Personal Branding, pt 2
Philosophy, content and the weight of opinion
In the last edition, I introduced how personal branding can support a job search, and why you should avoid the type of content many people aspire to - going viral.
You can read it here.
Today, we’ll get a bit closer to actually publishing content, with the principles that lead towards it:
Building your content philosophy and plan
Types of content to try
Weight and depth of opinion
Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months
Next week, I’ll share some posts and content writers that show an effective approach. and which you can emulate.
Building your content philosophy and plan
Much is made about LinkedIn’s algorithm and how you need to do this that and the other to get engagement.
I think you can look at it differently, and still achieve much the same.
Get your core approach right, then you can tweak what you do to find the right gains. Rather than start with chasing engagement.
If writing content is an idea you’ve been toying with, it’s a good idea to think about the outcomes you want to achieve, and then work back to set a plan.
If the only outcome you are interested in is a job, the next question should be, is content the right area to focus on, or are there better activities to support your goal?
Everyone has different skills and outlooks on life. If it simply isn’t in your wheelhouse, there are other activities you can do that may be more effective.
These are the outcomes I aim for and see when writing content:
start conversations
help others
sharpen and spark ideas
raise awareness and trust
have a laugh and a chat
I’ve gained good friends I’ve never spoken to, and friendly acquaintances I only know through ‘comments’.
As well as paying clients, who’ve benefitted from my service.
And just as importantly, I have more credibility with candidates who place weight on LinkedIn content.
Content makes it easier for me to start conversations.
It’s important for me that I either enjoy the content, and its consequences, or find it fulfilling.
What I don’t do is talk openly about my personal life, family and challenges. Something I agreed with my wife when I started publishing content.
Instead, I show all of myself in my words, quirks and all. So that if we ever speak in real life, there isn’t much of a disconnect.
That’s my philosophy to content and the boundaries I set for myself.
What about the plan?
Writing content isn’t just about publishing LinkedIn posts.
Replying to comments. Commenting on other people’s posts. Continuing conversations in DM. These are all required to get content to work for you.
From a marketing perspective, these all have different places in your lead generation funnel:
Awareness
Interest
Consideration
Interest
Evaluation
Purchase
Each post, comment, DM and real-life conversation, can relate to these steps and support your goals, even if you aren’t treating these as a marketing activity.
Indeed you should be aware of how people react to your visible words, in a way you might not be aware of (more on this next).
It goes to follow that if you use LinkedIn for Personal Branding - everything you do should be intentional, even throwaway comments.
And of course, this all takes time to do.
I write six or seven posts a week, typically in the evenings.
For me, it’s a form of journalling, and there is a lot of content I’ll either never post or will revisit at a later date. A post normally takes me 10-15 minutes to write, and somewhat longer to edit.
I post mainly in the mornings, where I have a bit of time to respond to comments.
There’s a lot of investigation into optimal times to post, but I think it’s more important that you are available to foster any engagement by replying attentively in the first hour.
The course of a post is often dictated by the performance during this time.
I find if a post gets 20-30 engagements in 60 minutes, it will typically see 10 times that over its lifetime, which is mainly a week.
I actively reply to comments for around an hour a day, but I use LinkedIn for other parts of my role (research, business development etc), so I’m always online.
How much time can you set aside per week and per day for content?
Even if you only write a couple of posts a week, that will likely take a couple of hours.
You can expect low performance initially, with some exceptions, as it takes time to build inertia.
Set aside a sustainable amount of time each week, and commit to it over time - try for 10-12 weeks and track how things have developed.
You may find it becomes an enjoyable task, just try not to get distracted by engagement for its own sake, and keep your goals in mind.
Types of content to try
Engagement on LinkedIn is built primarily on relevance and relatability.
You can write a 100% relatable post that everyone takes relevance from, and see massive engagement. Though that engagement may not serve your goals.
Or you can write a post that is 100% relevant to the problems you solve in your career, and the people who will find it relevant are from a small niche facing the same problems.
This is why a photo of you with your dog will fly, while a carefully thought out post about the optimisation of widgets in a byzantine setting, will appear to be shouting into a void.
Who doesn’t like a cute dog?
Or you can blend the two, in many ways, through storytelling, pivoting observations into business content, and copywriting formulae like AIDA (attention interest desire action) and PAS (problem agitation solution).
I mix my content up across 5 pillars:
Job search advice
Recruitment advice
Market observations
Things that interest me
Satire
I find these interest different audiences, and their own networks sometimes come across my posts, starting new conversations and awareness in other areas.
Everyone will have different forms of content that will be effective for them.
A good way to think about what might help you is what you want your ideal readers to experience.
Do you want them to see you as a credible expert?
Someone who is authentically vulnerable?
Your warts and all personality?
Why you stand out in a sea of competition?
Someone who is thought-provoking, helpful, altruistic or something else?
The answers are much the same if you posed these questions of interviewing.
This is no coincidence, given your message should be consistently delivered no matter where it is received.
With that in mind, here are some content ideas you can try:
How you might solve a problem specific to your industry
Stories from your everyday life
The challenges in your job search
Observations on a news story and how it relates to your work
A flair post highlighting your availability
Asking for thoughts on an idea you are interested in
Sharing insight you find fascinating, whether that’s on films, video games, science, sport
Stories from your career, where you can show growth (everyone loves a good ‘hero’s journey’)
Business frameworks, processes and techniques you find useful - pomodoro technique, scientific method, STAR, what do you use?
Equipment you use for work
Developments in your workplace/culture
Thoughts on content you find inspiring
Memes, humour, satire
Google “content ideas for LinkedIn” (which came up with this article) or ask ChatGPT, Gemini or others.
I wouldn’t use AI to write articles personally (although I do use them for ideation and to sense check).
However, many people use AI and get a lot of engagement, so there’s little reason not to experiment.
“Write me a post for LinkedIn that shows the link between Tesla cars and how to develop an HR strategy”
Weight and depth of opinion
A couple of years ago, I had a message from an out-of-work Sales Director, asking for some feedback.
He’d shot a video for LinkedIn, where he talked about why he should be snapped up, and received a lot of praise for the post. However he was confused because someone he trusts, a CEO, told him it was poor and made him look boring.
He knew I’d give him unvarnished feedback, which was what he needed, to find some clarity on what had happened.
Truthfully, the CEO was correct.
What had happened?
All of the positive engagement was from fellow job seekers, and people who wanted to support him. That he’d done it was praiseworthy in itself, and was rightly celebrated, rather than the quality of what he had produced.
However, none of them had hiring authority or were in a career similar to someone who would be his line manager.
The video didn’t show him how he comes across in person either.
The lesson I took from this is to establish the weight and depth of opinion, whenever you seek feedback.
While the positive feedback was great for validation, his video actually worked against him. What might happen if a hiring process thought his video was boring when the role being recruited for has persuasion as a key requirement?
I’m pleased to say his redo was excellent, showing off his charisma while delivering the same message.
Let’s say that the CEO in this story was called Steve.
Who is the Steve in your career?
Whenever you do anything, consider “what would Steve say?”
Whose feedback should carry most weight?
This is one problem with critical posts on LinkedIn.
For example, posts that criticise poor recruitment often get a lot of engagement.
But how does that post support the career goals of the author?
Could it backfire, if someone in a hiring process sees that?
A good analogy here is that LinkedIn is like an open-plan office. You may think you are having a private conversation, but what if the wrong person is listening on the other side of a partition wall?
You may never know the decisions they make, from the words they come across.
Is that fair? Probably not.
Does it happen? I’m afraid so.
Why you should start now, even if you don’t see any benefit for months
Starting cold on LinkedIn can take many months to get traction.
That’s not always the case, but when your first post bombs, you might never think to do a second.
Going in with the expectation of little impact for the first three to six months is healthy in making a sustainable habit.
If you’re out of work though, three to six months may seem too far off to be worthwhile, especially if you need a job within a couple of months, and there are many activities that offer a quick turnaround, such as applying for jobs.
I’m sorry to say that I’ve spoken to many job seekers who’ve been out of work for more than six months, and have decided not to write content at the outset of their search.
But if they had, they might now be seeing the benefit of their work.
While negative visualisation is a helpful way to see why you might start a long-term activity now, here’s another one that relates to the philosophy section at the top.
Personal branding for me isn’t about getting a job - it’s about starting and continuing conversations with the right people.
It can be helpful in work when you aren’t looking for work. For idea sharing, networking, and keeping in touch. Even to promote your business.
And should the worst happen in future, when you find yourself out of work again, you’ll have that continued inertia from consistent posting.
So yes, it might not pay off in the short term, from a cold start, but if this is something you can sustainably do long-term, it can be an investment in your future.
As well as, if you are lucky, something that does pay off in the short term, such as if the right person sees your flair post.
I’ll give you an example of a good flair post, as well as other content and content writers to emulate, in the next post.
Thanks for reading.
Regards,
Greg
p.s. this post is a day early, as I have a challenging work week ahead, so have written all my content early