Crafting Quality LinkedIn Content: Tools & Tips from Michelle J Raymond

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] And hello everybody. Welcome to the Good for Business Show. I am your host, Michelle J Raymond and today it's a special kinda show because I am actually gonna be doing this one by myself. That's right. I don't have a guest. It's my turn to share all of my best tips with all of you.

One of the questions that I get asked most from my clients and people out in LinkedIn land is, what tools do I use? How do I put out so much content when there's only two of us in the business. I wanted to share some of these tools I use because I like them and you have to find tools that you like as well.

It's not gonna always be Michelle uses it, so therefore you'll automatically love it. If only it was that simple. A lot of these things will be, about playing around. You have to do a bit of experimenting to get the most out of LinkedIn and find what makes you comfortable. For those of you catching the show for the first time, this is where we get to share lots of tips to help you grow your business, especially using [00:01:00] all the best features out of LinkedIn.

I'm a trainer, I'm a coach. I also love to develop strategies for B2B businesses to really align with their business goals. That's pretty much where we start. The best tool that I can give you and the best advice that I can give you, is to actually make sure that you have a business goal in mind, and then you have a LinkedIn strategy that aligns and is designed to get you there. If you don't have that, then all of the tech most will just go and fall over because it's not gonna make any difference to you.

I have stacks of different tools that I use and at one stage there, I think I was collecting them, cause you just go $10 a month, $20 a month, $30 a month and then all of a sudden you look back and you're like, whoa, how am I spending this much? And I think the only person that might do that more than me is my friend, Michelle Griffin, shout out to you aswell.

 When I'm looking for tools to use, it [00:02:00] has to be intuitive. So it has to feel right when I use it. I don't want to be, clicking around trying to waste time, trying to work out how things work. Where possible I always use free tools and I'm always on the lookout to try and find, is there a free alternative to something that might be a paid product.

I use my mobile a lot. So sometimes it's apps on my phone and sometimes it's desktop. Mostly when you're creating content, desktop is probably a better place because you can save your content. You can, use different programs, jump between them pretty easily. Desktop is my preferred method to create, unless I'm doing something on the fly and I'm in the zone and I just wanna type away.

I've got lots of tools today. I'm gonna save the best to last, just so you hang around for the next 30 minutes with me, but it is my absolute favourite tool. The one that I can no longer live without when it comes to creating my LinkedIn content and beyond, because I've just started to create [00:03:00] Instagram Reels and YouTube Shorts and really embracing some of these other platforms.

I'm doing that because I wanna get out of my comfort zone and I encourage anyone that's listening in today to do the same. Let's go to the first one because creating content takes a lot of time. And when we look at it, I wanna give you my favourite tool for saving time.

I want you to listen today to why I love this tool for, saving time when I create content. My favourite tool is called Social Pilot and Social Pilot is a tool that is a scheduling tool.

Now, if you haven't heard of a scheduling tool, what happens is, you create your content off on another platform and in my case, it's called Social Pilot. So other alternatives might be like Buffer or Hootsuite. You can use Meet Edgar. There's lots of other cool ones, but my preferred one is Social Pilot.

So it means that I can create content at a time that works for [00:04:00] me, which is actually on a Saturday morning while I'm still in bed. For some reason, that's where I get most creative and I just wanna smash out all of my client work. But if I was to post it on a Saturday morning, I would hope that most of you have better things to do, and you are not hanging around looking out for it.

So what it allows me to do is create when works best for me, and then I can post it at what works best for my audience. That time has changed over time. It used to be first thing in the morning, all of the early birds here in Sydney, but as times moved on and my audience is overseas. I now have to post much later at night.

So probably more like five o'clock in the afternoon to eight o'clock at night here in Australia. If you have a similar issue where the time that works best for you to create content is not the same time that you want to post, then I suggest a scheduling tool is a great idea. And what I do is I also use it as a [00:05:00] place to put notes for posts.

It has an app on my phone and it also has desktop version, that's why I love it. But if you've got one of those ideas, instead of losing it, and then the day that you come to create some posts, it's Oh, I've got nothing to post Michelle, how am I gonna post? If it's one of those kind of days, then you can always go back and find it easily.

 I find that's often the problem that people have and why content creation takes so much time is because we don't have systems in place to capture ideas. Often when people are trying to capture an idea and then post, it's like they don't align. And so the idea goes out the window just because the timing's not right.

So a scheduling tool, LinkedIn is giving us a feature upcoming I've seen I'm gonna assume it was probably Kevin Turner, cause he always brings us new features. If it wasn't him shout out to whoever it was, but we will be able to schedule one post on LinkedIn. Now I wish we could do more, [00:06:00] but one is better than none.

So again, You're gonna write when works best for you and post when works best for your audience. There's some limitations like you can't tag individual names at this point in time and some forms of content don't work. You are not penalised by using the scheduling tool to put it into LinkedIn, so don't stress about that.

The upside is when you batch content and make it all together at the same time. When you're in that zone and you've got that one topic in mind, it takes a fraction of time to actually complete writing. When you do it ad hoc and just do it here, there and everywhere, it actually, I think, takes almost double the amount of time.

So if you are time poor and tell me you don't have time to create content, then batch writing or scheduling tools is great. Because as a business owner, here's what happens, if I have intentions of going and doing stuff today, [00:07:00] and then my day gets away from me because I am always going to prioritize client work and I'm sure most people out there would make the same choice.

 I use Social Pilot as I've said, I'll use some links after the show, so everyone's got a copy of these. If you use another scheduling tool, by all means, drop it in the comments and let me know which ones you use and why you like it so that we can help build up the community and we all get to learn from each other. Maybe there's a new one that's out there.

The other thing that you can do is don't forget to always have somewhere handy that you can write down your ideas. Often when I'm brainstorming the way that I write and come up with ideas that I can use when I'm scheduling is that it's almost like a tree. So I have my main topic, which is Company Pages, and then we branch out. The simple topic might be how to set up a Company Page and then I might have little subtopics, like how to write a good about section, how to create a header section and we just branch off, so they're all [00:08:00] related.

That helps when you're writing for websites and other places, not just LinkedIn. The whole new Google wants you to be helpful, this is exactly the kind of writing that they like. So it's not ad hoc. It's not all over the place, but it actually allows you to you know, just become a subject matter expert and expand on your thoughts. So break those ideas down. It's not just one big, go Company Pages, we've got so many little bits that come through.

That's the way that I do it. Always love to hear from anyone if you've got a different style.

Now, I wanna talk about the best tool for writing with confidence. I know that for many people out there that writing text in post is one of the most challenging parts of the whole process. Many people might have English as a second language, may not be confident with spelling and grammar. We're operating in a global world. Those Americans, if only they could use the Queen's English or the King's English now, that would be great [00:09:00] because we're all so different.

 The tool that you need is Grammarly and Grammarly is your best friend that no one knows about, that every time you write a post and that can be in Word, it can be also used in things like your emails. It's your little friend that checks everything and just checks in and says, did you mean to do this? You're missing a word that's not quite right.

I've learned so much and I've become a better writer by using this tool. I used to think that, I had it pretty sorted, I knew how to write but this has actually taught me that there's lots of things that I can always improve. Creating content is a game of small improvements, a game of looking for, how can I be this much better than the day before? And the piece of content before?

I don't think anyone is going to literally go from ground zero all the way to, I am the best content creator in the world. I think it [00:10:00] just happens over time. And if I tell you I've been creating content for around eight years, solid. And I still need these tools. I appreciate these tools probably even more now because when I do a post and it doesn't have silly spelling mistakes, which normally comes because I'm in a rush and I wanna try and get things done.

And I miss things because my brain doesn't pay attention to detail like that. So when I read it, it just looks right and there's lots of science around the fact that if the first letter and last letter is right, it will appear like the word is spelt right. So sometimes you can't even see it based on facts. So Grammarly, best tool to give you confidence to actually write content. And, it's just an easy plugin that you can use.

 Let's have a look at the best tool to create images and similar content for LinkedIn. Now I have a love, hate relationship with this tool. [00:11:00] It has a free version and a, reasonably priced paid version.

You have probably all heard about it before and it's canva.com. Go the Aussies. We created that one. When I started creating content as a LinkedIn trainer, I really struggled to wrap my head around the importance of branding. I'd worked for big corporates who took care of that, and my content on LinkedIn, I didn't need to worry about it cause it was all just ,as Michelle Griffin would say, a side brand. I was working in a role and I was just building my brand and it had nothing to do with my actual job as such or working for that company.

When I started to use Canva, I wanted to pull my hair out and I would go nuts cause I couldn't work out how to use it. All I would say is if you were in a similar position, cause you're just starting out, have some patience. They actually have some cool tutorials on there now that make it easier. [00:12:00] Setting up things on the paid version, such as your logo and your branding colours and fonts, with a click of a button, you can apply that to any template.

 The way that I use Canva now is I find one that I like the look of, that's closest to something that I like, and I change it to my colours and I change the text. I am not a graphic designer. I am never going to be a graphic designer. I wish some days that I was that clever to be able to use things like Photoshop and the more advanced software services.

But the fact is when you create a piece of content on LinkedIn, you have a shelf life of maybe 48 hours, 72 hours, and then it's like yesterday's news and disappears into the trash and never to be seen again. This is why right now for me, and I'm getting better over time. Right now, for me, it is much easier if I use [00:13:00] Canva, do it myself, than outsourcing to people, just for how quickly I need to turn things around. So become friends with Canva.

There's another product that I really like to do carousel sliders. And for those of you who don't know what a carousel slider is, that's the post that you see as you're scrolling through the feed that you have to swipe across to the left and it will show you different slides that are normally around a square shape, roughly and there's probably six or seven slides and you read through, and they're like a mini masterclass if they're done well. And Richard van der Blom has some really great ones that you can go and check out. The reason that I love this is that number one, I think it's one of the best performing types of content on LinkedIn right now.

The thing that I don't like is that when you go onto Canva, Canva does everything vertically and my brain just cannot process [00:14:00] why I can't make it flip the other way. If there's a workaround, please somebody leave that in the comments as well.

 I use another product which has been designed by someone that's active on LinkedIn, so a LinkedIn member and when I use this product, it makes my life so much easier and that product is called Contentdrips. A lot of people probably haven't heard of it. There's lifetime deals for, I think, around $70 or something like that. Absolutely worth every single cent. They have so many templates that are already created, that you can just go in and add in text and change to your colours.

They have different types of tweet posts so that you can use on LinkedIn. You've probably seen them show up everywhere. And so we've got tweet posts, banner posts, carousel posts. And just for me, because it goes horizontally instead of vertically, it just doesn't do my head in. Contentdrips [00:15:00] and Canva, they're my two, when it comes to making images or also making carousel posts.

When it comes to editing videos and adding subtitles, I've got two friends that you should be following. Gillian Whitney, Easy Peasy Video Queen is my trainer when it comes to all things, LinkedIn and video. So if you're not connected with her, make sure you go and find her. And the other person is Vicki O'Neill and Vicki and Gillian both love video, and they are the people that I follow and I recommend that you follow them too, because they'll give you lots of indepth tips.

Now, when it comes to video editing, adding in subtitles are really important to make your content accessible. So not only for people that are, hearing impaired, but also for those that watch with the sound off. The stats that I've heard are anywhere up to about 80% of people do not watch videos with sound on. So there's a [00:16:00] reward for the effort that you put in, not just to help your content be more accessible, but it will actually ensure that people stop the scroll and start to watch the video. The program that I use to do this traditionally has been Kapwing.

So K A P W I N G and Kapwing is a tool that does so many different video editing. Again, I booked a session in with Gillian who I just think was brilliant. If anyone out there is struggling on how to do it, honestly, the best thing I ever did was to stop trying to figure it out for myself, go to someone who's already figured it out and spend an hour and ask all of my questions of the expert.

I kept going down the rabbit hole on Google and just ended up wanting to pull my hair out again. So Kapwing for subtitles has a free version, which makes it even better. There are other products like on your mobile phone, like Clipchamp. [00:17:00] I tend to do most subtitles on my desktop, just because that's how it rolls.

And my favourite tool, which I'm gonna share with you at the end also has the ability to do subtitles and some video editing. Stay with me cause in a few minutes, I'm gonna share exactly what that one is. So Kapwing for video editing, adding in music, adding in cool popups, cause I always wondered how do they make things pop up in the backgrounds of videos?

And so when I got to learn really how easy it is you can improve the quality of your content. And again, it's a free app, which I love.

It's all well and good that I'm talking to you about these tools and the tools are great, but what happens if you've stuck for ideas? If you really can't come up with something to write about, and you're just stuck or you don't know how to word things. There's a website called Answer The Public.

Now Answer The [00:18:00] Public is great cause it also helps you write content that search engines are looking for. So how does it work? Pretty much every inquiry that goes into Google. So when you ask Google a question, Answer The Public. Pulls all of that data together. And then we'll put together a, you type in a topic and it will give you a whole range of all of the questions that people are asking.

 Take your subject matter expertise. In my case, it's LinkedIn Company Pages. I type that into Answer the Public and then it brings up," how to create a company page", or "why do I need a company page" ,"are company pages free?" And there's a whole range of what everyone out in the world is actually asking about Company Pages.

So if people are asking those questions, it makes sense for me to be the answer. I wanna be the go-to source. I wanna be the person that can actually help you out. And so I write to answer the public. Makes sense. Again, it's free. There's a [00:19:00] limitation that you can only do it I think it's maybe one search a day. In my experience once you do that one on a much bigger topic, it gives you so many options that honestly, there's content for a year without even trying. I also find it good as I use those questions as the first sentence in my content. So it stands out. Because I figure if other people are searching for it on Google chances are they wanna know the answer on LinkedIn as well.

If it's a LinkedIn related topic. So you can see that there are lots of places, the best tool that I use when I'm actually scrolling on my phone and I have so many news sites, I don't know if anybody else somehow collects all these new sites related to the industry. I'm reading LinkedIn Marketing blogs, LinkedIn engineering blogs, the sales blogs, I'm following businesses and I'm following people on, other social media platforms as well.

And I'm always picking up [00:20:00] ideas from them. So if I see someone having a problem with Company Pages, and they're asking a question on the platform, I can assure you what you'll see next is me coming back around and creating maybe a YouTube video. I've done a lot of how-tos for common questions.

Again, I just wanna be the go-to authority on LinkedIn Company Pages, and you need to become the same on your particular area. Now we are going to go over my favorite tool and my favorite tool, the ultimate repurposing tool that I have found to dates and I'm always looking and I'm always on the lookout.

The best tool that I have found, which you are going to want , the best product that I love right now is a product called Descript. Now Descript makes me feel like I can edit anything, that I can repurpose my content so many different [00:21:00] ways. Today you are joining me on a LinkedIn live, which is a recording, which I will turn into a podcast using Descript. When I turn this recording into a podcast what happens is I can then chop it into much smaller pieces.

I can then also pull out a full transcript. I can make things that are called audiograms. Now, why is this so different? When we were just talking about a video editing tool called Kapwing, just a few minutes ago, what makes this so easy and what makes me love this the most? I am not a video editor and nor do I want to be. The reason that I love this is because it's driven by AI ,to run a full transcript on my video, which I can then edit the video by editing the transcript. So imagine you have a word document in front of you and you go, I don't want that bit in [00:22:00] my word doc, what happens is you just delete that out and it cuts it out of the video. So if I stumble on my words or I repeat myself or I go um, uh, filler words, it actually has the ability to take those out really easily. So what you'll hear is when we do things live, there can be times when you know, you can't spit your words out.

My brain's thinking about the next thing that I need to talk to you about and I might actually stumble, I might repeat myself or I might just not get something quite right, which is perfectly fine for a live that's the beauty of lives and no one expects perfect. But when I do a podcast, I've got an opportunity to make sure that's the best quality possible.

And so for those of you who catch it on the podcast you'll notice that there's not too many filler words, so not too many ums and ahhs but the funny thing is, scientifically we shouldn't take all of them out, 'cause it feels fake and weird. [00:23:00] 'Cause the reality is when I'm talking to you. In real life, we all use filler words. My filler word is always so, or you'll hear me say actually, or, you know, and so I can take some of those out, so they're not distracting and of course it also gives me the opportunity to look for how can I improve my LinkedIn lives? How can I talk to you better?

But the other thing that makes it really easy, so we can take out sections, the other thing that makes it really cool is that if there's a brilliant clip and my friend Zineb does this amazingly with her Golden Snippets, you can actually take a smaller clip just by highlighting the text that you want and just going click copy to new project and it is that simple to take out the section that you like and put it onto your new section. I was blown away by how easy it was. I was blown away that [00:24:00] I can actually make the full transcript available and make my content more accessible. There's just so many things that I love about this. I can post directly to YouTube.

If other people out there are doing other things, there are so many different formats. Now they've even just gone the next step further, which I haven't explored yet. I don't know if anyone else watches those YouTube videos and they're, really chop and change and there's lots of different scenes.

And to me it looks really hard. But I found that with Descript, they've just launched a new part of the tool and you can create your own storyboard really easily. And again, it's all just by, almost editing like a word document version of the video. So I'm excited to try that. I'm excited to see where this particular product goes to. It is the reason why you think I'm everywhere. It is the reason why I can take LinkedIn live and turn it probably into at least 20 pieces of content. So for half an hour that I spend , [00:25:00] I can then turn it into so many different pieces that I can use across so many different platforms.

 That is my absolute secret tool that I use, so you think I'm everywhere and I still get to sleep. These are the kinds of tools that when you find the tools that make your life easier, more efficient, where you keep on track with a strategy.

When it comes to strategy, if you haven't seen my 3-2-1 strategy, I want you to head over to my LinkedIn profile on the featured section, which is just near the top. The second post in the featured section is my 3-2-1 content strategy. Head over there if you don't know what to post or when to post, that is going to be your friend. You need to experiment. You need to be comfortable learning.

If it is taking you too much time to figure it out and you are a business owner that is looking to grow your business. You need to invest in training. You need to speak to experts. And this is [00:26:00] something I was guilty of. I was arrogant is the right word. And how I was arrogant was I pride myself on being able to figure stuff out.

And so I was hell bent on becoming an expert and figuring out how to do everything. And there's just so much when you're a business owner to try and figure out. So if you want some training on different parts of creating content, I can help you with that. I do have sessions and content training courses.

I also have friends that do different parts of LinkedIn content, as I've mentioned earlier, and I can point you in the right direction. I want to help you create better content so that you can grow your business. So they're all of my favorite tools. I appreciate everybody that's joined me today. It doesn't matter whether you're a newbie content creator or whether you've someone that's been doing it for a long time, there are so many different ways that you can improve your content. But the most important thing that I would have to say is. You have to start somewhere, right? [00:27:00] I cannot make you take that first step. I know that it's really scary. And I'm on a mission at the moment to really encourage people.

If you need a hand to make that first post, or you're looking for some support on that first post just message me. I'm here to help I'm here to help businesses grow. And if that is what will help you, then that's what I'm here to do. So next week I'm joined by a guest Carla Howard, and we are gonna be talking about how to create online courses.

So if an online course is something that's been floating around in the back of your head for a while, but you haven't had a chance to explore how to do it. Again, I bring in experts to the Good for Business Show every week so that you can get the best of the best. Learn from them, get a taster in that 30 minutes and then know that there are people out there that can help you.

If you are new to the Good for Business Show and haven't seen the previous episodes, you can go to the [00:28:00] LinkedIn Company Page for Good Trading Co and go to the video tab and you'll see the full history of all of the great experts that I've had John Espirian, Richard van der Blom, Michelle Griffin, Lea Turner.

We've had so many great guests. So do yourself a favor. They're all free. They're ready for you to have when you want. And I'm just, really excited that I've got some awesome guests coming up and appreciate the community that's joined. I hope that I've been able to help you, think about some tools.

 Apart from that, everyone have a fabulous day and I will catch you next week.