How I Leverage My Thought Leadership To Increase Reach & Engagement

Are you seeking a new marketing strategy to increase your reach and engagement? In today’s blog post, I’ll talk about a strategic concept when it comes to creating content as a subject matter expert. Specifically, the Hedgehog Concept by Jim Collins. The Hedgehog Concept is a powerful approach that leverages thought leadership to help you reach a wider audience and boost engagement.

This blog post will discuss why this strategy is so effective and how it can help you become a thought leader in your field. I’ll also provide practical tips on creating effective content and strategies for promoting your blog and brand on social media. By the end of this post, you will better understand the Hedgehog Concept and how it can help you increase your reach and engagement.

Finding ways to repurpose my speaking opportunities into shorter, digestible content. With a tool like Go.Charlie., I truly have a content creator’s best friend and repurpose video footage of my talks, into blogs and Twitter threads.

Creating Effective Content For Business Success

Creating content for your business is an essential part of any successful strategy. However, many businesses need help creating content that resonates with their audiences. According to a recent study by Content Marketing Institute (CMI), 45% of marketers say they struggle to create content that is both useful and interesting to their audience. This is partly because most businesses focus on what they know best instead of embracing a hedgehog concept – which means focusing on what they know best and delivering excellent value.

The book Good to Great by Jim Collins introduces the Hedgehog Concept. A concept that flows from a deep understanding of three circles: 1) what you are deeply passionate about, 2) what you can be the best in the world at, and 3) what best drives your economic or resource engine. Applying it to writing, the goal is not best writer in your field. It’s an understanding of identifying what you are good at, and leaning into that. We all have a unique story to tell based on our experiences, personal and professional. And by telling that authentic story, you can find your tribe.

By embracing a hedgehog concept, businesses can focus on delivering detailed buyer personas, segmenting the audience, becoming a thought leader by leaning on Google’s EAT (Expertise, Authority and Trust) principles, and making content shareable. In addition, thought leadership can be leveraged to change perceptions for the better in addition to being more trustworthy than marketing materials. By taking these steps, businesses can utilize their employees to help increase their content's reach and impact while engaging their target audience more effectively.

Strategies For Promoting Your Blog

You can find ways to increase your blog’s reach by utilizing social media as well. Having a social media presence is the first step, but you can also incorporate tactics to help. Bloggers everywhere are using social media to promote their blogs. In fact, according to a study by BrightLocal, 69% of bloggers use social share buttons on their blog posts. This is an effective way to ensure that your blog content reaches your target audience and makes it easy for them to share it with their respective audiences as well.

Instead of trying to develop supplementary products or services that will drive traffic, focus your energy on developing well-researched and unique products or services that stand out from your competitors. By identifying the topics that are driving the most clicks to your website, and writing content around that, you'll truly be tapping into your audience’s interests. This will put you in a better position to succeed over time, resulting in more eyeballs on your thought-leadership content. And lead to increased website traffic, higher search engine rankings, and building affinity with your audience.

Be sure to publish your blog content on LinkedIn. It's a great platform to become a thought leader in your local community and overall industry by engaging with your current and future LinkedIn connections. It's also an opportunity to share your organization’s culture with potential customers, partners, and future employees. 

When thinking about what type of content lives best on LinkedIn, a recent platform survey said 44% of respondents said the last piece of content they read on LinkedIn was straight to the point, and provided real value to businesses in their industry. 

Final Thoughts

By leveraging your thought leadership as a subject matter expert, you can increase your overall reach and engagement through blog content that resonates with your target audience. Over time, you can position yourself as a trusted source of information. Furthermore, social media, like LinkedIn, can be used to promote your blog and personal brand to reach more potential customers. Be sure to consider how the Hedgehog Concept can be used to identify what your niche is, so you can focus your content efforts on that.

Looking for more ways you can amplify your social media efforts, be sure to check out one of my freebies to help you and your brand.

How I View The World of Work

For an upcoming interview with Morning Brew’s education arm, Learning Brew, I shared two potential topics to discuss and some thoughts on both. The first was about my time as a marketer in the cannabis industry, and the second was about my thoughts on all things related to professional work in 2023. We ended up going with the former, but I wanted to share some of the highlights with you from the latter. More below:

If you’re new to my website, you can also download one of my freebies to help with your social media marketing efforts.

Remote Work Is Here To Stay

Saying it louder for those in the back, but remote work isn’t going away. Every role and industry is different, but after working nearly three years straight in fully-remote roles, I don’t see myself or others like me returning to anything less than hybrid roles. If you want the best talent, provide the best work environment for that talent.

Quiet Quitting over Quiet Firing

If you’re concerned with “quiet quitting,” maybe focus that energy inward to understand why employees would do that. Professionals often leave because they feel undervalued, underpaid or see no path forward for their careers (or a combination of those three).   

Even though companies are laying off employees at an unprecedented rate, know that economists still view it as an employee’s market. So be sure to know your value and what you bring to an organization. And find ways to work for organizations that align with your views of the world and how work can be done. Having a life and bring value to an organization through your skills are not mutually exclusive. 

“Change what you can, and deal with what you can’t.” -

Last but not least, you may not be able to change your customers, clients, or colleagues but you can change how you do the work. In our weekly touch base, I ask my team members, “If you were in my shoes, what would you differently?” This was something I learned during Learning Brew’s Leadership Accelerator, and the goal is to provide my team the opportunity to call out inefficiencies, challenges, and other issues when it comes to our work, that I may not have full visibility into.  

Looking for more social media and influencer marketing news worth using? You can read more of my writing, covering my favorite social media tools to use, like GoCharlie.ai. and more deep dives on specific topics on my blog.

And thank you for your time and thoughts!

Social Media News You Can Use For Your Brand

Let’s get right into the social media news you can use to start the week ahead. Today, I’ll talk about a marketing campaign that has led to the first-ever Wooly Mammoth meatball, the latest app from TikTok’s creator ByteDance, and 10 myths about social media that may be affecting your brand. Without further ado, let’s dive in.

But before that, are you looking for more social media and influencer marketing news worth using? You can read more of my writing, covering my favorite social media tools to use, like GoCharlie.ai. and more deep dives on specific topics on my blog.

Cool Campaign Alert: Introducing the Mammoth Meatball

Australian food company Vow said earlier this week that it's made a meatball from the extinct woolly mammoth. To create the mammoth meatball, researchers took the genetic sequence of a mammoth's muscle protein, mixed it in some elephant DNA, and then placed that completed gene into a sheep muscle cell, which grew into 400 grams of meat.  

Why wooly mammoth? The mammoth was chosen to raise publicity for Vow's mission as an organization. The agency behind the campaign Wunderman Thompson, told reporters that the enormous meatballs were designed to "start a dialogue" about the adverse environmental impact of meat consumption. Who's hungry?

ByteDance-Owned App 'Lemon8' is Rising Up the App Store Charts 

After a widely-watched testimony on Capitol Hill, everyone from politicians to your favorite influencers, and everyday folks like you and me tuned in. As the United States government decides the fate of TikTok in the country, the app's owner, ByteDance, is hard at work promoting another app. Lemon8, which bills itself as a place for young creatives to share a variety of content, is also described as a hybrid of Instagram and Pinterest. The app focuses primarily on fashion inspiration, makeup tutorials, food, and travel.

After watching some videos of users within the app, it reminds me of a combination of Instagram and TikTok. Lemon8 has been available since 2020, but its popularity is growing in the country, ranking it among the top ten app downloads in the last week.

By focusing its efforts on Lemon8 even more in the country, especially now that TikTok is the focus of a bipartisan committee. Now, will the rise in usage of Lemon8 help or hurt ByteDance in avoiding TikTok's potential ban or forced sale? And, more importantly, if ByteDance is forced to separate from TikTok, would the same decision apply to Lemon8?

10 Myths About Social Media For Brands

Whether you’re leading up the social media efforts for your brand or are part of any agency helping a variety of clients, you’ve likely had to push back against common misconceptions when it comes to social media. SocialMediaToday put together 10 myths social media that marketers should work to address. Some of my favorites include:   

• Brands do not have to be on every platform; they should be where their target audience is.  

• Brands do not have to post unique content on each platform; cross-posting content is smart and efficient.  

• Brands do not have to post multiple times a day; they need to post consistently.  

While these aren't necessarily best practices, it's easy for brands and our clients to metaphorically see if the grass is greener by evaluating their competitor's social media presence. So it's our responsibility to help educate our clients so they can make the right choices that align with their overall business needs.

Thanks again for reading and I hope you one or more of these articles provided some useful information. If so, and you’re looking for more social media and influencer marketing news worth, check out more of my writing. You can find ways to maximize your content strategy, or identify which of my favorite social media tools you should use next. For example. I love utilizing GoCharlie.ai for my content creation needs.

Make Sure You Follow These Social Media Best Practices

Social media is an essential part of digital marketing and can be a powerful tool for any business. But how do you ensure your social media presence is up to par? This blog post will discuss the best practices for social media, from branding your company’s social media presence to optimizing your website’s landing pages and creating content marketing strategies to grow your business. With these tips, you will be well on your way to creating a robust social media presence for your brand.

Branding Your Social Media Presence

Creating a social media presence that's both effective and authentic is essential for any business. If your brand identity (think tone, voice, and visuals) isn't cohesive, your followers will not know why they should follow your brand. Likewise, if your social media messages are communicated more effectively, people will be able to understand the purpose of your channel and why it would be worth a follow. To create a successful social media campaign, you must understand the different platforms and use visuals to communicate your message. It would help if you also ensured that your posts are discoverable and optimized for engagement. Once you've set up these basics, it's essential to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns so that you can continue tweaking and improving as necessary.

For your social media presence to be successful, it's essential to engage with your community on a personal level. By building relationships with people who share similar values and interests, you'll be able to reach more people with your message. You’ll do that by creating engaging content and posting it consistently.

Additionally, leaning into cultural moments (think “Blue Dress or Gold Dress” or “Yanni or Laurel”) can help you stay ahead of the curve by incorporating current events into your posts in a way that resonates with readers. And lastly, don't forget about influencers – they can help amplify the reach of your content exponentially. By following these best practices, you can create a solid social media presence that will help grow your business.

Using Hashtags And Strong Visuals To Boost Engagement

Hashtags are one of the most important aspects of social media marketing. When used correctly, hashtags can boost your posts' engagement and increase your content's reach. Plus, visuals can be a powerful tool when it comes to attracting customers and building brand recognition. By following these tips, you'll be on your way to creating successful hashtag campaigns.

First and foremost, hashtags are important because they help users find your content more easily. When users search for content based on a particular topic using hashtags, they will see all the posts that use that particular hashtag. This makes it easy for them to find relevant content quickly – no matter what topic they’re searching for.

It's essential to choose appropriate hashtags for your campaign. Not all hashtags are created equal – some will have greater reach than others. It's also important to consider the keywords most relevant to your target market and post about those topics frequently using visual content and hashtags!

Second, high-quality visuals can help build brand awareness and attract new customers. You'll stand out from the competition by using images that represent your brand or product. Plus, incorporating these visuals into your social media posts will keep people engaged longer than text-only posts would allow. This means that you'll have an easier time converting followers into customers!

Third, it's essential to monitor and analyze hashtag performance throughout your campaign to make strategic decisions about how best to deploy their resources moving forward. By understanding which hashtags are performing well and where engagement is highest across all channels (social media sites included), you can ensure that all your efforts are being put toward success!

Optimizing Your Website For Social Media

Social media is one of the most popular ways to connect with friends and family, and it's also a great way to promote your business. However, social media can be a lot of work if you need to be more careful. Below, we'll outline some best practices for using social media effectively.

First, it's essential to incorporate social media into your website. Make sure all your content is sharable on social media platforms, and your webpage layout is optimized for easy sharing. In addition to making your website more shareable, incorporating those high-quality visuals into your posts can help to draw attention to your business. Use images and videos to illustrate your key messaging points. Find ways to explain complex concepts in a simplified manner, or show off beautiful visuals.

Another key aspect of social media is optimizing your page layout for easy reading on various devices. Ensure all posts are placed at the top of the page, so they're easily visible on phones and tablets. A quick tip: use bold fonts and large images that will be easily seen on larger screens. Finally, ensure that all posts are scheduled to go live when the majority of your audience is active. You want to reach as many people as possible – this will optimize visibility and increase engagement rates.

Once you've incorporated social media into your website and optimized your page layout for social media visibility, it's time to start posting! Content should be shareable without taking too much time to create. Try incorporating quotes or testimonials from customers or staff members to show how their feedback on your business or products.

Content Marketing To Grow Your Business

Building a social media presence is one of the most important steps any business can take. Not only does social media allow you to connect with potential customers and followers, but it can also help to spread the word about your products and services. However, building an engaging social presence is a challenging project, and it requires time, careful planning, and of course, resources.

You must be mindful of your short-term and long-term goals when crafting an effective content strategy. In the short term, you want to ensure that each post is geared towards helping your audience achieve specific goals or meet particular needs. This way, you'll see positive results quickly – without having to labor over content for months. And for the long term, you want to be able to tell a cohesive story about your brand and inform your target audience why they should be aware of your business.

Finally, it's important not only to write great content yourself; you also want to explore partnering with influencers. These folks can share your content with their followers for your brand to reach a larger audience. This means finding individuals who are passionate about either your category, or you have a product that addresses a significant pain point for them. Once identified, securing that partnership is important by offering them valuable incentives (such as complimentary products or services) as compensation. Don’t forget to monitor their audience’s comments for feedback, there likely will be some nuggets of information you can use to improve your marketing efforts.

To Summarize

Social media is an important part of digital marketing, and any business needs to have a successful presence on these channels. By following the best practices outlined in this blog post (and others!), you will be well on your way to creating an effective and engaging social media campaign that will help grow your business. From optimizing your website for social media visibility to crafting content strategies that resonate with readers, there are many ways to ensure that your message reaches a wide audience.

Looking for more social media and influencer marketing news worth using? You can read more of my writing, covering my favorite social media tools to use, like GoCharlie.ai. and more deep dives on specific topics on my blog.

If you’re new to my website, you can also download one of my freebies to help with your social media marketing efforts.

The Social Media and Digital Marketing News You Need To Know In March

A lot can change in a week and I was recently talking about my alma mater having a chance to move on in this year’s March Madness. Fast forward to today and not only did Mizzou not move on, my entire bracket is busted after Alabama and Houston both lost.

So let’s get right into the social media news you can use to start the week ahead. Today, I’ll talk about how Google plans to use Artificial Intelligence for their products, the latest from the CEO of TikTok’s on Capitol Hill, and why short-form content will continue to be top of mind for agencies and brands.

How Google Plans To Use Artificial Intelligence

Regardless of how you get your news, AI remains front and center. This technology has the potential to be disruptive. The biggest tech companies in the world and start-ups like Go Charlie are looking to leverage artificial intelligence for their businesses. And the same is true for Google, with the company looking to incorporate AI into its product offerings and services. Google has seen the success of companies like ChatGPT, and competitors like Microsoft are weaving AI into all its apps and processes.

According to Google, the company plans to use generative Artificial Intelligence to enhance the following features:

• In Gmail, AI can draft, reply, summarize, and prioritize your inbox.

• Across Google Docs, AI can help brainstorm, proofread, and amplify your writing abilities. If you want to learn more about how AI can help with your content needs, check out my blog using Go Charlie and other content creation tours.  

• When using Slides, AI can help populate images, audio and video creation needs.

Like many other companies, Google initially hesitated to dedicate resources to utilizing AI. Whether all part of the plan or if their hand was forced, Google looks to make a move as many users shift toward other tech like Chat-GPT for their online and search needs. Google intends to launch its new AI experience, including Google's Bard in the United States later this month through its trusted tester program. More information on Google's AI plans can be found here: 

TikTok's On Capitol Hill

How did I spend part of my Thursday? By watching highlights from TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew as he spent 4.5 hours reassuring American lawmakers that the app is free of Chinese government influence before Congress today.  

TikTok, which recently boasted having roughly 150 million American users, heard from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, focusing on the latest regarding the app and the US government's pursuit of a ban.  

We highlighted last week that everyone is in a bind here. According to The Wall Street Journal, the Biden administration has remained solid on its request: Chinese parent company ByteDance must sell their TikTok holdings or face expulsion.  

And tying it back to our work, a complete ban will also have financial repercussions, especially for the influencer economy. According to recent news, TikTok is essential to the $100B influencer economy. The income gained through advertising will surpass $11B by next year, more than Snapchat, Pinterest, and Twitter combined.

Why Short-form Video Content is Here to Stay

While TikTok's future may be in flux, my team all agree on the value of short-form video content. Short-form content is easy to binge, which makes it more likely to be shareable. Let's talk about ways we, as the Motion agency look to leverage short-form video with some great stats from Sprout Social and their Sprout Social Index:  

• Short-form video was the most engaging type of content in 2022 for 66% of respondents surveyed. 

• 39% of consumers like to see real customer testimonials or reviews. 

• Consumers find short-form videos to be 2.5x more engaging than long-form videos. 

• From a platform perspective, Instagram Reels had an average engagement rate that was at least double that of other post types, and YouTube Shorts topped 5 billion monthly active users.  

While social media platforms may come and go, short-form video is positioned for the long term. For brands, there is value in investing in this content format is worth it in the long run.

Want more social media and influencer marketing news worth using? You can read more of my writing, covering my favorite social media tools to use, like GoCharlie.ai. and more deep dives on specific topics on my blog.

What Your Small Business Needs To Know About Digital Marketing

Navigate your way through the complexities of digital marketing as a business owner.

Digital marketing can be a powerful tool for businesses of any size to reach potential customers and increase their sales. But what do you need to know before you get started? In this blog post, I will provide an overview of key things you need to know about digital marketing. We’ll explore digital marketing strategies, how to create an effective web presence, and building your brand with digital marketing. By the end of this post, you will have a better understanding of how to develop a successful digital marketing strategy and get the most out of your digital marketing efforts. Digital marketing has become essential to any successful business – don't hesitate any longer to get started! Let’s dive in!

Understanding Digital Marketing Strategies

Digital marketing is quickly becoming one of the most popular platforms for reaching target audiences. With so many advances in technology, it's no wonder that digital marketing is booming. Digital marketing, when done correctly, allows you to reach your audiences with speed, accuracy, and immediacy. By utilizing multiple channels, you can create a more comprehensive and effective campaign.

There are a variety of digital marketing strategies that companies can use to reach their target customers. Most common include SEO (search engine optimization), PPC (pay-per-click) advertising, display advertising, and social media. Utilizing these different channels helps to increase visibility and improve your overall ROI (return on investment). However, it is important to analyze the results of each digital campaign you launch, to better understand its effectiveness. Only by doing this can you truly optimize your efforts and achieve your desired results.

To ensure your digital campaigns are successful, it's important to work with an experienced marketer (full-time or freelance), who understands how to maximize digital marketing outcomes. By working with a digital marketing partner, you'll be able to take advantage of their expertise and resources in order to achieve optimal results for your business. For example, at Motion, we’re able to utilize A/B testing as another powerful tool, often used to determine the effectiveness of various digital marketing strategies. By testing different permutations of creative and copy options against each other, our agency is able to help our clients find what ads work best for them when it comes to achieving their goals.

Creating An Effective Web Presence

Digital marketing is the practice of using digital technologies to reach and engage with your potential customers. By understanding your customer's journey, you can create ads that appeal to them and over time, build trust. You can use content marketing to create helpful and informative posts that keep potential customers clicking through your website.

One of the most important aspects of digital marketing is visibility. If you want people to see what you're doing, you need to be visible on social media, search engines, and other online platforms. By developing a strategic plan for online visibility and implementing it systematically, you'll be on your way to achieving success.

In addition, it's essential that your website be user-friendly and optimized for mobile devices. This will help visitors find what they're looking for on your site quickly and easily. Additionally, visual content such as infographics or videos are often more effective than text-only versions when capturing attention. Finally, ensure that you offer value-added services to encourage customers to stick around long enough for you to earn their business!

Strategies To Reach Potential Customers Online

Digital marketing is all about reaching potential customers and building relationships. Whether you're a small business looking to increase visibility online, or a large corporation with multiple brands, there are different strategies that you can use to reach your target audience. In this section, we will outline some of the most important aspects of digital marketing and how you can use them to reach your target audience.

If your small business is new, one of the first things you need to do is develop creative strategies for reaching potential customers. This might involve creating relevant and engaging content, using social media platforms to build relationships with your followers, or developing email campaigns tailored to their needs.

You'll also need to utilize different digital marketing channels such as SEO (search engine optimization), email campaigns, influencer marketing, and content marketing. Once you've developed a strategy for reaching your target audience, it's important to track the performance of your campaigns so that you can make adjustments as needed. Data analytics tools will help you understand which messages resonate with your audience and which ones don't. You'll also want to target specific population segments with tailored messages to maximize results.

It's also important to be mindful of how your digital presence reflects on your brand image. For example, selling health-related products would make sense for your website content and images to reflect this theme. Similarly, if you're a fashion retailer, incorporating interactive elements into your campaigns could increase engagement rates amongst users. By incorporating customer feedback into all aspects of digital marketing – from strategy development through execution – businesses can ensure long-term success.

Last but not least, it's essential for any small business owner or digital marketer to constantly learn from their successes and failures in order not only to improve their own skillsets but to help improve the business overall.

Conclusion

Digital marketing is an ever-evolving field, and it can be difficult to keep up with the latest developments. However, with some knowledge and strategic planning, businesses of any size can use digital marketing to reach their target audiences and increase their sales. You can put yourself ahead of the competition by understanding digital marketing strategies, creating an effective web presence, and building your brand through digital media campaigns. So don't wait any longer – take action today and start using digital marketing to grow your business!

Looking for more social media and influencer marketing news worth using? You can read more of my writing, like ways to maximize your content strategy, or my favorite social media tools to use, like GoCharlie.ai. and more deep dives on specific topics on my blog.