I had an agonising chat with a mate who runs a coworking space the other day, so I’m writing this post rather than punching them on the nose.
They said they would invest all their marketing money in Instagram when the lockdown ends so people could see their space.
I was in tears.
“I know I need a website, and once people get there, then they can buy a membership. That’s the job of a website.”
“But it’s much quicker to take my phone and make a caption and hashtags than write a blog post.”
You can see their point.
BUT.
NOOOOOOOOOOO!
Something we’ve found out in the last six months on Instagram for Velvet Platform and PayPugs is that no one gives a flying ‘duck’ about you.
Ok, they do if you are my mates Tash and Marte on Breaking the Distance or art champion ZHC or Jennifer Aniston.
Of course, we did not try EVERYTHING, and we LOVE Instagram, but the ROI is crap.
Also, I believe with every social media thing, people connect with people, not brand, but you need to be there, and you need to enjoy it.
NEXT
So what do you do?
Content, I’m going to go with blogging because I LOVE this.
I also love audio, and I’m finally warming up to video.
But blogging – writing some words on your website is the thing we can all do.
Ideally, you’ll have your website, but if not, jump on Medium or Linkedin to get going.
Why Words?
Words sell things, they tell a story, and they write a review.
Whether you are making a blog post like what you are reading now or relying on a social network, you are writing and reading.
You don’t want to make crap content.
You certainly don’t want to make those fucking annoying little short posts that have a headline to get you to the website but tell you nothing.
As Avinash Kaushik from Google says, people who read longer posts are more committed to you.
I agree; we don’t want channel flickers.
We want to build an audience and authority.
For our ECA podcast sponsored by Cobot, we have a small and loyal audience, and we enjoy a connection.
People I know say, ‘I listened to your podcast’ – this is great.
But we’re looking to increase our audience. We’re 80+ episodes in and understand our place in the microscopic world of podcasts on coworking.
Now we have to work out how to get a bigger audience, and so do you.
Dyslexic
I’m napalm dyslexic, and in the last ten years, my world has come alive; I use:
Grammarly
Hemingway
Autocomplete in One Note and Google
I’ve completed 2321 writing day in 750 Words.com since December 2013.
Written 1,959,456 words.
And I’ve built a skill.
So if you can put the effort in, and so few people do, you will get somewhere.
The time it takes to write.
Look on App Sumo
Frase – research in Frase
Otter – interview
Google docs – shared between people
WP – how to add it on.
I send people to Jammy, Copyblogger, Grammarly, Hubspot
H1
H2
H3
Bullet points
Marcus – photo
Don’t write for your mates; write for your customer
For a long time, I wrote for my mates; I’d write to impress, sometimes connect, and look back, I was trying to find my voice.
But part of it was writing so people would read what I had done, and if I wrote something, those few people would read at least it got read.
When I started to write for people who I’d wanted to hire me, it got better.
The best way I’ve found is the ‘They Ask You Answer‘ method by Marcus Sheridan in the book of the same name.
Learning how to blog for real
Over on Jammy Digital, you can download a whole spreadsheet, checklist and content planning toolkit that will save you days of guesswork.
In our company, the whole team are signed up for Impact Plus because they train the They Ask You Answer and focus on HubSpot.
Often people whine ‘they have not got time to watch a video’ and sneer.
I have not got time to watch a video either; in fact, I send them all to an app and listen to them.
But I found that when I swapped out binge-watching Netflix and Facebook to watch videos on content marketing, my income went up, and my anxiety went down.
Paying serious attention to how you organise your time, what you make a priority is a big deal.
I have always struggled with this; I never stop reading about it and looking for better ways.
It is not seeking a new and better system; it removes the blocks and impediments in my workflow and knows where to ask for help.
An essential book for me was Scott Belsky and Making Ideas Happen – he interviewed hundreds of business leaders and creatives about how they organise their workday by day and month by month.
The people that took a little from every system and made their system did the best.
When someone screaming at you like a religious fanatic about GST, Prince2 or Scrum methods, run away.
Indeed Jeff and JJ from Scrum inc say the same, use the outline of the framework and shape it what works for the people on your team.
Meet-Ups
London Bloggers Meet Up and Write Club
