Content, content, content.

We are now bombarded with this most Gary V of buzzwords.

Who says we should be knocking out at least 64 pieces of it a day.

Yeah RIGHT Gary, maybe if we had access to your army of content creators.

But let’s not forget that Gary also said "context is god".

We shouldn't bombard people with content but more with the right content. 

Content that speaks directly to them.

I’ll often write a specific piece of content after I know a potential customer was interacting with some of my older content

And I’ll speak to them specifically in their voice.

Comments on posts are also a great way of creating context and this is the part most people who create content don’t understand.

It isn’t so much the content itself, but it’s about the space that content creates in order for you to have a conversation which is more important.

Now obviously that content has to have a hook to get them to engage on it in the first place, but I’d much rather have a deep and meaningful conversation with a single person than a broad short conversation with a million!

And it’s in this space were you can get hyper contextual, because you've moved from traditional interrupt and broadcast marketing into an actual human to human dialogue.

That is the real power of social media at work.

Gary’s 3 tips around context are. 

1) Respect the platform and audience

Believe it or not people aren't actually coming to LinkedIn to be sold to.

So don’t spam out cold sales DM’s.

Or worse advertise your services in people feeds without permission first

I like to think of social selling a little bit like a digital karmic seesaw.

It has to be loaded very heavily or evenly balanced for you to attempt to even sell.

You have to earn that right, through entertaining, educational, insightful value driven content.

Deliver that first.

And your prize is a conversation and then a call with your potential customer.

This is a long tail strategy. 

So be patient.

"If people are to be expected to put up with turning on a computer to read a screen, they must be rewarded with deep and extremely up-to-date information that they can explore at will. They need to have audio, and possibly video. They need an opportunity for personal involvement that goes far beyond that offered through the letters-to-the-editor pages of print magazines." Bill Gates

2) Don’t interrupt the experience 

Following on from what I mentioned earlier, speak directly to your audience and don’t interrupt them.

Traditional advertising doesn’t work well on the platform because people like to curate their feeds and adverts interrupt this experience.

Earn the right first by getting to know and understand your audience and creating content that really speaks to the heart of them and their problems.

3) Be consistent and self aware 

Everything you post and leave behind becomes the building blocks of your brand.

The core of your narrative needs to be consistent, think of it like one giant thread that runs throughout your content and on this platform your hashtags that you use (when you turn on creator mode on LinkedIn) will become your content pillars. 

So really take the time to delve into what you want those to be. 

What are you passionate about and what do you really want to be know for?

This will be the never ending story that runs through everything (what you didn't expect me not to get an 80’s movie reference in there did you).

Be contextual and you’ll always win over broader traditional broadcast advertising.

So what are you waiting for, get out there and start a conversation through your content.

And remember, context over content!

"It isn’t so much the content itself, but it’s about the space that content creates in order for you to have a conversation which is more important." - Nick Raeburn