon as possible in your journey. It took me 5 months before i realise this and well… I lost some time due to my persistence in the wrong direction.

2/ Audit your content as much as possible

The first step is only efficient if you continuously audit the quality of your content.

But beware:

Quality ≠ Likes and engagement

Each 2-3 weeks do the following:

1/ Inventory of your existing content

• Go through all the posts you shared.

• Create a spreadsheet with top-performing posts.

• Get through those and see the common denominator.

• Reach out to people that commented on those and ask for feedback.

2/ Evaluate your content with the following questions:

• Does this post provide a detailed framework?

• How was the hook of this post?

• Did people re-share this post?

• What was the type of comments under my post?

3/ Have a clear improvement plan

• Which posts should you repurpose?

• Which content pillars of your positioning seem to attract people?

• Set a specific timeline to get a client for example with a specific content plan.

This step is the one that helped me the most to be honest. I constantly check my positioning/content and see if it still makes sense.

However, there’s one thing that you need to pay attention to:

Don’t overcomplicate it, because if you do, you’ll find yourself switching positioning every few weeks and that is not the best thing to do for your credibility.

This is why you need people:

3/ Build relationships with other creators from your niche.

You may be smart, you won’t see every lacking region of your positioning. While having trustworthy people around operating in the same field as you do will definitely help.

This part is more personal, which is why I won’t share with you an ‘Actionable’ plan but more about how I personally do it.

I follow this process:

• I have a list of creators I had a call with and enjoy having little chats.

• Every time I see something relevant for them, I send it by DM.

• I engage daily on their posts to boost their reach.

• I congrats them on every milestone.

The hardest part is not to start but to nurture the relationship.

Once you reach that point getting the right feedback becomes easy and natural. You’ll find yourself having an army of LinkedIn friends ready to do whatever it takes to help you and vice-versa.

That’s all for today, don’t hesitate to answer this email if you have a specific question!

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I hope this can help you in your creator journey, do not hesitate to reach out if you need help with your LinkedIn content strategy.

If you found that useful, follow me on Linkedin, I help 3300+ people daily leverage growth through content creation.

Till next week for a new Branding Byte!