Stop being boring on LinkedIn!

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:: 00:00

I got caught in that trap of thinking that the only reason to post on LinkedIn was to talk about things I'd done. I've done this, I've done that because that's what everyone else was doing. And of course, that just led to either me not posting at all, or actually finding LinkedIn to be a really uncomfortable space. Are you struggling to get engagement on your LinkedIn content?

:: 00:22

You're taking time to create posts. You think will be of interest to your audience. Maybe you've paid someone to create LinkedIn content for you, but people barely notice what you post, nevermind reach out and say they want to work with you, which makes you wonder if it's worth bothering at all. Changing things up is actually surprisingly simple. You just need to do one thing,

:: 00:45

which I'm going to share with you. In this episode. You'll also hear from someone who's implemented this change and had big results in a short space of time, I went from hating, sitting on LinkedIn being really boring and not knowing what's supposed to having a bunch of questions, creating conversations, really enjoying what I was doing. And ultimately the business leads were then coming to me rather than me having to kind of go all the time,

:: 01:15

which is never really a comfortable place to be talking about your business from right. You're listening to the courageous content podcast. I'm Janet Murray, and I love helping coaches, creatives and entrepreneurs create super engaging content that generates leads and sales for their businesses. No one starts a business and just knows how to create engaging content. It's a skill that has to be learned from practice.

:: 01:39

And there's always something new to learn, no matter how long you've been in business. And I know running an online business can feel messy, perfectionism, fear self-doubt and other mindset stuff can stop. You're showing up online in the way that's best for you. So you'll get help with that too. Ready to get courageous with your content? Let's get started.

:: 02:05

Let's get the bad news out of the way. The reason you're not getting engagement on LinkedIn is because your content is boring. It's just not of interest to your ideal customers or clients. Now I know that might sound harsh, but if I give it to you straight, you might actually do something about it. So a few months down the line you'll be generating leads and sales from your LinkedIn content instead of complaining about not getting any engagement.

:: 02:34

And there is some good news, actually, most business owners, post deathly, boring content on LinkedIn. So changing up your strategy will instantly make you stand out from the rest. So here's what you need to do. It's just one simple change. You need to stop broadcasting and start conversations. I'll just say that again. You need to stop broadcasting and start conversations.

:: 03:03

So what do I mean by that? Well, let's say for example, you offer outsourced human resources. I mean, even that phrase sounds boring, right? Instead of talking about the latest developments in your industry or sharing boring articles about it, which is kind of what most people do on LinkedIn, as well as boasting about themselves, you just need to start conversations about the problems you solve.

:: 03:27

So your first step is just to think about all of the difficult conversations you've had and make a list of questions you could ask around that. So imagine yourself in your office or workshop, imagine yourself having a really difficult conversation with a customer or client or a conversation where you're talking about a problem that they have and you're trying to help them solve it. So to go back to our example of outsourced human resources,

:: 03:55

instead of talking about developments in the industry or boasting about the award that you've just been nominated for, I would ask these types of questions. Have you ever had a romance with a colleague that went sour? Have you been sad or had to sack anyone? Have you ever been badly treated by a boss? Have you ever been bullied at work? Have you made a very public or embarrassing mistake at work?

:: 04:22

Would you speak up if you found out a colleague was stealing from your company, have you ever been screwed over by a colleague or contractor? Describe the best boss you've ever worked with. Now, if you're new to this type of content, you can get warmed up with some really easy questions. What was your first job or what was your first part-time or Saturday job?

:: 04:45

I have posted that exact post on LinkedIn and it got hundreds and hundreds of comments. The key thing here is that you're turning the focus on your audience. People love to talk about themselves. They love to share their personal stories and experiences. And people are also drawn to topics which are divisive. They don't necessarily have to be controversial. They just need to be topics that people will have different opinions and experiences.

:: 05:13

Another way to generate ideas for LinkedIn is to follow relevant news stories. This is something I picked up in my previous career as a journalist, we call it a hook or a peg. And my editor would always say to me, why do people need to hear about this now? Because there's something really powerful about tapping into topics that are really fresh and relevant.

:: 05:37

Everybody's talking about them on Twitter, on Facebook. It just works so well. So for example, a few years back, there was a very high profile court case involving Uber drivers and zero hours contracts. So if there is a story like that, that's big in the news, you could simply ask, is it time to end zero hours contracts every so often something pops up in the news about Paige paternity leave.

:: 06:03

So if you see a story like that, you could just ask something like, do you think men should get equal access to paid paternity leave? I had a really successful post on LinkedIn. A while back after I read that Virgin airlines had said that their flight attendants no longer needed to wear makeup, it grabs my attention because I had no idea that flight attendants had to wear makeup.

:: 06:25

And while my first thought was, of course, no one should ever feel forced to wear makeup, to work male or female. I couldn't help thinking that when I'm on a long haul flights and I wake up looking and feeling rough after a really terrible sleep, do I really want to be greeted by people who look worse than me? So I wrote a post for LinkedIn that pretty much said that I summarized what had happened.

:: 06:50

I gave my own perspective on it, which was a little bit tongue in cheek, and I knew would divide people. It got hundreds of comments. Now you may be thinking, but I already share useful articles and use stories with my followers. Well, if you are doing that and they're not engaging, it's likely because they're just not that interested in what you're sharing.

:: 07:12

It may also partly be down to the algorithm, although we can never know exactly how algorithms work there. There is some evidence to suggest that sending people away from a social media platform is not a good idea. It's much better to summarize it. In your own words, you may also be wondering, what's the point of starting conversations about topics that relate to your product or service instead of actually selling them first off,

:: 07:37

it will give the algorithm a boost. So as on most social media platforms, the way the algorithm works is there's the more people who engage with your content, the more people it will be shown to, which means more people will be checking out your profile to find out what you do. And when you do make a direct sales post, you'll have warmed up the algorithm.

:: 07:55

So more people will see it. In fact, if you're doing this really well, you shouldn't really have to make any direct sales posts at all, because you'll be memorable, not forgettable. And people will be reaching out by direct message to find out how they can work with you. And if you're still not convinced, I'll, let's present a coach,

:: 08:14

Kate Cocker explain My name is Kate cooker and I'm the presenter coach. I help business leaders get comfortable, confident and brilliant at speaking in public. My mission basically is that if someone sees you speak, I want them to think, oh, I want to work with you. I do that with one-to-one coaching. I do that with some group sessions and I also do that by helping business leaders make podcasts,

:: 08:37

because I think that podcasts were really great way to get good at talking as well as giving you something to talk about. So there was a time on LinkedIn where I was really boring. I got caught in that trap of thinking that the only reason to post on LinkedIn was to talk about things. I'd, you know, I've done this, I've done that because that's what everyone else was doing.

:: 08:59

And of course, that just led to either me not posting a tool or actually finding LinkedIn to be a really uncomfortable space, because all I could see was everybody doing brilliantly because they were all posting about what they were doing too. And it just fed that comparisonitis right off from the start. So it wasn't enjoying it. My posts were getting zero engagement.

:: 09:22

I was basically dull and also not having any fun. I started to ask more questions. And the way I think of it is it's more like when you walk into a room and go networking, it's really rubbish. When you just talk about yourself and networking, it's actually great. When you speak to other people and you ask them loads of questions about them,

:: 09:42

and then you hear about them and you understand their issues and you are able to then add value in a way that really matters to them. And this is what started happening with LinkedIn. What I was really surprised about was the impact happened really quickly. So after a couple of posts with these new questions, formats, someone I knew and have known for a really long time and wished I could coach commented on one of my posts.

:: 10:08

I was like, oh my goodness, there they are. A couple of days later, he messaged me on WhatsApp and said, right, I think I really want to get better at this. And I'd like to have a go at some coaching. This led to one-to-one coaching some business work. And I think it might lead to other things, as well as these things,

:: 10:27

often day, I went from hating, sitting on LinkedIn being really boring and not knowing what's supposed to having a bunch of questions, creating conversations, really enjoying what I was doing. And ultimately the business leads were then coming to me rather than me having to kind of go all the time, which is never really a comfortable place to be talking about your business from.

:: 10:52

Right? So if you feel like you're wasting your time on LinkedIn right now, what have you got to lose? All you need to do is to change one thing, stop being boring. And instead of broadcasting start conversations that relate to the products or services you sell start today, and you could see very different results in just a few weeks. And yes,

:: 11:14

LinkedIn can work for you. If you have a product based business, you just need to ask questions about the problems that your product solves. If you enjoyed these days of tough love, do you connect with me over on LinkedIn? Let me know what you found useful and tag Kate Cocker into. I'm sure she'd appreciate it. I'll link to our profiles in the show notes.

:: 11:35

Would you like to create super engaging content about your business and do it consistently? If so you need my courageous content planet in your life. It's a gorgeous April desk diary. That's so simple to use because it's based on my four by four strategy, which involves posting four sales of content four days a week. Yes. Content planning really can be that easy there's templates for daily,

:: 11:59

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:: 12:24

Angie wants a simple content plan. You can actually stick to head over to courageous concept, planet.com to order your copy today. Thanks for listening to the courageous content podcast. If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a review on apple podcast or share the episode on social media. That way more people can benefit from the free tips and strategies I share and be sure to tag me when you do I'm at Jan Murray on Instagram,

:: 12:57

Twitter, and TikTok.