LinkedIn Content Planning for Connection and Conversion. Guest: Fanny Dunagan

TRANSCRIPT

Michelle J Raymond: [00:00:00] Welcome everybody to the LinkedIn for B2B Growth Show. I'm your host Michelle J Raymond, and I'm joined by one of my friends, Fanny Dunagan. Welcome to my show.

Fanny Dunagan: Thank you for having me, Michelle. I'm coming to you across the pond, across the great big ocean.

Michelle J Raymond: Exactly. And I've been on your show, so it's great to have you back again.

Now I like to start the show every week by sharing about my guest's journey on LinkedIn. How did you get to where we are today? What's your journey been like?

Fanny Dunagan: My messy, convoluted journey, Michelle? So I think as a lot of people do, we entered into LinkedIn long time ago just as a job search kind of tool, right?

And then I didn't touch it for a long time. And I went from corporate for 10 years to a stint as a stay-at-home mum. And then when I was trying to get back into work, I ended up organizing, long story short, job fairs[00:01:00] for a local outreach centre and as a result, I had to promote these job fairs on Facebook, on LinkedIn, and that's when I fell in love with this creating content, doing videos, communicating online, building brands online for employers, and at that time for job seekers. And over time it just morphed into this business of helping nowadays helping technology consulting firms build their LinkedIn brand, video marketing and live streams on LinkedIn.

So that's like basically 20, 30 years of my career in one minute. But it was, that was kinda like a soul searching kind of journey.

Michelle J Raymond: I like to share because I think everyone has this idea that everyone's got it sorted on LinkedIn and that it's not this messy squiggly line, and so I appreciate you being able to condense that down into one minute.

That is just craziness. Now, we're [00:02:00] gonna be talking a lot about content today because I love your content. I especially love your LinkedIn live shows, which you've been doing for four Seasons and about to pause while you focus on other things.

I think that's the thing that I wanna share with people today is that being a creator is an evolution and we try new things, we experiment with things and then we come back around. But let's talk about something that I'm not very good at. I'm just gonna throw it out there listeners, I'm not very good at this and this is content planning.

Now we both have some views on this and I think you and I are gonna end up a little bit similar, Fanny. But how do you, as a starting point, often when I work with clients, they've got so many ideas, or sometimes zero ideas, but let's assume they've got a ton of ideas.

What do you think is the best way for people to collate those ideas for their LinkedIn content? Do you have a system you use?

Fanny Dunagan: I do. Especially for companies and clients. Your show is LinkedIn for [00:03:00] B2B Growth, so let's start there. For companies I think, and organisations or even solopreneurs, coaches, consultants, people that kind of sell their services for a living, I kind of ask them to at least come up with three areas of expertise, things and topics that they wanna be known for, just to start. Obviously we're people with many multi talents and all that, but just three and define three areas of expertise, right?

So in my case like serving technologists, right? The broad topic is, Technology, which is way too broad, right? But within technology, you might wanna talk about three things that you're an expert in. Number one's cybersecurity, number two, data, number three software, something like that.

And if I were to use a another topic, let's say you are a graphic designer or a leadership coach. Within leadership, what are [00:04:00] three main areas that you wanna talk about? Maybe you wanna specialise in leadership for women? Maybe leadership to help entrepreneurs or leadership to help get somebody from stuck to clarity and so forth.

Whatever that might be. Just pick three and then from there, come up with, What I call subtopics, right?

So within leadership for women, let's say you might wanna talk about the struggles women have in leadership positions. And within that, maybe the visibility of women in leadership and then how to advance their career, for instance.

So you're basically going from a very broad topic to three areas of expertise to kind of like specialties within each And that's like the very top level, first way to do it. And write down and have that tie into what you wanna sell, right?

[00:05:00] B2B to grow, we sell, right? We need a revenue. And tie your topics to things that you might wanna sell and promote as a company. And that's a really great way to start. And from there you asked yourself what I call the four purposes of content, right?

What do you wanna educate people on? What do you wanna inform people on? How do you wanna inspire people? And then how do you wanna entertain people. Educate, inform, inspire, and entertain. And that kind of from there, it's like you have your three topics, but then within that, how are you gonna educate with tips, inform with events, inspire with stories and quotes, and maybe entertain with comedy behind the scenes.

Videos, tours fun gadgets and all that, right? Memes these days it's not enough just to [00:06:00] educate. We have to entertain, right? There's so much content out there.

So I'll pause here because this is just like a starting point basically for people to narrow down everything that's in their head. Pick three. And then from there, educate, inform, inspire, and entertain.

Michelle J Raymond: I love that because quite often when people are new to creating on LinkedIn and you say, just go into a post, you can do it on anything you want, and your brain goes to, I could do this. Oh no, I could do that. Maybe I should do this.

Maybe I should do that. And so by picking those different content buckets that you've just shared, and the way we narrow it down, if you're listening in, it actually makes creating content so much easier because you're just gonna pick from, this is my one bucket, this is my second bucket. This is my third bucket.

And rotating through those and the different formats that Fanny just shared, actually, I think makes creating [00:07:00] content faster, it makes it easier and it makes sure that it reinforces your personal brand, which is obviously really important.

And good news, same thing applies over in Company Page Land. We're gonna do exactly the same thing. How do you go with the, I guess creating content that stands out in that entertaining piece, because we are seeing now, if everyone talks about the same topics, the same way, over and over, we just blend in. What kind of little things have you tried to just be that creative style or do something a little different?

Fanny Dunagan: Yeah. So one big thing I recommend to people is to leverage your hobbies. I love plants, right? Potted plants. Or I love travel, right? I did a post a while back because I had to re-pot my plants, right? So to go from a smaller pot to a big one, I had to add more soil and, give it more breathing room, all that stuff.

And so I ended up doing a post with a photo of my plants and re-potting and [00:08:00] tying that to scaling a company and growth and entrepreneurship, right? How we gotta get into a bigger space, right? We got comfortable in our little space, so now we need a bigger area and step out of our comfort zone and go into a new area or, scale our business and so forth.

So I would ask your audience to, ask themselves what is one of their hobbies that they're just super passionate about? And tie those hobbies to their expertise. So for instance, I had a client that was a sales coach, right? That also played a lot of golf. And so we worked on creating a strategy around giving sales tips using golf analogies.

And like teeing up something or aiming for a goal and aiming for the hole, right? And tie that to sales, right? So that's a easy, quick way, and it's still true to you, right? It's your [00:09:00] hobby, it's your passion, your interests, and then you tie it to your tips and advice and expertise.

Michelle J Raymond: True to you. I don't think there'll be more powerful words said in this conversation about content, because the more you can do that, the easier this whole process becomes. I find when I'm off track and I don't want to create content, it's because I'm trying to be some other version of myself that is not true to me.

So I love that you've shared that Fanny, because I know when I work with clients when they're trying to be, the LinkedIn version of themselves. I know that's a red flag. And then what happens is the second that we come back and say, just be you. I call it your digital twin. I want the person on LinkedIn to be the same as the person that I would meet. So from that perspective, that's how I work.

But I have a question for you. How do you actually go around planning this content? So LinkedIn's given us the ability to schedule posts and there are other tools off [00:10:00] the platform. Do you use these or do you use them for your clients? Like how do you utilise planning?

Fanny Dunagan: Actually as a side note I'm gonna answer that question real quick, but between you and I, when you schedule, use the LinkedIn scheduler, do you find that it actually gets less views? Like when you use the schedule tool on LinkedIn? Because I've found that, if I use that schedule tool on LinkedIn.

Michelle J Raymond: Not me personally. I've had no difference in the impact. I've actually found I probably get more, because typically if I schedule so full confession to the listeners I don't often schedule my own posts. I schedule for all of my clients and make sure that they're all done in advance, but not for me.

Fanny, are you nodding in agreement here?

Fanny Dunagan: Okay, so that was a sidebar. Sorry about that. But no, for clients, yes. A lot of times tools like HubSpot scheduling content, [00:11:00] but whether it's a client or a big enterprise or a individual solopreneur out there, I'd like to think of content planning as, think of it as, month to month topics, right?

So we talked about the three areas of expertise that a person or a company would have, but then I suggest like January, what do you wanna talk about? February, what do you wanna talk about? And have like monthly themes, and that helps to help focus a bit, right? Even within an area of expertise, right?

So January I might talk more about content planning, right? Because it's the beginning of the year, let's plan content together, right? And then February, it's more about maybe curating content and so forth, right? So try to tie in monthly themes, either to the time of the year or to [00:12:00] seasons, or maybe even to like key events in your industry.

So I just got done doing a whole bunch of conference promotions for a client cause May was this huge conference month for them, right? So if you know ahead of time, then you can plan all that content around a certain event or around a certain season or busy period in that industry.

And so that planning is done at a monthly theme, and then from monthly theme you can then say week one of that month, I wanna talk about this subset. Week two, this subset. Week three, this one, and week four, so forth. And that at least helps you sort all the stuff that's in our heads and ideas, like even for clients if they wanna get into supply chain, for instance.

It's such a big topic that you still need to break it down to month one, we should talk about warehouse operations and then [00:13:00] within that week one, then we talk about inventory or whatever it is. So thinking everything in terms of a calendar of months and weeks really helps.

And then, yeah, tools like I think Later, Hootsuite, HubSpot, all that can be used. Even Canva, you can schedule and post content through Canva. So it's just really easy now to get that thing scheduled. So I do that for clients, but for me, I do a lot of ad hoc too. Whatever the mood strikes me, especially weekends. If something, I read something in a newspaper and it sparks an idea, just post it.

Michelle J Raymond: Do you think that there is a good mix between spur of the moment versus planned content? Or should some people stick to one or the other? Where do you tend to fall with that? So I'm a hundred percent a spur of the moment, almost for myself, unless I know I'm not gonna be around at all.

I do love the idea of scheduling because I can create when I [00:14:00] want and post when's best for my audience. They don't always align. My brain does not always switch on at the time that's best time to post. So I do like it from that. But for other people, the thought of just coming up with something I think probably would terrify them. And we'd be back at that blank page syndrome.

So how do you think people should mix this up? Or is it just each to their own? What have you seen with your clients?

Fanny Dunagan: At a broad level, I think it's each to their own, right? Because if you're more of a planner, you plan, if you just wanna go with the feeling, go with the gut, you do that. But a good compromise would be kind of like to have your pillar, educational kind of content where it's like tips or advice or something. Things that are very tied to your expertise.

You could say something like, every Tuesday I'm gonna have an educational post around my expertise. And that's very planned because that ties into your products or your services. [00:15:00] And that could be the pillar that's always there every Tuesday, right? Or whatever. Whatever day works.

But from there, then you can say anything that's inspirational, entertaining, events, those can be more ad hoc because it depends on how I feel. I feel like sharing an inspiring quote or an inspiring photo, or I went to an event and now I wanna post something about it that I learned from it.

Those can be more spur of the moment, and then that way it could be a good hybrid mix. For those that still want that consistency every Tuesday, some kind of pillar educational post, and then the other days can just be whatever comes to you as inspiration and Fun Fridays and even weekend if you want to.

Some people take a break and that's totally good. For me, sometimes on weekends, that's when my brain finally slows down and a burst of inspiration comes and I have to post it and write about it,[00:16:00] but that could be the compromise.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, I think there's always a compromise and I often feel that people that think it's so much easier to just wake up, I'm going to do my post today.

And then when you run a business, what do you know? There's a customer service complaint comes through, there's someone at the office didn't turn up and you've gotta cover somebody, or there's just firefighting that happens in businesses, so ad hoc content, whilst it might seem like an easy option or that it'll be fine, I'll get to it.

I find that, in a business, that's where it gets away from you very quickly. I think there's a balance between planning, like you said, and we have to tie to our strengths and personalities. Absolutely.

For me, I am definitely on team schedule for clients. Team ad hoc, for me. In my dreamland, I'm a planner for my content.

Fanny Dunagan: Your shows are planned. You have these pillar shows, right?

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, they are. And can I tell you about that? The reason that I have guests and planned, [00:17:00] because I tried to change my show up and I wanted to do some more shows by myself.

I can't be trusted, Fanny, I cannot be trusted to turn up.

Fanny Dunagan: The accountability.

Michelle J Raymond: Exactly. So you are my accountability partner in this. So that's what happened. But again, I had to play to my strength. It also doesn't work for me to batch, create podcast or live episodes. What I found was it just became overwhelming and then I didn't know where things were up to.

And so I went back to my weekly live shows where I know what's going on, who's turning up. And I have to turn up, because, sometimes I'm my worst employee.

Fanny Dunagan: We are. We are, that's for sure.

Michelle J Raymond: So I love making content easier for people. So let's talk about repurposing content and your tools and tips and recommendations.

Do you have a particular go-to type of content that you repurpose? Or again, is this more ad hoc?

Fanny Dunagan: Typically it starts from a show,[00:18:00] a one hour show that I do. And then that way it becomes this long one hour piece of content, right? Rev.com is my friend. It's the transcript tool that we use where it can generate the text around a certain show and the same can be applied for someone that does a webinar, right?

Doesn't have to be live. Somebody that does a presentation webinar. And from there, Kind of combing through and picking out video clips. Short one, two minute, sometimes three minute, you can get away with, video clips from there. That can become a blog cause it's already been converted to text. In a format like this, it could be a q and a kind of blog.

Yeah, I see some of the comments here, white papers and so forth. And then from there, carousels, we love carousels. Carousels still do really well on LinkedIn. Summarising lists, right? If I listed four purposes of content, or five best [00:19:00] practices or whatever, right? And then those answers become great carousels that people can flip.

Tip one, tip two, tip three, and so forth. And then quote cards. Quote cards, like just a one liner that somebody said on the show or you like to say, and then that becomes a nice quote with a nice graphic on it. Do it in Canva. And so basically from one hour of recording, typically we can create anywhere from at least 20 pieces of content from that.

And for those people that don't wanna sit around planning, then create a show or create a webinar and then just chop up everything. And that's a great way to, to do that.

Michelle J Raymond: That's my secret as well, Fanny. These LinkedIn lives turn into a podcast, turn into a YouTube, turn into shorts. There is just so much that I do with these half an hour shows. I've got too much content, that's what this show generates.

[00:20:00] And the thing that I love is, The lifespan goes forever then, because we're creating longer formats, which live in places that don't get flushed down the home feed as I call it. Because, we create a post, a short form post seems easier, but 48 hours later gone never to be seen again. And so this is why I love these shows. I use Descript, is my can't live without tool. It does the short clips, the transcripts, all this kind of stuff.

It is just amazing. But when you find the right tools in the right format, repurposing just becomes so much easier. Do you have any other repurposing tips, Fanny, that you would add?

Fanny Dunagan: Yeah, I was just gonna add that for companies we've done quite a few eBooks. While people may not always read a whole ebook end to end, it becomes a great way to sit down and put together[00:21:00] content with a company, with a subject matter expert of that company, and then having these 10, 20 pages of great expert content.

And then from there that can become all these different types of content. I do find that, especially for me in the technology industry, people a little more comfortable with written content for technologists to generate.

So if people aren't comfortable in your industry with video or whatever, you could go the written route with the ebook, and then this ebook then becomes, Quote cards, carousels, and if some of the experts are willing to be on camera, then you can have them reiterate a certain point that was in the ebook in a one or two minute video and so forth.

So eBooks become a great pillar, I think, for companies cause then they can also use it as a lead generator. In order to download this ebook, submit your email, and then we'll send you a [00:22:00] free copy of this ebook, right? And becomes a great lead generator that we use for LinkedIn ads, as well as to drive traffic to the company website so that people can download the ebook.

So that's another great pillar content from a company perspective.

Michelle J Raymond: And I think the more ways that you can find to reuse things, the less effort it is and the more consistent we can be. So I wanna talk about LinkedIn lives and videos because that's what I know and love you for the most.

And I know, as I said, you're pausing one, picking up another. For those that are hesitant about LinkedIn lives, Tell them why you think they should be part of the content mix.

Fanny Dunagan: I think LinkedIn lives have been one of the most pivotal things in helping me build community because while it starts slow at the beginning, cause you're like, oh my gosh, I'm talking to crickets, only five people joined my live.

 Just push your ego to the side. And the more consistent you [00:23:00] are, the more you interact with your audience, the more you build this relationship with your community and with your audience, and the more they come out to support you, you support them with your content.

I actually really love that relationship building from LinkedIn lives and then you form relationships with the guests and the people that you interview. It's a great excuse to reach out to somebody, whether as a lead gen or just somebody that you totally admire and wanna learn from.

It's like a free lesson from an expert. I've invited people that like purposely Yeah, you and Lynnaire with your Company Page book. I'm like, I wanna learn from these two. Okay, I'll have them on my show. So you build relationship with your audience. You build relationship with your guests, and then you also actually build a relationship with yourself because nothing tests us more than going [00:24:00] live.

But if you lean into it, I think we find our voice, we find our true, authentic voice, right? Especially when like tech things break down, the internet doesn't work, and you learn to think on your feet, don't you think Michelle? And like you almost learn to trust yourself more and know that you can handle any situation or odd thing that happens on a live. What do you think?

Michelle J Raymond: Look, this whole show, my internet's been driving me crazy. And you just have to keep going. The show must go on. And I've had doorbells ring, I've had my dog going crazy. I've had guests show up late. I've had guests not show up. There's all kinds of things, but you are right, I've just found lives help me discover my voice. They help me to articulate my thoughts. They help me to become a better speaker, to become more confident.

This is my favourite community building tool, like you said. That's been my [00:25:00] favourite part about this. Now I go back to my earlier ones and of course I wanna cringe. I wanna rock in the corner and I wanna go, did I really let that out and let people see it? But I'm also kind to myself and go, if I didn't do that first one, I'm not sitting here with Fanny Dunagan today having this amazing conversation.

I had to learn how to be a good interviewer. I was a shocking listener. I wanted to be the star of the show. I hated sitting here thinking I was just a puppet asking questions. That's where my head was. Now I go, I've got an amazing opportunity. If I ask the right questions of these amazing expert guests like yourself, then I have such an impact for my audience, and that's what I'm driven by.

Not because I wanna look good or sound good, like whatever. That's not what I'm here for in general. So for me, it's been a journey, but my first ones I was like, Oh my God, they're talking so much. When's it my turn to talk?

Fanny Dunagan: It's a self journey, don't [00:26:00] you think? I think and similar to what you said earlier I think at the beginning I felt like I had to be so buttoned up and so professional and so like on point, like nothing can go wrong. But now, like it, it's taught me the way to just relax into it and just surrender to it.

Whatever flows, and then trusting that you'll find the right thing to say and it'll come to you. And I do think content creation as a whole becomes like this self-awareness, self-development journey. And I think it helps us grow. We can speak publicly easier and interact better.

Like even when I go to networking events, it's helped me with that cause it's Whatever comes outta my mouth will come outta my mouth. I'll just ask a question if I don't know what to say.

Michelle J Raymond: Yeah, that is totally it. Now, speaking of tech, my internet, as I said, has been a bit dodgy this whole time, but this is the reality. This is what [00:27:00] happens when we put ourselves out there and try different formats.

And so if someone has their own live show and the internet breaks, or the doorbell rings, or the dog goes off, nobody expects perfect. This is what I love about LinkedIn lives. Do not think it's like a TV show where it has to be perfect. People love the imperfections, and that's something that I've had to embrace.

We've covered a lot, about creating content, planning content, you know, driving, processes in our businesses to be better creators.

What is one last actionable tip that you would leave the listeners with on their creator journey on LinkedIn?

Fanny Dunagan: I think is to be purposeful, right? I think, really think through what you wanna say, right? Even if it can be in a messy way or unstructured ad hoc, right? But your expertise, really focus on that.

Don't be everything to everyone. It'll [00:28:00] drive us mad and then it'll drive your audience cause they don't know what your expertise is, right? Be very purposeful in focusing on what you wanna talk about.

And then secondly, Speaking to our values. I think that is also the differentiator that we didn't cover quite yet today. It's like in addition to your hobbies that make you unique, it's your values, right? For me, it's being transparent, forming connections, building community, so whatever that is to you in the audience, double down on that, right?

You don't have to copy the people that you follow. Double down on if you're a funnier person, then be funny. My video editor has a whole YouTube series called, Video like a Dad. So he's giving video tips plus dad jokes in his Hawaiian shirt. And it's awesome. He's quirky and funny, but he knows all his video production [00:29:00] tips and he just leans into it, right?

And then he called the show Video like a Dad, right? And so it's just perfect. So find it, you may not even know it at the beginning, but find those values, find those hobbies, and then tie that into your expertise.

Michelle J Raymond: I love it. And that's why my garden makes an appearance in all of my content and Lynnaire's does as well because we discovered that's what else we had in common. It wasn't just, we loved LinkedIn, it was, oh, I spend all weekend in my garden. And she's like, so do I. And you know, that's what makes us human. That's where the connections start coming and that's where those walls come down.

So for those listeners that have joined us live today, I appreciate you. If you're listening in to the podcast, here's my advice to you. Go to Fanny's LinkedIn profile. We're gonna put the details in the show notes. Go into the top right hand corner underneath the banner, there is a bell. Now, don't forget to click on that so you get notified of all [00:30:00] her posts and see how she is using this to play out in her own content.

For me personally, it's always great to see your content in my feed. I appreciate you for coming on the show and sharing all of your great tips. I think it's gonna be so practically helpful for people if they listen and go and follow what you've shared. It's gonna just make their content journey so much easier.

So I appreciate you coming on the show, and it's been so great to talk to you and just, let everybody else listen in.

Fanny Dunagan: Thank you Michelle. And I'm coming to visit your garden and Lynnaire's garden.

Michelle J Raymond: I've gotta tell you, Lynnaire's is spectacular. I will leave it at that.

For everybody that's joined, can't wait to have you back on the show next week. It's been great and thank you so much. Cheers.