Jim James 0:03

Welcome to this episode number five actually of the LinkedIn Safari with the Simon Chapo in South Africa. Simon,

Simon Chappuzeau 0:12

do you wanna say hello? Yeah, that's great to be back and, um, can't wait to, to get started

Jim James 0:17

there. Yeah. It's, it's great to have you back and, uh, thank you for joining us again on the fifth LinkedIn Live and we are taking a 12 week journey with Simon, who's a LinkedIn expert to help me, Jim James. Figure out how to make the most out of LinkedIn, how to leverage LinkedIn, because we all spend a lot of time and we know there are some 800 million people on LinkedIn, but most of us, including me, spend more time than we get back in roi. So that was the purpose of this, was how can I rebuild my brand, my personal brand, and, and start to get connections and build interest in the book that I've written and in building a, a broader footprint as I grow as an entrepreneur. So Simon. Week five, what are we gonna cover today?

Simon Chappuzeau 1:06

So today, um, we're gonna talk about different post types. Um, it's a, a question that I'm being asked time and again. Uh, what type of a post should I use and are video posts better than text post and should I do carousels, slideshows, whatnot? Uh, so there are a lot of. And, um, I want to today look into the different options that you have as a LinkedIn creator, and, uh, I want to piggy bank on what you've done over the past week. Look at a couple of posts that you've done and also I wanna review what we've achieved over the past four weeks, five weeks, um, because you have done quite a lot of work and, um, you have seen results, which is.

Jim James 1:51

Thank you so much Simon. So over to you. And it says, as I look on my screen, uh, that we are actually live. So we've sold in four weeks, we've learned how to do a, a Riverside to LinkedIn live. So we have moving. Well, Simon,

Simon Chappuzeau 2:04

show me. I'm still learning.

Jim James 2:07

Yeah, we'll, we'll do that. So, um, but we only keep these shows to 30 minutes. So Simon, let's dive in.

Simon Chappuzeau 2:15

Let's, let's get started. So, uh, quick review what we've done over the past week. Uh, we started with a review of your profile page. We looked at a Helen, a headshot, uh, headline and the about section. Um, you've done quite a lot of work here. Um, we will not look at this. but we will probably do it next week. And one of the reasons is, um, it's an iterative process. What we often see with clients, it's not something you do in one sitting, it evolves over time because it's, um, it's a process of you gaining clarity of what you stand for. And I think in your case, it's also a question of like, where do you wanna go? In the future because you are at a crossroads in your lives. You've in your life, you've, you've sold your business and you're now figuring out what, what to do next. And so the, the profile, the biotechs is a, it's, it's a living piece of content that changes. And um, I think you're going through some changes here. Um,

Jim James 3:19

yeah. And I think, and, and Simon, you're absolutely right. One of the interesting. Aspects of working on this with you has been, it's really made me question what I am doing and how I position myself, and I'm grateful to you because it, it's enforced clarity. On me by having these weekly sessions. So show us then what progress you think we've made and, and what progress. I'm still yet, sorry.

Simon Chappuzeau 3:43

You threw me this ball. Now if you catch the ball. It was really great because, um, I think one of the great things with writing on LinkedIn, and it's not only doing your profile but also to content, is that it challenges, challenges you to think about what you do, uh, how you do it, for whom you do it. Um, and at least for me, but it's something that I hear from another, a lot of other creators on LinkedIn, that it really helps them to gain clarity for their business. So it's not only about the profile, it's, it pertains to all aspects of your business and you've just given, uh, testimony to that.

Jim James 4:18

Yeah, absolutely. And in an earlier episode, Simon has uh, reference to sort of a number of questions that he asks, and you can also get those from Simon as well after the

Simon Chappuzeau 4:27

show. Mm-hmm. Okay. So back to what we've achieved over past couple of weeks. So we've reviewed your profile page next week on our. Take a deep dive and review that what you, the changes you've done. Um, we have then looked at your, um, at the frequency of your posting, we found that you, or I found that you posted like, uh, 3, 4, 5 times a day and, uh, I told you not to, and you obeyed and, um, you stopped. Which is a good thing because, um, it, it said, yeah, it saved you some time. Um, Then the other week we spoke about the posting in groups, um, which was a thing that you've done. I think you mentioned you were part of 80 groups. We didn't, you, you didn't post on all of them, but you posted in many and we did a quick review and you saw that, um, you did not really get a lot of views, uh, on most of these posts. And you, you said like you spent an hour a day crossposting in all of these groups for basically no reach.

Jim James 5:33

That's right. Yeah, I, exactly, Simon. So highlighting a number of inefficiencies there in my, in my sort of LinkedIn. So

Simon Chappuzeau 5:40

we've saved, you know, we've saved, you know, a ton of, ton of time by stopping the cross posting and the, the frequent posting. And by the way, I did, um, I did a quick shoutout last week, uh, on my profile and somebody else saw copied that asking. Is seeing any be benefits of being part of groups and, um, I barely heard anybody say, yeah, they're, they're great. They work for me, so it's something I thought I hadn't figured out, but it looks like nobody's really figured out what groups are good for. Um, so glad you left them or you stopped posting.

Jim James 6:20

Okay. Yeah. I think, uh, that the groups and performance of groups deserves another deeper dive. But let's carry on today with what we've

Simon Chappuzeau 6:27

got. Yep, exactly. So today we wanna look at different post types and that is always a popular topic on LinkedIn. And uh, a thing that I keep hearing a lot is are saying video. Videos. Great. We should do more videos because everybody loves videos and, um, there, there, there's, there's some hard data out there. So it's not like, um, it's, it's sort of set, set in stone and um, there's a guy called Richard Funder Blom. Uh, who publishes the big LinkedIn report every year? Uh, everybody who has not heard of Richard blm, he's, uh, a Dutch guy living in Barcelona and he, uh, runs an agency focusing on LinkedIn optimization for companies. And, um, he does a, an annual report and I'll share some numbers from this report, which basically shows us that, um, Not all post styles and types are the same. And um, there are some post types that do really well, others that don't do well. And I've just listed here, uh, these post types and you have to understand there's like, they're like two sides to, um, the post form you choose. One is the average reach, which means. across all people who use that kind of post, what is the reach they get? But the other side is how you play that kind of post format. So there are people who choose a postform that does not very well on average, but they just kill it because they are very good at sort of mastering this type and people. Have come to know them for that. But these are average numbers and uh, how you have to read them is that, um, so you have a baseline, which is, um, yeah, the average of all different post types together. And if you do document posts, um, you get on average 2.2 to three. For the average reach, um, which means, uh, without doing much, you just get more reach because LinkedIn gives you sort of a soft boost. Um, it it, it also has a psychological side because some post performance are more easier to consume. And we're gonna talk about this with videos in a. So we have the, the document posts usually slideshow. Then we have polls. I think everybody of everybody has seen polls on all. Possible topics. Um, they've, they were even more popular year back. They've sort of dropped in popularity and reach. Um, carousel posts are not to be mistaken with the slideshow, which is what, what is called the document post. So what I do is I. Document posts, which are slide shows that I create outside of LinkedIn, as a pdf, I upload them. That's why there are document posts and carousels is what you can create natively within LinkedIn. Um, and they look slightly different because you always have an slide overlap to the next slide. So you see slide one and quarter of the second slide, so that's the carousel post. So it's very similar, but it's different and the rate is worse. and um, almost baseline post is the text and the text and picture post, which I think all of us are familiar with.

Jim James 10:13

Um, and, and, right. And that's kind of the entry level post, isn't it, that most of us are doing

Simon Chappuzeau 10:18

Exactly, because it's the easiest to just write something and it's easy to just add a picture. Um, so it's definitely one of the most popular post types. Then on the below average, We have on first position the video post. Um, and I think it's Oh, interesting talking that the video posts only get 0.5. Isn't it surprising? Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. And um, and again, as I said the beginning, it's one is the, the average reach of all people across all form. and video posts I think are a great example, um, because there are people who do pretty well with video posts, but, uh, video posts are, I think a good example if you have to do them really well to, um, reach people. And one of the typical mistakes I see with video posts are people don't do subtitles. And, uh, back to the scenario, London subway, rainy day between two stops. You don't gonna crank up the volume volume to hear what this guy is saying. Yeah. So you're just gonna skip it. And, um, so subtitles super important and the length, super important. You have a lot of videos there, like five minutes. Nobody watches a five minute video on LinkedIn, so you can't do a lot of things badly. And, um, people who kill it with video really understand how to do the. Then, um, the other post, um, type is a post with an external link. And, um, I know that this is also a thing that a lot of people talk about, um, whether LinkedIn sort of re deliberately reduces reach for. Posts with external links. Um, there are two theories to it. Uh, one is, it's not really LinkedIn who's doing that, but it's um, the, the visual appeal of these posts. And I can show you an example of one of your posts. Um, let me get this one,

Jim James 12:27

Simon. Just a small thing. You've got someone doing some construction. I hope they're not coming to take you away, but we can hear that quite a.

Simon Chappuzeau 12:33

That is horrible. Thanks for taking that out. As we close.

Jim James 12:37

Sorry, have a technical interruption there. Simon's in South Africa, they've had a power outage, uh, in the last week and he was explaining that to me earlier now. Okay. So we Perfect. Welcome back.

Simon Chappuzeau 12:52

That's better. Thanks for pointing that out. Okay. Um, okay, so the post with the external link I wanted to show you.

Jim James 13:04

Yeah. So it's really interesting. So the assumption that you know, articles and as you say, external links and video posts means that. These are underperforming.

Simon Chappuzeau 13:15

Okay? Mm-hmm. So you did a post yesterday. Why does I

Jim James 13:21

was so, I was so proud of this post as well. So,

Simon Chappuzeau 13:27

well, it's, it's beautiful layout and, um, what happens, and I was just saying, um, you, you added the link and LinkedIn automatically created this image. From the link. Yes. Um, it's nothing you did. And, um, there are two things why the post, this post might have underperformed technically. Um, one is that it has this external link, which is something that yes, linked probably doesn't like. But also what happens if you have an Exxon link, you lose control over the image that you have. Yes. And this image, um, is. Not really descriptive of what to expect from this post. And it's not in line with what you do or your brand. It's sort of like, it's, it's not something if I would scroll through the feed, I would not say, Hey, this is Jim's post, I wanna read this. Okay. And um, yep, that is, The reason, well, the, the reason is also if you look at the, at the bottom of the post, you see this PR episodes by Crowley. It just doesn't look very nice. And um, it's the same with, uh, newsletters on LinkedIn, uh, and articles. If you do those and they appear the newsfeed as a post, it always looks sort of like. Not, not sexy. Okay. Interesting. I have not any scene really performed well. And one, one thing is I attributed to the, to the less than

Jim James 15:07

optimal look and feel. Okay. Right. Yeah. Cuz this is, um, PR episodes by proudly. I'm, I'm the one of the hosts, uh, for the upcoming session. So I was trying to amplify that event and the role I was playing. Um, but it, I thought I'd done a nice job on it, but is it that if I hadn't put the link in that it might have performed better than Simon?

Simon Chappuzeau 15:31

Yeah, so I, I don't want to, to, to only blame it on the link. There are a couple of things. Um, so, but the link, um, with the, Image that is automatically pulled, um, just doesn't look as nice. Then there's the, the hypothesis that external links limit the reach in general. Um, there's no hard evidence, but it's sort of can be assumed.

Jim James 15:57

Yeah. Other platforms do that.

Simon Chappuzeau 15:59

Yeah. Other platforms do that. And then is the other thing, um, which is more the, the content and it then it's more to style. But what I also see is whenever, uh, there is an announcement for some life webinar or something, you can join something time bound. People don't really care about that. It's, it's, it's, um, It's interesting, it's something I try to avoid and, um, people I see like Justin Wells who are like the top performers in this space, they never or barely ever post something like, join this webinar or come to this event or duh, duh duh. It's always pure content on topic consistently and recognizably on that one thing that they talk.

Jim James 16:50

Okay. That's really good. Thank you for that. I know we've got a lot still to cover and we've uh, we've already got quarter pass, so we've only got 15 minutes less time, so I won't interrupt you. Carry on.

Simon Chappuzeau 16:59

Yeah. Okay. So let's go back to the overview. Uh, out. So we spoke about the video posts, uh, the posts with the external link, and I mean, it's a drastic drop from average to 0.5 to 0.5, uh, four to 0.5. Uh, celebrate. Let's talk about that one. It's a new thing that, uh, I think has about that. Um, but newsletters and articles, uh, are like shockingly at the bottom of the. Point two, 2.9 and 0.1 2.2. And um, again, yeah, what can I say? Um, both, um, appear in your newsfeed as opposed and in doing so, they just don't look very good. And let me share an sample here. And

Jim James 17:52

I guess, and it makes sense really if you think about it cuz it's actually not original thought. If you are sharing someone else's article, You're not really sharing by and large original thought, you're just taking someone else's and that's not being rewarded by

Simon Chappuzeau 18:05

LinkedIn, right? Yeah. I mean, LinkedIn always likes people to share original content and not recycle other, other people's stuff. That definitely is one of the factors when in this case, you link to your own article, as we can see here. Um, But again, it's, it's, if I scroll through the feed, it just doesn't look very nice with this gray area at the bottom and a lot of text that is not really. Essential for me to make a decision on whether I want to read the whole thing or not. Um, so I think that's on the aesthetic side, but apparently there's also a technical side why LinkedIn doesn't give a lot of reach to these kinds of, um, posts. Interesting. Back here. So, Yeah, so general overview, articles, newsletters, the worst. So I would try to avoid that as much as I can. Um, and as you said, text posts with a picture is the baseline, the easiest thing to do, and the best performing post you can do is the slideshow post. Which is like a carousel, but it's a dedicated piece of content. Okay. So, um, to

Jim James 19:35

and on another day we can go through in more detail, but today we're gonna just go top line. But that's why we're, we're working over 12 weeks, so, okay. Perfect. Simon, what do we have to do next? Because we've, you know, another 11 minutes before people will head off for their lunch.

Simon Chappuzeau 19:50

Yeah, I mean, um, I think we have to, to make a plan for Asia. Asia. How, how, how. Forward. Um, one thing I noticed, um, we spoke about what you wanted to post about, you have a book that has been published, I think it was March 23rd. Showed. Showed to us. I wanna see, yeah,

Jim James 20:09

there's the book. Yeah. Cameras

Simon Chappuzeau 20:13

whole of your body. Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Notice entrepreneur. Very nice. And I think it was published on March the 23rd with Wiley

Jim James 20:22

and, um, February, February 23rd. Yeah. February, February.

Simon Chappuzeau 20:25

February, yeah. Yep. And um, in this book you have 50 entrepreneurs share the. The strategies, the tools that they've used to be to, to get noticed. Um, yep. And we said, you are gonna milk the content from this book for your LinkedIn posts. And when I look at the posts that you did over the past week, what do I see? I've been guilty

Jim James 20:54

of that full amount content

Simon Chappuzeau 20:56

strategy. You did then follow your own content strategy. I'm shocked.

Jim James 21:02

Well, and, and of course, ironically enough, I made work for myself mm-hmm. by thinking of new things. Um, so busted actually absolutely busted on that. I find I've had a conversation with another entrepreneur this week talking about his content strategy, and he showed me his content strategy that's been written down, and then I asked, what are you doing this week? And he said, I'm doing a post about what my son did at school. I'm like, well, Why are you not doing a post about your content strategy So it's kind of we, why do we not follow through? Simon, what? What's your

Simon Chappuzeau 21:39

theory? I don't know. It's, um, It's the entrepreneur syndrome of jumping for the next shiny thing. Maybe it's like, oh, that's something.

Jim James 21:49

Yeah. I think there's a fear of boredom, right?

Simon Chappuzeau 21:52

There's a fear of boredom. Yeah. Entrepreneur, shiny. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And, um, and maybe the other thing also might be that, uh, we. overestimate our audience attention and probably they wouldn't mind hearing the same or similar stuff time and again, because probably if either not seen it, they've forgotten about it, or if it's good content, why wouldn't they like to see it again? Because, uh, who, who, who doesn't like to be reminded about, about good things? So I think. For speaking from my, for me personally, that I probably sometimes feel like I can't, again, talk about the same thing when in fact I should.

Jim James 22:37

Okay. That's really good. And actually, cuz the book has 50 entrepreneurs and I, the plan was I would take three, uh, per day and highlight some of the learnings and, and so I've got a. You know, I've got a couple of weeks worth of, of really good content, uh, from the podcast into the book. So I must lean into that content strategy again and and stay focused.

Simon Chappuzeau 23:00

One. Yeah. And one, one other share. Maybe you can back that up with your own experience, but what I've noticed myself is whenever I. Create or write something. I spent more time on making a decision and sort of like laying the foundations for a post than I really spent on writing. That sort of, once I have. Crystally clarity, what I'm going to write about it. It's very fast, but I spent probably half of my time, if I look at one post half of the time, trying to figure out what is this post really about? And only once I've figured it out it's super fast. And um, I think that's sort of time. Killer park salons if we do on the spot writing. Um, does he easily spent an hour or me spent an hour or two writing a post, and half of the time is just figuring out what I'm going to write about

Jim James 24:07

Simon, I think you've, you've nailed that again. And, and I think that, uh, the other aspect is that because we want almost instant, instant success, we write something, if it doesn't take off, we think, oh. I've done the wrong thing. I'll do something else. And yet what we have to do is to think through what will work and then execute on that plan. Mm-hmm. Uh, so thank you. So useful to, you know, have this weekly session with you so that we can mm-hmm. you know, check back in on it. Okay. Um, Simon. We've got another six minutes before we let people in Asia. Let's dinner. Let's make the plan dinner for the next dinner next week. Yeah. Yes.

Simon Chappuzeau 24:42

What are we gonna do next for lunch? Um, so what is your commitment till next week? What are, what are you gonna post about, uh, and what postform are you gonna choose?

Jim James 24:53

Well, I think. I've got the book, I'm gonna go back to what the plan and the original remit was to get people to know about the 50 ideas in this book, which will help them to get noticed on a way to a sale, uh, of their business. And that's something else I've worked on refining my, uh, speaker bio and my strap line. And so what I'm gonna work on. Taking the content from the book. Mm. And then what I, in light of what you said about the highest performing posts, I'm going to, um, make little video, um, little PDFs and in fact, the, I think the post that performed best was where I made a 30 excuses to get noticed. Mm. And I did, uh, six slides in pdf, which I built in Canberra. Having asked you how to do that, for which, thank you. Um, So I can take some summaries from the, you know, three per day and then I can make those into a downloadable, uh, form that people then can, can get, because that's then using the content strategy, but the optimal format. And actually, if I follow that through, I can pre bake that because I, I can write those in Word and give those to my va, Alex in the Philippines. And actually then she can start to be making that up for me. Cuz what we haven't mentioned is that if you make up something every day different, no one else can do it for you. You can't delegate. And the rest of my business, Alex has been really doing a great job with her team on post cast, post production, for example. And the posting, because of my inconsistent approach, means I can't delegate it. Good point. So the workflow implications of having a strategy that's consistent, um, will also liberate time. So that's, that's what I'm gonna work on.

Simon Chappuzeau 26:50

I think that was a golden summary, uh, in terms of having a strategy and executing on it as a time saver, park salons and, uh, everything else stops your team from taking on the work that you can delegate and then it sits on your.

Jim James 27:07

Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's, that's gonna be where I'm gonna go with this. And now we've managed to increase the number of people that are following, you know, and part of my community now to 11,040 that's gone up. Mm-hmm. Um, that's cool because we were sub, you know, sub 11,005 weeks ago. Um, posting rates have also, um, gone down, but the engagement has increased over a hundred. So for all the things I'm doing wrong in the big picture, we are moving in the right direction, aren't we?

Simon Chappuzeau 27:39

Absolutely. And, uh, I mean, it's, it's easy to get. Overwhelmed with all the things that you have to do and can do. And I think we always have to look at, um, how, how much can we change from a human perspective because we are run by habits and we have to change habits, and you don't change habits overnight. So instead of trying to change everything at once, uh, it's better to do one thing after the other and so on, because otherwise we are just overwhelmed with like all the things we have to take care of.

Jim James 28:15

So Simon, that, that sounds like, um, kind of a, an end point for everybody. Mm-hmm. if there's one thing that you wanted to say to people that are listening, cause we've got, uh, about a minute left. If there's one, if you like, task or tip that you'd like as a, as a takeaway for everybody. That might be watching. Um, I've got my tasks. You can have, have one from Simon. What would you, what would you say to people?

Simon Chappuzeau 28:37

Well, I, I guess coming back to, to the, to different post formats, it's really to choose one format for yourself, master it consistently, and, uh, stick to it. And, uh, just be good at this one.

Jim James 28:54

Simon Chapo, LinkedIn Maestro and extraordinaire. Thank you so much for taking me through week five. When we started this, you said we'll need 12 weeks, and I thought eight, but I can really see the degree of detail and attention to detail that you take. Um, so I'm really grateful that you're investing so much time in helping me on this, on this LinkedIn Safari Simon Chap in South Africa. That's a pleasure. Thank you, Jim. So thanks for joining us. Um, on session five, we will be putting the video on YouTube on our channel. You can find it on, uh, YouTube at the Unnoticed Entrepreneur Channel and also on the podcast, which is the Unnoticed Entrepreneur, all players. And we'll have run this as an audio and Simon and I will catch up at the same time, same place next week. So join us for session six, and you can see. Whether I've managed to stick to my content strategy and whether I've managed to make posts to get greater engagement. Thank you for joining Simon Chapo in South Africa. Me, Jim James here in the uk. Enjoy your dinner or your lunch and keep on posting on LinkedIn. Cheers, bye bye-bye. How do you say goodbye in South Africa?

Simon Chappuzeau 30:06

I don't know. There are some Africans word that they use, but uh, my Africans is too rudimentary,

Jim James 30:13

too. We'll just do a universal.