Episode Transcript
Ashley Segura: Perfect. All right, let’s do it. So first questions first, which is arguably the most important is when you’re not behind the desk and you find yourself in the kitchen, what are you cooking up? What’s your go to dish to cook?
Meredith Farley: I love that this is the first question.
So this was hard for me. I was thinking about it when you sent the question because I hate cooking and I don’t cook like at all. My fiance is, he loves cooking. And I feel like if I even step into the kitchen, I’m like in his territory a little bit. But I do have a couple of dishes that are my go tos, like when it’s, if it’s my turn or I need to make dinner.
So my favorite right now is really simple. It’s from Instagram, actually. It was one of those recipes. And it’s like a, Pasta, tomato sauce, bean dish with a little bit of some creamy white cheese on it. And so should I do you want me to, should I give you the recipe? Like how should I explain it?
Yes. Definitely
Ashley Segura: give you the recipe on this. I’m always curious when pasta and beans are mixed together, like the sauce that really marries them and makes it all delicious.
Meredith Farley: Sorry. So this one, it is thinly sliced one shallot and really thinly sliced two cloves of garlic. Start to saute them, olive oil, butter in the pan.
And you take probably like three cups of cherry tomatoes. And it’s best in the summer when they’re like fresh multicolored cherry tomatoes. So good. Throw them in the pot, really like probably 15, 20 minutes on really low. Let them cook down more into a bit of a sauce. Obviously pro tip there, watch the garlic and shallots.
Don’t burn them. So you got to put the cherry tomatoes in at the right, right time. I add butter at this stage, salt and pepper. Then once you once they’re really like saucy, throw it all into a blender or use an immersion blender. Get it really like smooth, creamy, then a can of cannellini beans.
Yes. Mix them up. Then like probably a pound, of mix it all up. Taste it. Salt, pepper, butter, whatever you need in there. Then a little, just a little, like maybe half cup for the whole thing, maybe a quarter even of ricotta just to at the very, add some creaminess to it. Yeah.
And then serve it with a lot of really finely chopped basil over the top. So it’s pretty simple. You’re done in, 45 minutes. But it’s a nice hearty dish. I feel like the beans give it like a little protein, but a little heft. And it’s a nice I think it’s a really nice summer dish.
Cause the tomatoes when they’re like, like really good cherry tomatoes there also those yellow sunburst tomatoes work. For it.
Ashley Segura: So good. I love cherry tomatoes, and I love all the variations of tomatoes. This just sounds so good to me.
Meredith Farley: Yeah, I only have a few, so I try to make them, try to make them good.
Also, this is a good one if you’re stressed out because That is just a lot of little cherry tomatoes to chop up. I feel like it’s the perfect, slightly meditative, but it’s not a big project or anything like that.
Ashley Segura: And it’s not onions. We’re not crying. We’re not having our eyes burn. Like cherry tomatoes are so friendly other than being really tall and like almost cutting yourself.
There’s no risk with cherry tomatoes. Yes.
Meredith Farley: Yes. Totally. Totally. What do you have a favorite dish? Do you talk about it?
Ashley Segura: I have a few. I think my go to right now is eggplant Parmesan, but I do it in a casserole form. So I make eggplant Parmesan and then I layer it like a lasagna with sausage, ricotta, mozzarella, tons of sauce.
And then I do another layer. So it’s like an eggplant Parmesan lasagna. Essentially, but it tastes amazing. It’s like hours and in your whole kitchen, it was like thrown upside down. There’s flour everywhere, oil everywhere. Like I’m a very neat cook and I clean as I cook, but this is that one dish that I cannot keep up with.
There’s no cleaning as you cook. It’s just you got to keep going with cooking five different things at once.
Meredith Farley: Wow. All right. Now I’m like want something Italian and saucy and cheesy. Yes. I’m here for that. Thank you for that recipe after this.
Ashley Segura: Yes. Yeah. Happy to share. Happy to share. Speaking of recipes to success, let’s talk about LinkedIn.
So you do a lot of work creating content for brands and for people on LinkedIn. Can you walk me through? What it is you really specialize on LinkedIn and what you do.
Meredith Farley: Yes. So what MedBerry does is we are obsessed with LinkedIn. We do offer Instagram and newsletters, which are, but right now, LinkedIn is our hero offering.
There’s, there’s just been so much interest in it because it is a really powerful platform. And so we with LinkedIn it’s almost broken into two separate offerings. But. They’re connected. One thing that we do is ghostwriting for executives on LinkedIn, but it’s more than just dashing some posts together and handing them off for them.
We are really helping executives excavate their personal brand. Figure out their brand positioning because it’s not always super intuitive. There are, you could have 15, 20 years of executive experience, but still have a bit of a block of how do I package up my experience? Where’s the intersection between what I know and what people are really going to be interested in or what’s going to resonate with them.
We do. Brand positioning, we optimize their profile. We work really closely with them to be also like a thought partner and a guide. And we create the content for them, but with a lot of involvement from them, as much as they want to have, really, we’ve found for our kickoff process and then on a monthly basis, we’ll actually do recorded interviews, which really helps us quickly.
It’s like podcast interviewing because you got to ask the hard the brass tacks questions but also some fun things to get a sense of You know who they are, how they talk, what their energy is. And then we, I have an incredibly talented team of ghostwriters who’ve done tons of work for really prominent fortune 500 execs.
We put the content together and then once it’s approved we. Really strategically post and then nurture that content on behalf of the clients. But I think something too with execs is, there’s the strategy and the copy, because what works on other platforms doesn’t necessarily work on LinkedIn.
You have to write differently for LinkedIn than you do nearly anywhere else, but that does not mean it has to be cringy or embarrassing. There’s just like little nuances to make sure it performs well. So we’re bringing that expertise as well. But also I think it can be really Vulnerable for execs because they know this is powerful.
If I want to build my brand, find new opportunities, support the company I work for, attract talent, shout out my teams. There’s so much here, but at the same time, there’s a lot of advice out there. If you’re a freelancer or a new business owner, just post daily, engage all the time.
Number one execs don’t have time to do that, but also number two they really, you can make a mistake, like the, you do have something to lose when you’re an exec. And I think having a thought partner, who’s like totally on your side, who you have basically like a confidential relationship with, where you can be like, here’s what I’m working on for the company I work for, but then for myself here are my personal goals for the next 18 years and someone to just who you.
Trust to vet things before they’re posted. I think that can, it seems to be really powerful. So we’re strategists, we’re thought partners, we’re personal brand experts, and we’re helping execs really package themselves to attract the goals and opportunities that they want. And then we also do the same thing for brands, which is really fun.
It’s different, it’s very different writing for a brand page than an exec. Some of the conventions are the same, but really it’s especially with LinkedIn, we’re brand storytelling through social media is a way. I’ve been thinking of it lately where we’re not just creating rote posts and getting them out there and engaging.
We’re really trying to. Help brands tell and further their stories on such an incredibly powerful platform. LinkedIn is crazy. It’s, it can do a lot for you.
Ashley Segura: Yeah, no, it truly can. Would you think of LinkedIn as a viable option for say a personal brand that isn’t within that exact space?
I think of it. Content. Yum. We work with a lot of publishers, like individual publishers from food bloggers to lifestyle, and I’ve been trying to slowly make that encouragement to, there’s still an environment for you on LinkedIn, even if you’re not an executive to have a voice and to have a brand voice and really establish yourself over there Versus the traditional networks that we’re used to seeing these kind of creators, which is pretty much Instagram and Tik TOK.
Are you seeing any success with those kinds of niches and that kind of brand on LinkedIn? Yes. I’m
so
Meredith Farley: happy that you asked that question. Cause I feel like that’s the next big thing for LinkedIn is folks from who would typically think of their audiences somewhere else are getting curious because there’s so much buzz around it.
And we actually, we do have one client who is. She’s so cool. She’s the founder and CEO of an apparel brand. That’s really big on Instagram. And so our work together was designed to build up her profile as also a cut more, maybe more the business side of that type of work. But we’ve been really pleasantly surprised by on LinkedIn.
She’s not just getting like marketing execs who are like, Great job with how you position this. She’s getting customers who are chatting with her in her DMS on LinkedIn, who are commenting on posts. Like I just bought that item. I love the prints. I love the colors. On Instagram, there’s such an incredible community for her brand, but we weren’t, we weren’t totally sure how will this transfer over.
And it’s been so cool to see, yeah, a lifestyle brand and someone who’s known for this really cool progressive company on Instagram really does have a space and a voice on LinkedIn and the people are here for it. So I absolutely think that you can reach people that you’re not reaching on the other platforms and there’s totally an audience for.
For folks who are, as you say, like more traditional content creators or, yeah, just people we wouldn’t think of as like corporate executives
Ashley Segura: necessarily. Totally. And LinkedIn for a very long time has had that personality trait of you go to LinkedIn to look for a job, to post a job, or to brag about how good you are at your job.
Hasn’t been this. Safe place to be like, this is who I am as a thought leader. And this is who my brand is. And so I love that there is going to be that search so that you’re also personally like seeing that switch start to happen and could be what’s next for LinkedIn. I’m curious though, on how best to position yourself if you’re a brand, more so in that lifestyle niche, I feel like it’s, A little bit more clear for the execs.
Like how you said your whole process is from doing an interview and understanding like who you are as an identity within this space. It’s a little bit more clear to talk about that. And it’s been expected for so long on LinkedIn. So how can a personal brand or a lifestyle brand make that introduction on LinkedIn?
Like what kind of content. Start posting.
Meredith Farley: I do think it’s different for each brand and you got to dig in, have some conversations, do some research. But as you asked that, what came to mind for me was a few things is that number one, I don’t actually think it’s always that different than the type of things that perform well on Instagram, for example.
Interesting. The style of, or not even the format of the platform is different. Like on Instagram, for example, right? Like you see the picture first and then you have to click to see the full caption. Usually
Speaker 3: on
Meredith Farley: LinkedIn, it’s the opposite caption first. So you get like a little bit of a hook or one sentence to entice people to click and then an image.
But I actually think right now brands that are doing really cool imagery, that’s not the corporate B2B blue and white or something, like boring imagery, the content performs really well. Like for this apparel client, we’ve got pictures of models modeling the clothes and it’s popping off.
Like people are on, real people are on LinkedIn and they want to see interesting things. So I actually. In some ways, it’s not that different things that are funny perform. I do think that on LinkedIn, there is a little more of an opportunity to lead with your values. So for example if you’re a company that is really into sustainability, like if that’s one of your core values, there are, that’s, You can talk about it from the perspective of if someone is interested in being a fan of yours, a follower, a partner of any kind, or just a consumer what’s the story you’re telling them, maybe from a slightly more professional perspective.
But even as I say that, I’m like, it’s a little bit vague people, it’s not like people go to LinkedIn and they’re different people who only want to read business content. It’s the same folks everywhere. So just the more different and interesting you are the better. So I think it’s a mistake to think you have to totally come up with a whole new voice on LinkedIn.
What’s going to work on LinkedIn is the same stuff that works on Instagram. You just have to make sure you’re positioning it for the platform, optimizing it. Like in some ways it’s almost the more technical side of things that you have to figure out. Cause LinkedIn’s finicky. If you put a link in a LinkedIn post, it’s not going to do that well because the platform doesn’t want you to go off of LinkedIn.
So you can’t just be linking out to articles or blog posts that you wrote. Keep the content interesting. Keep your van brand voice consistent be a little bit edgy and push things a little further than other brands. And you’ll probably see some results.
Ashley Segura: Is there something that you should do from a brand audit perspective, because you don’t resources are always thin.
We’re always preaching about how there’s a million things to do. The to do list never in yada, yada. Is there something that you Brands can do before making the lump, the jump to LinkedIn that yes, this does make sense for me to start posting on this platform as well. Like how do you make that executive decision?
Meredith Farley: Okay. That’s a great question. So how do you decide I want to add LinkedIn to the mix? Basically? Totally. Yeah. I think probably with any brand you want to start with one platform. So I guess I’ll presume that LinkedIn isn’t where they started. So I’d say It’s a great question. I think that almost any brand will benefit from being on LinkedIn. I think Instagram content, if you know what you’re doing, actually transitions really well. So I think probably first and foremost is like. Do you have your brand positioning together? Do you have a content plan that’s working really well on one platform?
And then this isn’t LinkedIn specific. It’s just any like second social platform specific. I’d say give it maybe three to six months and figure out what’s working, what’s resonating, what’s not working. Because then you’re going to have six months of Greatest hits posts that you can re skin for whatever the platform that you’re looking at next is and work with that.
So if I would say, if you’re a brand on Instagram, do it for six months and then figure out what were your top 20, 25 posts. And then, maybe do, if you can’t afford, if it’s a, If it’s a lean situation and you can’t afford to then go work with a LinkedIn expert, get on a consulting call with a LinkedIn expert for an hour, 90 minutes.
Like we do those at MedBury to just help them give you a sense of okay, you’re going to have to tweak the copy a little bit here because of the conventions of the platform or X, Y, Z. But I’d say. Start with one, figure out what works, and then figure out how to reskin it for the others.
Now, like video though, one thing with LinkedIn that’s really interesting is that unlike any other platform, video does not perform very well. Interesting. And so if you’re doing all Reels that’s going to do way better on move over to tick tock or vice versa. Don’t just try and post a bunch of Instagram reels onto your LinkedIn, the static or image posts are going to do a lot better.
So it’s just something to be mindful of too because of the video component, Instagram and tick tock are a little more interchangeable. And sometimes if brands have invested really heavily in that type of video, like which a lot of B2C brands do, which makes sense, they are going to have to reskin things a little bit for LinkedIn.
Ashley Segura: That makes sense. And let’s talk about content because I feel like the content that’s on LinkedIn is Bit unique because there are still those just text based posts that are getting tons of engagement. It makes sense. That video isn’t as much just because that’s not like natively, like that’s not what the platform was about.
It was more on that like Twitter aspect to where it is text based and then we’re supporting whatever the text was. It was more of this like text conversation that everyone should have. So what kind of. Content mediums are the best on LinkedIn right now. Short form content, long form bullets, line breaks.
Have you found the perfect recipe? Cause I’m seeing everyone do a lot of different stuff. And even from a thousand emojis to just one emoji, like it’s a lot right now.
Meredith Farley: It is. It is. Okay. Caveat is that it’s always changing and To sometimes it’s really hard to know, like video does not perform very well, but I can think of one video post we did for a client that was, that had amazing results.
Like it’s so it’s a, it’s atypical. Yeah. So there’s so many different factors. It’s not always really easy to say, do this. Don’t do that. But just general best practice emojis. I’m glad you mentioned them. I think two or three years ago, just to spice up post a little linked and became very emoji heavy.
And I think I see that kind of, it actually looks a little dated now when I see tons of emojis creating post formatting. For a couple of our clients, we have in their brand brief, no more than one emoji per post, but formatting does matter. You want to make it scannable, easy to read. So generally you want to have one line that some folks might say the hook, but it’s the one thing you can see before you decide, am I going to click, see more, or am I going to keep scrolling past this?
So I actually had one post that did pretty well. I was talking about the idea that if hooks are not your thing, there’s Some gurus who will say, steal these 10 hooks and your posts are going to take off. And it’ll be like, I read these eight books on management, so you don’t have to, or steal my framework for X, Y, Z.
And those can perform well. But for a lot of people, they feel uncomfortable and cringe. So you can also just think of your first line as an opportunity to Enticed, be entertaining, welcome people, or signal what you’re going to talk about to try and draw the right people to click, see more.
And then in general long paragraphs don’t do well on LinkedIn. You want to have one, maybe two. And it’s a two sentence max per paragraph. For a couple of reasons 1 is just legibility. We like white space. I think also there’s something energetic about it. If you’re reading a lot of sentences in a row, it can feel dense.
But you almost pause a little bit mentally when there’s A space down. So because LinkedIn is all often info heavy, I think it helps with the rhythm when people are taking stuff in. It’s here’s a thing and here’s another idea and it slows them down. Also, the platform is paying attention to how long people spend looking at your post.
Is it eight milliseconds or is it 30 milliseconds or is it? And so if you’re it’s another element is if people are like spending a little time going a little more slowly, you might get more impressions just because the platform is going to notice. Hey, people are taking their time to read this.
So that’s like some formatting things. And, some it’s also people have different styles. Like some of our clients are very conversational. It’s important to them. It doesn’t sound like a copywriter wrote it, but I do think that there is a balance because in the, at the end of the day, it’s copywriting you’re competing with.
Hundreds of thousands of other posts in that person’s feed and there need to be some ways that you’re intriguing and drawing the reader forward. And if you’re not a professional writer, you’re not going to know the nuances of how to do that always. So it’s a balance of craft and just being natural and saying what you need and want to say.
I would say posts that are really long every now and then they pop off. And it’s cause people, but in general, I’ve found that an interesting thing, which is very short, like shorter posts, like one to three sentences. Tend to get a lot of likes. If they’re interesting, they can get a lot of impressions, but not always.
Sometimes they’ll get a ton of likes, but not a lot of impressions. Posts that are a little more in the middle, maybe a hundred, 150 words, that can be a sweet spot if you’re like keeping it interesting and moving it along. I think when it comes to imagery. It actually seems like posts that have related imagery.
If it’s check out this chart below, which blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That can be really helpful, but if you’re debating an image and the only reason you’d attach it is just to have some imagery associated with the post, I’d say skip it. That’s just what I’m seeing even in the last couple of months is that Images that feel superfluous are not serving the content very well.
Ashley Segura: That makes sense. It’s almost like the idea of the delete button is your friend. So when you’re trying to come up with those catchy headlines, or you’re trying to get that right word count between a hundred, 150 words, like that right mix of everything or adding the image. It, I just read I can’t remember who it was, but I just read.
About this on LinkedIn, someone posted about how the delete button should be your best friend. Even if you’re not a copywriter, if you’re a personal brand or trying to be a thought leader in any space, right? What you have to say and then go through and delete as much as you can. So whether it’s that hook that you think is a hook, deleting that section, getting to the point people will then want to.
Click the Seymour because you already have them engaged. You’re addressing what it is that they want to know about this. So they’re going to trust that you have something valuable to say, click on the Seymour and scan through it. I would assume it’s the same for the image idea. If the image isn’t actually adding value to your post, why include it?
Cause this isn’t. Gosh, 2015 Facebook to where we have to have images now.
Meredith Farley: Yes, totally.
Ashley Segura: It’s a safe space.
Meredith Farley: And even that, I do think it’s one thing I’ve been, it’s funny you say that because I was I think there’s a balance in that. Definitely anything extraneous. I love what you said, like delete button is your friend.
But also you want to give yourself like a little space to breathe and just be a person. Because if there’s too many, like super short, concise sentences, it sounds a little like Hemingway and it gives like an emotionally repressed sun also rises vibe sometimes. And sometimes you give yourself a little bit of runway or a little joke, just in the right spot every now and then it’s like a breath of fresh air where it’s like.
An efficient but real person wrote this content. So it’s such a balance. But yeah, like it’s funny. We try to have a rule. We do a lot of content in advance because it’s not super, super timely. So generally we’re giving client content clients content several weeks ahead of the month. We plan to post it.
But every now and then something pops up where it’s okay, can we turn this around quickly? And I, we really try to not write and post something on the same day if we can avoid it, because sometimes even just that overnight, like you sleep on it, you come back to it, you see so many more opportunities to delete like what you’re talking about.
Like the first time through you’re like, but then you look at it with fresh eyes and you’re like. This can go boring. Not necessary. Yeah. What was I thinking? Yeah. That was crazy. Thank God we didn’t post this. Yeah. So like that, even just sleeping on stuff, it’s a great way to help yourself like edit if you’re trying to delete stuff, reduce down and distill ideas.
Ashley Segura: Totally. And by sleeping on it, having that fresh perspective to look at it, you may also think of other things to add to it. So often you can see when content is rushed content and it’s published and it’s just this like word vomit of things. And it’s very unorganized, but there is something beautiful about that human element to it of you’re right, not deleting too much.
And it’s If not to the point to where we’re having misspellings or grammatical errors, but if you have this little bit of flair, you can end up potentially getting followers from that and getting engagement from that. Because it’s Oh, Hey, person behind this brand, finally, nice to actually meet you versus this.
This corporate image that you’ve been saying, and like being this, you’re also now relatable you’re making mistakes. You’re making fun of something. And now as a potential consumer, I can trust you a little bit more by having that relationship.
Meredith Farley: Yes. Yes, exactly. Don’t waste people’s time, but.
It’s okay to be like a tiny bit playful in the right way. Yeah. Yes. Yeah. The right word. Yeah.
Ashley Segura: Yeah. Yeah. Lots of balancing, lots of testing. Cause like you said at the beginning, what works for execs may not work for lifestyle brands or from an e commerce brand to an affiliate marketer. Like it could look very different.
So having Time to test and see what kind of content really makes a difference. But thinking of time, I can’t like not talk about AI, the thing in the room. So AI has this gosh, perspective with it, depending upon who you talk to. There’s a positive perspective and there could be a negative perspective. AI for creating content on LinkedIn, whether it’s for ideas or actual writing itself?
Like, where do you sit with all of it?
Meredith Farley: I think I’m like really open to AI. I do think I don’t feel particularly reactive to it. I just think we don’t know where it’s going to go. I have not found success in getting AI to create content. But I do think sometimes that’s helpful. Like sometimes we want it to help us a lot more than it does.
We’ll be like, this is feeling a little messy. Can you refine this post and get, and it just, it never really nails it. But I do think sometimes it’s helpful where if you wrote something and you’re like, this is 70 percent there and sometimes we’ll pop it in and be like, how would you make this better?
Sometimes it gives us like. Really bad advice. That’s everything’s exclamation points and rocket emojis, but every now and then it’ll be like, it’ll give you something interesting. So I think my hope is that over time it becomes almost like a helpful editor or partner. That would be cool.
But. I actually, do you know who Ryan holiday is? He’s like the daily stoic. He’s is his podcast. I love him. And he had, I was listening to an older interview he did last weekend and he was talking about a little off topic, but I guess it was related to AI in my mind. He was with the daily stoic on Instagram, like years ago, it was a pretty big account, but it was just daily, like a little drawing of a stoic and then a stoic quote over it.
And. Then he thought the account was doing really well, but then when he’d write a book or do a talk and pop in to say, Hey, it’s Ryan come to this thing, people were like, Who are you? Because he was not really associated with the account. It was, it was almost like a faceless account. He was running and he talked about how that was a little uncomfortable for him.
He realized like, He had to be the human element behind the brand, and he had to work to create a personal connection with the people who are interested in the content he put out and following him. And so I think over time, especially around personal branding, it could maybe, if it gets better, I can’t imagine it not getting better in the next 5 years, could become a good partner.
But I don’t think at least right now, I don’t feel worried about it overtaking personal branding. And I think the folks who are more willing to, and brands who are more willing to put founders and execs out there are going to do well because that’s going to be the differentiator. Like as AI content gets better and better, your willingness to create a connection with the actual people behind these accounts is going to make a big difference.
Ashley Segura: A hundred percent. It’s like this. Great coworker. I’ve said this a thousand times, but like AI is an amazing coworker to even go to it and be like, Hey, I’m a thought leader in this space. This is what I specialize in. Here’s a brief about me. I’m trying to come up with new ideas to create content on LinkedIn.
What should I create? LinkedIn posts for not like full blog posts, but just LinkedIn content around. And of course, like the first 15, it’ll spit out is in the ever evolving world of digital marketing, right? Yada. And it’s okay, let’s refine and then let’s refine. And then eventually I may get two out of 20 of those that are like, Oh, This is great.
I can write about this and I can actually talk about this, so it’ll give me this idea and then I’ll go to LinkedIn and craft up a post about it. But it’s the brands that are just, solely using AI to do the ideation and write the copy and edit the copy and then just going copy pasta with it.
That’s where I think you’re 100 percent right. We’re just a little too early in the stage to rely on it that heavily for every part of the process. Totally.
Meredith Farley: And I don’t know, I have to say, I think maybe I’ll have to ask you for your prompt chip, your prompt tricks later. Cause I wouldn’t call it right now.
A helpful colleague. I’d call it like a bad assistant. Or I’m like, okay, that’s trash. That’s trash, that’s trash. But you’re totally free. It’s I, and I don’t know if you find this as a content creator, but sometimes me or the folks on the team are working on something and just we’re exhausted.
And we’re like, I just want to pop this into a machine and get a new idea. I just want to feel supported. And sometimes you can do that. And sometimes it gives you something useful back most of the time. Not, but it’s even just if something can do 10 percent of the mental heavy lifting, when it comes to writing, it can feel like a relief sometimes.
But I can’t. I don’t think that thus far, actually, at one, one spot, it did do really good work for us was this was a specialized consulting product project months ago. But it helped us do some product work for a client and it did a really good job.
Ashley Segura: Okay. Okay. So from like a product outlining campaign standpoint, yeah, I could see that.
It’s definitely. Yeah. Yeah. There’s, I’ll rabbit hole with AI a hundred percent and then be like, okay, that hour that I just spent redoing the prompts a thousand times, could I have just sat down with a blank piece of paper and done old fashioned brainstorming myself a hundred and ten percent? But it’s that once.
When it does populate a really good idea and you’re like, maybe it’ll do it again, maybe it’ll do it again and again, and it’s not a hundred percent there yet, but whether it’s a good coworker or a lousy one that you have to train it a whole bunch it’s still there. I’m really excited to see what it does years from now, like you said, that five year mark and how as thought leaders.
Or even execs, like whatever that looks like in a content creation aspect for something like LinkedIn so that we are able to create better content across whatever platform it is like that would be the dream to be able to have an assistant to get us there.
Meredith Farley: Yeah, totally. I know it’s tricky though I don’t know, do you want to read content that you know a machine wrote?
Ashley Segura: No, unless I just need an answer. A straight black and white answer. What temperature do I need to bake these pork chops at? Oh, for a hundred. Cool. That’s all I need. But people don’t go to LinkedIn for that. People go to LinkedIn to actually learn and to educate themselves on something as well as develop connections, which to develop a connection, you have to build a relationship and rapport.
And so that’s commenting on people that’s following people that’s understanding what kind of content and what it is they’re saying. And so that does take a whole lot more. Work from the human aspect and machine learning. I don’t think we’ll ever get to that, but we’ll see.
Meredith Farley: Yeah. And I don’t know, it is interesting to think about.
Cause say we knew we’re like, yeah, it’s actually getting so good. You can give, anyone could be like, here’s my voice brief, write me five LinkedIn posts. I think at that point it could really impact the way people think of. Social media or LinkedIn too, it’d be like, why do I want to go? Even if it’s good, if I know a machine wrote it, I don’t care.
So like it is, I feel like how our perceptions of AI are going to keep changing too. And I think that will also change how we interact with the content as well. Like I could see it being I don’t know, just something that eventually we’re just like. Forget it. It’s just a bunch of people posting what a machine spit out.
And even if it’s good, I’m not, I don’t want to spend time on it.
Ashley Segura: Yeah. It’s arguably, it feels like we’re in that environment right now. So when you do see a piece of long piece of LinkedIn content, really take off really analyzing, like what made this work for them? What was it that was so unique about this?
And. You can see where, people would definitely probably use AI for this, or people didn’t use AI and it really was their voice, or maybe that’s where we see video taking off more because copy becomes all this AI copy, who knows what this is going to look like, but I think we’re definitely in that a little bit of the atmosphere of where people are already like, okay Is this all just written by AI?
Oh, it’s not. All right. Then who are the real people still here? And let’s follow them. Let’s see what their content strategies are.
Meredith Farley: Yeah, totally. I don’t, it’s funny. I don’t think most LinkedIn posts I look at, I think AI wrote I think you can tell every now and then, but it’s so rare that I’d be like, I think about, do you though?
Maybe I’m missing it. Like when you go on LinkedIn, are you like, Oh, I think that chat GPT wrote that for them.
Ashley Segura: I’d say probably three to four out of every 10 posts gives the feel, but this is also where it’s difficult because, if you take a piece of copy that you wrote and you take it through like an AI tool.
Tool checker to see if you can write this, it could say that part of that was written by AI. And you’re like, I personally hand wrote this. So it’s hard to say sometimes it just gives that feel like you mentioned earlier with the like excessive use of emojis or the rocket emoji or the big tip.
Totally. The like ever evolving world or digital landscape. There’s some of those things that. I am aware of, because I see chat to do it every time I ask it for anything. And it’s but I’m not sure everyone would always see those patterns because it depends on how they’re using. AI entirely.
Lots, a lot to come with where AI and content creation will be, whether for social media or for site content. But as we wrap up, I’d love to hear what is your current secret sauce? What is a new strategy that you just uncovered or tool that you’re really obsessed with right now? Yeah, I love this
Meredith Farley: question.
It was hard to pick one. I think that I. If you’re someone listening to this and you want your LinkedIn content to perform better, you’re newish to LinkedIn. There is a process or tactic I want to suggest, which is people engagement really does matter, especially when you’re just starting out. Or if you don’t have a lot of followers or a personal brand already behind you, like this might not make sense for all execs, but it could make sense for a lot of people.
And there’ll be this advice that’s Go on and engage 30 minutes before you post and 30 minutes after you post it. And they say it wakes up the algorithm and you have to give to get, and I do think LinkedIn is a very reciprocal environment, but I don’t think that just randomly engage is good advice.
I think you need to go find about 20 to 30 people whose content that you like who post near daily. And are people that you feel comfortable supporting and just put them on a spreadsheet. And then after you post, I don’t think you have to do this before, but after you post, just click into all of their profiles, see if they posted anything in the last day or so and make sure to go support it, like it and comment on it.
And, LinkedIn is really about community building. And if you’ve selected people who are Posting regularly also who are commenting back regularly, check their common activity and their people you want to support and their content resonates with you there over time, probably going to clock you and support you back.
So it’s a way to make sure that you’re intentional with your engagement, that you’re not just going with the flow of whatever the algorithm sends your way. You’re supporting people you want to support and. Generally, it is, especially for people who are posting daily. It’s a really reciprocal environment.
And if someone’s giving their content, a lot of love, a lot of those folks will make an effort to go support you back. So if you’re someone who’s I know I’m supposed to engage and I’m going on and I’m liking and commenting, but I’m just not like feeling like I get anything out of it. That’s my kind of secret sauce.
And I think it’s, it’s not a forever tactic and you want to be careful that you’re choosing people. You genuinely really respect and want to help. But I think that’s a little, just a little tactic. If you’re new to LinkedIn and you want to grow.
Ashley Segura: Yeah, that’s amazing advice. I love the spreadsheet idea because so often I find myself on LinkedIn, like, All right.
I know I’m supposed to be doing the networking part of LinkedIn’s a two way streak. So here’s the networking part. And then just going through the feed that LinkedIn gives me, and I just feel so lost of and then I start rabbit holing or I’ll click on someone’s link. And then, so I like the spreadsheet idea because that makes your time very intentional.
Meredith Farley: Totally. Because a lot of people who are just starting out, like they don’t have a ton of time either. And so the idea of spending And also LinkedIn can really take It can take up a lot of headspace. I don’t know if you’ve had that experience, but it can be exhausting, especially in the beginning. You’re trying to figure it out.
You don’t know what works. Just be like, do your post, do your spreadsheet, support your people, sign off and move on with your day. And I promise you’re going to make some progress.
Ashley Segura: Yeah, no, I love it. And let’s definitely end on that because that is perfect homework to go with. So thank you so much for coming on the show today and sharing all of your great LinkedIn content advice.
Meredith Farley: No, thank you so much for having me. I this was really fun. Thank you.
