Everybody, before we get started, I want to thank my friends at hatch for producing
Speaker:this episode. You can get unlimited podcast editing and strategy for
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Speaker:All right, let's get in the show.
Speaker:Welcome to distribution. First, the show where we flip content at marketing on its head
Speaker:and focus on what happens after you hit publish. Each week I
Speaker:share playbooks, motivations, stories, and strategies to help you repurpose and
Speaker:distribute your content because you deserve to get the most out of everything you
Speaker:created.
Speaker:Everybody, welcome to this week's episode of distribution
Speaker:first. Super pumped, super, super pumped for this
Speaker:episode because I've got Matt Barker on the show. If you've been on
Speaker:LinkedIn for like 5 minutes, you've probably seen something of
Speaker:Matt's fly through your feed, even if you're not following him.
Speaker:I've followed him for a long time now, and we've chatted back and forth over
Speaker:the years, so it's fun to finally catch up with Matt on the show. And
Speaker:today we're really going to talk about LinkedIn in particular and how to create
Speaker:some really easy, I would think, LinkedIn content. But first, Matt, welcome
Speaker:to show, man. Yeah, thanks for having me on. I think this might even be
Speaker:the first time we've met over video. I can't remember.
Speaker:Yeah, I think we've probably seen each other here and there over the
Speaker:interwebs and some of the groups we've. But yeah, probably the first time we're
Speaker:actually chatting. It might even be your video content plus your course, which
Speaker:I've watched. And that makes me think that I've met you before.
Speaker:I love that, actually. That's why I love podcasting, too. I'll get on calls with
Speaker:folks and they're like, oh, it feels like I already know you a little bit.
Speaker:Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I love that part about it. Yeah. I think
Speaker:for me today, I would love you had this piece of content that
Speaker:I checked out a couple of weeks ago, and I feel so strongly
Speaker:about the same way. I've got different kind of maybe thoughts as far as how
Speaker:to frame it up, but really it was like, how do I write seven days
Speaker:worth of content for LinkedIn in two to 3 hours?
Speaker:The crux of the whole thing being most people wake up on
Speaker:Monday, have no idea what they're going to do, feel overwhelmed,
Speaker:and don't do it. They wake up on Tuesday, it's in the back of their
Speaker:mind. They know they should be posting something. They know I got to be out
Speaker:in front of my audience. I can't think of anything unique to say,
Speaker:I guess I'll just skip it. Something else always fills
Speaker:the void, and that feels like that's kind of the background for you in that
Speaker:as well. Yeah, 100%. Pretty much exactly what you just
Speaker:described was what I was when I first started
Speaker:over those first two, three months, kind of just
Speaker:writing content, didn't really know what's doing, going in
Speaker:blind. And, yeah, that's pretty much how I felt the whole time. So I think
Speaker:maybe how I approach things now comes from that experience which
Speaker:most people go through. Anyways, before we jump into
Speaker:the kind. Of the meat of the plan here and how folks can actually create
Speaker:this batch of content, for lack of a better word, what's kind of maybe
Speaker:the tipping point for you when you were like, all right, I got to find
Speaker:a better way. What was that for you? It was actually,
Speaker:I don't remember, like, a specific moment where I was just like, this needs to
Speaker:stop. When I look back, I remember there was, like a weekend, we were staying
Speaker:in a friend's flat, and I just started posting. It was like a
Speaker:month or two in, and I woke up, I opened my phone, and I
Speaker:was literally opening just the LinkedIn app, trying to think
Speaker:of something to write in to the app directly
Speaker:in. And it took me literally, like an hour, hour and
Speaker:a half. I didn't know what to write. I didn't know what to gut. Like,
Speaker:at this point. I just had no system to get ideas. I didn't have
Speaker:any direction. I didn't know what I was posting. And that
Speaker:experience for me, doing that every day over and over again was just
Speaker:very stressful. And I'm the kind of person who likes to
Speaker:feel like I'm making progress. If I feel like I'm kind of stagnant with
Speaker:something, I get frustrated, and it kind of grinds me
Speaker:down. So it just got to a point where I was just like, this just
Speaker:feels like I wasted my time, so I need to change
Speaker:something, try something different. And, yeah, I'd start batch writing
Speaker:and kind of went from there. I've had the exact same experience
Speaker:again. I can't think of maybe a definitive time where I was
Speaker:like, I'm making this shift over. And I think, still from time to
Speaker:time, I've done this long enough, and I'm sure you could do this, too, where
Speaker:it's like, even if that seven days of batching doesn't
Speaker:go perfectly to plan, let's say you only got three of them done, or
Speaker:life happens, right? You've got enough reps in at this point where you can go
Speaker:and create something without it being too much of a heavy lift. But
Speaker:I still find the days where I don't have it
Speaker:thought out or even some sort of plan. I still fall in the trap
Speaker:of like, well, I've been sitting here for 2 hours and
Speaker:I don't have anything great. Or it's like I get distracted
Speaker:and I move over here, I'm like, can I find a better hook for this
Speaker:thing? Maybe let's rewrite this hook 20 times and see if it turns out
Speaker:any better. So I feel like it really does, even if you
Speaker:can't stick to the plan. Perfect. Perfect. I think it allows you the
Speaker:freedom to at least free up, man. I mean, I bet
Speaker:you could easily free up five, 6 hours a week for the average sort of
Speaker:person creating content on LinkedIn, for sure. Yeah, I've got clients who
Speaker:hopefully they'll get quicker over time, but clients who spend
Speaker:ten, up to 20 hours a week writing content,
Speaker:obviously when I work with them, it gets quicker and quicker. So
Speaker:hopefully we can work on something with this guy. But I can say now,
Speaker:even for me, after writing, I've probably written over like
Speaker:10,000 LinkedIn posts now for clients and myself
Speaker:included. And there's times when I do sit down
Speaker:and try and write something completely off the cuff and I still can't do it.
Speaker:It's still really stressful for me. So I just need to be in
Speaker:that time, that zone, that specific environment for me to be
Speaker:able to put out the stuff that I want to put out, really. I know
Speaker:the process that you've had for creating LinkedIn content, I'm almost positive,
Speaker:because I feel like this is how it happens, or how it's happened for me,
Speaker:is that process then bleeds into other things you're creating.
Speaker:So you've got a structure for how you're probably doing
Speaker:newsletters now. You've got a structure for how you've probably built
Speaker:in these processes to make sure that content can actually get out. Have
Speaker:you seen that with the stuff you're creating as well? Yeah, definitely. Early
Speaker:on finding out different frameworks, different copywriting
Speaker:frameworks, that was definitely something that kind of hit home with
Speaker:me and helped me develop a lot as a writer,
Speaker:not just in terms of LinkedIn content, but like you say, further down
Speaker:the line now with newsletters, just having a kind of
Speaker:idea in my head or on my screen, kind of what
Speaker:needs to go where that really helps. And then kind of
Speaker:adding those constraints in kind of allows you to be a bit more creative. I
Speaker:find when I write content, as I'm sure you can probably
Speaker:testify for weirdly, the more constraints there are involved and
Speaker:the more kind of structured and organized it is from the start,
Speaker:the better the content is and the more creative you can be. I definitely feel
Speaker:like, I know there's people who just don't agree at all, but obviously it's
Speaker:all context in terms of kind of what you're writing. But yeah,
Speaker:I know now with my newsletter there's going to be what I'm going to write
Speaker:at the start, how I'm going to structure it, what I'm going to lead into
Speaker:next, and how I'm going to deliver the info below. And it's got to
Speaker:a point now where I don't need to have that kind of pre prepped on
Speaker:the page. I kind of have an idea of it in my head and it's
Speaker:kind of muscle memory, I guess. Yeah. And I think a lot of that, like
Speaker:you said, just comes from the reps. And so I think my goal for this
Speaker:show is to give people, not maybe at the micro level
Speaker:of each individual post, we can maybe get into that depending on time, but
Speaker:really at a macro level of structure for the week and
Speaker:structure for the content that I can be creating every single week.
Speaker:So let's start with number one in your sort of structure here, as far
Speaker:as how to write seven days of content in two to 3
Speaker:hours a week. Again, probably saving you close to between six and ten if you
Speaker:actually followed the structure. Number one being ideal content
Speaker:schedule. So we touched on it, but maybe talk through a little bit
Speaker:about what an ideal content schedule looks like for you or
Speaker:for your clients and how that might adjust depending. I'm sure different clients
Speaker:might have different schedules. Like how do you think through that? So the idea of
Speaker:an ideal content schedule is that you kind of high
Speaker:level, you map out Monday to Friday what kind
Speaker:of post you want to be posting on each day of the
Speaker:week. So it could be Monday, I want to post a client result.
Speaker:I want to share some results I've been delivering for clients. Tuesday I want to
Speaker:show this is how I do something so deliver
Speaker:some value to my audience. Wednesday, I might want to
Speaker:promote my newsletter or something like that. So it's kind of high
Speaker:level, just mapping out what specific type of post
Speaker:I want to post on each day of the week. So even if I did
Speaker:sit down on the day to write a piece of content,
Speaker:even then I would know what I'm going to write. I'd have some
Speaker:direction. So if I sat down Monday and I just didn't have
Speaker:the time to batch all my content, at least Monday morning, I know.
Speaker:Okay, I'm getting a client result post out here. So I'm
Speaker:going to focus on that. I'm going to go and find a client result that
Speaker:I've delivered recently. Let's start writing a post on that and seeing
Speaker:where that goes and how that would look for different clients. Typically, I tend
Speaker:to approach that kind of ideal content schedule from
Speaker:the kind of 80 20 idea where 80% of the time
Speaker:you're delivering value, you're sharing stories
Speaker:and that sort of thing. But then the other 20% of the time you're making
Speaker:an ask, you're making an offer, you're trying to get your audience to
Speaker:convert onto something. So the client result posts on a kind
Speaker:of Monday would be the usual kind of, the only kind of bottom funnel
Speaker:piece of content that I put out. And then the rest of the week is
Speaker:to nurture my audience. And to be fair, for most of my
Speaker:clients, I pretty much do the same thing. Some clients actually don't want to put
Speaker:out any bottom funnel content, which is completely fine.
Speaker:They have other ways to convert clients with cold
Speaker:outreach and that sort of stuff. So LinkedIn is actually more of just a
Speaker:nurturing platform, staying top of mind. Yeah, it's interesting because
Speaker:for me, I do very similar things that you do working
Speaker:with clients. I tend to work inside with software companies to
Speaker:help distribute their content. LinkedIn being a main channel for a lot of these B
Speaker:two b companies. And it's funny you mentioned the 80 20
Speaker:rule, because when I go in and audit these companies, it's
Speaker:like 95 five. Promotional versus
Speaker:value add. And even the value add is promotional
Speaker:because I think one of the things people don't realize is
Speaker:asking for a click to view your content is
Speaker:an ask. That's not a give. So like you
Speaker:providing the world with this wonderful piece of content you made and you make
Speaker:come and check it out. I've given this to you. That's still an ask
Speaker:for me, just scrolling my phone. And so that's one of the things that I
Speaker:tend to have to work on a lot with SaaS clients is,
Speaker:all right, give away the value, be comfortable
Speaker:giving it away. And I think one of the things that a schedule like this
Speaker:does is it allows, whether it's a
Speaker:founder, whether it's a full on company, whether it's even solopreneurs like
Speaker:us, to build a schedule that's like, I can feel
Speaker:100% comfortable giving away this value for free because
Speaker:I know I'm going to have another post that sells something, or I know I'm
Speaker:going to have another post that promotes something else down the road. Yeah,
Speaker:it's that it's knowing what each post
Speaker:plays in terms of your overall approach. That's the
Speaker:main kind of idea that I try to get across to people.
Speaker:It's your client result post or your post where you're asking for
Speaker:something that's going to get like, your reach, your engagement is not going to be
Speaker:great. You just need to respect that. That is playing a very big part
Speaker:in the whole picture because all of your other content is warming
Speaker:your audience up to that. So let's talk a little bit about a client
Speaker:result post, because that's number two on your list of ways to kind of
Speaker:frame that up. So in my world, I think of things like
Speaker:case studies. A lot of companies have these full on case studies. They're
Speaker:buried behind their website that nobody goes and reads. So what
Speaker:are some of the ways you think about if you're sitting there on Monday and
Speaker:saying, I know I need to come up with a client result post? Like, what
Speaker:goes into that? So it'll either be I'm either
Speaker:thinking about a client of mine that has either
Speaker:the overall kind of transformation from start to
Speaker:now, or I'm looking at a very specific result from like the last
Speaker:week or the last two weeks. So there's a post I've got up here, I
Speaker:think, which kind of shows the transformation from before and now, where
Speaker:I kind of talk about back in December when we first started working together, they
Speaker:were getting this many impressions on their post. Now they're getting this
Speaker:many impressions. Here's how we've done it. So I'm going at it with a view
Speaker:of kind of showing the transformation and explaining how that's
Speaker:happened. And then that in turn is going to
Speaker:attract people who would want to work with me and want that same
Speaker:result. And then the other way of looking at it is I'm writing content
Speaker:for clients every week or helping clients write their
Speaker:content. They are getting results as we're working together. So,
Speaker:for example, if someone puts a post out, they get a lead back from
Speaker:it. I'll say, okay, so last week one of my clients got a lead from
Speaker:this simple text post and then kind of show roughly how that post
Speaker:was kind of structured, why it worked.
Speaker:And just from doing that, I'm showing that a, I'm getting results for
Speaker:clients, and I'm also showing you how it's done again.
Speaker:So it's kind of doing two birds with 1 st, showing the
Speaker:result, proving that I know what I'm talking about and showing
Speaker:how I do it. So a prospect or someone who potentially wants
Speaker:to work with me can say, okay, well, that seems fairly achievable
Speaker:for me. Is there any sort of in the back, and I know you talked
Speaker:a lot about this because you've done it so often you don't even think about
Speaker:it. But I'm curious, is there a baseline sort of
Speaker:copywriting formula that you're thinking through as you're writing this
Speaker:particular type of content where you're trying to show that
Speaker:transformation even at a high level? Yeah, it's pretty
Speaker:much a story like you start by painting
Speaker:the life before. So where were they at when they came to you?
Speaker:Were they struggling with this? Were they frustrated with that? Set the
Speaker:scene of what they were struggling with? Because that's super important, because
Speaker:ideally that's what you kind of want to be writing in your hook, and your
Speaker:hook is going to attract people with that same problem. So you kind
Speaker:of set the scene where they were before, then you describe the
Speaker:obstacles that they have in front of them so they don't have the time
Speaker:to post. They've tried posting, but the
Speaker:engagement sucked. They don't know the right engagement strategy. All those kind of
Speaker:potential obstacles that they had, but you're explaining the real
Speaker:obstacles that they had. You're not just making things up. And then you start
Speaker:bringing in like, okay, this is what we needed to do to overcome these obstacles.
Speaker:So you're kind of demonstrating that you know what needs to be
Speaker:done to fix it. And then you show the results of what you did. And
Speaker:ideally those results would be good results as realistic
Speaker:as possible is the ideal. In some cases. If
Speaker:you've absolutely blown someone up by
Speaker:10,000% or something, it almost sounds a bit unbelievable.
Speaker:So you kind of have to try and scale it down a bit. Not that
Speaker:that happens that often, obviously, but yeah, it's just showing their kind of
Speaker:story, like where they were before, what the problems were, how you were
Speaker:going to fix it, and then what happened afterwards, and then you CTA
Speaker:to reach out or do something. Yeah, love that. That's super
Speaker:tangible and tactical that folks can take away and shoot.
Speaker:I'm going to take that away and I'm going to start doing some more of
Speaker:that as we get rolling. I think it's a super smart way to start out
Speaker:the week, too, and be able to at least plot that in somewhere in your
Speaker:distribution schedule as you're trying to share that content out. So number
Speaker:three on your list is client problem. I'm curious, is it similar
Speaker:to the overall sort of maybe story aspect, or are
Speaker:you thinking about building out a client problem with a different
Speaker:type of framework? This one's kind of less result orientated and
Speaker:more kind of dialing in on a specific problem.
Speaker:So, for example, a post I wrote that would have been under the
Speaker:category of client problem. It'd be like cook writing advice I gave to a
Speaker:client yesterday, insert the advice and then kind of show
Speaker:examples of what you mean. So if a client sent me a piece
Speaker:of content, for example, for me to review and send back to
Speaker:them, if I noticed that if there was something in their
Speaker:hook which I saw wrong or something they could
Speaker:improve on, I'll make a note of that, take it out and use that as
Speaker:a content idea. And by getting your ideas from the
Speaker:things that you're doing with your client, those problems that you're solving with your
Speaker:client, you know that by putting that out, you're increasing the
Speaker:ods of attracting more people like that client that you're working with right now.
Speaker:So if it's a client that you're working with that you're not getting very good
Speaker:results with, or you just don't work very well with them, then
Speaker:probably not the best idea to use that as an idea. But you want to
Speaker:be taking those kind of problems that you're solving with those clients that
Speaker:you're doing well with and use that as content to
Speaker:attract people who are in similar situations. One tip
Speaker:I've even been doing for myself is because
Speaker:a lot of times using calls to do
Speaker:this, or if you're in a larger.org, being able to look
Speaker:back at calls that, especially if you're a cog within the machine
Speaker:in a larger.org, you might not ever have a real conversation with a customer just
Speaker:based on that. So you might have to pull that. But now with
Speaker:tools like Whisper or even chat, CPt, you can
Speaker:pretty quickly, for anybody who's struggling to be like, we all know
Speaker:what problems we solve, but sometimes it's like you're so close to it that
Speaker:you can't actually like, what am I solving here? You can take a
Speaker:transcript, you can take an audio source file like that and
Speaker:just kind of train the AI in a little bit. Like, I've started to
Speaker:do this where it's like, all right, this is who I am. This is what
Speaker:I'm offering. This is what I'm selling what are the main problems
Speaker:that this client had based on this call? And you can get some
Speaker:fantastic lists of pieces of content that then go be
Speaker:able to write content on. My ghost writing process is pretty
Speaker:much like the foundation of it is based from
Speaker:a call every month or a client
Speaker:voice noting something which I then just take out and use as
Speaker:content. Because you can kind of start to identify what a problem
Speaker:kind of sounds like or where you can go with a, you know, if you
Speaker:are in a team, like, you know, likelihood is you're in some kind
Speaker:of slack message stream. So if there's messages and things
Speaker:popping around in there, you can probably get some ideas out. Yeah, I think the
Speaker:idea, especially with the problems like just the basic notes app on my phone,
Speaker:I'm constantly trying to write down things that come to mind.
Speaker:And that's another thing too. I think for folks trying to get started with, especially
Speaker:this lower, I was going to say it's not lower quality, it's
Speaker:just people think of LinkedIn content as a little different than a full on
Speaker:blog post or a full on podcast. It gives you that
Speaker:flexibility to be able to try things out quickly and validate ideas. And so I
Speaker:think if you've got an idea that you want to validate, like shoot, create a
Speaker:piece of content, see how it hits. If it hits, turn it into something
Speaker:bigger. Which leads us into number four, my favorite on your
Speaker:list, Matt. Repurpose. Right. So talk to me a little bit
Speaker:about repurposing your thoughts on it. It's something that
Speaker:I think is a massive cheat code when you build enough of a
Speaker:library of content to just start picking and choosing
Speaker:things that hit in the past. But kind of walk me through your ideas on
Speaker:repurposing and how you're using it as part of your weekly schedule.
Speaker:So your course actually really helped me kind of look
Speaker:at a better way of viewing it and structuring it, which I'd never really
Speaker:considered before in that kind of way. But I think where a lot of people
Speaker:actually get misled with repurposing is they think
Speaker:you take a post that you posted before and just repost it. But in
Speaker:reality, repurposing is I leave comments on people's posts every
Speaker:day. I write short tweets on Twitter. I write sort of three or four
Speaker:tweets on Twitter every day. I write a weekly email
Speaker:newsletter. I have lead magnets. I have a course, two hour
Speaker:long course, and also my ghostwriting service. So this
Speaker:is all content, right? So often for
Speaker:writing a newsletter, I'll flick through
Speaker:my course and think, okay, what's a kind of key idea from that? Or what's
Speaker:a kind of small idea from my course, which I can pull out and just
Speaker:expand on? And then I know that I'm always
Speaker:on track in terms of kind of what I'm talking about, who I'm
Speaker:talking to, because it all relates back to my course, so it
Speaker:relates back to what I'm doing in terms of the more kind of like, I
Speaker:guess, content based, short form, content based kind of repurposing.
Speaker:What I'm doing a lot at the moment is taking, like I
Speaker:said, I post sort of three or four tweets every day. I'll take
Speaker:the best tweet and throw that up on a screenshot on
Speaker:LinkedIn and then kind of add some more context to it within the caption.
Speaker:You see quite a lot of people doing this. Obviously, on LinkedIn. It works
Speaker:because you've kind of gone out there and validated a quick idea that
Speaker:becomes the main part of the content, and then you're layering more
Speaker:ideas within that. And then if that does well, then you can turn it into
Speaker:a newsletter or something bigger or something like that. So,
Speaker:yeah, it's just looking at everything you're doing and thinking, do
Speaker:I really need to be creating brand new stuff every time I write
Speaker:this? But, yeah, sometimes you can just be as lazy as copy a tweet
Speaker:over or something like that, and that's fine. It's
Speaker:funny how not complicated some of this stuff is and
Speaker:how complicated we make it in terms of like,
Speaker:oh, my audience is going to know that I took this thing
Speaker:from over here. And if they do, who cares? You
Speaker:know what I mean? They're not going to hate you for that, right? It's
Speaker:funny. I've been thinking more about this concept, and I posted about it earlier
Speaker:this week, in terms of, like, you have to be in front of your
Speaker:audience all the time in different formats for them
Speaker:to get to know, like, and trust you. That's how you become known, like,
Speaker:and trusted today. It's not the best advertising, it's not the
Speaker:best, the flashiest thing. It's honestly not even the best content.
Speaker:The best content doesn't win. The best ideas don't win. The best products
Speaker:don't win. I heard somebody say this yesterday, and it absolutely
Speaker:blew my mind. It was like they gave this example of a nanny.
Speaker:They were like, you're more likely to trust the person you know than
Speaker:the person who's qualified. And they gave this example that I was like
Speaker:blown away by, they said, you're more likely to trust the 16 year old
Speaker:down the street that you know to watch your kids
Speaker:than a nanny that you've never met in your entire
Speaker:life who's infinitely more qualified to do that job,
Speaker:but you don't know them, you don't like them, and you definitely don't trust them
Speaker:at this point. So it's just like so interesting and to
Speaker:think about how our content can play in with that. And I think repurposing
Speaker:plays just such a big role in that where for folks
Speaker:who creating a lot of content, a lot of content, I'll
Speaker:put that in, quote, is a lot of work. And that's where repurposing comes in,
Speaker:because you can make it so much easier on yourself, of course.
Speaker:And a big part of how I kind of look at repurposing as well is
Speaker:if you're using your content to attract your kind of ideal
Speaker:customer, if something lands particularly well, you know that
Speaker:you've hit on a trigger that is going to attract that type of person. Right.
Speaker:So you'd be smart to say, okay, well, that
Speaker:clearly resonates with that person. So I need to write a
Speaker:lot more content around this specific thing. It's like
Speaker:right now I've just started a kind of new email promotion
Speaker:campaign with the subject line. If I notice something
Speaker:performs well and I get sign ups from it for the workshop I'm
Speaker:promoting, I'm going to keep hitting that trigger over and
Speaker:over again because I know that it works. So it's just more
Speaker:effective marketing if you take what works and do it more. Yeah.
Speaker:And it just blows my mind how, and I don't know if this
Speaker:is how it is with your clients, but in particular in
Speaker:corporate b, two b clients, a lot of the folks that I work with,
Speaker:how it's so tempting to want to move on to the next
Speaker:thing and not double down on what's working.
Speaker:Do your clients sort of struggle with that ever? Or maybe you're doing a
Speaker:good, maybe they're working with you because that's why. But to want to like,
Speaker:man, aren't we talking about this thing enough here, Matt, can we move on?
Speaker:Yeah, you still get it. You still do get it, I think. Especially
Speaker:when you're paying for someone to write for you and you're paying
Speaker:for someone to do your content. I can kind of get it if you just
Speaker:see that they're kind of putting out similar things every time it kind of feels
Speaker:like, all right, or what am I paying you for. But it's like, well, this
Speaker:is working, so I'm just going to keep doing it. That is funny. I wonder
Speaker:even, too, and if you're like a content marketer listening to this show,
Speaker:shoot me an email and tell me, because I'm curious,
Speaker:is that part of the internal struggle for us, too? As somebody who worked
Speaker:in house for over a decade of like, well, we want to show we're doing
Speaker:something new. We don't want
Speaker:the boss to show up every day and be like, oh, you're still just doing
Speaker:that? Oh, you're still just writing that one
Speaker:blog post a week and showing up on LinkedIn? Five days.
Speaker:That's all you're doing. Anything new for us here. So I wonder if that's a
Speaker:challenge. That's just kind of inherent, but that is funny.
Speaker:All right, number five. And you've got newsletter promo because obviously you have a
Speaker:newsletter. But I think if we just go larger scale, like content
Speaker:promo, you've got something new that's coming out. You've got a webinar, you've got a
Speaker:newsletter, you've got a workshop, you've got that sort of thing. So
Speaker:maybe talk to me a little bit about how to do that and do it
Speaker:in a way that's valuable and not just purely promotional.
Speaker:Yeah. So I tend to just
Speaker:try and ignore that this is like a promo
Speaker:post and just write a piece of content that is
Speaker:valuable. I tend to just follow the same kind of rough structure
Speaker:for all of my posts. Start with a problem, agitate it, and
Speaker:then give a solution, or what my solution is. That
Speaker:can be long or short, but typically I'll write the post like
Speaker:that and then kind of segue into the thing that I'm linking
Speaker:to, which in my case is usually a newsletter or an article.
Speaker:And typically the piece of content that is leading,
Speaker:like the bulk of the content is either a summary of the whole
Speaker:newsletter or the whole article, or it's just that kind of intro
Speaker:section which now I've written more newsletters, written more
Speaker:articles for the website. Just newsletters. Actually, now that I've
Speaker:done that more, I know that when I'm writing the start of that newsletter, I
Speaker:need to structure it in a way that I can just go, yoink, put it
Speaker:onto LinkedIn, put it onto Twitter, and then it just saves me
Speaker:a bunch of time when I come back round to it. So it's, who was
Speaker:it? It was someone. I can't remember who it was, but the idea of, like,
Speaker:no click content. Where, oh, yeah, Amanda from Sparkdro yeah.
Speaker:So obviously there is a click to be had here, but the idea around
Speaker:that someone wouldn't have to click anything to get value from
Speaker:what you're posting. Yeah, I talk about that a lot, too, about
Speaker:for repurposing in particular platform native. So, like,
Speaker:I've got this thing, let's call it a blog post. How do I make
Speaker:that platform native to where it's going to go? How do I make that platform
Speaker:native for LinkedIn? How do I make that platform native for an email newsletter?
Speaker:Not copy paste, not just throw in whatever. And I think what you said, though,
Speaker:is key. And I actually had this realization with the client the other day
Speaker:as well, which is we were talking kind of back and forth, and she
Speaker:said, this is going to change how I create
Speaker:content, knowing I need to get it out
Speaker:into the world. And I'm like, yes, exactly.
Speaker:That's what's going to happen. Yeah. Again,
Speaker:going back to your course, that was probably the biggest takeaway as well. For
Speaker:me. I'm creating this newsletter. How
Speaker:is this going to then transfer onto LinkedIn? How is it going to
Speaker:transfer onto Twitter? If you have multiple channels which you're
Speaker:distributing content onto? You just have to do that. Otherwise it does just
Speaker:make it really difficult to actually repurpose that
Speaker:content. Matt, you're going to sell some content repurposing roadmap courses
Speaker:throughout this episode, I can tell. So, yeah. Thank you. All right, we got two
Speaker:left. We'll go real quick on them. Let's just real quick touch on customer
Speaker:testimonial, which is number six. How are you thinking about a testimonial maybe
Speaker:different than the first bit where we're sort of talking about client results and
Speaker:kind of talk to me about maybe just the differences there. The big
Speaker:distinction for me here is that this would generally be a
Speaker:testimonial that a customer has left around my
Speaker:product or some kind of digital product that I sell. That would
Speaker:be the biggest distinction. But also it's actually a
Speaker:formal testimonial. So like a video, someone's recorded a video
Speaker:and said, or they've left a written testimonial
Speaker:saying so and so, the difference in that and the client result.
Speaker:Like I said, I'm actually just commentating on the
Speaker:result as opposed to taking a specific testimonial or something
Speaker:like that. But, yeah, testimonials, it's a form of
Speaker:social proof. There's times when I've posted
Speaker:testimonials on LinkedIn and again written it, written the kind of
Speaker:caption in the same way that I was describing the client result.
Speaker:And it can drive thousands of pounds of sales just
Speaker:directly from that if you link to it and link to your product and your
Speaker:landing page. So yeah, social proof is a big one. Love it. Yeah,
Speaker:I like that distinction, too. Like, you're not sort of summarizing what's happening.
Speaker:You might be, but really the bulk of that is that screenshot. It's that video.
Speaker:It's that sort of like in your face, like, hey, somebody else
Speaker:is saying great things about this thing. Yeah,
Speaker:it's that, that's the big distinction. It's like nobody markets your
Speaker:product better than your customers. Right? So that's the kind of idea
Speaker:behind it. Thousand percent. And then the last one here is stories,
Speaker:which I loved. You had this line like, personal content can get quite cringey
Speaker:at times, right? And I think that's maybe the balance, especially on
Speaker:LinkedIn. There's the whole side of that. But I'm just curious,
Speaker:stories in general, right. It's not that it has to be
Speaker:you spilling everything about your life, but I'm just curious, how do you
Speaker:think about the stories that you do end up telling and sharing
Speaker:on these social platforms versus maybe the ones you don't,
Speaker:but really just focus, I mean, I guess really focusing on the ones that you
Speaker:do and kind of how you're thinking about what stories to tell. Yeah, no, you're
Speaker:right. I definitely had that as well when I first started writing online.
Speaker:It's like, I don't want to tell a story. I don't want to let people
Speaker:into my life. I'm a fairly private person, so I don't like to
Speaker:get too emotional and cringey in these things. It's not for
Speaker:me. I would rather not post that and save and
Speaker:then get thousands of likes. So the way I look at it is in
Speaker:terms of my business or my kind of growth, I sometimes
Speaker:just use it as a bit of a kind of cathartic thing and kind of
Speaker:a way to just document my journey. The post where I kind of open
Speaker:up about a particular struggle that I've had in my business
Speaker:journey and then explain kind of how I'm going to
Speaker:overcome that now or how I did overcome it in the past, or kind
Speaker:of my take on that, they're the posts that always do
Speaker:pretty well for me. And I think the big thing from the kind of
Speaker:story posts is kind of making it relevant to what you're actually doing
Speaker:in your business. For me, anyway, for my clients, I never
Speaker:write just random stories. It's always wrapped around
Speaker:them building their agency or their views on
Speaker:entrepreneurship or something like that. It's always to do with their journey and their
Speaker:kind of growth that instantly that makes it feel a lot
Speaker:less kind of cringy, emotional, a bit
Speaker:more kind of like purposeful. And also when you talk about
Speaker:it from the kind of point of your business, it's relevant to what you do.
Speaker:So if it does go big, because it's a broader piece of content, so it
Speaker:has that potential. If it does go big, then there's going to be
Speaker:a lot of eyeballs on you and people are going to then know what you
Speaker:do for your work. Yeah. Like, I'm looking at the example you have
Speaker:here, and the opening line is, I spent ten years in marketing for quitting and
Speaker:earning over 15 x my yearly salary in the first two years of running a
Speaker:one person copywriting business. So there's a unique story there. Like, I'm already
Speaker:interested. But then it's also, if I only read that one line, I'd be like,
Speaker:Matt runs a one person copywriting business. Yeah.
Speaker:So it's an interesting, I love the way you frame that up of like, tell
Speaker:a story, but especially on a platform like LinkedIn,
Speaker:hopefully tie back to something that's a little bit tied back to what
Speaker:you do, what you solve, all those type of things. Sure. Yeah. I think
Speaker:that's probably where most people go wrong with stories. They just tell a story
Speaker:just for engagement's sake. Obviously, the idea of a story
Speaker:is that it generally goes a bit broader. But most people that buy
Speaker:my courses or buy a kind of lower ticket product from me,
Speaker:they buy it because they liked me and they like the kind of way I
Speaker:view things, the way I do things. That's a big part of your
Speaker:content, especially when it's personal content as well. You need to kind of
Speaker:communicate your personality and the way you kind of think about things. Yeah.
Speaker:And I think that's why a lot of right now, a hot topic
Speaker:within larger companies as well is how do we get our
Speaker:employees to do some of this individual posting
Speaker:on LinkedIn and things like that for that exact reason of people
Speaker:connect with people. I'm much more likely to buy this large
Speaker:enterprise software if I know Joe in sales and Susie in marketing and so
Speaker:and so over at customers. But if I know them and feel like they've got
Speaker:good stuff, I'm much more likely to go over there and hang out with them
Speaker:than I am for the nameless, faceless company. It's the same thing for
Speaker:individuals and for creators and all of those folks, too. I've
Speaker:had the same thing where it's like I was on a random call one
Speaker:time and someone was like, oh, I'm a huge distribution first fan. I'm a huge
Speaker:fan of what you're doing. And it's like, I've never talked to you in my
Speaker:entire life. That's amazing. It's just like, it's
Speaker:cool to see that happen in a way where it's
Speaker:like, okay. The only reason that's even possible is because I post content
Speaker:all the time. And there's people that I've spoken to, obviously,
Speaker:since. Over the last two years, since I've been
Speaker:writing online, and they say, I want to do it. I want to start my
Speaker:own thing. And I'm like, okay, well, start writing online. They're like, well, I
Speaker:can't because I have a job. I can't be writing online. Like, they would fire
Speaker:me or they think it's weird or alerts. So
Speaker:there's, like, instantly this barrier just because you already have a job.
Speaker:And it's just crazy. I look back at
Speaker:me starting writing online, which really enabled me to become
Speaker:a copywriter and make money doing this, was that
Speaker:I quit my job before doing that. Give you the freedom?
Speaker:Yeah. If I was still in my
Speaker:job when I was kind of transitioning, I think I just wouldn't have,
Speaker:well, I wouldn't have even transitioned. I don't think it had to be on
Speaker:or off, like a light switch. Awesome, man. It's been so fun
Speaker:to have you on. I love this content. I think it's going to be super
Speaker:helpful for individuals who want to start creating content, for companies who want
Speaker:to create better content, creating a schedule for what they're doing. With LinkedIn, we touched
Speaker:a whole bunch of different things. I would love to just give you a hot
Speaker:second here to shout out anything. I know you've got a couple of things coming
Speaker:down the pike here, so why don't you just kind of tell a,
Speaker:obviously, where people can find you and b, kind of what you have coming out
Speaker:soon? Yes, you can find me on. On LinkedIn, I think. My username
Speaker:is Matt J. Barker. One on Twitter. I'm at Matt
Speaker:Barker copy. I post there every single day of the week. I write a
Speaker:newsletter called the digital writer, so you can sign up to that on both my
Speaker:platforms. And I have a two hour copywriting
Speaker:course called the digital copywriter that's actually relaunching
Speaker:on the 1 March. So the plan is for that
Speaker:to either be readily available as an evergreen
Speaker:product or I'll be promoting it every now and then to make it available.
Speaker:So yeah, that will be pretty helpful for anyone who's looking
Speaker:to learn about how to copyright specifically for
Speaker:their know it's aimed at solopreneurs, freelancers,
Speaker:founders who are in the digital space. Amazing, man.
Speaker:Well, Matt, it's been a blast chatting. We'll have to catch up soon. And thanks
Speaker:for coming on, man. Yeah, thanks for having me on. It's been good.
Speaker:All right, I hope you enjoyed this episode of Distribution
Speaker:first, and thank you for listening all the way through. I appreciate you
Speaker:so, so much and I hope you're able to apply what you learned in
Speaker:this episode one way or another, into your content strategy as
Speaker:well. Speaking of strategy, we have a lot of things going on this year that
Speaker:are going to help you build your brand ten x your content and transform
Speaker:the way you do content marketing. Make sure to subscribe to the show and sign
Speaker:up for my newsletter at Justinsimon Co. So you don't miss
Speaker:a thing. I look forward to serving you in the next episode as well. And
Speaker:until then, take care and I'll see you next time.