Goodbye 2023, 6 Content Creation Tips To Kick Off Your 2024

Well, 2023 has been a wild ride. If you haven’t heard, I shifted my business. Through my new company, Black Dog Marketing Strategies, I help coaches, consultants, and entrepreneurs with their content marketing efforts.

As a former magazine writer and media studies student in college, I was fascinated with the idea of live broadcasts. I began hosting my first LinkedIn Live broadcast, Smarter Career and Business Moves, and recording videos.

When colleagues started asking me for help, I realized how much I enjoyed teaching others. And the idea for Black Dog Marketing Strategies was born.

So, as we close out 2023, I decided it would be fitting to share a bit of a recent video series, 12 Days of Content Creation Tips, in this newsletter.

Don’t Worry About People Judging You. They’re Not.

Not long ago, I did a poll on LinkedIn and asked people why they didn’t share content on LinkedIn. And the number one thing was they didn't know what to say. But number two was that they were afraid of being judged. If that’s you, don’t worry for one second about that for 3 reasons.

#1 Even if you have a huge number of followers, only a small percentage of them are actually going to see whatever you post.

#2 Most people are too busy thinking about their own content. They don’t have time to worry about what someone else is doing. When someone shares a post on LinkedIn, they're thinking about whether or not people are going to like it, how much engagement it's going to get, and what they should or shouldn't have done differently. Don't give the idea that people are going to be examining your content any thought.

#3 Maybe most important is that most people on LinkedIn are kind, generous people. Remember that people aren't out to judge you. People are rooting for you. So begin creating and sharing your own content.

Create? A Posting Schedule That Works For You

A lot of people think that LinkedIn influencers, those with tens of thousands of followers, are on LinkedIn 24/7. The truth is that most of them are not. Back in 2020 and 2021, there was a big push to post content 365 days.

Tons of people, including me, took up the challenge. I stopped after 2 weeks because I realized that I was just posting to post, and what I shared wasn’t worth reading. In any case, that’s over.

The important thing to think about is creating a schedule that works for you.

Getting fit and losing weight is a popular New Year’s resolution. The first week in January, the gym is packed. By the end of February most of those people are gone.

You don't want that to be you when it comes to social media, specifically, LinkedIn. If you're new to LinkedIn, you might want to start by commenting. You might go on to LinkedIn and plan for 15 minutes, five days a week, Monday through Friday.

Fifteen minutes of commenting, that's it. When you comment on other people's posts, go beyond saying something like Great post, Love it or Thank you for sharing. Share a little bit about what spoke to you, why it was relevant to you, and maybe your insights. Maybe ask the person who posted the content a question.

Once you decide you want to share content, decide on a schedule. You might start by sharing once a week or maybe three days a week, and then you can build up to whatever you feel works for you.

Remember that consistency is more important than quantity. It's much better to post consistently two times a week every week than to post every single day for two weeks and then stop and come back two weeks later.

Not Ready For Original Content? Do This.

If you’re not quite ready to share original content, curated content can be your best friend. If you haven't heard of curated content before, what that means is sharing articles or podcasts or videos that are done by someone else.

Make sure to choose content that is going to be of interest to your target audience. And go beyond sharing a link. Talk about why it spoke to you and why it resonated with you. Another idea is to share a few things you learned.

To save time looking for content, sign up with a content aggregator or two. My favorite content aggregator is Pocket because it allows you to save articles and organize them. Two other popular content aggregators are Feedly, which I've used, and Google News.

Profile Videos Are Gone. But Here’s A Workaround

I would be remiss if I didn’t talk about Profile videos. Yes, as of December 14th they are gone. But if you'd like to accelerate that know, like, and trust factor on your profile, there is a workaround.

Record a “meet me” video that's one to two minutes, preferably closer to one minute long. Talk about who you are and what you do, and include a call to action at the end. That might be to follow you or set up an appointment. Whatever works best for you.

Once you've recorded that video, you can simply upload it to YouTube or another platform like Vimeo and then put that link in the Featured section of your profile. Take a few minutes over the next few days and record that video because there's nothing to help accelerate that know, like, and trust factor better.

A Novel Idea. Your Motivational Quotes

If you’re new to creating content, I have a simple idea for you. A lot of people share motivational quotes on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, things like, Be the change you want to see in the world, attributed to Gandhi. I love that phrase, I actually have a plaque of it hanging across from my desk.

But when it comes to sharing content on LinkedIn, why share a motivational quote by someone else when you can share a quote by you? You can easily create graphics to share your own quotes in Canva. Sign into Canva, go to Create a design and choose Instagram Post. There, you'll find an abundance of templates that you can modify with your brand colors and images if you like.

Don’t Forget To Motivate, Encourage And Inspire

The final content idea I want to mention is sharing personal stories to hopefully motivate or inspire or encourage others. One that I’ve shared often is something that I'm really proud of: working full-time while going to college in the evenings and earning my degree.

The main reason I share it is to inspire others who are considering making a change that is going to be fairly dramatic and may take several months, even several years.

What I talk about is dropping out of college during the first semester and not even earning one single credit and then going back to school later to earn my degree. Now, for me, going back to school and earning 120 credits to get my degree was overwhelming. I went back to school. I took a couple of classes just to see how it would go.

Once I found that I could do it, I enrolled in an associate's program. Once I completed the two-year degree, I took a little break before going back to finish. Altogether, it took me about six years to earn my four-year bachelor's degree.

There were a lot of sacrifices, socially and financially, along the way.

But, my message is if you are facing something that you want to accomplish that seems overwhelming, break it down and do it in chunks. For me, the first chunk was a few classes. The second was earning an associate degree. The third chunk was going back and earning my BA in English and media studies.

So, sharing tips, techniques, and advice is great, if you can inspire, motivate, or encourage someone to make a change in their own life, even better.

P.S. If you’d like to watch the entire 12 Days of Content Creation Tips, click here.

This week, I’m launching my new LinkedIn Live Content Marketing School and podcast of the same name. (The podcast has been in a soft launch since November.)

I hope you will join me; I have some incredible guests lined up.

Thanks for reading, I hope you found the content helpful.

Happy New Year!!!

Annette

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