Firstly, the start of this journey has been incredible. I’ve connected with a variety of people, including industry leaders who’ve kindly given me advice and support. I’m truly grateful for their generosity (seriously, wow!). Additionally, I’ve engaged with clients, prospective clients, and potential collaborators. This was exactly my goal. I even engaged with two friends: one who I haven’t connected with since high school, and another from elementary school (who I even Zoom called with)! Both seem to be doing incredibly well, which was awesome to see.
In this post, I’ll dive into:
- Strategies I used
- Challenges I faced
- Results I achieved
- Metrics highlighting my progress.
How I Crafted My Content Strategy
As an experienced sales and marketing professional, I realized it was time to assert control over my digital footprint.
My Goals:
- Increase my visibility and network within my industry.
- Engage with prospective clients, current clients, and peers.
- Build a Google footprint for people to easily search, find, and validate who I am and what I do.
Relying on my marketing intuition and years of experience, I was optimistic about how this would positively impact my ROI goals. I understood, however, that precise attribution would be nearly impossible. Before jumping into tactics it was important to consider this big picture. You can also read my post on how to align your marketing strategy with your business goals, which digs into another example.
Shifting Focus: Initially, my primary goal was broad. I later decided that focusing on blog update subscriptions would be a more practical way to gauge the impact of my content (hey, it’s easy to measure and you can Subscribe Here to Stay Updated 😁👍). This was a KPI I had not originally planned on focusing on. In addition to it being a gauge of my content quality, I have another reason. I don’t want LinkedIn (or any platform) to have full control over how I communicate with my connections.
The Channels I Chose and Why:
- Blog: For full control over my content.
- I didn’t want to be at the mercy of LinkedIn or other platforms, especially given the ever-changing nature of social media algorithms. This stance was further validated as I read “Content Inc” by Joe Pulizzi, which I highly recommend.
- LinkedIn: Because that’s where my core audience is.
- My primary channel for exposure, leveraging the visibility of my posts toward my blog.
- YouTube: An effective medium for quick video showcases.
Why I Led with Video Content:
- Countless case studies confirm that video works.
- I suspected the LinkedIn algorithm would favor video.
- Not everyone is comfortable making videos, giving me a possible edge.
- Our company offers a video solution designed to increase conversions (walking the walk).
- I genuinely enjoy making videos!
Content Plan
- Blog post every other week featuring a video hosted on YouTube.
- Post the video on LinkedIn, accompanied by a teaser that stands alone in providing value.
- On alternate weeks, post at least once on LinkedIn with what I call “premium content,” such as videos, carousels, infographics, or thoughtful polls.
Luckily, I had an extra resource, ChatGPT helped me visualize content faster.
Audience to Engage
- Clients
- Prospective clients
- Creators/Influencers with overlapping audiences
Just three months in, my primary focus has been on establishing proof of concept and gathering early metrics for success.
The Unforeseen Advantages of My Content Journey
An unexpected, yet perhaps obvious, benefit has been the expansion of my thinking. In my role as a sales system engineer, I not only focus on selling marketing tools and services but also various facets of internal marketing. This broader perspective has significantly improved my collaboration with the team and has generated new ideas outside of my day-to-day work.
I’ve been experimenting with various tools like Canva, Filmora, Notion, WordPress, MailPoet, and Feedly, expanding my skillset and enhancing my content along the way. This journey has also led me to deepen my knowledge base through books, podcasts, blogs, LinkedIn creators, and more. (Stay tuned for a future blog post diving deeper into these).
And just as importantly, I’ve been having a blast.
Challenges and How I Overcame Them
Idea Generation and Consistency
When I started, I was filled with enthusiasm and a few promising ideas. However, I soon realized that consistently generating quality content would be a challenge. Instead of waiting for inspiration to strike, I understood that a well-planned content schedule would be essential. I also found that imposing deadlines on myself ensured that I was getting work done, preventing perfection from being the enemy of completion. Although consistency was crucial, it was equally important to be forgiving when I missed a deadline. I realized it’s more productive to move on to the next task than to waste time in self-criticism.
Streamlining the Creative Process
To address these challenges, I researched to find an efficient process that would be manageable as a one-person side project. I eventually implemented a system in Notion that allows me to effortlessly capture new ideas, vet their worth, and streamline the entire creation-to-publishing cycle. This prevented the process itself from becoming draining, saving energy for idea generation.
Discovering My Content Tilt
A significant part of my strategy is discovering my Content Tilt, a term defined by Joe Pulizzi in his book “Content Inc.” as “The area of little to no competition on the web that actually gives you a chance to break through the noise and be relevant.” This concept is just one piece of the puzzle that Joe details, though a critical piece I’ll need for success.
Audience Perception
For those on my team reading this—thank you! I also learned the importance of revisiting my posts through different lenses. For example, a post I wrote about past challenges was intentionally vague to protect client confidentiality. However, I realized that this could be misconstrued as a commentary on current projects. I quickly revised the post as I was pushing my deadline, ultimately improving both the article and my overall thought process.
Balancing Work and Life
I’m committed to maintaining a balance between this project and my primary responsibilities, which include quality time with my family. I had to research, consume content, and generate ideas without affecting my existing obligations. I spend a significant amount of time nearly ‘living in my head,’ which is beneficial for creativity, but setting boundaries to protect family time is a work in progress—likely the subject of a future blog post.
Engagement
Lastly, I aim to improve my interactions with clients, prospective clients, and other creators. While I’ve done a satisfactory job in some cases, there’s room for improvement. I’m keen on enhancing my level of engagement throughout my network.
Digging into the Results and Metrics
Out of the gate, it’s worth repeating that I believe most of this will not be directly attributable to ROI. And this is okay given my understanding of their collective contribution to my long-term objectives; building a foundation and networking. Also, while these metrics are interesting, I cannot allow them to divert my focus. For example, I don’t need to go viral, even though it would temporarily increase my visibility. I place a higher priority on setting up my digital foundation so when someone looks me up, my area of expertise is more easily understood.
Key Wins
- Dominating the SERPs (Search Engine Results Pages) for my name.
- Includes: Sitelinks, Google Knowledge Panel (which I claimed), images, and videos.
- Owning the SERPs for my name is important to me. It allows me to control my personal brand, opens new opportunities, and establishes credibility. Often, it’s the first place clients or collaborators look for me online.
Performance
My LinkedIn impressions and engagements saw a notable increase. From virtually zero at the start of the year, they spiked to 32,157 impressions and 369 engagements during June-August. While this may have been expected, it offers a glimpse into the positive impact of my recent efforts.
Small Steps, Big Leaps: The Power of Consistency
Before I started posting regularly at the end of May, my average daily new followers were hovering at about 0.23. Since then, this number increased to an average of 2.25 daily new followers—a growth rate of 878%.
Now, I know that these numbers might seem small, or that the growth might seem astronomical. However, the increase shows that I’ve moved from negligible daily engagement to establishing a consistent and growing audience, which aligns perfectly with my objective of increasing my visibility and network within my industry.
A similar story appears when reviewing my Profile Views graph, but LinkedIn doesn’t appear to allow me to export the data to report on this metric in a similar fashion.
Similar growth can be seen for traffic to my blog. However, I expect the visible impact here relating to blog traffic to trail behind the previous metrics in gaining traction.
Following these findings, I plan to maintain momentum. Given the positive response to following through on my tactical plan, I will continue and improve this activity of value-driven content to maintain this upward trajectory. I will also continue to evaluate how it impacts my longer term goals.
* The noticeable spike in users during June correlates (and is confirmed in Google Analytics) with when I cross-posted content on Facebook. While the numbers were higher, it’s worth considering the quality and relevance of the engagement. I’m not yet convinced that continuing on Facebook will be beneficial, as the increased traffic is likely not from my target audience.
A Look at Content Type
I’m going to start with a caveat for the following. It’s premature to assess content type for several reasons:
- Not enough posts of each type
- Not enough variety of topics per type
- The newer posts need more time to mature.
I’m interested in revisiting this in another 90 days.
As of now, it looks like my top-performing posts are all videos, followed by carousels, a branded selfie, and an animated infographic (the newest post).
I’ve come to believe even more strongly that LinkedIn’s algorithm favors video content, which aligns with my view that video is an exceptionally powerful medium. Think about all the nonverbal cues in communication that can’t be done in any other digital format (today). What’s going to catch someone’s attention in half a second? Anything moving or incredibly eye-catching. This appears to be the case in these results. I will continue the path, but perhaps instead of reposting (which appears to have the least impact), I will comment on other posts, unless it is an absolute must or if it’s a cause or topic that I want to support.
Top Performing Posts
Based on impressions and engagement gained in my first 3 months.
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