How to Personalise Content

We all know that posts on LinkedIn that are 'personal' attract more engagement and views but taking a personal approach to content is not an easy thing for most of us.

In this edition of LinkedInformed, I share some tips on how to bring your personality to your posts.

This is a special ‘tips’ edition whilst I’m away so there will not be any news or post of the week in this week but it is a bit of a landmark as it’s my 350th episode of LinkedInformed podcast…and I’m not there to celebrate!

This article has also been recorded as a podcast;

Linkedinformed on Google podcasts?/?Linkedinformed on Apple podcasts

I thought this would be an interesting and important topic to cover. We see time and time again that posts that achieve the most engagement and views are ones that show more of the personality of the author. I’m not talking about deeply personal content such as announcing that you’ve fallen in love or your partner has a terminal illness or a picture of your new puppy. I personally have no problem with that type of content but that is the extreme of ‘personal’ and tends to be the reference point when people refer to personal posts - that puts people off resulting in their content often being very ‘vanilla’ and frankly boring!

The LinkedIn community wants to get to know you through your content, they may also be interested in what you do but initially, they mainly want to understand you and that’s why posting with personality is so important.

Posting With Personality

Imagine a world where all of your business (customers) came from people you would describe as friends. People who already know you well, people who understand you and trust you. This is of course, completely unrealistic for most people in business but if it were possible, just imagine how easy new business acquisition would be, not just easy but pleasurable as well.

I know that is almost always an impossible dream but doesn’t it make sense to strive for that?

When you think about how we develop friendships, it always involves a level of openness and authenticity - getting close to someone doesn’t happen overnight but it happens much quicker when you open up to people.

Many would argue that whilst the above is true, it’s not something you can achieve virtually and certainly not on social media - you really need to meet people in person to get close to them.

I beg to differ.

I have developed close friendships with several people who I have never met and I know many others who have too. The people that tend to do this are the people who appear comfortable with being very open and honest online and especially on LinkedIn, sharing their thoughts and feelings with anyone who cares to read their content.

I used my words carefully there…they ‘appear’ to be comfortable but that might not always be the case. It’s wrong to assume that this all comes very naturally to them. For some that’s true I’m sure, but for many it’s something they have really had to work at.

And you can do that too.

Here’s how…

Fake it before you make it!

You may have become accustomed to acting ‘professionally’ on LinkedIn. This feels safe, you are less likely to be hated or disrespected but the problem is that the opposite is also true…you’re less likely to be loved and respected as well because your dull grey content just doesn’t get seen - people ignore it and fail to engage with it.

The make the change, you need to trick your mind by ‘acting’ the part of someone who is amongst friends…remove the image of this network of business executives all eager to judge how professional you are and replace it with a happy comfortable place, in amongst good friends who think the world of you…a place where you can truly ‘be you’.

Fake before you make it isn’t a lie, it’s actually more of the real you but you need to ‘act’ the part first in order to shift the paradigm.

Actors who play the part of someone who is deeply upset in a scene, really do feel upset for a long time afterward. The feelings are real despite the fact that they acted, they tricked their mind into believing they really are upset and it takes them some time to recover.

If you can trick your mind into feeling comfortable in a community of ‘business pals’ then it will start to manifest into reality - your mindset creates an energy and a feel to your content that becomes magnetic and people start to feel closer to you and subsequently may want to do business with you.

Not everyone will and that’s perfect. Acting authentically will bring your type of people towards you and repel those that aren’t a good fit…the people you want to do business with are your business pals.

Once you’ve got your mindset right, you can move on to more practical things;

Post topics

Pick 5 topics that you believe would be interesting to your target audience. Not what you want to post about, it must always start and end with them…your audience. Then think about applying those topics to the types of content that typically do well

• Topical. Either broadly something that many people are talking about or something specific in a relevant sector. Sometimes you can use an unrelated topical subject and relate it to a subject that you feel would be relevant and interesting for your business pals (audience). A great example of this was a post I remember from 2015 when an HR consultant posted a picture of the popstar Zayn Malik who had just left the band One Direction (A big story at the time). He added the headline ‘What do you do when a key member of your team leaves?’ The post went on to discuss the issue of coping with such a disruption. The topical picture grabbed the attention of a wide audience and the subject of the post was highly relevant to his target audience.
• Something New, innovative and different. This could be anything from an idea to the latest gadget, if you see something and you think it seems cool, create a post about it because your business pals will probably think the same!
• Helpful. Find out what your business pals struggle with, find difficult and seek solutions about. I’m not talking about a solution you can provide commercially, that would be seen as promotional and self-serving. I’m talking about doing the work yourself - research solutions to the challenge and post about it. Never claim credit and always quote your sources but if you help your audience, they will move closer to you.
• Humour. Business doesn’t have to be deadly serious and if you can make your business pals laugh then they will associate you with a positive vibe

Personalise

Now that you have decided on a topic and the type of post you can now add ‘you’ to the content. What I mean by that is try to think of how you can deliver that content with personality and a perspective unique to you.

Try to think of something that happened to you or a reaction you had to something and relate how you felt and what it meant to you. Get yourself into that ‘business pals’ mindset and just get chatty…avoid formal grammar and just type as you would talk to these pals.

Reality check

Write or record (video) your post and then read/watch it back and ask yourself this key question;

Would others perceive this post to be in any way self serving?

Promotional and self serving content is fine in small quantities but your content needs to have a big emphasis towards their needs and interests, not yours.

Push on through

Provided the post passes the self-serving test, you now need to publish it. The problem is that at this point the ‘LinkedIn is a professional platform devil’ on your shoulder starts saying “don’t be that personal” and “Be more professional” or “This isn’t Facebook!”

Ignore the devil…remember you're publishing this for your good business pals and push onwards. At the end of the day, whats the worst thing that could happen? The chances are that not a lot will happen (positive or negative) initially but taking this first step towards more personal content is a really important one.

Images

A quick point about using images in personal posts. Using a picture of yourself is a good idea but try to avoid portraits that have no significance to the subject of the post. I see people doing this a lot - nice pic but nothing to do with the post and it just looks a bit needy. It’s like those Instagram posts where the publisher is clearly wanting some positive affirmation on how they look.

If you are posing a question, include a selfie of you looking confused. If you’re having a rant, include a pic of you tearing your hair out! Make it relevant…you get the picture (excuse the pun!)

Stories

Finally all the above techniques work best when told as a personal story. Never underestimate the power of storytelling and on LinkedIn, stories about your own personal experiences tend to work best.

So there you have it, personalising content works well on LinkedIn. Don’t fall into the trap of saying “that’s not the case in my market” because it simply isn’t true and you are just making excuses to avoid coming out of your shell!

Good luck with it, I look forward to seeing your thoughts and comments on this topic.

This article has also been recorded as a podcast;

Linkedinformed on Google podcasts?/?Linkedinformed on Apple podcasts