Episode 50: Personal Branding Goddess Melanie Borden
Melanie Borden is a major Linkedin personal brand.
I noticed her and just had to find out how this girl was on fire.
In this episode, she shared her exceptional journey to 140,000 followers.
How she started with no intention to be a major influencer, and no monetisation purpose. And that’s the secret of how she’s done so well.
She tells all and her major tip is: when starting a personal brand, if you start with nothing to sell for the first year, you can achieve way more success.
I love it.
Melanie also shared her secret content creation process which takes her only 1 hour a month to maintain her personal brand!
Find out about the secret process within this week’s must listen sesh.
Remember to
Follow Melanie on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/melanieborden/
Follow ‘Mellonie Francis’ on LinkedIn:
Transcript:
Mel:
I’m super excited to chat because I’ve been following your posts. And I’ve been following your journey and I just connect so much to everything you post. So I’m super excited to really get into understanding the journey. How has it been so quick for you? I know you’ve answered some of that on your posts. But you know what? Yeah. How do you do it so quick? Is it all the, you know, background that you’ve had in marketing that you can accelerate that fast? And then I really want to, you know, understand also, when I read your writing, Melanie, it’s like, you hook me in, you know, you really keep me there. And you just, I just want to read on and on and on. And I’ve only come across another rider, like a ghost rider like that. And I want to understand deeply like when you write and what’s the strategy, but before we get into all of it, like this is a super exciting podcast for me, guys, because Melanie Borden is a huge brand. And so quickly over in LinkedIn, and I’m, if you haven’t heard of her, you should go check her out. But I’m pretty sure most of you that are super into LinkedIn would probably know what she is and what she’s up to. And she’s doing amazing things to help ex ex really build up their social, personal brands and work with lots of companies to do exactly that. And I’m super excited to have her she’s got an like, when I reached out to her, she had like 100, and something 1000 followers, Melanie has like around 100, I think 91 I recently was 280k followers. So we’re gonna like really get down to like how she’s done this. And now she’s like, gotten to where she is. And we’re just going to do what we always do, and just find out all the nitty gritty so we can grow together. So, Melanie, welcome. I’m super excited to get into it.
Melanie:
Same Thank you for having me. I’m glad we were able to do this.
Mel:
Cool. So tell me like when LinkedIn journey starts, I know, it’s like I sort of read your post 2020. But, you know, were you doing it for a while before then like, you know, had you been doing it throughout your whole career and posting and social? Like, where does this you know, where does this start? Where you start uncovering?
Melanie:
That’s a good question. So I’ve been a member of LinkedIn since 2013. But like many others, I really wasn’t doing much with it. I would post occasionally, if there was something happening where I was working, you know, the typical old, I would say old fashioned LinkedIn way of going to market, which was company news updates in your career, and, you know, industry news. So that was pretty much it. And it was, there was no plan, there was no strategy, there was no method to it, it was just whenever it happened. And so in the end of 2019, I really started paying more attention to LinkedIn. And I started noticing that LinkedIn had started changing. And there were more what were call creators, but there were more individuals who are posting content that I would see on either Twitter, or Instagram, or as people like to say, Facebook, on on LinkedIn. And I thought this is a massive opportunity. And at the time, I was working as a VP of marketing, for business. And we have, we had a very large sales team. And I thought, what if there was this way where we could get the entire sales team to create their individual personal brands, and they could be firing on all cylinders, and really promoting the company. And we could be essentially leveraging the team in addition to all the money that we were spending on marketing and advertising. And we could even maybe reduce some of that. And we can invest it back into the team, you know, with content and with training, and video production, etc. So we launched this social media and marketing workshop for all the salespeople, there are about 71 of them. And it was amazing. And I started myself at that time, and this is January 2020. And things were going great. And then around mid March is when basically the whole world fell apart with COVID. And I had been only posting consistently for a few months. And my goal was really, I need to lead by example for the team, even though they don’t report to me. They report up to sales. I need to show them that if you do this, it works and it will help generate opportunities. And so pretty much the entire sales team stopped when COVID happened. But on the other end and they’re all laid off. Right and so I unformed I fortunately was not laid off, and but the future was very uncertain and it was very unclear. as to what was going to happen next. And I freaked out because of the fact that I didn’t have a website. I didn’t have, you know, I don’t have a trust fund, I didn’t have a social following anywhere. And I thought I need to figure this out, and what will help me the most that will immediately impact my career and be in front of everybody in my industry. But LinkedIn. So I really went all in around March 2020. And I just started posting, every single day I was posting about, you know, updates with what was happening with the business, I was posting inspirational content, you know, fluffy content, motivational content, it was actually more for me than it was for anyone else, because I was really trying to mentally stay in a good place, because of everything that was happening. And it just created all these opportunities for me and for the business I was working for. So all of a sudden, we had customers because it was a retail automotive company. We had customers who would start reaching out to me and say, Hey, I live in the area of one of the dealerships Do you think you can come someone can come get my car for service? Or can you book me a service appointment? Or do you know if this car is still available? Meanwhile, I was in marketing, I was not in sales, but it created these opportunities. And for myself, personally, all of a sudden, I was being asked to go on to these virtual panels, I was being asked to speak at virtual conferences, I was meeting and networking with people who I’d never known before in the industry. And it just created all this opportunity. And then in 2021, a tech company that was in the industry as well reached out to me and was like, We love what you’re doing on LinkedIn, we want you to do it for our team, and for our company as well. And we want you to come in as the VP of marketing. And I took the position and it was literally through LinkedIn. And then after a few months, what will continue to happen from you know, I’ll say, you know, march 2020 through now is individuals that were in my network that were either business owners, executives, someone within the C suite, they would reach out to me and say, I love what you’ve been doing. I’ve been following you. I would love it if you could do this for me or teach me how to do it for myself. And so that continued to happen. And I would always say no, because I was working for someone else. And I was never in the type of position where I had time to have like a side hustle. Yeah, yeah. And I have Yeah, and I have two kids. And it just wasn’t possible for me to do that. And so I just made the decision in August of 21, to start my own business as a marketing consultant. Right. And it was really driven by everything that was coming in through LinkedIn.
Mel:
Wow. So you move into this other company, I was VP of marketing. That’s why you only there for four months, because I was looking at that. Because there was just so much opportunity, like hang on a minute, I’ve got to check myself like, what am I doing?
Melanie:
It, there’s so much opportunity that was coming at me. And honestly, I was looking at it also from the perspective of I did not want to be in front of my computer for 15 hours a day. Yeah, it just wasn’t, it was not for me. And so at that point, I realised that the only way that you can really take advantage of opportunities is if you take action on them.
Mel:
Got it? Like when did you like blow up in old the crux of this? So like, you know, stop posting at March 28? You’re just like sharing motivation to keep yourself getting motivation? When was it like? Was it like immediate? Like, were you just so relevant at the time of need? Or, you know, was it after eight months of doing this? And like, you know, not really like, when did you actually feel like, this is just becoming quite, quite strong
Melanie:
again, I think it was that perfect storm, because of the fact that so many people were not in their office anymore. Because if you think back to 2020. So during that year, pretty much everyone all over the world was working from home for a good portion of the year, I would say for at least, you know, eight months of the year people were home. Yeah, so I was just in the right place at the right time. And I had found that, you know, people respond to emotion. And people respond to stories and people respond to relatable content that they can think, oh, this has happened to me, or this is something about me. So I just started sharing a lot of personal content. And it was during 2020 towards the end. I had done a post that went viral now viral in 2020. And viral in 2023 on LinkedIn is two different things. You know, viral in 2020 Was I got 1000 likes on the post but viral in 2023 is you get 100,000 likes on a post. Yeah, and so I had a post that went viral at the end of the year and that’s really what picked everything up I would say from then because it ended up getting picked up by Good Morning America picked up by you know overseas it got picked up by the Daily Mail it was working about. The post is about. So I get trolled all the time. And so that hasn’t changed since I started posting. And I did a post because someone I was doing more video at the time, because early on, I was very uncomfortable being on camera and doing videos. So I sort of publicly challenged myself to do more video. And so some gentleman, I don’t even know if he deserves that title. He was commenting on one of my posts that said, I looked really tired. Meanwhile, I was taking all this time to like do my hair and makeup and like, get ready to do video. And I did a post basically pushing back on them saying, You know what, yeah, I’m tired. I have two kids, they’ve been working with me. I’ve been working at home with my kids in school on their computers last year. And I work full time. And I’ve been doing the work of four people for my job, and I’m exhausted, and so is everyone else in the world. And so that it just got picked up. And that was really the beginning, I would say of when things really picked up quickly. And then I didn’t stop the momentum. And I think that’s another lesson for a lot of people, not just about LinkedIn, but also just social in general is that all these algorithms, they respond to consistency and momentum. And when you get momentum, just keep writing it. Yeah, keep going. And I just never stopped. I mean, I never really stopped the momentum and the consistency since then.
Mel:
I see that in yours. Like it’s every day you show up. And that’s hard work. I want to touch on the relatable part. Because I think that’s what it is about your content. It’s the relatable. Like, we feel like as if we can really relate like you’ve been there, you’re really connecting for me. So many things that you’ve posted about, you know, like how tough it is about an agency? How competitive some people feel. And I don’t feel that way, because there’s so much out there, you know, like, Yeah, but you write about it. And I’m like, yeah, she gets it. She’s been, she’s been real, like, the whole time you’re like, you know, this is how many clients I’ve worked with, you’re not saying, you know, I’m like some, you know, massive superstar. And it’s just, you know, you’re like, it’s tough. It’s not right. So I think the relatable part. And so I want to understand then what, how do you write relatable content? So well, like, if someone was like, Okay, I want to write like you, but it’s relatable. Like, do you sit there and ask yourself questions every night? Like, what’s your process? Where does the ideation start? is in notes, you’re just noting moments of, you know, frustration, what’s your whole process from ideation to actually getting to writing and then the framework to make sure that you do it in such a beautiful way with the right spacing of three, four, you know, I’ve been analysing your posts, like, you know, three, four together, therefore together, and then it’s like, you know, you really give all like the suspense. So, yeah, take me through the whole process of ideation to actually sitting there and writing.
Melanie:
Well, I think that part of the sauce, which isn’t really so secret, is the fact that I’m willing to be direct and honest, and you know, this is like a buzzword vulnerable. But I believe that the more that you share, the more that you will connect with whoever your, you know, ideal customer slash audience would be whatever your intent or your goal is, or whatever we’re looking to achieve. If you’re being a human, and you’re being real, and you’re being in you’re telling stories that are real, people will connect with it, and people will like you. And I have just found that by doing that, almost every single client that we have, and every single person that I’ve worked with, since I started my company, every single person starts out with, I’ve been following you on LinkedIn, and I love your stories, or I love what you’re doing. And I’ve been following you for this amount of time. And that’s always how it starts. Because the truth is, is that they don’t have to like us to work with us. But it also they have a different frame of reference in terms of how we will help them as well, when you do that, but, you know, I look at for me personally with the stories that I tell. It’s all connected to my goals. So a lot of times when I’m telling stories about the executives that I’m working with, or if I’m telling stories about building my agencies, I have specific goals in mind, right? So right now I’m looking, I’m hiring. And I’m looking to continue to expand so if I’m telling stories about my team and and all that I want people to think okay, this could be some somewhere that I would want to work or gamble if I’m telling a story about a specific situation that we had with a C suite executive that had an amazing, incredible experience and we also have all the case study Is that we call case stories to back them up. We I know that, you know, for me that works and drawing them in. So for me there is intention behind what I do. And I think that everyone, whatever they do on LinkedIn should have some sort of an intent that will help bring them closer to their goal, because my ultimate goal is to, you know, grow my business. And I want to make sure that I’m speaking to the right person. So when it comes to that now, as far as the way that the posts are structured, most people when they’re on LinkedIn are viewing it via mobile. Yeah. And so when you have the posts broken out a specific way, it’s just easier for them to read versus these giant walls of text, that not everybody, you know, gets. But truthfully, you got to think somewhere between, you know, 60 to 70% of people are looking at your posts via mobile, so you want it to be easy for them to use and to, you know, to read through and to really digest.
Mel:
Correct. I had Jasmine Alec on here about a couple of weeks ago, and he said that he believes that if it’s too long, if it doesn’t fit in one screen, he believes you should put it on a carousel, which I haven’t seen you do too much of Do you? When do you choose the format between you know, texts, because you’d write so beautiful you’re meant to and then move that into carousel instead, like, you know, have you done repurposing going? I’ll say the same one and do it in a carousel as well.
Melanie:
Yeah, well, it’s so funny because right now we’re we’ve been working on the content strategy for the company. And I basically went through my shield analytics for the last three years, and just grabbed all these different posts and sent to my team. And I was like, alright, we can do carousels on this, this this and this. Yes. I think it just depends. I mean, I repurpose content all the time. But it really depends on what the asset is that I have to go along with the post. And if I have the assets, I mean, I know I’m really simplifying that. But if it’s going to if it’s something that we have prepared in advance, because generally for myself, I batch everything in two week increments. So if I have something ready, I haven’t done a tonne of carousels. I mean, I’ve done some of them. Yeah, but I have had better engagement. And I’ve had better interactions and better conversion off of the posts that are not carousels. Yeah, but I like carousels for educational content. I think that they’re great, because it’s easy to kind of read through and they’re in bite sizes, where it’s really an easy user experience to look at them to grade
Mel:
a great when when you’re doing content, I guess, to choose between educational and personal stories, right? Like there’s this fine balance where you have to show your expertise, and then this going, Okay, it’s too much personal, personal, personal. And you have to how do you decide on what your mix is going to be for that period of time?
Melanie:
That’s a good question. So I have stuck to this formula. And it really works for me. And it really works well for our clients too. And it’s really this 2020 2020 split. So generally, my posts are 20% personal content. And that could be a story 20% educational content, that could also be a story, then I have 20% user generated content. So that could be let’s say, for example, we have a testimonial come through, or there are some comments, etc. And then you have this other area, this other 20% area that could also include, you know, let’s say for example, something promotional, right. So let’s say for example, you go to speak at an event, more, you’re promoting a service. And that’s a mistake that I see people make is that everything is promotional. Yes. And we have a lot of clients that will come to us. And they’re not as comfortable with other types of content other than promotional which is so funny.
Mel:
Oh, no. Yeah, like, just annoying. Yeah, like Justin Walsh said it like you’ve got to give, give, give and then bank that give, and then ask. Yeah, and everyone’s making every day.
Melanie:
Yeah. So a lot of people are uncomfortable with sharing personal content. But yeah, and I get that but it will help create those emotional connections. And that tie in that will bring you closer to the conversion that you’re looking for. Because it’s a long game and it’s not going to happen overnight. It takes time. But it’s just like planting those seeds for the next year.
Mel:
Exactly. Um, people this time thing you mentioned right people do measure time they do think like, you know, in effect It all happened. I’m gonna build my personal brand. It happened for you super fast, because maybe it was just you know, right time Right place, right messaging, right? So people might look at that kind of success and go, Yeah, well, you only started then. So I’m going to be exactly in the same place. As what you started Meloni in, you know, why am I not there yet? You will, you’re starting your own business within like 12 months. So how do you kind of, you know, make sure, yes, like this can happen. If you’ve, if you’re vulnerable, and you got all the way you’re consistent, and you’ve got the right message, like, it doesn’t matter. Even if you do everything that you’ve done, it just doesn’t hit the same? Well, they don’t tell it the same way. Right. So how do you kind of, you know, get people to think long term and have the right expectations coming into this?
Melanie:
Yeah, that’s a great question. I, whenever we’re working with someone, I set that up right away. And I say this is, you know, even before we begin working with them, I really talked them through it just to level set to explain to them that this is it’s not just posting, it’s not just engagement, it’s everything. And the way that I look at LinkedIn is that I have looked at LinkedIn is I’ve looked at this, as it’s been, you know, a number one hobby of mine. It’s been almost like a second job for me, even though I have you know, I’ve had different jobs throughout time. But it’s, it’s you have to invest the time into yourself. And even though, you know, some people might have some faster conversions and others, you have to make sure that you know, exactly what you want from it. And what exactly does that success mean? Is this success having a large following is this success, having, you know, an engaged community is success, you know, increasing revenue for your business, or making a name for yourself and your industry. And I think just going into it with the right mindset of, this is what I want from it, but then setting the expectation for yourself that it’s gonna take at least a year to get where you want to be. Now other people might disagree with me, and say, it shouldn’t take that long. You can, you know, start converting instantly. But it also depends on the person for me, I never really sold anything on LinkedIn, except for myself, until I have my own business. Yeah. And then I continued to I was only sharing educational, personal content. That was it. And so when I started my business, I think I was, you know, somewhere around like, 60,000 followers, and I thought, why isn’t this converting? Where’s all the people? Where are, you thought, you know, I was going to open the door, and then everyone was just gonna want to work with me. And it’s really not how it works, because it takes time. And having an audience in place is great, but also making sure that your audience is tied, connected back to your goal. So for me, I was looking at it like who am I speaking to specifically and to make sure that in your messaging, that you’re talking to that person, and that will help increase that time period that you’re looking to, you know, convert them into if that’s, you know, goal.
Mel:
It’s really interesting. So, you’ve got 60,000 followers, but maybe who you’re speaking to, for that time, while you’re building, building that followers where maybe employees and they will feeling correct thinks of it. So you go out open your business, and then all of a sudden, you’re now realising Well, no, the people I’ve been building my followership with are not actually the execs that I need in my network, who need help with marketing and want to be out there. And it might be different crowds, and so forth. Yet to pull again, your content strategy and the kind of start a new level like from, I guess, you’ve it’s not a new level, because you’ve got engagement there. And you’ve got people that are going to boost you through and engage with God in a way. So you’ve got, I really think I really liked that, because I’ve seen other influencers on LinkedIn have done similar things, like for a year, they don’t, they’re just posting and just having fun with it. They’re building, building, building, and then they go, and really then push of their business and what they’re doing. And I think it’s a really smart strategy, like not expecting anything, just building a brand name. And I think you did that with no intention just like I’m working. And it’s like such a strong strategy because when you then come and then take and say, Hey, I’m ready to now take you’ve got a year of banked knowledge that you’ve given away so you can come in and do an ask because you’ve been giving, giving giving for such a long time.
Melanie:
Yeah, it’s been so I agree completely. The only thing that I would have changed knowing what I know now, if I had a business when I started, was I would have started with that 2020 2020 Mix. Maybe not every month, but maybe I would rotate between educational personnel and then rotating through some of the user generated content, and also some of the promotional content. Yeah, just because it’s good for other people to say like, This is who I’ve worked with. This is what people are saying about me. It’s not just me saying that I’m great. Listen to what other people are saying, as well. And that’s the area that I think if I had started with knowing what I know, now, it would have helped me get to where I am now faster. But it’s, it’s all trial, as I call trial and terror, you got to try different things, you have to see what works and what works for me, might not work for you, and what works for you might not work for me.
Mel:
Correct? Correct. I mean, just because you’re doing the images, and you’re telling the stories, I think everyone’s got to find their style in this. Like, it’s when we try and go try and be someone else and do it too much. It’s like, yeah, it’s just not coming across authentically, you know, across. Yeah, like, just because you’re really comfortable to share your personal stories. I’ve had lots of people and clients, they’re like, I just want to do more educational stuff, I just want to be more into that. And that’s just where they’re comfortable to just not willing to bring that side. And it doesn’t matter how many times you tell them that this will bring more conversion? They’ll be like, Well, I don’t know that for sure. Like, really? You don’t really know. Yeah. But they’re like, I can’t measure that just because I put out that piece of I mean, they’d have to probably do that for a year. Almost right. And then they’d have to compare the previous year where they didn’t do that. And then even then, I mean, are they 100%? Sure, that’s why not really, because so many other concert, people always like, you know, I don’t know that just because I was more emotional. Did I get more, you know, as a result, because there’s so many touchpoints happening within that.
Melanie:
Yeah, and I think when, especially when you’re sharing content that’s motivational and inspirational, people are getting to know a certain side of you. And some people absolutely love that kind of content, it connects with them, it really helps them kind of get through certain times in their life. And you’re building your loyalty base, essentially, when you’re really going at it from a place of I’m not really looking to sell anything other than to sell who I am and know what my values are. And that’s when people it’s even though it’s not personal it is to a certain extent. So I say that that could be a workaround, because then you’ll find your people who also connect with that kind of messaging to
Mel:
exactly what about, like, from your agency perspective now that you’ve, you know, been building your team and so forth? And you’re going into C suite, you said, what services? Like how do you work with them? Is it through training? Is it through, we can do it all for you? And, you know, handhold you like? What does it look like to be able to work with you?
Melanie:
That’s a great question. So we essentially do everything for you. So we’ll work with an entire C suite team, and we’ll work with their marketing team. And we’ll build strategy, we build out all the controls for a social media department. A lot of times when we’re working with businesses, their marketing department is so stretched, because they’re also working with the product team, they’re working with the sales team. They’re also working on other, you know, like conferences and events. And a lot of times, it’s only a few people. So we’ve worked with them to help them with all their processes. And that’s really just from my experience of working in marketing, and making these processes and controls that helped me. So now, when someone works with us, they’re getting a piece of that, too. So that’s the consulting side. And then we fully execute on everything as well for them. We also can just deliver all the controls and strategy to someone. I personally do one on ones with executives, where I build up strategy for them, and essentially give them a roadmap of what to do and how to do it. And it’s not just pertaining to LinkedIn, it’s really everything because you need content on LinkedIn. And you need to be able to connect the dots. And sometimes that’s not necessarily coming from LinkedIn, it’s
Mel:
off platform. Yeah. And we do
Melanie:
social. We also I mean, the core of my business is social media consulting, and really working with businesses on that. So we can either do it for you, we can do it with you, or we can no show you how to do it. And we do training from time to time. It’s just that it has to be the scenario where let’s say for example, the team Is dialled in, and they’re bought in because a lot of times what will happen, someone might say, Melanie work, who cares and the team’s not bought in. But a lot of times we do training for a business, and no one on the team ends up executing on it. Because it’s such a process that’s so in depth that you really need to have an internal structure that supports the training that you do. And so if there’s not any sort of support structure in place, it’s very hard, in my opinion for a company to go to market on LinkedIn, as a company. But yeah, training is definitely a part of that too. But it’s really all encompassing everything you could possibly imagine. With LinkedIn, we also work on other social platforms as well.
Mel:
Awesome, talking about how rigorous the processes of getting positioning and then content creation, I mean, it is hard work. I think going back to you and how you do it. With the ideas, does it just come to you like throughout the day?
Melanie:
Like, I would say, yeah, yes and no. Okay, now it’s more of it’s more like at night. Okay. Yeah.
Mel:
It comes to you at night, like after you’ve had a shower or something and like chilling out. And then it’s just like, oh, yeah, reflecting on the day.
Melanie:
Yes, always at night, or even for I wake up really early in the morning. So it’s either like when I’m working out early in the morning, or it will also happen at night, too. But, again, everything that I’m doing, I always try to think of ways and different types of content that will help me get closer to my goal and closer to you know, where I want to be. For me, I’ll you know, at one point, my goal is just to grow my network, and to really just make a name for myself. And now, I’m not as focused on that as I am speaking to my ideal client and who I’m connecting with. So now over the last, I would say, six months or so I made it, no goal of mine to make sure that I’m connecting with new people that potentially could be clients, like a year from now or two years from now. So I’m having coffee or drinks with different individuals who I’m meeting. And that was something that really wasn’t a part of my initial strategy. But now, I’m looking to take that piece of it because I want to grow my network within that C suite and that executive space. So how do I speak to them? What else can I be doing? What other events can I be going to? So I’m thinking about LinkedIn, but I’m also thinking of beyond it, but then you can also use that for content.
Mel:
Got it? So do you then like write it somewhere quickly as to when you’re thinking about this like to go into your notes or somewhere and just that? I don’t know.
Melanie:
I send myself text messages all the time. Like I’m only writing notes would be more efficient, but I just send myself
Mel:
just text messages or audio Yes, as well.
Melanie:
Well, sometimes I’ll do like voice text. Okay, myself, but for the most part, I’d send myself text messages. Yeah. And RSM the girls on my team now send them messages. Okay, got it.
Mel:
Okay, so then they’ll go and put that as, you know, ideas. Yes.
Melanie:
When they put it into Asana, which is an amazing tool. Yeah, yeah.
Mel:
Okay, I do the same, like, is my idea go put it somewhere? Or? Yeah, kind of keep it somewhere? What, what happens next? What do you then? Like, okay, obviously, you would sit down at some point, I don’t know if you’re still doing that, or someone’s ghost writing for you at this point in your journey. But would you then find some time, once a week, or once every fortnight or something, now to like, punch those ideas into content yourself? Like, are you? Have you always been good at content writing? Or is that something you also practised and got better at over this journey?
Melanie:
So it’s definitely been something that I’ve practised and got better at. You know, it’s funny, because at one point, I was told that I was a really terrible writer. And my last job, there was this woman who was kind of a witch, who I worked with, and she was like, your writing is just awful. And I was like, Oh, really, let me show you how good my writing is. And so I ended up writing a children’s book during the pandemic, also. And, and, you know, and then with all the writing that I if anything, the more you practice, the better you get. So no, I’m not a you know, I don’t have a degree in English or, you know, a degree in writing by any means, but just from the repetition of doing it and also Grammarly has been my best friend over the last few years.
Mel:
Yeah, which I hadn’t JpT could be your next best friend.
Melanie:
I now. So we use chat GPT for ideas all the time. And the way that I look at it is it’s just a tool. It’s just something that can help us it’s great for giving ideas. Yeah. But I have found that it’s not always 100% accurate. Yeah, when you use it, so you definitely have to edit it and you have to make some changes within it. Yeah, but getting back to your question. I batch everything i for the most. So I schedule all my own content. And for the most part, I’m not 100%. I do have a writer that works with me
Mel:
yet. Is that always the case? No.
Melanie:
Okay, that started every end of last year. Yeah, that started at the end of last year. But I have to tell them. Yeah, before that, it was just me. But I have so much content. Yeah. Because I’ve been posting every day for three years. Yeah, for the most part, or five to six days a week for three years. So I look now in shield Analytics, which I love. I’m sure you showed also, yes, of course. And I use that as a content library. And I look at what kind of engagement The posts have had. So I sorted by the engagement views. And I look at it and I say, Okay, can I use any of this? Can I take some of that? So the process for me now is very simple. It doesn’t take that long to write anything new, because a lot of it is just recycled and repurposed. Yeah, occasionally I do write some new content. But for the most part, I’m going based off of themes that I’ve once used, and then I’m just tailoring it to make sure that I’m speaking to the right person. But yeah,
Mel:
just being relevant as well in like sometimes, like I’ve talked about, I don’t know I like Oh, this isn’t going well right now in LinkedIn. So don’t do this. And all of a sudden, it’s like, no, that’s going sensationally freakin well. So I you know, when I saw carousels kicking as a format, so I went back and found all my videos that I’ve ever done that went really well. And I just told my content writer, like, can you just turn these videos like pretty much just get this, get this? What I’ve said, and just turn it into carousels, you know, took that to heart. And that’s a good way to do it. Yeah. And it actually did so well, because it was like another format and I wish I’d done it. But you know, quicker and I look at yours, like you know, the text posts. It’s just easy to carousel. But I caught up when I caught up with Richard Venable and we did an event together literally last week, he said that he now he strategies, he gets the one post like say we write one post, he’ll do that in four formats.
Melanie:
Straight. Oh, that’s great idea.
Mel:
So it’s like really efficient. So you’re not like coming back to it. Because you’re right is right there, right. And you just say, do this for me in four formats right then and there so that they don’t have to go back and rethink your concepts.
Melanie:
While still true, and especially because if you think about it, right, so you’re doing a podcast, right? And then you can transcribe the podcast that can become a, a, oh, my God, I’m losing words right now. early, earlier, that could be some it could be a post on LinkedIn, it could also be a blog post could also be a newsletter. And then you can take that post and you can have it, you know, into a carousel, or you can have, you know, part of the video. So yeah, guys, definitely the limit. And you can be creative with content, for sure. But I firmly believe that when you repurpose content, it helps the process and it makes everything so much more streamlined and efficient. Because you have the ability to just have the time, I’m always looking at how much time I’m spending on everything. And a lot of because early on, when I started my business as a marketing consultant, I was really billing everything had to do with time. So now when I’m looking at what I’m doing in terms of time, I want to make sure that I have processes in place that will save time.
Mel:
I posted that and I was like so feeling you about the operations and setting that up for success as you grow. Yeah. Because what happened to me was, I had asana and all this and I thought I had a pretty good process. And then we just started growing so fast. Like it was just it was like so fast that I felt like it wasn’t like I’d heard other people on my podcast talk to me like you’re on a train and you can’t stop moving, right? Because it’s just on fire. I felt like I was on this like mad journey and I just couldn’t and I got really unhealthy because I was like, Oh my God, I don’t want to disappoint. Like I’ve had like, you know, the small, nice clients and then it’s like now just like boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And we didn’t have the processes written down because it was just like a small team and they just kind of I just tell them and they’ve been with me for two years. Yeah, when I saw your post I was like yep, this is what happened to me I just kind of grew so quickly and then I was like, far out so I went to and hired an operations person like an expert you know, who can build that your notion to the people can search it like literally like how do I post a carousel on LinkedIn has to be written down so
Melanie:
yeah, like it even I started hiring. I did the same thing. I actually wrote everything.
Mel:
Yeah, I tried to write it out, too. It’s not best practice. Apparently I didn’t explain the why or I didn’t explain, or videos too long was the person doing it like, you know, I didn’t know the damn best practices, I started writing what I could, but it was, it’s really hard for them. So
Melanie:
you have to give yourself you have to give yourself a break, too. Yeah, I am definitely a type A kind of control person. So that’s been the biggest challenge for me throughout all this is not being able to be the person that’s doing everything for all of our clients. And I was in the same place I got really sick last year, because of the fact that I was just doing everything and I wasn’t sleeping. And it just and I have two kids. And it just became this, you know, it became a thing that I didn’t want it to be. So it’s so important to have a good team and to ask for help when you need it. And I’m definitely the person that waits until I need the help. Yeah, like you are, too. Yeah,
Mel:
I was like, so yeah, I’m really, I was like, yep, that’s really good that you’re doing that. Because you don’t want to be on that train and be like, I can’t control this damn thing and then become like, completely crazy. Yeah. So it’s good. You’re focused on processes. And just like because yeah, that train scary. Going back to your content process. So then you’ve gone got all these ideas in, you know, in the before you go to bed, you’ve gone and put it and text it to your self. Back in the day did you just use to find a time and a place where you would feel be feeling creative? Like put some music on and start punching out some content? Like, how long would you do this for every week?
Melanie:
So I used to spend anywhere from an hour to three hours almost every single day work?
Mel:
Okay, every day. I know. That’s
Melanie:
yeah. And I know, that’s not realistic for everyone. And there’s a lot of people who could be listening, I would say there’s no way I’m spending three hours a day working on content. But for me, it was something that I really enjoyed doing because I love marketing. And I discovered this way of being able to market myself. So I was really excited and really into it. Yeah, so I would see all the time you were
Mel:
like killing it. Yeah, just a quick selfie. Yeah, a quick selfie into Google Doc. Yeah. Let me just go out. Quickly put the sunglasses on. And that’ll do. Yep, yep. So that takes a long time.
Melanie:
It does. And so it can take I mean, it can take people don’t think taking videos and photos takes a while. So, you know, after I would say a couple of years, I do have a photographer that I work with, and I have a videographer that I work with now. So I don’t do a lot of you know, if I’m with someone will do photos, but I used to do a lot of the photos myself, whereas now I’m not doing that part of it. So save some of that time. But on the writing side, you know, what I think about the most is the problem solving for our clients, like what are our clients experiencing the most? Yeah, what do they need help with the most? And how can I help them? How can we help them? Yeah, so I think that if someone’s looking to invest some time into writing down ideas or writing content, just think about the problems that you can solve for others, and how they would be able to relate to that using, you know, stories about yourself
Mel:
a grade, I mean, now we can talk about, you know, how the professional wants, we get into agency, like we have helped us helping us write out content, which is basically the service we provide back to the market, because it just saves so much damn time. And it just seems insane, that they’re actually much more better at this probably, and much more efficient. So walk me through it. Is that like this? And is it any different is that that that you put all your ideas, good content writer comes in, spins up for you into your tone of voice, how you would say it, and you’re presented something that is pretty much 80 to 90% there, and then you’re just, you know, finessing that content so that it’s really you and what you want to say,
Melanie:
yeah, for myself, yes. But I would say that out of the posts that are mine that are go out that are probably about four of the stories a month that are written by someone else, they are finessed a bit afterwards by me to make sure that it is capturing me in the tone of voice. And the same thing happens with our clients that we’re writing for. Because we are trying to capture exactly how they sound. And to make sure that we are totally on point with that tone of voice. Yeah. So it the same thing happens with them too, as well.
Mel:
But yeah, yeah. And that’s something that I think clients all need to appreciate. When you have a ghostwriter, even us, we don’t expect them to be 100%. Like if they’ve reduced your time by like, you know, from scratch to what it would take you like if it’s taking you one to three hours and now it’s taking you literally 10 minutes to do this post. Like that’s huge. Like what do you value your tiny?
Melanie:
Right? Well, the thing is, is that I have found that the clients that we’ve worked with that have not given us their time into terms of letting us get to know them, having conversations with them, and actually hearing how they sound, how they respond to things, answering questions, and just Yeah, being who they are, are the ones we have the most trouble with capturing their voice. And the stories don’t perform as well, because it’s not really down. And it’s not really us. It’s this third party. That’s somewhere in between.
Mel:
Well, yeah, there’s another issue is when people can’t open up like so they come and they answer this question half assed, and then they go, but the detail isn’t there that, you know, this is like, it’s like they expect a ghostwriter to be like almost an expert in their field. When they’re the expert, they know the problem. This person is just a writer, but just a storyteller, so you have to give every thing to her team that you want to say, because they are not an expert in tech, or SAS, or whatever it is, you do the foot, no idea,
Melanie:
right? No, that’s so true. And I, it definitely goes back to the expectations in the very beginning and how that set. And you know, it definitely saves time having someone do it for you, if you’re busy, you know, as the executive, you don’t have time, your team doesn’t have time, having someone who can manage that process for you will save you time. But you still have to invest some time with the people who are writing and the people who are capturing your essence. Because without it, they’re not going to know who you are. And, you know, what makes you tick, and also educating on your industry. And, you know, there’s a lot of industries have specific jargon that we might not know. But when we get to know our clients, we go through that process. And we ask those questions. So it’s all about the setup. But you know, sometimes you can’t control other people, for the most part, you know, the time that they can invest into things, but
Mel:
Correct, correct. I mean, it’s like, where do you value things? You know, it’s like, you’ve got so much time do you value this enough? Do you see the benefit of this? You know, and people go, I don’t have enough time? I don’t have enough time, but you do, you’ve got about eight to 10 hours every day of time. Yeah, prioritise this as important. That’s all it is, right? all got the same amount of time.
Melanie:
Exactly. If someone wants to hit their goals, if they have a specific reason for being on LinkedIn, which most people do, then you have to take time to invest into it. And that might be time equity in terms of the time you’re spending with your team, and have those conversations because you’re not going to get to where you need to be without an No, no one has been able to create something on any social platform without investing time. Correct? Exactly. You have to. And with LinkedIn, it’s based on the user’s engagement on the platform. So even if they’re not the ones who are posting and engaging, they should still be actively using the platform or the app.
Mel:
Right, right. So now we’re at the end of your process, you get this thing for your real copywriter? Did the designs come exactly already there for you to just, you know, play around with in that moment? Or do you go and approval the you know, the copy? And you’re happy with the tone? And then it goes back through? Again? Any design work? Or is it just one time that you touch? Touch the you know, final? final product? Because of the lack of time, I guess, yeah,
Melanie:
so for myself, personally, I usually just do a once over and make any edits, and then it’s done. But for our clients, I’ll look at it, make sure that it’s on with the same story or the copy that we had discussed with them. And then we send it to the client, they make any changes. And sometimes, we’ve had occasions where there’s been like a group edit, that hasn’t happened too many times, but sometimes our edits but in terms of creative we typically do not do creative. It’s really case by case basis. Because we work with so many businesses that have teams including marketing and creative directors, we prefer to work with the company’s creative team versus us doing a creative because it’s gonna be more aligned to their brand. Yeah. And that goes for an executive as well.
Mel:
Yeah, it’s it’s like another layer isn’t it? Of Yeah, complexity that you have to then build that strength in your team like now you need to give them video editors as well as like rack designers so correct. Just give him them like here it is. And then they’re 10 can turn that around a will and then we’ll you will they set up all the postings on the behalf of execs to all happen individually, and you just pass like here’s this one for this person and exec go look at it and go coordinate it or it really
Melanie:
depends. It really, really depends on the company and it depends what we’re doing. Generally we if we’re working with a team for example, we’ll right All the copy for the entire team, we read all the copy for the company, we send it back to the business, whoever our point of contact is, for example CMO, the CMO will make any changes approved. And then at that point, we send it to their designer, and the designer then does all the assets. So we batch everything, and then everything is kind of coordinated that way.
Mel:
Question? How far in batching? Should one go? To be, you know, like, how far because sometimes you’d like because, you know, people like I’m becoming irrelevant when I talk about jet JpT. Now, and the frickin thing going,
Melanie:
oh, there’s placeholders always work. So So I personally batch two weeks at a time, however, our clients we batch 30 days at a time, because it’s just more efficient. And for relevancy, we leave placeholders. So for example, we might batch 30 days at a time, but out of those 30 days, and maybe we’re posting four times a day for that client. And so out of those four times a day, two of those are placeholders in case, there’s an event, there’s a speaking engagement or something that pops up. So we always use placeholders. And that’s what I would recommend to anyone is use a placeholder. If you don’t know, if you’re gonna want or one a week, or two a week, or however many you want to put in there, I would definitely recommend placeholders for
Mel:
sure. When they come back to you saying, Okay, I got to, I’ve got whatever it is, okay. Yeah, because that’s so
Melanie:
deeply entrenched with their marketing team, that we’re talking about their marketing team every day, multiple times a day. So it just naturally happens, because they’ll send us something and say, we’re really like a fractional social media department, if you think about it, because of how deeply intertwined we are with their marketing team. But that’s just been our experiences, you know, doing that,
Mel:
how then do you see yourself scaling? And that will be my final sort of, you know, how do you when you’re that entrant in your soul into consulting? How do you envision this company then going and scaling and offering this or you don’t want that and you want to be like, small and, you know, being entrenched?
Melanie:
So good question. It’s a question that I’ve been kind of looking at for the last few months. So because I’m only one person also, and I can only do so much, and I can only impact so many clients. And things can only be done a specific way. The way that I scale is number one, I have an offer, that’s not necessarily as specific as being this fractional department for business, maybe have something that’s not as in depth, and maybe something that does not have as many legs to it as what we are currently doing. Yeah. And again, it’s really case by case it depends on the budget, it depends on what their goals are, it’s really, you know, the size of the business, because we’ve been, for the most part working with mid and large sized companies. Whereas I’ve had so many small businesses reach out to me that want to work with us, but the time that I would need to work with them to help them achieve what they need, has not been attainable. So now what we’re actually working on is creating an offer for some small businesses. It’s something that we’ve been working on for the last couple of months. So that’s coming soon. But that’s the way that I scale is to have an offer that is available for everyone. And now, you know, the expectation is, is that they’re not going to be working with me one on one.
Mel:
Yeah, of course, of course, as I mean, that’s always the challenge, you know, like, how do you take something that is like that, and actually scale and be and not sell our time? I think in any agency, the hardest thing is, yes, people are buying us to an extent but you know, how do we make it that they’re buying the process or the actual framework that is understood deeply by us because if we’re gonna constantly sell our time, like we’re gonna get burnt the hell out which you’ve been through, and it’s impossible right? Just you are just one person and you only have so much of time before your time is not any more available and
Melanie:
hiring the right people and hiring and continue I was very conservative with hiring I just wanted to take it slow to make sure that I was doing everything that I wanted to do and doing it in the timeframe that I wanted but at some point it became out of my control where I just had to start moving it and yeah hiring and yeah, it’s it’s all coming together. We’re definitely having the right people in place that can be no those many Melanie’s for the clients as well.
Mel:
I know it’s really hard to find good people as well. So if you do find great people, it’s like make sure you hold on to them because that’s the hardest thing is when people really good people take so long but My motto has been like hi slow but fire fast if it’s not the right thing because that person’s got more damage fame.
Melanie:
Yeah, for sure. And you don’t really have the time to spend on it. So I agree with you
Mel:
well, it’s been a blast it’s been like talking to a friend and sharing notes I’ve really really loved it. So I’m super glad that we got to connect and hear him I’m so really super excited to release it and really excited to keep watching the journey and now have you in my network that you know where I can just touch base and chat and exchange notes. So it’s yet ticked many many boxes for me so I’m super glad that we got to do it. So think came here.
Melanie:
I love everything that you’re doing. I give you so much credit for doing what you’re doing. Plus the podcast is really challenging. So I give you so much credit for that.
Mel:
Thank you so much. And same to you. I love it. I love you being just relatable and just really inspiring all of us, you know, so I’m super excited to keep seeing what you’re gonna do and and just exchanging I’m super glad. Thank you so much. Well, have a great day.
Melanie:
You too. Bye.
Mel:
You’re listening to innovative minds.