by Caroline Leach | Apr 30, 2017 | Social Media
If a LinkedIn status update every weekday is ideal, how do you come up with enough engaging content?
Here are 11 simple content ideas. They can be tailored to reflect your goals for LinkedIn and your professional interests, as well as be easy to integrate into your day.
When you share content using these ideas, you can add your point of view. And you can engage your network by asking questions about their perspectives.
Here goes . . .
Your company’s employee advocacy program. More companies are enabling and empowering employees to share company news in their own personal social media through an employee advocacy program. If your company offers this, it’s an easy way to provide valuable content and be a brand ambassador for your employer.
Your professional associations. What organizations do you belong to? Where do you look for training and development? You’ll often find the latest thinking in your field that you can share with your network. A few of my favorites in corporate communications are the International Association of Business Communicators, the Public Relations Society of America and the Forum-Group for communications leaders.
Your favorite industry and career news sources. What are your go-to sources for news about your field or the world of work? On the top of my list are Harvard Business Review and Fast Company.
Your alma mater. Colleges and universities are helping their alums be lifelong learners. Have you checked out yours lately? As an alumni ambassador for the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, I’ve shared information about event content and information such as the Relevance Report.
Your colleagues’ content. What are people in company and your network posting? Keep an eye out for articles posted to LinkedIn that align with your goals and share those. A few of my favorites are by Carlos Botero, Rachel Ybarra and Jennifer Van Buskirk.
Books you’re reading. What’s on your Kindle or your nightstand that has a business and professional focus? Share what you’re reading and what you’re learning. For me it’s Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant. It has two daily practices that would probably benefit everyone – note 3 things you did well and 3 moments that brought joy.
Conferences and events you’re attending. What virtual or in-person development activities are you involved in? What are you learning? Share your key takeaways in a status update. Include photos of the event and people you’re meeting.
What you’re learning. What’s your development plan to learn new skills this year? Are you taking online courses, pursuing a nanodegree or listening to podcasts and TED talks? Share status updates about what you’re learning and how you’re preparing for the future. Include your perspective on why these skills will be critical to the future of work, your industry and your employer.
Speaking engagements you’re doing. Anytime you’re speaking, whether it’s a conference or a webinar, it’s a great opportunity to post an update. Share your big idea or interesting questions people asked after your talk.
Key holidays. Look at the calendar each month and identify key events. May and June, for example, are big graduation months. You could share the best career advice you got at graduation or the most important thing you’ve learned since graduation. One of my posts that got great engagement was a leadership quote and a beautiful photo from iStockPhoto on Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. Keep an eye out for hashtag holidays – like #NationalMentoringMonth in January #GetToKnowYourCustomers day in July – and create posts about them.
Your blog. Do you have a blog about your profession and your industry? LinkedIn is a perfect place for a status update each time you post new content. If you’ve been blogging for a while, look through the archives to see what’s still timely. Your status update could include fresh information or a new take on the original post.
For the month of May, I’m going to conduct an experiment. I’ll further test these content ideas by posting a status update to LinkedIn on every workday of the month. That’s 22 status updates.
In future posts, I’ll share what I learn in the process about creating an editorial calendar, responding to comments, evaluating analytics, increasing engagement and more.
In the meantime, what would you add to this list of content ideas?
by Caroline Leach | Dec 11, 2016 | Careers, Social Media, Work/Life
It’s the holiday season. That means year-end networking events.
They always seem like a good idea when the invitation arrives, don’t they?
Yet when the appointed hour comes, I often regret my affirmative RSVP.
Except I didn’t this month when I dragged myself away from a compelling work project at 6:30 one evening and made myself go to the event I said I would attend.
It was a professional networking event of my son’s high school, for alums and parents to get to know each other and share ideas.
To honor my commitment, I intended to stay for 30 minutes. But happily and unexpectedly, that extended into a fun-filled 90 minutes.
Why? As I reflected on it, there are a few ways to make the most of a networking event.
In particular, think about the social savvy aspect, or social media element, of the people you meet and the conversations you have.
- Have a goal or two. Why are you attending? What do you want to accomplish? For me, I wanted to meet local professionals related to my son’s school to feel more connected to the school and the local community. I wanted to meet interesting people and hear what they were doing.
In part, I was inspired by marketing strategist Dorie Clark‘s advice in Harvard Business Review about networking with people outside your industry. She makes a compelling case for deliberately exposing yourself to diverse points of view.
And just like social media is about sharing and giving, the same is true for a networking event. Approach it from the perspective of how you can help others.
How do you do that? Here are a few ideas.
- Scan the attendee list. Look up a few people in social media to see who you might want to meet. What have they posted about recently? How can that be a conversation starter?
- Scan the latest news. Know what’s happening in the world that day. See what’s trending on Twitter. You’ll be better able to engage in conversations and ask people for their thoughts.
- Wear something that makes a statement. Pick something that you feel great in. A bright color, an interesting tie or a fabulous pin can help you connect with people. And you’ll stand out in photos that are posted in social media.
- Stand in the doorway for a moment when you arrive. This helps anchor you and lets you scan the room to see who you might want to meet.
- Put your name tag on your right side. This was something I learned in grad school at the USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism. When you shake hands, your name tag becomes more prominent and easier to read.
- Grab a beverage. Stick to one drink and sip it slowly. Hold it in your left hand, so your right hand is ready for shaking hands.
- Have a question or two ready. This will depend on the group. For mine, I asked about how people were connected to the school.
- Introduce people to each other. Make a point of connecting people you know to each other. Say something great about each person that provides a conversation starter.
- Look for small groups. It’s easier to start conversations with one or two people. You can start with a comment on the food or the venue or something interesting they’re wearing.
- Post about the event. Take an interesting photo, add a caption about something new you learned and share the spirit of the event.
- Share content about the event. If the event has a hashtag, search it and share relevant and appropriate content.
How do you make the most of a networking event?
by Caroline Leach | Dec 10, 2016 | Social Media, Work/Life
How do you keep your professional and personal social media activity separate?
The answer? You don’t.
Why? Because you can’t.
It’s all one big blend. It’s the way we live our lives today. What’s personal is professional, and vice versa.
It’s similar to the way that external and internal communications in corporations used to be separate spheres. There was a sharp dividing line between them. But now, what’s internal is also external. The lines have been blurring for quite some time.
In my own life, I used to draw a dividing line. I tried to limit Facebook to friends and family. If colleagues sent me a friend request, I steered them to LinkedIn.
But some people defied categorization. How about the person I worked with who was also involved with our community’s education foundation? Were they a professional or personal contact? In reality, they were both.
And some content I want to share with professional and personal contacts. As an avid reader, I get asked by people in both spheres about what I’m reading. Rather than spam people with article links in emails or texts, I share content in Twitter. People can opt in if they want by following me.
A good framework for personal and professional social media strategies appeared in Harvard Business Review.
Ariane Ollier-Malaterre and Nancy Rothbard researched how professionals use social media, noting that many “felt compelled to accept friend requests from professional contacts.” From their work, they identified four potential social media strategies.
- Open. You post whatever comes to mind. No filters. Not surprisingly, this is a high-risk strategy and is not advised.
- Audience. You keep your networks separate, as I used to do with friends and family in Facebook and colleagues in LinkedIn. This works for a while. But it increasingly becomes impossible to maintain as networks become more fluid.
- Custom. You post content to two different audience lists and/or on different accounts on the same platform. Unless you have a lot of time on your hands or retain an agency to manage your social media, this isn’t a sustainable strategy.
- Content. You post content that is appropriate for all audiences, similar to a G- or PG-rated film. In our increasingly blended world, this is an ideal strategy. You’re consistent and efficient in how you connect across the personal and professional.
The authors recommend the custom or content strategies. While the custom strategy sounds good in theory, it’s too cumbersome for real life, with the time constraints we all face. Try it if you dare, but my bet is that you’ll end up with the much more practical content strategy.
You can make your life easier and more satisfying by blending your social media approach with the content strategy. This requires acting consistently with integrity, class and style in whatever you do. And isn’t that part of living a good life?
What if you want to vent or share something snarky in social media? You have two options, if your professional and personal reputation is important to you.
The first is something we probably all heard from our parents – if you don’t have something nice to say, don’t say anything at all. The second is to keep it to real life, in a face-to-face setting.
It’s important to be thoughtful not only about the content you post, but also the content you share and the content you like. The aggregate of this activity reflects on you just as much as original content you create and post.
This is all part of what it means to act with social savvy in our ever-evolving world.
What strategies work for you in addressing the personal and professional aspects of social media?
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